Global Research

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

*** 

A calamity of even greater cataclysmic proportions and consequences is either soon to break out in the war in Ukraine or sanity somehow finally will prevail against all odds, with all the combatants suddenly finding a way to end the conflict without continuing to kill themselves and, in the process, potentially all the rest of us.

America’s Neo-Con radicals and their allies in the world can feel the war slipping out of the grasp of their control, even in spite of the gross billions of taxpayer monies stolen from the citizenry of the entire Western World, without their approval or express permission; not to mention the massive amounts of military weaponry paid for by the citizens themselves for their own nation’s safety and protection, rather than shipped off to the Ukraine Armed Forces without any popular vote, plebiscite or referendum of any kind.

Citizens and politicians alike in the West remain asleep at the wheel for all intents and purposes of all the monies and weaponry that have been used so far to endlessly fund literally all the materials of war, as well as the infrastructure of Ukrainian society itself; of which the majority of monies never reach the people or armed combatants themselves because the monies are continually being clandestinely siphoned off to war profiters, oligarchs, black-market dealers and politicians. The Corrupt Game of War continues to be played out, while everyone just shrugs their shoulders, shakes their heads and looks the other way, like helpless deer, frozen in the glare of the on-coming lights and the potential grizzly death that awaits.

After over a year of raging, murderous brutal slaughter of men, women, children and the decimation of whole species of non-humans life, the populace and politicians alike still remain ignorant and at sea as to what to do about it; or even if they did they already know their neo-con leaders and governments clearly never have had any mind to stop the war other than with: the sudden assassination of Zelensky or Putin themselves; the total collapse of Ukraine or Russia; a predictable total WWIII nuclear end game, or; whatever subsequent fascist rule finally will take over the whole world.

Thus far, the ideologues have tried everything in their power to prevent Russia from declaring victory with its Special Military Operation (SMO). There never was any consideration remotely given by Biden, the U.S. and NATO to ever sign a peace deal of any kind through diplomatic negotiations.

Finally, in desperation, to try to save face, they attempted to float the ridiculous phony ploy of turning the war into a so-called frozen conflict; like the stalemate that put a hold on the Korean War that actually never really ended; with over 30,000 US military forces still occupying Camp Humphreys, the world’s largest overseas US military base, located near the South Korean capital of Seoul. The Russians summarily laughed that proposal right off of the table and into the trash can of history.

But now the combatants on both sides have begun to resort to the ancient primitive strategies of brutal, no holds warfare by trying to assassinate the other’s sides leader, with the belief that if you cut off the head of the snake, you will kill the whole body. But that’s old school thinking. There already are too many crazed mad men and women now on both sides, equally prepared to ‘push the button of doom” quicker than the next guy.

Meanwhile…

Ukraine Sovereignty: A New World of Order Or Disorder for the Human Race?

The eminent Author-Journalist Patrick Lawrence recently pointed out in a piece, “Count the steady advance among non-Western nations towards what we now call a new world order. This is the single most momentous turn in history’s wheel that will define our century.”

But to listen to the speeches and pronouncements of those others in the power and policy cliques in Washington, like Fiona Hill, a former U.S. National Security Council member, and senior fellow of the Brookings Institution, one would think the emergence of powers like China, Russia and other Non-Western Nations, in such a multi-polar world, are the real dangerous elephants in the room, representing nothing more than One Step Forward and Two Steps Back for the human race and stability of any new world order.

Yet what China and Russia’s efforts are all about is just the opposite: to support and build a different kind of multi-polar world with the help of non-western allies, such as the BRICS and other non-western nations who support the completion of world projects like the Silk Road.

America Still Prefers to Speak Softly But Carry a Big Stick

But, now, returning back to the middle of the murderous, potential WWIII theatre in Ukraine, this war already has spread so much dissension and chaos throughout the entire world, in any number of economic, financial, political, ideological ways; while Biden and Company continue to resort to playing hardball towards all those who oppose the American way of life that he and those like Fiona Hill represent, that make the betrayal, duplicitous lies and deceit of the sabotage of the Nord Stream Pipeline look benign by comparison of what still lies ahead.

Biden, as the ‘Czar’ of all the fascist, Neo-Con NATO warmonger forces in Ukraine, has now given the green light to the some 31 NATO Nation members:

Albania, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Montenegro, Netherlands, North Macedonia, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkiya, United Kingdom, and the U.S. ‑ to begin sending to the Ukrainian Air Force as many of their latest F-16 fighter jets, of which there already exists approximately 2,200 F-16’s in NATO’s collective air forces.

Perhaps, as the rapid escalation of the hostilities continues, and the war simultaneous worsens, and Biden & Company’s new ramped-up WWIII war strategy instead ‘heads south’, who knows, but maybe even some of America’s most deadly combat fighters in the world, like the cutting-edge, 4^th Generation F-34 jet fighters, will also be added to the F16’s in an attempt to totally dominate Russia’s air superiority.

See these:

• Ukraine could get DOZENS of ‘game-changing’ F-16s as Biden gives green light to hand over fighter jets | The Sun
• Biden approving plans to train Ukraine troops on F-16 fighter jets – National | Globalnews.ca

NATO Air Forces Train at Frisan Flag, Leeuwarden Air Base in Germany While America’s USS Aircraft Carrier Gerald R. Ford and Other Warships Train in Oslo and Other Carrier Strike Forces Train in the Arctic

Already, as a threatening prelude to Biden’s May 19^th virtual declaration of WWIII, Biden, has taken a page right out of President Teddy Roosevelt’s old imperialist war manual, and aggressive philosophy of “Speak Softly But Carry a Big Stick”. On May 24^th, Biden sent America’s newest, most expensive, state-of-the-art sea power, the 13.3 billion-dollar air craft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, to sail into Oslo, Norway, on its first historic so-called Good Will Tour, armed to the teeth, menacingly-close to NATO’s frontlines with Russia.

Later, the plan is to then sail into the Arctic Circle for several months duration, as part of Operation Silent Wolverine, with a carrier strike force of 90,000 military personnel, some sixty combat ready aircraft, and 20 ships from nine nations (U.S., Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Netherlands, Spain and Sweden); including: Canada’s HMCS Peter Montreal (FF336); Denmark’s (HDMS Peter Willemoes (F362): Spain’s ESPS Alvaro de Bazen (F101); France’s ES Chevalier Paul (DB21); Netherlands HNLMS De Zeven Provincien (F802) and HNLMS Van Amslel.

The United States has further expanded its Harry S. Truman Carrier Strike Force Group; with the George H. Bush Carrier Strike Force, operating off the coast of Italy, set to provide relief for the Harry S. Truman Carrier Strike Group..

The USS Ford will be conducting training exercises with the Norwegian armed forces in the coming days and weeks, while the Russian Embassy in Oslo has pointedly gone on the record to curtly note, “There are no questions in the Arctic North that requires a military solution, nor topics where outside intervention is needed.”

USS Gerald R. Ford (Cvn 78) the Biggest & Deadliest Warship Afloat in the World

The Multi-layered Ship Defense Systems of the USS Gerald Ford has the awesome capacity to use: interceptor missiles and sensors to attack and destroy any and all rocket-propelled enemy drones, aircraft and surface threats of all kinds that Russia or any other enemy could send against it.

Before steaming into Oslo, it underwent a Battle Systems Ships Trials as part of its combat readiness training that included: simulated and active live threats to defend itself in any great power ocean war scenario. It also underwent defensive training against rocket-powered rockets and remote-controlled high speed maneuvering surface targets.

The USS Ford is geared to defend against an entirely-new sphere of enemy attack with its cutting-edge defense systems, such as: the Rolling Air Force Missile; Evolved Sea Sparrow Missiles, and; MK-15 Phalanx Close-In Weapon System, capable of firing hundreds of armor-piercing tungsten bullets per-minute. Its Sea Sparrow ESSEM Block II missile is designed with a unique “sea-skimming mode that enables it to descend close to the surface, can destroy adversary anti-ship missiles moving parallel to the ocean’s surface, above the waterline. The ESSM Block II can skim the surface and eliminate any entirely new sphere of attacking enemy threat. Its CIWAS Weapon System can fire hundreds of small metal bullets at any incoming drones, missiles or helicopters.

The USS Gerald Ford, as well, is capable of carrying up to 90 aircraft, including the super 4^th Generation F-35 jet fighter, currently the deadliest in the world, as well as: F/A-18E/F Super Hornet Fighters; E-2D Advanced Hawkeye’s, EA-18G Growler electronic attack aircraft and MH-60 R/S helicopters, as well as unmanned air and combat vehicles.

The intended message and unambiguous threat by the presence of the USS Gerald Ford and its vast armada of war ships isn’t lost on President Putin and his military staff who already have vociferously lodged repeated protests to the UN and in the world media.

See these:

• The Multilayer Ship Defense Systems of USS Gerald R. Ford – Naval Post- Naval News and Information
• aircraft fightere jet capacity of Aircraft asrrieer USS Gerald Ford – Search (bing.com)

While this thinly-veiled ‘Good Will Tour’ by the USS Gerald Ford and armada continues, on March 28^th, all of NATO’s air forces also participated in an international air force exercise called Frisan Flag at Leeuwarden Air Base, Netherlands.

Exercise ‘Frisan Flag’ is a major NATO multi-national annual aerial exercise over the North Sea and skies above the Netherlands, Germany and Denmark, similar to military ‘Flag’ exercises, such as the ‘Red Flag’ in the U.S., and ‘Maple Flag’ in Canada.

During ‘Frisan Flag’, air crews, twice daily, fly missions to prepare air crews for complex hostile environments, including missions that occur in high-intensity conflicts. Participating multi-national air crews plan and execute complex offense and defense training in realistic war scenarios.

Interestingly, in the lead up to WWII, the pilots of the German Luftwaffe, under Nazi Field Marshal Hermann Goring, also used Leeuwarden air base as a secret training base for the Nazi’s Messerschmitt fighters and Stuka bombers, and now Ukrainian pilots are likewise being trained there, as well, for future combat. Could this be history repeating itself?

Previous air combat units that have participated in Frisan Flag operations, as well, include: German Luftwaffe F-4 Phantoms; Finnish AF Boeing F-18c’s; Swedish AF Saab Jas 39 Gripen fighters; Belgium AF f-16 AM’s; Royal Netherlands Air Force XF-16ML’s; Polish Air Force F-16 C’s; French AF Mirage 200D’s; Royal Air Force Tornado GR-4’s; German Luftwaffe Euro Fighters; Swiss F/A-18C’s, and; the U.K.’s Dassault Falcon 20’s.

In 2023, Frisan Flag air combat participants also included: F-16s and AS 532U2’s from the Netherlands; Rafale and Mirage M2000’s from France; F-16CG’s from the U.S.; Eurofighter Typhoons from the U.K. and Eurofighter Typhoons from Italy; with even more Eurofighters from Germany and supporting E-3A AWAC’s of NATO.

Furthermore, Biden has now also encouraged NATO’s leaders to aggressively expedite the vigorous training of Ukrainian pilots in the immediate combat operations of their F-16 fighter jets against Russia’s Armed Forces, the Separatist Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics, as well as the Crimea itself. Biden’s latest declaration of war against Russia is proof-positive of how duplicitous the flagrant intentions all along have been of America’s ‘War Party’ of radical Neo-Con Democrats, Republicans and their NATO allies. Clearly, this mobilization has been in the planning stages for some great time.

Dangerous Consequences of Biden’s Introduction of F-16 Fighter Jets

The training of Ukrainian pilots to effectively operate the F-16 fighter will take months, if not longer, let alone the same given lengthy-training required for the supporting ground crews, creation of adequate runways, maintenance facilities, etcetera, etcetera.

Which means, as a stop gap to put further pressure on Russia’s military actions, NATO countries will have no choice but to risk calling for volunteers from among their own pilots and air crews to join Ukraine’s so-called ‘International Legion for the Territorial Defense of Ukraine’. By now, if this isn’t a clear enough provocation of war, what is?

But, according to Russian Lieutenant General Igor Yevgenyevich Konashenkov, chief spokesperson for the Russian Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, these foreign fighters who actually do engage in the combat zone, legally, will be considered as nothing more than mere “foreign mercenaries”, “with no protection under international law who, at best, if captured, can expect to be prosecuted as criminals.”

Whether legal or not, such an unmistakably-clear act of aggression in the war would be but yet another outrageously-risky move, one-step away from invoking a total nuclear war with Russia. If such volunteer pilots and crew men were shot down and captured, they would obviously be subjected to a world-wide show trial, and treated as common criminals subject to possible execution. The world tensions these trials would create would be immense.

Meanwhile, U.S. CIA clandestine propaganda campaigns, through social media outlets like Telegram, already also are ramping up the clandestine training and recruiting of Russian dissidents within Russia itself to spy or, even worse, commit attacks within Russia itself. The war in Ukraine will only continue to become even uglier as it dangerously deteriorates all the more and continues to spill across Russia’s borders.

Very abruptly, in any number of unprecedented, unpredictable ways, the continued aggressions of a 1,000 cuts will continue to lead to other dangerous unpredictable, unexpected tensions that could instantaneously turn into any number of nuclear flash points.

Biden’s ‘green light’ to NATO is an unmistakable provocation and signal to Russia and its allies that “the gloves are now off”, and that America and NATO are prepared to escalate Russia’s SMO to whatever it takes, whatever the consequences.

Good luck for any hope of diplomatic peace negotiations to ever try to bring an end to all the hostilities. Those hopes have all been just blown out the backs of a growing number of hostile attacking F-16’s after burners, as it were.

See this: The Dogfight No One Wants: Russia’s Su-57 vs America’s F-35 | The National Interest

Epilogue

The causes of WWI and WWII, and the unprecedented slaughter and destruction of human beings, human society, that of the natural world and all non-human life, have been endlessly debated since they each ended, physically but not ideologically. In the case of WWI, the brutal assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of the Austria-Hungary Empire, is often simplistically described as the spark that propelled Europe into the greatest conflict the European continent had ever known up to that time, that eventually sucked the rest of the entire world into its evil vortex.

The same could be said for the ‘spark’ that set off WWII: with a multitude of similar complex desires by other world leaders prepared to dominate new territories and natural resources, because they still craved an ever-larger slice of the pie of whatever existing ‘spoils of war’.

The unquenchable greedy desire among nations to forever expand their empires is nothing new in European or any other nation’s history. Never has been nor never will.

Now, with yet ever-newer high-tech revelations in AI science, industry, military weaponry and ever more wild-fluctuations and imbalances in the corporate-financial world, the tinder is once more set at flash point for yet another WIII; by far greater than the previous two, that in slow motion, with every cut of a 1,000 cuts in Ukraine, continues to become more unbelievably-horrible with each news release.

The human world and its out-of-control societies simply haven’t learned a whit how to better the plight of human life and the conditions for life itself on Earth. Those historians, who manage to survive WWIII, will be left to once more debate for the next century or longer which one of the 1,000 cuts finally became ‘the spark’ that set off the ensuing catastrophe.

The same old entangled competing political alliances, high-tech militarism that led to primitive tit-for-tat retaliations; ever-snowballing unparalleled corrupt corporate greed and financial imperialism, similar to WWI & WWII; will all be future topics of ‘woe is me’ focus and endless debate as to what was the ultimate final one of the 1,000 cuts was it that led this time to the death of the human story on earth as we now know it.

Yet the Western World’s corporate press remains virtually silent – deaf, dumb and blind – about what the revealed truths are about the human condition that the war in Ukraine so far has revealed. They wouldn’t recognize or even report about what they saw, even if it stared back at them every time they looked at themselves in a mirror.

Their readership among the citizenry no different. Each day, they walk, hand-in-hand, down the garden path together, both simultaneously expectant and apprehensive towards what awaits them on their Big Day together. Both unsure of what all the unknowns are that yet await.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

The writer Jerome Irwin is a Canadian-American writer who originally was a Criminology student working in one of America’s local police departments. For decades, Irwin has sought to call world attention to problems of environmental degradation and unsustainability caused by a host of environmental-ecological-spiritual issues that exist between the conflicting world philosophies of indigenous and non-indigenous peoples.

Irwin is the author of the book, “The Wild Gentle Ones; A Turtle Island Odyssey” (www.turtle-island-odyssey.com), a spiritual odyssey among the native peoples of North America that has led to numerous articles pertaining to: Ireland’s Fenian Movement; native peoples Dakota Access Pipeline Resistance Movement; AIPAC, Israel & the U.S. Congress anti-BDS Movement; the historic Battle for Palestine & Siege of Gaza, as well as; the many violations constantly being waged by industrial-corporate-military-propaganda interests against the World’s Collective Soul. The author and his wife are long-time residents on the North Shore of British Columbia.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: NATO’s Air Force Trains At Frisan Flag, Leeuwarden Air Base Where Nazi Luftwaffe Secretly Trained In 1938

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

*** 

Russia’s Interior Ministry has issued an arrest warrant for South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham after video surfaced of the Republican hawk telling Ukrainian officials that “Russians are dying” due to US military aid and that “it’s the best money we ever spent.”

There are claims that the video released of the Friday meeting in Kiev wherein Graham spoke the words to Ukraine’s President Zelensky were edited, however. And yet, it was Zelensky himself that posted the edited clip to his official social media channels. 

Russia’s Investigative Committee announced the criminal case against Graham as he “declared the financial involvement of the United States is causing the death of Russian citizens.”

Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov reacted to Graham’s provocative statements by saying, “It’s difficult to imagine a greater shame for a country than having such senators” while Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev said the Republican Senator is an “old fool.”

The arrest warrant and him being placed on a ‘wanted list’ will of course remain largely symbolic, given Graham certainly won’t be traveling to Russian territory or through its airspace anytime in the foreseeable future.

"The Russians are dying. It is the best money we've ever spent."

~ Lindsey Graham, United States Senator laughs while Ukraine President Zelenskyy nods.

pic.twitter.com/U4XrDmoWF3

— The Poll Lady (@ThePollLady) May 28, 2023

On Monday, the Russian Foreign Ministry responded to reporting from Reuters which said Graham’s remarks were taken out of context: 

Reports by Reuters that remarks by US Senator Lindsey Graham (Republican, South Carolina) made during a meeting with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky may have been taken out of context represent clumsy, shameless excuses, a statement by the Russian Foreign Ministry made public on Monday said.

“‘It turns out,’ that’s not what Senator Graham said or how he said it. Just like with similar cannibalistic musings by former US President George W. Bush, clumsy, shameful excuses are being bandied about: so, allegedly, the senator’s words were taken out of context, there was some ‘editing’ and so on. Who would have doubted that the politician himself and his spin doctors, such as the top Anglo-Saxon media outlets and news agencies, would, as they say, ‘play dumb.’ What’s next? They will tell us that Lindsey Graham is a product of [artificial intelligence] and doesn’t actually exist?” the Foreign Ministry asked rhetorically. It stressed that this “attempt is doomed to fail.” “It is already impossible to clean oneself [and one’s reputation] from the stain of such remarks, even if they were uttered separately,” the ministry added.

But again, it was the Ukrainian presidency’s office itself that was responsible for the editing and circulating of the remarks in the first place.

Note: it was Ukraine that edited & posted the video that looked like Graham said killing Russians was the best money the US ever spent. After sh%*tstorm, they are now releasing longer version. https://t.co/glsUUUiW1G pic.twitter.com/8JyEMy8sX2

— Kelley B. Vlahos (@KelleyBVlahos) May 29, 2023

According to The Hill: “Graham appeared to make the comments in different parts of the conversation, which was edited and posted on Zelensky’s social media account.” 

*

Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Featured image: Senator Lindsey Graham (Licensed under Creative Commons)

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

*** 

Independent medical scientists who are not dependent on a Big Pharma salary or research grant, a minority of medical scientists as Big Pharma reportedly is the source of 70% of medical research grants and provides support to friendly medical schools, have provided conclusive evidence that the Covid-19 “vaccine” is responsible for many deaths and health issues. 

The unprecedented phenomenon of vaccinated children dying in their sleep, of athletes and entertainers dropping dead on the field and stage, along with the same happening to people in all ages of life is being dismissed by the medical establishment at work covering up for itself as just a coincidence.  The whore media refuses to report the findings of independent scientists or investigate the large numbers of deaths and health injuries following the Covid mass vaccination.

In the face of the evidence that the “vaccine” is dangerous, Medicare continues to urge vaccination as do pharmacies.  What explains such reckless and irresponsible advice in the face of the evidence?

What explains the appearance of the Covid virus, engineered in labs with NIH grants, practically simultaneously in every country of the world?

What explains the same Covid protocols everywhere except Brazil, India, and Africa–the lockdowns, masks, mass vaccinations, and never-ending production of fear?

What explains the urgency of the mass vaccination campaign in the face of the mounting evidence that the vax was ineffective and dangerous?

Why were Covid “vaccines” and test kits in production prior to the appearance of the virus?

What explains the censorship of medical scientists? Why were alternative explanations and alternative treatments unwelcome and prohibited?

What explains the punishments of doctors who saved lives with HCQ and Ivermectin? Why did doctors lose jobs and licenses for saving lives?

In the face of a virus claimed to be deadly, why were treatments outside the protocol treatment banned as dangerous. Both HCQ and Ivermectin have safety records stretching back decades, yet were declared too dangerous to be used in emergency situations to treat an allegedly deadly virus. But a dangerous untested “vaccine” was not too dangerous to be used?

Why does the effort continue to censor and suppress the truth and to discredit distinguished scientists who establish the actual facts?

Why did the entire medical systems of the Western World completely fail, and why do they continue to fail, providing no explanation for the rise in excess deaths following vaccination and no help for those injured by the vax?

Why have medical officials and the media lowered an iron curtain between the facts and the people?

These and other questions point to the fact that the “Covid pandemic” and the response to it were orchestrated for a purpose of purposes. 

Was it Big Pharma’s profits? 

Was it to advance government’s intrusions on civil liberties? 

Was it population control? 

Was it a mass experiment on the human population with gene-altering mRNA technology?

Was it to advance the World Economic Forum’s “Great Reset”?

Without an honest media and  honest medical societies, we will never find out.  Congress can hold hearings, as Senator Ron Johnson has, but they go unreported by the presstitutes.

It appears that accountability has been blocked.  So expect another pandemic.  Bill Gates, who is suspected of having a heavy hand in devising the “Covid pandemic,” has already promised us another.  How can anyone know of a pandemic in advance?

Below are some recent findings that go unreported by the whore media and are denied by the Big Pharma-dependent medical establishment:

• After Much Death and Suffering the Truth about the Covid-19 “vaccine” is Creeping Out

Even Big Pharma marketing agent FDA admits “vaccinated children aged 12 to 17 face a heightened risk of myocarditis, a form of heart inflammation, and a related condition called pericarditis.” See this.

• The Medical Journal The Lancet Retracted the Fake Study that Prevented Use of a Known Cure for Covid-19, see this.
• Israel Concludes that Covid Was a Hoax Hyped by a Fear Campaign

Data proves No healthy young adults died of Covid-19 in Israel 

Israeli Ministry of Health continues trying to cover up for Big Pharma

Covid only endangered untreated elderly. See this.

• Peter Koenig, a former World Bank and World Health Organization official warns us of what is to come.

This is not “conspiracy theory.” See this.

• Excess Deaths Are Exploding, Experts Remain Stumped, see this.
• Died Suddenly: COVID-19 Vaccinated Pregnant Women Continue to Die Unexpectedly From Perinatal Complications. Stillbirths, Blood Clots, Bleeding, Infections and More, see this.
• Parent survey results: vaccines increase the risk of autism, autoimmune disorders, etc., see this.

Americans do not understand that the medical profession is dominated by Big Pharma and operates for the benefit of Big Pharma’s profits. According to reports, 70% of medical research grants come from Big Pharma which gives pharmaceutical corporations enormous power over the content of medical journals.  

Big Pharma has succeeded in getting legislation that is driving doctors out of independent private practice and forcing them to become employees of corporate medicine where they have to follow protocols essentially handed down by Big Pharma.  The unavoidable fact is that the US medical system is run for the benefit of Big Pharma’s profits.  Regulatory authorities such as FDA, CDC, and NIH are marketing agents for Big Pharma.  The media is dependent on pharmaceutical advertising revenues.  Consequently, Americans are kept in the dark about what has, and is, being done to them.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Paul Craig Roberts is a renowned author and academic, chairman of The Institute for Political Economy where this article was originally published. Dr. Roberts was previously associate editor and columnist for The Wall Street Journal. He was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy during the Reagan Administration. He is a regular contributor to Global Research. 

Featured image is from Children’s Health Defense 

Price: $11.50 Get yours for FREE! Click here to download.

We encourage you to support the eBook project by making a donation through Global Research’s DonorBox “Worldwide Corona Crisis” Campaign Page. 

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

*** 

“Covidism: Contagious Deception” is the most comprehensive documentary on COVID-19 as it thoroughly analyzes both the scientific and political aspects of this terrible crisis.

The documentary was written and produced by Bonum Vincit (pseudonym), an independent Bulgarian film producer who prefers to remain anonymous.

It took the author almost 3 years and thousands of hours of meticulous research to make the movie.

Part 1 carefully examines how authorities worldwide have been gaming the numbers regarding cases, hospitalizations and deaths from the alleged coronavirus.

Part 1 also explains how health officials actively suppressed safe and effective treatments for Covid-19, while employing deadly protocols for hospital patients.

Part 2 focuses on the fascinating timeline of events, which led to the global Covid-19 response, and investigates whether or not the science on the lethality and infectivity of Sars-Cov-2 justified countermeasures such as lockdowns and mask-wearing.

Part 3 is a deep dive into the topic of Covid-19 vaccines, detailing the plethora of scientific evidence for their unsafe and ineffective nature, while exposing the deceptive tactics of manipulating the statistics.

Part 4 puts all the pieces of the puzzle together, exposing the premeditated sinister political motivations behind the global Covid-19 response, and how it is intricately tied to a much larger agenda – The Great Reset.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

This was originally published on Health Impact News.

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

*** 

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

*** 

A Washington state appeals court this week granted an emergency injunction to a retired doctor who faces disciplinary action from the Washington Medical Commission (WMC) arising from articles he published in a local newspaper in 2021, questioning the official narrative and medical advice related to COVID-19.

Dr. Richard Eggleston, a retired ophthalmologist in Clarkston, Washington, wrote the articles as part of an ongoing column in the Lewiston Morning Tribune. He challenged the WMC’s disciplinary proceedings against him on First Amendment free speech grounds.

According to Tuesday’s ruling:

“The Commission seeks to sanction Dr. Eggleston based on allegations that he, a currently retired physician and surgeon whose license is currently retired active-in-state volunteering, committed unprofessional conduct.”

This “unprofessional conduct” pertained to alleged “false statements” Eggleston made “regarding medical issues and promulgated misinformation regarding the SARS-CoV-2 virus and treatments for the virus.”

The stay delays hearings that were scheduled to begin this week in the Washington Court of Appeals and gives the WMC a brief opportunity to withdraw its charges against Eggleston. Otherwise, the legal process will continue.

In an interview with The Defender, Eggleston said the ruling was appropriate. “I’m very happy to see that this part of the legal system understands this First Amendment issue and basic rights to get accurate information from a physician.”

Todd Richardson, one of the attorneys representing Eggleston, told The Defender:

“We are very gratified to have the court of appeals grant the stay in this matter. I have believed that Dr. Eggleston’s First Amendment rights were being trammeled, and it was of deep concern how slightly the Constitution was considered by the commission, the legislature and others.

“As Americans, if we don’t conscientiously defend these foundational rights and freedoms, we may soon wake up to realize we have lost them. “

Rick Jaffe, an attorney also representing Eggleston, told The Defender:

“The Washington Medical Commission is under the constitutionally mistaken belief that medical boards can discipline physicians for what they say in public. That was something that was floated by the Federation of State Medical Boards [FSMB] in a July 2021 press release, but since then every single state that has considered doing this has backed off, except in Washington.

“Every single justice and judge who has addressed this issue in the past 75 years has said that licensing agencies cannot interfere with the public speech of their licensees.”

The July 2021 FSMB press release stated:

“Physicians who generate and spread COVID-19 vaccine misinformation or disinformation are risking disciplinary action by state medical boards, including the suspension or revocation of their medical license. Due to their specialized knowledge and training, licensed physicians possess a high degree of public trust and therefore have a powerful platform in society, whether they recognize it or not.

“They also have an ethical and professional responsibility to practice medicine in the best interests of their patients and must share information that is factual, scientifically grounded and consensus-driven for the betterment of public health.

“Spreading inaccurate COVID-19 vaccine information contradicts that responsibility, threatens to further erode public trust in the medical profession and puts all patients at risk.”

Lawyers for Eggleston told The Defender this is one of several dozen similar cases the WMC launched against doctors who did not uniformly follow the establishment COVID-19 narrative.

“I am told that there are 60 Washington physicians who are being investigated or prosecuted in part because of their questioning the mainstream COVID narrative,” Jaffe added.

