Global Research

My father was a doctor in the British Royal Navy, and I grew up traveling by troop-ship between the last outposts of the British Empire – Trincomalee, Gibraltar, Hong Kong, Malta, Aden, Singapore – and living in and around naval dockyards in England and Scotland.

The British naval bases where I grew up and the fading empire they supported are now part of history. Chatham Dockyard. a working dockyard for over 400 years, is now a museum and tourist attraction. Trincomalee Dockyard, where I was born, has been in the news as a site where the Sri Lankan Navy is accused of torturing and disappearing Tamil prisoners during the Sri Lankan civil war.

Since the late 1970s, I have lived in California and Florida, grappling with the contradictions of U.S. empire like other Americans. The US does not have an internationally recognized territorial empire like the British or Ottoman Empires. American politicians routinely deny that the United States maintains or seeks an empire at all, even as they insist that its interests extend across the entire world, and as its policies impact the lives – and threaten the future – of people everywhere.

So how are we to understand this phenomenon of US empire, which is so central to all our lives and our future, and yet whose structure remains hidden and covert?

In Ethnographies of US Empire, co-edited by Carol McGranahan of the University of Colorado and John F. Collins of CUNY, twenty-four anthropologists studied groups of people whose lives are shaped by the US empire and their interactions with it. Their subjects ranged from indigenous peoples in the US and Hawaii to call center workers in the Philippines to the forcibly exiled people of Diego Garcia.

Many of the ethnographies highlighted the seeming contradiction of an actually existing global empire in a post-colonial world where nearly all countries are internationally recognized as independent and sovereign.

Stratified Sovereignty

The final entry in Etnhographies of US Empire arrived at the most comprehensive analysis of the stratified and complex patterns of sovereignty through which formally independent states and their citizens nonetheless fall under the overarching sovereignty of the US empire.

This chapter, “From Exception to Empire: Sovereignty, Carceral Circulation and the Global War on Terror,” by Darryl Li, an anthropology professor at the University of Chicago, follows a group of men who came to Bosnia Hercegovina from mostly Arab countries to fight on the Bosnian Muslim side in the U.S.-backed proxy war to break up Yugoslavia in the 1990s.

By 2001, most of these 660 men had made new homes in Bosnia. Many had married Bosnian women and had Bosnian families. All had been granted Bosnian citizenship in recognition of their role in their adopted country’s independence. But after the crimes of September 11th 2001, the US government saw these former mujahideen as inherently dangerous, and insisted that they must be “denaturalized” and “repatriated.”

At first, this was done through an extrajudicial process of “rendition,” but after 2005 it was institutionalized in a nine-member State Commission (which included a US Army officer and a British immigration official) to strip people of Bosnian citizenship; a “Reception Center for Irregular Migrants,” a prison built at European Union expense on the edge of a refugee camp for Bosnian Serbs in Lukavica on the outskirts of Sarajevo; and a “Service for Foreigners’ Affairs” under Bosnia’s Ministry of Security, organized, trained and equipped by US advisers at US taxpayer expense, to run the prison and conduct deportations.

Darryl Li visited, studied and stayed in contact with some of these men and their Bosnian families for several years. He observed how, while the US exercised supreme sovereignty over these men and their fate, the US role was carefully hidden behind and operated through the formal sovereignty of Bosnia Hercegovina; and also how the fates of groups of men of different nationalities were governed by US imperial relations with the various countries they came from and to where they could be “repatriated.”

Most Egyptian men were sent back to Egypt, a reliable US ally, where they were imprisoned, tortured and, in many cases, disappeared, according to their Bosnian families. By contrast, six men from Algeria were rendered to the US concentration camp at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. They were imprisoned there until they won a landmark case in the US Supreme Court that allowed them to sue for habeas corpus in US courts, and they were finally released in 2009, 2010 and 2013.

A Syrian-Bosnian man named Abu Hamza became the de facto leader of resistance to the denaturalizations and deportations. He was imprisoned for 7-1/2 years at the Lukavica prison, during most of which time the US and its allies fought a bloody but failed proxy war to install a more subservient regime in his country of origin. He was finally released in 2016 to rejoin his Bosnian family.

When Darryl Li first visited Abu Hamza at the prison in Lukavica in 2009, he was dressed in an orange jalabiyya and baseball cap, on which he had stenciled the word “BOSNATANAMO.” He had made this uniform for himself to highlight the parallels between the plight of prisoners at Lukavica and Guantanamo.

The flags flying over the guard gate of the prison in Lukavica were those of Bosnia and the European Union, and the US was officially involved in the imprisonment of the men there only through diplomatic channels, generous funding and the assistance of American trainers and advisers. And yet the US empire was the thinly veiled power behind the very existence of the prison and all that happened there.

Darryl Li compared the fates of the men in Bosnia with other cases of post-9/11 US detention, and found a similar pattern throughout the USgulag, in which the fates of people from specific countries were largely determined by the nature of US imperial relations with the countries involved.

For example, four British men detained in Pakistan and sent to Guantanamo were among the first prisoners to be released and repatriated, and returned home to relatively normal lives in the U.K. By contrast, Li met a Palestinian man in Gaza in 2007 who was “repatriated” there despite never having lived there before. He was born in Jordan and grew up in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, where he was arrested and handed over to US forces. After several years in US military and CIA prisons, mostly in Afghanistan, he was sent back to Jordan, handed over to Israel and banished to Gaza.

In all these cases, Li observed how the US empire maintained a systematic and overarching sovereignty over the people and countries involved, not by completely ignoring the sovereignty of Bosnia, Egypt, the U.K and other countries, but by selectively and opportunistically exercising its own power through their nominally independent political and legal systems and the particulars of its relations with each of them.

Darryl Li’s research revealed an international system of stratified sovereignty, in which people’s lives were subject to the overarching imperial sovereignty of the US empire as well as to the sovereignty of their own countries.

Empire, not exception.

The US concentration camp at Guantanamo in Cuba is widely viewed as a glaring exception to US and international rules of law. Darryl Li noted that the prisoners are not the only non-Americans and non-Cubans living at Guantanamo, which also has a civilian staff of janitors, cooks and other workers, mostly from Jamaica and the Philippines. Like the prisoners and their American guards, these workers also live under the stratified sovereignty of the US Empire.

“Both third-country national prisoners and workers at GTMO share the predicament of dwelling in a space between the juridical protections of their governments, the local state and the US hegemon,” Li observed.

Darryl Li concluded that this framework of stratified sovereignty, in which people live under the sovereignty of both their own country and that of the US empire, is not an exception, but a norm of life in the US empire. So the shared predicament of workers and prisoners at Guantanamo is a striking example of how the US empire works, not an exception to it.

Other seemingly exceptional cases can also be better understood as examples of this actually existing imperial system of stratified sovereignty.

Consortium News has closely followed and reported on Julian Assange’s precarious asylum in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. In Julian’s case, US imperial power has worked through a network of four nominally independent but subordinate states – Australia, Sweden, the United Kingdom and Ecuador – to corner him in London for over six years and prevent him from regaining his freedom. And it may soon succeed in rendering him to the US in shackles.

If this is what happens to Julian, his fate will not differ substantially from that of people who dared to defy the formal, territorial empires of the past. The Saudis conquered most of Arabia in the late 18th century, but their leader Abdullah bin Saud was defeated, captured, rendered in chains to Istanbul and beheaded at the order of the Ottoman Sultan in 1818.

Until 1830, the British Royal Navy brought mutineers, smugglers and pirates captured on the high seas around the world back to London to be hung (slowly, in the case of pirates) at Execution Dock on the Thames. The most notorious pirates’ bodies were covered in tar and hung in chains from a gibbet on the riverbank as a warning against piracy to sailors on passing ships.

If anything can save Julian Assange from a 21st century version of their fate at the hands of today’s imperial power, it is empire-wide public outrage and the fear of US officials that such a naked display of imperial power will give their game away.

But fear of exposing its brutality and criminality rarely constrains the US empire. Since 2001, the US has been more ready than ever to attack or invade other countries at will, with no regard for US or international law, and to kidnap or extradite people from around the world to face imperial retribution in US prisons and courts.

Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou, now detained in Canada, is the latest victim of US imperial power. At least 26 US and foreign banks have paid fines of billions of dollars for violating US sanctions on Iran, but none of their executives have been arrested and threatened with 30 year prison terms. In launching a trade war with China, challenging Chinese sovereignty to trade with Iran and holding Meng Wanzhou as a hostage or bargaining chip in these disputes, the US is displaying a dogged determination to keep expanding its imperial ambitions.

The case of NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden illustrates that there are geographic limits to US imperial power. By escaping first to Hong Kong and then to Russia, Edward evaded capture or extradition. But his narrow escape and the very narrow choices available to him are themselves an illustration of how few places on Earth remain safely beyond the reach of US imperial power.

The End of Empire

The corrosive and debilitating impact of US empire on the sovereignty of other countries has been obvious to its detractors for a long time.

In the introduction to his 1965 book, Neo-Colonialism: the Last Stage of Imperialism, President Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana wrote, “The essence of neo-colonialism is that the State which is subject to it is, in theory, independent and has all the outward trappings of international sovereignty. In reality its economic system and thus its political policy is directed from outside.”

Darryl Li quoted Nkrumah’s verdict that this is, “…the worst form of imperialism. For those who practice it, it means power without responsibility, and for those who suffer from it, it means exploitation without redress.”

Nkrumah was deposed in a military coup orchestrated by the CIA the year after his words were published, but his critique remains, begging serious questions, “How long will the world tolerate this irresponsible form of empire?” Or even, ” Will we allow this ‘last stage of imperialism’ to be the last stage of our civilization?”

The way the US empire exercises power through stratified layers of sovereignty is both a strength and a weakness. For a brief period in history, it has enabled the US to wield imperial power in an otherwise post-colonial world, as Nkrumah described.

But Nkrumah had good reason to call this the last stage of imperialism. Once the US empire’s subject nations decide to claim in full the legal sovereignty they gained in the 20^th century, and reject the US’s anachronistic imperial ambitions to dominate and exploit their institutions, their people and their future, this empire cannot permanently hold them back any more than the British or Ottoman Empires could.

This irresponsible empire has squandered the resources of our own and other nations, and spawned existential dangers that threaten the whole world, from nuclear war to environmental crisis. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has gradually advanced the hands of its Doomsday Clock from 17 minutes to midnight in 1994 up to 2 minutes to midnight in 2018.

The US’s system of “managed democracy” or “inverted totalitarianism”concentrates ever-growing wealth and power in the hands of a corrupt ruling class, increasingly subjecting the American public to the same “exploitation without redress” as the US empire’s foreign subjects and preventing us from tackling serious or even existential problems.

This self-reinforcing vicious circle endangers us all, not least those of us who live at the heart of this corrupt and ultimately self-destructive empire. So we Americans share the vital interest of the rest of the world in dismantling the US empire and starting to work with all our neighbors to build a peaceful, just and sustainable post-imperial future that we all can share.

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Nicolas J S Davies is the author of Blood On Our Hands: The American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq. He is a researcher for CODEPINK and a freelance writer whose work is published by a wide range of independent, non-corporate media.

It’s headquartered in Washington – with branch offices in Tel Aviv, Brussels, Berlin, London, Paris, other European capitals, and elsewhere worldwide.

It’s scourge threatens everyone everywhere, its diabolical agenda hostile to peace, equity and justice, to the public welfare, we the people meaning the privileged class exclusively, ordinary people exploited, not served.

The rage of ruling authorities in America and its junior partners to dominate and exploit aims to transform all countries into ruler-serf societies, unsafe and unfit to live in – Washington rules overriding international and sovereign state laws, US-controlled NATO operating as a global military, manufactured crises unjustifiably justifying endless wars against invented enemies, nonbelievers eliminated.

When governments fail their people, the way things are today in the West and elsewhere globally, they forfeit their right to rule, civil disobedience an essential tool to invoke for change, popular revolution the only solution.

Nothing else can work. Martin Luther King once said that disobeying unjust laws, accepting punishment, arousing public awareness through nonviolent civil disobedience “express(es) the highest respect for law” the way it should be, serving everyone equitably, adding:

“(N)on-cooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good.” He championed “creative protest,” believing passivity is no option in the face of injustice.

Henry David Thoreau’s essay on civil disobedience, titled “Resistance to Civil Government” said the following:

“The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right.”

“All men recognize the right of revolution; that is, the right to refuse allegiance to, and to resist, the government, when its tyranny or its inefficiency are great and unendurable.”

“Unjust laws exist; shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once?”

The state “is not armed with superior wit or honesty, but with superior physical strength. I was not born to be forced. I will breathe after my own fashion…They can only force me to obey a higher law than I.”

Thoreau argued that no one is obligated to surrender their conscience to injustice. What’s fundamentally wrong should be challenged for change.

People have power when they use it, challenging unjust authority a duty, the only way to change the wrongs of ruling authorities.

Resistance is absent in America and other Western societies, Yellow Vest protests in France an exception, what’s needed universally at a time of endless wars, eroding social justice, increasing police state harshness – governments serving privileged interests exclusively at the expense of beneficial social change they abhor.

Electoral participation doesn’t work, voting a waste of time in the West and most elsewhere. Dirty business as usual always wins, notably in America, a money-controlled one-party state with two extremist right wings, pretending otherwise – a fantasy democracy, not the real thing.

Legislators serve powerful interests, laws enacted to serve them. Dominant media support what demands condemnation. Accountability to all segments of society is absent.

Over half of the US electorate abstaining from exercising their franchise is testimony to their powerlessness over how they’re ill-served by ruling authorities in Washington.

Throwing out bums for new ones each election cycle assures when things change they stay the same, the way it is in America, the West, Israel, and elsewhere.

Entrenched power yields nothing unless forced. It’s true in the public and private sectors. Years of labor organizing against long odds in America, taking to the streets, sustaining strikes, boycotts, and other work stoppages, battling monied interests, putting rank-and-file lives on the line for equitable treatment won important labor rights.

When energy waned and union bosses sold out to management, virtually everything gained was lost, organized labor today a shadow of its long ago peak strength.

The same holds in all segments of society, government and the courts in cahoots with dominant monied interests at the expense of ordinary people in America and elsewhere.

Failing to resist what’s intolerable assures unacceptable conditions steadily worsening. Challenging authority is needed, in America most of all.

It’s no simple task at a time when government is the handmaiden of business, public and private corruption extreme, electoral politics deeply flawed, along with growing tyranny, heading toward becoming full-blown if not challenged by popular upheaval, collective resistance, civil disobedience – in big cities and small, urban and rural areas, sustaining a movement for revolutionary change.

It’s unattainable any other way. American exceptionalism, moral superiority, and the indispensable state don’t exist – an increasingly totalitarian plutocracy, not a democracy, permanently at war against invented enemies.

The nation’s resources increasingly go for militarism, warmaking, and corporate handouts, ordinary Americans exploited, not equitably served, things worsening, not improving.

Full-blown tyranny may be another major homeland false flag away, another 9/11 type incident, martial law instituted on the phony pretext of protecting national security at a time the nation’s only threats are invented ones.

As long as dark forces running America go unchallenged, their rage for dominance may doom us all – by enslavement, nuclear armageddon, or ecocide.

The only solution is popular revolution, challenging authority, refusing to accept the unacceptable, defying the status quo for peace, equity and justice for everyone everywhere.

There’s no alternative to living free and safe – polar opposite how things are today.

America is far and away the most egregious human rights offender in world history, harming more people globally over a longer duration than any other nation.

If not challenged and stopped, we all may be doomed.

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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.

How low can a country governed by an unbridled greed, a notorious lack of morals and ubiquitous servility to its neo-colonialist masters, really sink?

And how can people tolerate lies, the naked cynicism and fanatical incompetence of the rulers? Can the regime in Indonesia, which was created in 1965, and then nurtured by the West, really get away with absolutely everything, even, literally, murder?

As I write this report, it has been confirmed that the tsunami which struck West Java on the 22^nd of December, 2018, killed hundreds of people. It is almost certain that the death toll will soon climb to thousands.

Yesterday, I drove to West coast of Java. I witnessed devastation, but I also observed, as on so many previous occasions, absolute collapse of the state functions, its phlegmatic unwillingness to mobilize, as well as absolutely shocking helplessness of the victims.

During an entire day, along the entire coast, I did not encounter one single foreign journalist, while the local press, corrupt and unprofessional, kept reporting only what it was paid and ordered to report, even arranging ‘positive’ shots, instead of exposing harsh reality.

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I gave myself 3 hours to write this report; only 3 hours, and not a minute more. That is how long my late evening flight from Jakarta to Bangkok will last. There is no time to delay what has to be urgently said. No time for ‘flowery reporting’. People are dying. Now it is December 25. The day before yesterday it was announced that at least 222 human lives were terminated. Yesterday the count stood at 370. Now, before my plane takes off, it is close to 500. What should we expect tomorrow; a thousand? Are we going to be informed in one week that several thousand men, women and children were swept away, crashed, torn apart, drowned, and starved to death?

Miserable structures could not withstand tidal wave

As in 2004 when a quarter of million people, mostly in Aceh, vanished after a devastating tidal wave, I have to repeat now what I declared then: in Indonesia, it is not a tsunami that murders; it is not at all. The regime imposed on this miserably poor country by the West, in 1965, reduced the entire archipelago to a monolithic, unproductive, resigned, awfully religious cluster of islands stripped off almost all of its natural resources as well as original fauna and flora; islands polluted, inhabited by uneducated and increasingly aggressive and intolerant people; both victimizers and victims at the same time.

These people cannot fight or resist, anymore. They only brutalize each other, never their immoral rulers.

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Mrs. Rani from Cinangka, Anyer, used to be the owner of a tiny restaurant selling fresh fish from the nearby sea. Now she is standing next to her destroyed hut. First, she appears to be angry, but then she breaks down, begins hugging us desperately as if we were her last hope, crying bitterly:

“The government does nothing, absolutely nothing for us. President Jokowi passed by here, in his motorcade, but he did not even slow down, at least to ask and see how we are doing. Nobody cares about us!”

“When the tsunami hit, we were sleeping. And my husband and I went out of the house and ran to that coconut tree across the road; you see, over there… In my mind, I still see my grilled fish tiny restaurant (warung) as if it was standing and safe. People shouted at us to go further up the hill, towards a safer place. But when we returned in the morning, to search for our house and restaurant, we were shocked – it was totally looted out by thugs!”

“Now, not only don’t I have a place to live, anymore, my only source of income is also gone.”

As always when natural or man-made disasters strike in Indonesia, the only things one can hear are the sobs of the victims and the ridiculous honking of the sirens and horns, most of them belonging to private cars that are pretending to be on an important ‘mission’.

Coming from Jakarta – hanging around, doing nothing

But almost nothing moves. Heavy equipment like bulldozers and excavators, are there, but standing still, drivers and operators are either smoking or just staring in the distance. The sky is empty – no helicopters, no amphibious planes have been visible for the entire day that I worked in the area (later I was confidentially told that Indonesia doesn’t really have enough choppers, and hardly any pilots trained to fly them).

The entire coast is covered by Poskos(posts) that are, at least in theory, erected there, in order to provide relief to the victims. But most of them belong to political parties, or to religious organizations, interested only in showing off and in promoting their own agenda. There are extreme-right-wing groups like Pemuda Pancasila, with members snapping selfies of each other: or having leisure lunches and dinners at what had still survived of the local restaurants.

Extreme right-wing groups at tsunami area

Islamists in white robes are pointing their thumbs towards the sky, laughing loudly and ridiculously, and shouting “Prabowo – Sandi”referring to the presidential and vice-presidential candidate. Prabowo, a former army general, is a brutal military man, known to have committed countless crimes against humanity while serving in the plundered West Papua, and during the anti-government demonstration that rocked the capital many years ago. His posters are visible everywhere along the coast, and his people pose for cameras and for mobile phones, promoting their movement all along the ruined beaches.

Poskos are always full of people, those individuals who are constantly pushing their idiotic speeches, shouting slogans, but above all, taking photos of each other. I saw something similar in 2004 in Aceh. While the Japanese, Singaporeans and other foreigners were working, desperately trying to save the lives of the victims, the Indonesian NGO’s and ‘volunteers’ were laughing, taking photos of each other, and promoting their religious and political agendas.

Religious cadres laughing while promoting their own agenda

Disaster or no disaster, almost every man here is puffing on his cigarette. There is always plenty of time for religion, for taking selfies, for a little cyber chat, and of course, for a smoke. And while everyone is busy banging into their phones and exhaling smoke, almost no one is working.

This is a perfect warning to the world: what happens to a country fully abandoned to Western neo-colonialism, to religion, consumerism, corruption, as well as intellectual and moral void.

We are passing Posko PKS Peduli(Post of the ‘PKS Care’). PKS party belongs to Prabowo’s coalition. The post is well-visible, noticeable, full of slogans. It is there solely to attract voters, not to save victims.

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After progressing further south, we exit the main road at Sukarame Village, drive again, then walk up to a hill, towards a ‘camp’, where the people displaced by the nearby coastal disaster area are supposed to be taken care of by the authorities.

What we encounter there is self-explanatory, and I make sure to record the situation visually.

As elsewhere in Indonesia, the area is overtaken by thugs who are ‘regulating traffic’ and arranging parking spaces, for a fee. For them, as for almost everyone else with the exception of the victims, all of this is a great business opportunity. They are bossing drivers around, maximizing both space and the profits. At one point it begins to rain.

At night in a village destroyed by tsunami

We are following displaced people. Soon, a ‘tent city’ appears.

It consists of three tents at the lower part of the hill, and of few more a bit higher up. The tents are blue, and they are not yet assembled.

“Is that all?” I ask a man who is smoking even in the rain, periodically snapping his own selfie.

“Yes, it is,” he answers, phlegmatically.

Mr. Karid from Cibenda village recalls:

“My son who is the caretaker of a villa on the coast, suffers from a broken leg and he lost one of his children. This grandson of mine was only 6 years old. I had to go back and forth between taking care of my son and also taking care of the funeral of my grandchild.”

No one seems to be paying attention to the victims. They were told that the second wave may hit at any moment, and they are moving up, towards the highest ground, spontaneously.

“Do they help you?” We ask.

“Not really,” comes the reply, immediately. By now, it is a quite standard answer. “They don’t even give us real food”.

Then it happens: some 20 police officers on expensive motorcycles, wearing yellow wests, arrive on the scene.

Police posing, doing nothing

They walk slowly towards those parts of the tents lying on the grass and begin… Not working, no: they begin posing!

I film.

There are two men, one photographing for social media, the other in police uniform, giving precise instruction to the police officers, how to stand and how to pretend that they are actually working.

I keep filming.

Slowly, extremely slowly, those 20 well-fed men began putting together the frame of one tent. Others watched smoking and photographing.

After one part of the tent was assembled, police officers gathered in a circle and began chatting.

It was now raining, heavily. Victims were slowly walking by: no one pays any attention to them.

Down at the side of the road, I saw something that may resemble a local TV crew, dragging the operator of a huge excavator, to his cabin. A man climbed up, put his hands on the control, and… nothing. No roar of the engine, no movement. He was being photographed from below. When he climbed down, he is interviewed, his idle heavy equipment clearly visible behind his back.

Not far from the scene, people are searching through the rubble, for their belongings, for their ID papers and who knows, perhaps even for their loved ones.

While the Indonesian public and the world is shown what they are supposed to see: a natural disaster and the nation mobilizing to help its fellow citizens.

But nothing moves. Only those countless vehicles belonging to the NGOs and the right-wing political parties (there are no left-wing parties in this country), are blocking the streets, creating traffic jams. People on board are honking, blasting sirens, trying to look macho and determined, while doing nothing substantial, except what they do all their lives: smoking, sitting in endless traffic jams, and listening to junk music.

And the people, hundreds or perhaps thousands of them, are dying just few meters away.

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And the sky is still clear: there are no helicopters or airplanes, even when it begins to rain, or when it stops raining.

And there are no battleships visible near the coast.

The Indonesian army has been well known for fighting, killing and raping its women and children, after the 1965 military coup, or in East Timor or now, in West Papua. It is also very good at protecting Western mining companies against the people, local victims. It is not here to defend its citizens: on the contrary. It commonly commits treason, but instead of being court-martialed and facing a firing squad, it is being praised and continuously rewarded with cash, training and equipment from the West.

The same can be said about the Indonesian academia and media. They are not here to tell the truth and defend the nation. They are paid to be quiet and to say what is ordered ‘from above’ and from abroad.

And no foreign media would go where I am routinely working. I am always alone here, no matter what horrors are occurring around me. The fascist, pro-Western, religious regime here reduced the Indonesian people into submissive, self-centered cowards. I don’t care. They are willing to betray, even to kill, for their own privileges. So I am trying to perform their duties, instead.

It is their problem what they do. While it is my obligation to document. Alone or not alone.

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Some 60 kilometers further south, everything stops. By the time we arrive, it is late at night. The road is heavily damaged. This is ‘the border’. No private vehicles can pass.

Behind this point, the destruction is, most likely, even more horrid.

Were this to be a ‘normal’, read ‘not collapsed country’, there would be countless military heavy vehicles repairing the road. There would be provisory lights, thousands of experts and military men building the bridges, filling deep ditches. Helicopters would be flying, and big NAVY ships would be providing support from the sea. There would be a constant, determined fight to save human lives.

I saw it in Japan and in Chile. In Chile, after a terrible tsunami, the entire nation mobilized. The motorway was clogged with constant streams of vehicles, bringing to the devastated areas pre-fabricated wooden houses of high quality, bringing water, gas, food, medical supplies. To witness such mobilization performed by the then, still, socialist government, made one feel proud to be a human being. As a result, very few people died. Everyone got taken care of, re-housed and compensated by the government.

Here, in Indonesia, at the ghostly, destroyed village of Cikujang, we only encountered two men sitting among the rubble of destroyed house. They reluctantly explained:

“Our car got stuck in a deep ditch. Engine died. Now we are just waiting that someone will rescue us”.

All around – darkness and destruction. Carcasses of cars and motorcycles, collapsed houses, personal belongings of people scattered all around. I am trying to film and photograph, using the high beam of the car. What I see is not for the faint-hearted.

As I am working, I am aware of the warnings: the second tsunami wave can strike at any moment. If it does, my tiny crew and I will get fucked. But we have to work, because behind our backs, somewhere in the total darkness, there are tens of thousands of people, cut off from any help, abandoned by this monstrous nightmarish system.

Up the hill, we find an old scout center. There, many victims are gathered.

Mr. Iwan, the leader of this provisory camp of displaced people, readily explains:

“We have five people who lost their lives, 4 are already buried but we are still missing 1 person. “

People are praying. No one dares to blame the government or the system. To them, it is all normal.

We are told, again and again, that there is absolutely no way to go any further. We try, but confronted with flooded road, finally turn back.

There is no activity. No action. Behind this line, most likely thousands of people are dying.

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It is now clear that the early warning system failed the people of West Java.

It was reported that it was ‘vandalized’. In fact, it was stolen. Supplied by Malaysia, Germany and UK, it was looted by local folks. And the government knew it, and did nothing at all to replace it.

In Vietnam or China, officials who allow such a disaster to take place, would be facing a firing squad, for treason.

In Indonesia, the entire system is mobilized to cover up what has taken place, and what is still taking place while this report goes to print: the ineptness of the government, of the armed forces, the tremendous greed of the NGO’s and private individuals of the country.

In Indonesia, human lives are worth absolutely nothing. Public welfare means nothing as well. The only thing that matters is profit, plus religious rituals. And the big natural disasters like this one are truly great opportunities to enrich even further those corrupt gurus of turbo-capitalism.

While thousands of families have irreversibly lost their homes and small businesses, the entire nation is mourning a pop band from Jakarta, called ‘Seventeen,’ which was performing for the elites in an exclusive beach resort, when tsunami hit the area. All band members died except their lead vocalist.

I have worked in 160 countries of the world; I have seen a lot, really a lot, but nothing so morally collapsed and corrupt as the Indonesian regime. And I have never encountered any establishment so capable of covering-up its own crimes.

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Now most of the reports are repeating ‘how and why this tsunami occurred’. People who know nothing about science, are repeating like idiots about some underwater plates moving, about an explosion of a volcano, and other ‘technical’ issues.

But what really happened here, as has already happened so many times this year, and every other single year, is that people died for absolutely ridiculous and preventable reasons: the unwillingness of the regime to spend money on anything that does not generate ‘profit’ (like an early tsunami warning system), pathetic, laughable ‘city planning’ as well as the lack of enforceable regulations for both urban and rural areas located in danger zones, plus the endemic corruption, terrible education and therefore lack of any vision or enthusiasm, as well as many other factors along these lines.

The victims in West Java are, as it always happens here, resigned – they are as locals saypasrah. Poor people, the great majority of Indonesian citizens, are submissive. They repeat what the ‘elites’, the West and religious ‘leaders’ want them to repeat: that they are ‘grateful to God’ even for being alive. I hear it in the slums, and in devastated areas. By now, people here have nothing against their tormentors; against capitalism or imperialism (they don’t even know what these terms really symbolize). They steal from each other, but do not dare to fight those who are robbing them on a greater scale.

By not providing basic services, the state is murdering thousands, more precisely millions, annually. Now it has done it again. The definition of a ‘failed state’ is precisely that: the ‘inability to provide basic services to its citizens’. Full stop.

And my 3 hours are now up. The plane is descending.

I have just witnessed mass murder, in Java, Indonesia. Not a ‘natural disaster’, but mass murder. There is no time for elegant reporting. This is what I saw, and therefore, this is what I write. Tens of thousands are still left behind on the coast, with almost no help. The Indonesian ‘elites’ are now making profits from their suffering.  It is already dark in Bangkok, where I am landing.

It must be horribly dark ‘back there’, in Banten: dark and frightening.

I am writing this in order to warn the world: let us all unite against the regimes that have been implanted by the West in the colonies. Let us not allow such genocides to happen again and again!

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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. Three of his latest books are 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

On December 9 William Blum died. He was one of the great truth-tellers of this or any other era and an example of everything a real journalist should be.

Blum began working for the US State Department as a computer programmer in the mid-’60s but the man who declared that he wanted to “take part in the great anti-communist crusade” had the scales fall from his eyes as the Vietnam war unfolded and he quit, founding The Washington Free Press, one of the New Left’s first independent newspapers.

Bill held a passionate determination to tell the truth about US foreign policy aims, and this he did for the rest of his life. Two of his books in particular should be required reading for us all, but especially for anyone with aspirations to be a journalist (rather than a state stenographer as most end up).

Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II and Rogue State: A Guide to the World’s Only Superpower are vital records of the rapacious truth of US policy when it comes to other nations: a violent, predatory blueprint underpinned by an utter contempt for democracy.

We need this record, because the big lie of the US as a force for good in the world is continually propagated by a corporate media fundamentally aligned with state power. Stark proof of this can be seen every single day on the BBC, ITN, Sky or Channel 4 News. Sceptical that the latter should be so maligned? You could read my series, What’s Wrong With Channel 4 News? at bsnews.info or check out 21st Century Wire’s Ch4N archive. And as for “liberal” newspapers like the Guardian, just visit the Media Lens archive for evidence of its shameful record of cheerleading for every illegal and immoral war you could name.

There is simply nowhere to go in the corporate media for an alternative to the big lie. And that is why Bill Blum’s work is indispensable. His chronicle stands as a mighty refutation of the huge deception that seeks to wipe the truth from the historical record so that the public is primed to accept whichever false justification is presented to it for the next murderous military intervention. But these rationales cannot stand if we are armed with the knowledge of what really happened, and Blum has left us, along with his books and many articles, one of the most effective weapons with which to counter the myth of a benevolent United States in its relations with the rest of the world.

Go to williamblum.org and you will find a page with the words:

“Overthrowing Other People’s Governments — The Master List. Instances of the United States overthrowing, or attempting to overthrow, a foreign government since the second world war. (*indicates successful ouster of a government).”

And then comes the list itself, beginning with:

• China 1949 to early 1960s
• Albania 1949-53
• East Germany 1950s
• Iran 1953*
• Guatemala 1954*
• Costa Rica mid-1950s
• Syria 1956-7

And on it goes, citing 57 countries in all and bringing us all the way up to the present day. The list is all the more powerful for its succinctness, each entry a tragedy and a crime, with incalculable suffering behind it. The document is stark and it is shocking and we need it now as much as ever.

Comedian Rob Newman, during his quite brilliant show A History of Oil, recounts that he was listening to the Today Programme on BBC’s Radio 4 and noticed that the headline being repeated, “on the hour, every hour” was this: “The G8 has today endorsed an American plan to bring democracy to the Middle East.” There it is, the big lie.

No corporate journalist ever questions it, having been carefully “selected for obedience” as they are, the result being that the least independent minded and most slavish of all are the Jon Snows, Krishnan Guru-Murthys and the other gallery of well-known faces in the mainstream media landscape, no matter how radical and maverick they believe themselves to be.

Newman tells his audience: “There is in our own time an absolute taboo among the corporate news media and the political class against mentioning anything to do with the strategic and economic reasons for war.” And that is exactly why the Master List is so important — we are in a constant fight to keep the truth of the historical record alive in the face of a relentless propaganda machine and the stakes are as high as they could be.

The corporate media has blood on its hands — I do not say that lightly. Because without the amplification of the big lie, these blood-soaked invasions could never have been dressed up as “humanitarian” interventions in which literally millions of innocent people have suffered and died.

Of course, corporate journalists do not take kindly to being exposed by real journalists, which is why the New York Times used this headline to report Bill’s death: “William Blum, US policy critic cited by bin Laden, dies at 85”.

Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), the US-based media watch group, commented: “Yes, to the Times, the most important thing about Bill Blum’s life is that Osama bin Laden once remarked to Americans, in a tape released from hiding, that Rogue State would be ‘useful for you to read’ … Should (Blum) have denied that his book would be ‘useful…to read,’ or wished aloud that bin Laden had been a supporter of the State Department’s policies? There are certainly some policies where you’d find the State Department, al-Qaida and the New York Times on one side, and Blum on the other.”

Considering the fact that the US has long colluded with radical Islam and is doing so right now in its financial and military support for jihadist terrorists in Syria, including al-Nusra (al-Qaida in Syria), the word irony doesn’t really cover it. And for Britain’s own long record of colluding with Islamists, even as the public was told these were the enemy we must all fear and despise, see the book Secret Affairs by Mark Curtis.

We would all, I hope, wish to evolve during our short time on this troubled planet, and Bill Blum appears to have been on a path of accelerated growth. From the belly of the beast to independence and freedom, he shared his journey and the vital knowledge and insights he gained along the way. Read his work — you might just be moved to send every corporate journalist you see repeating the big lie a copy of The Master List.

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The National Gathering of Martyrs’ Families has stated in its annual report for the year 2018 that Israeli soldiers have killed 312 Palestinians, including women and children, and added that this number is four times higher than the year 2017.

Mohammad Sbeihat, the Secretary-General of the Gathering, has reported that Israel and its occupation forces are encouraged by the silence of the international community, and expressed its support of the calls of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to prosecute Israel in international courts for its escalating crimes and violations.

Sbeihat added that the Gathering has thoroughly documented the Israeli violations in all governorates during the year, including reports from various human rights organizations.

The documentations reveal the following:

1. The number of Palestinians who were killed by Israeli army fire in 2018 is 312, including 310 who were shot with live ammunition, and two who died from the severe effects of teargas inhalation.

2. 271 Palestinians were killed in several parts of the Gaza Strip.

3. 42 Palestinians were killed in the West Bank.

4. Six of the slain Palestinians are females.

5. 306 of the slain Palestinians are males.

6. The youngster slain Palestinians is Laila al-Ghandour, only eight months of age, and the oldest is Ibrahim Ahmad al-‘Arrouqi, 74.

7. Fifty-seven of the slain Palestinians in 2018 are children (below the age of 18).

8. Approximately one Palestinian was killed every 28 hours, which means that, comparing to the year 2017, the average is four times higher, as Israel killed 74 Palestinians.

9. The month that witnessed the highest numbers of deaths by Israeli fire was May, as the soldiers have killed 89 Palestinians.

10. The Average age of the slain Palestinians was 24.

11. The number of married Palestinians killed by the army is 107, 104 of them were males and 3 females.

12. Israel is still holding the corpses of twenty Palestinians who were killed in 2018. This is added to 38 corpses of Palestinians killed by the army in 2015 and remain held by Israel.

13. The total number of corpses of slain Palestinians held by Israel since the year 1965 is 284.

14. Israeli forces have killed 145 Palestinians in 2015.

15. Israeli forces have killed 127 Palestinians in 2016.

16. Israeli forces have killed 74 Palestinians in 2017.

17. Israeli forces have killed 312 Palestinians in 2018.

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Featured image is from IMEMC

American journalism has become in its mainstream exponents a compendium of half-truths and out-and-out lies. The public, though poorly informed on most issues as a result, has generally figured out that it is being hoodwinked and trust in the Fourth Estate has plummeted over the past twenty years. The skepticism about what is being reported has enabled President Donald Trump and other politicians to evade serious questions about policy by claiming that what is being reported is little more than “fake news.”

No news is more fake than the reporting in the U.S. media that relates to the state of Israel. Former Illinois congressman Paul Findley in his seminal book They Dare to Speak Out: People and Institutions Confront Israel’s Lobby observed that nearly all the foreign press correspondents working out of Israel are Jewish while most of the editors that they report to at news desks are also Jews, guaranteeing that the articles that eventually surface in the newspapers will be carefully constructed to minimize any criticism of the Jewish state. The same goes for television news, particularly on cable news stations like CNN.

A particularly galling aspect of the sanitization of news reports regarding Israel is the underlying assumption that Israelis share American values and interests, to include freedom and democracy. This leads to the perception that Israelis are just like Americans with Israel’s enemies being America’s enemies. Given that, it is natural to believe that the United States and Israel are permanent allies and friends and that it is in the U.S. interest to do whatever is necessary to support Israel, including providing billions of dollars in aid to a country that is already wealthy as well as unlimited political cover in international bodies like the United Nations.

That bogus but nevertheless seemingly eternal bond is essentially the point from which a December 26^th op-ed in The New York Times departs. The piece is by one of the Times’ resident opinion writers Bret Stephens and is entitled Donald Trump is Bad for Israel.

Stephens gets to the point rather quickly, claiming that “The president has abruptly undermined Israel’s security following a phone call with an Islamist strongman in Turkey. So much for the idea, common on the right, that this is the most pro-Israel administration ever. I write this as someone who supported Trump moving the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, and who praised his decision to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal as courageous and correct. I also would have opposed the president’s decision to remove U.S. forces from Syria under nearly any circumstances. Contrary to the invidious myth that neoconservatives always put Israel first, the reasons for staying in Syria have everything to do with core U.S. interests. Among them: Keeping ISIS beaten, keeping faith with the Kurds, maintaining leverage in Syria and preventing Russia and Iran from consolidating their grip on the Levant.”

The beauty of Stephens overwrought prose is that the careful reader might realize from the git-go that the argument being promoted makes no sense. Bret has a big heart for the Kurds but the Palestinians are invisible in his piece while his knowledge of other developments in the Middle East is superficial. First of all, the phone call with Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had nothing to do with “undermining Israel’s security.” It concerned the northern border of Syria, which Turkey shares, and arrangements for working with the Kurds, which is a vital interest for both Ankara and Washington. And it might be added that from a U.S. national security point of view Turkey is an essential partner for the United States in the region while Israel is not, no matter what it pretends to be.

Stephens then goes on to demonstrate what he claims to be a libel, that for him and other neocons Israel always comes first, an odd assertion given the fact that he spends 80% of his article discussing what is or isn’t good for Israel. He supports the U.S. Embassy move to Jerusalem, the end of the nuclear agreement with Iran, both of which were applauded in Israel but which are extremely damaging to American interests. He attacks the planned withdrawal from Syria because it is a “core interest” for the U.S., which is complete nonsense.

Contrary to Stephens’ no evidence assertion, Russia and Iran have neither the resources nor the desire to “consolidate[e] their grip on the Levant” while it is the United States has no right and no real interest to “maintain leverage” on Syria by invading and occupying the country. But, of course, invading and occupying are practices that Israel is good at, so Stephens’ brain fart on the issue can perhaps be attributed to confusion over whose bad policies he was defending. Stephens also demonstrate confusion over his insistence that the U.S. must “resist foreign aggressors…the Russians and Iranians in Syria in this decade,” suggesting that he is unaware that both nations are providing assistance at the request of the legitimate government in Damascus. It is the U.S. and Israel that are the aggressors in Syria.

Stephens then looks at the situation from the “Israeli standpoint,” which is presumably is easy for him to do as that is how he looks at everything given the fact that he is far more concerned about Israel’s interests than those of the United States. Indeed, all of his opinions are based on the assumption that U.S. policy should be supportive of a rightwing Israeli government, that of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who has recently been indicted for corruption and has called for an early election to subvert the process.

Bret finally comes to the point, writing that “What Israel most needs from the U.S. today is what it needed at its birth in 1948: an America committed to defending the liberal-international order against totalitarian enemies, as opposed to one that conducts a purely transactional foreign policy based on the needs of the moment or the whims of a president.”

Stephens then expands on what it means to be liberal-international: “It means we should oppose militant religious fundamentalism, whether it is Wahhabis in Riyadh or Khomeinists in Tehran or Muslim Brothers in Cairo and Ankara. It means we should advocate human rights, civil liberties, and democratic institutions, in that order.”

Bret also throws America’s two most recent presidents under the bus in his jeremiad, saying “During the eight years of the Obama presidency, I thought U.S. policy toward Israel — the hectoring, the incompetent diplomatic interventions, the moral equivocations, the Iran deal, the backstabbing at the U.N. — couldn’t get worse. As with so much else, Donald Trump succeeds in making his predecessors look good.” He then asks “Is any of this good for Israel?” and he answers “no.”

Bret Stephens in his complaining reveals himself to be undeniably all about Israel, but consider what he is actually saying. He claims to be against “militant religious fundamentalism,” but isn’t that what Israeli Zionism is all about, with more than a dash of racism and fanaticism thrown in for good measure? One Israeli Chief Rabbi has called black people “monkeys” while another has declared that gentiles cannot live in Israel. Right-wing religious fundamentalist parties currently are in power with Netanyahu and are policy making for the Israeli Government: Shas, Jewish Home, and United Torah Judaism. None of them could be regarded as a moderating influence on their thuggish serial financial lawbreaker Prime Minister.

And isn’t Israel’s record on human rights and civil liberties among the worst in the world? Here is the Human Rights Watch’s assessment of Israel:

“Israel maintains entrenched discriminatory systems that treat Palestinians unequally. Its 50-year occupation of the West Bank and Gaza involves systematic rights abuses, including collective punishment, routine use of excessive lethal force, and prolonged administrative detention without charge or trial for hundreds. It builds and supports illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank, expropriating Palestinian land and imposing burdens on Palestinians but not on settlers, restricting their access to basic services and making it nearly impossible for them to build in much of the West Bank without risking demolition. Israel’s decade-long closure of Gaza, supported by Egypt, severely restricts the movement of people and goods, with devastating humanitarian impact.”

Israel, if one is considering the entire population under its rule, is among the most undemocratic states that chooses to call itself democratic. Much of the population living in lands that Israel claims cannot vote, they have no freedom of movement in their homeland, and they have no right of return to homes that they were forced to abandon. Israeli army snipers blithely shoot unarmed demonstrators while Netanyahu’s government kills, beats and imprisons children. And the Jewish state does not even operate very democratically even inside Israel itself, with special rights for Jewish citizens and areas and whole towns where Muslims or Christians are not allowed to buy property or reside.

It is time for American Jews like Bret Stephens to come to the realization that not everything that is good for Israel is good for the U.S. The strategic interests of the two countries, if they were openly discussed in either the media or in congress, would be seen to be often in direct conflict. Somehow in Stephens’ twisted mind the 1948 theft of Palestinian lands and the imposition of an apartheid system to control the people is in some way representative of a liberal world order.

If one were to suggest that Stephens should move to Israel since his primary loyalty clearly lies there, there would be accusations of anti-Semitism, but in a sense, it is far better to have him stick around blathering from the pulpit of The New York Times. When he writes so ineptly about how Donald Trump Is Bad for Israel the real message that comes through loud and clear is how bad Israel is for America.

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This article was originally published on The Unz Review.

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is www.councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected]. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from The Unz Review

With the infamous Gulf of Tonkin incident as historical precedent, there’s a real possibility that the U.S. government could stage an incident in the Persian Gulf that would allow the Trump administration to push for military intervention in the Persian Gulf targeting Iran.

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Earlier this week, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani repeated an earlier threat to block ships from leaving the Persian Gulf if the U.S. government continues to seek to block Iranian oil exports. Rouhani’s comments came a day after the U.S. sent an aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf on Monday in an apparent “show of force,” ending the longest period the U.S. had gone without an aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf over the past two decades.

While some – at the time – anticipated that the U.S.’ deployment of the aircraft carrier was an empty threat meant to intimidate Iran, new developments suggest that there may soon be a military showdown in the Persian Gulf’s strategic Strait of Hormuz as Iranian and regional media have reported that the Iranian Navy has deployed a large naval contingent of 58 fleets to the northern waters of the Indian Ocean near the Persian Gulf. According to Iranian naval commander Rear Admiral Hossein Khanzadi, the naval contingent is closely monitoring the area as they await orders from the Iranian government.

The large deployment follows President Rouhani’s recent comments delivered on Tuesday in Iran’s Semnan Province. Rouhani stated that

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

Rouhani had made a similar threat earlier this year in July. An estimated 30 percent of the world’s seaborne oil passes through the Persian Gulf and thus the Gulf’s chokepoint – the Strait of Hormuz – which Iran claims to “completely control.”

A day prior to Rouhani’s speech, on Monday, the U.S. military revealed that the U.S.S. John C. Stennis and its accompanying ships will pass through the Indian Ocean and arrive in the Persian Gulf by the end of this week. While officials claimed that the deployment had been previously scheduled, officials also told the Wall Street Journal that the carrier’s deployment was a direct response to Iran’s influence in the Middle East.

Notably, the Trump administration, on the same day as the announcement of the Stennis’ deployment, asked Europe to impose new sanctions on Iran and withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal, after U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo claimed that Iran had test-fired a ballistic missile that violated the deal. The U.S. unilaterally withdrew from the deal in May, while other signatories have fought to keep the deal alive, as Iran had consistently complied with the conditions of the accord.

Given the recent news of the Iranian naval deployment to the northern Indian Ocean, there is an increased chance that the U.S.S. Stennis will pass in close proximity to where the Iranian naval ships are awaiting orders from Tehran.

As a result, concerns are growing that the tensions between Iran and the U.S. could soon spark a military conflict. Indeed, just last week, Brian Hook – the U.S. State Department’s special representative on Iran — announced during a press conference that the U.S. would “not hesitate to use military force [against Iran] when our interests are threatened,” adding that the Trump administration has “the military option on the table.”

Right on Bolton’s regime-change schedule?

Considering that top administration officials like John Bolton and Mike Pompeo have long sought war with Iran, Hook’s recent statement, as well as the recent deployments near the Strait of Hormuz by both the Iranian and American navies, cannot be taken lightly.

In addition, there is the possibility that the U.S. government could stage an incident in the Persian Gulf that would allow the Trump administration to push for military intervention in the Persian Gulf targeting Iran. Indeed, there is historical precedent for such action in the Gulf of Tonkin incident, which ultimately led to the escalation of U.S. military involvement in Vietnam, through the infamous Gulf of Tonkin Resolution.

However, the two Gulf of Tonkin incidents that were used to justify the subsequent war in Vietnam were not what they appeared, as the first incident – which was described as an “unprovoked” attack on the U.S.S. Maddox during a “routine patrol” – actually involved the U.S. firing first, while the Maddox was involved in an aggressive intelligence-gathering operation at the time of the incident. The second Gulf of Tonkin incident was later revealed to have been made up entirely, but was used as the launching pad for the Vietnam War that left millions of Vietnamese dead and killed over 50,000 Americans.

Could the Trump administration gin up such an act again, now that Iran is undeniably in its crosshairs? Given the history of fabricating and twisting intelligence regarding Iran by current National Security Adviser John Bolton, it is a definite possibility. This is especially troublesome, not only in light of the aforementioned developments near the Persian Gulf, but also considering that Bolton last year promised regime change in Tehran before 2019 – just a little over three weeks away.

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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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Traditionally focused on ultra-conservative Sunni Muslim Islam, Saudi funding in the era of crown prince Mohammed bin Salman has been streamlined and finetuned to ensure that it serves his geopolitical ambitions, primarily stymying the expansion of Iranian influence in the Middle East and North Africa and enhancing the kingdom’s global impact.

The effort, however, has so far produced a mixed bag. Spending is down but more targeted. Saudi Arabia has handed over control of the Grand Mosque in Brussels in a move designed to demonstrate its newly found moderation and reduce the reputational damage of a Saudi ultra-conservative management that had become contentious in Belgium.

Yet, monies still flowed to militant, ultra-conservative madrassas or religious seminaries that dot the Pakistani-Iranian border. The kingdom’s focus, moreover has shifted in selected countries to the promotion of a strand of Salafi ultra-conservatism that preaches absolute obedience to the ruler, a corollary to Prince Mohammed’s crackdown on critics and activists at home.

Saudi governmental non-governmental organizations that once distributed the kingdom’s largesse to advance ultra-conservatism as well as officials have adopted the language of tolerance and respect and principles of inter-faith but have little tangible change at home to back it up.

To be sure, Prince Mohammed has lifted the ban on women’s driving, enhanced women’s work and leisure opportunities and kickstarted the creation of a modern entertainment industry but none of these measures amount to his promise to foster an unidentified but truly moderate form of Islam.

The prince’s moves, moreover, have been accompanied by an embrace of the European right and far-right as well as Western ultra-conservative groups that by and large are hardly beacons of tolerance and mutual respect.

“Saudi Arabia with MBS as Crown Prince has not been advocating Islamic religious reform,” said Middle East scholar HA Hellyer, referring to the Saudi leader by his initials.

“The existing Saudi religious establishment has not been encouraged to engage in a genuine rethinking of its ideas that draws it closer to the normative Sunni mainstream, nor listen to existing Saudi religious scholars who advocate more normative and mainstream approaches. Rather, the establishment has been muzzled. MBS’s ‘reforms’ in this arena are about centralizing power—they are not about restoring the Saudi religious establishment to a normative Sunnism,” Mr. Hellyer added.

Prince Mohammed’s interest in non-Muslim ultra-conservative groups in the West fits a global pattern, highlighted by political scientists Yascha Mounk and Roberto Stefan Foa, in which technological advances and the increased importance of soft power that lie at the root of Russian intervention in elections in the United States and Europe, have informed the information and public relations policies of multiple autocratic states.

Technology and soft power are, according to Messrs. Mounk and Foa, are likely to spark greater efforts by authoritarians and autocrats in general to influence Western nations and undermine confidence in democracy.

“Indeed, China is already stepping up ideological pressure on its overseas residents and establishing influential Confucius Institutes in major centres of learning. And over the past two years, Saudi Arabia has dramatically upped its payments to registered U.S. lobbyists, increasing the number of registered foreign agents working on its behalf from 25 to 145… The rise of authoritarian soft power is already apparent across a variety of domains, including academia, popular culture, foreign investment, and development aid,” Messrs. Mounk and Foa said.

Saudi Arabia alongside other Gulf states, including the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Oman and Kuwait, as well as China, have furthermore been major donors to Western universities and think tanks and developed media outlets of their own such as Qatar’s Al Jazeera, Turkey’s TRT World China’s CCTV, and Russia’s RT that reach global audiences. They compete with the likes of the BBC and CNN.

The need for Saudi Arabia to acquire soft power was driven home by mounting Western criticism of its war in Yemen and condemnation of the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi on the premises of the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.

The Saudi effort to do so by garnering conservative, right-wing and far-right support was evident in Northern Ireland.

Investigating a remarkable campaign by Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), a key support pillar of British prime minister Teresa May’s government, in favour of Britain’s exit from the European Union, Irish Times columnist Fintan O’Toole suggested that a senior member of Saudi Arabia’s ruling family and former head of the country’s intelligence service, Prince Nawwaf bin Abdul Aziz al Saud, as well as its just replaced ambassador to Britain, had funded the anti-Brexit effort through a commercial tie-up with a relatively obscure Scottish conservative activist of modest means, Richard Cook.

The ambassador, Prince Nawaf’s son, Prince Mohammed bin Nawaf al Saud, was Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to Britain until last month’s Saudi cabinet reshuffle.

“It may be entirely co-incidental that the man who channelled £425,622 to the DUP had such extremely high-level Saudi connections. We simply don’t know. We also don’t know whether the… Saudi ambassador had any knowledge of his father’s connection to Richard Cook,” Mr. O’Toole said.

Similarly, Saudi Arabia has invited dozens of British members of parliament on all-expenses paid visits to the kingdom and showered at least 50 members of the government, including Ms. May, with enormous hampers of food weighing up to 18 pounds.

One package destined for a member of the House of Lords included seaweed and garlic mayonnaise; smoked salmon, trout and mussels; and a kilogram of Stilton cheese. Others contained bottles of claret, white wine, champagne, and Talisker whisky despite the kingdom’s ban of alcohol.

In a move similar to Russian efforts to influence European politics, Saudi Arabia has also forged close ties to conservative and far-right groups in Europe that include the Danish People’s Party and the Sweden Democrats as well as other Islamophobes, according to member of the European parliament Eldar Mamedov.

Writing on LobeLog, Mr. Mamedov said the kingdom frequently worked through the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) bloc, the third largest grouping in the European parliament. Saudi Arabia also enjoyed the support of European parliament member Mario Borghezio of Italy’s Lega, who is a member of Europe of Nations and Freedom (ENF), a bloc of far-right parties in the parliament.

The kingdom’s strategy, in a twist of irony, although in pursuit of different goals, resembles to a degree that of one of its nemeses, Indonesia’s Nahdlatul Ulama, the world’s largest Muslim non-governmental organization that has opposition to Saudi Arabia’s puritan strand of Islam carved into its DNA and has forged close ties to the European right and far-right in its bid to reform the faith.

The Saudi strategy could prove tricky, particularly in the United States, dependent on the evolution of US special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into foreign interference in the 2016 election that brought President Donald J. Trump to office.

Mr. Mueller reportedly is set in court filings to unveil efforts by Saudi Arabia, its reputation in the US tarnished by the Khashoggi killing, and the United Arab Emirates, the kingdom’s closest ally, to influence American politics.

Said Harry Litman, a former U.S. attorney.

“I guess what Mueller has to date has turned out to be pretty rich and detailed and more than we anticipated. This could turn out to be a rich part of the overall story.”

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This article was originally published on the author’s blog site: The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer.

Dr. James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, co-director of the University of Würzburg’s Institute for Fan Culture, and co-host of the New Books in Middle Eastern Studies podcast. James is the author of The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer blog, a book with the same title and a co-authored volume, Comparative Political Transitions between Southeast Asia and the Middle East and North Africa as well as Shifting Sands, Essays on Sports and Politics in the Middle East and North Africa and just published China and the Middle East: Venturing into the Maelstrom

Individualism, Loving Oneself… A few years ago “I married myself”, but we’ve reconsidered and have filed for divorce.  It’s no one’s fault really, but we are emotionally devastated nevertheless. At least we have no children.  Sologamy didn’t seem to suit us.  We had acted impetuously.  I had gotten the idea after hearing a NPR radio report about a woman who fell in love with herself and said that after she tied the knot she had never been happier.