Judge: ‘Chilling effect on speech’ arising from possibility of prosecution is itself a First Amendment violation

According to the Lewiston Tribune, Eggleston sought the stay in order to seek First Amendment protections for his speech, arguing the WMC “seeks to silence the public expression of opinions it disagrees with” and “sanction disfavored opinions.”

Tuesday’s ruling means a delay to a disciplinary hearing with the WMC that had been scheduled for Wednesday through Friday.

“The state’s lawyer, Kristin Brewer, argued in the May 17 hearing that Eggleston’s First Amendment rights were not being violated, because the disciplinary hearing necessary to impose sanctions had not been held,” the Lewiston Tribune reported.

In Tuesday’s ruling, the state argued that its witnesses and members of the WMC would be “inconvenienced” by the stay. However, the court ruled that the WMC “has not demonstrated that a stay would cause actual harm to the public.”

Siding with Eggleston, court commissioner Hailey L. Landrus said he “has a competing interest in enjoining the disciplinary proceedings in order to seek First Amendment protection for his speech, which is the reason for the administrative proceedings in the first place.”

“Denying a stay would … violate his constitutional right to free speech,” Landrus added.

Landrus also referenced a 1965 U.S. Supreme Court decision — Dombrowski v. Pfister — in which the court ruled that the chilling effect on speech arising from the possibility of prosecution was itself a First Amendment violation.

A commissioner is a judge appointed by a court to hear certain limited legal matters in a timely manner.

“I was cheering when I got it,” Richardson told the Lewiston Tribune. “It is a preliminary ruling, and I don’t know what the commission is going to do about it. And so there may be a great deal of work yet to come.”

The WMC now has 10 days to file a motion to reverse the emergency stay. If it does so, Eggleston’s lawyers will have three days to respond. A panel of three judges will then decide whether to reverse the stay.

Lawyers for Eggleston told The Defender the stay is preliminary. If the three-judge panel chooses not to modify the stay, the case will then proceed in appellate court — unless the WMC opts to withdraw its charges against Eggleston.

Richardson shared an analysis of the ruling and the current status of the case with The Defender:

“What does the ruling mean? First, that Dr. Eggleston is not facing a commission panel for three days of testimony and argument to determine whether he gets to keep his license. That day may yet come as this is a preliminary ruling — but if that day comes, it will be sometime down the road and it will require that a series of courts refuse to protect the good doctor’s First Amendment rights. And I really don’t anticipate that to happen.”

Richardson said unless the commission withdraws the charges, “we will proceed with the appeal. Assuming we prevail, then the case could be appealed up to the Washington Supreme Court and/or into the federal court system.”

Otherwise, the case would be sent back to the trial judge for a hearing on whether a permanent injunction should be issued, Richardson said.

According to the Lewiston Tribune, “If the appeal process for the preliminary injunction moves forward, it could take six to 12 months to see a ruling.”

Doctors ‘being persecuted for telling patients the truth’

The WEC claims it received “complaints regarding Respondent’s pseudoscientific publications” in September 2021. The sources of these complaints were not specified in the legal filings reviewed by The Defender.

The specific charges levied against Eggleston include unprofessional conduct, misrepresentation or fraud in any aspect of the conduct of the business or profession, and interference with an investigation or disciplinary proceeding by “willful misrepresentation of facts.”

The WMC relied on a series of articles Eggleston published in 2021, for his ongoing column in the Lewiston Tribune, including:

• “Ivermectin is becoming the standard of care” (Sept. 5, 2021).
• “COVID-19 is a deception for taking control” (July 11, 2021).
• “Powers that be suppress the truth about COVID-19” (June 13, 2021).
• “When it comes to COVID-19, dare to be a free thinker” (March 17, 2021).

According to the legal filings, the Lewiston Tribune had a 2017 circulation of approximately 25,000in southeastern Washington and north-central Idaho, in addition to its online edition.

Eggleston’s Sept. 5, 2021, article stated that “ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine are very effective and safe, and should be used along with vitamins C and D, melatonin, zinc, and quercetin,” and referenced “those who wish to control our individual lives and make us part of a Marxist/fascist collective.”

His July 11, 2021, article referenced censorship of non-establishment COVID-19 views in the media, naming the Trusted News Initiative as one of the actors responsible for this, along with Bill Gates and the World Economic Forum. “‘Fear porn’ is always the tool of tyrants,” Eggleston wrote.

In January, Children’s Health Defense (CHD) filed an antitrust lawsuit against the Trusted News Initiative, a consortium of news organizations including The Associated Press, BBC, Reuters and The Washington Post, alleging they colluded with other news outlets and social media platforms to censor diverging viewpoints on COVID-19.

Eggleston’s June 13, 2021, article was critical of the World Health Organization, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, suggesting that “Many entities want ivermectin to disappear.” He characterized medical journals such as JAMA, The Lancet, Nature and Chest as “ivermectin disinformation sources.”

And in his March 17, 2021, article, Eggleston said he believes that “soon, ivermectin, the inhaled steroid budesonide and others will be the standard of care for prevention and treatment of SARSCov2 (COVID-19).”

The WMC argued that in these and other articles Eggleston wrote in 2021, he “identified himself as a licensed physician by using ‘M.D.’ in the tagline included at the end of the column,” adding that in multiple instances in these columns, Eggleston:

• Made false statements regarding medical issues and promulgated misinformation regarding the SARS-CoV-2 virus and treatments for the virus.
• Minimized deaths from SARS-CoV-2.
• Stated that polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests are inaccurate for SARS-CoV-2 diagnosis.
• Stated that COVID-19 vaccines and mRNA vaccines are harmful or ineffective.
• Stated that ivermectin is a safe and effective treatment for COVID-19.

The WMC also alleged Eggleston “willfully misrepresented facts with regard to the SARS-CoV-2 virus and denied that it existed,” in statements he made to the commission.

These “willfully misrepresented statements,” according to the WMC, included stating that there is “no absolute proof that the SARS-CoV-2 exists” and “influenza cases nearly disappeared in 2020 as influenza was relabeled ‘COVID’ … due to faulty testing.”

‘I’m not going to be afraid to write’

Eggleston and his attorneys argue that he was merely expressing his opinion “to become part of the public debate,” and that at no time did he “use his opinion article to treat, diagnose, or provide care for any patient.”

Instead, his articles in the Lewiston Tribune were “published in an effort to further public debate and offer alternative thoughts and information,” adding that such “content-based restriction on speech” by the WMC “is a violation of the First Amendment and Art. 1, Sec. 5 of the Washington State Constitution.”

Eggleston’s lawyers told The Defender the WMC has given itself broad authority to define “practicing medicine,” including arguing that if a person is practicing medicine if he or she uses the designation “physician,” “surgeon” or “M.D.” on “cards, books, papers, signs, or other written or printed means of giving information to the public.”

Eggleston told The Defender he loves to read, but at some point decided he needed “to do something.” When an opportunity became available at the Lewiston Tribune for a columnist, he applied and was hired.

He said he did not know who submitted the complaints against him, but he expected the WMC would take action against him for his writings. However, in deciding to start writing, he felt he had to stand up for his beliefs.

“I knew that was coming when I started to write this and I suspected that, at some time, someone would follow with a complaint to the commission,” Eggleston said.

“I’m going to write these things. I’m not going to be afraid to write,” he added.

‘I think it is important to realize how fragile our rights can be’

The legal action against Eggleston has followed a circuitous route. The WMC informed him of its investigation on Oct. 5, 2021. He was subsequently served with a Statement of Charges on Aug. 4, 2022, to which Eggleston filed a response on Oct. 9, 2022. The hearing was scheduled for May 24-26, 2023.

Eggleston filed a motion for a temporary restraining order and a motion to expedite his hearing on March 10. On March 17, the second of the two motions was granted by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Washington.

Separate motions by Eggleston to dismiss the case and for a preliminary injunction were rejected on April 28 and May 17.

Jaffe credited CHD with supporting Eggleston in this case. “This is now the second time a CHD-backed case has resulted in stopping a medical board from enforcing COVID misinformation prosecutions,” Jaffe said.

Richardson highlighted the importance of protecting and preserving constitutional rights, telling The Defender:

“One thing is certain — Dr. Eggleston didn’t need this fight as he is over 80 years old and has been retired for over 10 years, but as an old Army veteran, he chose to stand up again and defend the rights of others and he isn’t about to back down now. Dr. Eggleston has had his integrity and medical understanding publicly challenged. Reporters, colleagues, and laymen have judged him, but time is proving him right.

“I think it is important to realize how fragile our rights can be. When we protect them from usurpation, they are robust and form the bulwark of our constitutional system. But if we fail to keep watch over them, those who seek power will quickly attempt to invade them in the most creative of ways, and if they are successful, we will be left forever impoverished for their loss.”

Eggleston said he “looks forward to this battle” and that he is fighting it not for himself, but “for my children, my grandchildren, everyone else’s children and all the other doctors who are being persecuted for telling patients the truth.”

“I actually look forward to this battle, because this is such an important thing, fighting for the First Amendment and patients’ rights to be protected,” he said. “I think we have a great chance to set a standard and set a precedent for freedom of speech by physicians.”

“You have to stand up for what you think is right because you may not have a lot of time to do it.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D., based in Athens, Greece, is a senior reporter for The Defender and part of the rotation of hosts for CHD.TV’s “Good Morning CHD.”

Featured image is from CHD

Price: $11.50 Get yours for FREE! Click here to download.

We encourage you to support the eBook project by making a donation through Global Research’s DonorBox “Worldwide Corona Crisis” Campaign Page. 

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

*** 

As with most things espoused in the name of social progress, the left’s aggressive push for EV technology conveniently forgets the lives of those affected by it the most.

“On my watch, the great American road trip is going to be fully electrified…you can get up to $7,500 on a new electric vehicle,” Biden exclaimed during a photo-op in a shiny electric Hummer. I bet that tax credit will come in handy when the average American is forced to buy a $60,000 EV after gas-powered cars are banned outright.

Leftists love to harp on the life-or-death need to eliminate anything non-electric. Biden is currently setting his sights on an emissions mandate that could severely limit the accessibility of gas-powered cars to blue-collar citizens. The administration is justifying its control of the market by stating that it’s the equitable thing to do.

Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm announced:

“President Biden’s historic clean energy laws are making it possible for us to get more EVs on the road by expanding charging infrastructure into underserved communities, while reducing range and cost anxiety among drivers who want to go electric.”

I’m sure Granholm herself traveled to these underserved communities to see what gives those people “cost anxiety.” For some reason, I don’t think that EVs are anywhere remotely on their minds.

Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg affirmed that he would be using $1 billion dollars from the laughably bipartisan infrastructure bill to, “deconstruct the racism that was built into the roadways.” Mr. Pete is one of the elites who celebrated the immense spikes in gasoline prices as that somehow meant that more people would be inclined to buy EVs. Since then, he’s been hard at work to desegregate the highways and combat systemically oppressive potholes.

The Road To Hell is Paved With ‘Good Intentions’

What these short-sighted armchair activists fail to realize is that their green absolutism actually promotes inequality. Do they know what is being done to satiate their need for all these electric batteries?

Slavery and child labor.

No, I’m not being hyperbolic. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), so-called “artisanal” miners work in extremely dangerous conditions to mine cobalt and nickel-elements crucial in the production of batteries seen in electric cars like Teslas, Fords, and VWs. Men, women, and children scrounge about in debilitating heat and die in mine shaft collapses while the militias who “recruited” them from villages across the country look on in indifference. At best, these indentured servants are paid a dollar or two a day for their grueling work.

This is the reality of the mines that produce cobalt for your electric cars ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/AnT6jSP547

— FEE (Foundation for Economic Education) (@feeonline) May 25, 2023

Siddharth Kara, a fellow at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health studied these mining operations and noted: “Cobalt is toxic to touch and breathe-and there are hundreds of thousands of poor Congolese people touching and breathing it… Young mothers with babies strapped to their backs, all breathing in this toxic cobalt dust. There’s complete cross-contamination between industrial excavator-derived cobalt and cobalt dug by women and children with their bare hands.”

There are an estimated 40,000 children working in these toxic mines, with many of them being as young as six.

So much for “clean energy.”

What’s even more terrifying is that as these operations are unaccounted for in official audits thanks to local corruption and gray-market business tactics, there’s no telling exactly how many people are working in these dangerous conditions under the threat of force.

Now despite being illegal, these operations are widespread throughout the country—and are well funded by outside interests. It is estimated that around 70 percent of Congolese mining operations are owned by Chinese government-backed investment firms. So we now not only have the issue of questionable business practices and unsafe work environments in poverty-stricken regions, but also a multi-billion dollar industry which directly benefits an authoritarian government well known for its genocidal practices.

That doesn’t sound equitable.

See No Evil, Hear No Evil…

Even when faced with these glaring human rights abuses, the west has been peculiarly mute on the subject. You certainly don’t see any big-name politicians protesting the manufacture of such covetable batteries, do you? At the bottom of this violent supply chain, you have Congolese of all ages dying or becoming seriously injured while being forced to mine toxic cobalt veins. At the end of the day, these are the people who are supporting the west’s EV production.

From the legacy media and politicians we receive only silence. How can they say that America switching to completely EV-based transportation will bring equity to our racist country, when their own policies directly support modern-day African slavery outfits?

Those on the bottom rungs of the economic ladder have to pay for their ‘enlightened’ whims. Why should the elites care? All this systemic abuse is being committed in some far away land-out of sight, out of mind. It’s not an issue because it’s over there. This is the sort of “progress” politicians are rooting for, regardless of how many Ford electrics they sell.

As Henry Hazlitt pointed out: “The bad economist sees only what immediately strikes the eye; the good economist also looks beyond. The bad economist sees only the direct consequences of a proposed course; the good economist looks also at the longer and indirect consequences. The bad economist sees only what the effect of a given policy has been or will be on one particular group; the good economist inquires also what the effect of the policy will be on all groups.”

That is the issue. Lawmakers and business moguls don’t care about the real-world ramifications of their actions. While they push “equitable” standards in a P.R stunt to get better ESG scores, they are completely neglecting the actual life-or-death effects of “green” legislation.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Connor Vasile is a first-generation American and writer who wishes to raise awareness about classical liberal ideas which empower every individual, no matter their background or experience, to live their best lives and fulfill their goals. 

Featured image: Artisanal mining in the Congo | Fairphone-Flickr CC BY-NC 2.0

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

*** 

AI Turning Losing Path for US

The US is losing. Recently, Ukraine just aired hopes and ideas about a ceasefire. Sanctions are ineffective on Russia. The US is not winning on Taiwan either. The Ukraine war has depleted US and NATO war stocks. The US cannot produce artillery shells and the US hasn’t even got anti-ship missiles left for one week of war with China. Every wargame shows that the US will lose a conflict to China. In the Middle East, the US is losing influence to China and Russia. Iran and Saudi Arabia are making friends, Syria is back, and Iran cannot be stopped from acquiring a nuclear bomb with missiles to deliver it as well. Türkiye has de-facto left NATO and the US nemesis Erdogan just won another presidential term. BRICS is de-dollarizing and there are 13 countries applying to join BRISCS. In many ways, the global position of the US is in disarray.

AI is a game changer set to more than compensate the US for all this.

The US is in control of the global AI race. The US controls all the big AI models. The US controls the microchips for building powerful AI data centers. The US controls the data centers for AI as well. The US even dominates the software companies making use of AI.

Coming soon – the impact of AI will be far bigger than Ukraine and Taiwan.

Scale and Speed of AI

Microsoft recently announced it is building 120 mega-big AI data centers per year. One every three days. I researched what one such data center might cost. I found one data center at $ 300 million, and another one at $ 500 million. Multiply that with 120 data centers, and you get that Microsoft in one year invests $ 40-60 billion in AI data centers alone.

On top, Microsoft has invested heavily in new technology to design what Microsoft claims are the fastest AI data centers in the World. Microsoft’s many data centers are already divided into 60 “regions” covering all the Globe. Microsoft also recently put $ 10 billion into OpenAI. And Microsoft is not done yet, so we easily see a figure on the horizon of $ 100 billion investments by Microsoft alone.

Google is on the same path with DeepMind and Google’s own mega-data centers. Amazon is also into AI and Amazon runs what are perhaps the biggest data centers in the World for the US military and security apparatus – Amazon is definitely following up too with mega-investments in the AI and data center development. Due to the need to supply chips to the data centers of Microsoft and others, the value of NVIDIA just jumped to nearly $ 1 trillion. Add to this the enormous public and private investments in chips etc. in the US, EU, and East Asia. We also see how all the big software companies in the West invest heavily to incorporate Microsoft’s AI into their products. Don’t be surprised if the total investments in AI and AI-driven technologies (incl. chips) over just a couple of years run up to $ 1 trillion.

Impact

Take the announcements of one study that already-existing AI will increase productivity by 40%. Add a report that already-existing AI increases programming productivity by 1200%. And then read reports that soon doctors with AI-systems will outcompete doctors without AI. Lawyers with AI-systems will outcompete lawyers without. And we must conclude: Military officers with AI-systems to support them will also “outcompete” military officers without. This is just the beginning. Nobody can imagine even 2 years from now. AI is a complete game changer. There is a reason why Western societies may invest even $ 1 trillion in AI. And that is because AI is worth many more trillions. Each trillion gained by AI is 5% additional GDP to the US or the EU, UK. The productivity gains of AI are enormous, and the impact is everywhere.

And it’s already happening now.

ChatGPT is already here, the fastest growing application in history. The 120 big data centers are already being built. A plethora of AI systems are already being prepared for use in 2024.

US Hope

The US is hard pressed geopolitically.

But AI technology changes the game. If the US can tighten its control on the EU long enough, the US can expect to reap huge competitive advantages already in 2025. There can come a downturn for the US due to geopolitical losses etc. 2023-2025, but already in 2026, the power of these new technologies could already outweigh those losses. Nobody knows, but there is a very real possibility that that could happen. Beijing will get Taiwan but not the chip production or the AI. There is a scenario where the US loses in the short term but wins already on the mid-term due to extremely powerful technological AI and other capabilities which are underway.

Which development will prevail? Will the short-term pressure on the US prevail, or will the mid-term US superiority in AI, chips, Quantum Computing, and Industrial use of Space turn the tides for the US?

Nobody can answer that question for sure, but there is a viable scenario how the US can pull it off. The more information about AI comes to light, the more it becomes evident that the AI technology which the US leads is extremely powerful – enough to change power in the World.

Productivity gains of 40% to 1200% in everything will only be reaped by the US and friends of the US. Without access to AI, China will sink behind and Russia will drop. US President Biden dreams that China will never overtake the US in GDP: AI may lead to that. Imagine a country without Internet. Soon, countries without AI will be in a similar situation. Nobody will invest in a country without AI. Countries without AI will lose exports to countries with.

Dangerous Bet for China and Russia

China and Russia can choose to continue as if what I point out were not an existential risk to take seriously. India too. Their leaders may perhaps have good information to believe that these technologies will not be sufficiently game-changing, and that they will at any rate have time enough to catch up. And then they can just complacently hope that what they already do on autopilot will help them achieve their objectives. China may have a lot of big projects up its sleeve in UV lithography, chip technology, AI, Quantum Computing etc. which they have reason to believe will overtake the US in a few years. Who knows? But it is much more likely otherwise, in which case their bet can be so terribly wrong that they can lose the farm.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Karsten Riise is a Master of Science (Econ) from Copenhagen Business School and has a university degree in Spanish Culture and Languages from Copenhagen University. He is the former Senior Vice President Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Mercedes-Benz in Denmark and Sweden.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from the author

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

*** 

The undertakings made by Australia regarding the AUKUS security pact promise to be monumental.  Much of this is negative: increased militarisation on the home front; the co-opting of the university sector for war making industries and defence contractors; and the capitulation and total subordination of the Australian Defence Force to the Pentagon.

There are also other, neglected dimensions at work here: the failure, as yet, for the Commonwealth to establish a viable, acceptable site for the long term storage of high-grade nuclear waste; the uncertainty about where the submarines will be located; the absence of skills in the construction and operational level in Australia regarding nuclear-powered submarines; and, fundamentally, whether a nuclear-powered Australian-UK-US submarine (AUKUS SSN) will ever see the light of day.

One obstacle, habitually ignored in the Australian dialogue on AUKUS, are the rumbling concerns in the US itself about transferring submarines from the US Navy in the first place.  These concerns are summarised in the Congressional Research Service report released on May 22, outlining the background and issues for US politicians regarding the procurement of the Virginia (SSN-774) submarine.  “One issue for Congress is whether to approve, reject, or modify DOD’s AUKUS-related legislative package for the FY2024 NDAA [National Defense Authorization Act] sent to Congress on May 2, 2023”.  This includes requested authorisation for the transfer of “up to two Virginia-class SSNs to the government of Australia in the form of sale, with the costs of the transfer to be covered by the government of Australia.”

A laundry list of concerns and potentially grave issues are suggested, and the report is clear that these are not exhaustive.  They are also bound to send shivers down the spine of the adulatory Canberra planning establishment, so keen to keep Washington interested.  There is, for instance, the question as to whether the transfer of the Virginia-class boats should be authorised as part of the 2024 financial year, or deferred “until a future NDAA.” 

There is also the matter about how many submarines should be part of the request, whether it remains up to two as per the current request, or larger numbers.  With those numbers also comes the dilemma as to what vintage they will be: those with less than 33 years of expected service life, or newly minted ones with the full 33-year period of operational service.  (We can already hazard a guess on that one.)

The issue of cost also looms large.  What will Australia, for instance, pay for the Virginia-class vessels, and furthermore, the amount that would be needed as “a proportionate financial investment” in Washington’s own “submarine construction industrial base.”  Such a potentially delicious state of affairs for US shipbuilders, who will be receiving funds from the Australian purse to accelerate ship-building efforts.

Other issues suggest questions on operational worth.  What would, for instance, be the “net impact on collective allied deterrence and warfighting capabilities of transferring three to five Virginia-class boats to Australia while pursuing the construction of three to five replacement SSNs for the US Navy”.  The transfer of US naval nuclear propulsion technology would come with its “benefits and risks” and should also be cognisant of broader implications to US relations with countries in the Indo-Pacific, not to mention “the overall political and security situation in” in the region.

The report takes note of sceptics who claim this “could weaken deterrence of potential Chinese aggression if China were to find reason to believe, correctly or not, that Australia might use the transferred Virginia-class boats less effectively than the US Navy would”.  This is a rather damning suspicion.  Will Australian sailors either have the full capacity and skills not only to use the weaponry in their possession, but actually comply with US wishes in any deployment, even in a future conflict?

The report is particularly interesting from the perspective of assuming that Australia will retain sovereign decision-making capacity over the use of the vessels, something that can only induce much scoffing.  “Australia might not involve its military, including its Virginia-class boats, in US-China crises or conflicts that Australia viewed as not engaging important Australian interests.”  On that score, the report notes remarks by Australia’s Defence Minister Richard Marles made in March 2023 that are specifically underlined to concern Congress.  Of specific interest was the claim that “no promises” had been made by Australia to the United States “that Australia would support the United States in a future conflict over Taiwan.”

This is a charming admission that members of the US Congress may well be pushing for a quid pro quo: we authorise the boat transfer; you duly affirm your commitment to shed blood with us in the next grandly idiotic battle.

There is also a notable pointer in the direction of whether an individual SSN AUKUS should even be built.  Sceptics, it follows, could argue that it would be preferable that US nuclear submarines “perform both US and Australian SSN missions while Australia invests in other types of military forces, as to create a capacity for performing other military missions for both Australia and the United States.” 

This is exactly the kind of rationale that will confirm the holing of Australian sovereignty, not that there was much to begin with.  But those voices marshalled against AUKUS will be able to take heart that Congress may, whatever its selfish reasons, be a formidable agent of obstruction.  President Joe Biden, his successors, and the otherwise fractious electoral chambers certainly agree on one thing: America First, followed by a gaggle of allies foolishly holding the rear. 

*

Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge.  He currently lectures at RMIT University.  He is a regular contributor to Global Research and Asia-Pacific Research. Email: [email protected]

Featured image is from InfoBrics

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

*** 

The Durham Report fails to identify the ringleader of the Russiagate fiasco, John Brennan. It was Brennan who first reported “contacts… between Russian officials and persons in the Trump campaign”. It was also Brennan who initially referred the case to the FBI. It was also Brennan who “hand-picked” the analysts who cobbled together the Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) which said that Putin was trying to swing the election in Trump’s favor. And, it was also Brennan who hijacked the “Trump-Russia-meme” from the Hillary campaign in order to prosecute his war on Trump. At every turn, Brennan was there, massaging the intelligence, pulling the strings, and micromanaging the entire operation from behind the scenes. So, while it might seem like the FBI was ‘leading the Russiagate charge’, it was actually Brennan who was calling the shots. This is from an article by Aaron Mate:

“…it is clear that Brennan’s role in propagating the collusion narrative went far beyond his work on the ICA. (Intelligence Community Assessment) A close review of facts that have slowly come to light reveals that he was a central architect and promoter of the conspiracy theory from its inception... Brennan stands apart for the outsized role he played in generating and spreading the (collusion) false narrative.” The Brennan Dossier: All About a Prime Mover of Russiagate, Aaron Mate, Real Clear Investigations

Mate is right, Brennan was “central architect and promoter” of the Russiagate fraud. The alleged Trump-Russia connection may have started with the Hillary campaign, but it was Brennan who transformed it into an expansive domestic counterintelligence operation aimed at regime change. That was Brennan’s doing; he was the backroom puppetmaster overseeing the action and guiding the project towards its final conclusion. What the Durham Report confirms, is that the plan was put into motion sometime after Brennan’s Oval Office meeting with Barack Obama in July, 2016. Check out this clip from an article by Lee Smith:

The only genuine piece of Russian intelligence that US spy services ever received about Donald Trump’s ties to Russia was intelligence that Russia knew Hillary Clinton backed a 2016 campaign plan to smear Trump as a Russian agent.

According to John Durham’s 300-page report, the information reached the CIA in late July 2016. Brennan told Durham that on August 3 he briefed President Barack Obama at the White House on what the special counsel refers to as the Clinton Plan intelligence. Others in attendance at the meeting were Vice President Joe Biden, Attorney General Loretta Lynch, and FBI Director James Comey.” The Durham Coverup, Lee Smith

So, now we know that Brennan told Obama, Biden, Lynch and Comey that the Russia-Trump nonsense was part of a smear campaign cooked up by the Hillary campaign to divert attention from her email problems. We also know that Brennan conducted the briefing on August 3, 2016.

So, if Brennan knew that the Russia-Trump claims were false back in July, then how do we explain the fact that Brennan went ahead and published a damning Intelligence agency report 5 months later strongly suggesting a link between Trump and the Kremlin?

Here’s a brief excerpt from Brennan’s Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) which was released on January 6, 2017 and which clearly states the opposite of what Brennan told Obama five months earlier:

We assess Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the U.S. presidential election. Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the U.S. democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency. We further assess Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump..…

Further, a body of reporting, to include different intelligence disciplines, open source reporting on Russian leadership policy preferences, and Russian media content, showed that Moscow sought to denigrate Secretary Clinton.

The ICA relies on public Russian leadership commentary, Russian state media reports, public examples of where Russian interests would have aligned with candidates’ policy statements, and a body of intelligence reporting to support the assessment that Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for Trump. The 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA)

Let’s summarize the findings in the report:

1. Vladimir Putin was directly involved in the US 2016 presidential election
2. Putin’s goal was to “denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability
3. Putin and the Russian government supported Donald Trump

Brennan knew that none of this was true because, as we said earlier, he had already told Obama that the Russia-Trump smear was part of a “dirty tricks” operation generated by the Hillary campaign.

So, why would Brennan use Hillary’s spurious allegations against Trump when the election was already over? What did he hope to gain?

Three things:

1. To call-into-question the results of the election thereby undermining Trump’s legitimacy as president
2. To derail Trump’s political and foreign policy agenda
3. (Most important) To build a case against Trump that could be used in impeachment proceedings.

This was an attempt to depose the president of the United States. There can be no doubt about that. Why else would a man in Brennan’s position try to frame Trump as a Russian agent?

To remove him from office, that’s why. And there’s more, too. Here’s what Brennan told the House Intelligence Committee during his testimony in 2017:

“I encountered and am aware of information and intelligence that revealed contacts and interactions between Russian officials and U.S. persons involved in the Trump campaign that I was concerned about because of known Russian efforts to suborn such individuals. It raised questions in my mind about whether Russia was able to gain the cooperation of those individuals.”

We know now that Brennan had no “information or intelligence” that revealed contacts between the Trump campaign and Russia because there weren’t any. He lied. More importantly, Brennan delivered this testimony more than a year after he had told Obama that he knew the Trump-Russia theory was ‘Opposition Research’ concocted for the Hillary campaign. So, he knew what he was saying was false, but he said it anyway. In short, he lied to Congress which is a felony.

Check out this ‘smoking gun’ excerpt from page 86 of the Durham Report. According to the report, the CIA sent a Referral Memo to the FBI on September 7, 2016, in which they stated the following:

An exchange … discussing US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s approval of a plan concerning US presidential candidate Donald Trump and Russian hackers hampering US elections as a means of distracting the public from her use of a private email server..…

The Office did not identify any further actions that the CIA or FBI took in response to this intelligence product as it related to the Clinton Plan intelligence. The Durham Report, Page 86

They knew. They all knew.

Durham merely confirmed what independent analysts have been saying from the start, that both the CIA and the FBI knew that the Trump-Russia allegation was a fraud from the get-go. But they decided to use it anyway in order to scupper Trump’s political agenda and pave the way for his impeachment. Isn’t that what we typically call a “regime change” operation?

It is. Here’s more background from an article by Stephen Cohen at The Nation:

In testimony to the House Intelligence Committee in May 2017, John Brennan, formerly Obama’s head of the CIA, strongly suggested that he and his agency were the first, as The Washington Post put it at the time, “in triggering an FBI probe.” Certainly both the Post and The New York Times interpreted his remarks in this way. Equally certain, Brennan played a central role in promoting the Russiagate narrative thereafter, briefing members of Congress privately and giving President Obama himself a top-secret envelope in early August 2016 that almost certainly contained Steele’s dossier…..

In short, if these reports and Brennan’s own testimony are to be believed, he, not the FBI, was the instigator and godfather of Russiagate.” “Russiagate or Intelgate?”, Stephen Cohen, The Nation

There it is in black and white; it all began with Brennan. Brennan is the “godfather of Russiagate” just as Cohen says.

Here’s more from Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton at artvoice.com:

“Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid reportedly believed then-Obama CIA Director Brennan was feeding him information about alleged links between the Trump campaign and the Russian government in order to make public accusations:

According to ‘Russian Roulette,’ by Yahoo! News chief investigative correspondent Michael Isikoff and David Corn… Brennan contacted Reid on Aug. 25, 2016, to brief him on the state of Russia’s interference in the presidential campaign. Brennan briefed other members of the so-called Gang of Eight, but Reid is the only who took direct action.

Two days after the briefing, Reid wrote a letter to then-FBI Director James Comey asserting that ‘evidence of a direct connection between the Russian government and Donald Trump’s presidential campaign continues to mount.’ Reid called on Comey to investigate the links ‘thoroughly and in a timely fashion.’

Reid saw Brennan’s outreach as ‘a sign of urgency,’ Isikoff and Corn wrote in the book. ‘Reid also had the impression that Brennan had an ulterior motive. He concluded the CIA chief believed the public needed to know about the Russian operation, including the information about the possible links to the Trump campaign.’

According to the book, Brennan told Reid that the intelligence community had determined that the Russian government was behind the hack and leak of Democratic emails and that Russian President Vladimir Putin was behind it. Brennan also told Reid that there was evidence that Russian operatives were attempting to tamper with election results. Indeed, on August 27, 2016, Reid wrote a letter to Comey accusing President Trump’s campaign of colluding with the Russian government.” “The John Brennan-Harry Reid Collusion to ‘Get Trump’”, artvoice.com

Comey didn’t want to go along with the charade, but what choice did he have, after all, didn’t he open an investigation into Hillary’s emails 11 days before the November balloting which cost Clinton the election?

He did, which means they probably had him over a barrel. Either he did what they said, or he’d be driven from office in disgrace. Of course, I’m speculating here, but I find it hard to believe that an old-school bureaucrat like Comey suddenly decided to throw caution to the wind and agree to go along with a hairbrained scheme to frame the president of the United States as a Russian agent. That just too wacky to believe. I think it’s much more likely that he simply caved-in to the pressure he was getting from Brennan.

In any event, it’s clear that Brennan whipped Reid into a frenzy which prompted the credulous senator to urge Comey to open an investigation into Trump’s (fabricated) links to the Kremlin. The Durham Report confirms that the FBI opened the probe without sufficient hard evidence, but the report does not clarify the role that Brennan played in putting the wheels in motion. This is from an article at The Hill:

(Attorney General Bill) Barr will want to zero in on a particular area of concern: the use by the FBI of confidential human sources, whether its own or those offered up by the then-CIA director. …

…the cast of characters leveraged by the FBI against the Trump campaign all appear to have their genesis as CIA sources (“assets,” in agency vernacular) shared at times with the FBI. From Stefan Halper and possibly Joseph Mifsud, to Christopher Steele, to Carter Page himself, and now a mysterious “government investigator” posing as Halper’s assistant and cited in The New York Times article, legitimate questions arise as to whether Comey was manipulated into furthering a CIA political operation more than an FBI counterintelligence case.” “James Comey is in trouble and he knows it”, The Hill

Repeat: “legitimate questions arise as to whether Comey was manipulated into furthering a CIA political operation more than an FBI counterintelligence case.”

So, The Hill has arrived at the same conclusion that we have, that Comey was merely a pawn in Brennan’s sprawling regime change operation. In fact, according to former CIA analyst Philip Giraldi, Brennan’s tentacles may have extended all the way to the FISA courts that improperly issued the warrants to spy on members of the Trump campaign. Take a look:

“Brennan was the key to the operation because the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court refused to approve several requests by the FBI to initiate taps on Trump associates and Trump Tower as there was no probable cause to do so but the British and other European intelligence services were legally able to intercept communications linked to American sources. Brennan was able to use his connections with those foreign intelligence agencies, primarily the British GCHQ, to make it look like the concerns about Trump were coming from friendly and allied countries and therefore had to be responded to as part of routine intelligence sharing. As a result, Paul Manafort, Carter Page, Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner and Gen. Michael Flynn were all wiretapped. And likely there were others. This all happened during the primaries and after Trump became the GOP nominee.” “The Conspiracy Against Trump”, Philip Giraldi, Unz Review

Giraldi’s piece makes Brennan look like the ultimate “fixer”. If you needed warrants, he’d get you warrants. If you needed spies, he’d get you spies. If you needed something planted in the media, or someone to start a rumor, or maybe even an “official-sounding” document that’s been dolled-up to look like ‘the consensus view of the entire US Intelligence Community’; he could do that too. He could do it all because he’s a virtuoso spymaster who knew the system from the ground-up. He understood how all the levers worked and which buttons to push to get things done. He also knew how easy it is to bamboozle the American people who trust whatever spurious accusations they read in the media or hear on the cable news channels. He had a keen grasp of that.

Brennan is the consummate uber-spook, a deft and capable professional who conducts his business mainly in the shadows and whose influence on events is never entirely known. That’s why I think Brennan played the key role in the Russiagate scam, because he’s a man of many talents who would not be opposed to using his power to advance his own leftist agenda by crushing a political rival that he viscerally despised.

The Durham Whitewash

And, that’s my problem with the Durham Report, because even though it is a powerful indictment of the nation’s premier law enforcement agency, it fails in its most important task, which is to identify the architect and ringleader of the Russiagate hoax. The report doesn’t do that, instead, it diverts attention away from the prime suspect to the footsoldiers who merely implemented his battleplan. That’s not just a bad outcome. That’s a whitewash.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

This article was originally published on The Unz Review.

Michael Whitney is a renowned geopolitical and social analyst based in Washington State. He initiated his career as an independent citizen-journalist in 2002 with a commitment to honest journalism, social justice and World peace.

He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). 

All images in this article are from TUR

When Will US Join Global Call to End Ukraine War?

By Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies, May 31, 2023

When Japan invited the leaders of Brazil, India and Indonesia to attend the G7 summit in Hiroshima, there were glimmers of hope that it might be a forum for these rising economic powers from the Global South to discuss their advocacy for peace in Ukraine with the wealthy Western G7 countries that are militarily allied with Ukraine and have so far remained deaf to pleas for peace.

WEBINAR: Can the BRICS+ Bloc Achieve Durable, Just De-Dollarization?

By Prof. Patrick Bond, May 31, 2023

Johannesburg hosts the BRICS summit from August 22-24, 2023.  In addition to BRICS+ expansion plans which will likely incorporate several Middle Eastern ‘petro-dollar’ regimes, there may arise a long-overdue challenge to US monetary and currency hegemony, known as  ‘de-dollarisation.’

Joe Biden Launches His War on Antisemitism

By Philip Giraldi, May 31, 2023

As promised, the White House hosted a virtual event followed by the issuance of a fact sheet and detailed strategic report last Thursday that described in some detail a sweeping plan that will be implemented to confront what it describes as surging antisemitism.

Europe’s War Against Refugees Is Fueling the Far Right’s Ascension

By David Goeßmann, May 30, 2023

In February the leaders of the 27 EU countries agreed on tougher measures to tackle “illegal migration.” This includes, above all, the mutual recognition of deportation decisions and asylum rejections and the strengthening of border protection, such as new infrastructure, more surveillance capabilities and better equipment for the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, Frontex.

Turkey: Erdogan’s Election Victory – What’s Next?

By Peter Koenig, May 30, 2023

Entering his fifth consecutive term, Erdogan declared all 85 million Turks the “winners” of this election. He promised as his key priorities unifying the country, reducing inflation and – foremost caring for the victims of the devastating 7.8-magnitude earthquake near the Türkiye-Syria border in the early hours of Monday 6 February 2023.

Why Exactly Does the Government Dump Toxic Fluoride Into ¾ of the US Water Supply?

By Ben Bartee, May 30, 2023

“Water fluoridation” means that the government adds a synthetic form of the potentially toxic chemical fluoride into the water under the guise of Public Health™. The most common synthetic form of fluoride the Public Health™ authorities use is a particularly dangerous formula called fluorosilicic acid.

The FBI’s Seditious Behavior

By Renee Parsons, May 30, 2023

Long before House or Senate Republicans ever dared to push back on the FBI or any other federal institution, it had been no secret that the majority of a bi-partisan Congress had a habit of disappearing, of being unwilling or intimidated to directly challenge willful institutional insubordination; whether on the part of Federal agencies or its personnel in what some might identify today as a form of sedition. 

African Unity and the New Cold War

By Abayomi Azikiwe, May 30, 2023

Africa and its people were essential in the rise of western colonialism and imperialism due to the highly profitable character of the Atlantic Slave Trade over a period extending from the 15th to the 19th century.

Video: Crimes Against Syria

By Mark Taliano, May 30, 2023

Washington-led Empire’s criminal war on Syria is a war against civilization itself. Empire, with its legacy media accomplices, hides behind veils of fabricated lies to commit crimes against children, women, men, Muslims, Christians, minorities, secularism, democracy, and the entire fabric of the sovereign nation of Syria itself.

Call It “Decoupling” or “De-risking”, US Economic War Against China Doomed to Backfire

By Uriel Araujo, May 30, 2023

At the G7 summit in Hiroshima, much was talking about “de-risking” from China – which seems to be the new preferred terminology. The summit joint statement said: “we are not decoupling or turning inwards. At the same time, we recognise that economic resilience requires de-risking and diversifying.”

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

*** 

“In a time of deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”— George Orwell

Let’s be clear about one thing: seditious conspiracy isn’t a real crime to anyone but the U.S. government.

Image: Stewart Rhodes (Licensed under CC BY 2.0)

To be convicted of seditious conspiracy, the charge levied against Stewart Rhodes who was sentenced to 18 years in prison for being the driving force behind the January 6 Capitol riots, one doesn’t have to engage in violence against the government, vandalize government property, or even trespass on property that the government has declared off-limits to the general public.

To be convicted of seditious conspiracy, one need only foment a revolution.

This is not about whether Rhodes deserves such a hefty sentence.

This is about the long-term ramifications of empowering the government to wage war on individuals whose political ideas and expression challenge the government’s power, reveal the government’s corruption, expose the government’s lies, and encourage the citizenry to push back against the government’s many injustices.

This is about criminalizing political expression in thoughts, words and deeds.

This is about how the government has used the events of Jan. 6 in order to justify further power grabs and acquire more authoritarian emergency powers.

This was never about so-called threats to democracy.

In fact, the history of this nation is populated by individuals whose rhetoric was aimed at fomenting civil unrest and revolution.

Indeed, by the government’s own definition, America’s founders were seditious conspirators based on the heavily charged rhetoric they used to birth the nation.

Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, Marquis De Lafayette, and John Adams would certainly have been charged for suggesting that Americans should not only take up arms but be prepared to protect their liberties and defend themselves against the government should it violate their rights.

“What country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance. Let them take arms,” declared Jefferson. He also concluded that “the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”

“It is the duty of the patriot to protect his country from its government,” insisted Paine.

“When the government violates the people’s rights,” Lafayette warned, “insurrection is, for the people and for each portion of the people, the most sacred of the rights and the most indispensable of duties.”

Adams cautioned, “A settled plan to deprive the people of all the benefits, blessings and ends of the contract, to subvert the fundamentals of the constitution, to deprive them of all share in making and executing laws, will justify a revolution.”

Had America’s founders feared revolutionary words and ideas, there would have been no First Amendment, which protects the right to political expression, even if that expression is anti-government.

No matter what one’s political persuasion might be, every American has a First Amendment right to protest government programs or policies with which they might disagree.

The right to disagree with and speak out against the government is the quintessential freedom.

Every individual has a right to speak truth to power—and foment change—using every nonviolent means available.

Unfortunately, the government is increasingly losing its tolerance for anyone whose political views could be perceived as critical or “anti-government.”

All of us are in danger.

In recent years, the government has used the phrase “domestic terrorist” interchangeably with “anti-government,” “extremist” and “terrorist” to describe anyone who might fall somewhere on a very broad spectrum of viewpoints that could be considered “dangerous.”

The ramifications are so far-reaching as to render almost every American with an opinion about the government or who knows someone with an opinion about the government an extremist in word, deed, thought or by association.

You see, the government doesn’t care if you or someone you know has a legitimate grievance. It doesn’t care if your criticisms are well-founded. And it certainly doesn’t care if you have a First Amendment right to speak truth to power.

What the government cares about is whether what you’re thinking or speaking or sharing or consuming as information has the potential to challenge its stranglehold on power.

Why else would the FBI, CIA, NSA and other government agencies be investing in corporate surveillance technologies that can mine constitutionally protected speech on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram?

Why else would the Biden Administration be likening those who share “false or misleading narratives and conspiracy theories, and other forms of mis- dis- and mal-information” to terrorists?

Why else would the government be waging war against those who engage in thought crimes?

Get ready for the next phase of the government’s war on thought crimes and truth-tellers.

For years now, the government has used all of the weapons in its vast arsenal—surveillance, threat assessments, fusion centers, pre-crime programs, hate crime laws, militarized police, lockdowns, martial law, etc.—to target potential enemies of the state based on their ideologies, behaviors, affiliations and other characteristics that might be deemed suspicious or dangerous.

For instance, if you believe in and exercise your rights under the Constitution (namely, your right to speak freely, worship freely, associate with like-minded individuals who share your political views, criticize the government, own a weapon, demand a warrant before being questioned or searched, or any other activity viewed as potentially anti-government, racist, bigoted, anarchic or sovereign), you could be at the top of the government’s terrorism watch list.

Moreover, as a New York Times editorial warns, you may be an anti-government extremist (a.k.a. domestic terrorist) in the eyes of the police if you are afraid that the government is plotting to confiscate your firearms, if you believe the economy is about to collapse and the government will soon declare martial law, or if you display an unusual number of political and/or ideological bumper stickers on your car.

According to one FBI report, you might also be classified as a domestic terrorism threat if you espouse conspiracy theories, especially if you “attempt to explain events or circumstances as the result of a group of actors working in secret to benefit themselves at the expense of others” and are “usually at odds with official or prevailing explanations of events.”

In other words, if you dare to subscribe to any views that are contrary to the government’s, you may well be suspected of being a domestic terrorist and treated accordingly.

There’s a whole spectrum of behaviors ranging from thought crimes and hate speech to whistleblowing that qualifies for persecution (and prosecution) by the Deep State.

Simply liking or sharing this article on Facebook, retweeting it on Twitter, or merely reading it or any other articles related to government wrongdoing, surveillance, police misconduct or civil liberties might be enough to get you categorized as a particular kind of person with particular kinds of interests that reflect a particular kind of mindset that might just lead you to engage in a particular kinds of activities and, therefore, puts you in the crosshairs of a government investigation as a potential troublemaker a.k.a. domestic extremist.

Chances are, as the Washington Post reports, you have already been assigned a color-coded threat score—green, yellow or red—so police are forewarned about your potential inclination to be a troublemaker depending on whether you’ve had a career in the military, posted a comment perceived as threatening on Facebook, suffer from a particular medical condition, or know someone who knows someone who might have committed a crime.

In other words, you might already be flagged as potentially anti-government in a government database somewhere—Main Core, for example—that identifies and tracks individuals who aren’t inclined to march in lockstep to the police state’s dictates.

As The Intercept reported, the FBI, CIA, NSA and other government agencies have increasingly invested in corporate surveillance technologies that can mine constitutionally protected speech on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram in order to identify potential extremists and predict who might engage in future acts of anti-government behavior.

Source: The Intercept

Where many Americans go wrong is in naively assuming that you have to be doing something illegal or harmful in order to be flagged and targeted for some form of intervention or detention.

In fact, all you need to do these days to end up on a government watch list or be subjected to heightened scrutiny is use certain trigger words (like cloud, pork and pirates), surf the internet, communicate using a cell phone, limp or stutter, drive a car, stay at a hotel, attend a political rally, express yourself on social media, appear mentally ill, serve in the military, disagree with a law enforcement official, call in sick to work, purchase materials at a hardware store, take flying or boating lessons, appear suspicious, appear confused or nervous, fidget or whistle or smell bad, be seen in public waving a toy gun or anything remotely resembling a gun (such as a water nozzle or a remote control or a walking cane), stare at a police officer, question government authority, or appear to be pro-gun or pro-freedom.

And then at the other end of the spectrum there are those such as Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning, for example, who blow the whistle on government misconduct that is within the public’s right to know.

In true Orwellian fashion, the government would have us believe that it is Assange and Manning who are the real criminals for daring to expose the war machine’s seedy underbelly.

Since his April 2019 arrest, Assange has been locked up in a maximum-security British prison—in solitary confinement for up to 23 hours a day—pending extradition to the U.S., where if convicted, he could be sentenced to 175 years in prison.

This is how the police state deals with those who challenge its chokehold on power.

This is also why the government fears a citizenry that thinks for itself: because a citizenry that thinks for itself is a citizenry that is informed, engaged and prepared to hold the government accountable to abiding by the rule of law, which translates to government transparency and accountability.

After all, we’re citizens, not subjects.

For those who don’t fully understand the distinction between the two and why transparency is so vital to a healthy constitutional government, Manning explains it well:

When freedom of information and transparency are stifled, then bad decisions are often made and heartbreaking tragedies occur – too often on a breathtaking scale that can leave societies wondering: how did this happen? … I believe that when the public lacks even the most fundamental access to what its governments and militaries are doing in their names, then they cease to be involved in the act of citizenship. There is a bright distinction between citizens, who have rights and privileges protected by the state, and subjects, who are under the complete control and authority of the state.

This is why the First Amendment is so critical. It gives the citizenry the right to speak freely, protest peacefully, expose government wrongdoing, and criticize the government without fear of arrest, isolation or any of the other punishments that have been meted out to whistleblowers such as Edwards Snowden, Assange and Manning.

The challenge is holding the government accountable to obeying the law.

A little over 50 years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in United States v. Washington Post Co. to block the Nixon Administration’s attempts to use claims of national security to prevent The Washington Post and The New York Times from publishing secret Pentagon papers on how America went to war in Vietnam.

As Justice William O. Douglas remarked on the ruling, “The press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of government and inform the people. Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government. And paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of the government from deceiving the people and sending them off to distant lands to die of foreign fevers and foreign shot and shell.”

Fast forward to the present day, and we’re witnessing yet another showdown, this time between Assange and the Deep State, which pits the people’s right to know about government misconduct against the might of the military industrial complex.

Yet this isn’t merely about whether whistleblowers and journalists are part of a protected class under the Constitution. It’s a debate over how long “we the people” will remain a protected class under the Constitution.

Following the current trajectory, it won’t be long before anyone who believes in holding the government accountable is labeled an “extremist,” relegated to an underclass that doesn’t fit in, watched all the time, and rounded up when the government deems it necessary.

We’re almost at that point now.

Eventually, as I point out in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, we will all be seditious conspirators in the eyes of the government.

We would do better to be conspirators for the Constitution starting right now.

*

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

*** 

Johannesburg hosts the BRICS summit from August 22-24, 2023.         

In addition to BRICS+ expansion plans which will likely incorporate several Middle Eastern ‘petro-dollar’ regimes, there may arise a long-overdue challenge to US monetary and currency hegemony, known as  ‘de-dollarisation.’

Yet prior BRICS multilateral financial reforms have failed, and a ‘multipolar’ agenda runs the very real risk of reproducing repressive economic relations.

Could the BRICS do better, with non-$ trade, a different New Development Bank, and central bank innovations?

And what ‘nonpolar’ alternatives are emerging from below, in social struggles aimed at economic democracy?

At the University of Johannesburg, we are hoping that this Friday, we can really get to the bottom of de-dollarization.

Please join us.

Date: Friday, 2 June 2023

Time: 1:00 – 4:00 PM SA (+2 hrs GMT)

Venue: Humanities Common Room, C-Ring 319, UJ Auckland Park Campus

RSVP by 1 June 2023 to join in person at UJ, contact Lorna Singh: [email protected].

Zoom link: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/87297228837

Brief inputs and debates

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

*** 

In this episode of ICIC, Dr. Reiner Füellmich and Prof. Joseph Molitorisz, philosopher, have a detailed and very illuminating conversation with Andrew Bridgen MP, a British politician and businessman who also holds a degree in Microbiology.

Bridgen has served as Member of Parliament for North West Leicestershire since 2010. He attended the University of North London, where he also studied Law and Politics. After graduating, he worked in various roles in the financial services, including as a stockbroker, before starting his own company in property management.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

*** 

As promised, the White House hosted a virtual event followed by the issuance of a fact sheet and detailed strategic report last Thursday that described in some detail a sweeping plan that will be implemented to confront what it describes as surging antisemitism. I reported last week how the US Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt, who participated in the ceremony, has articulated the Biden Administration’s somewhat hyperbolic view that “Antisemitism is not a niche issue…it is an existential threat to democracy.” She had also regretted that “America has never done something like a national plan to fight antisemitism.” It should be noted that Lipstadt’s brief as ambassador is to confront what she perceives to be antisemitism all around the world, though it is likely that her role will expand to include domestic authorities under whatever new arrangements emerge as the Biden plan is implemented.

The plan that was unveiled was developed by an interagency task force created by Joe Biden last December, which was headed by “Second Gentleman” Doug Emhoff, who is both Jewish and has the misfortune to be married to Kamala Harris. It reportedly incorporates contributions and insights from claimed discussions with no less than “more than 1,000 community leaders” including various Jewish religious denominations and also representing both Jewish and non-Jewish civic organizations in the United States. Prior to the virtual event and press release, President Biden promised that the plan would “include more than 200 measures that government agencies, social media platforms and elected officials can adopt to counter rising antisemitism.” The measures will reportedly include at least 100 “provisions” that will require congressional action.

That the plan will be considered a success by inter alia suppressing what once passed as free speech in the United States seems to have bothered none of the Jewish groups that applauded the development. Occasionally sensible liberal leaning J Street enthused how “In a period when the threats of antisemitism, far-right extremism and white nationalism are surging in the United States, it’s deeply encouraging to see the White House make this a top priority and adopt a nuanced, well-considered, comprehensive approach.”

J Street’s President Jeremy Ben-Ami, who describes George Soros as a “Jewish philanthropist,” misses the point that Israel, which will be a principal beneficiary from stomping down on the First Amendment as nearly any criticism of the Jewish state will become a “hate crime, is preeminently a country awash in “far-right extremism.” He slyly concludes that “The struggle against antisemitism and all forms of bigotry is far too important to become a mere proxy for debates over Israel,” making the entire issue vanish in typical J Street fashion. Nor does that particular irony appear to have bothered any Congressmen or anyone in the mainstream media, such is the power of the Jewish establishment over both the press and the two joined-at-the-hip on this issue political parties that alternately govern us.

Note how the Plan, relying on wildly exaggerated statistics relating to what are often contrived or alleged antisemitic incidents, not by coincidence, seeks to protect Jews from a malignant force which is presumed to be the “white supremacists” that Biden and his cohorts have been otherwise targeting and also labeling as “terrorists.” That accomplishes two things politically: it gets the powerful Jewish/Israel Lobby and their controlled media fully on board to reelect Biden and it also identifies the enemy as likely to be conservative Republicans. In so doing, you take highly visible steps to protect the Jews (whether or not they actually need protection) and you create a credible enemy that everyone can identify and attack.

So what does the White House’s May 25^th press release entitled “Fact Sheet: Biden-⁠Harris Administration Releases First-Ever US National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism” tell us about what will be put in place to protect America’s wealthiest and already most powerful ethno-religious group? A sub-heading and the lead paragraphs summarize it this way: “[The] Administration announces over 100 new actions and over 100 calls to action to combat antisemitism, including new actions to counter antisemitism on college campuses and online; whole-of-society strategy includes new stakeholder commitments.

“Today, the Biden-Harris Administration is releasing the first-ever U.S. National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism. This strategy includes over 100 new actions the Administration will take to raise awareness of antisemitism and its threat to American democracy, protect Jewish communities, reverse the normalization of antisemitism, and build cross-community solidarity.

“While antisemitic incidents most directly and intensely affect the Jewish community, antisemitism threatens all of us. Antisemitic conspiracy theories fuel other forms of hatred, discrimination, and bias—including discrimination against other religious minorities, racism, sexism, and anti-LGBTQI+ hate. Antisemitism seeks to divide Americans from one another, erodes trust in government and nongovernmental institutions, and undermines our democracy.”

The Fact Sheet and the full report explain in frightening detail how Biden is dedicating significant financial and human resources to essentially pander to Jews and Israel over their concerns that they are being perceived badly, something that might be attributed to their own behavior. Admittedly, some concerns were expressed that Israel would be immune from criticism in spite of the fact that it is widely recognized as an apartheid state that commits crimes against humanity and even war crimes on a nearly daily basis. Most recently this has included a Flag Day march in East Jerusalem in which settlers chanted “Death to Arabs.” The Times of Israel subsequently printed an article calling for the extermination of the Palestinians. Willfully blind to that reality, the fact sheet has only this to say: “In addition, the strategy reaffirms the United States’ unshakable commitment to the State of Israel’s right to exist, its legitimacy, and its security—and makes clear that when Israel is singled out because of anti-Jewish hatred, that is antisemitism.” In other words, because Israel is the self-designated Jewish state criticism of it will be ipso facto regarded as a hate crime, antisemitism.

I will not bore the reader by reviewing most of the 60 page long “Strategy” report’s more intrusive features, but it is worth observing that it commits itself to have “The US government…harness our collective resources to increase education about antisemitism and its threat to democracy, the Holocaust, and Jewish contributions to American society.” “Collective resources” of course includes taxpayer money, which will be flowing in the billions to Jewish businesses and facilities for “protection,” as is already happening with Department of Homeland Security discretionary grants, more than 90% of which support increased security for Jews and their organizations.

The “Strategy’s” four “Pillars” as elaborated in both the fact sheet and the full text are:

• Pillar 1: Increase awareness and understanding of antisemitism, including its threat to America, and broaden appreciation of Jewish American heritage
• Pillar 2: Improve safety and security for Jewish communities
• Pillar 3: Reverse the normalization of antisemitism and counter antisemitic discrimination
• Pillar 4: Build cross-community solidarity and collective action to counter hate

One should expect major initiatives in requiring educational courses in holocaust and other Jewish issues, compulsory training and re-education sessions both in government and the corporate world on the threat posed by antisemitism, and creating law enforcement mechanisms backed by new legislation that will provide empowerment to investigate and criminalize various antisemitic acts as “hate crimes.” One “Strategic Goal” that might be of particular interest to readers of this article might be “Tackling Antisemitism Online,” which includes “Ensure terms of service and community standards explicitly cover antisemitism. The Administration commends platforms with terms of service and community standards that establish ‘zero-tolerance’ for hate speech, including antisemitism. All online platforms are encouraged to adopt zero-tolerance terms of service and community standards” and “to permanently ban repeat offenders, both personal accounts and extremist websites.” It calls for “algorithms” to be employed on social media sites to block any and all antisemitic content. Somewhat bizarrely, it also calls for “Establish[ing] relationships with Jewish community organizations to share best practices related to reporting hate speech and utilizing platforms to lift up Jewish stories.”