The world was getting me down at the time with all the political news about the Russians coming and insinuating themselves between me and you and all good Americans who had just wanted to elect Hilary Clinton and be happy.  And as I was thinking about this happy married couple – the woman and herself, not Bill and Hillary – I chanced upon a New York Times article in a coffee shop that convinced me to take the plunge.

It was a  weird article that jumped out at me about transracialism and transgenderism and this big debate about these big words and a big philosopher who claims if you can self-identify as a different sex, or is it gender – I  can never get them straight – you should also be able to self-identify as a different race.  It was a long article with a lot of people arguing back and forth about self-identifying as this and that and what names to call themselves and I couldn’t concentrate on it all but I got the gist of the professor’s point and thought this might be for me, it might help me get OK and happy, which was my goal. So I self-identified as I and me, a couple, and we said I do and I do too in a private ceremony.  I really wanted to be happy like that woman and to forget all the stuff about Trump being in bed with the Russians, and the Russians trying to get into our heads and voting booths, maybe even our beds where they would whisper lies about capitalism being immoral and other sweet nothings meant to confuse us about our identities and what was right and wrong. I figured going to bed with myself might help me forget.

But it hasn’t worked out as we expected.  Last night, we had a little New Year’s Eve party and had a few anime hologram friends over.  As usual, we talked about the past year and old times and old friends and sang a few lines of Auld Lang Syne as we toasted left hand to right with some nice Prosecco with pomegranate juice since we heard that was the drink all the smart set use to celebrate their clever happiness.  But then we got to arguing, and between you and me, it wasn’t pretty. Our friends were mortified.  It was a scene straight out of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?  The Prosecco had gone to our head, so we don’t remember all the scathing interchanges, but I do know our anime friends said not a word and that me said to I at one point words that seemed to echo Martha and George’s. Martha: “Truth or Illusion, George; you don’t know the difference.”  George: “No, but we must carry on as if we did.” Martha: “Amen.”

So now it’s the day after and we must carry on “as if.” Amen, indeed!  And though our head hurts a bit, we have been talking over coffee and have decided to split up, amicably of course.  It’s a new year, and like most people, we want to make a fresh start.  I wish me the best and know me reciprocates. We will now go separate ways but it will be very lonely. Facebook friends might help somewhat, but they are no substitute for the intimacy of the past few years.  Who will now help me make it through the night?  And what about poor I?  Forgive me, but I am so confused and have a hell of a headache.

Although I want 2019 to be a happy year, if 2018 is any gauge, 2019 will be a long night from hell politically and culturally, with fake news everywhere and our Russian enemies infiltrating our minds at every turn with backstopping and sheep dipping their spies throughout the media and academia. It’s so lonely trying to make sense of it all.  Without my me-spouse, it can only get worse.  Even CNN’s Anderson Cooper’s New Year’s Eve words of comfort to the lonely from Times Square don’t help much.  Like Fox News’s “Fox and Friends,” Anderson is always there with a helping hand, and when I and me were arguing, I could always go to my true friends in the media for a dose of truth and sustenance.  They know all about the Russian threat.

But while I am grateful for their comfort in these confusing times, I need more.  With apologies to Kris Kristofferson, but loving me was easier that anything I’ll ever do again.  I need easy, real easy, easier even than when I would say something and me would disagree but we would let it slide for the sake of our relationship. It was easier that way.  But our relationship was probably doomed from the start.

But thank God for technology and CNN that has alerted me to a new technological possibility with a report about a Japanese man, Akihito Kondo, a school administrator, who fell in love years ago with Miku, a cyber-celebrity hologram. He has finally taken the plunge and married Miku in a lovely ceremony in front of 39 people.  Kondo seems radiantly happy and not at all confused.

Such a possibility was right in front of my nose all along: my anime hologram friends who watched me and I get drunk last night. One of them – Meto – is cute as a button and is always looking to snuggle and comfort others.  If she will have me, I will propose after a dignified waiting period, maybe an hour or so.

I will carry on as if loving her will be easier than anything I’ve ever done before.

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Distinguished author and sociologist Edward Curtin is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.

Finding that President Donald Trump became “increasingly unmoored from the truth in 2018,” the Washington Post reports that the president told lies to the American public at about three times the rate he did the previous year—when voters and the media were already expressing shock at the repeated false statements coming from the White House.

According to Glenn Kessler, author of the Post‘s Fact Checker column, during his “year of unprecedented deception,” Trump told an average of 15 lies per day in 2018, bringing the total number of documented lies since he took office in January 2017 to 7,645.

At the beginning of 2018, according to the paper’s tally, the president had told about 2,000 lies while in office.

“Trump began 2018 on a similar pace as last year,” reported Kessler. “Through May, he generally averaged about 200 to 250 false claims a month. But his rate suddenly exploded in June, when he topped 500 falsehoods, as he appeared to shift to campaign mode. He uttered almost 500 more in both July and August, almost 600 in September, more than 1,200 in October and almost 900 in November. In December, Trump drifted back to the mid-200s.”

The president’s rate of lying exploded around the time that his administration’s family separation policy provoked international outrage. The president made two of his biggest false claims of the year at that time, saying that the White House had not adopted a policy of separating families who cross the U.S.-Mexico border but was simply following existing laws passed by Congress.

“The American public deserves to know what our government has been thinking in terms of how to carry out these extremely devastating policies,” Emily Creighton of the American Immigration Council told The Intercept in September, after a Department of Homeland Security memo confirmed that the practice was indeed proposed and approved by the Trump administration.

Along with lies that affected the lives of thousands of families who were seeking asylum, Trump denied that he had imposed a significant number of tariffs, when he had actually introduced $305 billion in tariffs on numerous imports; fabricated a claim by the Palm Beach Post that he was to blame for traffic jams; lied about the number of attendees at his rallies; repeatedly lied that the suspect in a 2017 attack in New York in which eight pedestrians were killed by a pickup truck had brought two dozen relatives to the U.S. through family-based migration; and told thousands of other falsehoods.

On Twitter, Kessler’s Post colleague, Greg Sargent, wrote that Trump’s repeated lies must be understood as a coordinated disinformation campaign, not simply a collection of lies about various matters.

“Why does Trump lie *all the time* about *everything,* even the most trivial, easily disprovable matters?” Sargent wrote. “The frequency and the audacity of Trump’s disinformation is the *whole point* of it—to wear you down. More and more of the lies slip past, undetected and uncorrected.”

1) As Trump ends the year with a flood of lies about his wall, we need to recapture a core truth about this presidency.

Trump isn't “twisting the truth” or “stubbornly refusing to admit error.”

Trump is engaged in *disinformation.*

This is a different thing entirely.

*THREAD*

— Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) December 30, 2018

6) Once Trump’s lying is understood as concerted and deliberate disinformation, it becomes clear that the frequency and audacity of it is *the whole point.*

Those are features of the lying. They are central to declaring the power to say what reality is:https://t.co/6sh4mn4uBT pic.twitter.com/ueRKHwVGhP

— Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) December 30, 2018

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On 14 December, the Okinawa Defense Agency officially began reclamation work in preparation for the building of a massive US Marine Corps airbase at Henoko, in Northern Okinawa. I use the word “officially” advisedly: they announced it well in advance, with what could almost be called fanfare. The people opposing this base – the folks carrying out the six-day-a-week sit-in at the construction site and the dock where the ships are being loaded with dirt – call this “construction for show” (misekake koji). As they understand it, the Okinawa Defense Agency is trying to persuade them, and the Prefectural Government, that all is lost, that they should give up their protest and stay home, so that full-fledged construction can finally begin. And so at every turning point in their preparations the Agency stages a performance, a kind of ceremony, the not-so-hidden message of which is “now there is no turning back: resign yourselves to the inevitable and give up”.

Of course, the “performance” is doing serious damage: from the 14^th real dirt and crushed rock is really being dumped into real seawater of Henoko Bay. If the lawyers and the Prefectural officials are correct, this is also illegal – that is to say, criminal – behavior. But if the Defense Agency was expecting that 14 December would be the decisive turning point, which would cause the protesters to lapse into spiritless resignation – as they had hoped the November Governor’s election would be – they are in for another major disappointment.

I took the Shimagurumi Kaigi charter bus to Henoko twice just before the big day – Saturday December 8^th and Wednesday the 12^th – and again on the day itself, Friday the 14^th. Here I will report on some of the things that people were talking about, and in what spirit, on the bus and at the gate.

On Saturday the 8^th, when we arrived at Henoko we found that there were two big busloads, about 100 main island Japanese, visiting from the big All-Japan Prefectural and Municipal Workers’ Union (JICHIRO) in addition to the local anti-base activists. It was nice to see so many young people there; most of the regular sit-inners are retired folks. Oshiro Satoru – the number two person at the Peace Center next to Yamashiro Hiroji –was explaining things. The following is the gist of how he and others are defining the situation:

The Japanese Government had hoped to destroy the anti-base movement in the Governor’s election last month: if their candidate had been elected he would have given them all the permits they need to proceed with construction. But they lost by a 70,000-vote margin. Now they are hoping to defeat us in the Prefectural referendum in February. What they are doing now at the construction site is work they think they can do without permits from the Prefecture. Actually there are still many things they need to do that they can’t do without the prefecture’s cooperation. And they are taking a big risk dumping dirt into that area, because the seawall around it is only half the height necessary to retain it. When the Prefecture ordered them last week to stop loading dirt from the Ryukyu Cement property because they have no permit to do that, they started loading dirt from a different place.

The red line indicates the proposed sea wall, the interior of which is to be filled. At this time the sea wall indicated by K-1, K-2, K-3, K-4, N-3 and N-5 has been completed (that is, completed in the sense of connected; it still needs to be about twice that height above the water). These are all on the Henoko side of the peninsula. Oura Bay is on the other side, So far no sea wall construction has begun there. The area between N-3 and N-5 is where rocks and dirt are being dumped now. As it is surrounded by seawall, it’s possible, but not certain, that the fill will not leak through, or wash over, the sea wall. The narrow blue line indicates the boundary of the No Trespassing area. The dotted yellow lines indicate the location of the earthquake faults. The wide blue lines forming a “V” indicate the sites of the two proposed airstrips. The area where soft sea bottom has been discovered is around C-1, which places it directly below one of the airstrips. This photograph was kindly provided by Okuma Masanori, who took it using a drone.

The problem is that the dirt at that different place, or much of it, is Okinawan red earth, and there are laws against dumping that into the ocean. More precisely, they’re dumping it into a small area enclosed by seawall (4% of the total landfill volume) on the Henoko Bay side of the peninsula. On the Oura Bay side there is as yet no seawall nor, as far as we know, a feasible plan for building one. Their plan to build one of caissons (massive hollow blocks of concrete) was destroyed by the discovery that much of the sea bottom has the resilience of mayonnaise. But by filling this small area on the Henoko Bay side where the sea bottom is firm, they are hoping to make it look as though everything is proceeding on schedule. 

Engineering note: The “mayonnaise” label refers to soil with a resilience of, in engineering terms, an N-value of zero. This is determined by the Standard Penetration Test. In this straightforward test, a soil boring tube is placed vertically on the surface of the soil to be tested, and a slide hammer is dropped on to it from a height of 30 inches. The N-value is the number of blows required to drive the tube down twelve inches. The N-value of zero found in some areas of Oura Bay means that there no blows were needed; the tube went down twelve inches and more from its own weight. So it has about the resilience of mayonnaise. If you dove down and got a look at it, you’d probably call it slime. Needless to say, these tests were carried out by the Okinawa Defense Bureau, not the anti-base people, who have no access to the areas being tested.

One ship holds about 200 truckloads of fill. Assuming that one shipload a day, plus their fleet of dump trucks, succeeds in unloading at the site, it’s estimated that reclamation would still take five years. But before they begin reclamation on the Oura Bay side they have to build the sea wall there, and before they build the sea wall they have to figure out how to do that. The discovery that much of the sea bottom there is a 40-meter layer of slime has sent them back to the drawing boards. No one can say for sure how long it will take them to firm up the sea bottom (assuming it is possible) because no one knows by what method they will attempt that. One person at the gate said maybe they could do it by drilling “cores” in the sea bottom and filling each with sand. [Where the sea bottom is slime, I assume this would mean lowering huge concrete tubes into the muck, and as they sink, emptying out their interiors with a clamshell until they finally hit something solid, then dumping sand into the empty tubes.] That person estimated it would require 20,000 cores to do the job. Of course, none of this was in the original job description. But the Defense Bureau is not at that stage yet. The fact that they are still boring the sea bottom for soil samples means that, far from having found a solution, they haven’t yet got a clear idea of the problem.

Retired Engineer Okuma Masanori explained about the red dirt. Much of what the Defense Bureau is claiming to be crushed rock is in fact red dirt. Crushed rock or even sand will sink right to the bottom; red dirt, however, dissolves, becoming a spongy mess where it finally gets to the bottom and clouding the water where it doesn’t. It is very destructive of sea life, and Okinawa has strict laws to prevent it getting into the water. Okuma also reminded us that he is planning to bring in several seismologists to begin testing to determine scientifically the likelihood of there being an active fault beneath the site.

On Saturday the 8^th no dump truck attempted to enter the construction site.

Wednesday the 12^th. On the 9:00 AM bus there was the usual mood-making talk (these tour buses have microphones), laughter and singing (people say that uchinaaguchi is an almost-dead language, but it is always the jokes in uchinaaguchi that get the biggest laughs). Higa san, the woman who regularly coordinates the Wednesday buses, after venting her anger at the week’s events, announced (as she has done before), “I have quit being Japanese. I resign. I’m Uchinanchu.”

Chinen san (who claims to have taken this bus more than 700 times, always sits in the rearmost seat, and is a marvelous raconteur – the bus regulars call his raps “Chinen-bushi”) gave a long and impassioned explanation of why we must not/will not be discouraged. This teaches us something important, he said. We put everything we had into getting Tamaki Denny elected, he wins by a big margin, and they just ignore us. But no matter how much they bully us, we will never change. I’m going to keep up the fight until I drop. And I’m in this fight with the intention of winning. We are not going to lose the referendum – we have 70-80% against the base. I think that even if everything went well for them, finishing the base would still take them another 20 years. Anyway, the 14^th is the day the real fight begins! (For this last he got a big applause.)

At the gate Akamine Seiken (the head of the JCP’s Okinawa chapter, and Lower House Diet member elected from Okinawa) reported that the Government’s stubbornness and illegal behavior (including using red dirt) was beginning to anger Diet members who had up to now claimed to be neutral.

The big event at the gate that day was the return of Yamashiro Hiroji after spending some time in the hospital (someone told me it was for irregular heartbeats; friends were urging him not to get too excited). Among other things he said he was unhappy that Governor Tamaki was not exploiting all of the Defense Bureau’s illegalities that he could be using. “He needs to listen to Kitaueda (Tsuyoshi) san!” (the other retired engineer participating in the movement). Yamashiro and others talked about the ballooning cost estimates. The original estimate was 231 billion yen; the present estimate is 2.5 trillion yen, (22.12 billion dollars) an increase of ten times (from the audience a woman’s voice: “Twelve times! Twelve times!). And it’s estimated that half of the increase is for security (Hundreds of riot police are being put up not in barracks but in an expensive resort hotel near Henoko).

On Wednesday the 12^th, the regular three convoys of dump trucks made it into the construction site, being delayed the 20 or 25 minutes it took the riot police to haul the sit-inners away from the gate.

On Friday the 14^th – the day the Defense Bureau had announced as the day they would take the fateful step of actually beginning to dump landfill into the water – when I arrived at the bus stop in front of the Prefectural Office Building, people were lined up hoping to get on the 9:00 AM bus, which was filling rapidly. In the end 54 people were seated, what looked like a dozen people were left behind, and another dozen or so at the bus stop on the other side of town. (Some of these people probably got to Henoko in their own cars).

On the bus there were a number of people from mainland Japan, and as usual the mike was handed to them first so they could give self-introductions, which are always applauded. When we arrived at the construction gate where the sit-ins take place we found it was locked shut, and about a thousand people were sitting in front of it or standing across the street. It was clear that the Defense Bureau was not going to send any convoys that day. The widow of Onaga Takeshi, the deceased former Governor of Okinawa, was introduced; to my knowledge that was the first time she had participated in the sit-in. As usual, when the numbers are large and it is mostly the leaders who speak, the content is less interesting than when grass roots folk speak, as on the bus. But with no trucks coming, there was nothing to do but talk and sing. The 1950s/60s Okinawa reversion anthem was sung – more than once as I recall – with the Yamato Japanese singing it in the old way – “Give us back Okinawa” (“Okinawa wo kaese”) – and the Uchinanchu singing it with a slight alteration – “Give Okinawa back to Okinawa” (“Okinawa e kaese”).

After a while we moved from the construction gate to the main gate of Camp Schwab, chanting and singing, and stopped there. With that many people, this meant that the main gate was effectively closed. What happened next was interesting. It’s a rule of the movement that we block only construction vehicles, not private cars or even military trucks. Some of the movement leaders wanted to observe that rule, some of the grass roots sit-inners didn’t. The leaders slowly and gently urged people back to make a passage for vehicles entering and exiting. A small unit of riot policemen standing inside the base approached, stood on the other side of the yellow border line, and watched carefully to see how this would go. Most of the people moved back, grudgingly, but there were two men who wouldn’t. They stood just far enough ahead of the others to prevent a car from getting through. After watching this for some time, two riot police officers crossed the yellow line, walked over to the two resisters, and with talk and little nudges, tried to move them back. It took some time but after a while I guess the two decided they had done enough, and moved back. For better or for worse, a confrontation was avoided. (No, the riot policemen are not always that gentle. But the non-violent behavior of the sit-inners does have an effect on them.)

From there we moved down to the beach by Henoko Harbor, where there was a rally. Not much to report from that: the speakers were mainly political party representatives and elected officials, who speak mostly boilerplate. But these events are effective as a show of force, as each speaker represents an organization comprised of committed members, a fact from which sit-inners can take courage.

The conclusion I draw from these anecdotes – which I already stated at the beginning of this report – is that the Defense Bureau’s strategy of trying to persuade the Okinawans to “resign themselves to the inevitable” is not working. The bullying, rather than leading to spiritless disappointment, is generating spirited anger. They have seen through the Bureau’s strategy, and are arming themselves to thwart it. As one person on the bus put it, ”The day we resign ourselves, that’s the day we lose.”

Afterword: On the 15^th, the day after reclamation began, the neighborhood association of the area where I live had its year-end gathering (bonenkai). I’ve been to a lot of events like this, and as they are attended by people of all sorts of political persuasion, controversial subjects are never mentioned. But this year was an exception. Somehow Henoko got mentioned, and once the ice was broken, the party broke up into three or four knots of people talking about Henoko – most of them angrily. The young fellow sitting across from me told me that he worked on base, but that he voted for Tamaki Denny. Our neighbor who used to be head of the Okinawa Public Safety Commission which oversees the Riot Police, found herself on the defensive. All of this, in my experience anyway, unprecedented.

To quote a wise American philosopher, “It ain’t over ‘till it’s over.“

Postscript

On 22 December, the morning after this article was sent to APJ/Japan Focus, both of the Okinawan newspapers carried on their front pages a stunning piece of news, The Japanese government, by a decision of the Cabinet, had decided that the money allocated to the Okinawa Defense Bureau for the beginning of seawall construction in 2018 on Oura Bay has to be returned to the treasury, as no such work had been done. Moreover, no money has been allocated for that purpose in the 2019 budget. The government official reporting this was quoted as saying that it is impossible to say now when construction will begin, except that it will be “2020 or after”.So that’s an additional delay of two years at least. At the time of writing this postscript, Dec. 25, this has not been reported in any of the mainstream Japanese media, and nothing at all has been reported in English.

For seventeen years, Global Research, together with partner independent media organizations, has sought Truth in Media with a view to eventually “disarming” the corporate media’s disinformation crusade.

In 2019, we call upon our readers to participate in an important endeavor.

Our objective is to recruit one thousand committed “volunteers” among our 50,000 Newsletter subscribers to support the distribution of Global Research articles (email lists, social media, crossposts). 

Do not send us money. Under Plan A, we call upon our readers to donate 5 minutes a day to Global Research.

Global Research Volunteer Members can contact us at [email protected] for consultations and guidelines.

If, however, you are pressed for time in the course of a busy day, consider Plan B, Consider Making a Donation and/or becoming a Global Research Member. 

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The New Year Past and Future. Multiple Wars, Coups, Sanctions and Trade Disputes

By Prof. James Petras, January 02, 2019

Multiple wars, coups, sanctions and trade disputes dominated the US political agenda.  War budgets grew, military sales increased and frictions between the US and Saudi Arabia bubbled to the surface . . . and dissipated.

The Decade-Long U.S. Campaign to Foment Syria’s “Revolution” and Unseat Assad

By Sarah Abed, January 02, 2019

The fingerprints of U.S. imperialism can be found all over the manufactured insurrection in Syria, in keeping with the ultimate goal of destabilization and eventual “regime change”  through fomenting a sectarian civil war. Former NATO commander Wesley Clark has gone on record as stating that Syria was on a list of targeted nations to be toppled by the U.S. as early as 2001.

President Trump’s Lawyer Rudy Giuliani Says Do Not Prosecute Julian Assange

By Adam Dick, January 02, 2019

Giuliani’s reasoning in the interview is similar to the reasoning New York Times Deputy General Counsel David McCraw offered when he told judges at the US Ninth Circuit’s annual judicial conference in July that he thought Assange is “sort of in a classic publisher’s position” and that “the law would have a very hard time drawing a distinction between The New York Times and WikiLeaks.”

“Liberals” and “Progressives” Resist Ending America’s Wars

By Philip Giraldi, January 02, 2019

Getting out of Syria and hopefully eventually Afghanistan is the best thing that Trump has done for America so far, if he has the guts to actually do it. Both are wars that were unnecessary from day one and are now unwinnable in any real way.

The U.S. Is on the Side of Terrorists and War Criminals in Yemen

By Daniel Larison, January 02, 2019

The Saudi coalition’s cooperation with and support for members of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has been an open secret for many years.

The 60th Anniversary of the Cuban Revolution: An Unprecedented Chapter in World History

By Dr. Birsen Filip, January 01, 2019

In the period between the conclusion of the Spanish-American War in 1898 and the victory of the Cuban Revolution in 1959, the US exercised imperial power over Cuba, exploiting its natural and human resources, and dictating its domestic and foreign policies.

Syria: The Quest for Truth and Peace in the New Year

By Mark Taliano, December 31, 2018

Canadians are being victimized by criminal war propaganda. War with Syria, (Russia, China etc.) IS NOT serving our interests. Politicians who demonize these countries, and support “regime change” wars of aggression, do not represent our interests.

‘War on Terror’ Has Left Millions Dead Across the Middle East

By Shane Quinn, December 31, 2018

A rough estimate of four million Muslims have died as a result of US-led wars in the Middle East – dating to the early 1990s Gulf War against Iraq. The Gulf War was waged by the US, with France, Britain and Saudi Arabia providing welcome support.

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Introduction

The evolving US-China trade war, which reached a dangerous level of US tariffs being imposed on $200 billion worth of imports from China, has been holding center stage in international relations discussions in 2018. But Beijing’s tit-for-tat response to the US is far from the only strategic weapon it has been deploying. What is less discussed in the context of the US-China strategic conflict, and is arguably of greater significance, is Beijing’s Belt & Road Initiative (BRI), which encompasses projects involving over 70 countries and counting (in Eurasia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, Africa and now in Latin America), in infrastructure projects worth more than $1 trillion and counting. Strategically the BRI draws countries into China’s orbit, through the building of infrastructure financed through loans from Chinese and China-promoted banks.¹ The initiative is now just on five years old and already encompasses countries that account for half the world’s economic activity. These countries now form the world’s largest trade and investment area. The BRI has come in for much criticism, with articles in both the Financial Times and the New York Times among others querying its long-term viability.² By contrast, an evaluation published by The Economist provides a balanced account of the BRI and its prospects, while pointing to some clear sources of concern (that will be elaborated below).³

The US Congress recognized the significance of the BRI’s five-year milestone by staging Senate hearings on the initiative – the first by the US legislature on this significant foreign policy challenge to the US. Leading scholars advanced testimony at these hearings of the Congressional US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (staged on Jan 25 2018) providing a summary and analysis of the progress achieved in the first five years of the initiative.⁴ Most commentary on the Belt & Road Initiative recognizes the grandeur of the vision and the scale of its execution, but also the challenges it poses for other great powers, in particular the United States.⁵ But there is also much critical commentary, mainly focused on the issue as to whether countries engaging in BRI projects are entering “debt traps” or, even worse, whether they are setting themselves up to become constituent parts of an emerging Chinese empire.

One recent commentary from the Washington, DC-based Center for Global Development, identifies eight developing countries (all relatively weak or marginal players, apart from Pakistan) that are said to be in particular danger of falling into debt arrears – these countries being Djibouti, Kyrgistan, Laos, the Maldives, Mongolia, Montenegro, Tajikistan and Pakistan.⁶ The eight include small countries that have long wished for closer relations with China, like Tajikistan and others that are buttressed by very large and substantial commitments on the part of China, such as Pakistan. The issues raised are substantial and call for some engagement. The case of Sri Lanka raises particular concerns, with its transfer to China of ownership of the Hambantota port as Sri Lanka was unable to meet debt repayments on the project.⁷ This and other projects deserve scrutiny.

This article provides an assessment of the design and implementation of the BRI, recognizing it as an important extension abroad of China’s development model, and viewing it as an important element of China’s soft power complement to its growing hard power military development, before addressing the issue as to whether it represents a series of “debt traps” for the countries involved.⁸ I begin by seeking to understand the BRI from the perspective of Chinese planners– what is it aiming for, how is it going about achieving these aims, and what expertise and resources is it bringing to the task? How does the Belt and Road Initiative build on, and affect, China’s own development strategy, in particular the balance between debt-fuelled infrastructure development and strategic industry development? This provides the context for asking what are the risks being run by the countries that are signing up for involvement with the BRI – as well as the risks being run by China itself.

It is widely recognized that China has brought about a far-reaching urbanization and industrialization on its own soil, in the 40 years since Deng Xiaoping ushered in the “reform and opening” period after 1978. In decade after decade of unprecedented growth, averaging close to 10% per annum, China built cities and laid down infrastructure at a scale never before attempted, or accomplished, by any developing country. China’s strategy of state-led growth, with the Chinese Communist Party firmly in control, and state-owned enterprises leading the way, initially at home and then increasingly abroad, has established a new norm for development that is attracting great interest from other developing countries in South, Southeast and Central Asia, Africa, and Latin America, many of whom had been struggling under the weight of the nostrums of the World Bank and IMF and the “Washington Consensus”. Central to China’s performance has been its rapid build-up in export earnings and foreign exchange reserves, which have enabled its policy banks like the China Development Bank (CDB) and Export-Import Bank (China Exim Bank) to provide Chinese firms with long lines of credit as they venture abroad. This has reinforced their position in international competition and most recently has enabled Chinese firms to gain positions of leadership in emerging sectors such as electronics, renewable energy and electric vehicles, widely viewed as strategic industries for the future.

The BRI now proposes to achieve similarly impressive results outside China, exporting China’s model of infrastructure-led development and providing Chinese-led finance as the driver. Funds are being channelled by the 70-plus participating countries into such projects as building bridges, railways, pipelines, hydroelectric dams, highways, power grids, with Chinese banks as well as new multilateral development banks such as the China-sponsored Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and the BRICS New Development Bank (NDB) providing the majority of funding.⁹ Here China is providing finance via lines of credit created by these financial institutions, in the same way that it has financed its own domestic development. The difference this time, of course, is that the Chinese State and Chinese Communist Party are not able to control the process directly, as was possible in the domestic setting.¹⁰ The New York Times characterized the BRI as a “modern-day version of the Marshall Plan, America’s reconstruction effort after World War II” – except that China’s strategy is “bolder, more expensive and far riskier”.¹¹

In this article I seek to characterize the model of state-led development pursued by China as prelude to discussing its internationalization as the New Silk Roads strategy, or “Belt and Road Initiative”.¹² How are we to characterize this expansion of China’s influence across its neighboring countries and now extending globally, e.g. to Latin America and Africa? China’s expansion poses unique issues since its rise is clearly backed by hegemonic ambitions, at least within its own region. In the case of China’s BRI there is the persuasive power of finance (provided by the Chinese policy banks like CDB and China Exim Bank and the new multilateral banks like AIIB or NDB) backed by non-financial elements of Chinese diplomacy – such as student scholarships offered abroad, or the efforts of the Confucius Institutes to promote Chinese culture.¹³

Finance of course can be very persuasive. Countries accepting Chinese largesse could be making well-informed decisions with a view to building their infrastructure as basis for growing their output and exports – or they could be lured into making short-sighted or ill-advised judgments that can end in some form of ‘debt bondage’ (or locked into projects that might have little relevance to the country concerned, and might be mere vanity projects for a country’s ruler). Countries with records of political unrest and terrorism might find China taking steps to secure its own companies’ operations and personnel, in ways that might seem to contradict China’s expressed principle of non-interference in others’ affairs. China’s interests are generally well protected since the loans advanced are frequently tied to contracting with Chinese firms for construction, and they frequently employ Chinese suppliers and labor. The BRI is a pragmatic initiative and must be viewed through the lens of China’s own developmental ambitions; it is far from being merely a charitable exercise.

The name BRI

Like other commentators (e.g. Leverett and Wu 2016) I will refer to China’s grand strategy that is officially known as “Belt and Road Initiative” as its New Silk Roads strategy. Indeed, as announced by President Xi Jinping in 2013, the Initiative consists of two components, one the land-based Silk Road Economic Belt, and one the sea-based 21^st Century Maritime Silk Road. These became integrated as the “One Belt One Road” strategy and now, officially, as the “Belt and Road Initiative”.¹⁴ It makes abundant sense to call this what it really is – namely a New Silk Roads strategy, or initiative – with the proviso that its geographic scope now extends far beyond what was historically called the “Silk Road”.

This is the story that China is now telling the world to boost its soft power. It is carefully and astutely crafted to take advantage of moves by the US as the current hegemon. When the US announced its “pivot to Asia” under the Obama Administration, this spelt intensified US focus on the Pacific – and so China’s BRI has turned westward, to Central Asia (where the US is largely absent), the Middle East (West Asia) and Africa.¹⁵ China has found ready acceptance of its influence in the “-stan” countries, with its provision of financing and technical expertise to support construction of pipelines, roads, railways and high-speed rail (HSR), dry ports and airports, hydroelectric dams, which both improve communications between China and the region (and beyond, to Europe) and provide unparalleled opportunities for development for the countries concerned. This is emerging as one of the central features of US-China “great power rivalry”.¹⁶

The infrastructure proposals under BRI

The land-based corridors bundled together as the Silk Road Economic Belt cover a variety of routes. There is a “northern” route, going from western China via Xinjiang province through Kazakhstan and Russia to western Europe; and a “southern” route again leading from Xinjiang through the Central Asian countries Kyrgistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, via Iran and Turkey, into southern Europe. The complementary sea routes are called the 21^st Century Maritime Silk Road, expanding sea-based commerce between China and Southeast Asia, South Asia (e.g. Sri Lanka and Pakistan) and Africa, in ways that diminish China’s reliance on the Malacca Strait between Singapore and Malaysia, and the more southerly Sunda Strait and Lombok Strait (Fig. 1). A “Polar Silk Road” traversing the Arctic, was added in 2018.¹⁷ But enumerating all the corridors is not all that significant since it is by now clear that the scope of the project is global, with new projects in South America and Africa being signed up in 2017/2018.¹⁸ So already the BRI has moved beyond a “westward” or “Go West” initiative to encompass global ambitions to assist countries in securing financial assistance from China in building local infrastructure (via trade and investment as well as traditional aid activities).

Figure 1. The Belt and Road Initiative – land corridors and sea lanes (Source: Wikimedia)

There are in fact six economic corridors making up the land-based Silk Road Economic Belt. The land corridors include the New Eurasian land Bridge, encompassing many new rail connections across Eurasia; the China-Mongolia-Russia corridor (a north-south connection); the China Central Asia-West Asia corridor; the China-Indochina Peninsula Corridor; the Bangladesh-China-Myanmar corridor; and the most ambitious of all, the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. The largest and most ambitious of these is the CPEC, which promises to make Pakistan a long-term partner of China with clear benefits for Pakistan itself in terms of its own industrialization and development, and for China in the form of development that promises to stabilize the political situation in Pakistan and ease its fostering of radical Islamist terrorist initiatives. (Note how this counters the Soviet and later Russian tilt towards India.) The CPEC encompasses proposals that together amount to approximately $62 billion in transport, power and infrastructure projects. Notably the CPEC also counts a strategic port in the western tip of Pakistan, bordering on the Arabian Sea, at Gwadar.

Gwadar and Hambantota

Two port developments in Pakistan and Sri Lanka illustrate some of the positives and clear negatives in the BRI. Gwadar is a port at the western extremity of Pakistan, bordering on the Arabian Sea and linked to Kunming in southwest China by rail, road and pipeline projects that are viewed as part of the China Pakistan Economic Corridor. The contract to expand the port of Gwadar has been won by the China Overseas Port Holding Company (COPHC). The whole project involves not just the port but an associated Export Processing Zone as well as road and rail projects and an international airport. It is thus a project to which China attaches great significance, and which potentially holds great promise for Pakistan. So far it has evaded “debt trap” implications, but these remain at the forefront of international concern.

The Hambantota port has been open since 2010, but facing debt distress the Sri Lankan government made a debt-for equity swap, extending a 99-year lease to the Chinese state-owned company China Merchants Ports (CMP), for a price of $1.3 billion.¹⁹ After incurring heavy losses, a debt-for-equity swap was proposed in 2016, granting the China state-owned port operator CMP, an 80% stake in the company, in return for guarantees that it would make substantial investments to make the port profitable (totalling $1.12 billion in a public-private investment structure, and divesting 20% to a local Sri Lankan company within ten years. In July 2017 a settlement was reached leasing 70% of the port to CMP rather than the proposed 80% for a 99-year leasing period.²⁰ So this is a case where a Sri Lankan government overstretched itself and ended in debt arrears to China – a situation that had to be remedied (in a fashion) by a subsequent Sri Lankan government through an arrangement with its Chinese counterpart.²¹ Of course India is disturbed by these developments because it is embroiled in security disputes with both Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Gwadar is probably more important from both China’s and India’s perspective because of the overland links it offers (rail, road, pipelines) between the port and western regions of China.

Fig. 2. Chinese port projects as part of the BRI (Source: C4ADS report²²⁾

The Hambantota port in Sri Lanka and the Gwadar port in Pakistan, bordering on the Arabian Sea, are clearly two of the “string of pearls” that China has been sowing along the 21^st Century Maritime Silk Road. (See Fig. 2, a chart taken from C4ADS report, May 2018.²³) There are ample reasons for China to want to have a measure of control over these developments. In the case of Gwadar the new port and the associated communication routes from southwestern China open up possibilities for oil to be brought direct to China overland or via pipeline. In complementary fashion, exports from southwest China are to be shipped out via this Indian Ocean port rather than from the east coast of China and the extended sea lanes that go to Europe, South America and Africa.²⁴ These are all attractive in geopolitical terms. In this way the BRI initiative involving Gwadar can be seen to encompass China’s geopolitical interests complementing the transport and economic interests served by the port. China has accepted proposals from the relevant governments but refused to make the conditions of the loans public or to make the tendering processes transparent – which leads to well justified suspicion that these processes have something to hide.²⁵

The international political economy of China’s rise

What light does International Relations theory shed on the BRI and looming China-US power relations? The influential US international relations theorist John Mearsheimer deploys his framework of “offensive realism” to argue from the historical record that China is likely to be imitating in the 21^st century what the US did in the 20^th century. The US rose to become a regional hegemon in the western hemisphere in the 20^th century and then forcibly kept other states from becoming hegemons themselves – first Imperial Germany, then Nazi Germany, then Imperial Japan and then the Soviet Union. Mearsheimer argues that this is what the US actually did – despite its liberal rhetoric. He argues that China has understandable aspirations to be a Great Power – and that this will lead it to seek to become a regional hegemon in Asia, which will be its base from which it will be able to roam the world, just as the US roams the world today because it is secure in the western hemisphere. Mearsheimer argues that China has been a smart player in seeking to reassure everyone – and in particular the US – that its rise is peaceful (while if its reassurances on this point have less credibility, even under Obama, and certainly under Trump).

Mearsheimer most recently argues (in conversation with Peter Navarro, a leading China hawk in the Trump administration²⁶) that the Chinese understand full well what happened to Imperial Germany, then what happened to the Soviet Union – and they do not want to end up committing national suicide. So the Chinese are thinking how best to maximize their power in smart and sophisticated ways. Mearsheimer’s argument is that, given the “tragedy of Great Power politics”, the Chinese are likely to pursue regional hegemony but do so in a smart way, without disturbing or antagonizing their neighbors or the US. He sees China as being only moderately successful in this (a bit too trigger-happy over islands in the South China Sea, and perhaps provoking the US into a tariff/trade war).²⁷

The BRI – or more generally, the New Silk Road (NSR) strategy – is a smart and sophisticated strategy of this kind. It enhances China’s economic power and brings a number of countries into China’s economic orbit, without deliberately antagonizing or threatening the US in doing so. The hegemonic ambitions of both the US and China (as recognized by realists like Mearsheimer) play out in a multi-faceted relationship, which gives rise to open conflict at times (such as in the current trade war) but has further implications such as in the negotiations over North Korea, a Korean War peace treaty, and nuclear weapons control, and much else besides. Without involving the cumbersome machinery of a treaty, or a new international organization, the NSR strategy aligns dozens of countries with China in a common quest for improved communications infrastructure development while seeking to leave US interests nominally intact.

Joseph Nye also uses an alternative concept of “soft power” – which was developed to explain the capacity of the US to maintain its global dominance through aligning interests with allies and at the same time seeking to crush military rivals. Now Nye uses the same concept as a means of evaluating China’s strategy, and why it has been so far successful in moderating international reaction to its rise. Nye too argues that countries deploy both “hard” and “soft power” but that they increasingly do so in a smart way – what he calls “smart power”.²⁸ In this context, China’s BRI is an interesting case of a country seeking to enhance its “smart power” – but meeting determined resistance from the incumbent – in this case the US with Trump’s trade war initiatives.²⁹

The security dilemma – and how China is moderating it

The field of international relations certainly has its share of sweeping theories – like “offensive realism” and “soft power”. But a nuanced approach is also perfectly feasible to moderate the sweeping claims of structural realism – as in the case of the theory of the “security dilemma”. This theory holds that structural realism explains much of the endless search for security on the part of nation states – but it is focused on the case where “one state’s efforts to increase its own security reduces the security of others” (as elaborated in Foreign Affairs by Charles Glaser).³⁰ If states in an anarchic international system face a strong security dilemma, then actions taken to enhance their own security could and probably will be viewed as hostile acts by other states.

But if the security dilemma can be moderated, then states face less chance of their security-enhancing actions being misinterpreted by other states. This is, I suggest, the case of China’s Silk Roads initiatives. This initiative is one of creating a community of states that have common interests in the building of infrastructure with China’s financial assistance – perhaps the central feature of the Belt and Road Initiative. Provided China does not mis-manage the consequences of states falling into debt arrears, the multiple projects promise benefits for China as well as decidedly for the countries concerned. If China were to demonstrate creditor restraint, and not threaten to acquire assets where repayments have fallen into arrears, there would be little provocation of other states or a fear of neo-imperial aggrandizement. But if on the other hand China views indebtedness as a “debt trap” leading at the first opportunity to a conversion of debt to equity, with assets passing into the hands of Chinese state-owned enterprises, then other states would be justifiably alarmed at China’s aggrandizing intentions, and the speed at which the transition is taking place. It remains to be seen how China will handle these issues.

The international relations and international political economy lens is focused on great power relations, but to really comprehend the magnitude of the New Silk Roads strategy we have to bring the funding mechanisms into clear focus, and in particular the role played by debt, or the credit supplied by China’s policy banks.³¹

Debt — and the New Silk Roads strategy

What are the credit arrangements provided by China to neighboring countries as part of the BRI, and what is the record so far with the debts created? There have been some high-profile cases of assets involving repayment arrears where debt has been converted to equity. The cases of Pakistan, with the Gwadar port, and Sri Lanka with the Hambantota port, are signal instances. This is the downside.

But there have also been cases where China has demonstrated restraint. According to a recent report from Nomura, China extended debt relief to 28 out of 31 of the most heavily indebted countries in the world – and totally cancelled the debts owing in the cases of Afghanistan, Guinea and Burundi.³² China continues to handle these incidents on a case-by-case basis – but the flexibility and tolerance shown in many cases is surely important. An historical example is relevant. China’s approach is conducted in more or less the same way that Rome used to handle cases over 2000 years ago, refusing to generalize solutions found in one case to others. Scholars have argued that this pragmatic approach was one of the factors involved in the seemingly unstoppable rise of Rome. This latitude of flexibility of course favors China with its large trade surplus – and China continues to go its own way in terms and conditions imposed as part of its lending activities. (Efforts to bring it into line with groups of creditor countries recognizing common rules and procedures, such as the Paris Club of creditor countries, have so far been unavailing.)³³

Senior Chinese officials in finance have expressed concerns regarding this somewhat loose approach being taken by Chinese financial institutions (i.e. not being tough enough with creditors). The former governor of the People’s Bank of China (PBoC), the central bank, has framed the discussion in terms of the scale of the anticipated lending. He sees investment demand in the Asia Pacific region as totalling around US$500 billion each year – with government-backed funding being able to cover $200 billion, leaving $300 billion for the private sector to cover. In the case of the BRI the investment gap would be more like $600 billion per year. So far Chinese banks have invested $200 billion in loans to 2600 BRI projects.³⁴ New institutions like the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and the BRICS bank, the New Development Bank, along with entities like the Silk Road Fund, are all pouring funds into BRI projects – with implications that remain to be analyzed.³⁵

Prominent critiques like that mounted by the Center for Global Development (Hurley et al. 2017) turn on somewhat arbitrary criteria for defining a “debt trap”. The CGD report identifies 23 countries involved in BRI projects which appear to be at risk of debt distress; it then constructs a lending pipeline for each project; and on the basis of this chooses eight countries as being vulnerable to debt arrears problems. But the theory behind this methodology is based on analyses of countries that have gone into default, or IMF analyses of sovereign debt risk – not on analyses of China’s own development experience involving the power of debt. So it is only sensible to examine China’s experience of debt-fuelled infrastructure development as prelude to examining the methodology of the BRI.

Theory underpinning BRI: China’s evolving development strategy

Before discussing the significance of the debt provisions of the various projects bundled together as the Belt & Road Initiative, we must examine the state-led development model that China has pursued, and the role played by policy development banks in the process such as the China Development Bank (CDB). China has risen to prominence in the wake of the prior success of other East Asian countries, starting with Japan in the 1960s and 1970s, followed by that of South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore in the 1970s and 1980s (the East Asian Tigers). Debate over the source of their success has been sharp, culminating in the contested conclusions of the World Bank study published in 1997 as “The East Asian Miracle”.³⁶ Of course the key to these East Asian successes was the role played by the state – in this case, following the terminological innovation of Chalmers Johnson, the “developmental state”. But China is no mere extrapolation of the developmental states and their strategies pioneered by Japan, Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan.³⁷

For a start China is a very large country, and its central state has relations mainly with provincial governments and not directly with China’s businesses or citizens (while acknowledging that China’s state banks provide such a link and dominate lending to business). If anything, China may be conceptualized as having a coordinated portfolio of “developmental states” operating at the provincial level, many of which are comparable in size and scale to the national developmental states that emerged in East Asia (specifically, Korea, Taiwan, Singapore et al). Secondly China has a very large domestic market which it has been able to use to great effect in attracting foreign direct investment and in some cases imposing the requirement of technology transfer, particularly via joint ventures, in a way that was not feasible for the earlier and developmental states of East Asia.³⁸ Thirdly China has not been content to pursue simply the goal of “catch-up” as was practised initially by the earlier East Asian developmental states, but it has explicitly stated its goal of leapfrogging to the technological lead, particularly in areas judged to be strategic industries of the future such as robotics, artificial intelligence and pharmaceuticals (known as Industry 4.0 after the nomenclature favoured by the World Economic Forum) and green industries such as renewable energy, batteries and electric vehicles.

Recent analysis of China’s evolution from “imitation” to “innovation” by China specialists indicates that China is moving towards higher productivity and higher levels of innovation – as measured for example by patent filings.³⁹ There seems little likelihood that China will find itself thwarted by the so-called “Middle-Income Trap” where a rising country finds itself unable to break into higher levels of productivity and innovation. But the aspect of development that does not appear to be given sufficient emphasis in these analyses is the question of debt.

The role played by debt in China’s development strategy looms larger than in earlier East Asian developmental states. This is closely linked to the fact that China’s modernization and industrialization have been strongly associated with urbanization, to an extent that dwarfs the challenges faced by earlier industrializers. Debt-fuelled and state-driven urbanization has been the signature of China’s development – as now transferred across to an international and global setting in the form of the New Silk Roads strategy.⁴⁰ Urbanization in China has involved a central focus on the building of infrastructure – at a scale and pace that makes China an outlier amongst developing countries, even granting that infrastructure building was an important component of development strategy in East Asian countries like Korea and Taiwan. China is now one of the world leaders in the building of new cities and the rail and road transportation projects that link them.

China’s debt-driven infrastructure development of recent decades finds its theoretical counterpart in the theory of growth in urban land values that can be captured by public authorities for investment in infrastructure. This process, driven by state-owned development banks like the China Development Bank, seems to be one important engine of China’s debt-driven domestic infrastructure development. The scholarly consensus in China’s case is that this pattern of development has been pursued as a high priority, with emphasis on the role played by local and provincial governments in driving their own local growth metrics. The scholarly literature has focused on the impact of local debt build-up and its potential long-term consequences.⁴¹

While China has fashioned this combination in its own domestic setting, the BRI represents a colossal project to apply the same theory in an international setting, where it is not the Chinese state driving the process in its own domestic setting but China financing a process that spans multiple national jurisdictions. Never has an international project been attempted before at such scale. The risks are enormous – as are the potential rewards both for China’s status as an international leader and the development fillip the projects promise to give the participating industrializing countries.

In China urban developments have been based on the creation of local government financing vehicles (LGFVs) which capture improved values in land acquired at agricultural rates. Development banks like the China Development Bank have led this process, setting up the LGFVs which acquire land at agricultural prices in their local government area and then sell it to developers, utilizing the profits to finance infrastructure building.⁴² This is basically how China has been able to urbanize and industrialize at such a rapid rate over the past several decades. It was the CDB under its governor Chen Yuan that developed the theory and practice underpinning this process – with its dual emphasis on privatization of public assets and debt-driven development.⁴³

A central theoretical strand that underpins the BRI is this idea of debt-driven development – a process of universal significance and recognition in both public and private sectors. It is widely recognized in business that an underperforming asset can be transformed into a high-performing asset and source of profit by making a capital investment that improves the asset, financed by debt. From the perspective of the lender, the collateral for the loan is the future profits to be achieved by the activities that make use of the improved asset. From the perspective of the borrower, the asset is turned into a source of profit by the investment that is financed by the debt. The debt fuels growth, which generates profits. This is how smart businesses view the process of growth and investment, and why smart businesses always carry some debt on their balance sheets.

In the case of the CDB and Chinese industrial development, it has been the CDB and its capacity to provide long credit lines that has helped to turn Chinese firms like Huawei and ZTE into international champions – complementing their clear strategies of shifting rapidly to innovation and capability enhancement. Huawei was able to move into international competition in the 21^st century backed by a line of credit from the CDB of $30 billion, while ZTE was likewise backed by a line of credit of $15 billion. The CDB was able to create these impressive lines of credit by issuing bonds on the China and international markets, backed by its state-owned status that meant that the bonds carried low risk because of their quasi sovereign security status.⁴⁴

Development banks are policy banks, usually state-owned, that direct their activities towards achieving policy goals of growth and development. There are national DBs, some of which grow to be very large like the China Development Bank (CDB) and the Brazilian Development Bank (BNDeS); and there are multilateral development banks, led by institutions like the World Bank, the European Investment Bank (EIB), the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the new banks created by China and others to accompany and complement the Belt and Road Initiative, namely the BRICS-based New Development Bank (NDB) and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). All these institutions are able to mobilize finance for infrastructure development.⁴⁵

So, China and its leading policy banks like the CDB and China Exim Bank have long experience of utilizing debt as the fuel that drives growth and future profits. It would be perverse to view a smart company formulating a business strategy to invade a new business segment, where the invasion is to be financed by debt, with the intent of repaying the loan in terms of capital and interest through the profits thereby earned, as entering a “debt trap”. Such “debt traps” abound in capitalism for the very good reason that this is how entrepreneurial firms can challenge incumbent firms to create new surges of business development. Schumpeter explained how such debt places these entrepreneurial firms on a ”level playing field” with large, established firms, allowing the smaller firms to creatively destroy the older, established firms and make way for the new.⁴⁶

Now in the case of the BRI, all this experience by China and the CDB in a domestic setting, or in the international setting where the CDB is promoting and assisting Chinese firms in ‘going out’ into international competition, is being put to use in a completely new foreign setting. In place of the Chinese state managing the process in its own domestic arena, it is China and its lending institutions seeking to influence the behavior of 60-plus foreign governments and guiding the process of development through arms-length financing, again either through the CDB or through new multilateral development banks like the AIIB or the new BRICs development bank, the New Development Bank (NDB), launched in July 2014 with initial capital of $100 billion.⁴⁷

In the case of the BRI China is entrusting investment funds to projects that are under the ultimate control of national governments that have their own agendas as well as seeking to work on positive terms with China. Chinese financing executed through the CDB and China Exim Bank will of course carry provisos like the requirement that Chinese firms be involved in carrying out a certain proportion of contractual works, such as engineering for high-speed rail projects or the building of bridges, or pipelines or hydroelectric dams. In his new study High-Speed Empire, journalist Will Doig provides on the ground reportage from Southeast Asia on how this process of mutual advantage unfolds, in the context of the long-discussed Pan-Asia Railway – where decisions do not always go China’s way, as in the recent roll-back of Chinese loans taken by the new Malaysian government and the more cautious approach being taken to Chinese loans by the Myanmar government.⁴⁸

The link with industrial strategy: The BRI as an outlet for China’s excess capacity

There are many strategic goals that can be viewed as being fulfilled by the BRI. One aspect of the BRI that has attracted international comment is the potential for China to extend and elaborate on strategic industrial goals by linking them to the BRI. Take the case where overseas projects may be viewed as providing an outlet for excess capacity being experienced in China’s domestic market. During China’s own industrialization (from the period of US-China opening in the 1970s), it was the beneficiary of export of industrial capacity from advanced countries like Germany or Japan, which saw it in their interest to offload factories and manufacturing equipment that had become surplus to requirements. Now the Chinese can see the potential for behaving in the same way where the recipients of its excess manufacturing capacity could be in Southeast Asia or Central Asia, via projects brought under the umbrella of the BRI (and involving the export not just, e.g. of steel, but of steel mills).⁴⁹

China’s State Council, for example, has identified the BRI as a means through which the domestic steel industry may “export” excess capacity, while enhancing its international competitiveness. One means through which this economic strategic goal may be accomplished is through the supply of steel for new railroads to be constructed under the BRI.⁵⁰ In line with the State Council’s directive, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has identified 20,000 km of new railroads to be constructed under the BRI, potentially creating export demand for 85 million tons of Chinese produced steel. At the same time, the MIIT views BRI as a means of diversifying exports to countries like Vietnam, Turkey, Iran and Saudi Arabia. China’s Premier Li Keqiang is on the record as stating that a main objective of the government is to reduce industrial over-capacity through promotion of the BRI.⁵¹

The export of surplus capacity is one aspect of China’s industrial strategy where the BRI can be viewed as providing complementary projects at an international level, consistent with the goal to globalize China’s industries. More ambitiously, BRI projects can be viewed as providing opportunities for the export of Chinese technology, know-how, and standards. High-speed rail projects are the exemplary cases of such a strategy, where China has poured huge efforts into securing technology from the EU and Japan and is now bidding hard, via the BRI, for HSR projects such as the Djakarta to Bandung railway in Indonesia. China fought hard against Japan to win this contract from the Indonesian government, and while it is likely to lose money on the deal, it is viewed in Beijing as an opportunity to extend Chinese technology and standards into the international domain and win good will, via the BRI. It is not without merit to describe China’s BRI strategy as one involving the quest to capture not just overseas markets, but overseas supply chains themselves.⁵²

Monetary dimensions of BRI: One Belt, One Road, One Trade Area, One Currency

An important Chinese aim for the BRI as well as the associated financial institutions, the BRICS New Development Bank (NDB) and the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), is to promote the use of the Chinese currency (yuan, or RMB) as a vehicle of trade. It has long been a strategic goal of China to internationalize the yuan, but the trading volumes have worked against this in the past, as well as the limited convertibility of the RMB. Now with the BRI the conditions for internationalization are more favorable. The countries aligned with China through the BRI form a significant monetary bloc, and many already accept the yuan as payment for commodities supplied to China, and as means of payment for goods supplied from China.⁵² In Pakistan with its large China Pakistan Economic Corridor the yuan is already the dominant currency held by the central bank in its reserves. At the end of June 2018, the cumulative total of China’s commodity trade with countries aligned with the BRI reached the equivalent of US$5 trillion – with the yuan being the primary vehicle for this enormous trade volume.⁵⁴ According to the HSBC, the BRI is likely to add an extra $2.5 trillion in new trade internationally each year.⁵⁵

A significant boost to the internationalization of the yuan has been its use in trade in oil, with countries like Russia, Iran (China’s two most important oil suppliers) and Venezuela already accepting the yuan in payment for oil deliveries, and China making the yuan more attractive by ensuring that it is fully convertible into gold on the Shanghai and Hong Kong markets. There is wide speculation that Saudi Arabia will be induced to follow suit, ensuring that a significant proportion of global trade in oil is conducted not in the US dollar but in Chinese yuan. These moves are complemented by China’s issuing a futures contract for oil on the Shanghai International Energy Exchange, which has been trading in significant volumes since its launch on March 26, 2018. In their first four months of trading these futures contracts (by the end of July) had reached a cumulative total of 3.67 trillion yuan (equivalent of US$538 billion) in transaction value. It is widely anticipated that this futures contract will provide a yuan-denominated crude oil benchmark that rivals the Brent and West Texas Intermediate (WTI) current benchmarks that are traded principally in London and New York.⁵⁶

BRI trade and investment conducted in yuan promises to promote Chinese soft power while serving as a means for countries to evade US sanctions. Both Russia and Iran are selling oil to China and accepting payment in yuan, as a response to sanctions imposed on these countries by the US. China also views the emergence of yuan-denominated oil contracts as a means for Chinese companies to buy oil and gas in their own currency, thereby avoiding exposure to foreign currency fluctuations. Given that China is now the world’s largest oil importer, these initiatives frame the emergence of a multipolar world with a significant role played by a yuan currency area.

More generally, China is looking to utilize the BRI as a means of promoting trade between itself and countries that sign up for BRI projects – thus enhancing trade within a newly emerged yuan currency area. The World Bank has been monitoring these trade-related aspects of the BRI, and reports that trade linkages between BRI countries have proliferated, while production networks centered on China have also intensified since the BRI was initiated.⁵⁷ These are benign influences – and they carry implications for wider industrial development and for the internationalization of China’s currency, the yuan. Perhaps it is overstating the case to assert that the BRI, in creating a dominant trade area, is likely to set the future rules of international trade and competition – as done recently by the CEO of Siemens, Joe Kaeser – but one can see the point that the BRI is so much more than just a series of infrastructure projects.⁵⁸

Is the BRI promoting green or black development?