So, in effect, the US government’s national security agencies would be answering to and propagandizing for “Jewish community organizations,” which one might think to be inappropriate. But the fact sheet and report itself do not mention what legislation will be in the works to penalize those who choose to be non-cooperative, though the model would likely be the laws that have been passed in 26 states and counting to punish or deny benefits to those who either support Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) or are in favor of any nonviolent action directed against Israel. Note particularly that “college campuses” are explicitly mentioned as targets by the White House fact sheet since BDS, seen as a major threat by the Israeli government and by groups like the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), is increasingly popular among students at a number of universities.

And speaking of BDS, where even Biden has perhaps hesitated to go too deep too directly, there is always a boneheaded congressmen who is ready to take up the pander to Israel mission. Senator Marco Rubio, who has never been bothered by having to think anything through, has introduced a bill that would prevent US companies and individuals from participating in boycotts of countries “friendly to the US.” Israel is not named in the legislation, but the Congressmen involved have freely admitted that it is directed particularly against BDS. Rubio claims that “The BDS movement is the single most destructive campaign of economic warfare against the Jewish state of Israel. This bill, which previously passed the Senate, would mark an important step toward bringing an end to the movement’s discriminatory efforts.” The bill’s cosponsor Republican Senator Bill Hagerty added that it would “Provide state and local governments [with] the tools they need to counter ‘the discriminatory and hate-inspired conduct of the anti-Semitic BDS movement aimed against Israel our closest ally in the Middle East.’”

Make no mistake, the “Strategy” and all that will develop from it is misguided, overkill, and the death of freedom to speak, write and associate. It is a consequence of the immense Jewish power over the United States government and is in no way justified by developments. One notes how conservative critics of the Biden Administration Elon Musk and Tucker Carlson have recently been called antisemites without any real evidence demonstrating that to be the case. Joe Biden’s plan of action will surely similarly open the door to what will quickly become an open season on alleged antisemites. It will subsequently be easy for politicians and the media to label critics of domestic issues like the state of the Mexican border or international issues like the pointless and highly dangerous war against Russia as “haters” and by a tortuous extension antisemites. Appropriate punishment will follow.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

This article was originally published on The Unz Review.

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected].

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from TUR

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

*** 

There’s hardly a shortage of Russophobia in the political West, whether it’s the previously latent one or the much more blatant hatred demonstrated in recent times. In most countries dominated by the United States this has become the “new normal” since February 24, 2022. However, of all Washington DC’s allies and satellite states/vassals, there’s one that makes even such endemically Russophobic countries like Poland or the Baltic states seem “moderate” – the United Kingdom.

In recent announcements, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) said that it could completely cut diplomatic ties with the UK over its extremely escalatory actions such as the delivery of ever more advanced and longer-range weapons to the Kiev regime. In a statement for Russia’s RT, published on Friday, the Russian MFA cited London’s significant and ever-growing meddling in Ukraine, as well as other actions aimed against Russia, particularly when it comes to arming and directly assisting the Neo-Nazi junta forces. Although the MFA stated that cutting ties with the UK might be an “extreme measure”, it was left without virtually any other option, so this move is being considered very seriously.

“The severing of diplomatic ties with the UK would be an ‘extreme measure’, but [Russia] could end up taking the step considering London’s significant involvement in the Ukraine conflict,” the Russian MFA warned on Friday.

On May 18, The Wall Street Journal published a report claiming that “UK special forces from the British Army’s SAS [Special Air Service] and SRR [Special Reconnaissance Regiment] regiments and the Navy’s SBS [Special Boat Service] units are operating very close to the front lines in Ukraine”. The WSJ presented the report in a way that indicates these actions constitute a supposed “split” in policy with the US, as Washington DC has allegedly “held back sending special forces to directly assist the Ukrainians on the front lines of fighting”. However, such claims are rather laughable, especially when considering numerous reports about American special forces and intelligence assets operating in Ukraine.

Worse yet, intelligence sources are adamant that special services operators sent by the US are directly supporting the Kiev regime forces, including by directing their attacks on not just the Russian military, but also targets deep within Russia. The WSJ report implies that the only supposed difference between the US and UK special forces and intelligence assets is that those sent by London directly take part in hostilities on the frontlines while their American counterparts “only provide advisory services”. What’s more, the aforementioned UK special forces are believed to be directly involved in planning and assisting cross-border sabotage operations and terrorist attacks, including the latest one against civilians in the Belgorod oblast (region).

When asked by RT about these controversial (to say the least) reports, the Russian MFA stated: “[Moscow] is well aware of consistent efforts by London aimed at providing military assistance to the Neo-Nazi regime in Kiev.”

“The UK’s support includes the supply of domestically produced and foreign military hardware to Ukraine, the training of Ukrainian troops in Britain and elsewhere in Europe, intelligence sharing, consulting support and likely participation in the operational-tactical planning by the [Ukrainian] military, including sabotage, other operations, direct provision of cyber-security, [and] deployment of mercenaries,” the Russian MFA said in an official statement, further adding: “We can’t rule out that the British participated in the planning, organization and support of terrorist attacks carried out by the Kiev regime on the territory of Russia, including through the provision of intelligence information.”

Deborah Bronnert, the UK ambassador to Russia, has been summoned several times by the Russian government that demanded explanations of London’s unadulterated enmity. However, the policy of escalating confrontation with Moscow, started under former prime minister Boris Johnson, seems to be going on unabated. According to various sources, during the first several months of Russia’s counteroffensive against NATO aggression in Europe, Johnson even actively worked to prevent peace talk initiatives between Russia and the Kiev regime, some of which could have stopped the conflict from escalating and causing further bloodshed. Worse yet, the former UK PM also personally and repeatedly urged the Neo-Nazi junta frontman Volodymyr Zelensky “not to give an inch of compromise with the Russians”.

Since then, regardless of who was at its helm, the UK has only escalated its already extensive military support for the Kiev regime. Apart from training the junta’s forces, London was also the first to pledge the deliveries of heavy armor and various missile systems, such as the “Brimstone” (against ground targets) and “Starstreak” MANPADS (man-portable air defense system).

More alarmingly, the UK also delivered depleted uranium munitions, as well as the stealthy “Storm Shadow” (also known as SCALP-EG in French service) air-launched cruise missiles. Reports indicate that the Russian military destroyed the depleted uranium munitions in a recent strike, while the transonic “Storm Shadow” missiles have been used in combat, but proven largely ineffective against Russia’s second-to-none air defense.

However, there’s no indication London will stop escalating, as it’s now at the forefront of the initiative to deliver F-16 fighter jets to the Neo-Nazi junta. Moscow is well aware of this and has made efforts to communicate with the UK, but to no avail. London’s rabid Russophobia seems to be clouding its judgment, leaving Russia with no other option but to just cut contact, which would be yet another step closer to a world-ending thermonuclear conflict between Moscow and the political West.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.

Featured image is from InfoBrics

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

*** 

President Maia Sandu announced during a press briefing that a new tax-payer-funded institution intended to supervise and limit press freedom in Moldova would be established. Amid the economic meltdown in the country, Sandu is trying to control the media narrative while also attacking Russia.

“The best antidote against the information war is the development of citizens’ resistance to the real facts. Today I am announcing the legislative initiative to create an institution to combat propaganda and defend citizens from manipulation. I will propose to the Parliament the creation of the National Center for Information Defense and Combating Propaganda, called Patriot. The institution will have two basic responsibilities: to transmit truthful information to citizens and to identify, evaluate and combat disinformation,” Sandu said on May 29.

According to the president, the legislation initiative will be sent to the Parliament by the end of June.

“I know that this announcement will stir the hornet’s nest working against the Republic of Moldova. They will invoke the right to freedom of expression. But this right cannot be a screen for lying and intoxication. I have confidence in the Republic of Moldova, I am sure that we have a chance to build a European state, I want the citizens to have confidence in the Republic of Moldova,” Sandu added.

Her ambition to limit Russian-friendly media to impose a Western narrative monopoly in a dictatorial manner comes as the EU steps up its support for Moldova. 46 EU and European leaders will be in Chisinau on June 1 to offer financial and political solidarity with Moldova and show strength against Russia.

French President Emmanuel Macron initially envisaged the European Political Community (EPC) as a platform for unity across the wider European front. The EPC will meet for the second time in Chisinau, only eight months after its inaugural meeting. The meeting brings together the leaders of the 27 EU member states and Ukraine, Turkey, the UK, and other countries in the Balkans, but not Russia or Belarus.

Security and energy supplies, which have been part-funded by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), are expected to be top of the agenda. The EBRD invested €525 million in Moldova in 2022, accounting for 4% of its GDP. The investment comes as Moldova struggles with high inflation and the economic repercussions of the war in neighbouring Ukraine, in addition to problems in Transnistria, a breakaway region and post-Soviet conflict zone with a majority Slavic (Russian-Ukrainian) population.

To assist Sandu’s ambition to sever Russian-Moldovan ties, the EU will provide financial muscle with the help of the EBRD and an €87 million EU contribution to so-called non-military logistical aid. This aid will include a mission in Chisinau, which will staff up to 50 officials. Opening on May 30, the office aims to build Moldova’s resilience against disinformation and cyber-attacks, with support at strategic and technical levels.

Sandu is expected to use the EPC summit to push for quicker EU access, which she claims is the only guarantee against becoming Russia’s next target, even though no such ambitions exist.

“We do believe that Russia will continue to be a big source of instability for the years to come and we need to protect ourselves,” said Sandu, on the sidelines of a Council of Europe summit in Iceland earlier in May. “We do believe that this [EU membership] is a realistic project for us and we are looking forward to see this happening as soon as possible.”

Although accession could take years to achieve, Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia won official candidate status to join the EU. For this reason, Sandu is taking advantage of heightened Russophobia in the West to project it in Moldova, which has a high level of Russophilia. However, this path of serving Western interests to oppose Russia is significantly affecting the economy.

In May, Moldovan Prime Minister Dorin Recean said that before the Ukraine war, his country was 100% dependent on Russia for its gas, but “Today Moldova can exist with absolutely no natural gas or electricity from Russia.”

Moldova is currently struggling to deal with the spillover effects of the war in Ukraine, which has significantly impacted households, the economy, and public finances. The war also oversees a considerable drop in Moldova’s GDP due to the disruptions in trade, remittances, and the energy crisis. Therefore, ordinary Moldovans suffer despite Recean’s boasting of cutting Russian gas.

As Valeriu Ostalep, former diplomat and ex-Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and European Integration for Moldova, said:

“Sandu and her Party of Action and Solidarity (PAS) are involved completely in the Western geopolitics of the region; they just copy and paste the West’s rhetoric. It would not be a problem (to take) a position like that, but Sandu and PAS have lost the connection to the real problems of Moldova and the population. They are concentrated exclusively on the ‘fight against Russia’.”

“So we have total support by the West for Sandu and PAS and a complete disaster in the realities on the ground in Moldova, including the growing disdain of the population against Sandu and PAS,” he added.

By establishing Patriot, Sandu attempts to control the media narrative and criticism against her government by inadvertently targeting Russophile media. In fact, for Sandu’s supposed defence of liberalism and universalism, it is proven beyond doubt that these are not values that she defends but only buzzwords used to secure funding and support from the West.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.

Featured image is from InfoBrics

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

*** 

The phenomenon of SADS – “Sudden Adult Death Syndrome” is a brand new phenomenon since COVID-19 mRNA vaccines rolled out in the general population starting in December 2020.

Perfectly healthy, young COVID-19 vaccinated people go to sleep and never wake up. There is no struggle. They die “peacefully”. 

Here are 13 such cases of young people dying in their sleep in 2022: 

UK – 40 yo healthcare worker Kelly Gleeson died suddenly of a pulmonary embolism on Dec.29, 2022. She went to take a nap at 6pm due to feeling sick and never woke up.

London, UK – 33 year old mother Nadia Joseph-Gosine died suddenly in her sleep on Dec. 7, 2022 on the morning of her wedding.

Boulder, CO – 17 year old Peter Bonn-Elchoness died in his sleep on Nov. 12, 2022, from myocarditis. He qualified for Junior Olympics as a fencer & was a concert violinist.

Dallas, TX – 18 year old Kayla Rose Lumpkins died suddenly in her sleep on Sep. 9, 2022, months after her COVID-19 booster shot.

Concord, NC: 20 year old baseball player Caitlyn Victoria Gable died in her sleep on Aug. 9, 2022. Her death was called “Sudden unexpected death among epileptic persons” SUDEP She was also “up to date with all her shots” including COVID-19 mRNA jabs

Layton, UT – 42 year old Jana Christopherson died in her sleep on Aug. 1, 2022. She was an advocate of mandatory COVID-19 vaccinations via the use of force. (click here)

Aurora, CO – 36 year old nurse Catherine (Katie) Fleagle died in her sleep on July 1, 2022. She left behind a 3 year old and 4 month old baby.

Montreal, QC – 32 year old comedian Nick Nemeroff died suddenly in his sleep on June 27, 2022. (click here)

Chicago, IL – 17 year old Gwen Casten, daughter of Congressman Sean Casten, died suddenly in her sleep of sudden cardiac arrhythmia on June 13, 2022.

Guelph, ON – 12 yo Mattea Somerville died unexpectedly in her sleep on June 6, 2022. She had petitioned for the city’s first “rainbow crosswalk” (click here)

France – 20 year old Scottish student Oliver Vaux died in his sleep on May 26, 2022 after spending the day canoeing on vacation in France. (click here)

Australia – 26 year old Caillin Atchison, daughter of Australian Medical Association President and doctor Michelle Atchison, died suddenly in her sleep on May 11, 2022. (click here)

Picardy, France – 48 year old international bike racer and cycling journalist Richard Moore died in his sleep on March 28, 2022.

My Take… 

SADS (Sudden Adult Death Syndrome) didn’t really exist before COVID-19 mRNA vaccines were forced on the entire population.

There was a related phenomenon called Sudden Arrhythmic Death Syndrome which was extremely rare and was caused by congenital anomalies that predisposed young people to sudden cardiac death.

Interestingly, these unprecedented sudden deaths while asleep started happening almost immediately after COVID-19 vaccines were rolled out in Dec.2020 and could happen after 1st dose, 2nd dose or booster shot.

They’ve continued to occur on a regular basis ever since, even though most people are no longer taking their booster shots.

This suggests that there is a long term adverse effect of COVID-19 vaccination that puts people at risk for sudden death while sleeping, even if they had their last COVID-19 vaccine a year ago or even longer.

How do we identify which COVID-19 vaccinated person is at risk for sudden death while sleeping and what do we do to prevent those sudden deaths?

*

Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Dr. William Makis is a Canadian physician with expertise in Radiology, Oncology and Immunology. Governor General’s Medal, University of Toronto Scholar. Author of 100+ peer-reviewed medical publications.

Featured image is from Children’s Health Defense

We encourage you to support the eBook project by making a donation through Global Research’s DonorBox “Worldwide Corona Crisis” Campaign Page.

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

*** 

When Japan invited the leaders of Brazil, India and Indonesia to attend the G7 summit in Hiroshima, there were glimmers of hope that it might be a forum for these rising economic powers from the Global South to discuss their advocacy for peace in Ukraine with the wealthy Western G7 countries that are militarily allied with Ukraine and have so far remained deaf to pleas for peace.

But it was not to be. Instead, the Global South leaders were forced to sit and listen as their hosts announced their latest plans to tighten sanctions against Russia and further escalate the war by sending U.S.-built F-16 warplanes to Ukraine.

The G7 summit stands in stark contrast to efforts of leaders from around the world who are trying to end the conflict. In the past, the leaders of Turkey, Israel and Italy have stepped up to try to mediate. Their efforts were bearing fruit back in April 2022, but were blocked by the West, particularly the U.S. and U.K., which did not want Ukraine to make an independent peace agreement with Russia.

Now that the war has dragged on for over a year with no end in sight, other leaders have stepped forward to try to push both sides to the negotiating table. In an intriguing new development, Denmark, a NATO country, has stepped forward to offer to host peace talks. On May 22, just days after the G-7 meeting, Danish Foreign Minister Lokke Rasmussen said that his country would be ready to host a peace summit in July if Russia and Ukraine agreed to talk.

“We need to put some effort into creating a global commitment to organize such a meeting,” said Rasmussen, mentioning that this would require getting support from China, Brazil, India and other nations that have expressed interest in mediating peace talks. Having an EU and NATO member promoting negotiations may well reflect a shift in how Europeans view the path forward in Ukraine.

Also reflecting this shift is a report by Seymour Hersh, citing U.S. intelligence sources, that the leaders of Poland, Czechia, Hungary and the three Baltic states, all NATO members, are talking to President Zelenskyy about the need to end the war and start rebuilding Ukraine so that the five million refugees now living in their countries can start to return home. On May 23, right-wing Hungarian President Viktor Orban said, “Looking at the fact that NATO is not ready to send troops, it’s obvious that there is no victory for poor Ukrainians on the battlefield,” and that the only way to end the conflict was for Washington to negotiate with Russia.

Meanwhile, China’s peace initiative has been progressing, despite U.S. trepidation. Li Hui, China’s special representative for Eurasian affairs and former ambassador to Russia, has met with Putin, Zelenskyy, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba and other European leaders to move the dialogue forward. Given its position as both Russia’s and Ukraine’s top trading partner, China is in a good position to engage with both sides.

Another initiative has come from President Lula da Silva of Brazil, who is creating a “peace club” of countries from around the world to work together to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. He appointed renowned diplomat Celso Amorim as his peace envoy. Amorim was Brazil’s foreign minister from 2003 to 2010, and was named the “world’s best foreign minister” in Foreign Affairs magazine. He also served as Brazil’s defense minister from 2011 to 2014, and is now President Lula’s chief foreign policy advisor. Amorim has already had meetings with Putin in Moscow and Zelenskyy in Kyiv, and was well received by both parties.

On May 16, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and other African leaders stepped into the fray, reflecting just how seriously this war is affecting the global economy through rising prices for energy and food. Ramaphosa announced a high-level mission by six African presidents, led by President Macky Sall of Senegal. He served, until recently, as Chairman of the African Union and, in that capacity, spoke out forcefully for peace in Ukraine at the UN General Assembly in September 2022.

The other members of the mission are Presidents Nguesso of Congo, Al-Sisi of Egypt, Musevini of Uganda and Hichilema of Zambia. The African leaders are calling for a ceasefire in Ukraine, to be followed by serious negotiations to arrive at “a framework for lasting peace.” UN Secretary-General Guterres has been briefed on their plans and has “welcomed the initiative.”

Pope Francis and the Vatican are also seeking to mediate the conflict. “Let us not get used to conflict and violence. Let us not get used to war,” the Pope preached. The Vatican has already helped facilitate successful prisoner exchanges between Russia and Ukraine, and Ukraine has asked for the Pope’s help in reuniting families that have been separated by the conflict. A sign of the Pope’s commitment is his appointment of veteran negotiator Cardinal Matteo Zuppi as his peace envoy. Zuppi was instrumental in mediating talks that ended civil wars in Guatemala and Mozambique.

Will any of these initiatives bear fruit? The possibility of getting Russia and Ukraine to talk depends on many factors, including their perceptions of potential gains from continued combat, their ability to maintain adequate supplies of weapons, and the growth of internal opposition. But it also depends on international pressure, and that is why these outside efforts are so critical and why U.S. and NATO countries’ opposition to talks must somehow be reversed.

The U.S. rejection or dismissal of peace initiatives illustrates the disconnect between two diametrically opposed approaches to resolving international disputes: diplomacy vs. war. It also illustrates the disconnect between rising public sentiment against the war and the determination of U.S. policymakers to prolong it, including most Democrats and Republicans.

A growing grassroots movement in the U.S. is working to change that:

• In May, foreign policy experts and grassroots activists put out paid advertisements in The New York Times and The Hill to urge the U.S. government to be a force for peace. The Hill ad was endorsed by 100 organizations around the country, and community leaders organized in dozens of congressional districts to deliver the ad to their representatives.
• Faith-based leaders, over 1,000 of whom signed a letter to President Biden in December calling for a Christmas Truce, are showing their support for the Vatican’s peace initiative.
• The U.S. Conference of Mayors, an organization that represents about 1,400 cities throughout the country, unanimously adopted a resolution calling on the President and Congress to “maximize diplomatic efforts to end the war as soon as possible by working with Ukraine and Russia to reach an immediate ceasefire and negotiate with mutual concessions in conformity with the United Nations Charter, knowing that the risks of wider war grow the longer the war continues.”
• Key U.S. environmental leaders have recognized how disastrous this war is for the environment, including the possibility of a catastrophic nuclear war or an explosion in a nuclear power plant, and have sent a letter to President Biden and Congress urging a negotiated settlement. ​​
• On June 10-11, U.S. activists will join peacemakers from all over the world in Vienna, Austria, for an International Summit for Peace in Ukraine.
• Some of the contenders running for president, on both the Democratic and Republican tickets, support a negotiated peace in Ukraine, including Robert F. Kennedy and Donald Trump.

The initial decision of the United States and NATO member countries to try to help Ukraine resist the Russian invasion had broad public support. However, blocking promising peace negotiations and deliberately choosing to prolong the war as a chance to “press” and “weaken” Russia changed the nature of the war and the U.S. role in it, making Western leaders active parties to a war in which they will not even put their own forces on the line.

Must our leaders wait until a murderous war of attrition has killed an entire generation of Ukrainians, and left Ukraine in a weaker negotiating position than it was in April 2022, before they respond to the international call for a return to the negotiating table?

Or must our leaders take us to the brink of World War III, with all our lives on the line in an all-out nuclear war, before they will permit a ceasefire and a negotiated peace?

Rather than sleepwalking into World War III or silently watching this senseless loss of lives, we are building a global grassroots movement to support initiatives by leaders from around the world that will help to quickly end this war and usher in a stable and lasting peace. Join us.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Medea Benjamin is the cofounder of CODEPINK for Peace, and the author of several books, including Inside Iran: The Real History and Politics of the Islamic Republic of Iran. 

Nicolas J. S. Davies is an independent journalist, a researcher with CODEPINK and the author of Blood on Our Hands: The American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq.

They are regular contributors to Global Research.

Featured image: Stop the War Coalition and CND march through London for peace in Ukraine. Photo credit: Stop the War Coalition

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

*** 

The European Union is waging war on refugees.

Italy’s far right government recently declared a state of emergency and hermetically sealed its ports. The other EU member states look the other way.

In February the leaders of the 27 EU countries agreed on tougher measures to tackle “illegal migration.” This includes, above all, the mutual recognition of deportation decisions and asylum rejections and the strengthening of border protection, such as new infrastructure, more surveillance capabilities and better equipment for the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, Frontex.

Meanwhile, the dead bodies of people seeking help are washing up on European shores. Since 2014, according to UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk, more than 26,000 people have died or gone missing crossing the Mediterranean.

This is certainly a significant underestimation of the true toll. The research project “Migrant Files,” estimated that from 2000 to 2014 up to 80,000 fleeing their countries died in the sea alone — in addition, there would be at least the same number of victims dying of thirst in deserts, starvation or murder. And then there are those who experience violence or rape — among them children.

The EU’s war against refugees didn’t begin today. It started, at the latest, with the military tragedies in the Balkans in the 1990s. Back then, a lot of people tried to flee to Western European countries.

In 1993, the German asylum law was dismantled, including an amendment to the Basic Law, in order to “protect” itself against those fleeing from the former Yugoslavia. Until then, every politically persecuted person who reached German soil was protected. After the historic turnaround, anyone entering the country via a so-called safe third country was no longer able to invoke the right of asylum. Now, Germany, often referred to as the European “powerhouse,” has the most restrictive asylum law of any EU member state.

Additionally, the EU under the leadership of the German chancellor’s office created the so-called Dublin Convention, which entered into force in 1997. With this agreement countries at the EU’s external borders were obliged to take in people coming to Europe in search of asylum.

This system keeps migrants more or less away from the prosperous northern countries as the situation for refugees in the poorer southern countries deteriorates. Refugees are now stuck in the border states which treat them poorly or are pushed back and forth between the member states. The design of the Dublin system is clearly intended to demoralize refugees and fend them off.

At the same time, the EU made so called “doorman deals” with Turkey, Libya, and other African countries. In course of such agreements, the EU cooperates with autocratic regimes to stop refugees in their countries, push them back to the sea, place them in prisons and deport them back, while the regimes receive aid and money in return. In this way escape routes to the continent have been blocked and criminalized by various real and virtual walls. Since then, there have been essentially no safe and legal ways for migrants to enter the EU.

Angela Merkel, then the German chancellor, summed up the repulsion strategy in a speech to the Bertelsmann Foundation in 2009 when she noted that the German government was also participating in the “fight against refugees” — she should have said: It was Berlin that enforced the blockade in the EU according to its interests.

While Germany subsequently “profited” from the tightened Dublin procedure (through ever lower refugee inflows and high compensation payments, which are distributed to all member states according to their absolute refugee numbers from an EU fund), the German government stood idly by as refugee protection in the EU’s main receiving countries at the external borders, such as Greece and Italy, increasingly eroded.

With its various restrictive, repellent and sealing-off measures, the world’s richest continent with half a billion people has been able to isolate itself relatively successfully from the majority of those coming from south of the Mediterranean seeking protection. In over 30 years, “Fortress Europe” has had only a few periods of crisis, such as in 2015/2016.

Back then, the situation of millions of Syrians, Afghans, Iraqis or Yemeni fleeing from wars and destruction reached an extreme low. The refugee camps in the region were overcrowded and ran short of food and medicine due to underfunding by the UNHCR donor countries. And neighboring countries like Lebanon or Turkey were not able or ready anymore to do the heavy lifting. Those seeking protection started to head north.

But shouldn’t at least the principle of causal responsibility apply? The wars of the U.S. and its European allies in the Middle East, the Syrian war, and support of dictators and authoritarian regimes by the West created the conditions from which many migrants are fleeing — such as the U.S. or German arms deliveries to the Saudi-led war in Yemen. These devastations produced refugee crisis after refugee crisis, while the walls of Europe grew ever higher.

Real walls were built, too, even before Donald Trump got to work on his “big, beautiful wall” — for which he received outrage from liberals in Europe. On Turkey’s border with Syria and Iran, a concrete wall hundreds of kilometers long and three meters high was finished in 2018, on which a barbed wire was stretched. The EU has equipped the Turkish border guards with security and surveillance technology worth €80 million.

People are mistreated at the border, killed and deported back to war zones in disregard for international refugee law.

The result: systematic violations of human rights. Today, refugees are held in concentration camps in Greece by the EU, despite strong objections from human rights organizations. Many drown in the Mediterranean, as boats are illegally pushed back to sea.

Over 100 Million Are Seeking Protection

All of this could be mitigated or ended. Experts and NGOs have been pointing out the solutions for decades: ferries for refugees, fairly regulated cooperation and distribution according to capacities among countries, dismantling of barriers, no dirty deals with autocrats, internationalization of asylum administration and care for those seeking protection, harmonizing of standards for refugee care and asylum requests.

Above all, the causes of flight should be tackled. There is enough lip service from government leaders, but no action.

But what about the media and politician’s invocation of a “maximum load” that restrains states from doing more? Aren’t there limits to mercy? The truth is: We could do far more. We have enormous capabilities and resources at our disposal. It is a question of political will, as refugee organizations correctly point out.

While global refugee numbers have doubled in the last decade alone, and have now broken the sad 100 million record, EU countries have provided protection to 3 million refugees in this period until end of 2021.

But let’s not forget what Kenneth Roth, former executive director of Human Rights Watch, said in 2015 when alarm swept through Europe regarding a “tsunami” of desperate refugees rolling in. “This ‘wave of people’ is more like a trickle when considered against the pool that must absorb it,” he said.

Roth is right: The EU is an extremely wealthy region with 500 million people that has spent literally trillions in the last 15 years to save banks and corporations. For instance, following the financial crisis the EU Commission approved $1,564 billion in capital-like aid plus $3,924 billion as liquidity support to the financial sector between 2008 and 2017.

During the COVID-19 crisis, the EU set up a massive aid program amounting to $763 billion to reinvigorate the economies of the member states and help businesses affected by the coronavirus pandemic to remain viable.

And those who are coming to us need help. As was happening in 2015/2016, most of them are receiving protection status today. The protection rate in Germany is 72 percent. In case of Syrians and Afghans it goes up to 100 percent. So, they are genuine refugees. To turn them away is in the end a violation of an elementary, legally guaranteed human right, the Geneva Refugee Convention.

Ninety-seven million refugees and internally displaced persons are not in the EU, but remain in so called frontline states, most of which are developing countries that are hardly able to shoulder the many millions in need of additional aid because of rampant poverty, exploitative trade deals and debt arrangements, and many other concerns.

Thanks to “Fortress Europe” — and of course also thanks to “Fort America” — most of the refugees therefore remain trapped in so-called “hell experiments,” as an ARTE TV documentary once put it. They are crammed in inhumane camp systems that grow out of the desert sand and mud like huge tent ghettos.

Misery and refugee apartheid are by no means without alternative. Europe is showing once again, as we did with the GDR and Eastern European refugees during the Soviet era, that we can do otherwise. Between 1988 and 1992 more than 2.2 million citizens from the former communist-ruled countries of Eastern Europe immigrated to the Federal Republic of Germany within five years. Why were these refugees accepted? Because they were politically useful for anti-communism during the Cold War.

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine a year ago, some 4 million Ukrainians have arrived in the EU and been welcomed. Poland, which is historically anti-migrant, accepted 1.4 million of them while Polish people supported those fleeing with donations and assistance.

Although the government in Warsaw has begun to scale back the funding for Ukrainians, a recent survey shows that 78 percent of them in Poland were employed — because the Polish state and society ensuring that Ukrainian refugees were able to find work. In the meantime, Germany has set up an unbureaucratic admission procedure for Ukrainians, suspending the exhausting asylum applications and mostly also suspending the use of degrading mass accommodations.

That was absolutely the right thing to do. But it is hypocritical and racist when panic about refugees is now suddenly stirred up again — often for political gains — and directed specifically against Africans, Arabs and Muslims.

Certainly, there are real challenges. The accommodation of refugees has to be managed and they must be provided resources. But Europe’s problems are homemade and artificially manufactured. The reason is that the funds for the municipalities have been reduced and no new funds are in sight. This must change as quickly as possible.

Instrumentalizing the intentionally reduced capacities of these municipalities to fuel debates about border security, tighter barriers, further sabotage of refugee protection (i.e. moving asylum procedures to the external border) and limiting admission not only does not solve any of the problems, but it also promotes xenophobia, racism and hostility among the population.

Do Europeans really want to fuel the protofascist “us” versus “them” rhetoric again, as we did during the last “refugee crisis”? Back then, rhetoric of “floods of people,” overcrowding and criminal intruders, often as much used by liberals and social democrats as far right forces, ushered the neo-Nazi party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) into all state parliaments and the Bundestag in Germany. Everywhere in Europe the right has gained new strength as a result.

If Europe Is So Anti-Refugee, Why Hasn’t It Left the UN Refugee Convention?

There is really no reason for this talk of overburdening, even if after years of declining refugee admissions, the numbers are going up again. Nor is this rise surprising, given the numerous global crises and the COVID-19 pandemic.

For example, the number of new asylum seekers arriving in Germany in 2022 was around 193,000, still below the limit of 200,000 repeatedly demanded by conservative parties. For 2023, however, a much higher number is expected. Even so, this is still a trickle, given the 100 million people seeking protection worldwide.

In contrast, Germany alone has taken in over a million Ukrainians who, as previously mentioned, do not have to go through an asylum process.

Although the asylum seekers represent only a small part of those admitted, they are at the center of the media debate, which again focuses on higher barriers, deportations and repulsion, as was the case during the last “refugee crisis” — which was a de facto sealing-off crisis that was answered with even more non-entrée measures.

The leader of the conservative Christian Democrats in Germany, Friedrich Merz, again speaks of the nation having reached the “maximum load” — as if that is a quantity fixed by the laws of nature. He calls for more protection of the EU’s territory and asylum centers at the borders — a recycled AfD demand. Actually, the extreme right party as well as the German government’s new special representative for migration agreements, Joachim Stamp (Liberals), want to set these centers up in African countries.

This rhetoric is a populist red herring with no grounding, throwing sand in people’s eyes about the reality, including international law. African states have long dismissed these ideas as “neocolonial.”

The leader of the European People’s Party (EPP) in the European Parliament, the German politician Manfred Weber (from the German party Christian Social Union, CSU), speaks of the EU “sleepwalking into a new migration crisis,” of hundreds of thousands of “illegal migrants,” and stresses: “Walls should be built as a last resort, but if there is no other way to stop illegal immigration, we must be ready to build fences” — as if the relatively small number of “illegal migrants” without any rights, doomed to live underground, are a problem for the EU. Meanwhile, Weber’s colleague, Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann of the German state Bavaria, has questioned the social benefits of asylum seekers.

If the EU, political leaders and elite journalists want to position themselves against the right of unwanted refugees to seek protection — thus excluding the politically valuable Ukrainians — and use this to create anti-migrant sentiment and score points, why doesn’t the EU simply withdraw from the refugee convention altogether?

A number of states such as India have not signed the Geneva Convention, nor has Turkey in effect, since the country retains a geographic limitation to its ramification, which means that only those fleeing as a consequence of “events occurring in Europe” can be given refugee status. So, why has the EU for decades been going through all these efforts to insulate the continent from refugees protected by international law — efforts for which, by the way, a lot of money and resources have been senselessly squandered?

The dirty truth behind the humanitarian and liberal self-image of European and German elites, who carry their commitment to human and refugee rights proudly in front of them, is that they think and act less in line with humanitarian interests than geostrategic and nationalist ones.

James C. Hathaway, one of the leading refugee rights experts and author of the standard work, “The Rights of Refugees under International Law,” once put it this way:

If the global north were to withdraw entirely from refugee law, there would be no politically viable basis upon which to insist that poorer countries continue to shoulder their refugee law obligations under the current system of atomized responsibility and fluctuating charity from the wealthier world. And if less developed states were to follow suit and abandon refugee law in the context of continued instability in much of the global south — producing often massive refugee flows — the negative ramifications for both global security and economic well-being could be immense. Indeed, with fewer options to find protection close to home, the logic for refugees of seeking protection farther afield would surely increase — a scenario that wealthier countries do not wish even to contemplate.

There are rational and sustainable solutions as well as reform proposals that are beneficial for all parties involved — especially for the refugees and the frontline states, but also the rich industrialized countries and their populations — beyond ad-hoc crisis management. They have been on the table for decades, elaborated by parliamentary advisory bodies, human rights organizations and academia. There is also broad support for them in Europe, if they are implemented fairly.

But in the media debate, these proposals are virtually absent. As long as that is the case, the EU will continue to wage war on unwanted refugees as the U.S. does — with all the dire consequences that entails.

Sadly, there are no role models. The Biden administration promised to dismantle Trump’s hardline immigration agenda. But instead he replaced the Title 42 restrictions with an even tougher policy. Now fleeing people are essentially barred from asylum as they have to pre-schedule an appointment at a port of entry via an unreliable mobile app or comply with a flawed third country rule — accompanied with various forms of harassment at the borders. The international guaranteed rights of refugees are eroding on both sides of the Atlantic, in the U.S. and in Europe.

Crocodile tears about tortured refugees — in countries with which we have brokered doorman deals — and drowning or starving asylum seekers — which we push back on the sea or deport — do not change this.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Copyright © Truthout. Reprinted with permission.

David Goeßmann is journalist, author and editor of the German news magazine Telepolis.

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

*** 

“Look at the stage our country has arrived in the last 20 years. (The opposition) would take us back 50-60 years,” said Bekir Ozcelik, a security guard in Ankara, who voted for Erdogan. “There is no other leader in the world that measures up to Erdogan,” The Associated Press (AP) reported on 23 May 2023.

This point of view is shared by a vast majority of Turks. Indeed, the incumbent Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is back in power, re-elected for another five years by an official margin of 52%: 48% (precise results are 52.16% to 47.84%) of the votes cast in the second round of voting on 28 May 2023, defeating his entirely compromised pro-western opponent Kemal Kilicdaroglu.

With the AK Party (“Justice and Development Party”) and its allies winning 323 of 600 seats, President Erdogan’s was also able to promise the stability offered by controlling both the legislature and the government.

Of the 85 million Turks, some 64 million were eligible to vote, of whom about 75% to 80% voted in this second round – which was necessary because in the first vote on 14 May, none of the candidates got an absolute majority.

By the narrowest of narrow margins Erdogan did not win the absolute majority in the first go (49.5% vs. 44.8% of his challenger). He was leading the polls before by up to 15% and more; the first round vote was indicative of vote manipulation. That’s typical for the US / Tavistock methods leading to voter fraud: provoking a second round, in which they will usually “arrange” their candidate to move ahead, against all odds. See this.

It looks like this time western plans didn’t work. The second round results are very much against the west’s agenda. The US / EU wanted a candidate pro-western, anti-Russian, for sanctions against Russia, and pro-NATO – all which Kemal Kilicdaroglu offered.

So, for now, so-called democracy prevails. All important, western “leaders” such as President Biden and Madame von der Leyen, non-elected President of the European Commission, congratulated Erdogan for his “win”.

What a band of hypocrites!

*

After his election win was made official, President Erdogan declared, “We have completed the second round of the presidential elections with the favor of our people. We will be ruling the country for the coming five years. God willing, we will be worthy of your trust as we have been for the last 21 years.” 

Erdogan has been a singularly dominant figure in Turkish politics ever since he was elected prime minister in 2003. Three consecutive terms as premier were followed by two terms as president from 2014 onwards.

Entering his fifth consecutive term, Erdogan declared all 85 million Turks the “winners” of this election. He promised as his key priorities unifying the country, reducing inflation and – foremost caring for the victims of the devastating 7.8-magnitude earthquake near the Türkiye-Syria border in the early hours of Monday 6 February 2023.

With more than 50,000 people killed and more than half a million injured, not even mentioning those impacted by the destruction of property and infrastructure, causing about 1.5 million homeless, the earthquake was one of the biggest disasters to impact the region in recent times.

According to street inquiries, most people think Erdogan had been dealing well with actions countering the disaster.

There are strong suspicions, though no proof yet, that the tremendous tremor in an area where for the last at least 700-plus years no earthquakes were registered was man-made, as part of an ENMOD / HAARP technology – see this.

The other priorities the President mentioned included addressing inflation currently at about 50%, a considerable reduction from the 80.5% in 2022. Erdogan promised to bring it under control. By the way, this inflation has been largely manufactured by the US / west, as an indirect means of “sanctioning” Turkey for her less than “compromised” position vis-à-vis NATO, i.e. buying the Russian S-400 Triumf air defense system, instead of the inferior American Patriot system.

Inflation can be “manufactured” by manipulating supply chains from the US and Europe, on goods and services Turkey needs and has possibly long-term contracts with the west.

*

What’s next?

Given the absurd ambition by the west to keep dominating the world towards a One World Order (OWO), despite all the signs pointing to a multipolar world, it may not be too far-fetched assuming that Washington and vassal-Brussels will NOT just look on and let Erdogan play out his politics, moving increasingly to the east – to repeat what has been said before – WHERE THE FUTURE LIES.

Massive mind manipulation of the population à la Tavistock and DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) is one option, leading to internal instabilities, or outright “Color Revolution” type of upheavals. Surely Erdogan and his allies must be prepared for this.

No surprise, then, if he tightens the grip on the military. It has more to do with preventing foreign interference in Turkey’s hyper-strategically placed geographic location than with abolishing “democracy”.

Of course, western propaganda, also paid for by the “financial-military-deception” industrial complex, will never mention this side of the story. Yet, if similar interference would happen in the US or Europe by Russia or China – we would be dangerously confronted by nuclear WWIII – which is, as these lines are written, and as the west’s level of power and influence weakens, a concrete risk.

The more people are alert and awaken to these western “games of deception”, the greater humanity’s chances to avoid such an all-destructive confrontation.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Peter Koenig is a geopolitical analyst and a former Senior Economist at the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), where he worked for over 30 years around the world. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for online journals and is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed; and co-author of Cynthia McKinney’s book “When China Sneezes: From the Coronavirus Lockdown to the Global Politico-Economic Crisis” (Clarity Press – November 1, 2020).

Peter is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). He is also a non-resident Senior Fellow of the Chongyang Institute of Renmin University, Beijing.

Featured image is by Ramil Sitdikov / Sputnik

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

*** 

73% of the US population, according to official estimates, has its drinking water fluoridated.

“Water fluoridation” means that the government adds a synthetic form of the potentially toxic chemical fluoride into the water under the guise of Public Health™.

The most common synthetic form of fluoride the Public Health™ authorities use is a particularly dangerous formula called fluorosilicic acid.

Fluorosilicic acid has been shown to damage DNA and induce oxidative stress, per Mutation Research, “at concentrations used in drinking water induced genotoxicity, oxidative stress, and acceleration of bone mineralization.”

Fluoride in all forms is a documented neurotoxin, meaning it’s toxic to the brain.

MCLG is an acronym that stands for “maximum contaminant level goal.” As explained via the EPA, “MCLG is the maximum level of a contaminant in drinking water at which no known or anticipated adverse effect on the health of persons would occur.”

Via an integrated literature review on the potential adverse health effects of water fluoridation published in Environmental Health:

“Within the brain, fluoride appears to accumulate in regions responsible for memory and learning… The MCLG for fluoride (4 mg/L)… is clearly not protective of adverse effects on the brain, especially in regard to early-life exposures…

Out of the 18 studies that provided the water-fluoride concentrations, 13 found deficits at levels below the MCLG, with an average elevated level at 2.3 mg/L, the lowest being 0.8 mg/L [4]…. and extend the documentation of cognitive deficits associated with only slightly elevated exposures.”

So what that means is that the study founds negative health effects from fluoride in water at levels below what the EPA deems acceptable.

The study’s authors, accordingly, plead for increases in the MCGL thresholds the government uses to assess water safety:

“The appearance of prospective studies that offer strong evidence of prenatal neurotoxicity should inspire a revision of water-fluoride regulations. The benchmark results calculated from these new studies, though tentative only at this point, support the notion that the MCLG is much too high.

Depending on the use of uncertainty factors, a protective limit for fluoride in drinking water would likely require that the MCGL be reduced by more than a 10-fold factor, i.e., below the levels currently achieved by fluoridation.”

The Public Health™ authorities are well-apprised of the dangers fluoride poses.

Per the CDC Community Water Fluoridation guidelines, for instance, parents are instructed to make sure their children spit out fluoridated toothpaste.

Yet it offers no similar caution regarding the drinking water statistically likely to contain toxic levels of fluoride, which the children are presumably encouraged to guzzle at will:

“For children aged 2 to 6 years, apply no more than a pea-sized amount of fluoride toothpaste to the brush and supervise their tooth brushing, encouraging the child to spit out the toothpaste rather than swallow it. Until about age 6, children have poor control of their swallowing reflex and frequently swallow most of the toothpaste placed on their brush.”

The dangers of water fluoridation are right out in the open. We have shown so far that the CDC acknowledges the threat fluoridated water poses at levels commonly found in the water supply, and there is good evidence that even the arbitrarily established “safe” threshold is unsafe.

No fluoride, even naturally occurring forms, is passed to a baby through the mother’s breast milk. It is not a natural chemical that developing humans are meant to ingest, and it’s certainly not meant to be dumped by the government into the water supply.

Regardless of the safety or lack thereof of fluoride, it seems to me that, if the government insists on being in the business of water at all, it should be tasked with delivering purified water — as in the molecule H2O minus any added toxic chemicals.

People would then be at liberty to add whatever chemicals they like to suit their taste. Were they so inclined to season their water with fluoride, they could go nuts.

That would not seem to be an unreasonable ask or an extreme policy prescription.

The ultimate questions we’re forced to reckon with are:

• Given that the government knows that water fluoridation is dangerous, even in amounts below what it officially recognizes as “safe,” why does it continue to fluoridate 73% of the water supply?
• Why is anyone who even entertains questions about fluoride’s safety smeared as a “conspiracy theorist” in corporate media?
• Why does the corporate media run grossly misleading fake news headlines like “Science says fluoride in water is good for kids“?

The answers, which you can come to on your own terms, are not pretty.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

This article was originally published on The Daily Bell.

Ben Bartee is an independent Bangkok-based American journalist with opposable thumbs. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from TDB

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

*** 

Long before House or Senate Republicans ever dared to push back on the FBI or any other federal institution, it had been no secret that the majority of a bi-partisan Congress had a habit of disappearing, of being unwilling or intimidated to directly challenge willful institutional insubordination; whether on the part of Federal agencies or its personnel in what some might identify today as a form of sedition. 

Fast forward to the recently released 316 page Durham Report which has articulated details of the FBI’s open and continued defiance of Congress and the Constitution as the recent House interim report on the Select Subcommittee on Weaponization of Federal Government has confirmed a similar lack of respect for the Rule of Law. The timing of both Durham and the House hearing could only have been a divinely-inspired coincidence as both share a duplicative message meant to resonate with the American people: that the Federal government’s justice system is near-total collapse.

Despite no realistic expectation that Durham would produce a stunning final verdict and uncertainty as to the depth of FBI ‘rot,’ the fact that the FBI interfered in the 2016 election necessitates the removal of Director Wray as well as at least four levels down from their positions of authority ASAP. The Agency may, in fact, be beyond repair with little worth saving except some of the furniture; even as the Democrats propose a new $500 million FBI building larger than the Pentagon.

With a deliberate dearth of media coverage, the American public and its Congress may still be in the throes of grasping the full extent of the depth of US corruption that has publicly surfaced since 2020 with an unexpected ferocity. That corruption has revealed itself to be far more intense, more deeply woven into our national character than previously expected.

Yet at the same time, there is a paradigm shift, admittedly painful and distressing in its revelations, disclosing numerous nefarious events and equally perverse actors that must be cleansed from the American scene, to be acknowledged for their malfeasance and removed from public life.

*

Here’s where the Report contradicts reality with Durham having determined that the top echelon at the “Department and the  FBI failed to uphold their mission of strict fidelity to the law,” that the “FBI discounted or willfully ignored material information that did not support the narrative of a collusive relationship between Trump and Russia,” in a “pattern of nefarious intent’ and with ‘seriously flawed’ accusations.  

You might gather, therefore, that adequate cause for indictments existed especially as AG Barr, in May 2019 “directed United States Attorney John Durham to conduct a preliminary review into certain matters related to the 2016 presidential election campaigns,” and, according to Barr, that review “subsequently developed into a criminal investigation.” So where are the results of that criminal investigation? And yet, according to Durham, the investigation failed, by some miraculous province, to “find any evidence that any FBI official or employee knowingly and intentionally participated in some type of conspiracy with others.”  

In addition, Durham’s caveat “to assist the Attorney General in determining how the Department and the FBI can do a better, more credible job in fulfilling its responsibilities, and in analyzing and responding to politically charged allegations in the future” failed to satisfy the FBI’s motto of “Fidelity, Bravery, Integrity” in upholding its mission “Protect[ing] the American People and Uphold[ing] the Constitution of the United States.”

Here is The Question: How will the Congress, presumably through the House and Senate Judiciary Committees, proceed to address the seditious behavior of felonious law-breakers who masquerade as Federal law enforcement officials?   

Until the 18^th legislative Session of Congress, it has been no secret that Congress has allowed its own ennui and lack of political will to prevent meaningful oversight and demand accountability on what was once revered law enforcement agencies; having shown no political courage to do the job they were elected to, instead Congress has allowed in-house criminals to operate without restraint, knowing they are home-free without ever being held responsible.   

It is equally apparent that the government’s administrative staff of embedded bureaucrats such as those at the FBI and the SES who are considered a ‘shadow’ government, are considerably more powerful than its elected officials.  In other words, the Federal government and its massive civil servant system functions as a self-perpetuating administrative entity with little regard for the Constitution, the US Congress or the American people. 

*

Once a more nuanced Russiagate was disguised as a national security investigation, the FBI’s Operation Crossfire Hurricane  opened its inquiry prior to the  2016 election which has proven to involve more than just a band of loosely connected reprobates but a sinister tight-knit network of enforcers; weaponizing Federal law enforcement reminiscent of an organized crime cabal.   

Reconciling the existence of a banana-republic where the highest levels of law enforcement have been publicly acknowledged as deliberately scheming and consciously corrupt without one single recommendation for prosecution provides its own explanation as to the status of the rule of law in America’s legal justice system; indicting neither former FBI Director Andrew McCabe nor his right hand special agent conspirator Peter Strzok as each identified as main culprits, President Donald Trump remained accused through the 2020 election of collusion with the dreaded Vladimir Putin and the Russian government.

As Durham reported, once the “Clinton campaign plan” became au courant; “the significance of the Clinton plan intelligence was such as to have prompted the Director of the CIA (John Brennan) to brief the President (Obama), Vice President (Biden), Attorney General (Loretta Lynch), Director of the FBI (James Comey) and other senior government officials about its content” which was “to vilify Trump by tying him to Vladimir Putin so as to divert attention from her own concerns relating to her use of a private email server.”

That about says it all:  the OCH was organized so that the Clinton campaign could avoid scrutiny of its illegal behavior that could have led to criminal charges on the former Secretary of State. None of those recipients were sufficiently grounded in either the Rule of Law, the Constitution or common courtesy to pull the plug on OCH. They were each fully aware that there was, in effect, a coup d’etat underway with the political dismantling of a duly-elected Presidential administration. Not one of them exhibited any character traits of a true leader; putting the welfare of the country before their personal political career.           

*

Given Trump’s spotty history of political appointments, the President nominated Chris Wray to be Director of the FBI in June, 2017 as “an impeccably qualified individual…will serve his country as a fierce guardian of the law and model of integrity.” AG Jeff Sessions added that Wray had a “brilliant legal mind” with ”all the gifts necessary to make a Great FBI Director.”

During his confirmation before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Wray promised “If I am given the honor of leading this agency, I will never allow the FBI’s work to be driven by anything other than the facts, the law, and the impartial pursuit of justice. Period.  My loyalty is to the Constitution and to the rule of law.”  Well, actually, not so much.

As if any more superlatives were needed, one month later, a bi partisan letter endorsing Wray’s nomination was sent to Sen. Charles Grassley, then Chair of the Judiciary Committee. The letter contained over one hundred endorsements by former US Attorney’s including former Obama AG Eric Holder. Upon confirmation, Wray was expected to oversee the investigation into the Trump campaign’s alleged ties to Russia.   

The overwhelming enthusiasm in support of Wray’s ‘outstanding reputation’ and an “unassailable judgement, integrity and courage” never did measure up to any reasonable expectation that Wray would perform even half as well as those one hundred bureaucrats predicted – or that Wray would provide a Constitutionally protected legal system as an international model of truth, integrity and justice.  

Upon being sworn in on August 2, 2017, the OCH had been in progress for about one year which raises a set of curious questions:

When was Wray informed of the OCH and when did he satisfy himself that it was a proper, legitimate and valid investigation with all the t’s crossed? Did he have any concerns that OCH was unconstitutional or did he, at any time, attempt to shut down the OCH case? Was Wray aware that the FBI relied on “raw, unanalyzed, uncorroborated” material in its pursuit to entrap a sitting President? Did Wray walk into FBI with the assumption that all was copacetic or, as might be more probable upon taking office, was Wray fully aware of OCH and supportive of the effort to destabilize the President of the United States – otherwise why did he not step in and immediately bring the façade to an abrupt close?  

In any case, Wray was either woefully out of touch with his own department (not a chance) or totally in sync with OCH. 

There are a multitude of specific questions about Wray’s precise role in Crossfire Hurricane and formulating FBI’s undercover presence at the January 6^th protest. His lack of communication skills or ethical leadership and an unwillingness to provide Congress with subpoenaed information have been allowed to continue as if he has the Constitutional right to deny Congress or decide what material he needs to provide: He does not have that right.

*

Within twenty four hours of the Durham Report, the House Select Subcommittee on Weaponization of the Federal Government held the third in a series of hearings which included three rank and file FBI whistleblowers (WB) who were dedicated professional law enforcement officers. The subcommittee has authority to conduct oversight on the FBI especially as the agency has used its politicization to be become increasingly weaponized.

A review of the subcommittee’s 78 page testimony highlights and Executive Summary reveals egregious FBI behavior that included an investigation of almost 150 Bostonians traveling to attend the January 6 rally as the Washington Field Office refused to provide a video from the Capitol for “fear it would disclose undercover officers or confidential human sources inside the Capitol”.  After which the Bank of America provided confidential customer data to the FBI of its customers conducting personal bank transactions in DC within three days of January 6. Further subcommittee Testimony included FBI collection of license plate numbers at school board meetings and planting of intel officers within Catholic Churches – all of which are indicative of a totalitarian regime.

Each WB experienced significant personal and professional peril with harsh retaliation as each lost their security clearance and were suspended without pay; in one case leaving a family with small children stranded without resources. The FBI consistently violated its own WB protection guidelines and abused its security clearance review process.

In addition to the total collapse of the FBI as a functioning Constitutional institution, the steady stream of hostility from Democratic Members of the subcommittee responded to the WBs as modern day Bolsheviks in attack mode on its own population with immense anger and resentment, prerequisite insults, a contemptuous attitude and an absence of human empathy especially for the suffering of the O’Boyle and Allen families. As the FBI has become the law enforcement arm of the Democratic party, the WBs were accused of not being WB but merely disgruntled employees.      

Has Wray yet explained whether he was lying or not lying to the Senate about FBI’s undercover participation on Jan 6^th? How will FBI differentiate between violating the public trust, violating FBI protocol or committing criminal acts? What changes has Wray made or considered vis a vis WB verbalized complaints since the subcommittee’s televised hearing? What was been Wray’s overall response to the WB’s testimony, to the subcommittee or any of the complaints about the FBI’s handling of its WBers? Has he apologized, attempted to make amends to their families or otherwise exhibited any remorse? 

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has pledged that, if elected, he would fire Director Wray.

*

Lastly, on May 25th, Rep. James Comer (Ky.) Chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability and former Judiciary Committee Chair Sen. Chuck Grassley (Iowa) lettered Wray regarding his lack of response to a May 3^rd  Congressional subpoena to provide a copy of an unclassified FBI-generated FD 1023. That document is alleged to provide evidence of a scheme involving then vice president Biden trading policy information with a foreign national in exchange for a $5 million ‘consulting’ fee. As FBI whistleblowers continue to come forward, Sen. Grassley was informed of the 1023 document and its alleged contents. Comer has threatened that if the document is not turned over to Congress by May 30^th, he will initiate a Contempt of Congress citation which may create its own Constitutional challenge since it is the Garland-DOJ which will be required to send US Marshals to Wray’s door, to serve Wray and make an arrest, if necessary. 

Mike Davis with Article III Project spells out the background: in 2016, HRC was caught with an illegal home server which contained classified documents that enabled her to conduct ‘pay to play’ on behalf of the Clinton Foundation; HRC destroyed the evidence thereby obstructing justice with the FBI assisting by destroying its remaining evidence and colluding with HRC’s campaign as Durham has spelled out. The bottom line is that Wray approved the 2022 raid on Trump’s Mar a Lago home to retrieve his Constitutionally approved possession of declassified OCH files which spells out, in detail, FBI corruption in cahoots with HRC and the Democrats – all of which is now motivation for full scale lawfare, the hyper-ventilation to legally tie Trump up, literally or figuratively, in court or jail. 

It is now up to Reps. Comer and Jordan and their committees to actively pursue all the documents from the FBI and/or the DOJ and expose the who’s-who details and timeline of the massive cover-up underway since 2016 as well as efforts to suppress the 2024 election. The time has passed for courteous letters to the FBI or DOJ requesting a polite response. Subpoenas must be issued, depositions must be initiated, perpetrators need to be in front of a Congressional committee.  

It is now up to Congressional Republicans to save the Republic. The Democrats have acquiesced their authority away to an illusory existence. If Republicans choose to wimp out and cower in a corner, the Country will be done.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Renee Parsons served on the ACLU’s Florida State Board of Directors and as president of the ACLU Treasure Coast Chapter. She has been an elected public official in Colorado, staff in the Office of the Colorado State Public Defender, an environmental lobbyist for Friends of the Earth and a staff member of the US House of Representatives in Washington DC. She is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from Mercola

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

*** 

Whistleblowers are placed in difficult situations every day and those serving in the military are no exception. Loyalty is a very important concept in the military, as it is the foundation of trust and confidence among fellow soldiers and those in command. When those in the military observe or learn about misconduct, it can be very difficult to abandon or reprioritize these notions.

National Whistleblower Center (NWC) recognizes the additional and heightened challenges military members make when choosing to file their claims and their dedication to our laws and service to American citizens.

In this Sunday Read and in observance of Memorial Day, we shine a light on the laws protecting military whistleblowers and some of the brave men and women who, by speaking up and coming forward, have made a difference in the armed services and society at large. 

Military Whistleblowers Are Protected

In an effort to encourage and support the growing culture of transparency and accountability, Congress passed the Military Whistleblowers Protection Act of 1988 (MWPA). This legislation made it illegal for the armed forces to retaliate against military personnel for communicating with members of Congress or an Inspector General.

Developments in whistleblower protections led to the Military Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act of 2013, allowing whistleblowers claims to be made within one year instead of an abnormally small 60-day period. Most notably, protected communications were expanded to include issues concerning any violation of law, specifically including those prohibiting rape, sexual assault, and other sexual misconduct under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ).

Military Whistleblowers in America

Several trailblazing whistleblowers have served in the armed forces in various capacities. You can learn more about their impact here and some are highlighted below:  

Commander Kimberly Young-McLear, Ph.D.

Commander Kimberly Young-McLear, Ph.D. reported systemic abuses of power at the highest levels of the Coast Guard in 2014. As a result of her courage, integrity, and advocacy, the Coast Guard has since implemented more than 30 policy improvements to reduce and remove discriminatory prohibitions, such as those on dreadlocks and natural hair styles for Black women on active duty. Her courage also resulted in new protections for LGBTQ+ members of the Coast Guard.