While the BRI is couched in general trade and investment terms, in practice much rests on whether its investments promote green or black (fossil fuelled) industrial development on a global scale. The World Resources Institute looked at this issue in a recent report, finding that the Chinese government “has taken initial steps to incorporate environmentally sustainable, or green, strategies and objectives into BRI – but in very high-level and conceptual terms.”⁵⁹ Against this, the WRI report cites results from the Global Development Policy Center that claim that most Chinese deals in energy and transportation over the period 2014 to 2017 were tied to carbon-intensive sectors.⁶⁰ These findings can be traced to the research efforts of the China’s Global Energy Finance (CGEF) database housed at Boston University (see website) which is based on analysis of lending abroad in BRI countries by the China Development Bank (CDB) and China Export/Import Bank (China Exim Bank). The negative conclusions reported by the WRI/GDPC researchers are at variance with the analysis provided by myself and Carol Xin Huang, using the same database, as reported in this journal. Our conclusion: “There is no doubt about the reality of China’s green shift in electric power generation in the domestic arena. What we are demonstrating in this article, using data from the BU CGEF, is that a comparable green shift is occurring in China’s energy investments globally, if not to the same degree as is found in China itself.”⁶¹

So the jury is out as to whether China’s loans through CDB and China Exim Bank around the world, and specifically to BRI countries, are promoting green over black investments. Resolution awaits further data being provided by China’s institutions and BRI recipient countries. In the meantime, much can be gleaned by examining the policy statements of lending institutions such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), the BRICS New Development Bank (NDB) and the Silk Road Fund – all of which have strong commitments to funding green infrastructure around the world. And there are policy prescriptions like the Green Investment Principles, or guidelines on making Belt and Road construction greener, issued by Beijing and London in December 2018.⁶² Meanwhile China is now second only to the US in issuing green bonds, as vehicles for attracting investment in green projects around the world; China’s issuances in the first half of 2018 topped $10 billion, while those from US institutions came to $18 bn. China’s green bond issuances, which cumulatively reached $60 billion by 2018, provide finance for green investments around the world, including in BRI projects, involving Chinese companies.⁶³ While there are still some discrepancies between the standards governing Chinese green bond issuances and those from European, American or Japanese sources, there is convergence in projects considered to fall within green bond financing guidelines.⁶⁴ These then are the financial drivers of a greening of the Belt and Road Initiative.

Risks and downside factors in the BRI

Given its scale and its involvement of multiple sovereign state players, the BRI is clearly hostage to international developments that could be quite beyond China’s control. But there are factors that multiply the risks that China is running and which could be addressed in a timely fashion – if the Chinese leadership chose to do so. The obvious points of weakness concern the lack of transparency or general rules in the granting of credit and the terms on which countries are allowed to borrow from Chinese or Chinese-influenced banks and multilateral institutions. To date the lending criteria seem to be governed more by willingness to borrow than by informed analysis of ability to repay from the profits generated by the project being financed – as would be the case with World Bank loans, for example. The multilateral banks like the AIIB are taking steps to raise their transparency and the publicizing of terms on which loans are granted.

The same cannot be said for the practices of the CDB or China Exim Bank, which are under direct Chinese state control. One can understand that China is seeking to promote the BRI as a major foreign policy initiative, and in doing so is liable to grant loans to countries or governments on sometimes flimsy evidence of credit-worthiness. This generates opportunities for secrecy and corruption that are clearly evident in cases like Sri Lanka and Malaysia (where the borrowing activities of the previous government have been reversed by the incoming Mahathir-led government), or where there is mounting evidence that poorly conceived programs are leading to financial problems in host countries – as in cases like Kenya, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Such negative outcomes may reflect the willingness of the Chinese to accommodate the preferences of host country governments. If the hosts focus on projects and programs that promote their countries’ national interests, the Chinese will cooperate, to the mutual benefit of both parties. But if the hosts’ main interests are to secure personal benefits for a few leaders – as apparently in the cases of Sri Lanka and Malaysia – then the Chinese are also happy to oblige. So the results are a mixed set of outcomes – from projects that are of clear benefit to the host country to vanity projects that are of benefit only to a particular leader and his/her family.⁶⁵ The indirect critiques of bodies like the IMF concerning the BRI are clearly directed at seeking to bring the various projects under some common set of transparency guidelines and lending rules that would minimize the prospects for negative outcomes – even if there is as yet little evidence of moves in this direction.

Meanwhile China is discovering the security implications of many of its BRI-related investments, as unrest is provoked or exacerbated in areas of geopolitical tension. China’s BRI-related investments in Pakistan have involved opening up mineral deposits in Baluchistan, provoking several terrorist attacks claimed by the Baluchi Liberation Army. This has prompted China to form a Marine Corps, modelled on the US Marines, as a first line of defence to protect BRI projects.⁶⁶ The possibilities for such security concerns to spill over into militarization of the BRI region are clear and ominous.

Concluding remarks

It is difficult not to be impressed by the sheer scale and bravado of China’s New Silk Roads strategy. At a time when the US is looking inwards, and adopting profoundly protectionist stances, China is looking outwards and globally, offering a strong defence of economic openness and assisting developing countries with financial support for their own infrastructure building projects. For seven decades since its victory in World War II the international initiative lay overwhelmingly with the US, and to some extent the EU, in terms of the governance of the world economy. Suddenly China is there and precisely at a moment when the US is looking inward and emphasizing short-term goals. The Belt & Road Initiative can be justified for China as part of an immense “soft power” push, but no less significantly as a means of extending China’s power and reach internationally, to protect the sea lanes carrying its commercial produce, both imports (particularly oil) and exports of its manufactured goods. At the same time the new strategy represents an enormous development boost for dozens of countries that have been held back previously by the heavy demands of the IMF and World Bank.

From the perspective of China, the BRI strategy involves the use of debt as the fuel of industrialization and development, via infrastructure development, with a powerful role to be played by state-owned development banks like the CDB and Exim Bank and new multilateral banks like the AIIB and NDB – albeit in ways where transparency and general rules could be greatly strengthened. China itself has utilized this strategy of debt-fuelled development (without ever defaulting) and urbanization, with a prominent role played by the CDB – and is now extending this experience beyond its borders to the Eurasian continent and beyond to Africa and Latin America. The goals of the BRI need to be evaluated from such a perspective, as extending China’s own development strategies to a swathe of countries being brought within China’s influence by becoming involved in the infrastructure projects created by the BRI. As The Economist puts it, this is nothing less than “a vastly ambitious plan to connect the world.”⁶⁷ Likewise it is hard to disagree with the New York Times’ assessment that the BRI constitutes a modern-day version of the Marshall Plan which refloated Europe in the aftermath of World War II.⁶⁸

In such a vast and ambitious project there are bound to be mis-steps and falters along the way – not least the environmental costs of such mega-projects. Some countries will doubtless get themselves into too much debt and will be appealing to China to bail them out. China has so far displayed a willingness to do so, but on strict terms and without a sense of sending countries to “debtors’ prison”. On the other hand, countries would be well advised to view China’s generosity as something not to be taken advantage of, for enforced debt-for-equity swaps can and will lead to cases of transfer of sovereignty over key assets – as experienced by Sri Lanka with the port of Hambantota. But to see China’s strategy as simply seeking to ensnare countries in “debt traps” is to misread its ambitions, to misdiagnose its methods, and to ignore the outcome in the vast majority of cases.

So far the US has attempted to curb China’s strategic ambitions with a clumsy trade war involving escalating tariffs imposed on Chinese imports – while leaving itself vulnerable to counter-tariffs imposed by China on US agricultural exports, and (no doubt soon enough) on high tech exports from Silicon Valley. Meanwhile China’s global ambitions for its New Silk Roads strategy, involving debt-fuelled infrastructure investment around the globe, drawing countries firmly into its sphere of influence, goes largely unanswered. Until the US and allies in Japan and the EU can find a way to respond to China’s BRI, to provide alternative funding for alternative infrastructure projects at the scale envisaged by China, the game will be lost.⁶⁹ The New Silk Roads strategy is China’s ‘grand strategy’ for the 21^st century, and it is not to be under-estimated.

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John A. Mathews is Emeritus Professor of Management at MQ University Sydney, in the Faculty of Business and Economics. and formerly Eni Chair of Competitive Dynamics and Global Strategy at LUISS Guido Carli University in Rome.

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Notes

¹ Many organizations now monitor the evolving Belt and Road Initiative. The World Bank for example maintains a website here.

The Mercator Institute for China Studies (MERICS) webpage provides a “BRI Tracker”. Business Insider puts the number of countries involved as of 2018 at 71, accounting for 33% of world GDP (and hence for approx. $26.7 trillion in economic activity). A full list of the countries involved can be found at the website of the Hong Kong Trade Development Council.

2 See ‘China taps the brakes on its global push for influence’ by Keith Bradsher, New York Times, June 29, 2018; and ‘China’s Belt and Road difficulties are proliferating across the world’ by James Kynge, Financial Times, July 11, 2018, The latter article drew a sharp response from China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs – see ‘Belt and Road financing criticism draws strong Chinese response’, GBTimes, July 18, 2018

3 See “Gateway to the globe: China has a vastly ambitious plan to connect the world. Briefing on China’s Belt and Road Initiative”, The Economist, July 28 2018, pp. 13-16

4 See hearings transcript and video

5 See the written contributions from scholars testifying at the US Congressional hearings, in particular Nadege Rolland, Joel Wuthnow, Joshua Eisenman and Jonathan Hillman. For their scholarly contributions, see Rolland (2017a; 2017b), Wuthnow (2017), Eisenman and Stewart (2017), Hillman (2018a).

6 See the report from the Center for Global Development by Hurley, Morris and Portelance (2018).

7 See recent commentary on Sri Lanka, e.g. in South China Morning Post and in Bloomberg.

8 In this article I treat the BRI as a series of financial and investment initiatives, separate from and perhaps complementing strategic security and military initiatives like the creation of a Chinese military base in Djibouti and the series of aggressive initiatives in the South China Sea. These all feature as aspects of China’s emerging bid for hegemonic status, which have intensified in the recent period of Xi Jinping’s presidency – but the financial and investment aspects as captured in the BRI deserve analysis in their own right.

9 Some of the countries involved include the ‘stans of Central Asia, Russia, Afghanistan, South Asia – Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Bangladesh (but not India), Southeast Asia (including Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, Myanmar et al) and now countries in Africa as well as Latin America.

10 China has been careful to promote these new multilateral banks as complementary to existing west-backed institutions like the World Bank and the Japan-based Asian Investment Bank, rather than as direct competitors.

11 See ‘The world, built by China’, by Derek Watkins, K.K. Rebecca Lai and Keith Bradsher, New York Times, Nov 18 2018.

12 The Hong Kong Trade Development Council (HKTDC) maintains a web-based scrutiny of developments with the Belt & Road Initiative. For profiles of BRI projects, see HKTDC. For informed commentary, see expositions from such research bodies as the Lowy Institute, e.g. Cai (2017), and the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), e.g. Hillman (2018b).

13 As noted above, this article focuses on the financial and investment initiatives being taken by China as captured in the BRI, without examining the initiatives being taken in the military and security spheres. The sheer scale of the BRI calls for analysis of its initiatives in their own right.

14 The name “Belt and Road Initiative” has itself followed an interesting evolution. Five years ago, at the launch by President Xi Jinping, the terms used were “Silk Road Economic Belt” (encompassing six “corridors” such as the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor CPEC) and the “21^st Century Maritime Silk Road” – both conjuring up major infrastructure projects linking Eurasian cities by road, rail, air and sea and involving new ports, airports, pipelines, high-speed rail, new freight services, electric power grid interconnections and so on. It then came to be known as “One Belt One Road” (OBOR) and finally, in an official publication of the National Development and Reform Commission (ND&RC) issued in March 2015, as the “Belt and Road Initiative” (BRI) – with the ND&RC specifying that English translations of the Chinese term “Yidai Yilu” (with its melodic tones) should not include “strategy” or “vision’ but insists that it should be viewed as a “process” or an “Initiative” (See the Chinese website)

15 It is probably worth noting that while the US “pivot to Asia” was never really followed through with investment and financial commitments, the Chinese initiatives certainly did.

16 The US-China rivalry, as evidenced in many of the projects associated with the belt and Road Initiative, is covered by recent articles in the New York Times, such as James Millward, ‘Is China a colonial power?’, New York Times, May 4 2018; or David Barboza, Marc Santora and Alexandra Stevenson, ‘China seeks influence in Europe, one business deal at a time’, New York Times, August 12 2918.

17 The “Polar Silk Road” encompassing Arctic sea routes past the melting Arctic ice cap, was announced at the 2018 meeting of the World Economic Forum, at Davos. See ‘At Davos, the real star may have been China, not Trump’ by Keith Bradsher, New York Times, Jan 28 2018.

18 China issued an invitation to Latin American countries to join the BRI, in January 2018 – via a speech from Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Santiago, Chile. See ‘China invites Latin America to join One belt, One Road’, Reuters, Jan 23 2018.

19 See report in South China Morning Post.

20 A useful summary is provided by Wikipedia.

21 It is worth noting that China is the largest trade partner of both Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

22 Note that this map from C4ADS omits the Chinese territorial claims in the South China Sea, which are a source of so much geopolitical conflict in the current period.

23 See the report by Devin Thorne and Ben Spivack, Harbored Ambitions: How China’s Port Investments are Reshaping the Indo-Pacific, 17 April 2018, C4ADS.

24 This aspect of the BRI can be linked to the Go West strategy … diversifying industry including electronics from the East coast (Guangdong, Shanghai) to western regions such as Sichuan, or Chongqing.

25 Of course the Gwadar port proposals have received a setback with Pakistan having to seek a bailout from the IMF in talks that have been underway since October 2018, and likely to continue into 2019. Pakistan has been looking to both China and Saudi Arabia as alternative sources of bailout, but it seems that the IMF is going to have to provide funding after all. See ‘IMF warns Pakistan of risks of working with China’, by Xie Yu, South China Morning Post, 9 Oct 2018.

26 See the interview with John Mearsheimer by Peter Navarro.

27 See Mearsheimer (2014). The current US-China trade war is a vindication of his position. For the celebrated debate between Mearsheimer and Brzezinski on offensive realism, see Spence et al (2005).

28 See Nye 2004 and then 2009; 2017

29 See Yağcı 2018 for discussion on this point. It is worth noting that while the US was fighting multiple wars, China for the most part remained at peace, though it provided military support in Korea, Vietnam, and went to war with Vietnam and others. Now, however, it is exercising greater geopolitical leverage of which the disputed claims (and China’s arrogance) in the South China Sea are most notable.

30 See Glaser (2011) for an application of “security dilemma” reasoning to the case of China; for an extended discussion in the abstract, prior to the clear rise of China, see Glaser (1997).

31 Some scholars and analysts refer to this aspect of China’s strategy as “economic diplomacy” in the sense that it represents an economic aspect of diplomatic activity and a framing of diplomatic initiatives around economic goals. For such a discussion relevant to the Belt and Road Initiative, see Heath (2016).

32 See the Nomura report ‘The Belt and Road Initiative: Globalization, Chinese style’, April 2018.

33 The Paris Club of creditor countries goes back to the debt crisis engulfing developing countries in the 1980s; it turned on efforts by creditor countries like the US and EU members to provide debt relief without undermining the IMF and its conditionality requirements. An analysis at the time is provided by Riefel in 1985 in the Princeton Essays in International Finance.

34 See ‘Debt bumps on China’s Belt and Road’, by Michael Smith, Australian Financial Review, 27 April 2018.

35 In the first five months of 2018, Chinese companies signed contracts worth $36.2 billion across all economic sectors – according to the New York Times (‘China taps brakes on its global push for influence’, by Keith Bradsher, New York Times, June 28 2018)

36 See World Bank 1997 report, The East Asian Miracle. For outstanding reviews and debate, see Alice Amsden, ‘Why isn’t the whole world experimenting with the East Asian model to develop?’ (Amsden 1998), or Dani Rodrik, ‘King Kong meets Godzilla: The World Bank and the East Asian Miracle’.

37 For analyses of China’s development model, from an historical perspective, see for example Brandt, Ma and Rawski (2014). Wan-wen Chu at Academia Sinica in Taiwan provides a penetrating analysis of China’s industrial strategy at provincial levels (Chu 2011).

38 Much of the early investment in the 1980s and 1990s did not so much target the Chinese domestic market as its cheap, disciplined labor to produce for export; this was also the Chinese government idea underpinning the Free Trade Zones. Later, industries such as electronics and auto would tap China’s vast internal market.

39 See for example the recent study by Wei, Xie and Zhang (2017), which takes the story to the year 2014, and demonstrates striking gains in both productivity and innovation in China as measured by patent filings from 1995 to 2014. A study from the World Intellectual Property Office (WIPO) issued in 2018 argued that China is now driving international patent applications to record heights – see the summary.

40 Of course China’s strategies of infrastructure-driven growth and development have not gone unchallenged. In Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Ansar et al (2016) challenge the premises of Chinese success.

41 For critical discussions in this vein, see Tsui (2011) and more recently Pan, Zhang, Zhu and Wojcik (2017).

42 There has been criticism of China’s approach to urban redevelopment based on CDB practices of debt management, with cases of underpayment to agricultural land holders who are subject to compulsory acquisition orders. No doubt there have been cases of such underpayment, but the overall strategy does not depend on this aspect. There seem to be fewer cases as market reforms are introduced at local level (Wen et al 2017).

43 For an insightful book-length account of the workings of the CDB, see Sanderson and Forsyth (2013). Ru (2018) provides a scholarly analysis of the workings of the CDB as development institution, arguing on the basis of data provided by the CDB that the bank “crowds-in” private investment, thus acting as a catalyst for further development.

44 Of course the current US-launched trade war complicates these considerations of prospects for firms like ZTE and Huawei.

45 On the positive role played by Multilateral Development Banks (like the ADB and AIIB) see Munir and Gallagher 2018.

46 See Schumpeter (1942) for the original exposition of creative destruction as a key mechanism of capitalist innovation.

47 Financing by China so far is impressive, with the Silk Road Fund announcing a goal of $40 billion in equity investments (with funds of $680 million being allocated by August 2017); the AIIB with BRI investments of $3.7 billion by 2017; and the CDB with huge loans of $110 billion to BRI projects by January 2018. On top of these lending arrangements, the CDB and China Exim Bank have announced separate BRI funds amounting to $36.2 billion and $18.8 billion, respectively, at the 2017 Belt and Road Summit staged in Beijing. For details on these financial commitments, see the report from ING, ‘China’s Belt and Road: Bigger than the Marshall Plan?’, 6 June 2018.

48 See Doig (2018) as well as recent reportage on the Malaysian and Myanmar cases, e.g. ‘The many bumps in paving China’s new silk road’, by M. Sharma, Gulf News, July 16 2018.

49 Another dimension is that climate crisis and environmental pollution requires that China cut back on e.g. steel production and it has closed some major mines while seeking also to create new green industries such as renewables and new energy vehicles.

50 Note that China is now the world’s leading steel producer. Indeed a recent article by David Scutt, at Business Insider, claims that ‘China is now producing more steel than the rest of the world combined’, May 28 2018.

51 See Holslag (2017), p. 49, for discussion on this point.

52 See the article in Forbes, “Belt and Road: China’s strategy to capture supply chains from Guangzhou to Greece”, by Dane Chamorro, Forbes, Dec 21, 2017.

53 See the website maintained by HSBC.

54 See ‘Why international use of RMB is about to be propelled’, by legal commentators David Olsson and Andrew Fai, at King & Wood Mallesons, 5 April 2018.

55 See HSBC.

56 See the article on China’s petroyuan, ‘China: The emergence of the Petroyuan and the challenge to US dollar hegemony’ by Mark Selden and myself at The Asia Pacific Journal.

57 See the World Bank report by Boffa (2018).

58 Joe Kaeser, CEO of Siemens, is quoted in the NYT as saying: “The China One Belt, One Road is going to be the new WTO – like it or not”. See ‘At Davos, the real star may have been China, not Trump’, by Keith Bradsher, New York Times, Jan 28 2018.

59 See Lihuan Zhou et al, ‘Moving the Green Belt and Road Initiative: From words to actions’, Oct 2018, World Resources Institute and Global Development Policy center.

60 The data reported are that greenfield investments in coal, oil and gas-fired power plants globally by Chinese sources, 2014 to 2017, amounted to over $30 billion (mostly provided by state-owned enterprises), while investments in solar PV and wind, respectively, amounted to just over $5 bn and just under $5 bn (overwhelmingly provided by privately owned firms) See Fig 15 in Zhou et al 2018, p. 19.

61 See the critique published by myself and Carol X. Huang, ‘China’s Belt and Road as a conduit for clean power projects around the world’, The Asia-Pacific Journal, Sep 15 2018.

62 The Green Investment Principles were formulated and published by the Green Finance Committee (GFC) of the China Society for Finance and Banking (chaired by Dr Ma Jun, a member of the People’s Bank of China Monetary Policy Committee) and the Green Finance Initiative (GFI) of the City of London, chaired by Sir Roger Gifford. See ‘China, UK publish guidelines to make Belt & Road construction greener’, Xinhua, 1 Dec 2018.

63 On green bond issuances in 1H 2018, and cumulatively, see Climate Bond Initiative, ‘Green bonds market summary, 1H 2018’, July 2018.

64 For example, there is convergence in projects emanating from China that involve renewable energies and energy storage. But there are discrepancies, as noted by Climate Bonds Initiative, in projects that involve retrofitting on coal power plants, or projects involving “clean coal”. See the Climate Bonds Initiative China Annual Report 2017.

65 I would like to thank a reviewer, Professor Thomas Rawski, for this insight.

66 See the Lowy Institute paper by David Brewster, ‘China: The forces needed to protect the Belt and Road’, 28 November 2018.

67 See The Economist Briefing on the BRI, July 25 2018, as mentioned above.

68 As cited above, see ‘The world, built by China’, New York Times, Nov 18 2018.

69 A small step in such a direction is evidenced by the trilateral announcement from the US, Japan and Australia of the possibility of finance for infrastructure development being provided from joint initiatives from the three countries, according to a statement from Australia’s then Foreign Minister Ms Julie Bishop, at the end of July. See report in The Australian, July 31 2018, “Australia, US, Japan to offer infrastructure lending in Asia-Pacific region”.

There will be important opportunities in the next few years to advance the movement for economic, racial and environmental justice as well as peace. This article will focus on three opportunities: the 2020 elections, the decline of US empire and an economic slowdown.

The movement is in a stronger position than it has been in for years. The current movement took off during Occupy in 2011. Occupy’s headline was “We Are The 99%,” which emphasized inequality and money corrupting government. Occupy included every major front of struggle, e.g., economic insecurity, racial injustice, climate change, massive debt, never-ending wars, the crisis of capitalism and more.

Since then, the movement has grown and matured. We have majority support on many issues, have more experience and are organized to take advantage of upcoming opportunities.

The 2020 Elections: Focus On The Issues

Although the movement is independent of elections, the 2020 elections will present numerous opportunities to build a national consensus on issues. Our actions over the next two years can shape the election narrative.

The movement has already impacted the electoral process. Senator Sanders ran a more successful campaign than expected by focusing on movement issues, e.g., inequality, improved Medicare for all and free college. The movement created an environment where new Members of Congress such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY), Ayanna Pressley (Mass.), Rashida Tlaib (Mich.) and Ilhan Omar (Minn.), won campaigning on our issues.

The media and political parties will make the elections a beauty contest about personalities to avoid the issues. We must keep issues front and center, including confronting candidates, even seeming allies, to demand they represent us. Doing so will build national consensus so our issues cannot be ignored no matter who is elected.

The movement should not be limited by ‘political realities.’ We need to demand what is necessary, a People’s Agenda, to solve the crises the nation and planet face.

Since the 2016 election, our issues have grown in popularity. Democratic candidates must support improved Medicare for all if they want to be the nominee as 85% of Democrats support it. Support is strong among independent voters, the largest bloc, and now a majority of Republican voters support Medicare for all.

Take action: Demand transparency for the new National Improved Medicare for All bill.

Similarly, the Green New Deal, which has been raised by Greens since 2006, has now entered the Democratic Party dialogue, although Democratic leadership is fighting it. The Green Party version of the proposal requires a rapid transition to a clean energy economy, living wage jobs, public ownership, cutting the budget of the biggest polluter, the military, and building the social safety net. The Democratic Party version will not push for these system-wide changes.

Dramatic changes are needed in multiple federal agencies to confront climate change. Thanks to Beyond Extreme Energy, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is being forced to consider the climate impact of new energy infrastructure. The FERC must prioritize wind, solar, tidal and other clean energy sources while restricting oil and gas, coal and nuclear. FERC either needs to be part of the energy transformation or be disbanded.

Likewise, the corporate take-over of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Interior Department needs to be reversed. Recent reports indicate urgent and aggressive action is needed. Obama’s “all of the above” approach and business as usual won’t suffice. People who have taken action on climate change should lead those agencies.

The economy is a deciding factor in elections. Do people feel economically secure, are their salaries increasing, do their children have opportunities? A popular position for candidates to take is ending corporate trade. Candidates need to pledge to remake trade so it puts people and planet before big business.

Take action: An opportunity to remake trade is stopping Trump’s NAFTA II.

Workers have been under attack for decades by both Wall Street-funded parties. The movement should use the coming elections to push for a national jobs program, a living wage higher than $15 an hour, and a basic income for all. The right to organize unions must be restored and laws are needed to encourage worker-ownership through cooperatives so workers share in the profits they create and participate in decision-making for their workplace.

Demand A Responsible End to US Empire

Current US foreign policy is expensive, destructive and creates chaos around the world. Movement building to end US militarism and never-ending war are needed.

The national security strategy of the US is great power conflict, i.e. conflict with Russia and China. Obama’s Asian Pivot has evolved into aggressive actions under Trump, along with counterproductive tariffs that threaten the global economy. Russia has become the scapegoat for many problems in the US, such as Clinton’s failed election. The US is lining Russia’s border with NATO military bases while threatening to escalate the conflict in Ukraine and starting a nuclear arms race.

A radical shift is needed with Russia and China. Detente with Russia is needed in order to end the arms race, stop military belligerence and remove bases from their border. The US should develop a win-win relationship with China. If the two largest economies can work together, they can ameliorate many global problems, e.g. poverty, the climate crisis and economic insecurity.

The withdrawal of troops from Syria and Afghanistan needs to be pushed. The movement should demand a full withdrawal including ground troops, Air Force, contractors, and the CIA and a stop to the funding of proxy forces. This should be followed by a full withdrawal from Iraq. Rather than war with Iran, the US should end the Middle East quagmire, which has trapped the US this entire century.

In Latin America, the US has been very destructive. Central American governments in the US orbit are wracked with poverty, misery, and violence causing many to flee north toward the US. Brazil, which had been moving in a positive direction, now has an extreme right-wing government supported by the US.

The economic war, attempted coups and assassinations and military threats on Venezuela are destructive. Russia has sent troops to Venezuela and is considering sending more to counter US threats. The US should be seeking a partnership with Venezuela, not domination.

Economic sanctions are now being used against Nicaragua, one of the poorest countries in our hemisphere, after a violent US-supported uprising organized with oligarchs, US-funded NGOs and the Catholic Church. The attack on Nicaragua reignites the Contra War of the Reagan era, targeting a government that resists US domination.

The US is expanding militarism in Latin America by bringing NATO to Colombia. Under their right-wing government, there is extreme violence against labor, environmentalists and Afro-Colombians as well as constant threats to its neighbor, Venezuela. The US relationship with Colombia is a source of instability in the region and needs to transform into a relationship of stability and de-militarization.

Africa is becoming a 21st Century battleground. The US is militarizing Africa through AFRICOM while China is pursuing a win-win economic strategy in Africa. US-China competition in Africa could become another quagmire, i.e. draining US resources while causing destruction and chaos for Africa.

Take action: Support Black Alliance for Peace’s call for US out of Africa.

Closing US and NATO foreign bases is a key step to ending empire. On April 4, when NATO holds its 70th-anniversary meeting in Washington, DC, on the same day as the anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s death and his Beyond Vietnam speech, people are organizing in response. There will be a major march on the Saturday before and events throughout the week calling for an end to NATO, as well as highlighting the triple evils King emphasized: militarism, racism and consumerism caused by capitalism. We can create a movement of movements event and change the political dialogue in the US.

These issues show a failing empire They are opportunities to change the course of US foreign policy. Working with people across the country, Popular Resistance will help build the peace movement through regional Peace Congresses in 2019 and a national Peace Congress in 2020. Contact us at [email protected] if you want to participate in these.

Opportunities For Economic Transformation

The weak stock market in December portends an economic slowdown or collapse worse than 2008. There are other troubling signs, e.g. high government, business, and personal, including student, debt, a fragile international economy, tariff wars and sanctions that create international economic confusion, among others. Further, the US is overdue for a “correction,” recession or worse. Even with the Republican tax cut that caused large buy-backs of stock to grow the stock market, the market is now faltering.

The fundamentals of the US economy have been flawed for years. The wealth divide has been expanding, leaving most people in the US economically insecure, since ‘trickle down economics’ began under Reagan. Corporate trade agreements since Clinton have hollowed out the Midwest economy leaving fly-over states insecure. Urban areas have been neglected leaving primarily communities of color impoverished. Abusive police and mass incarceration have been used to prevent justified uprisings. Military spending takes more than 60% of federal discretionary spending while the social safety net has been shredded.

Unlike 2008, the movement is positioned to push for changes in the economy. An economic downturn will weaken those in power as they will be justifiably blamed. The president, who campaigned on the economic insecurity of workers and the middle class, has governed on behalf of the wealthy. The economic downturn will impact him more than Mueller or the 16 other Trump investigations.

An economic slump will be an opportunity for the movement to push for a new economy. Our It’s Our Economy project puts forward a vision for a new economy based on economic democracy that empowers people through worker-owned businesses, a national jobs program, guaranteed basic income and more.

Economic democracy includes public programs that serve the public interest, e.g., public banks that work with community banks and credit unions to meet the necessities of the people, not serve investors. It includes public utilities and democratized energy production so every home and business is an energy producer spreading the profits, rather than funneling them to concentrated corporations.

Economic democracy also includes confronting issues of communication, equal access to a free and open internet, i.e., net neutrality and high-speed Internet in rural and poor communities. The expanding censorship of social media must be confronted through extending freedom of speech and press along with privacy protections.

If the movement continues to build power and put forward transformational programs such as those outlined above, the next two years will be the beginning of a decade of positive change. We need to prepare now. Over this holiday, we encourage you to listen to this interview with Kali Akuno for more wisdom on how to make transformation a reality.

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

All images in this article are from PR except for the featured image from Rise Up Times

Christmas celebrations have literally radiated out across Syria and western media was curiously silent in the face of such displays of unity and solidarity among Syria’s diverse peoples.

Introduction

They year 2018 ended with bitter partisan conflicts over narrow issues. Over seventy percent of the federal budget was approved by both parties and another twenty-nine percent was delayed because of a conflict over ‘border security’ involving expenditures of less than one hundredth of one percent.

Multiple wars, coups, sanctions and trade disputes dominated the US political agenda.  War budgets grew, military sales increased and frictions between the US and Saudi Arabia bubbled to the surface . . . and dissipated.

We will proceed to provide a realistic assessment of the US in world politics during the past year, as a prelude to what we can expect in the coming year – 2019.

US policy followed along the lines of previous presidents and military advisers:  pursuing wars in Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen and Somalia; adding military bases in Eastern Europe and the Baltics; promoting economic sanction against Iran, Russia, China and North Korea and adding minor ones against traditional allies in Europe and East Asia.

These measures did not radically alter trade relations even as divergences emerged between the President and his senior cabinet Generals, several of whom resigned.

Resignations and dismissals in the executive branch reflected the division over President Trump’s military withdrawals from Syria and Afghanistan, his efforts to lower military costs and losses in regions of no profit or progress.  Trump’s opponents objected to his long-term commitments and efforts to finance economic spending and growth at home and abroad.

The Democratic Party pushed hard to increase or at least maintain a military presence and commitments and to engage in symbolic hostile gesture against Russia (Russophobia) and North Korea.

Shadow boxing highlighted internal partisan disagreements over immigration.  Trump promised a border wall, the Democrats a fence.  Both followed the same restrictive immigration policies and expelled millions of Central Americans and Mexicans, as did their predecessors.

Domestic policy, especially the major reduction of taxes for the very rich, was wholeheartedly backed by both parties. Despite their political propaganda divergences the Democrats voted for the rich and denounced the Republicans.  The Republicans took credit for the tax ‘reform’ and credited it for ‘economic growth”.

Both parties and branches of government called for billion-dollar infrastructures funding and nothing was done. Both engaged in partisan ‘conflicts’ over healthcare and educational reforms but nothing was done.

The respectable press blamed President Trump for avoiding wars, colluding with Russia and threatening the global free-market economy, without recognizing the collaboration of the Democrats who engaged in their own version of global warfare.

In real terms, the two parties followed parallel policies at home and abroad, while engaging in harsh rhetorical combat.

The key issue was the intense partisan warfare over which party could gain control of the seats of power, patronage and ‘rents’ from financial and real estate transactions.

Stock markets rose and fell but inequalities deepened, and debt multiplied, and the markets increasingly depended on state billion-dollar subsidies from national, regional and local governments.

The Year 2019:  Continuities and Ruptures

Economicstrategies and policies will be at the forefront throughout 2019.  For the business elite the central issue in dispute will be the so-called ‘trade war’, which President Trump and his economic advisers are pursuing against China.

If the Trump administration secures concessions from President Xi Jinping, it will be confined to financial openings for US investors and a greater role for US exports.  The US will push a greater role for the Chinese private sector willing to share markets rather than State sector growth.

If the US demands wholesale dismantling of China’s state direction and regulation of the economy then a trade war is inevitable. The results will disconnect the entire global economy and disrupt US business linkages.

The stock market will plunge, markets will become more volatile and the top 500 multi-nationals will disinvest and suffer deep losses which will ripple throughout the business sector.

The US is counting on several allies of dubious reliability.  A sector of the Chinese neo-liberal academic elite is leading the charge to marginalize the role of the state, reduce regulations and limit China’s large scale overseas projects.

While influential in some policy sectors, the pro-US academics have yet to dictate policy to the Chinese Communist Party leaders.

The US has attempted to create an anti-China alliance, with Asian and EU countries.  The problem is that the US protectionist trade policy is equally prejudicial to these would-be trade allies.

Without influential allies in and out of China, the US may attempt to deepen its domestic market and/or turn to increasing its military presence encircling China.  The problem, however, is that Washington under Trump is turning away from military intervention in the Middle East and South Asia and has turned toward a ‘business first’ agenda.

In any case the key to the advance or decline of the US economy in 2019 depends on the outcome of the trade war with China.

The second problematical area in 2019 is the political war between and within the Pentagon and President Trump’s security operatives.

Trump’s business priorities and rapid-fire ousting of Generals promoting losing and costly wars – in Afghanistan, Syria and elsewhere – has provoked a formidable hostile coalition of Democrats controlling Congress, the majority of the Pentagon and their military allies in the mass media.

If Trump is able to shift from ‘military’ to ‘economic’ imperialism he will be able to rebuild his domestic support and to finance popular multi-billion-dollar infrastructure projects.

If Trump succumbs to the military metaphysics which is promoted by the liberal- neo-conservative-Zionist coalition and falls prey to Middle East wars, Russophobia and China/North Korea war- baiting, the Trump business first coalition will divide and collapse.

The domestic economy is likely to end its growth and stagnate unless Trump can convince the business elite to invest in the domestic economy, including higher wages and social spending. A dubious proposition!

If Trump relies on the ‘invisible hand’ of the market his domestic protectionist market strategy will fail to sustain growth, regardless of the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy.

Conclusion

The Year 2019 will experience greater domestic conflicts over issues that intersect between trade and military wars.  The Party disputes will deepen and paralyze policy making .The inability to fashion bi-partisan economic alliances will continue, but party warfare will not prevent any changes in military and social budgets.  If the Democrats sieze the initiative and impose their military agenda, we will witness the prolongation of regional wars and economic stagnation.

If Trump triumphs in imposing his economic agenda and reaches a strategic trade agreement with China, the economy will continue to grow but at a snail’s pace as the tax-handout stimulus will not raise investments as profits are pocketed.

In sum, 2019 will be a year of great uncertainties in which the divisions between parties, over markets and militarism will deepen, and prevent any decisive shift in strategic policies.  Only a dramatic removal from power of the key political actors in both parties will shift the balance of power between the protagonists of multiple wars and their opposition in popular movements.

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Award winning author Prof. James Petras is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.

In many ways it is painful to reflect on the year 2018; a year of vital opportunities lost when so much is at stake.

Whether politically, militarily, socially, economically, financially or ecologically, humanity took some giant strides backwards while passing up endless opportunities to make a positive difference in our world.

Let me, very briefly, identify some of the more crucial backward steps, starting with the recognition by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in January that the year had already started badly when they moved the Doomsday Clock to two minutes to midnight, the closest it has ever been to ‘doomsday’ (and equal to 1953 when the Soviet Union first exploded a thermonuclear weapon matching the US capacity). See ‘It is now two minutes to midnight’.

This change reflected the perilous state of our world, particularly given the renewed threat of nuclear war and the ongoing climate catastrophe. It didn’t even mention the massive and unrelenting assault on the biosphere (apart from the climate) nor, of course, the ongoing monumental atrocities against fellow human beings.

Some Lowlights of 2018

1. The global elite, using key elite fora such as the Group of 30, the Trilateral Commission, the Bilderberg Group and the World Economic Forum, continued to plan, generate and exacerbate the many ongoing wars, deepening exploitation within the global economy, climate and environmental destruction, and the refugee crisis, among many other violent impacts, in pursuit of greater elite power, profit and privilege.

2. International organizations (such as the United Nations, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund) and national governments used military forces, legal systems, police forces and prison systems around the world to serve the global elite by defending its interests against the bulk of the human population, including those individuals and organizations audacious enough to challenge elite power, profit and privilege.

3. $US1.7 trillion was officiallyspent worldwide on military weapons to kill fellow human beings and other lifeforms, and to destroy the biosphere. See ‘Global military spending remains high at $1.7 trillion’.

However, so out-of-control is this spending that the United States has now spent $US21trillion on its military in the past 20 years for which it cannot even account! That’s right, $US1trillion each year, including 2018, above the official US national budget for killing is ‘lost’. See Army General Fund Adjustments Not Adequately Documented or Supported, ‘Has Our Government Spent $21 Trillion Of Our Money Without Telling Us?’ and ‘The Pentagon Can’t Account for $21 Trillion (That’s Not a Typo)’.

4. War and other military violence continued to rage across the planet wreaking devastation on many countries and regions, particularly in the Middle East and Africa. If you missed this, read what is happening to Yemen, described as ‘ the world’s worst [humanitarian] crisis in decades’ with ‘three quarters of the entire Yemeni population – 22 million women, children and men – dependent on some form of humanitarian assistance to survive.’ See ‘Yemen: UN chief hails “signs of hope” in world’s worst man-made humanitarian disaster’.

5. Not content with the nature and extent of the military violence they are inflicting already, during 2018 elites continued to plan how to do it more effectively in future with research and development of artificial intelligence just one manifestation of this: ‘an “arms race in AI” is now underway, with the U.S., China, Russia, and other nations (including Britain, Israel, and South Korea) seeking to gain a critical advantage in the weaponization of artificial intelligence and robotics’ so that ‘artificial intelligence will be applied to every aspect of warfare, from logistics and surveillance to target identification and battle management’. See ‘“Alexa, Launch Our Nukes!” Artificial Intelligence and the Future of War’.

6. The United States government unilaterally withdrew from the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty (which limits the deployment of intermediate range nuclear weapons).

7. Another significant proportion of global private financial wealth – conservatively estimated by the Tax Justice Network in 2010 to already total between $US21 and $US32 trillion – has been invested virtually tax-free through the world’s still-expanding black hole of more than 80 ‘offshore’ tax havens (such as the City of London Corporation, Jersey, Guernsey, the Isle of Man, Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, Hong Kong, Nauru, St. Kitts, Antigua, Tortola, Switzerland, the Channel Islands, Monaco, Cyprus, Gibraltar and Liechtenstein). This is just financial wealth. ‘A big share of the real estate, yachts, racehorses, gold bricks – and many other things that count as non-financial wealth – are also owned via offshore structures where it is impossible to identify the owners.’ See Tax Justice Network.

Controlled by the global elite, Wall Street and other major banks manage this monstrous diversion of wealth under Government protection. ‘Their business is fraud and grand theft.’ Tax haven locations offer more than tax avoidance. ‘Almost anything goes on.’ It includes ‘bribery, illegal gambling, money laundering, human and sex trafficking, arms dealing, toxic waste dumping, conflict diamonds and endangered species trafficking, bootlegged software, and endless other lawless practices.’ See ‘Trillions Stashed in Offshore Tax Havens’.

8. The world’s major corporations continued to inflict enormous ongoing violence (in a myriad of ways) in their pursuit of endless profit at the expense of living beings (human and otherwise) and Earth’s biosphere by producing and marketing a wide range of life-destroying products ranging from nuclear weapons and nuclear power to junk food, pharmaceutical drugs, synthetic poisons and genetically mutilated organisms (GMOs). These corporations include those involved in the following industries: weapons manufacturers, major banks and their ‘industry groups’ like the International Monetary Conference, asset management firms, investment companies, financial services companies, fossil fuel (coal, oil and gas) corporations, technology corporations, media corporations, major marketing and public relations corporations, agrochemical (pesticides, seeds, fertilizers) giants, pharmaceutical corporations, biotechnology (genetic mutilation) corporations, mining corporations, nuclear power corporations, food multinationals and water corporations. You can see a list of the major corporations in this article: ‘The Global Elite is Insane Revisited’.

9. More than a billion people continued to live under occupation, dictatorship or threat of genocidal assault. See, for example, ‘500 Years is Long Enough! Human Depravity in the Congo’.

10. 36,500,000 human beings (mainly in Africa, Asia and Central/South America) were starved to death.

11. 18,250,000 children were killed by adults in wars, by starving them to death, and in a large variety of other ways.

12. 8,000,000 children were trafficked into sexual slavery; executed in sacrificial killings after being kidnapped; bred to be sold as a ‘cash crop’ for sexual violation, to produce child pornography (‘kiddie porn’) and ‘snuff’ movies (in which children are killed during the filming); ritually tortured and murdered as well as raped by dogs trained for the purpose. See ‘Humanity’s “Dirty Little Secret”: Starving, Enslaving, Raping, Torturing and Killing our Children’.

13. Hundreds of thousands of individuals were kidnapped or tricked into slavery, which now denies 46,000,000 human beings the right to live the life of their choice, condemning many individuals – especially women and children – to lives of sexual slavery, forced labor or as child soldiers. See ‘The Global Slavery Index’and ‘46 million people living as slaves, latest global index reveals’.

14. Well over 100,000 people (particularly Falun Gong practitioners) in China, where an extensive state-controlled program is conducted, were subjected to forced organ removal for the trade in human organs. See Bloody Harvestand The Slaughter.

15. 15,750,000 people were displaced by war, persecution or famine. There are now 68,500,000 people, more that half of whom are children and 10,000,000 of whom are stateless, who have been forcibly displaced worldwide and remain precariously unsettled, usually in adverse circumstances. One person in the world is forcibly displaced every two seconds. See ‘Figures at a Glance’.

16. Millions of people were made homeless in their own country as a result of war, persecution, ‘natural’ disasters, internal conflict, poverty or as a result of elite-driven national economic policy. The last time a global survey was attempted – by the United Nations back in 2005 – an estimated 100 million people were homeless worldwide. As many as 1.6 billion people lack adequate housing (living in slums, for example). See ‘Global Homelessness Statistics’.

17. 73,000 species of life (plants, birds, animals, fish, amphibians, insects and reptiles) on Earth were driven to extinction with the worldwide loss of insects, including vital pollinators such as bees, now between 75% and 90%, depending on the species. See ‘Insect Decimation Upstages Global Warming’. Have you seen a butterfly recently?

18. Separately from global species extinctions, Earth continued to experience ‘a huge episode of population declines and extirpations, which will have negative cascading consequences on ecosystem functioning and services vital to sustaining civilization. We describe this as a “biological annihilation” to highlight the current magnitude of Earth’s ongoing sixth major extinction event.’ Moreover, local population extinctions ‘are orders of magnitude more frequent than species extinctions. Population extinctions, however, are a prelude to species extinctions, so Earth’s sixth mass extinction episode has proceeded further than most assume.’ See ‘Biological annihilation via the ongoing sixth mass extinction signaled by vertebrate population losses and declines’ and ‘Biological Annihilation on Earth Accelerating’.

19. Wildlife trafficking, worth up to $20 billion in 2018, is pushing many endangered species to the brink of extinction. Illegal wildlife products include jewelry, traditional medicine, clothing, furniture, and souvenirs, as well as some exotic pets, most of which are sold to unaware/unconcerned consumers in the West. See, for example, Stop Wildlife Trafficking.

20. 16,000,000 acres of pristine rainforest were destroyed (with more than 40,000 tropical tree species now threatened with extinction). See ‘Measuring the Daily Destruction of the World’s Rainforests’,‘Estimating the global conservation status of more than 15,000 Amazonian tree species’ and ‘Half of Amazon Tree Species Face Extinction’.

21. Vast quantities of soil were washed away as we destroyed the rainforests, and enormous quantities of both inorganic constituents (such as heavy metals like cadmium, chromium, lead, mercury, nickel and zinc) and organic pollutants (particularly synthetic chemicals in the form of fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides) were dumped into the soil as well, thus reducing its nutrients and killing the microbes within it. We also contaminated enormous quantities of soil with radioactive waste. See Soil-net, ‘Glyphosate effects on soil rhizosphere-associated bacterial communities’ and ‘Disposing of Nuclear Waste is a Challenge for Humanity’.

22. The TEPCO nuclear power plant in Fukushima, Japan discharged 109,000 tons of radioactive waste into the Pacific Ocean killing an incalculable number of fish and other marine organisms and indefinitely contaminating expanding areas of that ocean. See ‘Fukushima: A Nuclear War without a War: The Unspoken Crisis of Worldwide Nuclear Radiation’.

23. Human use of fossil fuels to power aircraft, shipping and vehicles (among other purposes) released 10 billion metric tons (gigatons) of carbon dioxide into Earth’s atmosphere, a 2.7% increase over 2017. See ‘Global Carbon Budget 2018’ and ‘Carbon dioxide emissions will hit a record high globally in 2018’. As a measure of their concern elite-controlled governments and corporations around the world are currently planning or have under construction 1,380 new coal plants?That’s right. 1,380 newcoal plants. In 59 countries. See ‘NGOs Release List of World’s Top Coal Plant Developers’ and ‘2018 Coal Plant Developers List’.

24. 90 billion land animals and 60 billion marine animals were killed for human consumption, more than 100 million animals were killed for laboratory purposes in the United States alone and there were other animal deaths in shelters, zoos and in blood sports. See ‘How Many Animals Are Killed Each Year?’

In addition, 40 million animals were killed for their fur. Approximately 30 million of these animals were raised on fur farms and killed, about 10 million wild animals were trapped and killed, and hundreds of thousands of seals were killed for their fur. See ‘How Many Animals are Killed Each Year?’

25. Farming of animals for human consumption released 7,100,000,000 tonnes of CO2-equivalent into Earth’s atmosphere. About 44% of livestock emissions were in the form of methane (which was 44% of anthropogenic CH4 emissions), 29% as Nitrous Oxide (which was 53% of anthropogenic N2O emissions) and 27% as Carbon Dioxide (which was 5% of anthropogenic CO2 emissions). See ‘GHG Emissions by Livestock’.

26. Human use of fossil fuels and farming of animals released 3.2 million metric tons of (CO2 equivalent) nitrous oxide (N2O) into Earth’s atmosphere. See ‘Nitrous oxide emissions’.

27. As a result of previous greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and the consequent rise of about one degree celsius in the global temperature, causing the melting of Arctic permafrost and undersea methane ice clathrates, an incalculable quantity of methane was uncontrollably released into the atmosphere during 2018 (with the quantity being released getting ever closer to ‘exploding’). See ‘7,000 underground gas bubbles poised to “explode” in Arctic’ and ‘Release of Arctic Methane “May Be Apocalyptic,” Study Warns’.

28. Ice in the Antarctic is melting at a record-breaking rate, losing 219 billion tonnes of ice in 2018 at a rate that has accelerated threefold in the last five years. See ‘Antarctic ice melting faster than ever, studies show’.

29. An incalculable amount of agricultural poisons, fossil fuels and other wastes was discharged into the ocean, adversely impacting life at all ocean depths – see ‘Staggering level of toxic chemicals found in creatures at the bottom of the sea, scientists say’– and generating ocean ‘dead zones’: regions that have too little oxygen to support marine organisms. See ‘Our Planet Is Exploding With Marine “Dead Zones”’.

30. At least 8 million metric tons of plastic, of which 236,000 tons were microplastics, was discharged into the ocean. See ‘Plastic waste inputs from land into the ocean’ and ‘Plastics in the Ocean’.

31. Earth’s fresh water and ground water was further depleted and contaminated. These contaminants included bacteria, viruses and household chemicals from faulty septic systems; hazardous wastes from abandoned and uncontrolled hazardous waste sites (of which there are over 20,000 in the USA alone); leaks from landfill items such as car battery acid, paint and household cleaners; the pesticides, herbicides and other poisons used on farms and home gardens; radioactive waste from nuclear tests; and the chemical contamination caused by hydraulic fracturing (fracking) in search of shale gas, for which about 750 chemicals and components, some extremely toxic and carcinogenic like lead and benzene, have been used. See ‘Groundwater contamination’, ‘Groundwater drunk by BILLIONS of people may be contaminated by radioactive material spread across the world by nuclear testing in the 1950s’ and ‘Fracking chemicals’.

32. The longstanding covert military use of geoengineering – spraying tens of millions of tons of highly toxic metals (including aluminium, barium and strontium) and toxic coal fly ash nanoparticulates (containing arsenic, chromium, thallium, chlorine, bromine, fluorine, iodine, mercury and radioactive elements) into the atmosphere from jet aircraft to weaponize the atmosphere and weather – in order to enhance elite control of human populations, continued unchecked. Geoengneering is systematically destroying Earth’s ozone layer – which blocks the deadly portion of solar radiation, UV-C and most UV-B, from reaching Earth’s surface – as well as adversely altering Earth’s weather patterns and polluting its air, water and soil at incredible cost to the health and well-being of living organisms and the biosphere. See ‘Geoengineering Watch’.

33. As one outcome of our dysfunctional parenting model and political systems, fascism continued to rise around the world. See ‘The Psychology of Fascism’.

34. Despite the belief that we have ‘the right to privacy’, privacy (in any sense of the word) was ongoingly eroded in 2018 and is now effectively non-existent, particularly thanks to Alphabet (owner of Google). Taken together, ‘Uber, Amazon, Facebook, eBay, Tinder, Apple, Lyft, Foursquare, Airbnb, Spotify, Instagram, Twitter, Angry Birds… have turned our computers and phones into bugs that are plugged in to a vast corporate-owned surveillance network. Where we go, what we do, what we talk about, who we talk to, and who we see – everything is recorded and, at some point, leveraged for value.’ Moreover, given Google’s integrated relationship with the US government, the US military, the CIA, and major US weapons manufacturers, there isn’t really anything you can do that isn’t known by those who want to know it. In essence, Google is ‘a powerful global corporation with its own political agenda and a mission to maximise profits for shareholders’ and it partly achieves this by expanding the surveillance programs of the national security state at the direction of the global elite. See ‘Google’s Earth: How the Tech Giant Is Helping the State Spy on Us’ and the documentary ‘The Modern Surveillance State’.

35. The right to free speech was ongoingly eroded in 2018. For just a couple of examples in the United States alone, see ‘Marc Lamont Hill On Getting Fired From CNN, His Remarks On Palestine + More’ and ‘A Texas Elementary School Speech Pathologist Refused to Sign a Pro-Israel Oath, Now Mandatory in Many States – so She Lost Her Job’.

36. Believing that we know better than evolution, humans created the first gene-edited baby in 2018. See ‘Why we are not ready for genetically designed babies’ and ‘China’s Golem Babies: There is Another Agenda’.

37. An incalculable amount of junk was added to the 100 trillion items of junk already in Space. See ‘Space Junk: Tracking & Removing Orbital Debris’.

38. Incalculable amounts of antibiotic waste, nuclear waste, nanowaste and genetically engineered organisms were released into Earth’s biosphere. See ‘Junk Planet: Is Earth the Largest Garbage Dump in the Universe?’

39. Ongoing violence against children – see ‘Why Violence?’ and ‘Fearless Psychology and Fearful Psychology: Principles and Practice’– ensured that more people will grow up accepting (and quite powerless to challenge) our dysfunctional and violent world, as described above.

40. The corporate media, education and entertainment industries continued to distract us from reality ensuring that most people remain oblivious to our predicament and their own role in it, let alone what they can do to respond powerfully.

While the above list of the setbacks humanity and the Earth suffered in 2018 is very incomplete, it still provides clear evidence that humanity is rapidly entering a dystopian future far more horrific than the worst novel or film in the genre. The good news is that, at the current rate, this dystopian world will be shortlived as humans drive themselves over the edge of extinction. See ‘Human Extinction by 2026? A Last Ditch Strategy to Fight for Human Survival’.

But so that the picture is clear and ‘balanced’: were there any gains made against this onslaught?

Of course, it goes without saying that the global elite, international organizations (such as the United Nations), governments, corporations and other elite agents continued to live in delusion/denial endlessly blocking any initiative requiring serious action that would cut into corporate profits, or arguing over tangential issues of insignificant consequence to humanity’s future.

In short, I could find no record of official efforts during the year to plan for the development and implementation of a comprehensive, just and sustainable peace, but perhaps I missed it.

Separately from this, there have been some minor activist gains: for example, some western banks and insurance companies are no longer financially supporting the expansion of the western weapons industry and the western coal industry, some rainforest groups have managed to save portions of Earth’s rainforest heritage, and activist groups continue to work on a variety of issues sometimes making modest gains.

In essence however, as you probably realize, many of the issues above are not even being tackled and, even when they are, activist efforts have been hampered by inadequate analysis of the forces driving conflicts and problems, limited vision (particularly unambitious aims such as those in relation to ending war and the climate catastrophe), unsophisticated strategy (necessary to have profound impact against a deeply entrenched, highly organized and well-resourced opponent, with the endless lobbying of elite institutions, such as governments and corporations, despite this effort simply absorbing and dissipating our dissent, as is intended – as Mark Twain once noted: ‘If voting made a difference, they wouldn’t let us do it.’) and failure to make the difficult decisions to promote necessary solutions that are ‘unpopular’.

Fundamentally, these ‘difficult decisions’ include the vital need to campaign for the human population, particularly in the West, to substantially reduce their consumption – by 80% – involving both energy and resources of every kind as the central feature of any strategy to curtail destruction of the environment and climate, to undermine capitalism and to eliminate the primary driver of war: violent resource acquisition from Middle Eastern and developing nations for the production of consumer goods and services for western consumers.