Commander Young-McLear remains on active duty in her 19^th year of service. Yet in spite of her years of service to the nation and selfless advocacy against misconduct and discrimination, Young-McLear has faced retaliation for her whistleblowing, and continues to suffer from egregious psychological harm.

NWC has publicly supported Commander Young-McLear’s courageousness and in conjunction with several advocacy groups and allies, sent a letter to President Biden in January calling for him to recognize the her courageous work.

Commander Young-McLear continues to serve with distinction now, as a senior advisor, at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). Commander Young-McLear’s service contributes to crafting CISA’s first Strategic Plan, agency-wide culture & innovation building, which will increase job opportunities for HBCU alumni and underserved communities. Furthermore, the national cyber workforce development will have a positive impact for national security and economic prosperity for decades.

Daniel P. Meyer

A three-time whistleblower and naval veteran of the Persian Gulf war, Daniel P. Meyer exposed misconduct in the investigation of an explosion onboard the battleship IOWA. Meyer has also exposed issues in environmental compliance and was previously the Executive Director for Intelligence Community Whistleblowing & Source Protection.

Meyer first exposed investigative misconduct during the investigation into the explosion onboard the battleship IOWA in 1989 as a Lieutenant in the United States Navy. In the years since, he has also revealed the suppression of whistleblower reports in the case of patient abuse at the Afghan Military Hospital as well as investigative misconduct in the review of spillage in the case of the 2012 film, “Zero Dark Thirty.”

Lieutenant Colonel Darrel Vandeveld

Awarded the Bronze Star Medal, the Iraqi Campaign Medal, the Joint Service Commendation Medal, and two Joint Meritorious Unit Awards, former Lt. Col. Darrel Vandeveld resigned from his post at Guantanamo Bay and exposed serious human rights violations. Instead of accepting the just criticism of the program, the Army retaliated against Lt. Col. Vandeveld.

The Core Traits of a Whistleblower

A whistleblower is someone who reports waste, fraud, abuse, corruption, or dangers to public health and safety to someone who is in the position to rectify the wrongdoing. What matters is that the individual voluntarily discloses information about wrongdoing that otherwise would not be known.  

To be eligible for the protections and rewards of whistleblower law, one cannot rely on this standard definition. Instead, these whistleblowers are best advised to seek an attorney to ensure they adhere to the definitions and procedures in the laws under which they are seeking formal whistleblower status.  

The decision to blow the whistle is not a light one, and NWC honors every person who has the courage to make this choice. We celebrate National Whistleblower Appreciation Day every year on July 30^th because it is important to recognize the impact whistleblowers have had on our history and will continue to have on our future.

National Whistleblower Day’s Military Roots

Memorial Day weekend is an ideal time to highlight NWC support for calls to make July 30^th National Whistleblower Day a Federal Day of Observance in the U.S., as the day is inextricably connected to the bravery of servicemen who had the courage to speak out against injustice.

The origins of whistleblower law in the United States date back to the 1770s, and harken to the insubordination of Esek Hopkins, a Rhode Island slave runner who became the commander in chief of the first United States Navy under then-General George Washington.

A divisive character to this day, Hopkins’ self-serving actions led to several clashes with General Washington. Investigations by future presidents John Adams and Thomas Jefferson found Hopkins to have had no intention of following orders during the Revolutionary War.

Perhaps most importantly, seamen under Hopkins’ command reported wrongdoing and abuses committed by him in the Continental Navy against captured British soldiers. Hopkins subsequently retaliated against these whistleblowers, including Richard Marven and Samuel Shaw, by arresting them. Ultimately, Hopkins commission was terminated by Congress on Jan. 2, 1778, and the passage of the world’s first whistleblower law followed six months later on July 30, 1778 – which is why the date is designated as National Whistleblower Day.

The broader account of the interconnection between Hopkins, Marven and Shaw was first highlighted in The New Whistleblower’s Handbook, written by NWC Founder & Chairman of the Board Stephen M. Kohn. And, Mr. Kohn tells the story of these incredible whistleblowers at each year’s National Whistleblower Day Celebration. The value of the story is described by Kohn as “remarkable,” he told Whistleblower Network News. “The sentiments and the issues are exactly what I hear today [in representing whistleblowers].”

Thanks largely to NWC’s awareness efforts, the U.S. Senate has unanimously voted to recognize July 30^th as National Whistleblower Appreciation Day since 2013. NWC and its partners urge the House of Representatives and President Biden to further acknowledge the critical importance of all whistleblowers in defending the integrity of our democracy by recognizing July 30^th of every year as a Federal Day of Observance, National Whistleblower Appreciation Day.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

*** 

This year’s 60th anniversary commemorations of the founding of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) on May 25, 1963 are occurring at an important inflection point in international relations.

Africa and its people were essential in the rise of western colonialism and imperialism due to the highly profitable character of the Atlantic Slave Trade over a period extending from the 15th to the 19th century.

In the beginning decades of the 21st century, the United States, the United Kingdom and the European Union (EU) are seriously threatened by the growing economic and political influence of the People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation. The constant propaganda and psychological warfare campaigns directed against the inhabitants of the industrial capitalist states of Europe and North America are aimed at demonizing these two states.

The hostility towards Russia and China in the 20th century had its origins in the imperialist attempts to stifle national liberation and socialist revolutions in Asia, Eastern Europe and the other geopolitical regions throughout the globe. Historically, Russia nor China were involved in the Atlantic Slave Trade and the establishment of colonies in the Western Hemisphere.

As socialist states governed by communist parties, both the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and China were obligated to support politically and materially the national liberation movements which gained momentum after the conclusion of World War II and the beginning of the initial Cold War.

Many activists and intellectuals in the U.S. were negatively impacted by the Cold War. Leading figures in the antiracist, civil rights and antiwar movements were targeted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Congress. People such as W.E.B. Du Bois, Shirley Graham Du Bois, Claudia Jones, William Alphaeus Hunton, and many others were called before the legislative committees investigating communist influence and subjected to economic isolation, the seizure of their passports, deportation and the imposition of prison sentences.

Although Russia is no longer socialist, the state has differences with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) governments which have brought the current Washington-led proxy war in Ukraine into existence. The war is being fought over the refusal of Moscow to submit to the further expansion of NATO in Eastern Europe. The Ukraine war actually began in February 2014, when the U.S. State Department under former President Barack Obama engineered the overthrow of the democratically-elected government of President Viktor Yanukovych.

In the aftermath of the coup, the people of the Russian-speaking regions of eastern Ukraine were subjected to draconian ethnically biased laws along with violent attacks and a military assault on the Donbass. Diplomatic efforts to end the war between 2014 and 2016 were sabotaged at the aegis of the State Department.

China, Africa and the Russian Special Military Operation in Ukraine

Since the beginning of the special military operation by Russia in Ukraine, the U.S. has pressured all governments around the world to side with its position in the war. United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) resolutions sponsored by the administration of President Joe Biden have passed with broad margins. However, nearly half of the abstentions in the UNGA votes to condemn Russian policy towards Ukraine were registered by African states.

Moreover, within the emerging geopolitical regions, as exemplified by the Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) summit, these governments representing billions around the world have refused to condemn the Putin administration in Moscow. The AU along with the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) have followed this same foreign policy trajectory. A delegation of six African heads-of-state are preparing to engage in a peace mission to Ukraine and Russia in an attempt to facilitate a diplomatic solution to the crisis which, if escalated, could result in a broader conventional and possible nuclear conflagration.

The rising levels of imperialist aggression emanating from the U.S. and NATO, has prompted the Chinese government to put forward its own proposals for not only ending the Ukraine war, this security framework, published by Beijing in 2022, has international dimensions encompassing the entire Eurasian geostrategic regions. Of course, it would be in the interest of China to end the Ukraine war diplomatically since Beijing has been subjected to constant provocations by successive U.S. administrations regarding the violation of the “One China” policy through the arming of Taiwan secessionists.

Under the former administration of President Donald Trump and his successor, President Joe Biden, they have identified China as the main strategic competitor of the U.S. China has the second largest economy in the world and is poised within the next decade to overtake the U.S. in regard to its gross domestic product. The rapidity with which the Chinese economy has grown cannot be properly assessed without considering military policy which has refrained from long term destabilization and occupation of other territories. Much of its surplus garnered from the industrial, extraction and service sectors is reinvested into the infrastructure of the country.

These factors of increasing Chinese economic and political influence cannot be adequately measured by only examining the annual GDP. The character of foreign investments and engagements in Africa and South America prioritize national and continental unity through partnerships which build transport systems, healthcare facilities, ports, conference centers, stadiums and international trade.

The presence of the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM), French paratroopers and other NATO military personnel in Africa and Latin America represents a profound threat to the peace and security in these geopolitical regions. China has deployed military personnel in a limited capacity as peacekeepers in the Darfur region of Sudan at the aegis of the United Nations Security Council as well as in Djibouti in the Horn of Africa due to agreement with the government. Camp Lemonneir houses thousands of Pentagon and French troops which have and will continue to utilize this African territory as a launching base for aggressive maneuvers and attacks on areas within continental and West Asian states.

All of these developments involving the NATO countries clearly violate the concept of positive non-alignment. Africa is being utilized in the imperialist quest to maintain global hegemony encompassing the geostrategic areas of the continent, the Asia-Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean. International relations should reflect the interests and needs of the majority of people within a society. Consequently, there is no plausible argument for the continued presence of Pentagon and other NATO troops in the AU member-states.

Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, the first leader of independent Ghana and the founder of modern Africa, a leading figure in the African liberation movement, the struggle for Pan-Africanism and world socialism which emerged during the post World War II period, at the onset of the OAU’s founding in May 1963, issued his historical and social scientific appeal for the integration and unification of Africa based upon an ideological foundation of anti-imperialism and socialism. The book entitled, “Africa Must Unite” devotes an entire chapter to “Africa in World Affairs.”

In this chapter Nkrumah emphasizes:

“When we in Africa denounce imperialism and the recent off-shoot, neo-colonialism, we do it not only because we believe that Africa belongs to the Africans and should be governed by them, but also in the interest of world peace which is so essential to our development and freedom. By abolishing imperialism in all its forms, the world will be rid of many of the present areas of conflict. It is in the same interest of world peace that we also advocate unity. A united Africa would be able to make a greater contribution towards the peace and progress of mankind (humanity). For one thing, it would resolve the problems of those arbitrary frontiers erected by the colonial powers, and so eliminate irredentist dissensions. There would be no foreign military bases on Africa soil. With a united foreign policy and a common defense plan, there would be no need for them. In the concourse of African union, no African country would be left in a position of solitary weakness in which it could be bullied into allowing them. Any kind of military pacts or alliances with outside powers would be unnecessary. Our united strength would be sufficient to deter any would-be aggressor, since an attack on any African country would be regarded as an attack on the Union.” (pp. 202-3)

As we look back over the last six decades, it is obvious that these objectives as outlined by Nkrumah in 1963 have not been achieved. However, the perceptions of the anti-imperialist leaders of the post WWII era remain valid in the present historical conjuncture.

African Disunity and Underdevelopment Strengthens Imperialism

Two of the most extreme examples within the African world where the machinations of imperialism have disrupted the development of the processes of independence and nation-building are unfolding in Sudan and Haiti. Both geostrategic centers for imperialist exploitation and militarization have manifested the crisis in different ways.

In Sudan, the involvement of the State Department in the transitional talks has not only furthered the institutionalized dominance of the military structures within Sudanese society Washington’s foreign policy aggravated the tensions between the army and the militia. As the previous Trump and present administrations of Biden have attempted to impose their views of what type of political system should govern Sudan, a nation of 47 million people, well-endowed with oil, diamonds and the strategic port on the Red Sea, this state has fallen deeper into crisis.

Estimates suggests that since the fighting erupted on April 15 up to 1,000 people have been killed, over 5,000 injured with one million displaced—one-quarter of which have fled across the borders and overseas– in the fighting while its consequences have closed schools, many hospitals, airports, roads and borders to the seven neighboring states.  

The AU has not been able to exert its rightful place as the custodians of the acquisition of peace and stability in the Republic of Sudan. In regard to Ethiopia and its conflict with the Tigray People’s Liberation Front during 2020-2022, the governments of South Africa and Kenya hosted negotiations which resulted in the accords between the central government and the northern province. U.S. support for the TPLF could not overcome the desire of the AU member-states to win the peace. “African solutions to African problems” became a slogan advanced by Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and others.

Republic of South Sudan President Salva Kiir spoke out against the possibility of foreign intervention in response to the security crisis in Sudan. He had offered to facilitate negotiations between the Armed Forces headed by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and Rapid Support Forces leader, General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (Hemitti), in Juba. Yet it was the U.S. and Saudi Arabia which have mediated the discussions between the two belligerents continuing the process of imperialist intervention.

In reference to the situation in Haiti, the African nation in the Caribbean has always been subjected to U.S. and French intervention for centuries. The Haitian Revolution of the 1790s to 1804 against France was never supported by the U.S. ruling class and government. Haiti has been the focal point of an economic blockade since its independence. There have been several direct military occupations of Haiti by the U.S. along with its allies in other imperialist states such as France and Canada.

The recent assassination of former President Jovenel Moise has been linked to elements operating in the U.S. After the killing of Moise, the Biden administration deployed a small contingent of Pentagon troops to Port-Au-Prince, supposedly to guard diplomats at the U.S. embassy. Washington-inspired efforts to send troops to Haiti were defeated at the United Nations Security Council due to the opposition by China and Russia.

In an article published by the Associated Press earlier in the year, it says of the assassination and the subsequent investigation conducted by U.S. officials:

“U.S. authorities have arrested four more people in the slaying of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse, including the owner of a Miami-area security company that hired ex-Colombian soldiers for the mission, prosecutors announced Tuesday (Feb. 15). The squad of former Colombian soldiers are among dozens of suspects who carried out the July 2021 attack that authorities say originally was envisioned to be a coup rather than an assassination. The plotters had hoped to reap lucrative contracts under a new administration once Moïse was out of the way, investigators allege…. Florida-based U.S. financier Walter Veintemilla, 54, of Weston, Fla., is accused of funding the operation. A fourth suspect, Frederick Joseph Bergmann Jr., 64, of Tampa, is accused of smuggling goods including 20 CTU-branded ballistic vests disguised as medical X-ray vests and school supplies…. A total of 11 suspects are now in U.S. custody, including key players like James Solages and Joseph Vincent, two Haitian Americans who were among the first arrested after Moïse was shot 12 times at his private home in July 2021. Other suspects include Christian Emmanuel Sanon, a pastor and failed businessman whose associates have suggested was duped by the plotters…. A day before the killing, Solages falsely told other suspects that it was a CIA operation and that the real mission was to kill the president. Shortly before Moïse was killed, Solages yelled that it was supposedly a DEA operation so that the president’s security detail would comply.”

Violence in the urban areas of Haiti has been unleashed against the people providing a rationale for imperialist intervention. In fact, President Ariel Henry, who was installed after the assassination of Moise, has repeatedly called for the deployment of even more U.S. troops to address the security situation in the capital and other areas.

These are some of the challenges facing the AU along with the myriad of the political parties, mass organizations, unions, women and youth organizations in existence across the continent and other geopolitical regions where African people reside. We should reflect on the history of the AU within the broader context of the centuries-long struggles to achieve social emancipation and unity.

Note: These remarks were made by the author at the Pan-Afrikan Society Community Forum (PASCF) Afrikan Liberation Day webinar held on Sat. May 27, 2023. The event was hosted by PASCF organizers in Britain under the theme of “Acknowledging Our Shared Struggles and Celebrating Our Achievements.”  The keynote address for this ALD program was delivered from the Calabash Literary Festival in Jamaica by Dr. Carolyn Cooper, a longtime professor at the University of the West Indies who examined  the cultural work of Caribbean musicians which link the struggles on the continent with developments in the Diaspora. In addition, Sister Akeba expounded on traditional storytelling emanating from the African and Caribbean cultures. You can reach the PASCF at the following link: Home – pascf.org 

*

Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

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

All images in this article are from the author

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

*** 

The European Union is “in urgent war mode,” said Josep Borrell, the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy at the Munich Security Conference in February 2023. The man spoke the truth, as the European Union has so far made no diplomatic attempt to intervene in Russia’s war against Ukraine. On the contrary, the EU is fully committed to supplying more and more and heavier weapons to Ukraine, whose military victory over Russia is seen as the only guarantee of a lasting peace.

This was also echoed in a European Parliament resolution approved by a large majority on 16 February. In it, one reads, e.g., that “the main objective for Ukraine is to win the war against Russia, understood as its ability to drive all the forces of Russia, its proxies and allies out of the internationally recognised territory of Ukraine; considers that this objective can be met only through the continued, sustained and steadily increasing supply of all types of weapons to Ukraine, without exception.”

Ukraine is fighting, still according to the resolution, not only for its sovereignty, but also for “freedom, democracy, the rule of law, and European values against a brutal regime that seeks to undermine our democracy and weaken and divide our Union.” Our European values defended without one EU citizen risking his or her life in the process, unless being maybe a journalist; that certainly seems to call for a generous contribution from the European purse, doesn’t it?

Three-Stage Rocket With More Ammunition

And that is what happened. Whoever wants to wage war must have ammunition, bullets, shells, and missiles. Ukraine would use some 7,000 every day, while for Russia it would be about 50,000.¹ So European ‘solidarity’ means ammunition for Ukraine. In early March, a three-step action plan was proposed to this end, the work of the European Commission, the European Defence Agency, and Borrell’s diplomatic service (EEAS).

• The first step was to increase the financial pot from which member states are reimbursed for donating ammunition from their own stocks to Ukraine. That pot, with the surreal name European Peace Facility, got an additional €1-billion, together with which the ‘facility’ will have supplied €4.6-billion worth of weapons to Ukraine.
• Not to be hampered by legal or democratic objections (the EU is forbidden by treaty law to use the EU budget for military purposes), the European Peace Facility was set up outside the official EU institutions. It is an international agreement between member states, in which the European Parliament does not intervene. National parliaments could, but given the large consensus among mainstream parties that Kiev defends European values, there is little danger of that.
• The second component is the joint procurement by member states, through the European Defence Agency, of munitions, including 155 mm shells and possibly missiles. The plan should be finalised by 30 September 2023, and €1-billion was provided for this purpose as well. However, while the principle of arming Ukraine hardly elicited a European debate, the question of which arms manufacturers get to walk away with the profits is the subject of disputes. Restricting the candidates to the European arms industry (including Norway, not a member state but part of the European Economic Area) would be a small counter to Biden’s industrial protectionism. But what if the munitions supply chain includes non-European companies? An agreement appears to have been reached on 5 May regarding this issue, with foreign links in the supply chain not being an objection to European procurement.
• The first and second steps deal with the short term, but the ‘war mode’ Borrell mentioned does not end, in the eyes of European leaders, with the end of the war in Ukraine; Europe’s militarisation is there to last. The third step is to make the European munitions industry ready to respond smoothly to future demand. On 3 May, Thierry Breton, the French commissioner responsible for the internal market, proposed the ASAP plan, which stands for Act in Support of Ammunition Production. With a European subsidy pot of €500-million, the EU aims to support European ammunition producers to increase annual production to 1 million units within a year (worth some €3 to €4-billion). Commissioner Breton even visited several munitions factories in Europe in recent weeks. On the composition of the €500-million, Breton added that, in addition to the direct EU budget, member states can also use monies from the cohesion fund (earmarked to support Europe’s poorer regions) and from the Recovery and Resilience Facility, earmarked to counter the economic impact of the corona crisis. Munitions “factories are built in isolated areas,” Breton said, so cohesion money is “entirely appropriate” there…

ASAP

What needs to be underlined about this ASAP plan is that it will be part of ordinary EU legislation, once it is approved by the Council of Ministers (member states) and the European Parliament. We already mentioned that step 1 and 2 are intergovernmental agreements which are, strictly speaking, legally outside the EU institutions. One reason why this is not the case for ASAP is that part of the money will come from the European Defence Fund, with a budget that has to be approved by the Parliament. But in the meantime, European leaders will have been sufficiently reassured that little opposition to European militarisation is to be expected from Parliament. Indeed, Parliament had previously given carte blanche to the European Defence Fund on how the approved budget would be spent over the seven-year budget period.

As a further sign of goodwill, the vast majority of the Parliament agreed with the Commission’s wish to complete the legislative procedure for admitting the ASAP plan at an accelerated pace – the so-called fast track. On 9 May, Parliament gave the green light to do so. Speech time, etc. will be reduced to the minimum, and things are likely to wrap up with a special session of Parliament at the end of this month.

Not All MEPs Like Gunpowder Fumes

At the time, then Commission President José Manuel Barroso said of the neoliberal economic straitjacket, the ‘economic governance’ of which the Commission had acquired the power: “What is going on is a silent revolution, a silent revolution in terms of stronger economic governance, by small steps. Member States have accepted – and I hope they have understood it correctly – they have accepted that a very important power is going to rest with the European institutions in terms of surveillance, and a much stricter control of public finances.” That was in June 2010. Should one not also ask whether MEPs have correctly understood what they are agreeing to? Is it not a ‘quiet revolution’ if the EU machinery can now be enabled, bit by bit, to fulfil the ambitions of a snooty political elite dreaming of a European Pentagon and a European military-industrial complex?

The few who have spoken out against this perfidious European course deserve our admiration and encouragement. There is, for instance, Clare Daly, Irish MEP for Independents4change, along with her colleague Mick Wallace, as well as German anti-militarist Özlem Demirel (Die Linke). Nor does Marc Botenga (Belgium, PVDA/PTB) support it: “Commissioner Breton wants to give huge amounts of taxpayers’ money to highly profitable multinationals, but refuses any democratic debate. The proposal goes beyond supporting Ukraine and contributes to the creation of a European network of arms manufacturers, a veritable EU military-industrial complex.” He also points out that ASAP undermines workers’ rights. “Article 18 of the law proposes to circumvent the Working Time Directive, which prescribes minimum daily and weekly rest periods, annual leave, breaks, maximum weekly working time and night work.”

Reasons enough exist for the people in Europe to oppose EU-militarisation, which will not only further reduce social and climate-related budgets but also seriously endanger peace and security in Europe.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

This article was translated from Dutch by  the Socialist Project’s The Bullet.

Herman Michiel is editor of the website Ander Europa.

Note

1. Another source speaks of 60,000-210,000 per month on the Ukrainian side, 600,000-1.8 million on the Russian side.

All images in this article are from The Bullet

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

*** 

There are some interesting comments in Russia to Iran’s development of nuclear military capabilities. See this.

Izvestia calmly notes that Iran’s successfully tested Khaibar missile can deliver a 1.5 ton nuclear warhead over 2,000 km and has capabilities against electronic countermeasures. Izvestia then adds, that Iran can have a nuclear warhead “in 2-3 years”.

Also, Izvestia notes that there will be no JCPOA. On the prospects of this, Izvestia argues that a nuclear Iran is no cause for worry and will “safeguard friends” of Iran (of which Russia is one).

This news comes as reports emerge that Iran has completed a new nuclear facility which is 90 m underground – out of the reach of even the US’ strongest bunker buster bombs. Neither JCPOA nor US-Israeli conventional bombs can stop the Iranian nuclear program. As Izvestia dryly observes, the Iranian military nuclear program has “left the technical phase” and is already a political reality.

Izvestia adds that after the Saudi-Iranian understanding, an Israeli attack on Iran will probably no longer be met with “silence”, but with protests. It seems like Saudi Arabia and Iran have come to an understanding, where Saudi Arabia is okay with an Iranian nuclear capability. We can only speculate why. But allow me to add, that Saudi Arabia seeks to have its own nuclear reactors, and even if the US will not support this, then Russia is certainly willing to build them.

The way Izvestia discusses that Iran is soon a military nuclear power shows that Russia unofficially supports it? 

Finland with 5 million people may have joined NATO, but Türkiye blocked Sweden with 10 million from entering NATO.

Even worse for the USA: Türkiye with 80 million people has de-facto left NATO – and now Erdogan has got reelected to continue Türkiye’s ever closer cooperation with Russia.

And due to the US support for the war in Ukraine, Russia has forged a de-facto alliance with Iran, has brought Iran out of sanctions with financial and economic cooperation, is building connective infrastructure rail and sea with Iran, and Russia-Iran military-industrial cooperation is up in very high gear. And now Russia is de-facto supportive, perhaps even helpful, in Iran’s final acquisition of not only a nuclear bomb, but also a missile to effectively deliver a nuclear strike on Israel or any US installation or warship within 2,000 km from Iran.

Even an amateur can see that Finland is a much smaller advantage for the US compared to the strategic adversity for the US of Russia cooperating with Türkiye and a nuclear Iran.

And in Ukraine, the US puppet régime in Kiev is in dissolution. Massive purges and “unexpected deaths” of top people sowed fear in Kiev at the beginning of 2023. Zelensky no longer dares to stay in Kiev and always travels abroad.

Ukraine’s top general Zaluzhny has suffered something and doesn’t seem to ever be capable of commanding soldiers again. Russia took Bakhmut. Ukraine is running out of soldiers. The US has weakened its military stockpiles around Taiwan as NATO has thrown its matériel away on Ukraine. Ukraine’s “counteroffensive” is fizzling. Instead of trying to win on the battlefield, Ukraine is instead resorting to terrorism inside Russia led by Kiev’s sinister and powerful security chief Budanov.

US power is crumbling fast.

* 

Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Karsten Riise is a Master of Science (Econ) from Copenhagen Business School and has a university degree in Spanish Culture and Languages from Copenhagen University. He is the former Senior Vice President Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Mercedes-Benz in Denmark and Sweden.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

*** 

At the G7 summit in Hiroshima, much was talking about “de-risking” from China – which seems to be the new preferred terminology. The summit joint statement said: “we are not decoupling or turning inwards. At the same time, we recognise that economic resilience requires de-risking and diversifying.” In the same spirit, US President Joe Biden, on May 21, stated: “we’re not looking to decouple from China, we’re looking to de-risk and diversify our relationship with [it].”  The US state department describes “de-risking” somewhat more clearly as “the phenomenon of financial institutions terminating or restricting business relationships with clients or categories of clients to avoid, rather than manage, risk.”

Journalists Keith Johnson and Robbie Gramer in turn, writing for Foreign Policy, define de-risking this way: “decoupling refers to the deliberate dismantling and eventual re-creation elsewhere of some of the sprawling cross-border supply chains that have defined globalization and especially the U.S.-China relationship in recent decades.”

“De-risking”, it seems, is about reducing Chinese “control” of global supply chains without isolating it “too much” – however much that is. Diplomatic rhetoric aside, one should understand it as part of the larger context of economic nationalism and economic warfare, while the US considers pivoting to the Pacific. A recent development such as the UK joining the Trans-Pacific Partnership is also part of a deeper anti-Chinese Western strategy, as it is accompanied by other initiatives such as the AUKUS deal – the military alliance that has been described as the “Asian NATO”. Here, geopolitical and geoeconomic agendas converge. There are fractures within the Western bloc, though, as “strategic autonomy” gains momentum within Europe itself.

I’ve written before on how deindustrialization is increasingly seen today as a national security matter. While China appears to have turned geoeconomics into the very center of its geostrategic approaches (deriving political power from economic power),  the US in turn has been weaponizing economic policies and the very world economy and financial system itself.

In today’s world, it is increasingly hard to insulate industries from geopolitical disputes. Beijing aspires to becoming a tech superpower, and the American Establishment simply won’t have it. This is the context of the current chip war, for instance, which is about geopolitics as much as it is about geoconomic competition. The blowback of this warfare is that it has been hurting key US allies, such as Taiwan itself. Washington’s economic policies in that regard can only aggravate the ongoing supply chain crisis and complicate the bottleneck, ultimately hurting the US itself. The United States may try to enforce a blockade of Chinese technology as much as it can, but supply chains remain hard to trace.

Despite all the talk about the wonders of the “post-industrial” world, manufacturing and industrialization still hold the key for the 21st century emerging powers and great powers alike. So-called “neoliberalism” is in fact quite dead, while “old-fashioned” protectionism, subsidies and procurement mandates are on the rise. Economic nationalism is once again relevant; amid the New Cold War, this means one should expect to see an increase in industry and trade wars, as one can already see with Biden’s own subsidy wars against Europe itself. Such a scenario can make economic warfare even more dangerous as it already is, for it potentially turns things into existential challenges for the interested parties. While so much is talked about “de-risking”, it might be particularly risky to corner a great power such as China like this.

As American investor Balaji Srinivasan has recently remarked regarding China, the US simply is not in a position of strength: the Asian giant remains the number 1 trade partner for a large part of the world. It has in fact a larger place in global trade than the US had even in the post-WW2 boom, and US geoeconomic strategy simply does not seem to grasp this hard truth, according to Matthew Pipes who is a managing consultant at the Krebs Stamos Group and also a Fellow at the Bitcoin Policy Institute.

As journalist Gavin Bade writes, in his Politico piece, Washington seems to believe the world can sort itself into “two trading groups”, one led by the US and the other led by China – something which did not come about even during the cold war years. As I have written, emerging powers such as Brazil, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia and India are showing the world that a new age of non-alignment and multi-alignment has come to stay – these nations have been successfully avoiding the new cold war trap of “alignmentism”, while successfully pursuing their own interests.

American diplomatic pressures for alignment are thus doomed to backfire – if forced to “pick a side”, most countries may end up “decoupling” from the US instead.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Uriel Araujo is a researcher with a focus on international and ethnic conflicts.

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

*** 

Target Corporation is partnering with a K-12 education group which focuses on getting districts to adopt policies that will keep parents in the dark on their child’s in-school gender transition, providing sexually explicit books to schools for free, and integrating gender ideology at all levels of curriculum in public schools, Fox News Digital uncovered.

“GLSEN leads the movement in creating affirming… and anti-racist spaces for LGBTQIA+ students. We are proud of 10+ years of collaboration with GLSEN and continue to support their mission,” Target said. The retail giant provides annual donations to GLSEN. 

GLSEN calls for gender ideology to be integrated into all classes, even math. It provides educators instructions on how they can make math “more inclusive of trans and non-binary identities” by including “they/them” pronouns in word problems. 

In another example, GLSEN recommended that teachers intervene if students are making graphs about sex and gender to ensure it includes the ideology supported by GLSEN. “When students are creating their own surveys, if they want to include data for biological sex, teachers need to be sure they include both intersex and other as choices.”

“[A]nd if the students want to include data for gender, a variety of choices need to be included, such as agender, genderfluid, female, male, nonbinary, transman, transwoman, and other,” a lesson plan continued. 

GLSEN also spotlighted recommendations from a teacher who discussed incorporating gender ideology into science.

“It took me three years of teaching middle-school science before feeling comfortable enough to come out to my students as a trans man. We were starting a unit focused on how identity impacts the practice of science, including the ways that specific groups are marginalized by normative ideas,” the teacher said. “In the introduction to the unit, I shared my personal experience of… the ways that trans people are often erased by the language used by scientists and medical professionals to describe bodies, patients, and health practices.”

Click here to read the full article on Fox News.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Featured image is from Fox News

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

*** 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy isn’t the only one demanding more military assistance from Joe Biden to protect Kiev from Russian forces. So, too, is a close Biden friend and financial backer, who owns several luxury car dealerships around the Ukrainian capital. 

By sending billions of dollars in weapons and other military aid to help defend Ukraine, Biden also is securing the investments of millionaire car magnate John Hynansky, a Ukrainian American and longtime supporter of the president. 

Over the course of Biden’s political career, Hynansky and his family have contributed more than $100,000 to his campaigns, Federal Election Commission records show. Hynansky family members have been guests at the White House, and Hynansky has floated hundreds of thousands of dollars in loans to Biden family members, property records show. Hynansky’s son, Michael, who helps run his car empire, lent the use of his Lear jet to Biden when he was a senator.

Since Russia started shelling the area around Kiev in February 2022, the U.S. government has spent $77 billion to help Ukraine rebuild and repel future attacks. 

Government ethics watchdogs say the president’s friendship poses a potential conflict of interest that demands a full accounting of how the massive foreign aid, which includes open-ended humanitarian and economic assistance, has been used and who has benefited from it. On the military side, moreover, billions of dollars have gone to unspecified areas, such as “security,” “intelligence,” and “training.” In the past, Hynansky has supplied the police cars and ambulances in several regions of Ukraine. 

The Biden Administration helped Hynansky’s team in Ukraine prepare for the invasion, including placing calls to his top executive in Kiev 13 days in advance of Russian tanks crossing the border. It has sent billions of dollars to help rebuild war-torn cities where Hynansky operates the largest share of the country’s car showrooms and service centers specializing in Porsches, Jaguars, Land Rovers, and Bentleys, among other non-American brands he imports.  

The president’s close relationship with Hynansky illustrates larger ethical questions that have long surrounded Biden and his family members, who often have financial interests directly affected by policies he endorses. While serving as President Obama’s point man in Ukraine in 2015,  Biden demanded the firing of a prosecutor investigating a natural gas company, Burisma, that was paying his son Hunter $80,000 per month to serve on its board. 

The connection between Joe Biden and Hynansky’s business ventures dates back to 2009, when the then-vice president made his first visit to Ukraine. In a speech in Kiev to government officials, Biden singled out Hynansky for praise, noting that he had just had breakfast with “my very good friend, John Hynansky.” (The previous year, Hynansky had contributed more than $33,000 to the Obama-Biden ticket primarily through the Obama Victory Fund, according to FEC records.) 

Within months of his hobnobbing with the vice president and local officials in the Ukrainian capital, Hynansky scored his first international development loan from the U.S. Overseas Private Investment Corporation, or OPIC, a federal body whose board was appointed by President Obama. Hynansky used the $2.5 million to break ground on a new headquarters and massive distribution center outside Kiev that prepares 8,000 cars for sale every year. In 2012, Hynansky landed another $20 million in OPIC funding to expand his dealership facilities, federal records show, helping him corner roughly 25 percent of the luxury car market in Ukraine. 

Hynansky is politically connected in Kiev as well as Washington. President Zelenskyy also calls Hynansky a good friend and in recent years has bestowed state awards on him. Kiev mayor Vitali Klitschko also is close to the prominent Wilmington businessman.  

In August 2021, Hynansky secured a $24 million loan from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) to expand its Ukraine operations into electric vehicles, including building new Renault and Volvo dealerships in Lviv. The U.S. is a founding member of EBRD and provides 10 percent of its capital. The Biden Administration has been pushing such “green” deals. “In the near future, we intend to increase our presence on the Ukrainian market,” Hynansky’s top official in Ukraine, Petro Rondiak, said at the time.  

The White House did not respond to queries about the president’s relationship with Hynansky. 

Though Biden is silent about his actions in Ukraine as they concern Hynansky and his businesses there, he has repeatedly denied that his son’s Burisma dealings influenced his official actions in Ukraine—which included handing over more than $50 million in U.S. support to assist the Ukrainian energy industry, an aid package Biden personally announced in Kiev the month before Burisma hired his son in 2014. 

Republicans are investigating whether those funds were intended to help his son’s business interests in Ukraine. Less explored is whether U.S. tax money has also been used to protect or boost Hynansky’s Ukrainian investments. 

Paul Kamenar, counsel to the National Legal and Policy Center, a Washington watchdog group said that in dealing with Ukraine, Biden increasingly is drawing suspicion he may be putting his own political fortunes ahead of the national interest.  

*

Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Paul Sperry is a freelance journalist, former Washington, D.C. bureau chief of Investor’s Business Daily, Hoover Institution media fellow, and author of several books, including bestseller, Infiltration.

Featured image is from Bumble Dee/Shutterstock

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

*** 

On May 3, two slow moving drones flew over the Kremlin and then exploded in flames when the Russian military forced them down. Whether the drone attack was a serious attempt on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s life or not, Moscow perceived it as one, announcing that “Last night, the Kiev regime attempted a drone strike against the residence of the President of the Russian Federation at the Kremlin. . . . We view these actions as a planned terrorist attack and an assassination attempt targeting the President.”

Western officials were quick to dismiss the dramatic event as a drama event, suggesting that it was likely a Russian false flag operation. Ukraine, for its part, denied any involvement. Mykhailo Podolyak, an advisor to Zelensky, called the operation “predictable” and insisted that “Ukraine wages an exclusively defensive war and does not attack targets on the territory of the Russian Federation.” He then said the event occurred “definitely without Ukraine’s drones over the Kremlin.” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said categorically, “We don’t attack Putin or Moscow. We fight on our territory. We are defending our villages and cities.”

But US intelligence now says that that is not true. The attack was not a Russian performance: the denials were a Ukrainian performance. Three weeks after the attack, The New York Times has reported that US intelligence agencies now believe that the drone attack was carried out by “one of Ukraine’s special military or intelligence units.”

US intelligence bases its assessment on communication intercepts that reveal Russian surprise at the attack and the findings of Moscow’s preliminary investigations that blame Ukraine as well as Ukrainian communications that reveal a belief that it was Ukraine.

The intelligence agencies say it is “unclear whether President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine or his top officials were aware of the operation, though some officials believe Mr. Zelensky was not.” But it seems questionable that such a significant and consequential act would be carried out by Ukraine’s military or intelligence with no high level approval or awareness. American officials suspect that Zelensky may not have specific awareness in advance because “Mr. Zelensky and his top aides have set the broad parameters of the covert campaign, leaving decisions about who and what to target to the security services and their operatives. In doing so, Mr. Zelensky and his top aides can deny knowing about them.” US intelligence rates its confidence that the Ukrainian government “directly authorized the Kremlin drone attack” as “low” “because intelligence agencies do not yet have specific evidence identifying which government officials, Ukrainian units or operatives were involved.”

The US assessment that Ukraine is responsible for the drone attack on the Kremlin and, more critically, the Russian assessment that it was could have three critical consequences.

The UK has recently provided Ukraine with long range Storm Shadow cruise missiles with a range sufficient to reach deep into Russian held territory, including Crimea. The US has recently authorized supplying Ukraine with F-16 fighter-bombers that have the capacity to strike deep inside internationally recognized Russian territory.

The Ukrainian government has given the UK “assurances . . . that these missiles will be used only within Ukrainian sovereign territory and not inside Russia.” US President Joe Biden says that he has received “flat assurances” from Zelensky that F-16’s won’t be used inside Russian territory. Ukraine has long promised “not to target Russian territory with weapons provided by the West.”

But Western confidence in these assurances has surely been deflated by the drone attacks over the Kremlin in Moscow. The attack demonstrates a willingness to strike in the heart of Russia. And it is not an anomaly. In May alone, Ukraine has used drones to attack a military training ground and an oil refinery in Russian territory. In December, Ukraine carried out two attacks on Russia’s Engels air base.

US assessments that Zelensky may lack awareness of these drone attacks and that he has kept his promise not to use US supplied weapons to strike inside Russia must also surely have been shaken by comments by Zelensky captured by US intelligence in electronic intercepts. In February, Zelensky was heard to complain to General Valery Zaluzhny, his top commander, that Ukraine “does not have long-range missiles capable of reaching Russian troop deployments in Russia”. On May 13, The Washington Post reported, based on intercepted internal digital communications, that in January, Zelensky suggested that Ukraine “conduct strikes in Russia.” In February, Zelensky suggested to Zaluzhny that “Ukraine attack unspecified deployment locations in Rostov,” in western Russia, using drones.

The second consequence is the danger that these attacks could provoke Russia to escalate and that, since the weapons are supplied by the US – not to mention that Moscow believes that the decision to carry out these attacks is made in Washington – it increases the risk that the US could get drawn into the war.

The recent wave of drone attacks “have made officials in the United States . . . uncomfortable,” according to the Times, precisely because of this danger. “The Biden administration is concerned about the risk that Russia will blame U.S. officials and retaliate by expanding the war beyond Ukraine.”

And there is a third concern created by the Russian statement in reply to the attack on the Kremlin that it “reserves the right to take countermeasures wherever and whenever it deems appropriate.”

In the early days of the war, Former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett was attempting to mediate between Russia and Ukraine. In response to Zelensky’s fear that Russia would assassinate him, Bennett says he received a promise from Putin that “I won’t kill Zelensky.”

But, to Russia, the drone attack demonstrates that that promise is not reciprocal. It demonstrates a willingness to assassinate Putin. And it is not the only evidence. In what the Kyiv Post calls “an incredibly frank interview,” the deputy head of Ukraine’s Main Intelligence Directorate, Vadym Skibitsky, “bluntly admitted to plans to assassinate President Putin.” “We are getting closer and closer,” he said.

Further evidence comes from the head of Ukraine’s Main Intelligence Directorate and Skibitsky’s boss, Major General Kyrylo Budanov, who, while not discussing Putin directly, admitted that Ukraine was responsible for a number of assassinations of prominent Russians. “We’ve already successfully targeted quite a few people,” he said. “There have been well-publicized cases everyone knows about, thanks to the media coverage.” Budanov said in an interview that “we’ve been killing Russians and we will keep killing Russians anywhere on the face of this world until the complete victory of Ukraine.”

The lack of reciprocity on the promise not to kill Zelensky may have canceled the promise. That is the third possible consequence. “How would Americans react if a drone hit the White House?” Russian Ambassador to the US Anatoly Antonov asked. “The answer is obvious for any politician as well as for the average citizen: the punishment would be harsh and inevitable.” How harsh? “After today’s terrorist attack, there are no options left except for the physical elimination of Zelensky and his clique,” Former Russian President and current Deputy Chairman of the Security Council of Russia Dmitry Medvedev said. His choice of reactions was seconded by the Speaker of the Russian parliament, Vyacheslav Volodin, who said, “An attack on the president is an attack on Russia. There can be no negotiations. We will demand the use of weapons that are capable of stopping and destroying the Kyiv terrorist regime.”

The drone attack inside Russian territory, believed by Russia to be an attempted assassination on Putin and assessed by US intelligence to likely be a Ukrainian operation, accomplished little. But is has undoubtedly deflated Washington’s trust in Zelensky’s promise not to use US supplied weapons to strike inside Russia. It has also increased the danger of escalating the war, of drawing the US into the war and of attempts on Zelensky’s life in return.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Ted Snider is a regular columnist on US foreign policy and history at Antiwar.com and The Libertarian Institute. He is also a frequent contributor to Responsible Statecraft and The American Conservative as well as other outlets.

Featured image is from Caitlin Johnstone

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

*** 

Recep Tayyip Erdogan has won a third term as President of Turkey which will extend his time in power to a quarter of a century. The authoritarian leader has won another five years at the helm of a ship struggling in a sea of economic woes, that has seen inflation rise to an annual 44%, and the Turkish lira devalued. Economic experts point the blame squarely at Erdogan who has refused to follow economic policy and raise interest rates.

Erdogan won just over 52% of the vote against Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the opposition candidate chosen to represent a consortium of six parties in the second round run-off on May 28.

The race was close, and that means Turkey is divided down the middle, with supporters of Erdogan, and the other half feeling desperate for change, unsatisfied with the state of the country, and fearful of where it is headed. The Erdogan-controlled media played a large role as they showcased Erdogan’s campaign ads, but gave almost no air time for the opposition.

The secret of Erdogan’s success

Erdogan decided to focus on an underrepresented group. Turkey is a large country, and has several sizeable and important big cities; places as Istanbul, Ankara, and Izmir. However, the country has thousands of small villages, and the villagers are generally under-educated, Islamic fundamentalists, holding conservative values, and have felt their voices were unheard in Ankara.

Erdogan had been religious as a young man, and it was easy for him to identify with the religious people living in rural areas. People felt marginalized because their wives and daughters wore a headscarf, and this had been banned in government institutions.

A similar tactic was employed successfully by Donald Trump in 2016. He focused on supporters in rural areas, under-educated and with fundamentalist Christian values. 

Mustafa Kemal, Ataturk, is considered to be the father of modern Turkey. After the 400-year reign of the Ottoman Empire in Turkey fell at the end of WW1, Ataturk came into leadership and had a new vision for the collapsed country. He banned the headscarf and banned using the Arabic alphabet in writing, instead writing in the English alphabet and from left to right, like in Europe.  Ataturk wanted Turkey to look west, follow Europe, and turn its back on the old ways of Asia and the Middle East. He was a visionary and transformed Turkey into a secular, modern, and Western-looking nation.

However, the Turkish villagers didn’t fully embrace the secular vision Turkey came to represent; a 99% Islamic country, but organized as a secular democracy.  The villagers, the backbone of Erdogan’s support, were happy for modern improvements, but they clung to their fundamentalist religious beliefs as a badge of honor. Erdogan knew how to harvest their votes, and they kept him in power for two decades, and they got him re-elected on May 28, 2023.

Many critics of Erdogan have pointed out his support of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is a global organization that supports the same goals as ISIS: to dismantle all governments and to institute the Koran as the only constitution. Islam is not only a set of religious beliefs, but it is also a life system, encompassing civil governance as well.

Egypt, Syria, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and UAE have all banned the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization. US Senator Ted Cruz of Texas has tried twice to pass legislation in Washington, DC. to ban the group, but faced fierce opposition from both parties.

The Muslim Brotherhood is very powerful and connected to governments in Washington, DC., London, and Berlin. Turkey and Qatar have both been connected to the Muslim Brotherhood ideology, and this brought the two countries together as partners in the Obama administration’s attack on Syria.

Syrian conflict participation

The US Obama-Biden administration 2011 began an armed conflict in Syria for regime change. The weapons came from US sources in Libya, shipped to Turkey, and delivered over the border at Idlib, which Turkey still occupies today. Turkey had partnered with the US on the project to change the secular government in Damascus.  Obama saw the power of the Muslim Brotherhood and formulated a plan to use them in Syria to overthrow the government. The weapons and training were administrated by the CIA program Timber Sycamore in Turkey.

Erdogan’s supporters in Turkey were sold the idea that the Syrian citizens wanted an Islamist leader, like Erdogan, and they bought into the idea of supporting the ‘freedom fighters’ in Syria. But, the project came with a cost to Turkey: they had to accept 3.6 million Syrian refugees, and they have overstayed their welcome since 2011 because the US-NATO attack on Syria failed.  It was the lack of support for the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria which caused the plan to fail. The Free Syrian Army dissolved, and Al Qaeda and ISIS took its place. 

Both Erdogan and Kilicdaroglu promised their supporters that all the Syrian refugees will be sent back to Syria.  The refugees have been willing to work for very low wages, taking jobs away from Turkish workers who have Unions that set the wages higher. Syrians and Turks may share Islam, but they do not share a common language, and their cultures are very different.

Why the opposition lost the race

The opposition to Erdogan was formed of a coalition of six parties who banded together to remove him from power.  Among the parties were several young, intelligent, and charismatic leaders. Ekrem Imamoglu, Mayor of Istanbul, was a leading contender to remove Erdogan, but Erdogan engineered a legal case that prevented Imamoglu from running as a candidate. Analysts also pointed to the Mayor of Ankara, Mansur Yavas, and politician Ali Babacan as able to beat Erdogan in a race, but the coalition of opposition parties instead went with an older, accountant Kemal Kilicdaroglu as their candidate to back, and he lost.

But, was it his age and looks which caused him to lose? Or, was it because he had promised the voters he would stand fully with the US and cooperate with any plans and orders they have for Turkey? The Turkish voters blame the US for their forced participation in the attack on Syria which didn’t benefit Turkey, but has proven to be a significant factor in their economic demise, and contributed to Turkish families having to go without meat or chicken most days because they couldn’t afford what they had previously become used to.

Erdogan has turned away from being the lap dog of Washington and has formed alliances with Russia and Iran. Ankara is not afraid of being independent, or buying military products not “Made in USA”. In this successful race won, Erdogan had the winning strategy of standing as the ‘anti-American’ candidate, and he included plenty of jabs at the LGBTQ community in Turkey, which have been supported by the US and the opposition.  The US meddling in the election went so far that US President Biden publically said he wanted Erdogan to lose, and that one statement might have been the secret to the success of Erdogan.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

This article was originally published on Mideast Discourse.

Steven Sahiounie is a two-time award-winning journalist. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

*** 

One of the most egregious lies spread by mainstream media hosts and health authorities like Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. Rochelle Walensky was that the COVID “vaccine” would stop the spread of infection, thereby ending the pandemic. It was a provable lie, because none of the COVID shots had ever been tested to see if they could prevent the spread of infection

As hospitals filled up with “vaccinated” individuals who were supposed to be immune, the PR slogan “Pandemic of the unvaccinated” was endlessly circulated — until the reality of the situation finally became too obvious to ignore. Then, suddenly, hospitals and health authorities simply quit keeping track of COVID hospitalizations

The list of COVID measures that were arbitrary, unscientific and plain stupid is a long one. For example, in Michigan, hardware stores that were allowed to remain open were not allowed to sell carpet, flooring, furniture, garden supplies or paint. Businesses were also prohibited from advertising any product other than “groceries, medical supplies, or items that are necessary to maintain the safety, sanitation and basic operation of residences”

In South Africa, shops could only sell closed toe shoes (no sandals). In Victoria, Australia, people were prohibited from venturing more than 5 kilometers from their home, and in Great Britain, you had to order a substantial meal if you wanted a pint of ale

Among the most laughably absurd measures were having school children play instruments wearing masks with holes cut around their mouth, or playing inside one-man tents

*

The video above features a compilation of some of the most absurd COVID narratives we were indoctrinated with over the past three years. For example, “No one is safe until everyone is safe” was one of several lies we heard repeated across media platforms.

First of all, there were and are vast differences in risk depending on your age and general medical history, and this was evident within weeks of the outbreak. Secondly, the data showed that 99.5% of the population would survive COVID.

So, the reality was the complete opposite of this fabricated PR campaign slogan. Had we been told the truth, we would have been told that “Most of us are safe,” rather than “None of us are safe.”

One False PR Slogan After Another

Next, the “no one is safe” slogan morphed to “No one is safe unless everyone is vaccinated.” With that, it became open season to harass, intimidate, threaten and discriminate against the unvaccinated. Every COVID case and death was blamed on them, no matter how irrational. And while the talking heads paid lip service to the desire to “save lives,” they had no qualms about wishing death on the unvaccinated.

As questions about the safety of the experimental gene transfer shots mounted, another campaign slogan was concocted: “Don’t do your own research.” At the same time, “Trust the science” was trending. What that meant was that you were supposed to trust that what you were told WAS “the science.” Actually looking at published science, that made you a dangerous moron. 

One of the most egregious lies spread by mainstream media hosts and health authorities like Dr. Anthony Fauci alike was that the COVID “vaccine” would stop the spread of infection in its tracks, thereby ending the pandemic.

It was a provable lie, because anyone who had gone against the grain and done their own research knew that none of the COVID shots had ever been tested to see if they could prevent the spread of infection. The only “promise” they ever held was that they might reduce the symptoms of infection. Have any of these people apologized for spreading lies? I can’t think of one.

Even Fauci and Walensky, then-director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, stated that you could not get COVID if you got the shot. Both later got sick with COVID several times, as did countless others who fell for and vigorously promoted this false propaganda.

Still, the brainwashing continued. As hospitals filled up with “vaccinated” individuals who were supposed to be immune, the PR slogan “Pandemic of the unvaccinated” was endlessly circulated — until the reality of the situation finally became too obvious to ignore.

Then, suddenly, hospitals and health authorities simply quit keeping track of COVID hospitalizations. Problem solved. This way, they didn’t have to admit that what we had was a pandemic of the vaccinated.

Ridiculous and Arbitrary COVID Restrictions

In a March 15, 2021, article,¹ attorney at law Glenn Roper also reviewed a long list of arbitrary COVID measures that “bore little connection to health and safety” and were nothing more than “an exercise of raw government power to control its citizens.” Six of the worst offenders in this regard were:

Similarly absurd rules can be found across the world. In South Africa, for example, government officials ruled that shops could only sell closed toe shoes (no sandals), and short-sleeved shirts could only be worn if you had a jacket or long-sleeved jersey on top.²

In Victoria, Australia, people were prohibited from venturing more than 5 kilometers from their home,³ and in Great Britain, you had to order a substantial meal if you wanted a pint of ale.⁴ In Scotland, the crowd size for public events was limited, but not for private ones, and in Peru and Panama, men and women were only permitted to go outside on alternate days.⁵

Absurd Enforcement of Arbitrary Rules

“But it wasn’t just the measures themselves that were troublesome. The enforcement of these new laws was also overzealous and absurd,” Roper wrote.

For example, in Encinitas, California, police cited 22 people for “watching the sunset” and “having picnics near the beach.” “Violations carry fines of up to $1,000 and up to six months in jail,” Roper noted.

California police officers also chased down and arrested lone paddleboarders and surfers, and in Brighton, Colorado, a man was arrested for playing with his 6-year-old daughter on a near-empty softball field.

The same insanity was taking place in other countries. A family in England was told by a policeman to go back indoors because “people died yesterday.” They were in their own front yard.⁶ All of this is extremely problematic, as it points to a breakdown of the very structure of our government. As noted by Roper:⁷

“In each case, COVID restrictions were imposed by executive branch officials — governors, mayors, sheriffs, and law enforcement — relying on broad grants of power delegated by legislatures.

The legislators did not write or vote on the restrictions themselves. Instead, it was left to the officials who are responsible for enforcing the restrictions to decide what is banned and what is allowed.

That approach is contrary to the separation of powers that underlies the American system of government. Under our system, power is supposed to be divided among different branches that check and balance each other, for the protection of our rights and freedom.

Laws are supposed to be enacted by the legislative branch. The executive branch is supposed to enforce the laws, not make them. It is that constitutional structure that helps protect our liberty and freedoms.”

Insanity on Display

Roper’s list of absurd and arbitrary COVID measures could have been far longer. Remember these images? This was how a high school band in Wenatchee, Washington, was forced to practice in early 2021.⁸

According to officials, singing or blowing into an instrument could spread the COVID virus, so high schoolers practiced holed up in one-man tents. It was mindbogglingly stupid when it first happened, and it’s not getting any less absurd with the passing of time.

Fear and the desire for safety are powerful forces. They can lead to a clamor for action — almost any action — as long as someone does something to address a perceived threat. ~ Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch

Other schools took the absurdity to even higher levels, having the kids practice wearing masks with holes cut out for their mouths.⁹

Supreme Court Justice Critiques Government

In mid-May 2023, Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch leveled harsh criticisms against government’s response to the COVID pandemic, from local to federal. In his eight-page ruling in the case of Arizona v. Alejandro Mayorkas, he stated:^10,11

“Since March 2020, we may have experienced the greatest intrusions on civil liberties in the peacetime history of this country. Executive officials across the country issued emergency decrees on a breathtaking scale. Governors and local leaders imposed lockdown orders forcing people to remain in their homes. They shuttered businesses and schools, public and private.

They closed churches even as they allowed casinos and other favored businesses to carry on. They threatened violators not just with civil penalties but with criminal sanctions too. They surveilled church parking lots, recorded license plates, and issued notices warning that attendance at even outdoor services satisfying all state social-distancing and hygiene requirements could amount to criminal conduct.

They divided cities and neighborhoods into color-coded zones, forced individuals to fight for their freedoms in court on emergency timetables, and then changed their color-coded schemes when defeat in court seemed imminent.

Federal executive officials entered the act too … They deployed a public-health agency to regulate landlord-tenant relations nationwide. They used a workplace-safety agency to issue a vaccination mandate for most working Americans. They threatened to fire noncompliant employees and warned that service members who refused to vaccinate might face dishonorable discharge and confinement.

Along the way, it seems federal officials may have pressured social-media companies to suppress information about pandemic policies with which they disagreed.

While executive officials issued new emergency decrees at a furious pace, state legislatures and Congress — the bodies normally responsible for adopting our laws — too often fell silent. Courts bound to protect our liberties addressed a few — but hardly all — of the intrusions upon them …

Doubtless, many lessons can be learned from this chapter in our history, and hopefully serious efforts will be made to study it. One lesson might be this: Fear and the desire for safety are powerful forces.

They can lead to a clamor for action — almost any action — as long as someone does something to address a perceived threat. A leader or an expert who claims he can fix everything, if only we do exactly as he says, can prove an irresistible force.

We do not need to confront a bayonet, we need only a nudge, before we willingly abandon the nicety of requiring laws to be adopted by our legislative representatives and accept rule by decree. Along the way, we will accede to the loss of many cherished civil liberties — the right to worship freely, to debate public policy without censorship, to gather with friends and family, or simply to leave our homes …

Of course, this is no new story. Even the ancients warned that democracies can degenerate toward autocracy in the face of fear.

But maybe we have learned another lesson too. The concentration of power in the hands of so few may be efficient and sometimes popular. But it does not tend toward sound government. However wise one person or his advisors may be, that is no substitute for the wisdom of the whole of the American people that can be tapped in the legislative process.

Decisions produced by those who indulge no criticism are rarely as good as those produced after robust and uncensored debate. Decisions announced on the fly are rarely as wise as those that come after careful deliberation.

Decisions made by a few often yield unintended consequences that may be avoided when more are consulted. Autocracies have always suffered these defects. Maybe, hopefully, we have relearned these lessons too.”

Gorsuch also calls for a review of the National Emergencies Act, and for state legislatures to reexamine the scope of emergency executive powers at the state level, because “Rule by indefinite emergency edict risks leaving all of us with a shell of a democracy and civil liberties just as hollow.”