While we live in the delusion that we can simply substitute renewable energy for fossil fuels and nuclear power (or believe such delusions that a 1.5 degrees celsius increase above the preindustrial temperature is acceptable or that we have an ‘end of century’ timeframe to solve the climate crisis), we ignore the fundamental reality that Earth’s biosphere is under siege on many fronts as a result of our endless extraction of its natural resources – such as fresh water, minerals, timber and, again, fossil fuels – for consumer production and the provision of services that go well beyond energy.

In short, for example, we will not save the world’s rainforests because we switch to renewable energy. We must reduce demand for the consumer products that require rainforest inputs. We must stop mining the Earth for minerals that end up in our mobile phones, computers, vehicles, ships and aircraft by not using the products and services these minerals make possible. We must stop eating meat and other animal products. And so the list goes on.

Forecasting 2019

In many ways it is painful to forecast what will happen in 2019 mainly because of the absurd simplicity of doing so: It will be another year when vital opportunities will be lost when so much is at stake.

Given the insanity of the global elite – see ‘The Global Elite is Insane Revisited’– which will continue to drive the dynamics producing the lowlights mentioned above with the active complicity of their agents in governments and corporations coupled with a human population that is largely terrified, self-hating and powerless to resist – see ‘In Defense of the Human Individual’– it is a straightforward task to forecast what will happen in 2019.

So let me forecast 40 lowlights for 2019:

1. See list above.
2. See list above.
3. See list above. …….

40. See list above.

So unless you play your part, 2019 and the few years thereafter will simply be increasingly worse versions of 2018 and it will all be over by 2026. See ‘Human Extinction by 2026? A Last Ditch Strategy to Fight for Human Survival’ which cites a wide range of scientific and other evidence which you are welcome to consider for yourself if this date seems premature.

Responding Powerfully

If you already feel able to act powerfully in response to this multifaceted crisis, in a way that will have strategic impact, you are invited to consider joining those participating in ‘The Flame Tree Project to Save Life on Earth’, which outlines a simple plan for you to systematically reduce your consumption, by at least 80%, involving both energy and resources of every kind – water, household energy, transport fuels, metals, meat, paper and plastic – while dramatically expanding your individual and community self-reliance in 16 areas, so that all environmental and climate concerns are effectively addressed.

If you are also interested in conducting or participating in a campaign to systematically address one of the issues identified above, you are welcome to consider acting strategically in the way that Mohandas K. Gandhi did. Whether you are engaged in a peace, climate, environment or social justice campaign, the 12-point strategic framework and principles are the same. See Nonviolent Campaign Strategy. And, for example, you can see a basic list of the strategic goals necessary to end war and halt the climate catastrophe. See ‘Strategic Aims’.

If you want to know how to nonviolently defend against a foreign invading power or a political/military coup, to liberate your country from a dictatorship or a foreign occupation, or to defeat a genocidal assault, you will learn how to do so in ‘Nonviolent Defense/Liberation Strategy’.

If you are interested in nurturing children to live by their conscience and to gain the courage necessary to resist elite violence fearlessly, while living sustainably despite the entreaties of capitalism to over-consume, then you are welcome to make ‘My Promise to Children’.

To reiterate: capitalism, war and destruction of the environment and climate are outcomes of our dysfunctional parenting of children which distorts their intellectual and emotional capacities, destroys their conscience and courage, and actively teaches them to over-consume as compensation for having vital emotional needs denied. See ‘Love Denied: The Psychology of Materialism, Violence and War’.

If your own intellectual and/or emotional functionality is the issue and you have the self-awareness to perceive that, and wish to access the conscience and courage that would enable you to act powerfully, try ‘Putting Feelings First’.

And if you want to be part of the worldwide movement committed to ending all of the violence identified above, consider signing the online pledge of ‘The People’s Charter to Create a Nonviolent World’. 

In summary: if we do not rapidly, systematically and substantially reduce our consumption in several key areas and radically alter our parenting model, while resisting elite violence strategically on several fronts, homo sapiens will enter Earth’s fossil record within a few years. Given the fear, self-hatred and powerlessness that paralyses most humans, your choices in these regards are even more vital than you realize.

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Robert J. Burrowes has a lifetime commitment to understanding and ending human violence. He has done extensive research since 1966 in an effort to understand why human beings are violent and has been a nonviolent activist since 1981. He is the author of ‘Why Violence?’ His email address is [email protected] and his website is here. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Bombing operations by the United States military against the Horn of Africa state of Somalia have escalated during the course of 2018.

Once the administration of President Donald Trump came into office nearly two years ago, purported “restrictions” placed on Pentagon operations through the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) were lifted.

Nonetheless, this notion of lifting restraints on aerial strikes against what is said to be “terrorists” operating inside the country should not be misunderstood on the continent or in the international community. The war against Somalia is part and parcel of numerous attempts to install surrogate regimes in the mode of Washington, efforts which can be traced back for decades.

There is also the enhancement of special commando units which although claiming to have a principal focus on training of the Somalian National Army (SNA), are directly engaged in attacks against identified “enemies” which include the two major factions of Al-Shabaab. As a result of the escalating AFRICOM involvement, dozens of people have lost their lives over the last several months.

A regional military peacekeeping force known as the African Union Mission to Somalia (AMISOM) has been operating in the country for over 11 years. The more than 20,000 troops from AMISOM have grown war weary due to the fact that no foreseeable end to the war in Somalia is apparent.

At the same time in 2018 Washington has reestablished a diplomatic mission in Mogadishu after 28 years. In 1991, the U.S.-backed government of Mohamed Siad Barre collapsed and since this time period there have been periodic direct invasions (1992-1994), the utilization of surrogate regional armies (2006-2009) and ongoing diplomatic maneuvering in the quest for potential profits from the exploration of petroleum resources in the north of the country.

In neighboring Ethiopia and Eritrea, the two nations which had been at war since 1998, reached a peace agreement in July. Heads-of-state from both governments, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed of Ethiopia and Isaisis Afwerki of Eritrea, have visited each other’s respective capitals of Addis Ababa and Asmara. There is much optimism that these developments hold promise for the opening up of trade and joint economic projects in the Horn of Africa. United Nations Security Council imposed sanctions against Eritrea have been lifted in light of the peace agreements in the region.

However, looking at the fact that the signing of at least one of the agreements between Asmara and Addis Ababa during September took place in Saudi Arabia while the United Arab Emirates (UAE) played a role in facilitating talks gave pause to many inside and outside of Africa. Saudi Arabia and the UAE are continuing to carry out a genocidal war on behalf of imperialism in Yemen. These monarchies are notorious for violating the political and human rights of their own citizens and residents.

Motivations for this rapprochement in the Horn of Africa carry the possibility of strong financial benefits for Abu Dhabi and Riyadh through the construction of an oil pipeline in the region. Military considerations as well in the efforts to isolate the Islamic Republic of Iran from cultivating diplomatic relations with Sudan, Eritrea, Ethiopia and Djibouti can only serve the interests of Washington and its allies among the Gulf monarchies.

A report published by the Belgium-based International Crisis Group in November emphasized:

“In its anti-Iran drive, Riyadh sought assistance from past allies Sudan and Eritrea, both of which had strengthened ties with Tehran while all three countries were under international sanctions. Beginning in the 1990s, Sudan had built its defense industry with Iranian assistance and know-how; Eritrea had offered use of its port, Assab, to the Iranian navy. In 2014, however, both countries ejected Iranian diplomats. A year later, both agreed to contribute troops and resources for the Yemen war.” (Eritrea Hub, Nov. 7)

This same article goes on to illustrate how:

“The UAE took de facto responsibility for operations in Yemen’s south and quickly found itself in need of a naval and air base along the Red Sea. The natural candidate was Djibouti, where DP World had built the port. By then, however, Abu Dhabi’s relationship with Djibouti was souring over allegations of corruption related to DP World’s contract (DP World disputes the allegations). Officials from the two countries had a falling-out in April 2015, when the UAE, with DP World’s infrastructure, sought to use Djibouti as a military launching pad into Yemen. The Saudi-led coalition turned to another port, Eritrea’s Assab. Riyadh signed a security agreement also that April to use Assab, leaving Abu Dhabi to carry out the deal’s terms. By September, the Emirati military was flying fighter-bombers from the Eritrean coastline.”

A meeting between the leaders of Somalia, Ethiopia and Eritrea in Mogadishu was historic as well since Asmara has been accused of supporting al-Shabaab, a charge in which it has vehemently denied over the years. Other complications in interstate relations stem from the territorial dispute simmering for a considerable time period between Djibouti and Eritrea.

Somalia conflict map

The United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres has spoken to the disagreement while expressing optimism over the meeting also held in Saudi Arabia, bringing together Eritrean President Afwerki and his Djiboutian counterpart Ismail Omar Gullen. A report on the meeting said that this disagreement:

“started over 10 years ago and stems from a border dispute over the status of Dumeira Mountain and Dumeira Island, off the coast of both Djibouti and Eritrea, which have been claimed by both nations. The meeting in Jeddah follows a request made in July by Djibouti’s ambassador to the UN, Mohamed Siad Doualeh, for help in settling the dispute with Eritrea. On Sunday (September 16), the UN chief applauded another major step for peace in the region with the signing of the peace agreement between Ethiopia and Eritrea, which ended decades of hostilities over a disputed border area.” (UN News Center, Sept. 18)

Djibouti is the foremost outpost of AFRICOM on the continent. Thousands of U.S. troops are stationed at Camp Lemonnier which is also utilized by France, Italy, Spain and Japan. The People’s Republic of China has a small presence in Djibouti for the sole purpose of resupplying its troops involved in peacekeeping operations in the region.

Unity efforts among these Horn of Africa states cannot be viewed without considering the role of imperialist-allied military forces. All of these western capitalist governments are there in order to advance their own exploitative and containment strategies which are divergent from the interests of the masses of people on the continent and the Arabian Peninsula.

Southern Africa in Transition: The Land Question and the Quest for Sustainable Sovereignty in South Africa and Zimbabwe

Image on the right: South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and Foreign Minister Lindiwe Sisulu at AfCFTA in Kigali, Rwanda, March 20-21, 2018

President Cyril Ramaphosa inherited a South African economy which is facing recession due to high unemployment, declining export earnings and the uncertainty among multi-national corporations over the intensifying debate surrounding proposals for a radical land redistribution program. Elections could take place in South Africa, the continent’s most industrialized state, within less than four months where the ruling African National Congress (ANC) will once again seek to remain the majority party.

The ANC has been dominant in every administration since the overthrow of apartheid in 1994 when liberation movement leader President Nelson Mandela went from being the most prominent political prisoner of the 1980s to occupying the halls of government in Pretoria and Cape Town. Ramaphosa must engage in a delicate balancing act of trying to maintain some semblance of economic stability while at the same time seriously addressing the aspirations and concrete needs of the workers, farmers and youth of South Africa.

Image below: Zimbabwe President Emmerson Mnangagwa and First Lady Auxilia at his inauguration after winning the July 30, 2018 national election.

Many lessons can be learned from neighboring Zimbabwe where after over one year of the presidency of Emmerson Mnangagwa, Harare is still under the sanctions regime established by London and Washington, a blockade which has lasted for two decades. The Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) ruling party has maintained its grip on power since national liberation in 1980.

The internationally monitored harmonized elections on July 30 sent ZANU-PF back into the government in Harare. Yet western sanctions remain in force because the real objective of the capitalist states is not bourgeois democracy in Zimbabwe. Imperialism seeks to reverse the revolutionary trajectory through the overthrowing of ZANU-PF, a party born in the struggle against settler-colonialism.

South Africa could very well be subjected to similar sanctions if the ANC government moves to expropriate land and mining interests from the multi-national firms which are appendages of international finance capital. U.S. President Trump has already warned of grave consequences if the European settler farmers who stole land from the African people are forced to relinquish their farms and extractive industries.

The Republic of Namibia, which was under the occupation of the racist apartheid regime up until 1990, is also discussing land reform. Herero and Nama communities have initiated legal actions demanding reparations for the genocide inflicted upon them by Germany in the early years of the 20^thcentury.

All of these states, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia, won their independence through a combined methodology of mass, trade union and armed struggles. Although they have not been able to move towards a non-capitalist economic system, the character of their respective movements were the beneficiaries of international solidarity from the socialist states of the former Soviet Union, the still existing People’s Republic of China and the Republic of Cuba. Angola and Mozambique as rear bases of the national liberation movements from the mid-1970s through the early 1990s underwent their own experiments in socialist orientation during the initial years of independence.

The Southern African Development Community (SADC) remains the most stable and unified regional grouping on the continent. SADC is committed to opposing internal conflicts from its furthest northern affiliate of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) down through Mozambique, Malawi, Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Zambia and others all the way out into the Indian Ocean member-states of the Union of Comoros, Seychelles and Madagascar. In order for this process to reach its ultimate realization the sub-continent must eventually merge with other regional organizations for the implementation of workable All-African free trade zone enforced through viable legislative structures which are backed up by an integrated military high command operating independently of the Pentagon, NATO and its allies.

Reconstructing Africa: The Imperatives of Sustainable Sovereignty

These developments over 2018 in various areas of Africa only confirms our thesis that in order for the AU member-states to achieve genuine development a concerted unification campaign involving all major elements within contemporary society must be launched. There is literally everything which is needed for such a program internally: an abundance of natural resources, agricultural potential, a burgeoning workforce, essential and strategic waterways along with an ideological heritage which speaks directly to the necessity of unification along an anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist path.

This Revolutionary Pan-African development program has and will continue to be opposed by the leading imperialist centers located in Western Europe and North America. The empowerment of Europe, and subsequently the U.S., was derived from the enslavement, colonization and neo-colonization of Africa and other regions of the globe.

Therefore it is only logical to consider that the workers, farmers and other popular strata in Africa will only overcome their plight of impoverishment and social instability through a concerted movement to eradicate the final vestiges of western domination. Such a course of action will require courage, programmatic conviction and political discipline aimed at acquiring a secure existence independent of the institutions of national oppression and economic exploitation.

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Abayomi Azikiwe is the editor of Pan-African News Wire. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

All images in this article are from the author

“Earth is now substantially out of energy balance. The amount of solar energy that Earth absorbs exceeds the energy radiated back to space. The principal manifestations of this energy imbalance are continued global warming on decadal time scales and continued increase in ocean heat content” (James Hansen 2018).

“The people have no voice since they have no information” …“No First World country has ever managed to eliminate so entirely from its media all objectivity – much less dissent” (Gore Vidal)

With the exception of the few who comprehend the nature of a Faustian Bargain[1], some billionaires, captains of industry and their political and media mouthpieces are driving humanity toward self-destruction through the two biggest enterprises on Earth, the fossil fuel industry, which is devastating the Earth atmosphere, and the industrial-military machine leading toward nuclear war. The rest of the world is dragged subconsciously, induced by bread and circuses.

Source

By close analogy with the tobacco denial syndrome[2], albeit with consequences affecting the entire Earth, the fossil fuel industry has been paying climate pseudoscientists to propagate fabricated untruths regarding the origins and consequences of global warming, widely disseminated by the media.

Despite irrefutable evidence for global warming, such fabrications are still quoted by pro-coal lobbies and compliant politicians, including:

1. Denial of basic laws of physics, i.e. the blackbody radiation laws of Plank, Stefan-Boltzmann and Kirchhoff[3]
2. Denial of direct observations and measurements in nature, in particular the sharp rises of temperatures, ice melt rates, sea level rise and extreme weather events.
3. Denial of the global warming origin of extreme weather events, i.e. the closely monitored rise in storms, hurricanes, fires and droughts in several parts of the world.[4]
4. Denial of the bulk of the peer-reviewed literature summed up in the IPCC reports.
5. Denial of conclusions of the world’s premier climate research organizations (NASA, NOAA, NSIDC (National Snow and Ice Data Centre), Hadley-Met, Tindale, Potsdam, WMO (World Meteorological Organization), CSIRO, BOM and other organizations).

In view of the rapidly growing direct evidence from the increase in extreme weather events, the common tactic has changed from outright denial to a minimization of the significance and consequences of the shift in state of the climate.

Whereas news items channeled by international news agencies regarding extreme weather events are generally reported, at least by national broadcasters, the plethora of discussion and debate programs on TV and radio stations mostly overlook the enhanced toxic effects of carbon gases[5], or relegate it behind sports and entertainment news. In most instances discussion panels focus on the inside political machinations rather than the critical issues themselves.

According to Mary Debrett[6]:

“We are now in the middle of perfect storm of miscommunication about climate change. Various factors have converged to confound rational public conversation. Public opinion polling indicates that although there is widespread acceptance of climate change resulting from human activities, the public’s preparedness to pay for action to mitigate climate change is actually declining – even as climate scientists warn of the increasing urgency for action.  These results signal a serious problem in the public communication of climate change.  They reflect this perfect storm – where tensions between the media, politicians and various lobby groups have made it impossible for scientists and others with appropriate expertise, to cut through”

The major influence the media exerts on public opinion[7], and the extent to which it can be referred to as the “tail which wags the political dog”, allows it nearly as much, or more, political power as political leaders, chief bureaucrats and heads of corporation. A power accompanied with little responsibility.

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Dr Andrew Glikson, Earth and Paleo-climate science, Australia National University (ANU) School of Anthropology and Archaeology, ANU Planetary Science Institute, ANU Climate Change Institute, Honorary Associate Professor, Geothermal Energy Centre of Excellence, University of Queensland. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Notes

[1]To “strike a Faustian bargain” is to be willing to sacrifice anything to satisfy a limitless desire for knowledge or power.

[2]https://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/12/suppl_3/iii23

[3]https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/wea.2072; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black-body_radiation

[4]https://www.nasa.gov/centers/langley/science/climate_assessment_2012.html; https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/global-temperature/

[5]https://johnmenadue.com/andrew-glikson-the-abc-2018-year-roundup-and-the-defining-issue-of-our-time/

[6]https://www.latrobe.edu.au/big-fat-ideas/bold-thinking-social-conscience/the-media-on-climate-change-a-perfect-storm-of-miscommunication

[7]https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/bigideas/the-role-of-media-in-public-opinion/8213158

This article was originally crossposted on GR in July 2017.

The fingerprints of U.S. imperialism can be found all over the manufactured insurrection in Syria, in keeping with the ultimate goal of destabilization and eventual “regime change”  through fomenting a sectarian civil war. Former NATO commander Wesley Clark has gone on record as stating that Syria was on a list of targeted nations to be toppled by the U.S. as early as 2001. In 2002, former Secretary of State John Bolton gave a speech titled “Beyond the Axis of Evil” that listed Syria as a handful of nations that could expect to be targeted.

Fast forward to 2011, when an uprising was manufactured in the Syrian city of Dara’a, and Syrians desperate for economic change joined the calls for “freedom.” Mainstream media outlets have largely described the uprisings as being part of a “protest movement” made up of demonstrators who demand the ouster of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

But in reality, the main organizers and leaders of this so-called protest movement have been revealed to be U.S.-backed insurgents and foreign militants who have been armed, trained and funded by U.S. and NATO proxies for the purpose of destabilizing Syria though sectarianism.

CIA-backed Muslim Brotherhood assets were already in place to snipe at both police and protesters the day the first demonstrations broke out. Since then, the CIA has funneled hundreds of billions of dollars, as well as staggering amounts of arms, to jihadist recruits, many of whom have poured into Syria from surrounding countries.

The narrative most commonly put forth in mainstream media portrays the Syrian conflict as a popular uprising. However, a closer examination of the events that occurred in Dara’a in March 2011 – commonly described as the beginning of the conflict – reveals substantial and compelling evidence that not only contradicts the mainstream media’s portrayal but also strongly suggests the involvement, both financially and militarily, of outside influences and actuators.

Dore Gold and Anwar Eshki shake hands at a CFR event, as Elliott Abrams looks on. 

The Salafists have done much to terrorize the civilian population of Syria. In Karak, a village near Dara’a, villagers were forced to join anti-government protests and remove photos of Assad from their homes. Those who refused were killed.

“People want to go out and peacefully ask for certain changes, but Muslim Salafi groups are sneaking in with their goal, which is not to make changes for the betterment of Syria but to take over the country with their agenda,” one Syrian Christian leader told the International Christian Concern.

The following timeline portrays Syria’s descent into “civil war” as part of U.S.- and NATO-backed efforts to destabilize the country and achieve their ultimate goal of regime change.

Before the “revolution,” the U.S. makes an enemy out of Syria

2001:

Shortly after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, a classified plot is revealed to U.S. Army General Wesley Clark. He is informed that the U.S. plans to attack and destroy the governments of seven countries for the purpose of intimidating terrorists: Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya Somalia, Sudan and Iran.

2002:

U.S. Under Secretary of State John Bolton declares Syria a member of the “axis of evil” and warns that the U.S. will take action against countries in the axis.

2005:

The U.S. State Department’s National Endowment for Democracy organizes and implements the “Cedar Revolution” in Lebanon – a movement directly aimed at undermining Syrian-Iranian influence in Lebanon in favor of Western-backed proxies.

Ziad Abdel Nour, an associate of Bush administration policymakers and president of the United States Committee for a Free Lebanon, admitted the following when asked about the future of Syria:

“Both the Syrian and Lebanese regimes will be changed – whether they like it or not – whether it’s going to be a military coup or something else…and we are working on it. We know already exactly who’s going to be the replacements. We’re working on it with the Bush administration.”

2007:

Seymour Hersh of the New Yorker reveals that the U.S., Israel and Saudi Arabia, as well as the Syrian arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, are assembling, arming, training and funding sectarian extremists, many of whom have direct ties to al-Qaeda. Their goal is to exploit the sectarian divide between Sunni and Shiite Muslims. Hersh’s report indicated that the extremists would be strategically located so that they would be able to cross into Syria.

2009:

The Brookings Institution publishes a report titled “Which Path to Persia?” that details a “new American strategy for Iran.” In the report, the institute states the importance of neutralizing Syrian influence before any attack on Iran can be carried out.

2009:

Top British officials tell former French Minister for Foreign Affairs, Roland Dumas, that they were “preparing something in Syria.” He claimed they were organizing an “invasion of rebels” in a 2013 interview with French TV station LCP.

The “revolution” begins – armed rebels masquerade as “protesters.”

Jan. 17, 2011:

Prior to the anti-government insurgency, and in response to popular pressure, the Syrian government “increased the heating oil allowance for public workers by 72 percent to the equivalent of $33 a month.”

Late January 2011:

A page is created on Facebook called The Syrian Revolution 2011. It announced that “Day of Rage” protests would be held on Feb. 4 and 5.

Feb. 4-5, 2011:

The “Day of Rage” protests that were called for on Facebook fizzle and are largely uneventful.

Feb. 9, 2011:

The government lifts its ban on Facebook, Youtube, and Twitter. The bans had been in place since 2007.

Feb. 13, 2011:

The government, through its newly-established National Social Aid Fund, starts offering transfer payments to help Syria’s 420,000 poorest families.

Feb. 15, 2011:

The Syrian government “reduced duties on a range of basic foodstuffs, including rice, tea, powdered milk, coffee, and bananas. It also lowered taxes on vegetable oil, margarine, unroasted coffee, and sugar.”

March 20, 2011:

A courthouse is torched in Dara’a.

“Protesters then forced their way through security barriers and headed toward the Baath Party headquarters and other government symbols. In addition to the party headquarters, protesters burned the town’s main courthouse and a branch of the SyriaTel phone company, which is owned by Rami Makhlouf, a cousin of the president.”

The governor’s office and another SyriaTel office are also set alight:

“A front-page story in the government-run Teshreen daily on Tuesday, Dara’a cleric Sheik Ahmad al-Sayasina was quoted as saying, “There were elements from outside Dara’a determined to burn and destroy public property … These unknown assailants want to harm the reputation of the sons of Hauran.” The cleric reportedly said, “The people of Dara’a affirm that recent events are not part of their tradition or custom.”

March – May 2011:

“There were signs from the very start that armed groups were involved,” journalist and author Robert Fisk recalls after seeing a tape from “the very early days of the ‘rising’ showing men with pistols and Kalashnikovs in a Daraa demonstration.”

He recalls another event in May 2011, when “an Al Jazeera crew filmed armed men shooting at Syrian troops a few hundred meters from the northern border with Lebanon, but the channel declined to air the footage.”

“Even U.S. officials, who were hostile to the Syrian government and might be expected to challenge Damascus’s view that it was embroiled in a fight with armed rebels, acknowledged that the demonstrations weren’t peaceful and that some protesters were armed.”

March 23, 2011:

After sending a delegation to Dara’a to investigate events, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad sacks the city’s unpopular governor, Faysal Kalthum, and orders the release of the fifteen teenagers who were detained for writing graffiti that featured anti-government slogans.

According to at least two dissident websites, protesters had given the Syrian government until the morning of March 25 to meet a list of demands that were relayed to the president by his delegation. The demands included lifting a 48-year-old emergency law and releasing all political prisoners. If the demands were not met, they said March 25 would become the “Friday of the Martyrs” throughout the country.

Weapons that were stored in the Al-Omari mosque in Dara’a are seized. Anwar Al-Eshki, a former major general of the Saudi military and president of the Center for Strategic Studies in Saudi Arabia, gives an interview in which he reveals information about the first days of the Syrian crisis and confirms his connections with “protesters.”

https://www.liveleak.com/ll_embed?f=e7236a5ed0ac

March 25, 2011:

From a letter published by Father Frans van der Lugt (later murdered by extremists in April 2014):

“From the start, the protest movements were not purely peaceful. From the start, I saw armed demonstrators marching along in the protests, who began to shoot at the police first. Very often the violence of the security forces has been a reaction to the brutal violence of the armed rebels.”

A large pro-Assad rally is held in Damascus on March 25 as well.

March 2011:

Wikileaks reveals that “protesters,” allegedly 500 of them, will receive payment to take up arms.”

Early April, 2011:

Massive demonstrations are held in support of Assad and to reject extremists.

April 10, 2011:

Nine Syrian soldiers are ambushed on a bus and fatally shot.

Syrian soldiers and police officers are assassinated throughout April. Opposition forces claimed they were executed for desertion from the Syrian army, although video footage from their funerals refutes this claim.

Assad supporters rally against opposition, political reform arrives

June 15, 2011:

A 2.3-km-long Syrian flag is unfurled by thousands of Assad supporters in Damascus.

June 20, 2011:

Assad announces a national dialogue to begin a process of constitutional reform. One of the major demands is for an end to the constitutional privileges afforded to the Ba’ath party.

November 2011:

Assad supporters hold more marches, most notably in the cities of Homs and Dara’a. Both cities are described by some as the “capital” and “birthplace,” respectively, of the so-called “revolution.”

Feb. 26, 2012:

A constitutional referendum is held, asking the electorate whether they would approve of new changes that were proposed for Syria’s Constitution. Eighty-nine percent of the electorate voted in favor of the changes, which included significant reforms to the presidential election process. The changes removed the institutionalized dominance of the Ba’ath party, as well as allowed for elections to be contested between multiple candidates.

May 7, 2012:

Syria’s parliamentary elections are held according to the new constitution to determine the composition of the 250-seat People’s Council. The elections see a 51-percent participation rate among the electorate. The National Progressive Front, a political alliance of Syrian parties that includes the Ba’ath party, wins 168 seats. An opposition coalition of political parties called the Popular Front for Change and Liberation contests the NPF, but wins just five seats.

CIA confirmed providing arms to anti-Assad rebels, presidential election follows

June 21, 2012:

It is reported that the CIA is secretly providing arms to Syrian rebels through the Turkish border.

A well-equipped Syrian rebel using a US-made BGM-71 TOW against the Syrian Arab Army. (YouTube Screenshot)

August 2012:

According to a Department of Defense document released by Judicial Watch, the West, Gulf countries and Turkey support the opposition, while China, Russia, and Iran support Assad’s regime. The document also confirms that Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood and AQI (also known as al-Qaeda) are responsible for driving much of the ongoing insurgency in Syria.

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June 4, 2013:

Data provided to NATO indicates that 70 percent of Syrians are in support of the Assad-led government.

June 3, 2014:

The first multi-candidate presidential election in Syria is held. It is contested between three candidates: the incumbent President Assad, Hassan Al Nour and Maher Al Hajjar. Assad wins with 88.7 percent of the vote.

Sarah Abed is an independent journalist and political commentator. Focused on exposing the lies and propaganda in mainstream media news, as it relates to domestic and foreign policy with an emphasis on the Middle East. Contributed to various radio shows, news publications and spoken at forums. For media inquiries please email [email protected].

This article was originally published by The Rabbit Hole.

All images (except the featured image) in this article are from the author.

Environmental and public-health organizations sent a clear message of opposition to the proposed Kalama methanol refinery today with comments submitted on a draft climate report for the project.

The organizations, including Sierra Club, Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility, the Center for Biological Diversity and Columbia Riverkeeper, disputed claims made by the refinery’s backers about the climate benefits of building the world’s largest fracked gas-to-methanol refinery. More than 25,000 comments from the public were submitted in opposition to the methanol refinery.

“Governor Inslee and the Washington Department of Ecology need to be climate champions and deny this project,” said Jasmine Zimmer-Stucky, senior organizer for Columbia Riverkeeper. “We’re calling on Governor Inslee and Ecology to scrutinize the corporation’s misleading and incomplete evaluation of building the world’s largest fracked gas-to-methanol refinery and see the project for what it is: a mega climate polluter.”

“It’s appalling that we’re even still considering this disaster of a project,” said Jared Margolis, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. “This dirty refinery would harm communities and wildlife along the Columbia River and fuel the climate catastrophe Washington is supposed to help curb, not escalate. Governor Inslee shouldn’t let corporate profits come before our neighbors’ health.”

Highlights from the “draft supplemental environmental impact statement” comments include:

• The draft study relies on an implausible methane leakage rate of 0.32 percent to evaluate the amount of greenhouse gases that will be emitted by upstream activity, including producing, processing and transporting gas to the Kalama refinery.

• The draft relies on discredited and outdated “bottom-up” methane leakage evaluation metrics that underestimate the climate-disrupting impact of methane rather than a more recent top-down approach. Bottom-up studies use an estimate of the average emissions from an individual piece of equipment or an individual event.

• The draft uses unsupported claims that the gas received at the Kalama facility would be from Canada, “primarily from the Montney formation in British Columbia.” A similar environmental review for the proposed Tacoma LNG facility made the same questionable claim and was met with skepticism from the Washington attorney general. Both reviews were conducted by the same environmental consulting firm.

• The draft fails to use the proper 20-year global warming potential of methane gas — the primary ingredient in natural gas — and instead relies on the long-term 100-year impact. Twenty years is a far more relevant time scale for discussing climate impacts due to methane pollution than 100 years. Using the 20-year GWP of methane significantly increases the life cycle of greenhouse gas emissions attributable to the Kalama methanol refinery.

• The draft relies on highly speculative assumptions about global methanol markets and China’s use of coal-based methanol production. The report relies on a series of questionable assumptions about global methanol markets, energy commodity prices, Chinese government policy and U.S.-China trade relations to conclude the project results in a net climate benefit.

• The study fails to properly account for the greenhouse gas impacts of methanol as a fuel source, a probable use of the methanol produced in Kalama. An April 2017 China Daily article quotes We Lebin, the chairman of the Kalama project’s parent company, saying that the plant’s output could “replace diesel, coal and gas with methanol to power vehicles.” Lebin doubled down on the claims in a December 2017 Reuters article, saying that, “[the company] also wants to drive use of methanol as a transportation fuel for cars and ships.” Yet the report does not analyze the greenhouse gas impacts of using the facility’s methanol as fuel in comparison to non-fossil alternatives such as electric vehicles.

The following organizations submitted the comments: Columbia Riverkeeper, Sierra Club, the Center for Biological Diversity, Stand.earth, Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility, Food and Water Watch, Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility, 350 PDX, Rogue Climate, 350 Seattle, 350 Tacoma, 350 Eastside, Bark, Green Energy Institute, Center for Sustainable Economy and Cascadia Wildlands.

The comment period on the draft study closes today at 5 p.m. Lifecycle Associates, the environmental contractor hired by Northwest Innovation Works to complete the report for the Port of Kalama and Cowlitz County, will produce a final study, called a “final supplemental environmental impact statement.” Cowlitz County and the Washington Department of Ecology will review it. Commenters are calling on the county and ecology department to deny the Shoreline Conditional Use permit requested by Northwest Innovation Works.

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Sources

• DSEIS Comments submitted December 27, 2018
  • Exhibit 1
  • Exhibit 2
  • Exhibit 3
  • Exhibit 4
  • Exhibit 5
  • Exhibit 6
  • Exhibit 7
  • Exhibit 8
• Kalama Methanol Hearing Draws Strong Opposition to Fracked Gas, December 2018
• Methanol Company Downplays Climate Impact of Refinery, November 2018 
• FOIA Lawsuit: U.S. Dept. of Energy Withholding Info about Financial Aid for Proposed Petrochemical Plant, August 2018
• Port Broke Law By Ignoring Greenhouse Gas Pollution, April 2018
• State Board Rules that Port Of Kalama Violated Washington Law by Failing to Evaluate Greenhouse Gas Impacts, September 2017

Featured image is from Clean Air Kalama

In a surprise order signed Dec. 27, a Philadelphia Common Pleas supervising judge has offered a new chance in 2019 for Mumia Abu-Jamal to challenge his 1982 conviction for the murder of white Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner.

Specifically, Judge Leon Tucker has ordered the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to reconsider four Post Conviction Relief Act (PCRA) hearings and petitions for hearings in the Abu-Jamal case that the state’s high court had summarily rejected under questionable circumstances over the years.

The world-famous prisoner, journalist and political activist Abu-Jamal, better known to both his supporters and his enemies around the globe as simply Mumia, has spent 37 years in jail, most of that time in solitary confinement and on death row. His death sentence was initially vacated on constitutional grounds by Federal District Court Judge William Yohn in December, 2001 but at the insistence of the Philadelphia DA’s office, he remained held on death row until that office’s appeals were exhausted a decade later by the decision of an appellate court.

Barring a pardon, which in Pennsylvania is not remotely likely, particularly in this politically fraught case involving a prisoner who hasn’t shied away of writing scathing reports on prison life from death row,  the only way for Abu-Jamal to avoid dying in jail at this point is for him to have his conviction overturned and a new trial ordered. This is what PCRA hearings seek to do by presenting new evidence of innocence or by challenging trial errors, witness recantations or prosecutorial misconduct in the original trial.

This can get harder and harder to do as time goes by, as normally only new information relating to innocence — for example a witness recantation or other new evidence — can lead to a new PCRA hearing.

However, after two years of a bitterly contested hearing, Judge Tucker ruled that the four Abu-Jamal PCRAs in question had all been improperly rejected by a state Supreme Court that since 1994 included, and that between 2008 and 2014 was headed by Justice Ronald Castille.

The issue is that Castille from 1986 to 1991 had been Philadelphia’s district attorney, a position that had him overseeing the Commonwealth’s legal response to the appeal efforts of Abu-Jamal, unarguably the politically hottest case facing the DA’s appellate legal team. Judge Tucker decided, based upon established court precedent, that because of those years as DA, Justice Castille should have recused himself from considering those PCRA requests. Because he for whatever reason refused to do so — joining the court majority in rejecting all four of the requests including three that never even got a hearing or heard witness testimony —now the Abu-Jamal’s defense team gets to resubmit them all to a high court that no longer includes the ethically challenged Castille, who had to retire because of age in 2014.

Image on the right: Pennsylvania Common Pleas Supervising Judge Leon Tucker

As Tucker wrote in his 37-page decision signed on Dec. 27:

“…the claim of bias, prejudice, and the refusal of former Justice Castille to recuse himself from Petitioner’s PCRA appeals is worthy of consideration as true justice must be completely just without even a hint of partiality, lack of integrity or impropriety. Regardless of the underlying guilty verdict of the first degree murder charge, and regardless if the tribunal was trial or appellate, Petitioner is entitled to an unbiased tribunal, without even the appearance of impropriety.”

Judge Tucker, in his order, was particularly critical of several memos by then-DA Castille that an intense search by current DA Larry Krasner concluded were mysteriously missing from the Abu-Jamal case file in the DA’s office. The existence of those memos is proven because memos referring to them were found in the DA’s files.

Judge Tucker wrote:

“This court finds that the Commonwealth had a duty to preserve the memo by Mr. Castille to Ms. Barthold. The Commonwealth argues that there was no duty to preserve the memo. However, the Commonwealth has been involved in post-conviction death penalty case litigation regarding his particular case since 1983. Therefore, the Commonwealth knew or should have known that litigation in this death ase matter was likely and preservation of all documents relating to this case should be preserved. It is ironic that the Commonwealth accepts no responsibility for the preservation of the memo request from Mr. Castille yet has been able to retain the responsive document from Ms. Barthold that the memo request from Mr. Castille was attached to. Likewise, this court finds that it was foreseeable that the misplacement of the death penalty case documents could be prejudicial to the Petitioner.”

Image below: Ex-Philadelphia DA (1986-91), ex-PA Supreme Court Justice (94-2008) and ex-Chief Justice (2008-2014) Ronald Castille ran for the high court touting his record tally of death sentences, but had a serious ethical problem when it came to recusals involving death penalty cases before him.

A sharp rebuke of the former Chief Justice, the Tucker order for a reconsideration of the four rejected PCRAs also represents a huge turning point in how Pennsylvania courts have handled Abu-Jamal’s tortuous and tortured journey through the state’s corrupt legal system.

His case, from the moment he was arrested, when police left him cuffed and unattended for over half an hour in a police van, bleeding internally from a chest wound caused by a police bullet that critically pierced his lung and liver, has been plagued by official abuse, bias and corruption. This includes prosecution witnesses who were coached to lie and a high-profile murder trial in which the presiding judge was overheard telling his court tip, following a day of jury selection, “…yeah, and I’m going to help them fry the nigger.” The scandalously flawed and corrupt trial  was followed by a corrupted appeals process that featured a governor, Republican Tom Ridge, secretly obtaining privileged communications between the incarcerated Abu-Jamal and his attorneys. These communications, forwarded by SCI Green prison officials to the governor and forwarded to the Philadelphia DA’s office, tipped prosecutors off to the timing of a defense appeal. Among other things, this allowed the DA and governor to have Abu-Jamal’s execution date set for a date just weeks after the PCRA hearing, enabling the presiding Judge Sabo to rush the defense and cut off witness testimony, supposedly in order not to miss the execution date.

Abu-Jamal also had several avenues of appeal of his conviction and sentence that were made available to other death row prisoners declared inapplicable in his case (a pattern of selective application of precedent that my colleague, journalist Linn Washington, has condemned as “the Mumia exception”).

As well, white Philadelphia police, in uniform and on the public payroll, have routinely been permitted to pack court hearings during Abu-Jamal’s appeals, including in the latest case in Judge Tucker’s courtroom, inevitably putting pressure on judges who have to face re-election and who know the political power of the Fraternal Order of Police in Philadelphia and the state of Pennsylvania in those races.

Perhaps feeling that FOP pressure, while Judge Tucker did courageously grant Abu-Jamal another shot at having his PCRAs more fairly considered by a state court, he also put limitations on those re-hearings he ordered. He said that they cannot be “re-briefed,” but must be reconsidered based only on resubmissions of the original briefs written by Abu-Jamal’s various attorneys during that period: Leonard Weinglass (now deceased) and Daniel Williams, Eliot Grossman and Marlene Kamish (the latter also deceased), and the current legal team of Widener University Law School Prof. Judith Ritter and NAACP Legal Defense Fund Director Sam Spital.

Ritter says that Abu-Jamal’s defense team can challenge that restriction and seek an opportunity to update the briefs, but there is no guarantee that would be allowed.

Ritter adds that there is no guarantee that the new state Supreme Court will even review the four PCRA requests at all. As she explains, “It’s only death penalty cases that go automatically to the State Supreme Court for consideration. And since Abu-Jamal is no longer on death row, the Supreme Court could say the PCRA petitions should be decided by a Superior Court judge” — a lower tier of the state court system.

Ritter says Abu-Jamal will argue, however, that since the four PCRA petitions denied by the Castille-tainted  Supreme Court were filed while he was still facing execution, they should be treated the way they should have been when initially filed, as though he were still facing execution, and be taken up anew directly by the state’s Supreme Court.

It remains to be seen what aspects of his four earlier rejected PCRAs Abu-Jamal will be able to appeal. The rejected PCRA filed by attorneys Weinglass and Williams addressed a number of critical issues including the integrity of prosecution witnesses, the intimidation of defense witnesses, withheld evidence and the improper removal of qualified potential black jury panelists. Any one of these issues, as well as others that were raised in 1995,  if upheld, could open the door to a new trial for Abu-Jamal. The same goes for issues raised in the other PCRAs that never got a hearing.

Ritter says Tucker’s order strictly limits any reviews of old PCRA petitions to the issues raised in the initial improperly rejected briefs. New issues, she says, cannot be raised at any of those re-hearings.

Still, while it may be a long-shot, a reconsideration of the four PCRA hearings tarnished by Chief Justice Castille’s unwillingness to recuse himself from considering and voting on them, does offer a chance for a new Supreme Court panel of judges to weigh the issues raised, and potentially to find something that sufficiently changes the evidence in the case or exposes a procedural flaw of such consequence that a new trial might be required.

There is even the possibility that, if the current Pennsylvania Supreme Court were to reject all four of the reconsidered PRCA requests, the defense could file a habeas corpus petition and obtain a new hearing in federal district court, where political pressures from groups like the Fraternal Order of Police would be less significant because federal judges, unlike Pennsylvania’s state judges, serve lifetime appointments.

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Dave Lindorff, a member of the collectively run alternative news site ThisCantBeHappening!, is author of Killing Time: An investigation into the death-penalty case of Mumia Abu-Jamal (Common Courage Press, 2003).

President Donald Trump would do well to listen to Rudy Giuliani, one of Trump’s Russiagate investigation lawyers, concerning the propriety of prosecuting Julian Assange of WikiLeaks who has lived in the Ecuador embassy in London since 2012 to avoid extradition to the United States. Interviewed Sunday at the Fox News show Fox & Friends, Giuliani made it clear that he believes Assange should not be prosecuted for the publishing of US government information. Assange took part in First Amendment-protected activity, Giuliani explains, as did the New York Times and the Washington Post decades earlier when they published the US government’s Pentagon Papers containing many revelations about US activities related to the Vietnam War.

Here is Giuliani’s discussion of the matter in the interview:

It’s a First Amendment issue, right? It isn’t stolen property. I mean, it is stolen property, but it has a different nature when it’s information. So, let’s take the Pentagon Papers. The Pentagon Papers were stolen property, weren’t they? They were stolen from the Pentagon — given to the New York Times and the Washington Post. Nobody went to jail in the New York Times and the Washington Post. We’ve had revelations during the [George W.] Bush administration — Abu Ghraib, all of that. It’s stolen property, taken from the government against the law. Once it gets to a media publication, they can publish it. They can publish it for the purpose of informing people. You can’t put Assange in a different position than that. He was a guy that communicated. We may not like what he communicates, but he was a media facility, he was putting that information out. Every newspaper, station grabbed it and published it.

Watch Giuliani’s complete interview here.

Giuliani’s reasoning in the interview is similar to the reasoning New York Times Deputy General Counsel David McCraw offered when he told judges at the US Ninth Circuit’s annual judicial conference in July that he thought Assange is “sort of in a classic publisher’s position” and that “the law would have a very hard time drawing a distinction between The New York Times and WikiLeaks.”

Hopefully, the president will hear this sound, liberty-advancing reasoning, whether from Giuliani or someone else, and make a public and binding assurance that the US government will not seek the arrest, prosecution, or punishment of Assange.

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Liberal interventionists in the media want America’s wars to continue forever. Last Thursday I actually turned on “PBS Newshour” with Judy Woodruff, which I never watch, but the other offerings on television were dismal, and I was flipping channels. She had on as guests her regular commentator Mark Shields and Michael Gerson of The Washington Post. Shields is a hardcore liberal and Gerson is a neoconservative longtime critic of Donald Trump, presumably filling in for regular PBS “conservative” David Brooks. The discussion was about Syria and the resignation of Secretary of Defense James Mattis.

Woodruff had had the pathologically ambitious Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) on earlier, which was a bullet I quite happily dodged. He reportedly said that Trump was “about to make a major blunder on Syria,” aligning him with fellow Republican Sen. Lindsay Graham (S.C.), who said pretty much the same thing.

Given the fact that NPR has a bobo audience that it answers to, I fully expected that there would be a lot of tap dancing about the events of the week but was somewhat surprised to hear nothing but damnation from Shields and Gerson about how the Trump move would do grave if not fatal damage to U.S. national security and how the president, unlike seasoned patriot Mattis, cannot distinguish right from wrong. Gerson said, “You know, you look at his [Mattis’s] resignation letter, which coldly and rationally said to the president, you do not understand our friends, and you do not understand our enemies.”

As America’s self-defined friends in the Middle East might best be described as “frenemies,” I was wondering if either Shields or Gerson (or Rubio) ever venture past the comics pages of their daily newspapers. As they all spend their time in Washington, that newspaper would be The Washington Post, which perhaps explains things, as the paper’s vitriol against Trump and the Syria move has been astonishing by any measure.

In other words, the PBS coverage of a major story was all pure improvisation, straight out of the establishment playbook, and Woodruff wasn’t even canny enough to push back.

Getting out of Syria and hopefully eventually Afghanistan is the best thing that Trump has done for America so far, if he has the guts to actually do it. Both are wars that were unnecessary from day one and are now unwinnable in any real way. They largely keep going fueled by the lies coming from “friends” like Saudi Arabia and Israel aided and abetted by the defense contractor community and the quislings in Congress who are willing to sell out completely to the military-industrial complex because it creates “jobs” in their constituencies.

When I could take no more, I flipped channels and “Democracy Now!” came up, another program I find nearly as loathsome for its unctuous goodliness as PBS news. Amy Goodman fortunately had history professor Andrew Bacevich on, and he explained, citing the general’s letter of resignation, how Mattis “when he talked about his four decades of engagement with these matters, is very telling. He represents the establishment’s perspective, that has evolved over the course of those four decades. And for anyone who says—who looks at U.S. policy over the past four decades, particularly in the Middle East, and says, ‘Yeah, it’s really gone well,’ then I would think that they would view Mattis’s resignation as a disappointment.

Now, when Trump ran for the presidency, he denounced our wars in the Middle East. He promised to withdraw militarily from the Middle East. Two years into his presidency, that hasn’t happened. And in many respects, Mattis has been among those who have frustrated the president’s efforts. Now, I’m in the camp who thinks that we ought to wind down these wars, that we’ve got more important things to do.”

Bacevich also pointed out that the prevailing establishment foreign policy is both morally and practically wrong and unsustainable. He hoped that Trump would prevail against the tremendous pressure that is being exerted against him to recant. I said “bravo” and turned off the TV.

Here is my problem with liberals like Shields and neocons like Gerson: They hate Trump so much that they will do anything to bring him down, even when he is doing something that is manifestly good for the country. Gerson at least is consistent in that he hates Trump and likes America’s wars, but what about Shields and Woodruff? You would think that ending a conflict in which most of the casualties are civilians would be praised by them and the broader social justice warrior community, but where are the liberals supporting Trump on this bold step to disengage from endless and pointless war in the Middle East, either in the media or among the politicians and punditry? MSNBC’s resident progressive screamer Rachel Maddow has been practically foaming at the mouth about Trump since the announcement of the withdrawal was made.

There are indeed some exceptions among genuine liberals who actually have a conscience rather than just a bunch of grievances, to include Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii), who tweeted, “The hysterical reaction to the decision to withdraw troops from Syria is astonishing and shows just how attached to war some are. Lindsey Graham and others want us to continue our regime change war in Syria and to go to war with Iran. That’s why they’re so upset.”

But in general, reliable leftists have become invisible regarding withdrawing from Syria, a complete reversal to what they were saying some months ago when Trump seemed prepared to stay the course. As a completely unscientific survey of liberal opinion on the issue I cruised through the names of the many friends I have on Facebook that are of progressive persuasion and could not find a single one who was supporting the president. Hypocrisy? Obama’s belligerency, including Syria, which he turned into a war and almost succeeded in escalating into something much bigger, is given a pass while anything Trump does is sheer unmitigated evil.

Trump is under intense pressure from all sides to reverse his decision on Syria and also regarding Afghanistan, which will see a 50% reduction in force. But it is up to all Americans who care about the future of this country to speak up in support of ending the wars that have bled us for the past 17 years. If liberals and neocons cannot bear the thought of supporting a president they loathe who is actually doing something right for a change, we will all regret the failure to end the cycle of war and retribution that has roiled the Middle East since the United States invaded Iraq based on lies in 2003.

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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. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from American Free Press

London, New Year’s Eve 2018. It is a very English middle-class trait: the world will end if the price of a certain life style goes up.  Certain services will be cut.  Access to certain travel destinations might be restricted.  (The usual European haunts in France and Spain rendered dearer if not inaccessible.)  But there is no denying that the attitude to the New Year from this side of the world is one of gloom made normal.

Not a day goes by without a digest of panicked revelations about what will happen in the event of a “no-deal Brexit”.  A lack of certainty has propelled a set of speculations so thick as to be asphyxiating.  But there is always room for more, the next desperate act of a government so cadaverous it can only give vague clues that it is still alive, wincing, dodging and avoiding what faces the United Kingdom before the mandarins in Brussels and the nostalgia driven addicts in the Conservative Party.

London itself is the ground-zero of teeth-chattering panic.  Stockpiling of essentials (and various non-essentials) is taking place in a manner reminiscent of the doom that might arise from nuclear holocaust or a crippling blockade initiated by a foreign power.  These fears are not entirely irrational: no one knows what might happen to the smooth exchange of goods ands services with the EU in the absence of any clear set of guidelines.

The latest manifestations of this sense of heightened neuroses can be found in three ferry contracts that have been awarded to French, British and Danish companies.  But the means of shipping do not combat paperwork on the ground, the sort is bound to mount once Britain’s departure from the EU bloc is enforced.   Chief Executive of the UK Chamber of Shipping Bob Sanguinetti puts it bluntly:

“Government is rightly preparing for every eventuality… but it is not clear that government-chartered ships can move goods faster or more efficiently than the private sector.”

The issue of customs remains an obstacle that threatens to hove into view with disrupting menace.

That said, the eve of 2019 featured a comic affair with a bitterly ironic dimension, an episode that rapidly came to be known in Twitterland as Ferrygate, more conventionally termed the Seaborne Freight controversy.  It began with murmurs printed in the Financial Times from the May government that a no-deal Brexit could see the Dover corridor, comprising the port and tunnel, run at between 12-25 percent of normal capacity for half a year.  Given that the proportion of trade being handled through the corridor comes to an eye-popping 52 percent of value of the total trade in goods with the EU (some £422.6 billion), this is more than troubling.

This doomsday scenario was somewhat papered over by the farcical circumstances behind one of the ferry contracts – the British one no less – that was meant to be yet another emergency measure, part of a broader £107.7 million arrangement.  The purpose of the contract will be to provide substitutable capacity to handle exiting volumes of trade that would have otherwise gone through the Dover corridor.

But the jokes piled on quickly: Seaborne Freight, having won a £13.8 million contract to operate ferries on a Ramsgate to Ostend route, had never previously operated ferries and had no intention of doing so till touching distance of the scheduled departure date from the EU.

“It has no ships and no trading history,” observed Paul Messenger, Conservative county councillor for Ramsgate, “so how can due diligence be done?”

The Department of Transport finds itself in a state of pulsating anxiety, churning out the paperwork of woe.  The choice of words in its documents supplies more than a hint about what is coming, even if they genuinely cannot imagine what that might be.  Such agreements are being put in place to counter “unforeseeable” situations, which is more than mildly absurd given that those situations are precisely that: unforeseeable.

The entire Brexit reaction has been characterised by a total absence of planning, which propels the circular reasoning that you cannot plan for what you simply do not know.  This feeds the apocalyptic scenarios of empty supermarket shelves and absentee workers in industries characterised by the employ of vast numbers of EU citizens.

It has also bred a total mistrust. Plans circulate with a giddying confusion that show lack of consultation and engagement.  Major motorworks, by way of example, have focused on the port of Dover.  The plan (dare one use the word?) is to turn the M26 motorway into a holding area for hundreds of heavy vehicles to permit traffic greater freedom to move.  In October, local MP Tom Tugendhat, Conservative chair of the foreign affairs committee, was seething in the House of Commons:

“It’s come to a pretty pass when [an MP] finds out that works have begun on a motorway to turn that motorway into a parking lot without consultation either with the local community or with surrounding [MPs].”

Fittingly absurd, though not as much as awarding a ferry contract to a company without ships.

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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]

The world is pulsing with hundreds of millions of people desperate to flee their homes under the weight of the crisis of world capitalism. According to a recent Gallup study, a sixth of the world’s adult population—some 750 million people, not including children—want to flee their home countries to escape war, poverty, conflict and disease.

The statistics expose the devastating impact of decades of imperialist war and corporate exploitation. In the more than quarter-century since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the ruling classes of the major powers, led by the United States, have unleashed an unprecedented wave of military plunder and social counterrevolution, killing millions and laying waste to broad swaths of the world.

A third of the inhabitants of sub-Saharan Africa want to escape. The region, which is rich in minerals and oil coveted by French, Dutch, Belgian and American corporations, has a life expectancy of 46, while 70 percent of the population lives on less than $2 per day.

In Latin America, 27 percent of people want to leave their home countries to escape the aftermath of US invasion, IMF austerity and US-backed dictatorships.

Twenty-six percent of Eastern Europeans want to flee the near-universal devastation that has followed the privatization of state industries by the Stalinist bureaucrats-turned-oligarchs.

Twenty-four percent of Middle Easterners and North Africans wish to leave in search of shelter from the storm of bombs and missiles that the US has rained down upon the region since the Persian Gulf War.

In 13 countries, nearly half or more of the adult population finds life unbearable.

In Sierra Leone, a country ravaged by the bloody fight to turn over diamonds to European jewelers, 71 percent of adults want to flee. In Haiti, 63 percent want to leave after more than a century of American invasions and occupations.

Fifty-two percent of Salvadorans and 47 percent of Hondurans want to escape the violence, poverty and corruption that dominate Central America following the civil wars of the 1980s and 1990s. Forty-eight percent of Nigerians want to leave their country, bled white from the extraction of crude oil by Chevron and Royal Dutch Shell.

This year, the ruling classes of Europe and North America implemented unprecedented anti-immigrant policies and inflamed xenophobic sentiment to distract from growing social inequality and strengthen far-right forces that will be used against the working class.

In June, the European Union agreed to cut migration and erect concentration camps to house immigrants in North Africa.

In August, French President Emmanuel Macron signed a law slashing asylum eligibility.

Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini repeated threats to deport 500,000 immigrants and the entire Roma population. In the United Kingdom, the Tory government is preparing a Brexit deal that may cut the country off to Eastern European immigrants. In Germany, the neo-Nazi Alternative for Germany held anti-immigrant demonstrations this summer with the encouragement of the state.

Nowhere is the anti-immigrant scapegoating more fierce and dangerous than in the United States. In April, the Trump administration began separating children from their families at the US-Mexico border and erected tent-city internment centers to house the children.

In October, Trump deployed thousands of troops to the southern border. Thousands of participants in the Central American migrant caravan have been sleeping in the streets of Tijuana for months. When two Guatemalan children died in US custody this month, the government blamed their impoverished indigenous parents.

“Left” populist demagogues around the world play the most criminal role, justifying the anti-immigrant measures of the far-right and attempting to poison the working class with nationalism. In the United Kingdom, Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn echoed United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) leader Nigel Farage when he told a Scottish Labour conference in March that Britain should curb the entrance of foreign workers.

In Mexico, the new government of “left” nationalist Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) made a deal this month with Trump to detain Central American refugees in Mexico and block them from exercising their right to asylum in the US.

In Greece, the government of the Coalition of the Radical Left (Syriza) has jailed hundreds of thousands of refugees in internment camps and recently deployed police to brutally assault immigrants attempting to cross the Evros River from Turkey.

Syriza’s position on immigration is summed up in a recent report from Human Rights Watch:

Abuse [by Greek police] included beatings with hands and batons, kicking and, in one case, the use of what appeared to be a stun gun. In another case, a Moroccan man said a masked man dragged him by his hair, forced him to kneel on the ground, held a knife to his throat, and subjected him to a mock execution. Others pushed back include a pregnant 19-year-old woman from Afrin, Syria and a woman from Afghanistan who said Greek authorities took away her two young children’s shoes.

In the US, Bernie Sanders begged Trump in January to “work with us to make sure we have strong border security.”

Earlier this month, the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) wrote a statement titled “Toward a Left Position on Immigration,” which includes the subsection “It’s Not About Open Borders.”

The DSA writes:

“The actual alternative to the current existing immigration policy is not ‘open borders.’ It is enforcement of existing employment laws, followed by the development of new employment and immigration laws, leading to a fair, pro-worker system of immigration.”

This is a thinly veiled, foul appeal to anti-immigrant nationalism and chauvinism, in no basic way different from that of the trade union bureaucracy, the Trump administration and neo-fascists such as Stephen Bannon.

With such actions and statements, Corbyn, Syriza, AMLO, Sanders and the DSA expose their hostility to the international working class and to socialism. They are pledging—or in the case of Syriza and AMLO have already shown—that they will use state violence against workers demanding a redress of their grievances.

In contrast to nationalist groups like the DSA that defend the existence of national boundaries, the Socialist Equality Party fights for socialist internationalism and rejects the lie that any ruling class has the right to jail desperate workers escaping imperialist war or prevent them from seeking safety and a better life in another country. Immigrant workers are not to blame for growing poverty and declining living conditions in Europe and America. The real enemies of the workers are the same imperialist governments and transnational corporations that are responsible for forcing immigrants from their homes in the first place.

The Socialist Equality Party demands the immediate release of all interned immigrants and the provision of trillions of dollars, confiscated from the banks and corporations, to provide all immigrants with decent-paying jobs, housing, social services, education and safe passage to a destination of their choosing without fear of deportation.

Capitalism has turned broad swaths of the world into a foul prison, holding workers and the poor in nation-state straitjackets from which a sixth of the world is fighting to escape. Socialist revolution will free the productive process from the control of the world’s oligarchs, abolish national boundaries and guarantee the right of all workers to travel the world in peace.

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The Israeli Supreme Court early this afternoon, Sunday, 30 December 2018, dismissed the petition filed by Adalah – The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel on behalf of Knesset Members Jamal Zahalka, Hanin Zoabi, and Joumah Azbarga (Joint List) against the Knesset Presidium’s decision to reject their proposed bill Basic Law: State of all its Citizens. In doing so, the Supreme Court refused to even allow a discussion of equal rights and a state for all of its citizens in the Knesset.

The Knesset Presidium refused to allow the submission of the bill – which declares Israel a “state of all its citizens” – based on the claim that Israel is a Jewish state.  This bill was initiated by Zahalka, Zoabi, and Azbarga in response to the new Basic Law – The Nation State of the Jewish People, passed by the Knesset in mid-July 2018.

The judgment follows a hearing on the petition last week, Monday, 24 December 2018, during which the justices received an announcement of early elections, and the decision to dissolve the 20th Knesset.

Adalah General Director Hassan Jabareen (center with hat) speaks to journalists together with Arab members of Knesset on Monday, 24 December 2018, prior to the hearing on their petition at the Israeli Supreme Court in Jerusalem. (Photo by Mati Milstein)

Chief Justice Hayut, who headed the three-justice panel hearing the case, hinted then that the court would consider the MKs’ petition, filed six months ago and not heard to date, as theoretical. Today, the petition was indeed dismissed for these reasons.

As the petition also attacks the constitutionality of the very bylaws used to disqualify the bill, there is no justification for the court’s decision to consider the petition as purely theoretical in nature, in Adalah’s view.

The court today chose to uphold the Knesset Presidium’s decision to prevent its own Palestinian Arab minority members from initiating a bill and a debate to promote democratic values on the basis of equality for all.

Adalah responded immediately to the court’s decision:

“This decision violates the basic right to full equality for Palestinian Arab citizens of the state. This judgment is the second in six years that the Israeli Supreme Court has decided to uphold the Knesset Presidium’s authority to prevent Arab MKs from submitting bills and initiating debate that challenges Israel’s character as a state of the Jewish people only. In both of these cases, the court exploited the announcement of early elections as a justification to dismiss these cases.

“This petition confronts a matter of principle – the right to equality and a state for all its citizens – that will certainly remain in the public discourse and as a key political platform of Arab MKs, and it is not expected to change.”

Adalah’s General Director Hassan Jabareen and Adalah Attorney Fady Khoury represented the Arab MKs in this case.

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The Washington Post reminds us how the Saudi coalition war on Yemen helps Al Qaeda:

Last year, the Trump administration imposed sanctions on a powerful Yemeni Islamist warlord, accusing him of being a “prominent military instructor” and fundraiser for al-Qaeda who had also at one point “served with” the Islamic State and financed its forces.

But Abu al-Abbas is not on the run. He is not even in hiding.

By his own admission, Abbas continues to receive millions of dollars in weapons and financial support for his fighters from one of Washington’s closest Middle East allies, the United Arab Emirates, undermining U.S. counterterrorism goals in Yemen.

The Saudi coalition’s cooperation with and support for members of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has been an open secret for many years. Back in August, the Associated Press published one of the most detailed reports on the coalition’s practice of buying off and recruiting AQAP members as part of their war against the Houthis. Members of the coalition have been working with and supporting known terrorists for years, and they continue to do so even now. Meanwhile, U.S. officials keep justifying U.S. support for the coalition’s war on Yemen by claiming that Saudi and Emirati cooperation on counterterrorism is so very important. The war on Yemen has strengthened jihadist groups both directly and indirectly, and this is just one more example of that. The U.S. continues to support a war that not only benefits jihadists by sowing chaos, but it also backs the governments that directly finance and arm those same terrorists.

As if that weren’t bad enough, the Saudi coalition also includes the war criminals of Sudan. This is also not news, but it is good that it is getting more attention. Mark Perry previously reported on the coalition’s use of Sudanese Janjaweed militia in Yemen in a story for TAC earlier this year. Here is a New York Times report saying much the same thing over the weekend:

Almost all the Sudanese fighters appear to come from the battle-scarred and impoverished region of Darfur, where some 300,000 people were killed and 1.2 million displaced during a dozen years of conflict over diminishing arable land and other scarce resources.

Most belong to the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, a tribal militia previously known as the Janjaweed. They were blamed for the systematic rape of women and girls, indiscriminate killing and other war crimes during Darfur’s conflict, and veterans involved in those horrors are now leading their deployment to Yemen — albeit in a more formal and structured campaign.

The Saudi coalition uses the foot soldiers of Sudanese genocide to aid in the commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Yemen, and they have been doing so for years. The U.S. continues to assist a coalition of governments that includes one that has already committed genocide and also includes several more that are in the process of committing the crime of mass starvation against the people of Yemen. There are many ugly chapters in the history of U.S. foreign policy, but our government’s ongoing support for this war is one of the most reprehensible and despicable.

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Fahed Zuhud was shot in the thigh by Israeli soldiers in February 2018 but because of superbug infections the wound hasn’t healed and he may still lose his leg.

Doctors in Gaza and the West Bank warn they are battling an epidemic of antibiotic-resistant superbugs, a growing problem in the world’s conflict zones and one that risks spilling over borders and diminishing the global medical arsenal against serious illness.

The rise and spread of these virulent infections adds to the devastation of war, increasing medical costs, blocking hospital beds because patients need longer care and leaving people whose injuries might once have been healed with life-changing disabilities.

Gaza is a particularly fertile breeding ground for superbugs because its health system has been crippled by years of blockade and antibiotics are in short supply. Even though doctors know the protocols to prevent the rise of drug resistant bacteria, they do not have supplies to follow them.

Shortages of water, power and fuel for generators mean doctors often cannot meet even basic hygiene standards. Staff sometimes can’t even wash their hands, sterilising machines are unreliable, and there are shortages of gloves, gowns and chlorine tablets for sanitising the hospitals, medical professionals say.

Whether Pentagon forces stay or leave Syria, whether some stay, others redeployed cross-border to Iraq or elsewhere, Washington’s regional and overall imperial agenda remains unchanged

In its 18th year, the AfPak war rages endlessly, a forever war, an unwinnable one with no prospect for resolving it any time in the foreseeable future. US strategy is all about waging it endlessly, not winning.

Syria is following the same pattern, war in its 8th year with no end in sight – despite Syrian forces regaining control over most of the country.

The Pentagon has a reported 18 bases in Syria, at least one more being constructed. Its commanders are highly unlikely to abandon them or leave key bases established in neighboring Iraq, including two new ones, an al-Rutbah base around 60 miles from the Syrian border.

US regional bases are used as platforms for warmaking. Pentagon troops are in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and other countries as hostile invaders.

No US plans exist to turn a page for peace in the region or anywhere else. Washington’s agenda features endless wars of aggression, part of its longstanding plan for global hegemony, ignoring the rule of law, mindless of the human toll.

Most of what’s going on is unreported or misreported in the mainstream. Millions of post-9/11 casualties are of no consequences to militarists in charge of Washington’s geopolitical agenda – peace and stability considered abhorrent notions.

Trump is captive to dark forces controlling him, a businessman/TV personality – ignorant about affairs of state.

Nothing he says is credible, time and again saying one thing, then doing something entirely different. Will he U-turn on announced troop withdrawals from Syria and Afghanistan?

Regime hardliners, congressional leaders, and Pentagon commanders strongly oppose the idea. According to Bloomberg News, neocon Senator Lindsey Graham said the following after meeting with Trump privately:

“I feel better about Syria than I felt before (we met). I think the president is taking (his announced troop pullout) seriously, and the trip to Iraq was well timed.”

He spoke to Joint Chiefs chairman General Joseph Dunford. He’s “reconsidering how we do this” – referring to withdrawing US forces from Syria.

Graham, Trump, and everyone else claiming US forces are in Syria and Iraq to combat ISIS have things upside down. Washington created and supports the scourge of ISIS it claims to oppose.

The same goes for al-Qaeda, its al-Nusra offshoot in Syria, and other terrorist groups – used as US proxy forces, supported by Pentagon terror-bombing in Syria, Iraq, and elsewhere.

The cold, hard reality of US warmaking is polar opposite how it’s publicly reported – including by major media, operating as press agents for Washington’s imperial and neoliberal agendas, supporting what demands condemnation.

According to Bloomberg News,

“(t)he White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on whether Trump is considering reversing the decision” on Syria.

He “already has backed away from the notion of an immediate withdrawal, saying a week ago that the pullout of US troops from the area would be “slow & highly coordinated” – after speaking to Turkey’s Erdogan before Christmas.

On CNN’s State of the Union Sunday, Graham said Trump “promised to destroy ISIS. He’s going to keep that promise. We’re not there yet.”

The Big Lie persists. Trump’s knowledge about ISIS consists of rubbish fed him by his handlers, along with Fox News misinformation and disinformation, his favorite TV channel.

Despite being president and commander-in-chief of America’s military, he may not know the truth about ISIS and likeminded terrorist groups – created and used by the Pentagon and CIA as imperial foot soldiers in US war theaters.

Based on Graham’s comments after meeting with Trump, perhaps he’ll U-turn on withdrawing US forces from Syria and Afghanistan – what’s most likely entirely or partially.

The alternative would be to replace US forces with others from NATO countries, France most likely, perhaps Britain as well – and/or agreeing to deploy paramilitary mercenaries in place of Pentagon troops.

What’s coming will likely be clear early in the new year. Whatever unfolds ahead, Washington’s war on humanity remains unchanged.

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

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

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

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

The onslaught of extreme weather and the increasingly stark scientific assessment leave no doubt that we face an ecological and civilizational emergency. But in the year since the 23rd annual Conference of the Parties (COP23) in Bonn, Germany, a constant stream of headlines and reports have confirmed that governments are not on track to meet their climate commitments.

The market-focused approach to climate protection has failed spectacularly. Using “sticks and carrots” policies aimed at the private sector, governments anticipated a surge of new “green growth” investment that would create millions of good jobs. This did not happen. It is now absolutely clear that climate policy must shift in a radically different direction, and unions can help ensure that such a shift occurs as soon as possible.

Growing numbers of unions are already calling for a decisive shift away from policies that push privatization – including predatory “public private partnerships” (P3s) – and that are designed to please private investors who deliver too little and take too much.

Unions are increasingly rallying behind the idea of a needs-based, “public goods” approach to climate protection – one that is grounded in extending public ownership and democratic control. Such an approach will give us a real chance to reach the Paris targets, and to advance the struggle for political and economic democracy, equality and decent work. This is the only way to achieve a just transition for all.

Unions in Katowice, Poland (COP24) have an opportunity to send a number of clear messages:

• The world is not “moving away from fossil fuels” – far from it.
• Emissions will not peak in 2020 as is needed. They are expected to increase until 2030 and perhaps beyond.
• Levels of investment are far too low to drive the transition to a low-carbon future. This is not going to change as long as achieving “satisfactory returns” (making money) continues to be the primary consideration.
• There is no effective “price on carbon” – and there isn’t going to be one any time soon.
• The market-focused approach to climate protection has failed spectacularly.
• An immediate shift toward a “public goods” approach is necessary. Privatizations must be stopped, and what has been privatized must be reclaimed.
• Energy systems must be restructured and reconfigured in a way that can serve social and ecological needs. Planning must replace the “enforced chaos” of the market.
• A stable climate is a human right. Approaches that prevent us from achieving climate stability when alternative policies and methods can generate better results are therefore human rights violations.

The Latest Science and the Need for “Unprecedented Changes”

The distance between what the science says needs to happen and what is actually happening in terms of energy and emissions trends becomes wider with every passing day. This was made crystal clear by the recently released IPCC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C. According to the report’s authors, meeting the Paris Agreement’s pledge to limit warming to 1.5 degrees “would require rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society,” including “transitions in land, energy, industry, buildings, transport, and cities.” The report reinforces the consensus among trade unions about the need for major changes. As ITUC General Secretary Sharan Burrow recently expressed it, “We understand that the sectorial and economic transformation that faces us [is] the fastest and deepest we have faced at any time in our history and with a faster time frame.”

Many have described the IPCC’s Special Report as a “wake up call” to governments. But governments cannot claim to need another warning from the scientific community. In late 2007 – now 11 years ago – IPCC scientists said reductions in greenhouse gases needed to start falling immediately in order to avert a global climate disaster. Then-IPCC Chair Dr. Rajendra Pachauri was clear: “If there’s no action before 2012, that’s too late… What we do in the next two to three years will determine our future. This is the defining moment.” But the defining moment passed, as have others since. In 2014 the IPCC has stated that, on current trends, global mean temperatures could increase by between 3.7 and 4.8 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial levels by 2100.

Posturing in Paris

In early 2016, Achim Steiner, then the Executive Director of the UN’s Environment Program (UNEP), declared that the Paris Agreement signified “the triumph of science over politics.” But the economics of profit-driven energy generation and use continue to trump science at every turn. Today, the use of all forms of energy is rising: gas, coal, oil, nuclear and renewables (wind, solar, bioenergy, and hydropower). This is because the global demand for energy continues to grow at around 2% annually, and for electricity in particular at more than 3% annually.

The IPCC has concluded that limiting warming to 1.5 degrees is currently still technically possible. Given the risk involved in exceeding that target, climate policy should be in line with what the IPCC says is required. This will entail immediately reversing the privatization and marketization that were advanced during the neoliberal period, and reclaiming key economic sectors to public ownership and democratic control. Public control over energy is essential to decarbonize electricity supply while at the same time curtailing demand through efficiency and conservation. Achieving these goals will require needs-based planning and a solid commitment on the part of governments to immediately cease trying to guarantee profits for private investors. They must direct their attention to rebuilding the capacity of public institutions at all levels to mobilize people and resources in order to deliver the “unprecedented changes” considered necessary by the IPCC.

Of course, it will be very difficult to bring about these changes. But the experience of the last 20 years tells us that, as a movement, we have no other option but to work alongside others who understand that the prerogatives of private profit cannot be allowed to determine our collective future.

Just Transition Needs a Transition

A public goods approach is also essential if we are to achieve a Just Transition for workers. Following its inclusion in the Preface to the Paris Agreement, unions have made Just Transition a priority, urging governments to include the principle in any measures taken with regard to the implementation of their respective National Determined Contributions (NDCs) submitted to the UNFCCC. Employers, too, have been encouraged to adopt Just Transition as a guiding principle. In the three years since Paris, there have been some notable successes, such as the case of Canada’s Just Transition Task Force as well as promising developments in Australia the UK (particularly in Scotland) and Spain. Just Transition has also informed proposed legislation in the U.S. at both state and federal levels.

The political momentum around Just Transition is encouraging. But there is no avoiding the fact that the actual transition to a low carbon economy is not on track. The IPCC’s Special Report concluded that, in order to stay within 1.5 degrees, human-caused CO2 will need to fall by about 45 per cent from 2010 levels by 2030, reaching “net zero” around 2050. To have any chance of the 2030 target being met, emissions will need to peak soon after 2020. Currently, there is not the slightest prospect of this happening, absent a major economic slump or depression. Emissions are rising, not peaking – and certainly not falling. Globally, emissions from fossil fuels rose a staggering 60% between 1990 and 2013, and CO2 emissions from the power sector alone have increased by more than 45% just since the year 2000. CO₂ emissions from all sources leveled off from 2014 to 2016, but they rose again in 2017 – by 2% – and are almost certainly going to rise further this year.

Renewables are Growing, But There Is No “Energy Revolution”

It is true that renewable energy has grown impressively in recent years. In 2016, a record-breaking 161 GW in new renewables-based generating capacity was installed around the world. But the growth of renewables has not stopped the rise in fossil fuel use. Global energy demand is currently rising at around 2% per year, fossil fuels and renewables are growing alongside each other, and energy demand is projected to increase by 28-30% by 2040. Wind and solar have established a significant foothold in the electricity sector, providing just over 5% of total electricity generation at the end of 2016. Yet in other economic sectors – industry, transport, food and agriculture – as well as in the heating and cooling of buildings, the role of modern renewable energy is miniscule.

Reviewing the trends in electricity generation earlier this year, BP’s group chief economist, Spencer Dale, stated, “[D]espite the extraordinary growth in renewables in recent years, and the huge policy efforts to encourage a shift away from coal into cleaner, lower carbon fuels, there has been almost no improvement in the power sector fuel mix over the past 20 years… I had no idea that so little progress had been made until I looked at these data.”

The world is not “moving away from fossil fuels,” as many have claimed and many more believe. The opposite is true. Those who try to reassure us that the transition to a sustainable, low-carbon future is “inevitable” or even “well under way” need to face this reality. Current energy and emissions trends are simply not compatible with the Paris targets – not even close. On the contrary, current trends point to more climate disruption, more pollution, and more struggles on the part of people for land and water, and for democratic freedoms and human rights.

Why Calling for “More Political Will” and “More Ambition” Isn’t Enough

Immediately following COP21 in Paris, the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) rightly noted how the “Nationally Determined Contributions” (NDCs) submitted by governments, while overall a good first step, needed to be more ambitious. Even if fully implemented, the NDCs would lead to a continuing rise in emissions until 2030, and would likely produce an overall average temperature increase of 3 degrees Celsius or more by 2100. In the three years since the Paris talks, there are clear signs that the major industrialized countries are failing to meet even those inadequate pledges.

At COP24, many voices will again demand that governments show “more ambition” in order to make their NDCs consistent with the IPCC’s proposed actions. While unions stand in solidarity with those making such demands, we also need to recognize that calling for governments to show more ambition is not enough. What we are witnessing is not a problem of “political will.” Governments from 195 countries have already accepted the need for decisive action in order to limit average global warming to “well below 2 degrees Celsius” (compared to pre-industrial levels) and to try to limit that warming to just 1.5 degrees Celsius. What we are witnessing instead is the widening gap between ambition and action, and the incapacity of governments to deliver on their own already weak commitments. This is because they refuse to consider solutions that take profits out of the equation.

“Green Growth” – What Went Wrong?

The gap between ambition and action points to an enormous policy failure. In 2006 Nicholas Stern – one of the founding fathers of the “green growth” idea and a former World Bank Chief Economist – released a landmark report titled The Economics of Climate Change (known as “The Stern Review”). According to Stern, “The science tells us that GHG [i.e., greenhouse gas] emissions are an externality; in other words, our emissions affect the lives of others. When people do not pay for the consequences of their actions we have market failure. This is the greatest market failure the world has seen.”

The “Stern Review” proposed that a global price on carbon was necessary, in accordance with the “polluter pays” principle. The carbon price would need to be increased over time, steadily driving the transition to renewable energy sources and the proliferation of “low carbon solutions.” The role of governments was to “send signals” to the markets (i.e., to developers, private corporations and investors) in order to reassure them that governments were committed to addressing climate change and would back that commitment with “long term policy support” (which normally means incentives and subsidies). As one liberal policy group expressed it, “Our policy agenda must ultimately be effective in mobilizing clean energy investments by private business owners. There is no other way.”

It was a big gamble – one that did not pay off. First, the effort to introduce a global price on carbon has been a disaster. In 2017, the World Bank reported that just 15% of global GHGs were subjected to a price; in three-quarters of cases where a price on carbon exists, it was no more than $10 per ton – far too low to have any meaningful impact on investment decisions. Indeed, attempts to establish a meaningful price have been obstructed by the same corporations that had advocated for it in the first place. The chances of an effective global price on carbon emerging in the next decade are today virtually non-existent.

Second, despite the many pledges and commitments made by representatives of the investor class, the private sector has not only failed to deliver, but has held the entire process of pursuing an energy transition captive to their demands for guaranteed profits. According to the International Energy Agency, “Globally, clean energy investment is not yet consistent with the transition to a low-carbon energy system envisaged in the Paris Climate Agreement.” This is not going to change. The annual investment deficit is already estimated to be $600-billion annually. According to the Climate Policy Initiative, “The cumulative gap between finance needed and finance delivered is growing, putting globally agreed temperature goals at risk, and increasing the likelihood of costly climate impacts.” The reason for the lack of investment is obvious: There is simply not enough guaranteed profit in “low carbon solutions” like clean energy to attract the levels of capital needed.

The Illusion Lingers

These basic facts have done nothing to deter green growth enthusiasts. According to the latest report by the Stern-led Global Commission on Economy and Climate, Unlocking the Inclusive Growth Story of the 21st Century: “The evidence today shows that climate action is even more attractive than we imagined then [in 2006 when the Stern Review was published]. This remarkable new growth opportunity is now hiding in plain sight.” The report acknowledges that carbon prices “are still too low to have meaningful impact” and that a carbon price of $40-$80 (US) per tonne by 2020 is needed, rising to $50-$100 by 2030. The report also notes that the “biggest opportunity and challenge is to mobilize the large pools of private capital, especially those held by institutional investors.” Despite this challenge, the report argues, “The train is fast leaving the station. Leaders are already seizing the exciting economic and market opportunities of the new growth approach… Over $26-trillion and a more sustainable planet are on offer, if we all get on board. The time to do so is now.”

Stern’s basic error is that he assumed the investor class would immediately grasp the offer to commit its resources toward creating a “path of development and growth that is very attractive in its own right: cleaner, quieter, more efficient, less congested, less polluted, more bio-diverse and so on. And in addition, and fundamentally, it carries much less climate risk… But it seems a very sound and attractive strategy.” The idea that money should be invested for the public good – and the reduce climate risk – is simply not part of the mindset. Private investors seek returns. And with the prospect of making returns compromised by risk, high borrowing costs, and dependent on a (yet to appear) carbon price and government subsidies, the investment the world needs will not materialize. If saving the planet won’t deliver “value for shareholders,” the “smart money” will go elsewhere.

Privatization: The Climate Impacts of Legalized Theft of Public Resources

Meanwhile, the majority of investment that has thus far materialized has been driven by public funds. Because competitive markets have not delivered the returns investors demand, governments have opted to guarantee investor profits through subsidies (“risk mitigation”) and favorable financing (“concessionary lending”). This is most obvious in the renewables sector. The development of wind and solar power today relies almost entirely on government guarantees and incentives – in the form of “power purchase agreements” (PPAs), privileged access to grids, etc. – rather than on revenues from market-based prices. This means public money has been used to make profitable what would otherwise not be profitable. As the International Energy Agency bluntly remarks, “Market-based, unsubsidised low-carbon investments have been negligible.”

The “green growth” policy failure is the latest chapter in the now decades-long story of neoliberal restructuring: a process that has systematically and savagely targeted the public sector and public services, reaping a vast windfall for private interests and enriching the “One Percent.” Climate policy has been no different. Although packaged as “green,” “job-friendly” and “inclusive,” the “green growth” framework was designed by the same corporate, financial and corporate elites that, along with the IMF and the World Bank, made sure that public assets were transferred over to private companies. Many of these companies then became subsidized at further public expense in order to ensure “satisfactory returns.”

The IMF and the World Bank continue to show an unswerving commitment to economy-wide privatization, “public private partnerships,” financialization, and marketization. This is hardly surprising, since “green growth” policy approaches explicitly connect emissions reductions to further privatization and liberalization. Public energy systems remain a primary target, and many have already been broken up and sold off, often in the name of efficiency, flexibility, modernization, and “decarbonization.” As with the structural adjustment programs of the 1980s and 1990s, development loans have been made conditional on “market reforms” that advance the commodification of energy. In doing so, they undermine possibilities for providing energy as a public service and a human right, in recognition of its role in meeting basic human needs.

Sticking with Neoliberal Climate Policy is an Attack on Human Rights

Neoliberal policies, which amount to legalized plundering of public wealth, have created a more unequal and politically unstable world. These policies have also undermined basic rights, as detailed in a recent reportfrom the UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights. Anti-public policies have led to large sections of the working class losing access to adequate health, education, transport and other services. In 2017, an estimated 82% of the wealth created globally went to the top 1% of the world’s population.

Neoliberal climate policy is also an attack on human rights. The IPCC says that limiting warming to 1.5 degrees is technically possible. But current policies are impeding the energy transition, because the deployment of renewable energy and other climate solutions depend on their capacity to generate profit for private interests. This approach has made it impossible to reach climate goals, and therefore threatens human rights by making the climate increasingly unstable – with the most severe impacts being felt by vulnerable populations in the global South.

A Public Goods Approach – And the Need to Extend Public Ownership

In one way or another, rising emissions hurt everyone, and reducing emissions benefits everyone. Since most emissions come from how we generate and use energy, energy generation and use must be radically reshaped by pro-public policies. This shift toward a “public goods” approach can liberate climate and energy policy from the chains of the current investor-focused neoliberal dogma, which holds that “the private sector must lead.”

The pursuit of energy democracy and the adoption of a public-goods approach will entail an extension of public ownership and social control across key economic sectors. This can allow for energy systems to be restructured and reconfigured in a way that can serve social and ecological needs. As long as large energy interests remain in private hands, or function as profit-driven commercial enterprises even when they are formally “public” entities, the energy system will continue to revolve around increasing energy use and maximizing profits, rather than protecting people and planet.

COP24, Katowice: We Can Start from Here

It should now be clear that, as we continue to fight for Just Transition, we must do so while fully aware that the dominant profit-based approach to climate protection cannot deliver a transition to a low-carbon future consistent with the Paris targets – whether that transition is “just” or unjust. No worker, no community, no region should be left behind – but at the moment we are not even moving in the right direction, so everyoneis being “left behind.” And for every worker whose job and quality of life are threatened by climate policy, hundreds if not thousands of others will feel the negative impacts of “extractivism as usual” and the impacts of climate change on their lives and livelihoods. This is not a scenario that unions can accept. Only a coordinated, public-goods approach allows us to escape the contradictions of commodified energy systems that pit some workers against others. Time is running out, and failure should not be considered an option.

• Emissions reductions and climate adaptation benefit everyone.
• Governments must be allowed to invest in the future of their people, within a framework of international cooperation and sharing.
• Returns on investment should be measured in better health, cleaner water, enhanced public mobility, and quality public services that can deal with climate instability.
• Everyone should have access to electricity that is reliable, affordable and “climate friendly.”
• Policies that are designed to prevent the development of a pro-public needs-based approach, and attempt to legally impose privatization and liberalization, must be immediately rescinded.

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Dear Comrades and Friends Across the Globe:

On December 27, 2018, in a historic action, Court of Common Pleas Judge Leon Tucker granted Mumia’s petition for new appeal rights, over the opposition of “progressive DA” Larry Krasner.

This is the first Pennsylvania state court decision in Mumia’s favor since he was arrested on December 9, 1981.  The new appeals ordered by Judge Tucker open the door to Mumia Abu-Jamal’s freedom. The legal claims and supporting evidence, previously denied in the PA Supreme Court with Justice Ronald Castille’s participation, warrant a dismissal of the frame-up charges that have kept Mumia imprisoned for 37 years, or, at the very least, a new trial.

It is critical that Mumia can go forward immediately with these appeals. However, DA Larry Krasner has the authority to appeal Judge Tucker’s decision. Krasner’s position, to the surprise of many who had described him as the “new kind” of district attorney, more bent toward justice than mere conviction, with a history of defending dissident activists, been adamant in his opposition to Mumia’ petition.  His legal filings, court arguments, and his statements on public radio have all argued that there is no evidence of Justice Castille’s bias or the appearance of impropriety when he refused to recuse himself in Mumia’s PA Supreme Court appeals from 1998-2012 (!).

If the prosecution appeals, there will follow years of legal proceedings on the validity of Judge Tucker’s order before Mumia can begin the new appeal process challenging his conviction. .Mumia is now 64 years old. He has cirrhosis of the liver from the years of untreated hepatitis C. He still suffers from continuing itching from the skin ailment which is a secondary symptom of the hep-C. Mumia now has glaucoma and is receiving treatment. He has been imprisoned for almost four decades.  An extended appeals process coming at the age of 64 to a person whose health had already been seriously compromised is the equivalent of a death sentence by continued incarceration.

We are asking you to join us in demanding that Larry Krasner stop acting in league with the Fraternal Order of Police.

Mumia should be freed from prison, now!  We are asking you to call, email or tweet DA Larry Krasner TODAY and tell him:

DO NOT Appeal Judge Tucker’s Decision Granting New Rights of Appeal to Mumia Abu-Jamal.

In his decision, Judge Tucker ruled that former PA Supreme Court Justice Ronald Castille, who was the District Attorney during Mumia’s first appeal of his frame-up conviction and death sentence, had “created the appearance of bias and impropriety” in the appeal process when he didn’t recuse himself from participating in Mumia’s appeals. Judge Tucker relied heavily on Ronald Castille’s public statements bragging that he would be a “law and order” judge, that he was responsible for putting 45 men on death row, that he had the political and financial support of the Fraternal Order of Police, and in recently discovered new evidence that Castille had particularly campaigned for immediate death warrants of convicted “police killers”.  Judge Tucker states unequivocally that the appearance of bias and lack of “judicial neutrality” exhibited by Castille warranted his recusal.

Judge Tucker’s order throws out the PA Supreme Court decisions from 1998-2012 that rubber-stamped Mumia’s racially-biased, politically-motivated murder conviction on frame-up charges of the shooting death of police officer Daniel Faulkner.

Judge Tucker’s decision means that Mumia Abu-Jamal’s post-conviction appeals of his 1982 conviction must be reheard in the PA appeals court. In those appeals Mumia’s lawyers proved that Mumia was framed by police and prosecution who manufactured evidence of guilt and suppressed the proof of his innocence. And, he was tried by a racist, pro-prosecution trial judge, Albert Sabo, who declared to another judge, “I’m gonna help them fry the n—-r” and denied Mumia his due process trial rights.

We can win Mumia’s freedom!

We have a legal opening.

It is our opportunity to push forward to see Mumia walk out of prison! The international campaign for Mumia Abu-Jamal’s freedom has launched a new offensive.

At the top of its actions is this call for letters and phone calls to DA Larry Krasner demanding he not appeal Judge Tucker’s order granting new appeal rights to Mumia Abu-Jamal.  Please take this action today.  Please send us back your name so we can compile a list of international signers.  Also, no matter how many letters for Mumia you have signed in the past year or two, please sign this one as well.  The moment is different, and the demand of Krasner is different.  We want all possible supporters included.

In solidarity and toward Mumia’s freedom,

(Initiated by all the US based Mumia support organizations)

International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal; The MOVE Organization; Educators for Mumia; International Action Center; Mobilization for Mumia; Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition (NYC); Campaign to Bring Mumia Home; Committee to Save Mumia; Prison Radio, Labor Action Committee to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal, Oakland; Oakland Teachers for Mumia; Workers World/Mundo Obrero

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Between 3 February and 9 August 1945 during the second world war, an area of 461 square kilometres in 69 Japanese cities was burned by US bombing raids. This included the nuclear bombs dropped on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The resulting fires saw plumes of thick, dark smoke rise high into the atmosphere. Much like the cloud and ash thrown into the air by volcanic eruptions, this soot had the potential to block out incoming sunlight, cooling the Earth’s surface.

In a recent paper, published in Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, we investigate whether the smoke from these fires was enough to change global temperatures.

Nuclear winter

I’ve been working on the threat of nuclear winter for 35 years now. In the 1980s, using simple climate models, we discovered that global nuclear arsenals, if used on cities and industrial areas, could produce a nuclear winter and lead to global famine.

Smoke from the fires would last for years in the upper atmosphere, blocking sunlight, and making it cold, dark and dry at the Earth’s surface. It would also destroy ozone, enhancing ultraviolet radiation reaching the surface.

While the immediate effects of nuclear strikes might kill hundreds of thousands, the numbers that would die from starvation in the years that followed could run into billions.

Normally scientists test their theories in a laboratory or with real world observations.  Fortunately, we do not have a global nuclear war to examine. So how can we test nuclear winter theory?

One option is to look at the impact of forest fires. Large wildfires have been observed to pump smoke into the upper atmosphere – the stratosphere – above where rain can wash it out, and then be further lofted by solar heating. Such was the case with a massive fire in British Columbia in August 2017.

We also have many examples of cities that have burned in the past. Accidental fires burned numerous cities, such as London in 1666, Chicago in 1871 and San Francisco in 1906.

But while we don’t have a global nuclear war to study, we do have two cases where nuclear weapons were deployed – Hiroshima and Nagasaki during the second world war.

Photo of Main Street, Hiroshima. Taken on 13 July 1946 in Hiroshima. Credit: National Archives, RG-342-FH-60579AC, from www.japanairaids.org

Temperature drop

While the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki – on 6 and 9 August 1945, respectively – have gone down in history as the first use of nuclear weapons in warfare, what is less well known is that they were part of a larger bombing campaign by US B-29 Superfortress bombers.

Between 3 February and 9 August 1945, an area of 461sq kilometers in 69 Japanese cities, including Hiroshima and Nagasaki, was burned during these air raids – killing 800,000 civilians. The smoke produced by Hiroshima and Nagasaki made up less than 5% of the total.

Part of Shizuoka after it was bombed on 19 June 1945. Credit: National Archives, RG-342-FH-59080AC, from www.japanairaids.org

In our study, we calculated how much smoke was emitted based on estimates for the area burned by fires, the amount of fuel, how much soot was emitted into the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere, and how much was washed out by rain.

We then estimated the impact on the climate using observed records of solar irradiance – i.e. the amount of the sun’s energy that reaches the Earth’s surface – and land surface temperature. Fortunately, the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory maintained two long-term records for solar irradiance – at Mount Montezuma in Chile and on Table Mountain in California, US – so there are data available.

The solar irradiance observatory at Mt. Montezuma, Chile. Credit: Smithsonian Institution Archives, Record Unit 7005, Box 187, Folder: 9, Image #2003-19480.

For global land surface temperature records, we used GISTEMP from NASA and CRUTEM from the Met Office Hadley Centre and the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia.

The chart below shows the land temperatures during the 1940s and 1950s for CRUTEM (yellow) and GISTEMP (green) as anomalies from the 1940-44 average. Both temperature records show a drop in global temperature (left-hand chart) in 1945 of around 0.1C and in northern hemisphere (right) temperature of 0.2C.

Global (left) and northern hemisphere (right) annual average land surface air temperature anomaly (K) with respect to 1940-1944 average. Data are from CRUTEM and GISTEMP. The green whisker (plotted at 1948 in (a)) is the uncertainty of the GISTEMP observations (95% confidence limit) accounting only for incomplete spatial sampling. Source: Robock & Zambri (2018)

However, we know that there were other factors in play. For example, seasonal temperatures show that cooling in 1945 started at the beginning of the year, before the air raids on Japan. This suggests that natural variability was also playing a role.

Yet there were no significant volcanic eruptions in 1945, nor any El Niño or La Niña event in 1945 or 1946. (In fact, you can see the cooling effect of La Niñas later in the data series – two of the largest La Niñas on record occurred in 1950 and 1956.)

Therefore, despite a detectable amount of cooling in 1945, the multiple uncertainties mean we cannot say for sure that it was caused by this period of bombings in the second world war.

Arsenal

Although our results could not formally detect a cooling signal from second world war smoke, it does not invalidate the nuclear winter theory that much more massive smoke emissions from nuclear war would cause large climate change and impacts on agriculture.

There are many analogues that support parts of nuclear winter theory – not least the way in which major volcanic eruptions create long-lasting clouds in the stratosphere, cooling the Earth and reducing rainfall. The 1815 Tambora eruption in Indonesia, for example, caused the “Year Without a Summer” in 1816, bringing crop failures and food shortages across the northern hemisphere.

Since the end of the Cold War in the early 1990s, the global nuclear arsenal has been reduced by a factor of four. The world currently possesses about 14,000 nuclear weapons, distributed among nine nations – the US, Russia, France, the UK, China, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea.

Yet our climate model simulations show that these would still be enough to produce nuclear winter – and that even 1% of them could cause climate change unprecedented in recorded human history.

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Prof Alan Robock is a distinguished professor of climate science in the Department of Environmental Sciences at Rutgers University in New Jersey, US.

As 2018 concludes there is much to be learned from developments on the African continent where the nation-states and masses of people are continuing their quest for authentic national liberation and unity. This is a first in a series of articles which highlight aspects of events on the continent which point to the necessity of building an independent existence for working class, peasantry and youth that can guarantee a prosperous future free of the legacy of slavery, colonialism and neo-colonialism.

Voting, Stabilization and the Economics of International Relations: The Democratic Republic of Congo and Angola

A much anticipated national presidential election in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) was postponed for one week to December 30.

This mineral-rich state in the “heart of Africa” has been the focus of a concerted destabilization campaign by the imperialist nations since it gained independence in June 1960. First Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba was a Pan-Africanist and anti-imperialist fighter who sought to unite the former Belgian Congo internally for the benefit of the majority of its people.

Lumumba wanted to become a leading force in the struggle for African unity along with Dr. Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, Ahmed Sekou Toure of Guinea-Conakry, Modibo Keita of Mali and other progressive elements leading the freedom movements of the 1950s and 1960s. After attaining power through electoral means, Lumumba was targeted for destabilization, a politico-military coup, house arrest and eventual assassination within the course of seven months.

Since Lumumba’s death in January 1961, there have been recurrent crises stemming from the legacy of colonialism. Over the last two decades the eastern region of the DRC has been a source for rebel activity much of which has been sponsored by Washington-allied regional governments as well as multi-national corporations involved in the exploitation of mineral resources.

President Joseph Kabila has been in power since 2001 when his father, Laurent Kabila, was assassinated. His organization, the People’s Party for Reconstruction and Democracy (PPRD), has its own candidate for the highest office, Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary. Opposition parties backed by the imperialists with economic interests in the extractive industry are creating an atmosphere where anything less than an outright victory for them will be denounced as fraud placing blame on the current administration.

In recent years there appears to have been a lessening of tensions between Kinshasha and the neighboring states of Uganda and Rwanda. This represents an apparent shift since the late 1990s when in the aftermath of assisting the elder Kabila to take power from longtime U.S.-backed dictator Mobutu Sese Seko in 1997, Kigali and Kampala in 1998 invaded the DRC in a failed attempt to remove this same leader. The Southern African Development Community (SADC) deployed tens of thousands of troops to halt the putsch resulting in a withdrawal agreement for both sides and the stationing of 12,500 United Nations peacekeeping troops who are still inside the country.

The southwest Kasai region of DRC has been the scene since 2016 of clashes involving militias which support and oppose the Kabila administration. Hundreds of thousands of displaced persons have subsequently fled to neighboring Republic of Angola where many worked in the informal mining sector.

During October, the Angolan government ordered the deportation of up to 300,000 Congolese back across the border. This situation has created yet another series of problems of resettlement into areas where violence compelled their exodus.

Angola is undergoing a rectification process where the recently-elected President Joao Lourenco has sought to address the allegations of corruption from the previous administration of Jose Eduardo dos Santos. Lourenco is traveling to various states seeking partnerships and assistance in sustaining and rebuilding the national economy and infrastructure.

Both the DRC and Angola are rich in national wealth. It is undeniable that these central and southern African states have much more to gain through cooperation rather than divisions.

An Elusive Social Stability and Development: Burundi, Rwanda and the Republic of Sudan

President Pierre Nkurunziza has maintained his position as head-of-state over the last few years in a landlocked agricultural-based country which has a turbulent history of ethnic conflict and displacement. Opposition political parties argued three years ago that the president had no right to run for a third term of office under the 2005 peace agreement which ended more than a decade of civil war.

Mass demonstrations failed to dislodge the administration while fears of a wave of repression and possible renewed civil war, prompted hundreds of thousands of people to flee the country into the neighboring nations of Rwanda and Tanzania. The Burundi government led by the party of Nkurunziza, the National Council for Defense and Democracy (CNDD-FDD), has warned regional states about what they perceived as subversive activity on the part of exiles aimed at fomenting unrest inside the country.

Rwanda and Burundi share a similar history of colonization by Germany and Belgium. The ethnic makeup of the countries where the dominant groups of Tutsis and Hutus, with a small minority of Twa, was a mechanism utilized by imperialism to divide, conquer and control.

Rwanda President Paul Kagame at AfCFTA Summit in Kigali, March 20-21, 2018

In recent months Kigali and Bujumbura have faced-off diplomatically in a manner which has drawn the attention of regional governments. Rwandan President Paul Kagame was highly critical of the decision by Nkurunziza to remain in power despite a Burundian Constitutional Court decision in favor of the CNDD-FDD. Kagame emphasized that events in Burundi risked the resumption of a major ethnically-laced civil war. While Rwanda itself has come under criticism for extending the tenure of Kagame for another possible decade or more, both leaders view each other as adversaries.

According to an article written by Selina Diaby and Patrick Hajayandi on the situation between Rwanda and Burundi:

“In recent decades the Great Lakes region has been marred by civil wars and suffered from consequences of sponsored violence and large-scale abuses of human rights that left millions of people dead and others displaced, raped, mutilated, traumatized and hopeless. It is therefore necessary for the EAC (East African Community) leadership, the African Union (AU) and possibly the United Nations to take seriously the conflict and escalating tensions between Burundi and Rwanda and the fact that they pose a threat to regional and continental stability.” (News24, Dec. 16)

Meanwhile the Republic of Sudan has experienced demonstrations centering on the economic crisis inside this oil producing state. The partitioning of what was once Africa’s largest geographic country after 2013 and the precipitous decline in oil prices on the international market triggered by the deliberate increase in domestic production by the U.S. under the previous administration of President Barack Obama, has plunged Khartoum into a desperate situation.

Over the last three years, the government has moved closer politically to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) through their participation in the U.S.-engineered war against the people of Yemen. However, over twenty people have been killed in the month of December as the government attempts to suppress protests centered in the capital affirming in reality that partnerships with the junior partners of imperialism provide no way out of the perils of neo-colonialism in the 21^stcentury.

Image on the right: Sudan President Omar Hassan al-Bashir visits Syrian counterpart Bashar al-Assad, Dec. 2018

Nonetheless, the government of President Omar Hassan al-Bashir appears to be dissatisfied with its attempts to “normalize” relations with Washington and its allies in the Gulf region. The president traveled to the Russian Federation earlier in the year where he expressed dismay at the current arrangements with the regime of Donald Trump. During December, the Sudanese leader made a surprise visit to Syria for discussions with President Bashar al-Assad.

The Arab League, in which Sudan is a member, had attempted to isolate Syria from the outset of the imperialist war aimed at overthrowing the government in Damascus. Now the governments of Bahrain and the UAE are reestablishing relations with Syria as all indications suggests the Washington-backed rebels have been defeated with the assistance of Moscow, the Islamic Republic of Iran and Hezbollah of Lebanon.

These developments in Burundi, Rwanda and Sudan illustrate the precarious character of the post-colonial African states leading into the conclusion of the second decade of the 21^stcentury. Alliances with imperialism provide no benefits beyond a possible short term false “rehabilitation” politically with the centers of the world capitalist system.

Conclusion: Economic Resources and the Quest for Sovereignty

Although all of the above-mentioned states have strategic significance as it relates to mineral wealth, geographical positioning and the imperatives of African unity, the historical process of neo-colonialism is designed to halt genuine development and the perpetuation of the dominance of the U.S., its European allies and client nations on the continent along with the so-called Middle East. Africa and its resources both material and human could if liberated place the region as a leading force in the world system.

Yet after a process of over six decades of national liberation movements and various Pan-African projects, there is the constant threat of recolonization. The declaration of an African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) in March of 2018 in Rwanda can be viewed as a positive manifestation. Nonetheless, until the class contradictions inherited by centuries of enslavement and colonization are overturned the character of growth and development cannot provide the total liberation of the majority of workers, farmers and youth on the continent.

Just a cursory view of several important African nations can provide a perspective on what needs to be done. Africa must become more conscious of itself as an important harbinger of international affairs in the mode of the outlook of Dr. Kwame Nkrumah from the 1950s to the early 1970s. When this level of self-realization and projection is achieved the prospects for transformation can become even more of a material and ideological force on a global scale.

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Abayomi Azikiwe is the editor of Pan-African News Wire. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

All images in this article are from the author

Featured image: Democratic Republic of Congo election machines for December 30, 2018 poll

Canadians are being victimized by criminal war propaganda. War with Syria, (Russia, China etc.) IS NOT serving our interests. Politicians who demonize these countries, and support “regime change” wars of aggression, do not represent our interests. Nor do they represent Canada’s national interests, though the politicians seem to think that supporting al Qaeda is in our national interests. None of the countries that we are destroying or preparing to destroy is a threat to us. They are fabricated “threats” ultimately for the benefit of myopic special interests who are impoverishing us all[1].

Obliterated from colonial media messaging is the fact that the legitimate Syrian government — the same government that Canada and its allies are trying to destroy — is and has always been the only polity that protects religious pluralism in Syria. The West’s sectarian terrorist proxies, for instance, have always targeted Christians for murder, and Christian churches, shrines, icons etc. for destruction.[2]

Mark Taliano, September 2016.  Terrorist-damage (FSA, al Nusra Front) to the Shrine of Saint Takla, Maaloula, Syria.

Mark Taliano, September 2016.  Terrorist-inflicted destruction of religious icons, Shrine of Saint Takla, Maaloula, Syria.

Whereas Syrians, regardless of their religious affiliations, celebrate Christmas, such longstanding Syrian traditions are, and always have been, rejected and annihilated by Western-supported terrorists.

The interests of Canadians are not being served when our government and its allies falsely represent Syria, and when they continue to engage in criminal Regime Change operations against Syria.

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Mark Taliano is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) and the author of Voices from Syria, Global Research Publishers, 2017.

Notes

[1] Mark Taliano. “Socialism for the Rich.” Global Research, 17 August, 2018. (https://www.globalresearch.ca/socialism-for-the-rich/5650876) Accessed 30 December, 2018

[2] Mark Taliano. “America Seeks to Destroy Syrian Civilization, Replace it With Terrorism and Ignorance.” Global Research. 22 March, 2017. (https://www.globalresearch.ca/america-seeks-to-destroy-syrian-civilization-replace-it-with-terrorism-and-ignorance/5581148) Accessed 30 December, 2018.

Order Mark Taliano’s Book “Voices from Syria” directly from Global Research.

Mark Taliano combines years of research with on-the-ground observations to present an informed and well-documented analysis that refutes  the mainstream media narratives on Syria. 

Voices from Syria 

ISBN: 978-0-9879389-1-6

Author: Mark Taliano

Year: 2017

Pages: 128 (Expanded edition: 1 new chapter)

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The partial shutdown of the US federal government entered its second week on Saturday, with thousands of workers receiving short paychecks December 28 and 800,000 set to receive no pay at all when the next paycheck is due on January 11, 2019.

Both the Trump White House and the Democratic leadership in Congress are completely indifferent to the consequences for federal employees and workers at myriad government subcontractors, as well as the public at large, as the impact of the shutdown is felt more widely following the Christmas holiday.

Wednesday, December 26, was the first regular work day after the shutdown began at 12:01 a.m. Saturday morning, December 22. Workers with weekend work schedules including that Saturday were not paid for those hours in the checks they received Friday. A total of 800,000 workers in nine federal departments and numerous agencies will receive no pay January 11 if the shutdown continues—an outcome that is now widely predicted.

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) sent out draft letters Thursday to federal workers who have either been furloughed or designated as “essential employees” and ordered to work without pay. The letters urged workers to call their landlords if they are renters, or mortgage companies if they are buying a home, as well as other major creditors, and attempt to get their payment obligations deferred during the shutdown.

“Speaking with your creditors will enable you to work out the details of any payment plan that you can later confirm with your letter,” the memo says.

The text of one sample letter to be sent to a creditor begins:

“I am a Federal employee who has recently been furloughed due to a lack of funding of my agency. Because of this, my income has been severely cut and I am unable to pay the entire cost of my monthly payments, along with my other expenses.”

The OPM communication emphasizes that the federal agency, which oversees personnel matters for all government departments, will not take any action to influence creditors or provide legal assistance, instead advising workers to “consult with your personal attorney or contact your state or county bar association, many of which maintain lawyer referral services.”

In other words, you’re on your own.

Nor will the federal employee unions take any action, other than issuing statements supporting the Democratic Party in the ongoing confrontation over the federal budget and President Trump’s demand for $5 billion in funding for construction of a wall along the US-Mexico border.

National Treasury Employees Union President Tony Reardon told the Washington Post he was disappointed that Congress was not in session working on a budget resolution, noting that members have told the union they are returning Christmas presents and taking other emergency steps to pay their rent.

The nine federal departments include six that are virtually shut down—Agriculture, Commerce, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Transportation and Treasury—and three whose operations are largely unaffected because they are engaged in functions critical to the operations of American imperialism both at home and abroad—Homeland Security (DHS), the Department of Justice and the State Department.

Many other independent agencies are partly or wholly shut down, including the Environmental Protection Agency, which has exhausted reserve funds that allowed it to continue operations through Friday, and the Smithsonian Institution and National Zoo, which will close their doors January 2.

Within the DHS, which includes Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the Transportation Security Administration, another unit, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, stopped issuing new policies under the National Flood Insurance Program. This will delay or force the cancellation of thousands of home sales for residences in flood zones.

Both the House of Representatives and the US Senate convened Thursday for brief sessions—less than five minutes each—at which one or two Republican members pounded the gavel to open business, listened to an invocation, then ended the proceedings without any discussion or action. Similar pro formasessions are set for Monday, December 31, after which both houses will adjourn for the year.

Congressional leaders of both parties and the White House all agreed that there would be no action to resolve the shutdown until after the new Congress is convened on January 3, with a newly elected Democratic majority in the House and a slightly expanded Republican majority in the Senate.

House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi is expected be elected House speaker on January 3 and has pledged that the first action of the new Democratic majority will be passage of a continuing resolution along the lines of one approved by the Senate unanimously last week—but then blocked by Trump—which would fund the affected federal departments through February 8.

Press reports said that the congressional Democrats are considering two other options: a resolution continuing funding for the affected agencies through the end of the fiscal year next September 30, or a full-year appropriation for all federal agencies except the Department of Homeland Security, which would operate under a continuing resolution while the border wall issue was negotiated.

All of these actions would be for political effect only, since Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will block action on any continuing resolution or appropriation unless it is agreed on by the White House.

Trump forced the shutdown after his initial agreement to sign the continuing resolution, which does not include money for the border wall, was vociferously attacked by Fox News pundits and right-wing radio talk show hosts. He has since escalated the confrontation in an effort to mobilize his fascistic base through appeals to anti-immigrant racism.

The president pursued this track even on his overnight trip for a photo op appearance with US troops at Al Asad Air Base in western Iraq, where he denounced the Democratic Party in front of the soldiers, claiming that while the troops were defending “another country’s borders,” the Democrats were unwilling to defend the borders of the United States.

There was virtually no response from either the Democrats or the corporate media to this brazen attempt to politicize the military and use it as a club against Trump’s critics at home.

On Friday, Trump continued with this theme, threatening to close the US-Mexico border entirely if the Democrats did not “give us the money to finish the Wall & also change the ridiculous immigration laws that our Country is saddled with.” He concluded with, “We build a wall or close the southern border.”

Such an action would be both illegal—the president has no authority to close the border except in a genuine national security emergency, which hardly exists today—and economically disastrous for both countries. Cross-border trade between the United States and Mexico is approaching $2 billion a day, and any interruption would have a particularly dire impact on states like Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California.

Trump also threatened to cut off all US aid to Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador if the governments of these countries did not take action to halt the exodus of working people fleeing political repression, gang violence and extreme poverty.

While the corporate media portrays the conflict over funding for the border wall as a titanic battle of principle, the Democrats previously agreed to fund the wall as part of a bipartisan deal reached last February that included limited protection against deportation for young immigrants previously covered by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which Trump unilaterally terminated. That deal collapsed only after Trump demanded additional concessions—again to appease ultra-right supporters—to reduce legal immigration.

The pro-Democratic Party Washington Post published an editorial Friday in which it urged the revival of the February “wall for ‘dreamers’” deal. “Mr. Trump wants money for his pet border-wall project so badly that he’s willing to stage a partial government shutdown,” the Post editors wrote. “Democrats should let him have funding for the wall in return for a permanent fix to the immigration status of the ‘dreamers,’” they continued, concluding that “there’s no real issue of principle preventing a bipartisan deal, just the politics of base-pleasing polarization.”

The editorial warned Pelosi not to take too adamant a stand—no danger there!—because court orders that have temporarily blocked Trump’s decision to rescind DACA are “by no means permanent, however, especially now that conservatives enjoy a solid 5-4 majority on the Supreme Court.”

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President Donald Trump’s announcement of an imminent withdrawal of US troops from northeastern Syria summoned a predictable paroxysm of outrage from Washington’s foreign policy establishment. Former secretary of state and self-described “hair icon” Hillary Clinton perfectly distilled the bipartisan freakout into a single tweet, accusing Trump of “isolationism” and “playing into Russia and Iran’s hands.”

Michelle Flournoy, the DC apparatchik who would have been Hillary’s secretary of defense, slammed the pull-out as “foreign policy malpractice,” while Hillary’s successor at the State Department, John Kerry, threw bits of red meat to the Russiagate-crazed Democratic base by branding Trump’s decision “a Christmas gift to Putin.” From the halls of Congress to the K Street corridors of Gulf-funded think tanks, a chorus of protest proclaimed that removing U.S. troops from Syria would simultaneously abet Iran and bring ISIS back from the grave.

Yet few of those thundering condemnations of the president’s move seemed able to explain just why a few thousand U.S. troops had been deployed to the Syrian hinterlands in the first place. If the mission was to destroy ISIS, then why did ISIS rise in the first place? And why was the jihadist organization still festering right in the midst of the U.S. military occupation?

Too many critics of withdrawal had played central roles in the Syrian crisis to answer these questions honestly. They had either served as media cheerleaders for intervention, or crafted the policies aimed at collapsing Syria’s government that fueled the rise of ISIS. The Syrian catastrophe was their legacy, and they were out to defend it at any cost.

Birthing ISIS From the Womb of Regime Change

During the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, Clinton, Kerry, and the rest of the Beltway blob lined up reflexively behind George W. Bush. The insurgency that followed the violent removal of Iraq’s Ba’athist government set the stage for the declaration of the first Islamic State by Abu Musab Zarqawi in 2006.

Five years later, with near-total consent from Congress, Hillary enthusiastically presided over NATO’s assault on Libya, cackling with glee when she learned that the country’s longtime leader, Moammar Gaddafi, had been sodomized with a bayonet and shot to death by Islamist insurgents — “We came, we saw, he died!” It was not long before an Islamist Emirate was established in Gaddafi’s hometown of Sirte, while 31 flavors of jihadi militias festered in Tripoli and Benghazi.

While still defending her vote on Iraq, Hillary made the case for arming the anti-Assad opposition in Syria.

“In a conflict like this,” she said, “the hard men with the guns are going to be the more likely actors in any political transition than those on the outside just talking.”

In 2012, the CIA initiated a one billion dollar arm-and-equip operation to fund the so-called “moderate rebels” united under the banner of the Free Syrian Army (FSA). A classified Defense Intelligence Agency memo distributed across Obama administration channels in August of that year warned that jihadist forces emanating from Iraq aimed to exploit the security vacuum opened up by the US-backed proxy war to establish a “Salafist principality in eastern Syria” — an “Islamic State,” in the exact words of the memo.

Referring to Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia’s Syrian affiliate by its name, Jabhat al-Nusra, before Western media ever had, the DIA emphasized the close ties the group had fostered with Syria’s “moderate rebels”:

“AQI supported the Syrian opposition from the beginning, both ideologically and through the media. AQI declared its opposition to Assad’s regime from the beginning because it considered it a sectarian regime targeting Sunnis.”

The memo was authored under the watch of then-Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, who was convicted this year of failing to register as a foreign agent of Turkey — an extremely ironic development considering Turkey’s role in fueling the Syrian insurgency. Predictably, the document was ignored across the board by the Obama administration. Meanwhile, heavy weapons were flowing out of the U.S. Incirlik air base in Turkey and into the hands of anyone who could grab them across the Syrian border.

As early as February 2013, a United Nations independent inquiry report concluded, “The FSA has remained a brand name only.” The UN further issued a damning assessment of the role of the United States, UK and their Gulf allies in fueling extremism across Syria.

“The intervention of external sponsors has contributed to the radicalization of the insurgency as it has favoured Salafi armed groups such as the al-Nusra Front, and even encouraged mainstream insurgents to join them owing to their superior logistical and operational capabilities,” the report stated.

US Arms, ISIS Caliphate

How ISIS overran large swaths of territory in northeastern Syria and established its de facto capital Raqqa is scarcely understood, let alone discussed by Western media. That is partly because the real story is so inconvenient to the established narrative of the Syrian conflict, which blames Assad for every atrocity that has ever occurred in his country, and for some horrors that may not have ever taken place. Echoing the Bush administration’s discredited attempts to link Saddam Hussein to Al Qaeda, some neoconservative pundits hatched a conspiracy theory that accused Assad of covertly orchestrating the rise of ISIS in order to curry support from the West. But the documented evidence firmly established the success of ISIS as a byproduct of the semi-covert American program to arm Assad’s supposedly moderate opposition.

Opposition activists fly flag of the US-backed Free Syrian Army with ISIS flag in center of Raqqa, Dec. 2013.  (Raqqa Media Center)

Back in March 2013, a coalition of Syrian rebel forces representing the CIA-backed FSA, the Turkish and Qatari proxy, Ahrar al-Sham, and the Al Qaeda affiliate, al-Nusra, overwhelmed the Syrian army in Raqqa. Opposition activists declared the city the “icon of the revolution”and celebrated in Raqqa’s town center, waving the tricolor flags of the FSA alongside the black banners of ISIS and al-Nusra, which set up its headquarters in the city’s town hall.

But disorder quickly spread throughout the city as its residents attempted to order their affairs through local councils. Meanwhile, the US-backed FSA had ceded the city to al-Nusra, taking the fight to the front lines against government forces further afield. The chaos stirred by the insurgents and their foreign backers had created the perfect petri dish for jihadism to fester.

A month after Raqqa was taken, the Iraqi zealot and ISIS commander Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi revealed that al-Nusra had been a Trojan horse for his organization, referring to its commander, Mohammed Jolani, as “our son.” Jolani, in turn, admitted that he had entered Syria from Iraq as a soldier of the Islamic State, declaring,

“We accompanied the jihad in Iraq as military escorts from its beginning until our return [to Syria] after the Syrian revolution.”

By August, Baghdadi completed his coup, announcing control over the city. According to the anti-Assad website, Syria Untold, the U.S.-backed FSA had “balked in the face of ISIS and avoided any military confrontation with it.” Many of its fighters quickly jumped ship to either the Islamic State or al-Nusra.

“The [FSA] battalions are scared to become the weakest link, that they will be swallowed by ISIS,” a media activist named Ahmed al-Asmeh told the journalist Alison Meuse. “A number joined ISIS, and those who were with the people joined Jabhat al-Nusra.”

Backing “Territorial ISIS”

As the insurgency advanced towards Syria’s coast, leaving piles of corpses in its wake and propelling a refugee crisis of unprecedented proportions, the U.S. stepped up its arm-and-equip program. By 2015, the CIA was pouring anti-tank missiles into the ranks of Nourredine Al-Zinki, an extremist militia thateventually forged a coalition with bands of fanatics that made no attempt to disguise their ideology. Among the new opposition umbrella group was one outfit called, “The Bin Laden Front.”

Despite all its war on terror bluster, the U.S. was treating ISIS as an asset in its bid to topple Assad. Then Secretary of State Kerry copped to the strategy in a leaked private meeting with Syrian opposition activists in Sept. 2016:

“We were watching,” Kerry revealed. “We saw that Daesh [ISIS] was growing in strength and we thought Assad was threatened. We thought, however, we could probably manage, you know, that Assad might negotiate and instead of negotiating, you got Assad, ah, you got Putin supporting him.”

When Russia directly intervened in Syria in 2015, the Obama administration’s most outspoken interventionists railed against its campaign to roll back the presence of Al Qaeda and its allies, comparing it to the Rwandan genocide. These same officials were curiously quiet, however, when Russia combined forces with the Syrian military to drive ISIS from the city of Palmyra, to save the home of the world’s most treasured antiquities from destruction.

At a March 24, 2016, press briefing, a reporter asked U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner, “Do you want to see the [Syrian] regime retake Palmyra, or would you prefer that it stays in Daesh’s [ISIS] hands?”

Toner strung together empty platitudes for a full minute.

“You’re not answering my question,” the reporter protested.

Toner emitted a nervous laugh and conceded, “I know I’m not.”

About a year later, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman openly called for the U.S. to use ISIS as a strategic tool, reiterating the cynical logic for the strategy that was already in place.

“We could simply back off fighting territorial ISIS in Syria and make it entirely a problem for Iran, Russia, Hezbollah and Assad,” Friedman proposed. “After all, they’re the ones overextended in Syria, not us. Make them fight a two-front war—the moderate rebels on one side and ISIS on the other.”

Giving ISIS ‘Breathing Space’

When the U.S. finally decided to make a move against ISIS in 2017, it was gripped with anxiety about the Syrian government restoring control over the oil-rich areas ISIS controlled across the northeast.

Palmyra saved twice from ISIS. (Wikimedia Commons)

With help from Russia, and against opposition from the U.S., Syria had already liberated the city of Deir Ezzor from a years-long siege by the Islamic State. Fearing that ISIS-occupied Raqqa could be next to be returned to government hands, the U.S. unleashed a brutal bombing campaign while its allies in the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (a rebranded offshoot of the People’s Protection Units or YPG) assaulted the city by ground.

The U.S.-led campaign reduced much of Raqqa to rubble. In contrast to Aleppo, where rebuilding was underway and refugees were returning, Raqqa and outlying towns under U.S. control were cut off from basic government services and plunged into darkness.

The U.S. proceeded to occupy the city and its outlying areas, insisting that the Syrian government and its allies were too weak to prevent the resurgence of ISIS on their own. But almost as soon as U.S. boots hit the ground, ISIS began to gather strength. In fact, a report this August by the UN Security Council’s Sanctions Monitoring Team found that in areas under direct American control, ISIS had suddenly found “breathing space to prepare for the next phase of its evolution into a global covert network.”

This October, when Iran launched missile strikes against ISIS, nearly killing the ISIS emir, Baghdadi, the Pentagon complained that the missiles had struck only three kilometers from U.S. positions. The protest raised uncomfortable questions about what the top honchos of the Islamic State were doing in such close proximity to the American military, and why the U.S. was unwilling to do what Iran just had done and attack them. No answers from the Pentagon have arrived so far.

Target: Iran

With the appointment this August of James Jeffrey, a self-described “Never Trumper” from the pro-Israel Washington Institute for Near East Policy, as Trump’s special representative for Syria engagement, it became clear that the mission to eradicate ISIS was of secondary importance. In testimony before Congress this December, Jeffrey laid out an agenda that focused heavily on what he called “Iran’s malign influence in the region,” “countering Iran in Syria,” and “remov[ing] all Iranian-commanded forces and proxy forces from the entirety of Syria.” In all, Jeffrey made 30 mentions of Iran, all of them hostile, while referring only 23 times to ISIS. It was clear he had regime change in Tehran on the brain.

Trump, for his part, had been mulling a removal of U.S. forces from northern Syria since at least last Spring, when he put forward a vision for an all-Arab military force funded by Saudi Arabia to replace them. But when Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was sawed apart inside his country’s embassy in Istanbul this October, Trump’s plan went to pieces as well. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan exploited the Khashoggi saga to perfection, helping to transform Saudi Crown Prince Mohamed Bin Salman from the darling of America’s elite into persona non grata in Washington. As a result, he arranged a front line position for Turkey in the wake of any U.S. withdrawal.

There are now real reasons to fear that a Turkish advance will ignite a resurgence of ISIS. Turkey was not only a source of aid and oil sales to the jihadist group, it currently oversees a mercenary force of Salafi militiamen that includes droves of former Islamic State fighters. If the Turkish onslaught proves destabilizing, Iran and its allied Shia militias could ramp up their deployment in Syria, which would trigger a harsh reaction from Israel and its Beltway cut-outs.

Then again, the Kurdish YPG is in high level negotiations with Damascus and may team up with the Syrian military to fill the void. From an anti-ISIS standpoint, this is clearly the best option. It is  therefore the least popular one in Washington.

Whatever happens in Syria, those who presided over U.S. policy towards the country over the past seven years are in no position to criticize. They set the stage for the entire crisis, propelling the rise of ISIS in a bid to decapitate another insufficiently pliant state. And though they may never face the accountability they deserve, the impending withdrawal of American troops is a long overdue and richly satisfying rebuke.

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Max Blumenthal is an award-winning journalist and the author of books including best-selling Republican Gomorrah: Inside the Movement That Shattered the Party, Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel, The Fifty One Day War: Ruin and Resistance in Gaza, and the forthcoming The Management of Savagery, which will be published by Verso. He has also produced numerous print articles for an array of publications, many video reports and several documentaries including Je Ne Suis Pas Charlie and the newly released Killing Gaza. Blumenthal founded the GrayzoneProject.com in 2015 and serves as its editor.

If there was a Fake News of the Year Award, This New York Times article would be in the Top 5 category for running one of the worst stories and may I add, a conspiracy theory for 2018. On December 17th, The New York Times published an article titled ‘Russian 2016 Influence Operation Targeted African-Americans on Social Media’ has to be one of the most absurd pieces I’ve read this year.  Newsflash, you don’t need Russians or the Chinese or anyone else who is not on America’s good side to tell African-Americans what are the true colors of the Democratic party. Throughout their history, the Democratic party’s relationship with the African-American community even under America’s first African-American President, Barack Obama, (his mother Ann Dunham was white) has been catastrophic. The policies put forth by the Democratic Party (the Republicans can also share the blame as they have continued those same policies) has destroyed the African-American community.

Screengrab from The New York Times

It is also a fact that the U.S. holds the title for having one of the largest prison populations on the planet filled with mostly young African-American and Latino men. Former U.S. President and a life-long Democrat Bill Clinton imposed tough drug laws that effected young black men at unprecedented levels. Michelle Alexander’s ‘The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness’ wrote about Bill Clinton’s federal “Three Strikes and you’re Out” law’ and the impact it had on the African-American community:

To the contrary, in 1992, presidential candidate Bill Clinton vowed that he would never permit any Republican to be perceived as tougher on crime than he. True to his word, just weeks before the critical New Hampshire primary, Clinton chose to fl y home to Arkansas to oversee the execution of Ricky Ray Rector, a mentally impaired black man who had so little conception of what was about to happen to him that he asked for the dessert from his last meal to be saved for him until the morning. After the execution, Clinton remarked, “I can be nicked a lot, but no one can say I’m soft on crime.” 

Once elected, Clinton endorsed the idea of a federal “three strikes and you’re out” law, which he advocated in his 1994 State of the Union address to enthusiastic applause on both sides of the aisle. The $30 billion crime bill sent to President Clinton in August 1994 was hailed as a victory for the Democrats, who “were able to wrest the crime issue from the Republicans and make it their own.” The bill created dozens of new federal capital crimes, mandated life sentences for some three-time offenders, and authorized more than $16 billion for state prison grants and expansion of state and local police forces. Far from resisting the emergence of the new caste system, Clinton escalated the drug war beyond what conservatives had imagined possible a decade earlier. As the Justice Policy Institute has observed, “the Clinton Administration’s ‘tough on crime’ policies resulted in the largest increases in federal and state prison inmates of any president in American history.”

Did President Obama’s Economic Model Help the African-American Community?

In a 2015 article written by Lauren Victoria Burke published by Black Press USA ‘Is Black America Better Off Under Obama?’ quoted what Obama said on December 19th, 2014 to Urban Radio Networks White House Correspondent April Ryan “Like the rest of America, Black America, in the aggregate, is better off now than it was when I came into office,” Burke response was “What planet African Americans are doing “better off” on is unknown. What is known is that President Obama is about to leave office with African Americans in their worst economic situation since Ronald Reagan. A look at every key stat as President Obama starts his sixth year in office illustrates that.” Burke described what some of the facts were in regards to the African-American community under Obama:

Unemployment. The average Black unemployment under President Bush was 10 percent. The average under President Obama after six years is 14 percent. Black unemployment, “has always been double” [that of Whites] but it hasn’t always been 14 percent. The administration was silent when Black unemployment hit 16 percent – a 27-year high – in late 2011. 

Poverty. The percentage of Blacks in poverty in 2009 was 25 percent; it is now 27 percent. The issue of poverty is rarely mentioned by the president or any members of his cabinet. Currently, more than 45 million people – 1 in 7 Americans – live below the poverty line. 

The Black/White Wealth Gap. The wealth gap between Blacks and Whites in America is at a 24-year high. A December study by PEW Research Center revealed the average White household is worth $141,900, and the average Black household is worth $11,000. From 2010 to 2013, the median income for Black households plunged 9 percent

Adding to Burke’s analysis is the study of the black child poverty rate in the U.S. compared to other groups. The Pew Research study released on July 14th, 2015 ‘Black child poverty rate holds steady, even as other groups see declines’suggested that children living in poverty across the U.S. declined as the economy improved. However, the poverty rate for black children did not change that much:

The share of American children living in poverty has declined slightly since 2010 as the nation’s economy has improved. But the poverty rate has changed little for black children, the group most likely to be living in poverty, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of Census Bureau data 

The study said that the child poverty rate for all other groups decreased while black children poverty rate did not change at all:

Overall, 20% of children in the U.S., or 14.7 million, lived in poverty in 2013 – down from 22%, or 16.3 million, in 2010. (Poverty in 2013 was defined as living in a household with an annual income below $23,624 for a family of four with two related children.) During this period, the poverty rate declined for Hispanic, white and Asian children. Among black children, however, the rate held steady at about 38%. Black children were almost four times as likely as white or Asian children to be living in poverty in 2013, and significantly more likely than Hispanic children

These are some of the facts that faced the African-American community under Obama. The majority of African-Americans I personally know in New York City don’t like the Republicans and I can assure you, they don’t like the Democrats that much either. With an increase of poverty and unemployment rates plus police shootings of young black men (many were unarmed individuals) across the United States under Obama, maybe that’s’ why many black people did not vote in the 2016 election for Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party.

In another report by Pew Research ‘Black Voter Turnout fell in 2016, even as a record number of Americans cast ballots’ said that although more than 137 million people voted in the 2016 elections, Black voter turnout decreased according to the report:

The black voter turnout rate declined for the first time in 20 years in a presidential election, falling to 59.6% in 2016 after reaching a record-high 66.6% in 2012. The 7-percentage-point decline from the previous presidential election is the largest on record for blacks. (It’s also the largest percentage-point decline among any racial or ethnic group since white voter turnout dropped from 70.2% in 1992 to 60.7% in 1996.) The number of black voters also declined, falling by about 765,000 to 16.4 million in 2016, representing a sharp reversal from 2012. With Barack Obama on the ballot that year, the black voter turnout rate surpassed that of whites for the first time. Among whites, the 65.3% turnout rate in 2016 represented a slight increase from 64.1% in 2012

So the low black voter turnout rate in the 2016 U.S. Presidential elections should not surprise anyone given the fact that their living standards have either remained the same or have gotten worst under the Obama administration. But The New York Times claims that the Russians influenced African-Americans through Instagram according to a joint investigation with New Knowledge, a Texas based cybersecurity company along with researchers from Columbia University and Canfield Research LLC:

“The Russian influence campaign on social media in the 2016 election made an extraordinary effort to target African-Americans, used an array of tactics to try to suppress turnout among Democratic voters and unleashed a blizzard of activity on Instagram that rivaled or exceeded its posts on Facebook, according to a report produced for the Senate Intelligence Committee”

The report adds new details to the portrait that has emerged over the last two years of the energy and imagination of the Russian effort to sway American opinion and divide the country, which the authors said continues to this day.

“Active and ongoing interference operations remain on several platforms,” says the report, produced by New Knowledge, a cybersecurity company based in Austin, Tex., along with researchers at Columbia University and Canfield Research LLC. One continuing Russian campaign, for instance, seeks to influence opinion on Syria by promoting Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president and a Russian ally in the brutal conflict there

The report suggests that the Russians took advantage of African-Americans who had an interest regarding “black history, the Black Panther Party and Malcolm X”:

But the New Knowledge report gives particular attention to the Russians’ focus on African-Americans, which is evident to anyone who examines collections of their memes and messages.

“The most prolific I.R.A. efforts on Facebook and Instagram specifically targeted black American communities and appear to have been focused on developing black audiences and recruiting black Americans as assets,” the report says. Using Gmail accounts with American-sounding names, the Russians recruited and sometimes paid unwitting American activists of all races to stage rallies and spread content, but there was a disproportionate pursuit of African-Americans, it concludes.

The report says that while “other distinct ethnic and religious groups were the focus of one or two Facebook Pages or Instagram accounts, the black community was targeted extensively with dozens.” In some cases, Facebook ads were targeted at users who had shown interest in particular topics, including black history, the Black Panther Party and Malcolm X

Well there are many historical facts on what the Democratic party has done systematically to destroy the African-American community and many African-Americans understand this fact. Malcolm X understood what the Democratic Party was really about, read ‘What Did Malcolm X Really Think about the Democratic Party?’ which I wrote back in 2017. Let’s also take the history of abortions in the African-American community. For example, Eugenicist, a hero of the Democratic party (especially for Hillary Clinton) and founder of American Birth Control League which later would be renamed ‘Planned Parenthood’ Margaret Sanger (a Democratic Socialist) wrote a letter on December 10, 1939 to Dr. Clarence J. Gamble which she said “We don’t want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population…” Former Secretary of State and two time Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton accepted Planned Parenthood’s Margaret Sanger Award back in 2009 and praised the Eugenicist:

Now, I have to tell you that it was a great privilege when I was told that I would receive this award. I admire Margaret Sanger enormously, her courage, her tenacity, her vision … And when I think about what she did all those years ago in Brooklyn, taking on archetypes, taking on attitudes and accusations flowing from all directions, I am really in awe of her

This is just one part of Black history that adds insult to injury. An article by Walter B. Hoye III published on The Center for Urban Renewal and Education (CURE) titled ‘Abortion is the Single Negative Force on Black American Growth’explains how abortions have affected the African-American community:

Considering that the total current Black American population is about 42,000,000, the 20,350,000 Black American abortions are equal to 48.45% of the total Black American population. If not for abortion, the total Black American population would be approximately 62,350,000, or 48% greater than it is today.

This is based on an analysis of data from the U.S. Statistical Abstract for 2013 and the National Vital Statistics Report, Vol. 64, No. 1 dated January 15, 2015. This analysis was done recently by Dennis Howard, President of the Movement for a Better America who has written extensively on abortion demographics.

In 2015, there were an estimated 9,168,000 Black American women in their childbearing years between age 15 and 44 which make up around 14% of all women in that age group in the United States of America.

These women experienced:

Births: 621,679

Abortions: 423,000

Pregnancies: 1,044,679

Resulting in:

Abortions as a % of all pregnancies: 40.5%

Abortion rate per 1,000 women: 46.3

The high-rate of abortions among African-Americans introduced by the Democratic party is just another historical fact, but The New York Times says it’s Russian propaganda or what they call “Soviet Propaganda” that influenced African-Americans in the 2016 Presidential elections:

The report does not seek to explain the heavy focus on African-Americans. But the Internet Research Agency’s tactics echo Soviet propaganda efforts from decades ago that often highlighted racism and racial conflict in the United States, as well as recent Russian influence operations in other countries that sought to stir ethnic strife

The New York Times claims that the report by the Senate Intelligence community not only targets the Trump-Russia collusion theory, they also take a jab at Senator Bernie Sanders and the Green Party candidate, Jill Stein:

“While the right-wing pages promoted Mr. Trump’s candidacy, the left-wing pages scorned Mrs. Clinton while promoting Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate. The voter suppression effort was focused particularly on Sanders supporters and African-Americans, urging them to shun Mrs. Clinton in the general election and either vote for Ms. Stein or stay home.

Whether such efforts had a significant effect is difficult to judge. Black voter turnout declined in 2016 for the first time in 20 years in a presidential election, but it is impossible to determine whether that was the result of the Russian campaign”

The New York Times and the mainstream-media who work for the establishment in Washington, D.C. are becoming more ridicules, more conspiratorial by the day. Let’s be clear, the Democrats (and the Republican party in many cases) do not care about African-Americans or any other minority group including poor white communities. They just want your votes to stay in power.

Besides, according to people in the Democratic Party like Hillary Clinton who happened to praise former Ku Klux Klan leader Robert Byrd when he died in 2010 by saying “Today our country has lost a true American original, my friend and mentor Robert C. Byrd” she went on to say that “Senator Byrd was a man of surpassing eloquence and nobility. And I will remember him for many things, but most of all, for a heartfelt comment he made to me in the dark days following the attack on our country on 9/11.” Byrd’s legacy definitely rubbed off on Hillary Clinton because to her, all African-American’s look alike:

Hillary Clinton was trying to be funny by mocking the interviewer,  however, saying something like that is insulting to African-Americans even if it was only meant to be funny.  It is not.

The New York Times along with other mainstream-media outlets and the Democratic party are desperate to remove Trump from office and they are using any lie to do so.  Therefore, blaming Russia for everything is a joke, especially for those of us who know what the truth is.

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This article was originally published on the author’s blog site: Silent Crow News.

Featured image is from SCN

2018 was marked by notable and sometimes alarming political, military and security developments around the world.  The Middle East, Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, Central Asia and East Asia once again became the scenes of global and intra-regional standoffs. A characteristic feature of the past year was the fact that almost all cross-border regions as well as regions which directly concern the economic and security interests of the USA, the EU, the People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation have been drawn into the confrontation between global forces. This leads to the conclusion that there are no more “safe havens” in today’s world.

In the first half of the year, the world was balancing on the brink of a new and wider cycle of violence in the Middle East conflict.  Many believed that exactly this could finally destroy the fragile world security order based on the Post Cold-War system of international relations. However, by the end of the year, the situation had changed and confrontation between the key powers has now shifted to Eastern Europe and Asia.

This development is the result of the following factors:

• The situation in Syria has stabilized, as a result of a series of successful military operations by the Syrian-Iranian-Russian alliance and diplomatic measures undertaken in the framework of the Astana format.
• The US and key EU states concentrated their main attention on different regions in various corners of the world. This was conditioned by the interests of the Euro-Atlantic elite and new economic and by the new diplomatic approach of the Trump administration.
• The US changed the focus of its foreign policy towards the active deterrence of China, instead of a possible cooperation. For this reason, the US employed measures to contain the economic expansion of China in the US market as well as in those foreign regions where the interests of US and Chinese corporations competed.
• Germany, the most powerful European economic center, sent strong signals that its interests did not correspond with Euro-Atlantic interests.
• The regime of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and its backers employed active measures to fuel tensions in Eastern Europe and the Black Sea region during the last two months of the year.

Throughout the year, the United States, which remains the only world superpower, successfully alienated some of its key partners and sharpened tensions with its competitors. It appeared to be engaged in an economic war with China, an economic and diplomatic conflict with the EU and, a diplomatic conflict with Turkey – over the Kurdish issue and Ankara’s military and economic cooperation with Russia. The US withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal as well as intensified the conflict with the Middle Eastern country in diplomatic, economic and even military spheres.

The Trump administration spent a notable amount of time threatening North Korea with an invasion and promising not to do this if a denuclearization deal were to be reached. However, it appeared that despite showing a readiness to negotiate, the North Korean elites decided that they were not prepared to sell their national interests, as they see them, for the remote chance of being accepted as a junior partner of the US-dominated “international community”. After this and in the second part of the year Trump suddenly lost interest in the Korean peace process which could signals that Korean issues were needed and used mainly to support Trump’s personal domestic political agenda.

In its turn, US-Russia relations have been further damaged. Washington increased sanction pressure on Moscow and officially declared its readiness to withdraw from key US-Russian arms reduction deals.

Top US officials, including military, often name Russia and China among the key challenges faced by the country. However, there is a difference in the approach employed towards these two powers.

Speaking to cadets at Virginia Military Institute on September 25, US Secretary of Defense James Mattis stressed that Russia and “the nuclear threat” are now key challenges for the US.

“There’s also other challenges out there as well, but in terms of urgency, I’d say North Korea. In terms of power right now, it is probably Russia and the nuclear threat. And in terms of long-term political will, it’s China.

But China does not have to be a threat. We can find a way to work together with China. We’re two nuclear-armed superpowers and we’re going to have to learn how to manage our relationship, and I do believe we can do that,” Mattis stated.

Russia is mostly seen as a military threat in the event of a large regional or global conflict while in the case of China, the Washington establishment is mostly concerned with its economic and diplomatic influence around the world. This US stance could shift in the future with the further growth of the Chinese Armed Forces’ military capabilities.

There is a logical explanation why the current Washington establishment pays so much attention to Russia. The US has long been facing a crisis in its social economic development model. If the US wants to maintain the living standards of its domestic population, it has to keep up the current level of consumption, which is impossible in the modern world without further expansion and colonial-style exploitation of “overseas” territories. Therefore, Russia could be considered as the only appropriate target of these efforts, because China is already incorporated into the system of international trading and finances and its internal political situation is much more stable.

This complex yearlong trip of the US administration was in many cases fueled by the populist attitude of Donald Trump personally. The US President was actively exploiting various types of foreign enemy – the Assad government, the Chinese, the Russians, Iran and North Korea, which his administration was “defeating” in twitter and mainstream media to solve its own domestic political problems and to justify its course.

Being an experienced showman, the US President was shuffling these foreign enemies hiding failures and showcasing the successes of his administration. For example, despite the obvious failure of the regime-change and anti-Iranian efforts in Syria, the US found time to show its supreme military power by launching another missile strike on the war-torn country. The economic war with China was justified as necessary measures to defend US domestic industry. The expanding anti-Russia sanctions, which since 2014 have failed to deliver a devastating blow to Russia’s economy, were used as an example of Trump’s firm policy towards Vladimir Putin, who is undertaking hostile actions against Western democracy. The anti-Iranian campaign in support of Israeli regional expansion appeared to be described as anti-terror efforts and was even used to turn a blind eye to the unprecedented murder of a journalist in a Saudi consulate in Istanbul. All the abovementioned was deftly packaged by Trump into his concise statement on the assassination of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi: “The world is a very dangerous place!”.

In 2019, Trump will likely continue juggling with enemies, threats and challenges, which he and his team will be confronting via twitter and other tools of US foreign policy. Meanwhile, the main threat to international peace and security will remain the US desire to withdraw from the INF Treaty and to not deal with the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. In particular, these possible developments could lead to direct threats to European homeland security.

Another threat to European security is a possible hot regional war in Eastern Europe, which may start in Ukraine.

On November 25, the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) Border Service opened fire on and damaged Ukrainian warships, which were advancing in Russian territorial waters in the Black Sea off Crimea. After the short close-quarter firefight, two Ukrainian ships were towed and one ship escorted by Russian forces to the Russian port of Kerch. The data available from both sides, Ukrainian and Russian, demonstrates that the Ukrainian warships intentionally entered Russian territorial waters and were moving more deeply into them. Such a military action with the to be expected intense political coverage is not possible without a direct order from the Ukrainian top military-political leadership.

Exploiting the incident, Ukraine imposed martial law and heightened its propaganda campaign claiming that Russia was about to invade Ukraine. At the same time, military tensions increased in the east of the country as the Ukrainian Army deployed additional troops and heavy weapons in the region of Donbass.

The Ukrainian leadership was fueling military tensions in order to create the appearance of a direct military threat to national security thus justifying political persecutions and censorship. Ukraine is set to hold a presidential election in early 2019 and, according to polls, incumbent president Poroshenko has little chance of staying in power unless the election is delayed or the situation changed dramatically, for example because of war. The West is also concerned about the situation. If the current Ukrainian foreign policy were to change, the Washington and Brussels establishment could lose 5 years’ worth of hacking out a foothold in the political life or even in the economic landscape of Ukraine.

The wars in Syria and Yemen, the Israeli-Arab tensions in Palestine as well as the conflict between the US-Israeli-Saudi bloc and the Iran-Hezbollah bloc remained the main hot points in the Middle East.

The smoldering conflict in Syria is one of the key hot points in the Middle East. In 2018, the Syrian-Iranian-Russian alliance achieved a series of important victories against militants in the countryside of Damascus and in southern Syria establishing a full control of these important areas. The US-led coalition and Israel attempted to prevent these advances by indirect and even direct military actions, including the US-led missile strike on government targets in April. However, all these attempts failed to change the situation at the strategic level.

The Turkish Armed Forces (TAF) accompanied by Turkish-backed militant groups captured Afrin in northern Syria from the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG). US-led forces used most of the year to consolidate their control of the desert areas on the eastern bank of the Euphrates and to show that they are fighting ISIS in the Euphrates Valley.

The military situation in Syria as of December 2018:

• Turkey and its proxies, usually referred as the Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army (TFSA), control the area of Afrin and the al-Bab-Azaz-Jarabulus triangle.
• The US-led coalition and its proxies, known as the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), control the northeastern part of Syria.
• Various militant groups, first of all Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, are in control of the most of Idlib -province and nearby areas.
• ISIS cells still operate on the eastern bank of the Euphrates River and in the Homs-Deir Ezzor desert.
• The southern and central parts of the country, including the most populated areas, are in the hands of the Damascus government.

Northern Syria is a big knot of contradictions, with every party (Syria, Turkey, Iran, Russia, and of course the US) seeking to implement their own plans.

The Assad government is still viewed as illegitimate by Ankara, though Erdogan prefers not to mention it officially if this is possible. Turkish authorities have also repeatedly claimed that Ankara is fulfilling its obligations under the de-escalation zones agreement. However, no practical steps have been made by Ankara to separate Turkish-backed “moderate” factions from the terrorist groups in Idlib or to combat the terrorists there.

Turkey considered ISIS and Kurdish armed groups to be terrorists. After ISIS suffered defeat, Kurdish armed groups remained the only point in that category. Some Kurdish leaders hoped that Erdogan may lose the presidential election and thus the Turkish stance on the Kurdish issue in northern Syria will soften. However, this has never happened.

On June 4, 2018, Ankara and Washington approved the “road map” for the town of Manbij in northern Aleppo, which is currently controlled by the Kurdish-dominated SDF. According to Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, the first phase of the “road map” would see a withdrawal of Kurdish units from the town, which would come under joint patrols of Turkish and US troops. Turkish top officials also claimed that the agreement implied creating a town administration out of local inhabitants after the Kurdish armed groups’ departure. Turkey also insisted that all Kurdish armed groups within the SDF have to be disarmed or even disbanded in the framework of the roadmap.

Nonetheless, the turn of events appeared to be at odds with Ankara’s desires. The YPG once again claimed that it had withdrawn its members from Manbij. US and Turkish forces started patrols north of the town, on the contact line between the SDF/YPG and Turkish-held areas. No Turkish troops entered Manbij. The political and military control over the town remained in the hands of the YPG-affiliated bodies. Furthermore, the US continued providing Kurdish fighters with various military supplies, including weapons and armoured vehicles, and training. No further joint US-Turkish steps to settle the Manbij issue in favor of the Erdogan government were made.

Moreover, the problem is also that for Erdogan, Afrin, Al-Bab, and Manbij are not enough. He has repeatedly vowed to completely clear Kurish armed groups from the area from Manbij to Sinjar, which means operations in Qamishli, Kobani and Haskah, the main YPG strongholds in Syria. Thus, in order to achieve own goals the Erdogan government is balancing between the US-led bloc and the Syrian-Iranian-Russian alliance.

From Russia’s point of view, the strategic priority is Syria’s territorial integrity and the prevention of radical islamists from coming to power. Russia is open to dialogue with a moderate part of the Syrian opposition and is ready to participate in the talks. The leadership likely understands that Turkey is a temporary ally of Russia in Syria, where the two countries together with Iran are guaranteeing the ceasefire in de-escalation zones.

Thus, some Russian experts claim that Turkey is allied with the US against Russia, which does have some basis. Turkey is in NATO, Ankara has supported and is still supporting the opposition, especially radical armed groups in Idlib, which are not willing to negotiate with Assad. The conflict of objectives between Turkey and the Syrian-Iranian-Russian alliance has become obvious when the SAA started preparing for a possible military operation in Idlib.

However, Turkey’s, Syria’s, and therefore also Russia’s interests coincide on the question of Syrian Kurdistan. After Russian forces were dispatched to Syria and particularly after the liberation of Aleppo in 2017, Moscow tried to act as an intermediary between the Kurds and Damascus, trying to convince the latter to create Kurdish autonomy. But the Kurdish leaders rejected talks with Damascus and instead placed their hopes in an alliance with the US. It does not matter whether they picked that option because they felt Washington was the best hope to gain quick independence for Rojava or because of a cash stimulus from US emissaries. Most likely both factors played a role. The prospect of a pro-US Kurdish “independent” state formation was extremely worrisome to Ankara, Damascus, and Tehran, prompting them to close ranks.

Thus, the Kurds have lost their chance to get a wide autonomy within Syria and become a bargaining chip in the negotiations between major players involved in the conflict.

The Astana process format also deserves a few words. In the framework of this formant, Russia, Turkey, and Iran have affirmed their determination to fight terrorism and also those organizations which are considered terrorist by the UNSC, oppose separatism aimed at undermining territorial integrity and the sovereignty of Syria and the security of neighboring countries, continue joint efforts to promote political reconciliation among the Syrians themselves in order to facilitate the earliest possible launch of the Constitutional Committee in Geneva.

But the actual situation is radically different. Ankara de-facto controls part of Syria, with the fight against Kurdish armed groups and the expansion of own influence in the war-torn country being the motives. Turkey also lacks a UNSC mandate or a permission from Damascus to deploy forces in the country. These are undoubtedly violations of Ankara’s commitments to the Astana agreements and of Syria’s sovereignty. The participation of the Syrian opposition in the negotiations is also a problem. Many factions just sabotage the talks.  Moreover, there are no significant results in the realm of political decisions on the country’s future, even though they sides continue to affirm their unity in this effort. One could draw the conclusion that the Astana format is not effective and is only a platform for meetings among heads of states, since each country and Turkey in particular is pursuing its own interests.

If one examines Russian participation in the conflict, there is still no evidence that Russia plans to impose a solution for a future Syria by force. Troops and equipment are being withdrawn from Hmeimim, which indicates a gradual drawdown of the military operation and a shift towards diplomatic means. However, while it’s possible to observe the successful implementation of this approach in some separate regions of the country, it has faced significant difficulties on the regional level.

The September 17 announcement of the demilitarized zone in northwestern Syria by President Putin and his Turkish counterpart are a part of the wider strategy aimed at reaching a kind of peaceful settlement to the conflict and to de-escalate the situation. The success of this effort depends on the ability and willingness of the sides to employ the agreement on the ground and to force radical militants to demilitarize at least the 15-20km deep area.

There are many potential clashes of interests between Turkey and Syria, including the Kurdish issue, mutual territorial claims, and ideological and political incompatibility. Since the very start of the protests in Syria, Turkey has rendered and continues to render help to the armed groups and political opposition. Moreover, the bilateral relations are made more complicated by the Euphrates river (nearly half the water is taken by Turkey which deprives countries downstream of water), the looting of industrial enterprises of the manufacturing center of Syria – Aleppo (equipment from nearly 1,000 factories were transported to Turkey). Ankara still believes Assad ought to leave his post, although in the last year its rhetoric concerning Assad’s legitimacy has softened. This was due to the growth of Russian influence on the theater of operations, military defeat suffered by several groups backed by Turkey, and also by the political and economic pressure exerted by Moscow after the Su-24 incident. This shaped Turkish policy toward Syria.

In the best outcome scenario for Syria, Iran, and Russia, Turkey would not plan to annex the Syrian territory it controls in the north of the country in order to avoid a negative reaction from these three states. These territories may be used as bargaining chips in order to gain preferential treatment for work in post-war Syria, thus expanding and strengthening its sphere of influence in that country and strengthening Turkey as a regional power. It’s possible that the Syrian border territories will see something akin to a trans-border protectorate, without redrawing national boundaries. Turkey has already transformed the agglomeration of its proxies into something like a unified opposition, with whom Ankara imagines Assad will discuss the future of Syria, thus giving it a place in the war-destroyed country and thus ensuring Turkey’s interests are safeguarded.

In the contemporary military and diplomatic reality surrounding the Syrian crisis, Ankara is pursuing the following tactical goals:

• To eliminate or at least disarm and limit influence of US-backed Kurdish armed groups in northern Syria;
• To strengthen a united pro-Turkish opposition Idlib and to eliminate any resistance to it, including in some scenarios the elimination of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and its allies;
• To facilitate return of refugees from Turkey to Syrian areas under its own control;

If these goals are achieved, Ankara will significantly increase its influence on the diplomatic settlement of the crisis and on the future of the post-war Syria. The returned refugees and supporters of militant groups in the Turkish-controlled part of Syria will become an electoral base of pro-Turkish political figures and parties in case of the implementation of the peaceful scenario. If no wide-scale diplomatic deal on the conflict is reached, one must consider the possibility of a pro-Turkish quasi-state in northern Syria, confirming the thesis that Erdogan is seeking to build a neo-Ottoman empire.

However, military and diplomatic successes were partially undermined by the economic crisis faced by the country in the middle of the year. The security situation in the southern and eastern parts of Turkey also remains complicated. According to the Turkish Internal Ministry, security forces are carrying out over 2,000 operations and neutralize dozens of terrorists every week in order to keep the situation under control.

From its turn, the Syrian-Iranian-Russian alliance continue to pursue the following goals in Syria:

• To eliminate the remaining ISIS cells operating in the central Syria desert;
• To increase pressure on Hayat Tahrir al-Sham in the provinces of Idlib, Latakia and Aleppo in the framework of the de-escalation agreement reached during the Astana talks.

The Russian Special Operations Forces and the Aerospace Forces will continue providing support to government forces in their key operations against terrorists. Nonetheless, the direct involvement of Russian forces will decrease, while negotiators on the ground and on a higher diplomatic level, will play an increasingly important role. The defeat of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham in the province of Idlib will require at least a limited coordination with Turkey and a large-scale humanitarian operation to evacuate civilians from the area controlled by the terrorist group.

In turn, the US will continue working on establishing independent governing bodies that will aim to manage the areas held by the coalition and the SDF and that will be hostile to the Assad government. This effort is obstructed by a complicated situation in the coalition-occupied areas, because of the tensions between the Kurdish-dominated SDF and the local Arab population. Indeed, Kurdish SDF units have already complicated relations with US-backed Arab armed groups, which are also a part of the SDF.

At the same time, US-Turkish relations will continue to experience friction over US military support to Kurdish armed groups, which are the core of the SDF. Ankara describes these groups as terrorist organizations. Continued US support for armed Kurdish groups may further increase the likelihood of improved Russian-Turkish relations and greater cooperation between Ankara and Moscow in how deal with resolving the Syrian conflict. Ankara will continue to pressure Washington to abandon its Kurdish proxies at every turn, and every US attempt to avoid this reality faces will be met with another Turkish move to boost economic and military cooperation with Russia.

Furthermore, Russian-Turkish relations are being strengthened by major joint economic and military deals, including the TurkStream gas pipeline, the Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant and the S-400 air defense system deal. These cooperative economic and military arrangements will continue to increase tensions between Washington and Ankara.

The successful military operation in Syria has undoubtedly boosted the Russian role in the Middle East region in general, allowing it to act as a mediator in conflicts between nations. Moscow actively cooperates with Teheran supporting the Assad government and combating terrorism in Syria. At the same time; however, Russia has been able to leverage its reputation as the global power that is willing and capable of working with other regional players, including Israel, Saudi Arabia and Qatar in order to settle the conflict in Syria, thus avoiding a large-scale escalation or even a wider war in the region. Through its campaign in Syria, Moscow promoted its economic interests. President Bashar al-Assad and other officials have repeatedly stated that Syria is going to grant all the contracts on restoration of the country’s infrastructure to its allies – i.e. Iran and Russia. Russian companies are already participating in the energy projects, both oil and natural gas, in the country and are preparing to expand their presence in the country. Syria will be able to rebuild after a devastating war and Russia will increase its economic and political power in the region, while further securing economic benefits for its citizens at home.

The operation also contributed to Russia’s national security. As it was noted in the start of this video, Russia has always been a target of terrorist activity of various radical groups, including ISIS and al-Qaeda. Some Western state actors have endorsed at least a part of this activity. It is notable that no major terrorist attacks have been carried out inside Russia since 2015. Russian forces eliminated a large number of militants in Syria who were members of terrorist groups originating in its Southern Caucasus regions created in the post-USSR era. This is already proving to be a major blow to the remaining cells of these groups hiding in Russia, because they have lost their most experienced and ideologically motivated members in Syria. The expansion of Russian military infrastructure, including naval and air bases in Syria, shows that Moscow is not going to withdraw from the country in the near future. Russia will continue its efforts to defeat terrorism and to settle the conflict using a variety of military and diplomatic measures.

On the other hand, considering the current situation in the country, it does not seem possible for the Damascus government to restore control of the entire country in the immediate future.

In December 2018, the Trump administration announced the withdrawal of US troops from Syria. In 2019, the US will likely focus on promoting its interests in the region mainly through its allies and local forces under its control.

The stabilization of the situation in Syria also contributed to the growth of Iranian influence in the entire region.

The key to the success of Iranian foreign missions is Sepah-e Pasdaran-e Enghelab-e Eslami, the “Corps of Guardians of the Islamic Revolution,” often mistranslated in the West as the “Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.”  The Sepah is the voluntary army created and dedicated to the defense of the revolutionary order founded by the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.  Headed by Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari, the 120,000-strong force consists of land, air, sea and aerospace branches dedicated to the territorial defense of the Islamic Republic and to preventing the subversion of it society by outside influences considered harmful by the leadership.  As opposed to the conventional Iranian Armed Forces, the Sepah train to carry out irregular warfare.  Due to the subversive and irregular style of combat in which the Syrian rebels and Daesh engage, it was quite natural for the Iraqi and Syrian Governments to petition the Iranians to send Sepah units to advise their conventional militaries and to found units patterned after the Sepah in organization and tactics.

In Iraq the Popular Mobilization Units are largely Shiite and a large component of these have pledged allegiance to Ayatollah Khamenei.  In Syria, the Sepah helped to reorganize and train local militias already formed by the Syrian Arab Army and, as the need for manpower increased, transported units of their Iraqi militias to fight in Syria.  The Syrians formed an umbrella group for all of these militias called the National Defense Forces, specifically modelled after the Basij militia in Iran, a voluntary paramilitary formation dedicated to civil defense and the prevention of foreign infiltration into Iranian society.  The NDF now numbers anywhere from 50,000 to 100,000 members and has recently volunteered to fight the Turkish Army in Afrin.

As can be seen from the examples given, the Iranian foreign missions in Lebanon, Iraq and Syria have been highly successful due mainly to the expertise of the Sepah personnel sent and their intimate knowledge of irregular warfare.

All of these developments have been met with displeasure by Israel, Iran’s main regional antagonist. Due to the precarious beginnings of their state and the continued occupation of foreign land in contravention to international law, the Israelis have had to rely upon the United States as a diplomatic guarantor at the United Nations as a military supplier.  The enmity between the Zionist State and the Islamic Republic is ideological, each state possessing a religious identity and existing with a purpose beyond the abundance of material goods and individual rights prized by the West.

Despite the recurring slogan of ‘Down with Israel’ (a closer translation of the famous Marg bar Israel than the usual ‘Death to Israel’ which appears in the Western press), the Iranians do not actively seek the destruction of the State of Israel but rather the cancellation of its provocative and unjust behaviors, such as: the occupation of most of the West Bank, of the Golan Heights and of East Jerusalem/Al-Quds, and permitting religiously-motivated settlers to continue to build compounds in the West Bank and in East Jerusalem.

Conversely, Israel wants Iran to stop its armament program to Hezbollah and has made it a practice to cross into foreign airspace, usually that of Syria, to attack what it believes to be convoys laden with military hardware destined for Lebanon.  The mutual suspicion between Israel and Iran takes shape locally at Israel’s northern border, across which Hezbollah with the permission of the Lebanese Government has created a multi-layered defensive network consisting of anti-tank and anti-infantry obstacles along with an interconnected bunker system.  Behind these ground defenses lies the missile arsenal, kept up to date by Iran and the cause of grave anxiety in Israel.  Iranian-Lebanese relations are more friendly than not, although the old fault lines from the Lebanese Civil War still exist with nearly all Shia Muslims supporting Iran and most Sunni Muslims and Christians opposing it.  Despite this state of opinion, Lebanon has welcomed Iranian overtures to come to its aid but keeps at a respectful distance due to fear of the US.  Be that as it may, it is widely accepted that Hezbollah can protect Lebanon from another Israeli invasion whereas the Lebanese Army cannot, and so the relationship between Hezbollah and Iran continues.

The overall estimation of Iran’s position in the Middle East and Persian Gulf region depends upon its domestic strength and the success of its regional foreign policy. Regionally, the invitation given by its allies Syria, Iraq and (in a passive manner) Lebanon have allowed Iran to greatly expand its soft-power influence against the US/Israel bloc, thus giving what it perceives to be a needed security buffer against the continual efforts of its enemies to overtly or covertly force regime change; this soft-power influence also protects Shia populations, which it considers vulnerable to Western attack or bad influence.  The ties of political, civil and religious culture have allowed the Iranians to advance strong ties with the Iraqis and Syrians, and the brotherhood forged in the fight against ISIS and other militant groups continues to mean an advancement of Iranian interests regionally. While the defense budget of Iran is dwarfed by those of the United States and Israel, its expertise in asymmetrical warfare combined with its tactical use of advisors and diplomacy have seen Iran advance its regional standing since 2003 to the great consternation of its archenemy Israel and its patron the United States.

In 2018, Iran faced increasing sanction and military pressure from the US, which appeared to be ready to do whatever it takes to support Tel Aviv. In November, the White House announced “the toughest sanctions regime ever imposed on Iran”. The sanctions targeted “critical sectors of Iran’s economy, such as its energy, shipping, shipbuilding, and financial sectors”. In fact, the US re-imposed all pre-nuclear deal sanctions and introduced fresh ones. The new sanction list included over 700 entities and individuals, including 300 new names. Trump and members of his administration concentrated special attention on threatening Iran’s oil export.

In 2019, Iran will face further pressure from the US-Israeli-Saudi bloc on economic, diplomatic and even military fronts. Teheran will likely attempt to contain the US-led bloc by employing its asymmetric capabilities in the region and around the world as well as by strengthening its ties with the US geopolitical competitors – China and Russia. The EU will attempt to act as a neutral side in the US-Iranian conflict and will work to develop ways allowing it to continue economic cooperation with Iran at least in some fields.

Throughout 2018, Israel employed a wide range of military and diplomatic measures in order to pursue and promote its interests in the Middle East. A major part of Israeli military efforts was focused on Syria and the Gaza Strip. Tel Aviv also played the role of Washington’s key ally in the region receiving multiple advantages from this.

Despite this, the US-Israeli bloc has not been able to achieve their goals in the war torn region. These goals were to replace the Assad government with a loyal regime and to limit the influence of its adversaries – Hezbollah and Iran. In fact, the conflict has led to a significant growth of Iranian influence and of the activity of Hezbollah.

The US decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of the Israeli state and the attempts of the Trump administration to intervene in any case where Israeli interests are allegedly under-respected have already led to a further escalation regarding the Palestinian and Israeli transborder issues. Moreover, the US withdrawal from the Iran Nuclear Deal forced Teheran to take a toughter stance on regional issues, including its ballistic and military programs and investments in the conflicts in Syria, Iraq and Yemen.

The situation in and near the Gaza Strip is especially tense. Clashes between Palestinian protesters and Israeli forces have resulted in hundreds of killed and thousands of injured Gazians. The number of Israeli strikes on various Palestinian targets has grown while Palestinian armed groups have also expanded mortar and rocket shelling of southern Israel.

Israel also adopted a basic law declaring itself the nation-state of the Jewish people. The law set Hebrew as the official state language, removing Arabic and declared Jerusalem the Israeli capital. The law further established “developing Jewish settlement as a national interest and will take steps to encourage, advance, and implement this interest.” This move became another factor fueling Arab-Israeli tensions in the region.

In view of this, Russia has for a long time been working to remain ready to cooperate with all sides in order to defeat terrorism and to put an end to the Syrian conflict. The Russian military established de-confliction lines with the US-led coalition and the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). Efforts from the Russian side allowed the situation near the Golan Heights to be de-escalated and prevented further confrontation between Israeli forces and Iranian-backed units in southern Syria. Furthermore, Moscow has avoided engaging in the smoldering Syrian-Israeli conflict and took no direct steps to repel any of the Israeli strikes on Syria.

However, the situation changed on September 18 when a Russian IL-20 reconnaissance plane was shot down in the eastern Mediterranean during an Israeli air raid on Syria. Russia said that the situation was caused by the “hostile actions” of Israel and responded by supplying S-300 air defense systems to the Syrian Air Defense Force, contributing additional efforts to modernize and expand the air defense network of the Syrian military as well as increased EW activity and an increased number of live fire naval drills in the eastern Mediterranean.

While it is unlikely that the Russian military will be publicly involved in the repelling of Israeli strikes on Syria, it will take some steps under the Syrian flag. These steps may include:

• providing the SADF with additional intelligence as well as means and measures to repel Israeli aggression;
• further supplies of modern air defense systems to Syria;
• coordination of the SADF efforts to repel Israeli strikes through their military advisers embedded with the crews of the Russia-supplied air defense systems.

Since late September, in consequence of these developments the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) had significantly decreased their military activity in Syria. Instead, the country’s political and military leadership was focusing on attempts to restore “working relations” with Russia, which would allow the IDF to restore their lost freedom of operations against Iranian and Hezbollah targets. Nonetheless, this is unlikely to work in the near future if Tel Aviv offers no concessions to Moscow.

The current level of media and political hysteria in Israel and the US, which is worsened by the complicated situation in the region, could once again put the Middle East on the verge of a hot regional war.

The war in Yemen is also a source of instability in the region. In 2018, the Saudi-led coalition was unable to deliver a devastating blow to the Houthis and thus achieve a decisive victory in the conflict. Saudi Arabia and its allies had to establish a naval and ground siege of the Houthi-held area causing a deep humanitarian crisis in this part of the country. Houthi-led forces were responding with cross-border raids and missile strikes on Saudi targets creating a zone of instability right on the Saudi-Yemeni border and in southern Saudi Arabia itself.

This as well as a complicated diplomatic and media situation in which, the kingdom found itself after an ill-conceived decision to assassinate an opposition Saudi journalist in its own consulate in the Turkish city of Istanbul, forced the Saudi leadership to take some open steps in the direction of settlement of the Yemeni conflict. In mid December, the warring sides reached a shaky ceasefire agreement. However, no comprehensive diplomatic solution was reached and the violence continued. It’s hard to expect that in 2019 the Saudi-led coalition will be able to stabilize its southern border.

Additionally, Saudi foreign policy suffered painful blows in Syria and Iraq where Iran, the main Saudi regional competitor, is successfully expanding its influence. The diplomatic economic conflict with Qatar also resulted in no achievements for the Saudi leadership.

The foreign policy failures of the ruling members of the House of Saud remained one of the key risk factors in the destabilization of Saudi Arabia as a nation-state. The invasion in Yemen was draining state finances and fueling the social and political tensions in the kingdom.

Other already “traditional” sore points remained the high level of corruption, interconfessional conflicts, drug abuse as well as tensions within the royal family. In economic terms, the kingdom was neither able to launch nor join any global projects or initiatives, which would tug its economy, consolidate elites or at least draw society’s attention away from current issues. The aforementioned factors will remain the main security and economic challenges for Saudi Arabia in 2019.

In 2018, a new crisis erupted in Armenia, a state in the South Caucasus. The balance of power, self-perception of local ethnic groups, and the influence of socio-economic and cultural ideological groups on public policy have significantly changed in the country. These changes are multidirectional, increasing the risk of a new armed conflict with Azerbaijan.

As a result of an acute internal crisis and a series of street protests Nikol Pashinyan, an opposition leader and a leader of the neoliberal, formally pro-US political party “Way Out Alliance”, seized power in the parliamentary republic.

Despite the formally pro-western position of his party, Pashinyan changed his public foreign policy rhetoric after the situation had entered into a revolutionary phase of the race for power. In addition, there is an acute regional issue – an unresolved territorial dispute over the Nagorno Karabakh region and some nearby areas between Armenia and its Turkic neighbor Azerbaijan, also a post-USSR state. Pro-Armenian forces captured Nagorno Karabakh in the early 90s triggering an armed conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Further development of this conflict and the expected offensive by pro-Azerbajian forces was stopped by a Russian intervention in May 1994. By end of 2018, Nagorno Karabakh and the nearby areas are still under the control of Armenian forces, de-facto making it an unrecognized Armenian state – Arts’akhi Hanrapetut’yun (Arts’akh).

From all the aforementioned regional players, Russia is the only power, which has been a strategic ally and a military defender of Armenia and its interests. Armenia is a member state of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) and the Eurasian Customs Union (ECU).

Meanwhile, the importance of the Armenian foothold in the South Caucasus for Russia has decreased. The importance of the Russian military base in Armenia has decreased because of the expansion of Russian military infrastructure in the Middle East, including naval and air bases in Syria. The political importance of Armenia has also decreased because of improved Russian-Turkish relations, which are strengthened by major joint economic projects, including the TurkStream gas pipeline and the Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant. At the same time, Armenian has little economic value for the Russian state or private companies. Its only value is found in the nostalgic memories of a part of the Armenian diaspora with Russian citizenship. Additionally to the aforementioned factors, the Russian political leadership seems to be more cautious in forecasting and assessing the course of Armenian foreign policy, analyzing in depth actions and rhetoric of representatives of the Armenian elites. This shift was expected. For a long time, Armenia has pursued a foreign policy that was significantly at odds with the foreign policy position of its formal strategic ally. Furthermore, while enjoying Russian military protection, Armenia has declined to support Russia over key issues on the international agenda.

All these are objective factors, limiting the maneuverability of the relatively pro-Washington establishment in Armenia. Therefore, it decided to implement a double standard policy, de-facto providing a pro-Western course, but maintaining a relatively pro-Russian public rhetoric and standing on ceremony. If this situation develops further, in 2019, Moscow may use this as a formal pretext to reshape its presence, first of all military, in the region as well as the format of diplomatic relations with Armenia. In the worst case scenario, the current Armenian leadership would find itself without direct Russian support in a possible conflict with Azerbaijan for the Nagorno Karabakh region.

The instable political situation in Georgia is also contributing to the instability in the Southern Caucasus.

In Central Asia, Afghanistan was the main point of instability. In 2018, the US-led bloc once again appeared to be unable to defeat the Taliban. In turn, the Afghan movement only expanded its influence across the country, controlling or contesting at least a half of it. In 2019, the situation will likely become even worse for the US and its allies if they reach no agreement with the Taliban or undertake no decisive steps such as the deployment of additional troops to turn the tide in its favor. Another way out is a complete US withdrawal from the country which would be answering Taliban demands and could lead to or be a part of a US-Taliban agreement. Meanwhile there is little hope of the actual implementation of such a peace agreement because it would concede that thousands of American soldiers’ lives had been wasted and 18 years of US policy towards Afghanistan had failed. It would be a major blow to the image of the United States as the leading world power.

Tajikistan is another point, which could negatively affect regional security. Cells of the Taliban and ISIS expanded their presence within the country in 2018. The main reasons are the complicated social and economic situation in Tajikistan, which is a result of the approaches being employed by the current government as well as the common economic doldrums in the region. If the situation develops further in the same direction in 2019, this country could become a new hot spot in the region.

Another important factor influencing the situation in the Central Asia, the Asia-Pacific and even Africa is the US-Chinese standoff. Tensions between the two states are rising in the economic, diplomatic and military spheres. Since the start of 2018, the US has imposed a series of tariffs on a wide range of Chinese goods and, according to President Trump, is ready to take further steps to defend US national interests. According to the Trump administration the tariffs are needed to protect US businesses, especially industry and intellectual property, and to reduce the trade deficit with China. Since the start of the “trade war”, US and Chinese top officials have held a series of meetings but have found no options to resolve the existing differences.

Furthermore, on September 20, the US sanctioned a Chinese defense agency and its director for purchasing Russian combat aircraft and S-400 surface-to-air missiles. The State Department claimed that its actions weren’t intended to undermine the military capabilities or combat readiness of any country, but rather to punish Russia in response to its alleged interference in the US election process. In response, China’s Foreign Ministry said the action was unjustifiable and demanded the US withdraw the penalties or “bear the consequences.”

The conflict expanded into the military and political field. Speaking at a UN Security Council meeting on September 26, President Trump accused China of “attempting to interfere” against his administration in the upcoming 2018 election in the US. However, the US president provided no evidence for his claims. Additionally, the Trump administration approved the sale of $330 million of military equipment to Taiwan. This move caused another round of tensions with China.

The balance of power in the Asia Pacific region in general and particularly in the South China Sea and East China Sea are also a hot point in US-China relations. The US is actively working military and diplomatic levels to deter the growing Chinese influence. The US Armed Forces send warships and jets close to Chinese military facilities built on artificial islands, and hold drills near the contested area. The Chinese side is not going to abandon its South China Strategy and responds in a similar manner.

The Washington leadership is concerned by the further increase of Chinese military capabilities, including power projection capabilities, as well as its diplomatic and economic influence around the world. In 2019, this trend will develop further.

The Chinese deep ties with North Korea and the deepening ties with Russia are another focus of tensions between Beijing and Washington.

As to North Korea, in the first half of the year the US presented itself as the defeater of the Kim regime who had forced Pyongyang to denuclearize, abandon the missile program and accept a peace talk. However, in the second half of the year, it appeared that the peace process between the North and the South was developing on an equal basis and far beyond the model desired by the Trump administration. Such mutual give-and-take developments make it difficult to take further steps towards changing the North Korean regime and spreading American influence to the north of the peninsula. At the end of 2018 the White House started to throw sand in the wheels of peace building in the Korean Peninsula. The framework of the ongoing peace process does not satisfy Trump.  This is not price which he is willing to pay to lose a bogeyman as Kim, who was exploited as such to justify a good part of current foreign policy and defense spending.

Washington sees Chinese and Russian activity in Africa as one more threat to its global influence. China has already been widely acknowledged on the continent as an important player in economic and even political areas. In 2018 Beijing strengthened its position in the region.

Moscow was resuming its influence in Africa. The growing Russian military, diplomatic and economic activity in central Africa, especially in the Central African Republic and Chad, became a target of mainstream media speculations in the second half of 2018. In fact, Beijing and Moscow are steadily regaining ground from the US-led bloc in the region.

A complex diplomatic, military and economic cooperation with China is a part of Russia’s “turn to the East” strategy. In January-November 2018, the trade between the countries grew by 27.8% in comparison to the same period in 2017. Russian exports to China in this period were valued at 53,782,900,000 USD while Chinese exports to Russia were 43,452,700,000 USD. The total commodity circulation by the end of the year was about 100 Billion USD. The commodity circulation grew significantly between Russia and other Asian states, in particular Singapore and Thailand. In 2019, Moscow will continue to adapt its economic and diplomatic policy in response to US attempts to isolate it.

Meanwhile, the European partners of the US have suffered significant economic losses from the sanction regime imposed on Russia. According to experts, European business losses can be estimated in hundreds of billions USD.

In Latin America, 2018 brought notable changes in the political landscape both at intraregional and transregional levels. Over the past decades, the United States has pursued a de-facto colonization policy towards its southern neighbors, exploiting all available resources from natural to human. At the same time, the US leadership lavishly supported the establishment cronies of its allies in the region. However, in 2018, the rhetoric and actions of the US towards Latin America changed significantly. The Trump administration made a series of harsh statements about Latin American countries and undertook some unfriendly acts. This applies to both traditional allies and traditional opponents.

As for the latter, the US President declared the so-called “axis of evil in Latin America” as being Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua. Then Trump’s National Security Adviser John Bolton branded Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua a “troika of tyranny”. However, in practice this US posture only strengthened cooperation between the aforementioned states and united their policiesy towards the US leadership.

US-Mexican relations also deteriorated. One of the main reasons was the issue of illegal migration from Mexico, which concerned especially the border states of the US. Trump actively used this topic for a domestic ideological struggle with his opponents inside the country. In the second half of the year, the Trump administration even sent regular army troops to the border, threatening that they, in some cases, will have the right to use live fire against migrants. At the same time, Trump continued to push his project of a border wall on the southern US border.

Venezuela faced an acute round of internal struggle for political power between different factions. The struggle was further worsened by a complicated economic situation. Washington attempted to use both these factors to change the regime in the country, but was not able to do so.

The 2018 G20 summit hosted by Brazil was the most notable international relations event in the region. Some in the US administration believe that Brazil may shape its foreign policy course toward a more pro-US stance with its new elected president. However, despite the fact that Jair Bolsonaro is considered to be a “friend of the United States,” he is in fact only a friend of Trump’s “conservative concept” and nothing more. The new president of Brazil will certainly be a sincere ally of the US, but only until the time when or if supporters of the three new “-ism”s: neoliberalism, globalism, transhumanism or, putting all together, neo-colonialism come back to full power in the United States.

Despite some disagreements the Columbian regime remained the main American ally in the region.

As to Cuba, by the end of the year, Trump had lost a window of opportunity for drawing the country into the US sphere of influence. The main reason for this being the shortsighted policy of his administration.

Intolerance for other points of view, lack of foresight, credibility gaps, double standards, hostility, irrationality, devaluation of democratic procedures, and the resulting dismantlement of the existing system of international relations – all of these definitions can be applied to describe the policy of the global players in 2018. More and more symptoms of a systemic crisis can be distinctly observed. The depth of the divisions between the sides reached an unprecedented level when they almost could not be resolved via negotiations and mutual concessions, at least within the framework of the existing system of international affairs.

Furthermore, the ruling establishment of the world’s sole superpower, the U.S., has shown that it is not going to lower itself to equitable negotiation with other powers.

There are no signs that this situation will improve in 2019. The standoff between the leading powers, including sanctions, arms race, direct and indirect military confrontation, will not decrease. There is a high threat of the resumption or even the launching of new armed conflicts primarily in Eastern Europe and the Middle East. These conflicts may be larger in scale than all of the previous conflicts of the 21th century. Social, ethnic and ideological disputes in Europe, Russia and the U.S. may lead to the destruction of state institutions, and thus civil disorder and conflicts. Terrorist organizations will continue to pose a significant threat.

Global economic issues and the state of international affairs will contribute to the further fragmentation of the world and the growth of isolationist tendencies. 2019 could prove the pivotal year in marking the final breakdown of the existing model of international relations and the intensification of the conflict between global powers, as they seek to shape the new world order. Regardless, it is safe to assume that in 2019 the world will remain a “very dangerous place”.

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Sardana Avksentyeva is now winning admirers nationwide, as she bans lavish town hall parties and sells off plush official cars. 

Ruffling political feathers she certainly is, but the 48 year old mayor took time out from her war on waste to use The Siberian Times to invite the world to visit one of the planet’s most extraordinary cities. 

If even once in your life you want to feel real, epic cold – just for just a day or two perhaps – then Yakutsk, capital of Yakutia region also known as the Sakha Republic, is the place to come.

Within a few weeks now, as it does annually, the city is likely to experience severe winter  temperatures of around minus 60C and it is increasingly attracting foreign visitors from many countries who have her city on their bucket lists because they want to taste such cold.

How do people survive in these temperatures, in a city of 282,000 people literally built on permafrost?

Come here – a six hour flight east from Moscow, or a three hour journey north from Vladivostok – and discover ultimate cold, and a genuinely warm welcome.

WELCOME TO YAKUTSK!

Sardana Avksentyeva, the Mayor of Yakutsk. Picture, video: The Siberian Times

As Avksentyeva says in a new video aimed at visitors and released today by The Siberian Times: ‘Everyone who considers themselves a traveller, who knows the world, who is fascinated by all the most unusual and interesting phenomena on our planet – must visit Yakutia.’

Wearing the national dress of her republic, she stresses: ‘Those who never came to Yakutia, you did not see the whole world.’

Not that it’s just the cold: this is the place to come for the best-value diamonds and silver jewellery anywhere, superb culinary surprises, sights you will see nowhere else – and above all the rich and vibrant culture of the Yakut peoples.

Diamonds at the Treasury of Yakutia. Pictures: The Siberian Times

Read full article here.

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Back during the early days of the Bush-Cheney administration, countless articles and even official statements by the International Energy Agency and various governments proclaimed the onset of what was termed Peak Oil. This was a time when former Halliburton CEO, Vice President Dick Cheney, was named to head the White House Energy Task Force. In the run up to the March 2003 war on Iraq, peak oil or absolute decline in world oil reserves seemed a plausible explanation, if not justification, for the G.W. Bush invasion of Iraq. This author was also for a time persuaded that could explain the oil war. Yet, today we hear little about peak oil. Why, is interesting.

Peak Oil was and is an invention of certain financial circles along with Big Oil to justify among other things ultra-high prices for their oil. The peak oil theory they promoted to justify the high prices, hearkened back to the 1950’s and an eccentric oil geologist with Shell Oil in Houston named King Hubbard.

Bell Curves and such

While working for Shell Oil in Texas, Marion King Hubbert, or King, as he preferred to be known, was asked to deliver a paper to the annual meeting of the American Petroleum Institute in 1956, an event that would become one of the most fateful examples of scientific fabrication in the modern era.

Hubbert posited all of his 1956 conclusions, including that the US would reach oil peak in 1970, on the unproven assumption that oil was a fossil fuel, a biological compound produced from dead dinosaur detritus, algae or other life forms originating some 500 million years back. Hubbert accepted the fossil theory without question, and made no evident attempts to scientifically validate such an essential and fundamental part of his argument. He merely asserted ‘fossil origins of oil’ as Gospel Truth and began to build a new ideology around it, a neo-Malthusian ideology of austerity in the face of looming oil scarcity. He claimed oil fields obeyed the Gaussian bell curve, itself an arbitrary heurism.

For the giant British and American oil companies and the major banks backing them, the myth of scarcity was necessary if they were to be able to control the availability and price of petroleum as the lifeline of the world economy. The scarcity myth was to be a key element of Anglo-American geopolitical power for more than a century.

King Hubbert admitted in a frank interview in 1989 shortly before his death that the method he used to calculate total recoverable US oil reserves was anything but scientific. It might be compared with wetting one’s finger and holding it up to see how strong the wind is blowing.

Hubbert told his interviewer,

What was required there was that I need to know or have an estimate of the ultimate amount that could be produced…I know the ultimate and I know, I can only tailor that curve within a very narrow range of uncertainty. So that’s what was done. Those curves were drawn. I simply, by cut and dry, I mean, you drew the curve, calculated the squares, and if it was a little too much you trimmed it down or too little, you upped it a little. But there was no mathematics involved, other than the integral area under the curve, the integral pd dq by, at times, et, for accumulated production up to a given time…So with the best estimates I could get on the ultimate amount of oil in the United States, my own figure at the time was about 150 billion barrels.

If Hubbert’s description of his methodology doesn’t sound like rigorous scientific procedure, that’s because it wasn’t.

Hubbert, in effect, transformed an unproven and inaccurate assertion — that oil derives from fossilized biological remains – into grounds for claiming its inherent scarcity and inevitable decline: “This knowledge provides us with a powerful geological basis against unbridled speculations as to the occurrence of oil and gas. The initial supply is finite; the rate of renewal is negligible; and the occurrence is limited to those areas of the earth where the basement rocks are covered by thick sedimentary deposits.” Once that was accepted wisdom in the world of geology, a world whose textbooks were written mainly in America where Big Oil dominated, it was a matter of controlling those oil-rich areas politically or, if necessary, militarily.

Barely a tiny fraction of the earth had even been touched by oil drills when he made his dire forecast of ‘finite’ and ‘limited’ supplies in 1956.

Michael T. Halbouty, a respected oil geologist and petroleum engineer from Texas, wrote in the Wall Street Journal in 1980:

[There are] approximately 600 prospective petroleum basins in the world. Of these 160 are commercially productive, 240 are partially or moderately explored and the remaining 200 are essentially unexplored… 73 percent were drilled in the United States. Yet the prospective basin areas of this country…comprise only 10.7 percent of the world’s total…The majority of the world’s basins have not been adequately explored or drilled. 

Hubbert proceeded to predict that, based on his estimates of total US oil reserves of 150 to 200 billion barrels, the United States output of petroleum would peak in the late 1970s and an accelerating bell curve decline in oil would begin. It was an alarming picture, to put it mildly. It was also false.

Major New Oil Discovery

I won’t go here into the Russian scientific demonstrations going back to the 1950s which empirically demonstrated that oil is constantly being created deep in the Earth mantle through extreme high temperatures and pressure, and is anything but running out. I deal with the subject in detail in my book, Myths, Lies and Oil Wars. Here I want to cite a recent bulletin from the US Geological Survey.

On November 28 the US Department of the Interior announced a dramatic new confirmation of huge oil and gas in the region of West Texas into Arizona. The U.S. Department of the Interior via its US Geological Survey announced the Wolfcamp Shale and overlying Bone Spring Formation in the Delaware Basin portion of Texas and New Mexico’s Permian Basin province contain “an estimated mean of 46.3 billion barrels of oil, 281 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, and 20 billion barrels of natural gas liquids,” according to an assessment by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). This estimate is for continuous unconventional oil, and consists of undiscovered, technically recoverable resources. Dr. Jim Reilly, USGS Director called the region, “our largest continuous oil and gas assessments ever released.” In brief it is major news for American energy supply.

The report went on to state that oil and gas companies are currently producing oil here using both traditional vertical well technology and horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing to extract the shale oil and gas. The USGS added that the Delaware Basin assessment of the Wolfcamp Shale and Bone Spring Formation is more than two times larger than that of the Midland Basin.

Even before this major new discovery of shale oil and gas in the Texas-Arizona region around the Permian Basin, the US, including estimated shale oil, was estimated the world’s largest oil reserve. According to a July 2018 study by Rystad Energy, a Norwegian consultancy, the U.S. holds 264 billion barrels of oil, more than half of which is located in shale. That total exceeds the 256 billion barrels found in Russia, and the 212 billion barrels located in Saudi Arabia.

If the new USGS estimates are included, the US total oil reserves would be well over 310 billion barrels. King Hubbert’s prediction of USA peak oil in 1970 turns out to have been nonsense. What happened in 1970 was that Big Oil manipulated a shift to the ultra-cheap oil of the Middle East and away from domestic USA oil drilling. For them the peak oil argument was a useful political foil that had huge geopolitical consequences for US Middle East policies after 1970. The new discoveries in Texas and Arizona insure that the more rapid depletion of shale oil deposits compared with conventional ones will not spell an early exhaustion of US oil production.

This all has significant geopolitical implications as the US today has emerged in recent years to become the world’s largest producer of oil, ahead of both Russia and Saudi Arabia. This could also explain why the US President recently felt able to order a US troop withdrawal from Syria. There is a vast geopolitical shift underway in the last few years.

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Over the last twelve months events on the African continent have reinforced the centuries-long relationship with the imperialist nations through the process of economic exploitation of human and natural resources, fueling the profitability of the dominant forces within the world system. Although there are subtle and profound variations manifesting this reality in the 55 designated countries making up the African Union (AU), the similarities across the continent far outweigh the differences.

This second installment assessing events in the contemporary period can only be properly understood by placing the continuing crisis inside a historical context. Whilst these AU member-states are all nominally independent with the exception of the Western Sahara still under Moroccan occupation, almost every policy consideration taken by governments throughout the various geo-political regions cannot be enacted without a calculated reasoning related to the response of international financial institutions and the developed capitalist regimes of the West.

Instability in North Africa: The Cases of Egypt and Libya

The third largest-populated country of the AU is Egypt which has been undergoing profound political upheaval since 2011. The resignation of former President Hosni Mubarak after mass protests commonly characterized as the “Arab Spring” created the conditions for the ascendancy of the current military leader turned President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi in 2013.

An elected Muslim Brotherhood administration in 2012 under the banner of the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) only lasted for one year when the military retook power claiming it had a popular mandate to “restore order” and return the nation to “secularism.” Thousands of FPJ supporters were either killed or arrested in the aftermath of the coup.

Ousted President Mohamed Morsi remains imprisoned and during December appeared in the same courtroom with Mubarak in a trial that is seeking to place culpability on the FJP leader for unrest which struck Egypt in 2011-2012. Yet it was not the Muslim Brotherhood which initiated the mass demonstrations against Mubarak in February 2011. Instead it was broad discontent emanating from the subordinate position of the economy to imperialism facilitated by the funding of the Egyptian military and security apparatus as an adjunct to the strategic interests of Washington related to the continued existence of the State of Israel and its role throughout North Africa and West Asia.

A bomb attack on a tourist bus in Cairo near the thousands years-old pyramids killed three people from Vietnam. The following day it was announced by the Egyptian authorities that 40 “militants” had been eliminated in an anti-terrorist operation by the military.

These incidents of targeted retaliatory violence aimed at weakening and then fortifying the Egyptian economy and political system may appear to be law-enforcement issues. However, the origins of the quagmire are to be found in the legacy of British and French colonialism spanning from the 18^th to the 20^th centuries. Other factors in the Egyptian crisis stem from the encroachment of Tel Aviv and its backing by Washington which controls both pro-western outposts through economic and military means.

Egypt tourists bus bombing on Dec. 28, 2018

An Egyptian-born prolific and renowned scholar Dr. Samir Amin passed away on August 12 in a Paris hospital at the age of 86. Amin, the co-founding executive secretary of the Council for the Development of Social Research in Africa (CODESRIA) in 1973 was one of the most prominent Marxist researchers in the field of what became known in the 1970s as dependency theory.

Amin noted that Africa could not gain sustainable independence without “delinking” from world imperialism. This analysis is applicable to other states throughout the northern region of the continent.

The imperative of Amin’s thesis can best be illustrated as well in neighboring Libya where a Pentagon and NATO war of genocide was launched in early 2011 after being falsely labelled as a pro-democracy movement. Utilizing counter-revolutionary rebels on the ground, the seven month air campaign from March through October overthrew the Jamahiriya system under Col. Muammar Gaddafi, creating a vacuous situation which remains through the conclusion of 2018.

Despite several attempts to remake the post-Gaddafi Libya in the image of imperialism, factional violence and ongoing military interference from NATO states and its allies has left the country in perpetual disarray. Libya has gained a reputation in the last three years as a major hub for human trafficking where Africans are routinely abused and sold as cheap labor and sex slaves.

Almost daily hundreds if not thousands are being transported illegally across the Mediterranean Sea to southern Europe. Many are dying in and outside of rickety transport vessels while the debate over the level of migration has created the political basis for the rise of right-wing neo-fascist parties which have gained significant support across the European continent.

Balkanization in West Africa: The Fracturing of Nigeria and Cameroon

President Muhammadu Buhari of the Federal Republic of Nigeria has declared his candidacy on behalf of the All-Progressives Congress (APC) for reelection in 2019. When Buhari first came into office in 2015 he declared that the Boko Haram Islamist grouping would be defeated within six months.  Nonetheless, the violence in the northeast has continued throughout the tenure of his presidency. An anti-terrorism joint task force headquarters at Baga in Borno state was overrun by armed fighters in late December.

Even though Boko Haram has split into two identifiable factions where one is allied with the Islamic State of West Africa, the group’s capacity to use lethal force has remained a destabilizing factor in the northeast, one of the most underdeveloped regions within this oil-rich African state which has the largest population on the continent. The issue of internal security will be a major question raised by opposition parties seeking to defeat Buhari in the national elections.

The drastic decline in oil prices and the collapse of petroleum exports to the United States had a devastating impact on the national economy beginning in 2015. After the assumption of office by current President Donald Trump, relations between Abuja and Washington have improved where the resumption of the sales of military equipment to Nigeria has been done under the rationale of strengthening the country’s capacity to defeat Boko Haram.

What is often neglected on an international level is the repression against the Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN), a Shiite-based grouping. IMN leader Sheikh Ibrahim Zakzaky and his wife remain imprisoned in Nigeria despite a court order mandating their release. The IMN says that hundreds and perhaps thousands of its members have been killed and imprisoned by the Nigerian authorities. Demonstrations demanding the release of their leadership and followers are often met with gunfire and further arrests.

Nigeria is still largely dependent upon foreign exchange revenues generated through the sale of oil on the international market which has shifted in recent years to Asian nations such as China and India. Through the production of oil and natural gas there has been a growth in the trade union movement which is putting forward calls for the increase in minimum wage and better working conditions.

Unfortunately, Nigeria remains a capitalist state where the interests of workers, farmers and youth are not a priority for the national bourgeoisie. Women have made strides in the professional and business fields. Nevertheless, there is much to be desired in regard to creating a genuinely democratic society poised to take its rightful place in the efforts to transform Africa into an industrial power to be reckoned with internationally.

In neighboring Cameroon, the former German, British and French colony, is not only plagued by the insurgency of Boko Haram. The unresolved issues between French and English speaking regions have become politicized to the point of armed insurrection.

Cameroon demonstration in support of separation of Angolphone regions

An Anglophone guerrilla movement calling for the independence of Ambazonia, a carved out non-recognized nation in the southwest and northwest regions of the country (referred to as South Cameroon), has resulted in high profile attacks on civilians and the kidnapping of students. The reelection of longtime President Paul Biya has generated tensions since the urgency of a potential break-up of this oil-producing state is not being adequately addressed by the national leadership.

This type of divisions within Cameroon raises the specter of even deeper Pentagon and NATO intervention under the rubric of anti-terrorism and the purported stabilization of the West Africa region. The U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) is heavily involved in West Africa conducting annual military exercises in conjunction with members of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).

Legacies of Colonialism Must Be Overcome to Foster Regional Development

West Africa is a strategic geo-political area vital to the world economic system due to its vast energy resources, agricultural potential and close proximity to the Atlantic Ocean. As in North Africa, the U.S., Britain and other European Union (EU) governments are seeking to enhance their military and economic presence throughout the region.

The dependency on the West for its determination of commodity prices and preferences related to trade with African states poses a major impediment to the actual sovereignty and unification of the continent. Until these challenges are tackled on a continental basis there can be no real security against threats emerging from both internal and external elements.

There is no historical basis for the reliance upon AFRICOM and NATO in regard to the supplying of military hardware, troops training and the stationing of western soldiers in Africa. Examples abound through the recent experiences of Libya, Ivory Coast, Egypt and Somalia which refute any positive outcomes to imperialist militarism on the continent.

The creation of an All-African High Command of integrated national military forces and popular militias is the only solution to the crises of security which is inextricably linked to people-centered development paradigms. For such an armed Pan-African military to come into existence the AU member-states must break their dependency on capitalism and turn towards the resolving of internal contradictions which are a reflection of the ongoing exploitation and oppression engendered by the post-colonial construct only benefiting the ruling classes in Washington, New York, Paris, London, Brussels and other imperialist outposts.

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Abayomi Azikiwe is the editor of Pan-African News Wire. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

All images in this article are from the author

In a return to the bad old days of McCarthyism, Bahia Amawi, a US citizen of Palestinian descent, lost her Texas elementary school job after refusing to pledge in writing that she would not participate in the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. Earlier this month, Amawi sued the school district that fired her.

The BDS movement against Israel has become a hot button issue in the closing month of 2018. A bipartisan group of senators tried to attach the Israel Anti-Boycott Act to the unanimous spending bill that Trump almost signed to avoid the current government shutdown. Meanwhile, Donorbox, a US software company, blocked the BDS fundraising account at the behest of a pro-Israel group.

“The language of the affirmation Amawi was told she must sign reads like Orwellian – or McCarthyite – self-parody, the classic political loyalty oath that every American should instinctively shudder upon reading,” Glenn Greenwald wrote at The Intercept.

On December 12, the Council on American-Islamic Relations filed a lawsuit on Amawi’s behalf in the US District Court for the Western District of Texas against Pflugerville Independent School District, alleging that Texas’ law requiring the oath violates the First Amendment. Amawi’s complaint says the law constitutes an impermissible attempt “to impose an ideological litmus test or compel speech related to government contractors’ political beliefs, associations, and expressions.”

Amawi had contracted with the school district for nine years to work with students with autism and developmental disabilities in Austin. This fall, for the first time, Amawi was required to sign an oath that she would not boycott Israel. When she refused to sign it, she was fired.

“The point of boycotting any product that supports Israel is to put pressure on the Israeli government to change its treatment, the inhumane treatment, of the Palestinian people,” Amawi explained. “Having grown up as a Palestinian, I know firsthand the oppression and the struggle that Palestinians face on a daily basis.”

The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement

The BDS movement was launched by representatives of Palestinian civil society in 2005, calling upon “international civil society organizations and people of conscience all over the world to impose broad boycotts and implement divestment initiatives against Israel similar to those applied to South Africa in the apartheid era … [including] embargoes and sanctions against Israel.”

This call specified that “these non-violent punitive measures” should last until Israel fully complies with international law by (1) ending its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantling the barrier wall; (2) recognizing the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and (3) respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their land as stipulated in United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194.

Even though it is a nonviolent movement, Israel sees BDS as a threat to its hegemony over the Palestinians. Israel illegally occupies Palestinian territories, maintaining effective control over Gaza’s land, airspace, seaport, electricity, water, telecommunications and population registry. Israel deprives Gazans of food, medicine, fuel and basic services, and continues to build illegal Jewish-only settlements in the occupied West Bank.

“There will not be progress toward a just peace without pressure on Israel to respect Palestinian rights,” said Rebecca Vilkomerson, executive director of Jewish Voice for Peace. “Bringing about that pressure, through a global grassroots mobilization, is exactly what BDS is about.”

After Amawi’s firing, The New York Times editorial board wrote,

It’s not just Israel’s adversaries who find the [BDS] movement appealing. Many devoted supporters of Israel, including many American Jews, oppose the occupation of the West Bank and refuse to buy products of the settlements in occupied territories. Their right to protest in this way must be vigorously defended.

Omar Barghouti, co-founder of BDS, said in an email to The New York Times,

“Having lost many battles for hearts and minds at the grass-roots level, Israel has adopted since 2014 a new strategy to criminalize support for BDS from the top” in order to “shield Israel from accountability.”

Barghouti called Shurat HaDin, the group behind the Donorbox action blocking the BDS account, a “repressive organization with clear connections to the far-right Israeli government” that is “engaging in McCarthyite … tactics … in a desperate attempt to undermine our ability to challenge Israel’s regime of apartheid and oppression.”

Twenty-six US states have anti-BDS laws and 13 others are pending. The Israel Anti-Boycott Act, which would have to be reintroduced when the new Congress convenes in January, was supported by Senate Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Democratic Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. Senators Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) and Dianne Feinstein (D-California) opposed the bill.

Boycotts Are Protected by the First Amendment

The law that triggered Amawi’s firing prohibits the State of Texas from entering into government contracts with companies, including sole proprietorships, that boycott Israel. It defines “boycott Israel” to include “refusing to deal with, terminating business activities with, or otherwise taking any action that is intended to penalize, inflict harm on, or limit commercial relations specifically with Israel, or with a person or entity doing business in Israel or in an Israeli-controlled territory.”

Boycotts are a constitutionally protected form of speech, assembly and association. They have long been used to oppose injustice and urge political change. The Supreme Court has held that “speech on public issues occupies the highest rung of the hierarchy of First Amendment values, and is entitled to special protection.” The high court ruled that advocating and supporting boycotts “to bring about political, social, and economic change” – like boycotts of Israel – are indisputably protected by the First Amendment.

The National Lawyers Guild, Palestine Legal and the Center for Constitutional Rights wrote in a legal memorandum challenging anti-BDS legislation in New York that such laws “harken back to the McCarthy era when the state sought to deny the right to earn a livelihood to those who express controversial political views.” The memo says,

“The courts long ago found such McCarthy-era legislation to be at war with the First Amendment,” as they “unconstitutionally target core political speech activities and infringe on the freedom to express political beliefs.”

Even staff members at the right-wing Anti-Defamation League (ADL) opposed anti-BDS laws and admitted they are unconstitutional. Although the leadership officially favors outlawing BDS, ADL staff wrote in an internal 2016 memo that anti-BDS laws divert “community resources to an ineffective, unworkable, and unconstitutional endeavor.”

Greenwald cited the grave danger anti-BDS laws pose to freedom of speech, tweeting,

“The proliferation of these laws – where US citizens are barred from work or contracts unless they vow not to boycott Israel – is the single greatest free speech threat in the US.”

Demonstrating the incongruity of allowing Amawi to boycott any entity but Israel, Greenwald noted,

“In order to continue to work, Amawi would be perfectly free to engage in any political activism against her own country, participate in an economic boycott of any state or city within the US, or work against the policies of any other government in the world — except Israel.”

The US government remains Israel’s lap dog on the world stage. On December 5 the United Nations General Assembly overwhelmingly passed a resolution calling for an end to Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories. The United States opposed the resolution.

Meanwhile, the BDS movement continues to achieve victories. After more than 24,000 people complained to HSBC, the banking giant pulled out its investments in Israeli arms company Elbit Systems. Elbit sells military equipment, including drones, aircraft, artillery and weapon control systems to the Israeli army, US Air Force and British Royal Air Force. It also provides surveillance equipment to the US Customs and Border Protection agency.

On the legal front, the ACLU has mounted successful court challenges to anti-BDS laws in Kansas and Arizona and has filed litigation in Arkansas and Texas.

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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 an advisory board member of Veterans for Peace. Her latest book, Drones and Targeted Killing: Legal, Moral, and Geopolitical Issues, was recently published in an updated second edition. She is a frequent contributor to Global Research. 

Featured image is from The Times of Israel

As research reveals of late, “counter-terrorism” operations led by the United States over many years have wrought increasing devastation. Not to mention, continuing and worsening repercussions.

A rough estimate of four million Muslims have died as a result of US-led wars in the Middle East – dating to the early 1990s Gulf War against Iraq. The Gulf War was waged by the US, with France, Britain and Saudi Arabia providing welcome support.

It was in response to Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait in early August 1990 – the Iraqi dictator having unwisely disobeyed orders from his Western masters. However, it was the Iraqi civilian population who would pay the real price, and not for the last time.

For 42 successive days and nights, US-led coalition forces subjected Iraq to one of the most destructive aerial assaults in military history. Over 88,000 tons of bombs were unloaded on Iraqi soil from mid-January 1991 to the end of February. Much of the bombing fell upon civilian areas.

Hussein’s attack on Kuwait the previous year had drawn “international condemnation”. The above bombardments, infinitely greater in destruction, were met with approval in some quarters and silence in others. By this point, Western governments had already placed “genocidal” sanctions on Iraq – an immediate response to Hussein’s occupation of Kuwait.

The sanctions lasted a staggering 13 years (1990-2003) and brought unaccountable suffering. The lack of basic needs particularly affected Iraqi children, with those aged under 14 comprising 45% of Iraq’s population. Such measures were still “worth it”, as declared infamously in 1996 by Madeleine Albright, former US Secretary of State.

In the early 21st century, the September 11 atrocities were used as a pretext to resume military operations in the Middle East. Afghanistan, Iraq, and to a lesser extent (nuclear-armed) Pakistan came under Western bombardment or invasion. Indeed, today’s civilian death toll could be as high as six to eight million, when taking into account “higher avoidable death estimates” in Afghanistan.

A few weeks after September 11, the US unleashed its aerial campaign on Afghanistan. Abdul Haq, a respected anti-Taliban figure, described president George W. Bush’s air raids as “a big setback” in their fight to topple the Taliban from inside.

Informed beforehand that any assault on Afghan territory was illegal, president Bush responded, “I don’t care what the international lawyers say, we are going to kick some ass”.

Aid organisations working in Afghanistan insisted any bombings would result in a humanitarian catastrophe. Again, such warnings appeared of no consequence to the Pentagon. Haq, the Taliban opposition leader, further said:

“They [US] don’t care about the suffering of the Afghans, or how many people we will lose”.

The British investigative journalist Nafeez Ahmed wrote in June 2017,

“Due to severe lack of data in Iraq, almost complete non-existence of records in Afghanistan, and the indifference of Western governments to civilian deaths, it is literally impossible to determine the true extent of loss of life”.

The mainstream press also bears responsibility for the “lack of data” and “non-existence” of reliable death counts. Few Western reporters are ever on the ground to witness the reality unfolding before the eyes, let alone to report on it accurately.

Middle Eastern citizens have long come under the Orwellian heading of “unpeople”. Their existence is barely acknowledged even after they are killed. By contrast, mass shootings in the US receive enormous attention despite the minuscule death tolls in comparison.

In recent years, the destruction wrought by Barack Obama’s “surgical” drone terror campaign shines a brief light on the devastation. In late 2014, the “targeted killing” of his drones in attempting to eliminate 41 suspected terrorists, also killed 1,147 others. Bearing in mind, this is one documented example.

Those who are “targeted” are deemed a potential threat some day to the US, while the rest are mere “collateral damage”. Such policies tear up the principle of innocent until proven guilty.

Meanwhile, the Free Press have directed unprecedented attention toward cases like that of Madeleine McCann (widely covered in Britain and the US). Remarkably, the McCann story is regularly reported to the present day.

McCann’s disappearance in May 2007 constituted a terrible tragedy for her family. Yet how much press coverage did the vanishing of a single child warrant afterwards? Far more than the deaths of millions in the Middle East and elsewhere. Ten years after McCann’s disappearance, major media outlets throughout Britain and the US devoted further blanket coverage to her disappearance. The 10th anniversary of the Iraq invasion received no such attention.

Just months before the McCann media explosion, it was revealed the US had repeatedly violated the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) – more than any other nuclear state by far. The US, along with other nuclear powers, have a legal obligation reinforced by the World Court to adhere to article 6 of the NPT. That being, to finally eliminate Nuclear Weapons, thereby ensuring the future survival of the human race.

The US further entered into a nuclear agreement with India, which was endorsed by Congress, that grossly undermined the foundations of the NPT. India themselves began developing Nuclear Weapons on their own in the 1960s, and are in constant stand-off with their old enemy and neighbour Pakistan, another nuclear nation.

Following the American lead, China subsequently approached India and Pakistan with similar nuclear deals – such policies making it very difficult to eliminate nuclear weapons. Virtually none of these NPT violations were reported in the mainstream, despite its potentially apocalyptic consequences. There is now an increasing chance of nuclear conflict in the South China Sea or along Russia’s borders, as NATO continues relentlessly advancing, and huge US military forces surround China “in a noose”.

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An earlier version of this article was published on The Duran in November 2017.

Shane Quinn obtained an honors journalism degree. He is interested in writing primarily on foreign affairs, having been inspired by authors like Noam Chomsky. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

It is perhaps a cruel irony that, on the same day the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a landmark call for urgent action, Jair Bolsonaro surged to victory in the first round of Brazil’s presidential elections. Although the leader of the far-right Partido Social Liberal did not achieve the 50% of the popular vote required to win outright, and will now have a run-off against Fernando Haddad of the Partido dos Trabalhadores (Workers’ Party), his rise has posed some painful and divisive questions both within Brazil and beyond.

Bolsonaro has openly spoken of the need for a military coup and has a record of racist, misogynistic and homophobic views. He is often compared to Donald Trump in the US, and such parallels can also be seen in the protectionist economic doctrine Bolsonaro has adopted in this election, for instance a promise to end the banana trade with Ecuador to protect Brazilian producers.

The electoral success of this divisive figure leaves Brazil at a crucial turning point. There have already been numerous analyses of what this could mean for Brazilian politics – but what could it mean for the environment?

Tchau, Paris?

Despite Bolsonaro’s campaign being based on personality as much as policy, it is possible to find some relevant promises – and they aren’t good news.

For a start, Bolsonaro has previously said that, if elected, he would withdraw Brazil from the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change, arguing that global warming is nothing more than “greenhouse fables”. Ultimately, his power to reverse the decision is limited, however. This is because the Paris deal was approved via the Brazilian congress, which is currently divided between 30 parties, and Bolsonaro would face the tricky task of convincing a broad church of conservatives.

Although Bolsonaro may be unable to withdraw from the Paris framework, his election would still be a direct threat to the regime of environmental protection in Brazil.

Ruralistas for Bolsonaro?

Bolsonaro’s rise is a symptom of a wider political shift that has seen an alignment between the environmental views of the far right and those of powerful political factions in Brazil.

Although never directly linked, Bolsonaro’s environmental policies would likely be welcomed by the so-called “ruralistas” – a powerful alliance of agribusiness and big landowners within the country’s Senate and Chamber of Deputies. The ruralista faction previously supported the outgoing president Michel Temer and is infamous for its regressive environmental agenda, which seeks to further deforest the Amazon to make way for cattle farms, soy plantations and the mining industry.

Bolsonaro has called for the neutering of both Brazil’s environment agency (IBAMA), which monitors deforestation and environmental degradation, and its Chico Mendes Institute which issues fines to negligent parties. This would eliminate any form of oversight of actions that lead to deforestation.

Bolsonaro has also threatened to do away with the legislative protections afforded to environmental reserves and indigenous communities. He has previously argued that what he describes as an “indigenous land demarcation industry” must be restricted and reversed, allowing for farms and industry to encroach into previously protected lands.

By removing these protective organs from the equation, the message that Bolsonaro is sending is clear: vast swathes of Brazil’s biologically diverse and ecologically important landscape will be opened up for development and extraction. With the Brazilian soy industry profiting from the current trade war between the US and China, it is highly likely that promises of this potential expansion would be well received.

In the run up to this election, figures were released which showed the rate of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon is continuing to climb. In August 2018, 545km² of forest were cleared – three times more than the area deforested the previous August. The world’s largest rainforest is integral to climate change mitigation, so cutting back on deforestation is an urgent global issue. Brazil, however, is heading in the opposite direction.

Any collective relief at the far right not winning the first round outright may be short-lived. While the previous government of Temer rolled backenvironmental protections, a Bolsonaro government will likely adopt a brazen anti-environmental strategy. The second round of the election is soon to take place. In light of the IPCC’s recent report, there is more riding on it than ever.

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Ed Atkins is a teaching Fellow, School of Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol.

Featured image is from Antonio Scorza / Shutterstock

It would be naive to believe that Jair Bolsonaro’s assault on Cuban doctors, forcing their departure from Brazil, is not part of a larger plan, details of which are coming to light, even though he has yet to assume the Presidency.

It is already clear how far he is willing to go with his intrigues against the island that saved the lives of thousands of his compatriots, serving millions with meticulous professionalism.

Bolsonaro has his eyes on Washington and the Trump administration, which is looking to the Jair-Eduardo pair, father and son, to facilitate its campaigns Cuba and Venezuela.

Every day a new link appears, including the effusive meeting of Jair with National Security Adviser John Bolton, where the main theme was Venezuela and Cuba – and not precisely to recognize the achievements of both nations in health, education, labor, and other areas with direct impact on the population, or their proven solidarity.

In Miami, the new President’s son, Eduardo Bolsonaro, held a friendly meeting with Orlando Gutierrez, one of the most rabid representatives of the Cuban-American mafia, linked to terrorists and salaried employees of the USAID. He is the central leader of efforts to oppose even the slightest move to improve relations between Cuba and the United States, as occurred during the Obama administration.

To leave a graphic record of his position during this visit, Eduardo Bolsonaro posed before the cameras with this Cuban-born terrorist.

In a tweet, the President-elect’s son emphasized:

“The left united and created a bloody dictatorship in Cuba. It’s time to unite to get rid of the beast they produced. “

To show precisely who he is, Bolsonaro Jr. wore a t-shirt bearing this advice:

“Be nice, don’t be communist”.

In the case of the host, in the name of the so-called Assembly of Cuban Resistance, Gutiérrez has recently led campaigns opposing cruise lines making trips to the island, and calling on the “exile” community to take action to create a new Republic.

This “new Republic” is not explained, but I imagine the plan is to become one more star on the U.S. flag.

Gutiérrez, and other losers who make a living off the miserable business of counterrevolution, sent the Trump administration a message offering thanks for measures taken against Cuba.

This gentleman and other Latin Americans of his lineage have been summoned by the ultra-right deputy, son of the President, Eduardo Bolsonaro, to what they call a “Conservative Summit of the Americas,” that took place this December 8, in Foz de Iguazú, located on the triple border between Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay. Among the confirmed participants were José Antonio Kast, the right-winger who won 8% of the votes in Chile’s Presidential elections; Orlando Gutiérrez, on behalf of the Cuban-American Miami mafia; Jorge Jérez Cuéllar, Colombian reserve general; and Venezuelan opposition leader, Miguel Ángel Martín. Former Colombian President Álvaro Uribe was also invited.

If Jair Bolsonaro and his son Eduardo have fostered alliances with people like Orlando Gutiérrez and other terrorists in the United States, how can we believe that the campaign against Cuban doctors in Brazil was solely an initiative of that country’s President-elect and not part of Washington’s plans to attack Cuba and Venezuela?

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Featured image: Eduardo Bolsonaro in Miami with Cuban-born terrorist Orlando Gutiérrez. Photo: Twitter

Well, another year stumbles out the door and a new one is pushed in. This procedure is emulated by the consistency of this lie we call democracy.

Everybody participates in it.

The politicians who need the lie to get them into office.. and keep them there;

The embedded in empire media, especially the electronic mainstream  ‘so called’ news shows (with models, actors and actresses making millions posing as journalists);

The stalwarts of these two ‘servants of empire’ Republican and Democratic parties; and last but surely not least many of my friends and neighbors who still buy into the lie.

Let me be as clear as a  rare smog less big city day: So long as we continue to allow private money into electoral politics, there will never be the foundation for a true democracy… Period!

Just imagine if wealthy interests could not openly bribe politicians with campaign donations. Perhaps maybe then we could see some semblance of economic justice and a healthier public.

Big Oil and Big Auto have made sure, since the inception of the motor car, that the Congress need not legislate that cars get substantial higher fuel efficiency. Ralph Nader had to push for decades just to get the miniscule fuel standards we now have- nothing from what these cars and trucks should be getting in miles per gallon.

Then we have Big Pharma who ‘legally bribe’ our political system to allow unsafe drugs on the market. The Opioid crisis, for example, has revealed to those who really care to know, that many of those types of  drugs should never have been allowed on the market… Period!  How many Americans, skimming to the subject of anti depressant and anti hyperactive drugs, have committed suicide because of them? Check it out for yourself.

Big Insurance has taken over the health care of Americans.. or shall I say the ‘Lack of’? As a baby boomer on Medicare, they don’t even ask to see my Medicare card when I go to any doctor. All they require is my private (so called supplemental) insurance card. Twice my private insurer has ruled out my ENT doc’s request for a deviated septum surgery. Twice! My wife, 10 years younger than me, has NO major medical coverage, only hospitalization. We can barely afford that cost.

To have the same coverage as myself, no way could we afford even a decent plan. As far as other people under 65 that I know, maybe those with private insurance coverage should check out what their deductible is. Guaranteed it is over a couple of thousand dollars before their coverage kicks in.

One must ask those charming hacks who are supposed to represent us as to what their coverage is- you know the coverage that our tax dollars are paying for! So, when even the so called ‘Green Dems’ are demanding a ‘Medicare for All Americans’ plan, don’t they understand that all it would do is allow 50 million or more of our fellow citizens to be held hostage? Margret Flowers and Kevin Zeese are part of a campaign to put pressure on to see that a viable ‘National Health Care For All becomes a reality. Check out their work at Popular Resistance. Org.

We all can see, each time we watch any major sporting event on the boob tube, just how powerful this Military Industrial Empire is. Before every event they drape the giant US flag over the entire field or court, bring out the ‘honor guard’ and everyone bows their heads for the anthem. Everybody knows that we are ‘At war’ and must honor our brave troops etc.

Well, if they really want to honor our troops, get them the hell out of where they never should have been sent to in the first place! Send the children and grandchildren of our political, media and military leaders to those desert outposts in full gear. Don’t forget to send the young ‘fighting age’ relatives of all those movers and shakers of the War industries out there as well. Bottom line: For every dollar of your hard earned federal tax money you send to Uncle Sam, over half goes for military related spending.

Over half! Trump made a concocted, strictly political decision to pull a few thousand military out of Syria and Afghanistan (places we illegally are in). Meanwhile, he won’t shut down the myriad of bases we have in Afghanistan and the near thousand we maintain in perhaps 100 countries (I did not know there were even 100 countries in the world). We need them there, and all of Trump’s recent predecessors have echoed Groucho Marx from the film Duck Soup that “This means war!”

There can be NO democracy so long as my fellow citizens keep relying on the Two Party system to operate, and money is allowed to flow into campaigns.

Even good and decent politicians get tarnished. The late Senator Paul Simon of Illinois, a stalwart for cutting out the influence of money in politics, admitted the following anecdote. He said he was out there on the campaign trail for re-election, and returned to his hotel room one evening. He noticed there were quite a few messages for him. “I went through them, and honestly the first call I returned was to a man I recognized as a campaign donor of mine. That is the reality of how things work now.” He said that almost 20 years ago.

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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]

Featured image is from Vox

Brazil’s President-elect Jair Bolsonaro and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged to deepen ties during a meeting Friday. However, Bolsonaro did not confirm whether his government will move the Brazilian Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to the occupied city of Jerusalem.

Netanyahu, a right-wing politician and the first Israeli prime minister to visit Brazil, visited Rio de Janeiro to meet with Bolsonaro, who will assume the presidency on Jan. 1.

“Israel is the promised land. Brazil is the land of promise,”  Netanyahu said, adding that Israel could assist Brazil with economics, security, agriculture, and technology.

In response, Bolsonaro said he would visit Israel by March as a gesture of gratitude to Netanyahu.

“We will be starting a difficult government from January, but Brazil has potential,” Bolsonaro said. “(To) overcome obstacles we need good allies, good friends, good brothers, like Benjamin Netanyahu.”

The two men visited a synagogue where Netanyahu emphasized aspirations for a future in which both countries work together in a more aligned and friendly way, expressing his optimism amid the backdrop of snipers on roofs.

Bolsonaro and his top aides have repeatedly stated that he would move Brazil’s embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a sharp shift in Brazilian foreign policy which has traditionally supported a two-state solution.

The move, which could very well be announced at a later date as political observers have anticipated, would mimic United States President Donald Trump’s decision to do so last December.

“We also welcome President-elect Bolsonaro’s comments regarding moving the Brazilian embassy in Israel to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv in support of Israel’s sovereign right to have its capital of Jerusalem recognized by nations around the world. We look forward to welcoming many more of our friends and allies in Jerusalem,” a senior U.S. State Department official said Friday.

The Arab League warned in a letter to Bolsonaro that moving the embassy to Jerusalem would be a setback for relations with Arab countries, Reuters reported.

Since the presidential election, powerful backers in the agricultural sector have also pressured Bolsonaro to give up the idea as they fear the decision would harm halal meat sales in Arab countries.

Brazil is the top meat exporter to Muslim-majority countries. According to Salaam Gateway, a Dubai-based online magazine for Islamic culture and lifestyle, halal-certified food and beverage industry was estimated to be worth US$415 billion in 2015.

The US presidential plane landed in the darkness of the Iraqi military base of Ayn al-Assad in west Anbar with Donald Trump onboard. But by the time his plane took off three hours later, Trump left behind a protocol-political-parliamentary storm in Mesopotamia as Iraqi members of parliament requested the departure of the 5200 US forces from the country. None of the three Iraqi leaders (Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi, Speaker Mohammad al-Halbusi, President Barham Salih) came to receive Trump as all three rejected US conditions for such a meeting. Trump seems determined to leave Syria without interfering with who will control the territory behind him: this morning the Syrian Army entered the outskirt of the city of Manbij following a deal between Kurdish leaders and the government of Damascus. Will he also end up leaving Iraq before the end of his term in January 2021?

In preparation for Trump’s visit, Iraqi prime minister Adel Abdel Mahdi was asked to meet the US president. He agreed to meet Trump either in Baghdad, on Iraqi soil, or at the Ayn al-Assad military base, on the Iraqi side of the base; Iraqi national security forces and army units are present at the same base where US forces are deployed, in a separate part of the base. To have met on the US-controlled part of the Iraqi-US base would have made Abdel Mahdi appear as an invited guest in his own country.

A few hours before Trump’s arrival, US Ambassador Douglas Silliman told Abdel Mahdi that Trump would receive him in the US part of the base. Trump refused to visit Baghdad for a quick reception; neither would he even cross over to the Iraqi side of Ayn al-Assad, for security reasons. Abdel Mahdi refused the US invitation, as did the Iraqi president and speaker. All three politicians have risen in public esteem for having refused the US invitation.

Trump’s disregard for protocol when landing in a sovereign foreign country has infuriated local politicians, heads of organisations and members of parliament. They felt insulted and have called for the withdrawal of US forces from the country. Others threatened to force US troops out of the country.

Qais al-Khaz’ali, the head of a parliamentary coalition and leader of “Asaeb Ahl al-haq” (responsible for killing US soldiers during their occupation of Iraq between 2003 and 2011), said “Iraq will respond (to the Trump insult) through a parliamentary demand that you pull out your troops and if you don’t leave, we have the (warfare) experience to force you out”.

Tension was increased by Trump’s announcement that he plans to keep his forces in Iraq and may return to Syria from the Iraqi base. “Hezbollah Iraq” responded immediately by pledging to “cut the hand that will hit Syria from Iraqi bases”.

The US president seems prepared to keep his promise to withdraw from Syria, at least in the case of Manbij. The US announced an “organised exit”, meaning withdrawal in coordination with Turkey so that Ankara’s forces could replace withdrawing US troops. Turkey has been preparing to enter Manbij and Tal Abiad by gathering thousands of forces and proxies standing at the borders of the Syrian province. Nevertheless, the deal reached on Thursday night between the Syrian government and the YPG Kurds gave the green light to the 1^stand 5^thdivisions of the Syrian army to take back Manbij (still on the outskirt) and raise Russian and Syrian flags over the city. This development is blocking the road for Turkey and its proxies to move into the province. The decision was communicated to Turkey via Russia.

Moscow is standing in the way of any change of power on the ground, refusing Turkey control of more Syrian territory not already included in the “Astana deal”, which conceded Turkey temporary jurisdiction in the region of Idlib. Russia believes there should be a natural handover of the Kurdish-controlled areas to the Syrian Army following US withdrawal. Damascus and Tehran are adamant in this case: only Syrian forces should replace US troops in al-Hasaka province.

Moreover, Damascus forces are still based in Qamishli and can easily take over control of all positions when the US withdraw its occupation forces from northeastern Syria. Already there are observation points (villages) under the control of the Syrian Army, some with Russian observers, in different villages around Manbij. These represent a clear message to Ankara that no troops can cross without Russian agreement, otherwise they will be bombed and attacked. The control of Manbij is a game changer and a clear indication that the government of Damascus will take control of al-Hasaka province to concentrate later on Idlib, after the US withdrawal, with the help of Moscow.

Russia has called for an important meeting between presidential envoys, Foreign and Defence ministers and heads of intelligence services of both Russia and Turkey this Saturday in Moscow to talk about the US withdrawal and the role of each side. Another meeting (not yet final) is scheduled between Turkey, Russia and Iran in Moscow in a few weeks. The aim is to prevent any split between these leaders that could be triggered by the US withdrawal from occupied Syria. Damascus rejected the presence of the local Kurdish administration on its side and agreed to disarm the Kurds, a Turkish and Syrian request, after defeating ISIS.Indeed, the Kurds will help the Syrian army fight ISIS along the Euphrates river where a battle is expected to begin soon to end ISIS control of the area. As ISIS no longer enjoys US protection, the end of its occupation of a part of Syrian territory is near.

During negotiations with Russia, Turkey argued that the US might not allow the Syrian forces to move in. Turkey claimed that any changes to the deal established between Trump and Erdogan might alter the US decision to withdraw. Damascus and Tehran are indeed eager to see US troops gone from Syria, but not to deliver the area to Turkey. Russia supported Damascus on this position.

Ankara was indeed afraid that its unilateral decision to move into the Kurdish controlled area might trigger Russian intervention against its proxies (Euphrates Sheild, Jaish al-Islam, al-Hamza brigade, Ahrar al-Sharqiya and others), and might also lead Iranians to arm the Kurds and the Arab tribes in the province to prevent any further annexation of Syrian territory. The Turkish forces and their proxies currently occupying Jarablus, al-Bab, Afrin and Idlib, are unwilling to engage in a doomed war against the Syrian army, supported by Russia and Iran.

Turkey seems willing to accommodate Russia and Iran – the Turkish army and its Syrian proxies will never be able to cross the 500 kilometres from Manbij to Deir-ezzour where the richest area of oil and gas is. This area is only tens of kilometres distant from the closest Syrian Army position on the other side of the Euphrates river.

Russia asked Damascus and Tehran to lay down a strategy and coordinate with the Russian military to put forward a plan of action and a road map after US withdrawal, with the first priority of eliminating ISIS and avoiding any clash with Turkey if possible. The situation was very sensitive and complicated between these allies. With the return of Manbij, the situation seems to favour Syrian unity, marking the end of its partition or of any possible buffer zone.

Tehran believes the US won’t permanently leave the Levant and Mesopotamia without leaving unrest behind. This gives its officials an additional motivation to lobby the Iraqi parliament for a US withdrawal from Iraq.

There is no doubt that Iraq is a close ally of Iran and not a fanatic supporter of the US. The Iraqi parliament can exert pressure over the government of Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi to ask President Trump to pull out US troops before the end of his mandate in 2020. The US establishment and the “Axis of the Resistance” can both connive and plan, but the last word will belong to the people of Iraq and to those who reject US hegemony in the Middle East, those who can accept losses and nurse their wounds in hopes of a better future.

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It should be a sign for this Indian giant, a company that has done much to illustrate the ethical and moral bankruptcy in Australia’s political classes.  Despite support stretching from Canberra to rural Queensland, lifted by the fantasy of job creation, Adani is yet to dig the earth of what would have been one of the largest mining complexes on the planet.   

For one thing, a downsizing was announced suggesting a more compact operation that would supposedly fly under the radar of detractors.  From its initial, lofty ambitions of a $16.5 billion investment, Adani Mining chief executive Lucas Dow now suggests a less extravagant $2 billion reliant on existing rail infrastructure.  Even here, the mission to establish a new coal mine seems grotesque given the dire warnings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.  While Adani mines, the world cooks.

There is more than a sense that Adani is a poisoned chalice best avoided by all concerned – unless you are an Australian energy or resources minister incapable of evaluating history or the future prospects of fossil fuels.  This point is particularly problematic given the admission by Indian officials that coal is going off the books at such a rate that the Carmichael project is destined to become the most muddle headed of white elephants.  Indeed, existing thermal coal power in India costs twice what renewable generation does. 

The outlook for such analysts as the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis is glum for the coal romantics and fossil fuel adorers.

“Exports have declined since 2015,” goes its report last month, “and more contraction is expected.  High export revenues entirely reflect current high prices which are themselves partially a result of declining investment in thermal coal mining.” 

Banks have refused to grant a line of finance.  Insurance and reinsurance companies have resisted supplying cover for the coal mine – among them, AXA, SCOR, FM Global, QBE and Suncorp.  Some insurance companies – Allianz, Munich Re, Swiss Re, Zurich and Generali – have environmental policies that preclude engagement with the project. 

The hope for Adani is that various ditherers and the morally lax might still be in the market to cover this enterprise of pure environmental buccaneering: US re-insurer giants such as AIG, AXIS Capital and Berkshire Hathaway have yet to make their stance on this clear.

Such reluctance was prompted, in no small part, by the efforts of 73 environmental organisations, topped by a letter to 30 global insurance and reinsurance companies sent earlier this month.  Such groups have been unrelenting in emphasising the dangers posed by the Carmichael project.  These do not only entail the mining operations themselves but the rail line linked to the export terminal that would threaten the Great Barrier Reef.  Biodiversity and a World Heritage Site remain vulnerable targets before a company renowned for its rapacity towards worker and environment.

Other animals have also become talismans of resistance to the project, assuming titanic proportions for opponents.  The Black-throated finch has become something of an activists’ cult, marked by the Black-throated Finch Recovery Team’s insistence that Adani’s reassurances in their protection and preservation are, at best, woeful.  A promise to conduct surveys twice a year hardly counted, and the experts were being given the cold shoulder in what was deemed a “closed book consultation”.  Adani insists on those who sing appropriate tunes.

The company’s response has been that of a diligent, agonised box ticker keen on following process.

“The claims that the process has not been ‘followed on a number of different levels,’” went a rebuking spokesperson for the company last year, “is without basis as Adani has followed the legislation and conditions set in close consultation with the Federal and Queensland governments.”

Then there is a sticking point that refuses to go away: Adani’s promised, seemingly unquenchable thirst.  Up to 12.5 billion litres of water drawn from the Suttor River in central Queensland is being sought to aid the open-cut coal effort.  The misnamed Environment Minister’s portfolio, inhabited by the near invisible Melissa Price, did not feel any pressing concerns for conducting an assessment on how damaging such a move would be.

Again, Adani is there with qualifiers and dismissive counters, which are hard things to pull off, given the persistent trouble of drought in Queensland: the issue of the mandatory water trigger, which comes into play in such significant projects, should only apply to water used in the coal extraction process, rather than its overall plan of water usage which it has conveniently softened as a water strategy.  As the Australian Department of the Environment and Energy explains, “stand-alone proposals which involve only associated infrastructure, such as pipelines, are not captured by the water trigger because they do not directly involve the extraction of coal”. Such bureaucratic riddling does well in Canberra.

The Australian Conservation Foundation is not impressed, and is taking the matter to the Federal Court.  By not considering the issue of how broad the water trigger was, Price had erred in a matter of law.  As things stand, Price and her colleagues, in connivance with Adani, are erring on a lot more besides, making the campaign against the mine a fundamental counter against permissible and ultimately scandalous environmental vandalism.

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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]

Karl Marx (1818-1883) was one of the most prescient philosophers, whose influence is felt even today. It could be said about him that he is read wherever printed literature or optical fiber has reached. But what does Marx mean to us today? How do we interpret Marx for our changed times? I remember that by 2005-2006, most people would mockingly remind me that Marx had become outdated and therefore his proper place was his London cemetery. But then, out of the blue came the 2008-2012 economic meltdown. Global capitalism fell like a pack of cards. The result, as we all know, was devastating. The worst-hit countries, like the United States, implemented bailout packages for big corporations and so-called austerity measures for the poor and middle class. The economic terrorism of the World Bank and IMF was brought in full swing to control the man-made tragedy

The entire tragedy culminated in the famous slogan, “we are the 99 percent and they are the 1 percent.” Despite the predictions of neoconservatives, Marx was once again speaking, albeit from his grave. It was Marx, alongside Engels, who after all had developed the most comprehensive critique of neoliberal concepts. Marx’s greatest contribution was to show that, when all was said and done, poverty was not a natural phenomenon of the world. Capitalism no doubt produced wealth. But it also generated poverty on a massive scale. This disparity finds its expression in routine struggles that the poor are forced to fight against the super-rich. With Marx, a certain culture, a certain way of being, at least in Europe to begin with, came to an end. Marx no doubt could not give a perfect blueprint of how future societies could be built. But his writing, what I call magical boxes, should be read as an obituary of the bourgeoisie that organizes itself into family, church, factory, army, religion and psychiatric clinics in a perfect pyramidal model. Marx was not first to have raised the siren. He should be seen as a great heir to the 1789 Revolution. It was the original French Revolution that taught Marx, and it was other French revolutionaries of the failed La Commune (Paris 1871) whom he was teaching and mentoring by arguing both for and against.

The French Revolution, for the first time in the history of Europe, Asia, Africa and North America, raised the most vital question related to man and man’s relationship with land, i.e. who owns the land and who does not. And why and how has it happened that the peasants who toil own nothing while the landlords own all the land. It was the revolutionaries who insisted on a complete separation of church and state. The Marquis de Sade (1740-1814), in fact, goes as far as imposing taxes on offerings of religious prayers. Even issues related to women and the sexual minorities were raised. With Marx and the French revolutionaries, not just the factory space but all other spaces and institutions were sought to be democratized. It was land and private capital that were the sources of the bourgeoisie’s wealth and laughter; it was land and capital that were sought to be socialized.

Marx, alongside Engels, Bakunin, Herzen, Marquis de Sade and others had developed a highly organized body of anti-capitalist knowledge. In light of the conclusions they had reached, they believed that capitalism would sooner than later come to an end. They were optimistic about the ability of the proletariat to turn the tide and rise against all odds. In retrospect, it would be fair to say that Marx’s prediction of a world revolution has not come true. Today with the sole exceptions of Vietnam, China, Cuba, parts of Europe, and pockets in India the leftist movements have not been able to muster public opinion against the most murderous economic system. And even where it had succeeded, as in large swathes of Eastern Europe and Russia, the revolution failed to consolidate itself beyond a certain point. In the Soviet case, as this is now widely recognized even by historians like Professor Irfan Habib, in the post-revolutionary society a new bureaucratic class emerged that thought less about people and more about itself. One finds the same message emerging from Victor Kravchenko’s celebrated memoir, I Chose Freedom (1946). In other words, class distinctions did not dissolve. Where the old ones died, newer ones emerged.

The world would be a beautiful and non-alienated home for us, the inheritors of Marx, if we had not inherited these complex and seemingly insoluble problems. To a large extent, Cuba alone among the countries in Latin America has been successful at combating this problem by implementing honestly the mass line. Our problem is further compounded by the serious threat of climate change. Capitalism and vulgar forms of socialism have no doubt raised mankind’s productive capacity by leaps and bounds. But they have more or less failed to recognize the climatic consequences of this growth for growth’s sake

It would be futile here to look into Marx or Engels for solutions to this problem. Both spoke in a language devoid of any serious concern for this factory and tree debate. This to me constitutes what I would call the black hole of their theory. And so, the gigantic task of repairing this falls on our shoulders.

Source: Gilbert Mercier

The melting of the ice-caps has resulted in rising sea levels. And in our case, in India, the Sundarbans will be the worst-hit area. And I imagine Kolkata and Mumbai, as well as other port cities of the world, would not remain unaffected. Human civilization today faces problems that in the past 10,000 years it did not. The rampant use of plastic and its improper disposal by burning adds to the enormity of the problem. We build industries but forget conveniently about their effluents. I would admit that when one talks about such issues one is inevitably called an ‘endist’ – a philosopher whose sensibilities are deeply affected by the Biblical stories of the world coming to an end. I hope that the world does not come to an end, that this Titanic in which we are traveling does not sink. But magical thinking can only console us. It can hardly replace the need for instituting deep-rooted changes. Given the mass of scientific evidence that we have, like the UN’s 2014 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change mitigation report, one would have to be either an Ambani or a lunatic to look the other way.

Both capitalism and vulgar forms of socialism tend to believe naively that nature is infinite. That the resources nature gives us have no end. They tend to forget that nature, like man, is finite. What we need is not just a certain deconsumerization of society as whole, but perhaps people will have to learn to respect all things that are non-human. This is something that the far-Right, as represented by Trump, Modi, or Bolsonaro, will not do. This task falls on the shoulders of the Left. Global capitalism cannot be expected to solve the problems that it has given us. At such a crucial juncture, what we need is a surcharged Left that is committed to a green earth.

In India and more particularly in Bengal, the Left should push for heavy taxation of industrial houses whose profit generating activity is destroying the ecology beyond repair. The money so generated should be used to institutionalize green technologies. We should also push for a Sikkim-like ban on plastic and segregation of the garbage that the poor, middle class, rich, and super-rich generate. Recycling itself could not only lead to generation of employment but also help us to extend the deadline for our demise by many years.

Marx was a genius of his time. He had the courage to defend the defenseless. Climate change once again presents us with this opportunity. We know that the effect of such a change will be disproportionate. It will affect the poor more than the rich. It is here that Marx’s legacy ought to be invoked. We have to protect and educate the poor. We have to re-establish the amicable relationship between humans and trees that capitalism has historically annihilated. To accomplish such a task we have to be, not just theoreticians, but also poets who are profoundly in love with all things non-human.

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This article was originally published on News Junkie Post.

Imtiaz Akhtar is the author of Kafka Sutra.

Featured image is from Jason Hardgrove via News Junkie Post

The UK government-financed Integrity Initiative, managed by the Institute for Statecraft, is ostensibly a “counter disinformation” programme to challenge Russian information operations. However, it has been revealed that the Integrity Initiative twitter handle and some individuals associated with this programme have also been tweeting messages attacking Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. [i]  This takes on special meaning in light of the numerous UK military and intelligence personnel associated with the programme, documented in an important briefing by academics in Working Group on Syria Propaganda and Media. [ii]

Several journalists have been named as associated with the Integrity Initiative, either in programme “clusters” or having been invited to an Integrity Initiative event, in the documents that have been posted online. [iii]  Analysis of 11 of these individuals has been undertaken to assess to what extent their tweets have linked Corbyn unfairly (for a definition see below) to Russia. The results show two things:

• first, the smearing of Corbyn about Russia is more extensive than has been revealed so far;
• second, many of the same individuals have also been attacking a second target – Julian Assange, trying to also falsely link him to the Kremlin.

Many of these 11 individuals are associated with The Times and the Guardian in the UK and the Atlantic Council in the US. The research does not show, however, that these tweets are associated with the Integrity Initiative (see further below).

Linking Corbyn to Russia

The Integrity Initiative twitter page states that “we are not ‘anti-Russian’ and do not ‘target’ Mr Corbyn”.[iv] However, before issuing this statement, it has tweeted:

• “Skripal poisoning: It’s time for the Putin left to confront its Putin problem”.[v]
• “An alleged British Corbyn supporter wants to vote for Putin”.[vi]
• “’Mr Corbyn was a ‘useful idiot’, in the phrase apocryphally attributed to Lenin. His visceral anti-Westernism helped the Kremlin cause, as surely as if he had been secretly peddling Westminster tittle-tattle for money’”. [vii]This tweet was a quote from an article by Edward Lucas (see below) in the Times, entitled: “Corbyn’s sickening support of Soviet Empire”.[viii]

Here are examples of tweets from the 11 individuals.

Times columnist Edward Lucas has published an article on the Integrity Initiative website and been quoted as saying that his work with the Initiative has not been paid or involved anything improper.[ix] On twitter, he has accused Corbyn of “his blind spot on Putin’s plutocracy”[x] and for his “blind spot for Kremlin imperialism”[xi]. He has also tweeted:

• “Why does Corbyn not see that Russia is imperialist and Ukrainians are victims?”[xii], and:
• “It’s not just Corbyn. Here’s Swedish leftie @AsaLinderborg explaining why Nato not Putin is the real threat to peace” – linking to the latter’s article in a Swedish newspaper[xiii].

Lucas has also tweeted:

• “German hard-leftist GDR-loving wall-defending @SWagenknecht congratulates Corbyn on win” [in the Labour leadership contest][xiv]
• “More excellent stuff on Corbyn’s love of plutocrats so long as they are Russian”[xv].

Lucas has also written of Corbyn “playing into Russia’s hands on the Skripal poisoning”.[xvi]

Deborah Haynes[xvii], until recently Defence Editor of The Times and now foreign affairs editor at Sky News, has tweeted:

• “Talking tough, v quick to demand end to UK arms sales to Saudi Arabia after Khashoggi death in stark contrast to his feeble response towards Russia over Skripal attack”[xviii], and
• “Displaying staggering naivety and a complete failure to understand this state-sponsored attack by Russia on the UK. Appalling. Is he for real?”[xix]

Haynes has also tweeted: “Incredible that @jeremycorbyn is attempting to score party-political points in wake of hugely significant statement by @theresa_may on Skripal attack by Russia”.[xx]

Washington Post columnist Anne Applebaum has tweeted that Corbyn is a “useful idiot” of Russia[xxi], of a “precise echo of Kremlin propaganda from Corbyn”[xxii], that “Surprise! Russia sides with Corbyn against Cameron”[xxiii] and that “Jeremy Corbyn isn’t anti-war. He’s just anti-West”[xxiv].

David Clark, a former adviser to Robin Cook, has tweeted that Corbyn is an “apologist” for Putin[xxv] and that “It is an article of ideological faith for Corbyn and people like him that everything wrong with the world is the fault of the capitalist West.”[xxvi]

Anders Aslund of the Atlantic Council in the US, has tweeted, referring to Corbyn: “Once a communist always so.”[xxvii] His colleague at the Atlantic Council, Ben Nimmo, sent four tweets on Corbyn’s candidacy for the Labour leadership in August 2015:

• “Why Russia loves Corbyn, in one headline”[xxviii]
• “Russia’s certainly pushing Corbyn’s candidacy”[xxix]
• “From Russia with coverage – how RT is campaigning for Jeremy Corbyn”[xxx], and
• “How Putin’s @RT_com is backing Jeremy Corbyn – my piece in @dailybeast”[xxxi].

Natalie Nougayrede, Guardian columnist and on its editorial board, has tweeted on a “Guardian editorial on shameful Corbyn & Co reaction to Russia behaviour & chemical weapon use”[xxxii] and retweeted a Nick Cohen article: “Corbyn. Supposedly anti-war, but in fact anti-West.”[xxxiii]

Three Guardian/Observer-linked journalists were invited to speak at an Integrity Initiative event in London in November 2018, which title was “Tackling Tools of Malign Influence – Supporting 21st Century Journalism” – Carole Cadwalladr , Nick Cohen and James Ball.[xxxiv]

Carole Cadwalladr has tweeted that “Labour has a Russia problem”, that Corbyn adviser Seumas Milne is “pro-Putin”[xxxv] and that “Milne’s support for Putin has made him a Russian propaganda tool”[xxxvi]. One of Cadwalladr’s tweets noted:

• “Here’s Corbyn’s principal advisor Seamus Milne on RT explaining why it was the fault of NATO aggression that Russia invaded Ukraine.”[xxxvii]

Another tweet by Cadwalladr noted:

• “’What he has done, wittingly or unwittingly, is to work with the Kremlin’s agenda’. Extraordinary quote from MP & expert on Russian active measures @IoWBobSeely in this incredible in-depth profile on Seamus Milne”.[xxxviii]

Nick Cohen has tweeted that “Labour is led by Putin fans”[xxxix] and: “What is worse? Farage and Corbyn and twitter trolls divert attention from Russia’s political assassinations because they believe Putin is innocent or because they are morally corrupt?”[xl]. He has also retweeted an Observer article of his claiming that Labour leaders have promoted “endorsements of Russian imperialism” and that Corbyn’s policy has given Russia “a free pass” in Syria.[xli]

James Ball has tweeted a link to his own article in the New Statesman saying that Corbyn is “playing into Russia’s hands on the Skripal poisoning”[xlii] and accusing Corbyn to the effect that he “took money from Russia Today”[xliii].

Linking Assange to the Kremlin

Many of the same individuals have also been tweeting false statements about Julian Assange and Russia.

The Integrity Initiative twitter site itself retweeted a Guardian smear article, stating “US lobbyist for Russian oligarch visited Julian Assange nine times last year”[xliv] – referring to a lawyer, Adam Waldman, visiting the Wikileaks founder.  It also tweeted: “If you still believe Assange is some kind of hero, you deserve pity at best”.[xlv]

Anders Aslund has tweeted that Assange “represents certain Russian agencies”[xlvi], that “Wikileaks, Assange & Snowden are nothing but highly successful Russian special operations”[xlvii] and “Kremlin agents”[xlviii], and that “Assange is collaborating w[ith] Russia Today as program host. Would be strange if not full-fledged agent”.[xlix]

Carole Cadwalladr has also sought to overtly link Assange to the Kremlin.  She has tweeted that “Assange & Milne… are both Russian propaganda tools”[l], that Assange is a “special friend” of Russian intelligence[li] and that Wikileaks has “colluded with…the Kremlin”[lii]. In addition, Cadwalladr has tweeted several times that “Assange was in direct communication with Russian intelligence in 2016”[liii] and that “Wikileaks sought assistance from Russian intelligence officers to disrupt the US presidential election”[liv].

Cadwalladr is here claiming that Wikileaks knowingly colluded with Russian intelligence by releasing the files on the Democratic Party in 2016: in fact, this is not known or proven at all, while numerous media outlets also published or had contacts with Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks in 2016 – though do not figure as targets in her attacks.

Nick Cohen has also made many smears against Julian Assange, variously calling him a “Russian stooge” [lv], a “Putin agent” [lvi], “pro-Putin”[lvii], a “Russian toady”[lviii], that he “works for Russia propaganda machine”[lix]while “Wikileaks will think whatever Putin tells it to think”.[lx]

David Leask, chief reporter of The Herald (Scotland), has described Assange as a “Kremlin proxy”[lxi] while Anne Applebaum tweeted: “’Wikileaks is a front for Russian intelligence’”, linking to an article of the same headline[lxii]. Edward Lucas retweeted his Times article suggesting that Assange and Wikileaks are part of the “Kremlin-loving camp”[lxiii] while David Clark has tweeted that “Assange is an active accomplice” of autocrats such as Putin.[lxiv]

Need for further research

There are some key points to be made about this analysis.

First, some of the tweets made by these individuals on Corbyn and Assange, not all of which are included here, are fair comment, even if, in my view, they are usually wrong. But others go beyond this, inferring that Corbyn (and Assange) are in effect agents of Russia and/or are willingly and knowingly amplifying Russia’s agenda, as little more than “tools” – with no evidence provided (understandably, since there is none). There is also sometimes the association of Corbyn with former communists. These areas are held to constitute smearing.

Second, it is not known and certainly not proven that these tweets are associated with the Integrity Initiative. Little is known of the internal workings of the Initiative. It is possible that some of the individuals may have been chosen by the Integrity Initiative to be associated with it precisely because of their pre-existing criticism of Russia or their willingness to accuse figures such as Corbyn with association with Russia. While I am not suggesting that these individuals’ tweets are necessarily linked to their role in the Integrity Initiative, there does appear to be something of a pattern among these people of smearing both Corbyn and Assange.

Third, and equally important, this is not a full analysis of these individuals’ outputs: it is limited to their tweets. Neither is it a full analysis of the false linking to Russia by individuals associated with the Integrity Initiative: several other journalists and figures named in the documents are not analysed here. Again, further research is needed.

Mark Curtis is and award-winning author and frequent contributor to Global Research

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Notes

[i] https://www.thecanary.co/uk/analysis/2018/12/14/emily-thornberry-turns-up-the-heat-on-tory-minister-in-row-over-jeremy-corbyn-smears/

[ii] http://syriapropagandamedia.org/working-papers/briefing-note-on-the-integrity-initiative

[iii] Analysis here focuses on individuals named at: section 7.1 of http://syriapropagandamedia.org/working-papers/briefing-note-on-the-integrity-initiative; the ‘UK’ section of the ‘Xcountry’ document: https://www.cyberguerrilla.org/blog/operation-integrity-initiative-british-informational-war-against-all-parts-1-3-combined-docs/; and journalists invited to speak at an Integrity Initiative event in London in November 2018, https://www.pdf-archive.com/2018/12/13/skillsharingdraft-nov12/skillsharingdraft-nov12.pdf

[iv] https://twitter.com/InitIntegrity/status/1073245787595919360

[v] https://twitter.com/InitIntegrity/status/1042774920529358851

[vi] https://twitter.com/InitIntegrity/status/984160286625222657

[vii] https://twitter.com/InitIntegrity/status/966965852892467200

[viii] https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/corbyn-s-sickening-support-of-soviet-empire-qcpgs70gg

[ix] See section 7.1.3 : http://syriapropagandamedia.org/working-papers/briefing-note-on-the-integrity-initiative

[x] https://twitter.com/edwardlucas/status/636632548358135809

[xi] https://twitter.com/edwardlucas/status/649197808814280704

[xii] https://twitter.com/edwardlucas/status/636798147608625152

[xiii] https://twitter.com/edwardlucas/status/688842086200819712

[xiv] https://twitter.com/edwardlucas/status/642673874870665217

[xv] https://twitter.com/edwardlucas/status/633328339978186752

[xvi] https://twitter.com/edwardlucas/status/982872506750193666

[xvii] See section 7.14 of http://syriapropagandamedia.org/working-papers/briefing-note-on-the-integrity-initiative

[xviii] https://twitter.com/haynesdeborah/status/1054401547440926725

[xix] https://twitter.com/haynesdeborah/status/973905466794364928

[xx] https://twitter.com/haynesdeborah/status/973246686305931265

[xxi]https://twitter.com/anneapplebaum/status/630387753499422720

[xxii] https://twitter.com/anneapplebaum/status/637891042335956992

[xxiii] https://twitter.com/anneapplebaum/status/643830083602530304

[xxiv] https://twitter.com/anneapplebaum/status/667299182907011072

[xxv] https://twitter.com/David_K_Clark/status/983412923652591616

[xxvi] https://twitter.com/David_K_Clark/status/1037612764913721345

[xxvii] https://twitter.com/anders_aslund/status/748303161341812737

[xxviii] https://twitter.com/benimmo/status/637206541276418048

[xxix] https://twitter.com/benimmo/status/636647505241870336

[xxx] https://twitter.com/benimmo/status/633512911017766912

[xxxi] https://twitter.com/benimmo/status/633381715243888640

[xxxii] https://twitter.com/nnougayrede/status/974276865698467840

[xxxiii] https://twitter.com/nnougayrede/status/673195744019521537

[xxxiv] https://www.pdf-archive.com/2018/12/13/skillsharingdraft-nov12/skillsharingdraft-nov12.pdf

[xxxv] https://twitter.com/carolecadwalla/status/1071343451881521152

[xxxvi] https://twitter.com/carolecadwalla/status/1071703570112745473

[xxxvii] https://twitter.com/carolecadwalla/status/1071409975602360326

[xxxviii] https://twitter.com/carolecadwalla/status/1066687690203193346

[xxxix] https://twitter.com/NickCohen4/status/951441197989494784

[xl] https://twitter.com/NickCohen4/status/1001711386169397248

[xli] https://twitter.com/NickCohen4/status/787356358114967552

[xlii] https://twitter.com/jamesrbuk/status/1037621632829927424

[xliii] https://twitter.com/jamesrbuk/status/1076498117908983809

[xliv] https://twitter.com/InitIntegrity/status/1009441100703125505

[xlv] https://twitter.com/InitIntegrity/status/982009101625561090

[xlvi] https://twitter.com/anders_aslund/status/816694651583397889

[xlvii] https://twitter.com/anders_aslund/status/787396852475760640

[xlviii] https://twitter.com/anders_aslund/status/771167286166028288

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[lv] https://twitter.com/NickCohen4/status/994185358270189568

[lvi] https://twitter.com/NickCohen4/status/860776646546247680

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Trends affecting humanitarian affairs in the occupied Palestinian territory

Today, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt) released a summary of data collected during 2018. Further breakdowns and statistics from previous years are available through the links below.

Record numbers of Palestinian deaths and injuries

A total of 295 Palestinians were killed and over 29,000 were injured in 2018 by Israeli forces. This is the highest death toll in a single year since the Gaza conflict of 2014 and the highest number of injuries recorded since OCHA began documenting casualties in the oPt in 2005.

About 61 per cent of the fatalities (180 people) and 79 per cent of the injuries (over 23,000) were in the context of Gaza’s ‘Great March of Return’ demonstrations by the fence. Across the oPt, 57 of the Palestinian fatalities and about 7,000 of the injuries were under 18 years of age. At least 28 of the Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in 2018 were members of armed groups in Gaza and another 15 were perpetrators or alleged perpetrators of attacks against Israelis in the West Bank.

A total of 14 Israelis were killed during the year by Palestinians and at least 137 others were injured. While the number of fatalities is nearly the same as in 2017 (15 people), the proportion of civilians among these fatalities (50 per cent) increased compared to the previous year (27 per cent).

Uptrend in attacks by settlers

In 2018, OCHA recorded 265 incidents where Israeli settlers killed or injured Palestinians or damaged Palestinian property, marking a 69 per cent increase compared with 2017; as a result, one Palestinian woman was killed, and another 115 Palestinians were injured (another two Palestinian suspected perpetrators of attacks were killed by Israeli settlers). Palestinian property vandalized by settlers includes some 7,900 trees and about 540 vehicles.

There were at least 181 incidents where Palestinians killed or injured settlers and other Israeli civilians in the West Bank or damaged Israeli property, a 28 per cent decline compared with the previous year. However, the number of Israelis killed in these incidents in 2018 (seven), increased compared to 2017 (four).

West Bank demolitions continue, but fewer Palestinians are displaced

In 2018, the Israeli authorities demolished or seized 459 Palestinian structures across the West Bank, mostly in Area C and East Jerusalem, overwhelmingly on the grounds of a lack of Israeli-issued building permits, which are almost impossible to obtain, slightly more than in 2017. Such incidents displaced 472 Palestinians, including 216 children and 127 women, the lowest such figure since OCHA began systematically recording demolitions in 2009. In Area C alone, there are over 13,000 pending demolition orders, including 40 issued against schools.

The blockade on Gaza still extremely restrictive

The land, sea and air blockade on the Gaza Strip, imposed by Israel citing security concerns, continued, with people being able to exit on an exceptional basis only. On a monthly average, in 2018 (Jan-Nov) there were some 9,200 exits from Gaza by permit holders through the Israeli-controlled Erez crossing, a 33 per cent increase compared to 2017, but 35 per cent less than the 2015-2016 average. The Egyptian-controlled Rafah Crossing has opened on a regular basis since May, recording about 56,800 exits in all of 2018, up from a yearly average of less than 19,000 in 2015-2017.

The rate of approval of permit applications for UN national staff to leave Gaza stood at 59 per cent during 2018, up from 47 per cent in 2017. However, the total number of applications submitted in 2018 dropped by 24 per cent, primarily due to the larger number of staff that were denied for security reasons and banned for reapplying for 12 months, currently 131 compared to 41 staff by the end of 2017.

Kerem Shalom, controlled by Israel, remained the almost exclusive crossing for the movement of commodities to and from Gaza, with limited imports also allowed via the Salah Ad Din Gate on the border with Egypt. On a monthly average, about 8,300 truckloads of goods entered Gaza via both crossings in 2018, 17 per cent below the equivalent average in the previous two years, while 209 trucks exited Gaza on average, mostly to West Bank markets, nearly the same as in 2016-2017. Access to fishing areas and to farming lands near the fence inside Gaza remained restricted.

More people in Gaza food insecure

About 1.3 million people in Gaza, or 68 per cent of the population, were identified as food insecure in 2018, primarily due to poverty, up from 59 per cent in 2014, when a similar survey was conducted. The unemployment rate in Gaza reached an average of almost 53 per cent in the first three quarters of 2018, an all-time record, with youth unemployment at 69 per cent. By contrast, in the West Bank, 12 per cent of the Palestinians are food insecure, down from 15 per cent in 2014, while unemployment stood at an average of 18 per cent.

Record-low in humanitarian funding

While humanitarian needs across the oPt rose during 2018, funding levels for humanitarian interventions declined significantly: only US$221 million had been received, against the $540 million requested in the 2018 Humanitarian Response Plan

Note: Data on casualties and demolitions is as of 26 December 2018 and is subject to caveats and definitions available in these links. Israeli fatalities exclude a baby delivered prematurely after the injury of his mother. Data on exits via Erez crossing is up to 30 November 2018, and data on imports and exports, as well as on the Rafah crossing are as of 15 December 2018.

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We are witnessing the withdrawal from Syria of the American military contingent, protests in France, the prospect of a British hard Brexit, the political decline of Angela Merkel in Germany, Netanyahu in crisis, and Mohammad bin Salman of Saudi Arabia suddenly becoming an international pariah. The contemporary crisis of leadership in Europe, the United States and among their main allies has thrown the West into chaos, leading it to one of its most critical junctures in recent decades. It is a situation brought on by the United States and its contradictory politics, which results in diminishing the sovereignty and decision-making power of Washington’s allies.

Well before the election of Donald Trump, European Union leaders Merkel, Cameron and Hollande were already faltering and evidencing signs of failure.

Hollande fell in the polls because of policies favoring the interests of the elites at the expense of the increasingly poor and indebted French population. Cameron, to stave off a Labour victory under Jeremy Corbyn, promised a vote on Brexit, a decision that would eventually end up costing him his political career. Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party, the undisputed master of the German political scene, suffered for the first time in fifteen years heavy electoral defeats stemming from recent migration policies. The Chancellor, harshly criticized for these results, resigned from the position of president of the party, leaving the CDU split into two factions. The situation worsened in the UK and France over the next twelve months, with Cameron resigning following the Brexit vote and Hollande forced to give up on the the idea of ​​running for reelection given his unpopularity.

Theresa May and Emmanuel Macron then replaced Cameron and Hollande. Macron immediately committed to revolutionizing French politics, promising a French renaissance. May (with a view to sabotaging it) promised to negotiate vigorously with the EU to obtain the best possible conditions for the UK’s Brexit, scheduled for March 2019. Both have acted contrary to their promises, sealing their political fates.

Meanwhile in the United States there has been strong jostling between the political-financial-war elites for the dominance of Trump’s foreign policy. The President, either out of inexperience, ineptitude or intentionally, soon succumbed to the foreign-policy establishment, with its usual offerings of neoliberalism and brutal imperialism. Trump’s weaponized use of the dollar thereby ended up in an unintended blue-on-blue attack, with Trump’s money bags, Saudi Arabia and Israel, receiving some friendly fire in addition to the intended targets, Iran, Russia and China. An understanding between Trump and the foreign-policy establishment has therefore been reached, sealed with the appointments of Bolton and Pompeo, establishing a modus vivendi between competing interests.

This dogma of neoliberalism and brutal imperialism espoused by the foreign-policy establishment is at the heart of the problems between the United States and the rest of the world, Europe especially, only serving to accelerate the transition to a multipolar world order, about which I wrote the day after Trump’s victory. Neoliberalism and American exceptionalism are now entrenched in an “America First” policy, combining the worst elements of US imperialism and the interests of the financier oligarchy.

Washington’s adoption of aggressive economic policies, aimed at draining resources from allies while simultaneously isolating its enemies, has further accentuated the differences between Europe and the US. The use of tariffs and customs duties, combined with sanctions against Moscow and Tehran, have ended up distancing Macron from Trump, placing the French president firmly in the liberal-globalist camp, standing shoulder to shoulder with Merkel. May is isolated, criticized by virtually everyone — Brussels, Trump, Merkel — and especially by Corbyn in Parliament.

May finds herself managing a situation beyond her, with a total failure of the British negotiating position with the EU. The closer we get to March 29, the more the British media like the BBC will holler about the catastrophe of a no-deal Brexit, the prospect of which is very likely given that May has done everything possible to sabotage the negotiation process with the EU. The aim is to convince the population that it is not only legitimate but above all else necessary to revoke the request for implementation of Article 50 of the EU in order to avoid the catastrophe of a hard Brexit. It is a perfect example of how the elite create a problem (intentionally failing the negotiations for Brexit) to justify acting in a certain direction, contrary to what the population has voted for.

Macron, in addition to a repeated series of internal political disasters, further demonstrated his abiding fidelity to the financier globalist elites by conceiving a new tax on petrol in the interests of greater environmental sustainability, a heedless provocation to the French people, already weighed down by taxes and an incommensurate lack of government services. This move was enough to unleash major protests in France, the biggest in over twenty years, which will not stop until the resignation of the puppet Macron.

In Germany, Angela Merkel’s migrant policies over the last few years have ended up consuming her credit in terms of popularity. She was recently replaced by her protégé, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, as head of the CDU. Merkel has already affirmed that she will withdraw from political life at the end of her term as chancellor. With Merkel as with May and Macron, dancing to the tune of the globalist elites ends up being politically costly.

What has fueled the erosion of the political consensus amongst European leaders has much to do with their countries bearing the costs of being mere executors of US interests. The ripping up of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with Iran created significant frictions between Washington and EU countries. The sanctions on Russia, the tariffs on the European countries and the trade war with Beijing have done the rest, pushing Macron, and even May, to positions directly in opposition to Donald Trump, the latter increasingly attempting a rapprochement with Angela Merkel as her position progressively worsens. May, Macron and Merkel are hanging on by a thinning thread. The attempt to divert attention to other countries like Russia, in the case of the British (the Skripal affair), or Syria, in the case of the French (bombing the country), only widens the rift between Europeans and the likes of Russia and Iran, hurting EU companies and workers in the process.

The risk is that the precarious situation in which European leaders find themselves could lead them into an open provocation against Iran or Russia in Syria (a false-flag chemical attack in Idlib?) or in Ukraine (a false-flag attack in Mariupol?). This is a very real danger. The elites in Kiev seem to be willing to offer their country as a staging area from which to launch a final provocation against Moscow. Yet neither Merkel, May nor Macron seem to be particularly attracted to the prospect of turning Europe into a pile of rubble just to please the Euro-American financial and military elites. Besides, none of them (fortunately) has the political capital that would allow them to engage in such demented moves.

In this generalized chaos characterizing the West, Trump has perhaps made the first sensible move of his presidency in announcing the withdrawal of American troops from Syria, in the face of howls of protests from the globalist imperialists. Washington is being ushered out of the Middle East as a result of its repeated failures. Moscow is the new destination for all negotiations concerning the Middle East and beyond. Saudi Arabia, Israel, Qatar and Turkey seem to have already got the message, with various levels of negotiations launched directly or indirectly with Moscow to salvage the little influence still held in Syria by Doha, Tel Aviv and Riyadh. The case is a little different with Ankara, which, through Idlib, still maintains some influence in Syria.

Meanwhile, the US Congress has voted to condemn Saudi actions in Yemen and withdraw US support for Riyadh’s war effort. This is motivated less by a concern for the plight of Yemeni civilians, suffering under the onslaught of American-supplied bombs, than it is by the desire by the deep state to further lay into Trump by undermining his ally Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), who has been pronounced anathema by the Euro-American political and financial elites.

In Israel, Netanyahu finds himself in tricky situation, with his wife being investigated for corruption and his majority in government becoming increasingly precarious. Israel’s recent capitulation in Gaza, that precipitated the resignation of Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman, together with the recent incident with the Russians in Syria as well as the unrealistic prospect of a war with Hezbollah, has reduced Bibi to a joke within Israel. His time is almost up.

As if the situation for Western leaders were not compromised enough, their few joint actions are decided in Washington and aimed at antagonizing China, Russia and Iran. After 24 months of the Trump presidency, European countries have ended up giving up even whatever little semblance of autonomy and sovereignty they retained. Trump demands absolute loyalty, without giving anything in return.

Blind obedience to a neoliberal globalist ideology, combined with Trump’s damage to friends and enemies alike, has led to European leaders and Middle Eastern allies finding themselves in a precarious situation that risks throwing Europe into chaos in the coming years or even months, with a financial debt crisis also looming more than ever.

Macron, May, Merkel, Netanyahu and MBS will continue to offer resistance and try to hang on; but the writing is evidently on the wall.

We close, ironically by throwing back at the Western imperialists, like a boomerang, the mantra that they frequently levelled at the likes of Bashar al Assad: May, Merkel, Macron, MBS and Netanyahu must go!

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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

Walls are about exclusion, not inclusion, often falling way short of security they’re built to provide.

The Great Wall of China fortifications is best known, construction begun over 2,000 years ago, most of it dating from the Ming dynasty (1368 – 1644), built to protect against Mongols and other hostile invaders.

Nearly 1,000 miles in length, its deterrence was spotty, often failing to keep enemies out as intended. Today the Great Wall is an artifact of history.

According to the Migration Policy Institute (MPI), border walls were built or are being built by numerous countries – including Austria, Bulgaria, Estonia, France, Hungary, Israel, Kenya, Norway, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, and elsewhere.

Aside from the Great Wall of China and Berlin Wall (1961 – 1989), border walls, fences and barriers are “a recent historical trend, arising in response to the growth in spontaneous international migration,” said MPI.

According to Geography Professor Elisabeth Vallet, there were fewer than five border walls in the world when WW II ended. Nearly 70 exist today, a disturbing trend.

Walls are no deterrents to military forces. France’s heavily fortified Maginot Line failed to deter Nazi aggression, its forces circumventing the fortifications, conquering France in six weeks, emboldening Hitler to believe he was invincible, soon enough to learn otherwise.

According to MPI, the ability of walls to keep out unwanted migrants, refugees and asylum seekers is mixed at best.

When short in length and heavily guarded, they work. Longer walls and fences are vulnerable to penetration in remote, less well guarded areas.

The entire near-2,000 mile-long US Mexican border is too lengthy to be guarded well enough to keep out unwanted aliens.

When land routes were closed to refugees in Europe, they went by sea to desired locations, risking their lives to get there.

MPI explained that when “easier routes are closed, (aliens) choose ever more dangerous paths to reach their destination.”

Along the US border with Mexico, aliens cross hazardous desert terrain to reach America, hundreds perishing annually, thousands unsuccessfully able to cross the Mediterranean Sea to Europe each year.

Despite the dangers, migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers continue to seek ways to cross borders for safety, well-being, and opportunities absent in their homelands.

The US/Mexican border has fencing covering around one-third of its route. Walls covering large distances are more symbolic than deterrents to aliens seeking new destinations.

According to MPI, “despite the expense and questionable effectiveness, it seems likely that in the short term there will be many more walls going up around the world.”

“What remains to be seen, however, is how long they will stay up” – and whether their cost will eventually outweigh their ineffectiveness.

In December, Russia completed construction of a 37-mile fence, separating Crimea from Ukraine, according to the Federal Security Service’s (FSB) Border Service for Russia’s Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol.

Construction cost 200 million rubles, less that $3 million at the current exchange rate. At an equivalent cost-per-mile along the near-2,000 mile US/Mexico border, a similar barrier could be built for about $150 million – including “an intricate system of (visible and hidden) alarm sensors,” according to Russia’s Border Service, along with visual surveillance along its entirety.

Russian efficiency and effectiveness are notable compared to notorious US waste, fraud and abuse, countless trillions of dollars wasted at the expense of vital homeland needs.

Russia’s Crimea structure along the Ukrainian border includes several types of barricades. Vibration sensors go off when anyone approaches the barrier, security personnel alerted to the intruder’s location.

Radioray sensors activate night-vision security cameras, a video feed, and an alarm when anyone approaches a detection zone – followed by an audible warning.

Russia’s system aims to deter Ukrainian saboteurs from infiltrating Crimean territory, along with wanting to prevent illegal trafficking of weapons, munitions, illicit drugs and other goods authorities want kept out.

A similar system is used in Russia’s Far East, as well as other areas along its borders. It’s believed the barrier and sophisticated equipment can withstand harsh climate conditions for at least 10 years.

No system is foolproof. Ways are usually found to breach barriers. The fulness of time will tell if Russian technology performs as intended.

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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.

They’re strange bedfellows – Putin-led democratic Russia v. fantasy democracy Turkey under tinpot despot/wannabe sultan Erdogan.

The aims of both countries in Syria are world’s apart, squaring the circle between them no simple task.

Last September, Putin let Erdogan deceive him into delaying the liberation of Idlib province Syria – the last US-supported terrorist stronghold in the country.

Delay left their residents remaining hostages to US imperial aims, controlled and terrorized by al-Nusra and other jihadists.

Putin and Erdogan agreed on establishing a 15 – 20 km-wide demilitarized zone in Idlib along the Turkish border – Russian and Turkish forces to control it.

Things haven’t worked out as planned. For over three months heading into the new year, jihadists regrouped, more heavily armed, and increased their ranks – aided by the Trump regime and its imperial partners.

They’re now a more formidable force than last summer – because of Erdogan’s deception and Putin’s willingness to go along with what he should have rejected.

All the while, entrenched terrorists use Idlib, including the failed demilitarized zone, as a platform for continuing attacks on Syrian forces and civilians.

The only solution is Idlib’s liberation, ending delay, a campaign launched by Syrian forces, greatly aided by Russian airpower yet to begin in earnest.

On Saturday, senior Russian and Turkish officials met in Moscow on Syria. Sergey Lavrov, Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu, military chief General Valery Gerasimov, Kremlin envoy for Syria Alexander Lavrentiev, and Putin aide Yury Ushakov met with Turkish Foreign Minister Melvut Cavusoglu, Defense Minister Hulusi Akar, intelligence chief Hakan Fidan, and Erdogan aide Ibrahim Kalin.

Following discussions, Lavrov said

“(i)n the development of the agreements that were reached between our presidents, we considered further steps to implement the tasks that were set in the Astana format, primarily in the context of combating terrorism, resolving humanitarian issues, and creating conditions for the return of refugees.”

“Both sides stressed that all this work would be carried out in strict compliance with UN Security Council Resolution 2254 (calling for ceasefire and diplomatic conflict resolution), including unconditional respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Syria.”

Cavusoglu said Ankara “will continue close cooperation with Russia and Iran on Syria and regional issues…We confirmed our readiness and determination to continue this struggle in order to finally clear the territory of Syria from (the) evil” of jihadists – ones Turkey supported throughout most of the war, perhaps now as well while pretending otherwise.

Last September, Erdogan promised Putin he’d remove al-Nusra and other terrorists from the Idlib demilitarized zone both leaders agreed on.

They remain in place, more entrenched than months earlier, Erdogan failing to fulfill his promise, more evidence he can never be trusted.

He aims to annex oil-rich northern Syrian and Iraqi areas, wanting a greater Turkey, including the territories of both countries.

His war on Syrian YPG fighters continues on and off, perhaps to heat up again with heavily armed Turkish forces mobilized along Syria’s border, poised to invade on Erdogan’s order – if Kurdish fighters remain in the area.

His earlier aggression in northern Syria included Operations Euphrates Shield and Olive Branch, creating a buffer zone in territory populated by Kurds, likely part of his plan to annex areas he seeks to incorporate into a greater Turkey.

Following a December 19 phone call with Trump, after DLT’s announced troop pullout from Syria, Erdogan agreed to delay his planned offensive.

On Saturday, Russian and Turkish officials didn’t publicly comment on the situation in Manbij, Syria. Government forces reclaimed the city without occupying it so far.

Turkish and Russian troops are deployed there. Officials of both countries perhaps failed to agree in Moscow on withdrawing them to let Syrian forces control the city and surrounding areas.

Kremlin officials strongly support Syrian sovereignty and territorial integrity, along with the right of its people to choose the country’s leadership and governance, free from foreign interference.

These objectives aren’t attainable as long as Washington wants endless war and regime change – its objective whether US forces stay in the country or leave.

Diplomatic conflict resolution efforts in Geneva, Astana, and Sochi failed to achieve significant diplomatic breakthroughs.

Prospects for Syrian peace in the new year are grim. The same goes for all US war theaters, including endless charnel house conditions in Libya and unsuccessful efforts for conflict resolution in Yemen.

All US post-9/11 wars continue. Washington didn’t launch them to quit – part of its forever war strategy against all sovereign independent states.

Russia, China, and Iran are on its target list – the ominous threat of possible nuclear war ahead able to kill us all if launched by accident or design.

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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.

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above  

Note: 7 years after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, we bring to the attention of our readers this piece originally published in October 2013. The situation today is far more serious that what is described in this article.

The map below comes from the Nuclear Emergency Tracking Center.  It shows that radiation levels at radiation monitoring stations all over the country are elevated.  As you will notice, this is particularly true along the west coast of the United States.  Every single day, 300 tons of radioactive water from Fukushima enters the Pacific Ocean.  That means that the total amouont of radioactive material released from Fukushima is constantly increasing, and it is steadily building up in our food chain. 

Ultimately, all of this nuclear radiation will outlive all of us by a very wide margin.  They are saying that it could take up to 40 years to clean up the Fukushima disaster, and meanwhile countless innocent people will develop cancer and other health problems as a result of exposure to high levels of nuclear radiation.  We are talking about a nuclear disaster that is absolutely unprecedented, and it is constantly getting worse.  The following are 28 signs that the west coast of North America is being absolutely fried with nuclear radiation from Fukushima…

1. Polar bears, seals and walruses along the Alaska coastline are suffering from fur loss and open sores…

Wildlife experts are studying whether fur loss and open sores detected in nine polar bears in recent weeks is widespread and related to similar incidents among seals and walruses.

The bears were among 33 spotted near Barrow, Alaska, during routine survey work along the Arctic coastline. Tests showed they had “alopecia, or loss of fur, and other skin lesions,” the U.S. Geological Survey said in a statement.

2. There is an epidemic of sea lion deaths along the California coastline…

At island rookeries off the Southern California coast, 45 percent of the pups born in June have died, said Sharon Melin, a wildlife biologist for the National Marine Fisheries Service based in Seattle. Normally, less than one-third of the pups would die.   It’s gotten so bad in the past two weeks that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration declared an “unusual mortality event.”

3. Along the Pacific coast of Canada and the Alaska coastline, the population of sockeye salmon is at a historic low.  Many are blaming Fukushima.

4. Something is causing fish all along the west coast of Canada to bleed from their gills, bellies and eyeballs.

5. A vast field of radioactive debris from Fukushima that is approximately the size of California has crossed the Pacific Ocean and is starting to collide with the west coast.

6. It is being projected that the radioactivity of coastal waters off the U.S. west coast could double over the next five to six years.

7. Experts have found very high levels of cesium-137 in plankton living in the waters of the Pacific Ocean between Hawaii and the west coast.

8. One test in California found that 15 out of 15 bluefin tuna were contaminated with radiation from Fukushima.

9. Back in 2012, the Vancouver Sun reported that cesium-137 was being found in a very high percentage of the fish that Japan was selling to Canada…

• 73 percent of mackerel tested

• 91 percent of the halibut

• 92 percent of the sardines

• 93 percent of the tuna and eel

• 94 percent of the cod and anchovies

• 100 percent of the carp, seaweed, shark and monkfish

10. Canadian authorities are finding extremely high levels of nuclear radiation in certain fish samples…

Some fish samples tested to date have had very high levels of radiation: one sea bass sample collected in July, for example, had 1,000 becquerels per kilogram of cesium.

11. Some experts believe that we could see very high levels of cancer along the west coast just from people eating contaminated fish…

“Look at what’s going on now: They’re dumping huge amounts of radioactivity into the ocean — no one expected that in 2011,” Daniel Hirsch, a nuclear policy lecturer at the University of California-Santa Cruz, told Global Security Newswire. “We could have large numbers of cancer from ingestion of fish.”

12. BBC News recently reported that radiation levels around Fukushima are “18 times higher” than previously believed.

13. An EU-funded study concluded that Fukushima released up to 210 quadrillion becquerels of cesium-137 into the atmosphere.

14. Atmospheric radiation from Fukushima reached the west coast of the United States within a few days back in 2011.

15. At this point, 300 tons of contaminated water is pouring into the Pacific Ocean from Fukushima every single day.

16. A senior researcher of marine chemistry at the Japan Meteorological Agency’s Meteorological Research Institute says that “30 billion becquerels of radioactive cesium and 30 billion becquerels of radioactive strontium” are being released into the Pacific Ocean from Fukushima every single day.

17. According to Tepco, a total of somewhere between 20 trillion and 40 trillion becquerels of radioactive tritium have gotten into the Pacific Ocean since the Fukushima disaster first began.

18. According to a professor at Tokyo University, 3 gigabecquerels of cesium-137 are flowing into the port at Fukushima Daiichi every single day.

19. It has been estimated that up to 100 times as much nuclear radiation has been released into the ocean from Fukushima than was released during the entire Chernobyl disaster.

20. One recent study concluded that a very large plume of cesium-137 from the Fukushima disaster will start flowing into U.S. coastal waters early next year…

Ocean simulations showed that the plume of radioactive cesium-137 released by the Fukushima disaster in 2011 could begin flowing into U.S. coastal waters starting in early 2014 and peak in 2016.

21. It is being projected that significant levels of cesium-137 will reach every corner of the Pacific Ocean by the year 2020.

22. It is being projected that the entire Pacific Ocean will soon “have cesium levels 5 to 10 times higher” than what we witnessed during the era of heavy atomic bomb testing in the Pacific many decades ago.

23. The immense amounts of nuclear radiation getting into the water in the Pacific Ocean has caused environmental activist Joe Martino to issue the following warning…

“Your days of eating Pacific Ocean fish are over.”

24. The Iodine-131, Cesium-137 and Strontium-90 that are constantly coming from Fukushima are going to affect the health of those living the the northern hemisphere for a very, very long time.  Just consider what Harvey Wasserman had to say about this…

Iodine-131, for example, can be ingested into the thyroid, where it emits beta particles (electrons) that damage tissue. A plague of damaged thyroids has already been reported among as many as 40 percent of the children in the Fukushima area. That percentage can only go higher. In developing youngsters, it can stunt both physical and mental growth. Among adults it causes a very wide range of ancillary ailments, including cancer.

Cesium-137 from Fukushima has been found in fish caught as far away as California. It spreads throughout the body, but tends to accumulate in the muscles.

Strontium-90’s half-life is around 29 years. It mimics calcium and goes to our bones.

25. According to a recent Planet Infowars report, the California coastline is being transformed into “a dead zone”…

The California coastline is becoming like a dead zone.

If you haven’t been to a California beach lately, you probably don’t know that the rocks are unnaturally CLEAN – there’s hardly any kelp, barnacles, sea urchins, etc. anymore and the tide pools are similarly eerily devoid of crabs, snails and other scurrying signs of life… and especially as compared to 10 – 15 years ago when one was wise to wear tennis shoes on a trip to the beach in order to avoid cutting one’s feet on all the STUFF of life – broken shells, bones, glass, driftwood, etc.

There are also days when I am hard-pressed to find even a half dozen seagulls and/or terns on the county beach.

You can still find a few gulls trolling the picnic areas and some of the restaurants (with outdoor seating areas) for food, of course, but, when I think back to 10 – 15 years ago, the skies and ALL the beaches were literally filled with seagulls and the haunting sound of their cries both day and night…

NOW it’s unnaturally quiet.

26. A study conducted last year came to the conclusion that radiation from the Fukushima nuclear disaster could negatively affect human life along the west coast of North America from Mexico to Alaska “for decades”.

27. According to the Wall Street Journal, it is being projected that the cleanup of Fukushima could take up to 40 years to complete.

28. Yale Professor Charles Perrow is warning that if the cleanup of Fukushima is not handled with 100% precision that humanity could be threatened “for thousands of years“…

“Conditions in the unit 4 pool, 100 feet from the ground, are perilous, and if any two of the rods touch it could cause a nuclear reaction that would be uncontrollable. The radiation emitted from all these rods, if they are not continually cool and kept separate, would require the evacuation of surrounding areas including Tokyo. Because of the radiation at the site the 6,375 rods in the common storage pool could not be continuously cooled; they would fission and all of humanity will be threatened, for thousands of years.”

Are you starting to understand why so many people are so deeply concerned about what is going on at Fukushima?

About the author: Michael T. Snyder is a former Washington D.C. attorney who now publishes The Truth. His new thriller entitled “The Beginning Of The End” is now available on Amazon.com.