*

Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Notes

^1, 7 Pacific Legal Foundation March 15, 2021

^2, 3 Traveller August 18, 2020

^4, 5, 6 The Sun December 22, 2021

⁸ Twitter Ari Hoffman February 24, 2021

⁹ Twitter Liz February 24, 2021

¹⁰ Supreme Court, 597 US 2023 Arizona v. Alejandro Mayorkas Ruling

¹¹ AP May 19, 2023

Featured image is from Red Voice Media

Price: $11.50 Get yours for FREE! Click here to download.

We encourage you to support the eBook project by making a donation through Global Research’s DonorBox “Worldwide Corona Crisis” Campaign Page. 

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

*** 

Until the fighting begins, national military strategy developed in peacetime shapes thinking about warfare and its objectives. Then the fighting creates a new logic of its own. Strategy is adjusted. Objectives change. The battle for Bakhmut illustrates this point very well. 

When General Sergey Vladimirovich Surovikin, commander of Russian aerospace forces, assumed command of the Russian military in the Ukrainian theater last year, President Vladimir Putin and his senior military advisors concluded that their original assumptions about the war were wrong. Washington had proved incurably hostile to Moscow’s offers to negotiate, and the ground force Moscow had committed to compel Kiev to negotiate had proved too small.

Surovikin was given wide latitude to streamline command relationships and reorganize the theater. Most importantly, Surovikin was also given the freedom of action to implement a defensive strategy that maximized the use of stand-off attack or strike systems while Russian ground forces expanded in size and striking power. The Bakhmut “Meatgrinder” was the result. 

When it became clear that Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky and his government regarded Bakhmut as a symbol of Ukrainian resistance to Russian military power, Surovikin turned Bakhmut into the graveyard of Ukrainian military power. From the fall of 2022 onward, Surovikin exploited Zalenskiy’s obsession with Bakhmut to engage in a bloody tug-of-war for control of the city. As a result, thousands of Ukrainian soldiers died in Bakhmut and many more were wounded. 

Surovkin’s performance is reminiscent of another Russian military officer: General Aleksei Antonov. As the first deputy chief of the Soviet general staff, Surovikin was, in Western parlance, the director of strategic planning. When Stalin demanded a new summer offensive in a May 1943 meeting, Antonov, the son and grandson of imperial Russian army officers, argued for a defensive strategy. Antonov insisted that Hitler, if allowed, would inevitably attack the Soviet defenses in the Kursk salient and waste German resources doing so.

Stalin, like Hitler, believed that wars were won with offensive action, not defensive operations.

Stalin was unmoved by Soviet losses. Antonov presented his arguments for the defensive strategy in a climate of fear, knowing that contradicting Stalin could cost him his life. To the surprise of Marshals Aleksandr Vasilevsky and Georgy Zhukov, who were present at the meeting, Stalin relented and approved Antonov’s operational concept. The rest, as historians say, is history.

If President Putin and his senior military leaders wanted outside evidence for Surovikin’s strategic success in Bakhmut, a Western admission appears to provide it: Washington and her European allies seem to think that a frozen conflict—in which fighting pauses but neither side is victorious, nor does either side agree that the war is officially over—could be the most politically palatable long-term outcome for NATO. In other words, Zelensky’s supporters no longer believe in the myth of Ukrainian victory.

The question on everyone’s mind is, what’s next? 

In Washington, conventional wisdom dictates that Ukrainian forces launch a counteroffensive to retake Southern Ukraine. Of course, conventional wisdom is frequently high on convention and low on wisdom. On the assumption that Ukraine’s black earth will dry sufficiently to support ground maneuver forces before mid-June, Ukrainian forces will strike Russian defenses on multiple axes and win back control of Southern Ukraine in late May or June. Roughly 30,000 Ukrainian soldiers training in Great Britain, Germany, and other NATO member states are expected to return to Ukraine and provide the foundation for the Ukrainian counterattack force.

General Valery Gerasimov, who now commands the Russian forces in the Ukrainian theater, knows what to expect, and he is undoubtedly preparing for the Ukrainian offensive. The partial mobilization of Russian forces means that Russian ground forces are now much larger than they have been since the mid-1980s. 

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

*** 

Meta, to put it rather inelegantly, has a data non-compliance problem. That problem began in the original conception of Facebook, a social network conceived by that most anti-social of types, Mark Zuckerberg. (Who claims that these troubled sorts lack irony?)

On May 22, the European Union deemed it appropriate to slap a $1.3 billion fine on the company for transferring the data of EU users to the United States. In so doing, the company had breached the General Data Protection Regulation, which has become something of a habit for information predators from Silicon Valley.

The data in question is the bread-and-butter of such companies, packed with the names of users, email and IP addresses, message content, viewing history, geolocation and the whole gamut of information used for targeted advertising. As the European Data Protection Board’s Chair, Andrea Jelenik, stated, “the EDPB found that Meta’s IE’s [Meta Platforms Ireland Limited’s] infringement is very serious since it concerns transfers that are systematic, repetitive and continuous.  Facebook has millions of users in Europe, so the volume of personal data transferred is massive.”

The outcome resulted from a binding decision by the EDPB of April 13, 2023, which instructed the Irish Data Protection Authority (IE DPA) to revise its draft decision and impose a fine upon the company, despite initial reluctance to do so. The board also instructed IE DPA to order Meta to bring its “processing operations into compliance with Chapter V [of the] GDPR, by ceasing the unlawful processing, including storage, in the US of personal data of European users transferred in violation of the GDPR, within 6 months after notification of the IE SA’s final decision.”

The implications for Meta, beyond the inconvenience of a fine, is the operational difficulty of removing the transferred data. “This order to delete data is really a headache for Meta,” reasons Johnny Ryan, senior fellow at the Irish Council for Civil Liberties.  To remove the digital material gathered from millions of EU users stretching back a decade posed seemingly insuperable problems regarding compliance.

The response from Nick Clegg, President of the company’s global affairs arm, and Chief Legal Officer, Jennifer Newstead, is coldly practical on the issue. (Clegg, former UK Deputy Prime Minister, has long been on the dark side.) Data is key; data is everything. Privacy, goes the insinuation, is an impediment, a needless intrusion by sentimental bleeding hearts. “The ability for data to be transferred is fundamental to how the global open internet works. From finance and telecommunications to critical public services like healthcare or education, the free flow of data supports many of the services that we have come to rely on.”

A favourite argument is mustered by the knight-in-digital-armour: the idea of an internet balkanised and fractured in the face of meddlesome regulations and bureaucrats. “Without the ability to transfer data across borders, the internet risks being carved up into national and regional silos”. This would leave the “citizens in different countries unable to access many of the shared services we have come to rely on.”

Clegg and Newstead also lament those privacy business bodies in the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), who dared invalidate the Privacy Shield mechanism agreed upon between the US and EU on the transfer of personal data to the US.  “This [2020] decision created considerable regulatory and legal uncertainty for thousands of organisations, including Meta.”

What the court left intact was the Standard Contractual Clauses mechanism, which could function on the proviso that various safeguards were put in place regarding data processing. (An agreement reached on EU-US data transfers between Brussels and Washington on a revised Privacy Shield has yet to be signed off by European officials.) Meta proceeded to use these “believing them to be compliant with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).” While the Irish Data Protection Commission initially found that Meta had acted in good faith and that no fine would be necessary, moans the company, the Data Protection Board thought otherwise.

Clegg and Newstead also expressed aggrievement at Meta being “singled out when using the same legal mechanism that thousands of other companies looking to provide services in Europe.” Brazenly, they praise the US for doing much “to align with European rules via their latest reforms, while transfers continue largely unchallenged to countries such as China.” The company intends filing appeals both on the substance of the decision and its orders, seeking a stay in the courts.

Other US tech behemoths have also drawn the ire of the EU, demonstrating the divergence of views between the money hungry dictates of the information market and the importance of a user’s privacy. Between 2017 and 2019, Google caught their attention in the only way it could. That attention, based on the sheer scale of the company’s market dominance, brought the ledger of fines to 8 billion euros.  In 2021, Amazon received a 746 million euro fine for violating data protections.

Despite the coos of satisfaction coming from EU officials, such companies have integrated the occasional spanking fine into their operating models, the laceration nullified by a thumpingly large financial base to work from. An economy of data transgressions has emerged, one permitted to thrive, despite the punishments and orders. That penalties run into the billions of euros or dollars hardly affects the overall business rationale. As a consequence, the respective world views of US corporatism and EU data protection find some peculiar, if uncomfortable accord, an economy that tolerates surveillance capitalism while occasionally punishing its excesses.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge.  He currently lectures at RMIT University.  He is a regular contributor to Global Research and Asia-Pacific Research. Email: [email protected]

Featured image is from Shutterstock/mundissima

Seeing Through the Eyes of “Our Enemies” and Paving a Path Toward Peace.

By Michael Welch, Dimitri Lascaras, Radhika Desai, and Ivan Katchanovski, May 26, 2023

On this week’s Global Research News Hour, like the rest of Global Research, we are endeavoring to see the conflict through the eyes of Russians and others not drowning in a sea of media propaganda about finding a way to peace, rather than “fight Russia to the last Ukrainian.”

“Free Trade” as Revealed in the China-United States Paradigm

By Wei Ling Chua and Kim Petersen, May 30, 2023

In the eyes of the US, China is threateningly making major headway in 6G, AI, robotics, supercomputing among other technology fields. This has scared the Biden administration, so Biden has sought to cut off Chinese access to semiconductor chips below 14 nanometers. Foreign Policy called it going for China’s jugular after one term of ex-US president Donald Trump inflicting “flesh wounds” to China.

Biden Regime Faces First-ever U.S. Lawsuit Over COVID “Vaccine” Injuries, Deaths

By Ethan Huff, May 30, 2023

Now that the dust is finally settling, those who became injured from Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) “vaccines” are taking action against the monsters who harmed them, including fake president Joe Biden and his murderous regime.

Russian Fascist with Ties to Leading German Neo-Nazis Led Ukrainian-backed Incursion of Russia

By Clara Weiss, May 30, 2023

According to the Kremlin, a substantial military operation, involving the army, the air force and the national guard, killed 70 members of the far-right extremist Russian Volunteer Battalion and the ultra-nationalist Legion for a Free Russia after over 24 hours of fighting.

Survivors of Kissinger’s Secret War in Cambodia Reveal Unreported Mass Killings

By Nick Turse, May 30, 2023

The U.S. carpet bombing of Cambodia between 1969 and 1973 has been well documented, but its architect, former national security adviser and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who will turn 100 on Saturday, bears responsibility for more violence than has been previously reported.

First Documented Case of Pegasus Spyware Used in an International War Context. Report

By Arzu Geybullayeva, May 30, 2023

The report, released on May 25, is a joint investigation between Access Now, CyberHUB-AM, the Citizen Lab at the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto (the Citizen Lab), Amnesty International’s Security Lab, and an independent mobile security researcher Ruben Muradyan.

Died Suddenly: COVID-19 Vaccine Injured Swimmers: 37-year old Italian Swimming Champion Claudio Rais Was Driven to Suicide by His Moderna COVID-19 Booster Injuries, Plus Nine Other Swimmers Collapsing & Dying

By Dr. William Makis, May 28, 2023

When it comes to COVID-19 vaccines, Big Pharma isn’t very concerned about the vaccine injured. They are collateral damage in a multi $100 billion profit scheme and their plight can always be blamed on Long COVID or Climate Change.

Russia’s “Return to Africa”: “Strategic Decision” or “Post-Soviet Policy Slogan” by the Russian Establishment

By Kester Kenn Klomegah, May 28, 2023

Extensively speaking on several questions with the media on the eve of Africa Day, the Russian diplomat noted that some African countries were more dependent on Western aid than others, but Russia was not imposing anything on anyone, because it proceeded from the sovereign equality of the UN member states. Moscow’s role is to help African countries in the UN Security Council and other UN structures, as well as on a bilateral basis, Bogdanov explained.

Imperialist Hegemony and the Class Struggle in Africa and the Diaspora

By Abayomi Azikiwe, May 28, 2023

May 25, 2023 represents the 60th anniversary since the formation of the Organization of African Unity (OAU), the forerunner of today’s African Union (AU). During 1963, over 30 independent African states held a summit meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia where they agreed to put aside differences in order to initiate a continental organization.

Eye Witness Crimea

By Daniel Kovalik and Rick Sterling, May 28, 2023

In May of this year, we took the long, 27-hour train ride from Moscow to Crimea to see how life is there and what the sentiment of the people are as the US and Ukraine sharpen their threats to “recapture” this peninsula from Russia.  And, while we were there, these threats were backed by a series of terrorist drone attacks in Crimea which, while doing little serious damage, signaled an escalation in the US/Ukrainian assault on Crimea.

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

*** 

So many Americans want to put mRNA out of their minds after the COVID-19 vaccine debacle. Dreams of injections gone bad with side effects including heart attacks, strokes, blood clots, and nerve damage have so many people around the world fearful of the next technological step. On cue with a bad dream Tao and coworkers from Harvard published on a “mechanical pill” to directly inject the stomach lining. If this was a sci-fi movie, people would be heading for the exits!

The authors summarize the technology in this key figure. In a nutshell, a pill would be swallowed and the devices would orient to the wall of the stomach or intestine (which would be difficult to control) and then the payload (mRNA) would be injected into the gastrointestinal epithelium and submucosa. The rich blood supply would immediately take the products into the blood stream. From there, the portal circulation would take blood to the liver via the hepatic portal vein. No one knows what a direct shot of mRNA would do to the liver. I can tell you as a doctor, I would be very concerned this could lead to even bigger complications than injection in the arm. Let’s hope this remains a bad dream for now.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Source

Wei Tao, Nicholas A. Peppas, Robotic pills for gastrointestinal-tract-targeted oral mRNA delivery, Matter, Volume 5, Issue 3, 2022, Pages 775-777, ISSN 2590-2385, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matt.2022.02.008. (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S25

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

*** 

Now that the dust is finally settling, those who became injured from Wuhan coronavirus (Covid-19) “vaccines” are taking action against the monsters who harmed them, including fake president Joe Biden and his murderous regime.

Five people whose health was damaged, along with the father of a 16-year-old boy who died after suffering covid jab-induced cardiac arrest, are suing Biden and his henchmen for allegedly colluding with social media companies to silence their voices in trying to warn others not to make the same mistake of getting injected like they did.

Biden and other top-ranking White House officials, including from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), are accused of violating the plaintiffs’ First Amendment rights, in partnership with Big Tech, by keeping a lid on the deadly truth about Fauci Flu shots.

“I have never sued anyone in my life,” tweeted Brianne Dressen, one of the plaintiffs who suffered nerve damage after taking the viral vector-based covid injection developed by AstraZeneca.

“[M]ight as well start with POTUS, U.S. Surgeon General, CDC, etc.”

You can peruse a copy of the lawsuit for yourself at the New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA) website.

Will the Biden regime finally be held accountable for its crimes against humanity – and better yet, removed from the White House for stealing the election via a coup?

A non-partisan, non-profit civil rights group, the NCLA filed Dressen et al.’s lawsuit against the Biden regime in an effort to help stamp out the “sprawling censorship enterprise” that has stolen away from Americans their First Amendment right to free speech.

The scheme involved the “combined efforts of numerous federal agencies and government actors – including within the White House – to coerce and induce social media platforms to censor, suppress, and label as ‘misinformation’ speech expressed by those who have suffered vaccine-related injuries” according to an NCLA press release about the matter.

“In Brianne Dressen, et al. v. Rob Flaherty, et al., NCLA urges the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas to enjoin this government-sponsored censorship and declare this state action unlawful to prevent these Defendants from further censoring such free speech and free association.”

Named in the suit as co-conspirators in the Biden regime’s Censorship Industrial Complex are Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, TikTok, and GoFundMe, all of which are accused of blocking the plaintiffs “when they attempted to share” their personal experiences, or those of a loved one, who “were medically harmed after taking the vaccine.”

The NCLA also lists the Stanford Internet Observatory’s Virality Project as another co-conspirator, the job of which is to “monitor and censor online support groups catering to those injured by Covid vaccines.”

This is an extremely serious matter because it shows that great lengths were taken by the Biden regime to keep a lid on the truth about the jabs and what they really were, and still are, doing to people who were unfortunate or ignorant enough to take them.

Kim Mack Rosenberg, the acting outside general counsel at Children’s Health Defense (CHD), a project of presidential contender Robert F. Kennedy Jr., described the scheme as “a massive censorship program to control the narrative and promote the government’s Covid-19 propaganda.”

“Silencing those who have been injured, like the plaintiffs in this case, by the very product promoted – and in some cases mandated – by the government is particularly egregious and causes further, albeit, different injury to those individuals, whose First Amendment rights have also been violated,” she further stated.

“Moreover, censoring these injured individuals injures the public, depriving them of important information and discourse on these issues.”

The latest news about the growing number of lawsuits being filed against those behind the covid jabs can be found at VaccineWars.com.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Featured image is from Children’s Health Defense

Price: $11.50 Get yours for FREE! Click here to download.

We encourage you to support the eBook project by making a donation through Global Research’s DonorBox “Worldwide Corona Crisis” Campaign Page. 

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

*** 

Charting a course through a pandemic is not easy. Trusting those who are doing so is equally difficult, but given the choice between an elected government in Westminster and the World Health Organisation (WHO) bureaucrats in Geneva, the decision is easy.

Having spent two years as director of the WHO cancer programme, I am more informed than most about the eye-watering waste and incompetence that oozes from every crevice of that organisation. Very strong on politics, very weak on expertise. Just look at how China was treated throughout a pandemic that some say was of their own making, albeit accidentally. Ironically, I was having a beer by the Yangtze River with the cancer centre director in Wuhan in October 2019. We were putting the world to rights, admiring the beautiful sunset and wondering what the next global health problem would be. Little did we know.

Every year the World Health Assembly is held in the main United Nations building in Geneva. Everybody who is anybody in health is there. Health ministers, bureaucrats, and hangers on from the 194 member states arrive in an impressive line of black chauffeured cars, complete with flags and diplomatic plates – quite a sight. But the intellectual content inside the chamber is just appalling. There is more knowledge and lively discussion to be had with a group of first-year medical students. Expensive meals and cocktail party gossip about who’s in and who’s out are high on the agenda – not what’s needed for improving global healthcare.

Now the WHO is considering proposals for a “pandemic treaty”. Last year, its member states agreed to develop a zero draft of what would be a legally binding accord if agreed by all 194 member states. The whole thing fills me with suspicion and dread, because we know that many of its leading member states have embraced lockdowns, vaccine passports, travel bans and border closures in recent years. All were disastrous policies which should never see the light of day again. Even on a basic level, to place the power of implementation into the hands of inept and overpaid administrators would be a catastrophic decision which no responsible elected government should sign up to. Let’s work with our international friends and allies on how best to tackle cross-border health threats, but that does not mean handing the keys to Geneva.

If the WHO is given any level of binding control and made a global authority on public health measures, then I really do fear for all freedom-loving societies. A pandemic response can only be a national decision, considering all different medical, cultural, and societal factors that are so wonderfully different across the globe. It can never be one size fits all – it cannot be done in negotiation with communist states like China.

Sure, the British government handled the pandemic dreadfully and made one bad decision after another. But at least we all have the power to go to our local church or school on election day and register our displeasure. The same cannot be said for treaties embedded into international organisations. The power to take decisions should be as close as possible to the individual affected, especially when it involves health and livelihood across generations.

Critics will say that international co-operation is positive and I agree. Yet that can be done very effectively without the use of the word “binding” anywhere. Scientists and policymakers can be encouraged to share ideas across borders, but we simply cannot sign up to something that we may seriously regret in the years to come.

Right now, just focus on the many, many questions that our government needs to answer about its own disastrous lockdowns.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Professor Karol Sikora is a consultant oncologist.

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

*** 

In the days after the Russian military was reported to have put an end to the two-day-long incursion of Russia’s Belgorod region, more and more information has come to light that proves the openly neo-Nazi character of the forces involved.

According to the Kremlin, a substantial military operation, involving the army, the air force and the national guard, killed 70 members of the far-right extremist Russian Volunteer Battalion and the ultra-nationalist Legion for a Free Russia after over 24 hours of fighting.

Hundreds of buildings were reportedly destroyed in Russian villages during the attack, which included drone strikes, US-produced armored vehicles and a cyber-attack. In a clear indication that the attack was coordinated and planned by the Ukrainian army, which operates de facto under the command of NATO, the assault by the saboteur units was prepared by a series of Ukrainian air strikes. It was the largest incursion of Russian territory since the beginning of the NATO-Russia war in Ukraine.

The forces carrying it out were blatant neo-Nazis with vast international connections, above all in Germany. Of particular significance is Denis Kapustin, alias Denis Nikitin, a leader of the Russian Volunteer Corps (RVC). The RVC was formed last August in Ukraine. Its declared aim is the establishment of an “ethnically pure” Russian nation state, without the tens of millions of Russian Muslims and members of other national, religious and ethnic minorities that are citizens of the Russian Federation. The RVC uses symbols of the Vlasov Army which collaborated with the Nazis during World War II in their war of annihilation against the Soviet Union, and various insignia of the international far right.

According to the German magazine Der Spiegel, Kapustin, who is known as “Rex,” is considered “one of the most influential figures” in the European neo-Nazi scene by German authorities. Kapustin moved to Germany as a teenager in 2001 and was banned from entering the country in 2019. However, his ties to the German neo-Nazi scene, which is closely intertwined with the state apparatus, remain extensive.

Since 2008, he has run the far-right apparel brand “White Rex” which has grown to become a major force in the international neo-Nazi scene, and is involved in the organization of many large-scale far-right events in Europe. In Russia, Kapustin was for years involved in the notoriously violent and far-right soccer hooligan scene.

In Germany, Kapustin is known to maintain ties to two leading neo-Nazis, Tommy Frenk and Thorsten Heise. Heise is a leader of the neo-Nazi National Democratic Party (NDP) and also believed to play a central role in Combat 18, an international neo-Nazi terrorist network. Heise also had ties to the German neo-Nazi terrorist network NSU, which murdered at least 10 immigrants. The NSU was largely built up and covered up for by the German state and especially the secret service, the Verfassungsschutz.

Other members of the RVC are also notorious neo-Nazis with ties to the Ukrainian states and NATO. Thus, the Russian Alexei Liovkin (or Levkin) is a member of the Black Metal Group “m8181th,” which supposedly means “Hitler’s Hammer,” and a former member of the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion that has played a major role in Ukrainian politics since the 2014 US-backed coup in Kiev.

The denials issued now by Kiev of direct ties to these neo-Nazi forces lack any credibility. According to the Spiegel, one week before the attack, Kapustin and a leader of the Legion for a Free Russia had their pictures taken in Kiev right next to the headquarters of Ukraine’s military intelligence. In interviews in 2022, Kapustin also bragged about having met half of the leadership of Ukraine’s military and claimed to be enlisted as a regular soldier of the Ukrainian army.

The incursion provides an object lesson in the character of the war waged by NATO against Russia. Contrary to what the New York Times and the White House would have workers believe, this war was neither “unprovoked” nor has it anything to do with the defense of “democracy.” It was provoked and prepared for decades, including by the NATO expansion to Russia’s borders but also the promotion and arming of neo-Nazi forces who have been built up systematically as the principal basis for an “insurgency” and a regime change operation in Moscow. The ultimate war aim is the carve-up of Russia and the entire former Soviet Union along national and ethnic lines, in order to bring the region under the direct control of imperialism.

In Russia, the incursion has provoked significant criticisms of the army leadership. A comment in the Nezavisimaya Gazeta pointed out that a new “barrier wall” that was erected for 10 billion rubles in March to preempt further incursions from Ukraine had failed to prevent the attack. The governor of the Belgorod region, Viacheslav Gladkov, said on Thursday that he too had “a lot of questions” for the army leadership.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner mercenary force which was built up by and operates as part of the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence, gave an extensive interview this week, sharply criticizing the army leadership. The Wagner group played the principal role in the seizure of Bakhmut but has now announced it would withdraw from the city and hand it over to the regular army.

In the interview, Prigozhin called for the replacement of both Defense Minister Sergei Shuigu and the chief of the general staff, Valery Gerasimov. He said, “I love my motherland, I serve Putin, Shoigu should be judged and we will fight on.”

Prigozhin said that the military leadership had “f***ed up” repeatedly and cited the incursion of the Belgorod region as an example for yet another failure of the military. He warned that Ukraine would seek to strike even deeper into Russia. He insisted that Russia had to transition completely to a full war economy and mobilize many more men than the 300,000 mobilized last fall based on Putin’s partial mobilization order.

Prigozhin’s most remarkable statements in the interview testified to the counter-revolutionary and reactionary traditions in which not just Prigozhin but the oligarchic Putin regime as a whole places itself. In attacking the army leadership, Prigozhin evoked Joseph Stalin, the long-time head of the Soviet bureaucracy, who spearheaded the nationalist reaction against the October Revolution and was responsible for the murder of tens of thousands of socialist revolutionaries and workers in the Terror of the 1930s, as a positive example for Vladimir Putin. Prigozhin said that, in cases of such failure of the army leadership, “Iosif Vissarionovich [Stalin] would have drawn conclusions—he would have shot 200 people… But so far, no one here has drawn any conclusions.”

Then, he explicitly warned of a repetition of the October Revolution. Ranting against the lifestyle of the children of Shoigu and other ministers, Prigozhin warned that the lavish lifestyle of the elites amidst war “can end just as it did in 1917 with a revolution, when first all the soldiers will rise up, and then their loved ones will. There are already tens of thousands of them—relatives of those killed. And there will probably be hundreds of thousands—we cannot avoid that.”

Prigozhin’s warnings reveal the main fears of the Russian oligarchy: Having emerged out of the Stalinist reaction against the socialist October Revolution, which culminated in the destruction of the Soviet Union and the restoration of capitalism, the Russian oligarchs fear nothing more than that this war, like World War I, will lead to an eruption of revolutionary movements and that workers in Russia and Ukraine will revive their powerful and shared Marxist and internationalist political traditions. This path—that of independent revolutionary struggle—is precisely the path that workers throughout the region and internationally must take in order to stop the further escalation of the war toward a nuclear Third World War.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Featured image is from Attentie, Anastase Maragos, Kadr, Okolosport News, Youtube via Zaborona

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

*** 

At the end of a dusty path snaking through rice paddies lives a woman who survived multiple U.S. airstrikes as a child.

Round-faced and just over 5 feet tall in plastic sandals, Meas Lorn lost an older brother to a helicopter gunship attack and an uncle and cousins to artillery fire. For decades, one question haunted her: “I still wonder why those aircraft always attacked in this area. Why did they drop bombs here?”

The U.S. carpet bombing of Cambodia between 1969 and 1973 has been well documented, but its architect, former national security adviser and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who will turn 100 on Saturday, bears responsibility for more violence than has been previously reported. An investigation by The Intercept provides evidence of previously unreported attacks that killed or wounded hundreds of Cambodian civilians during Kissinger’s tenure in the White House. When questioned about his culpability for these deaths, Kissinger responded with sarcasm and refused to provide answers.

An exclusive archive of formerly classified U.S. military documents — assembled from the files of a secret Pentagon task force that investigated war crimes during the 1970s, inspector generals’ inquiries buried amid thousands of pages of unrelated documents, and other materials discovered during hundreds of hours of research at the U.S. National Archives — offers previously unpublished, unreported, and underappreciated evidence of civilian deaths that were kept secret during the war and remain almost entirely unknown to the American people. The documents also provided a rudimentary road map for on-the-ground reporting in Southeast Asia that yielded evidence of scores of additional bombings and ground raids that have never been reported to the outside world.

The road to Tralok Bek, Cambodia, in 2010, left. Meas Lorn, right, poses for a portrait in Ta Sous, Cambodia. Photos: Tam Turse

Survivors from 13 Cambodian villages along the Vietnamese border told The Intercept about attacks that killed hundreds of their relatives and neighbors during Kissinger’s tenure in President Richard Nixon’s White House. The interviews with more than 75 Cambodian witnesses and survivors, published here for the first time, reveal in new detail the long-term trauma borne by survivors of the American war. These attacks were far more intimate and perhaps even more horrific than the violence already attributed to Kissinger’s policies, because the villages were not just bombed, but also strafed by helicopter gunships and burned and looted by U.S. and allied troops.

The incidents detailed in the files and the testimony of survivors include accounts of both deliberate attacks inside Cambodia and accidental or careless strikes by U.S. forces operating on the border with South Vietnam. These latter attacks were infrequently reported through military channels, covered only sparingly by the press at the time, and have mostly been lost to history. Together, they increase an already sizable number of Cambodian deaths for which Kissinger bears responsibility and raise questions among experts about whether long-dormant efforts to hold him accountable for war crimes might be renewed.

The Army files and interviews with Cambodian survivors, American military personnel, Kissinger confidants, and experts demonstrate that impunity extended from the White House to American soldiers in the field. The records show that U.S. troops implicated in killing and maiming civilians received no meaningful punishments.

Together, the interviews and documents demonstrate a consistent disregard for Cambodian lives: failing to detect or protect civilians; to conduct post-strike assessments; to investigate civilian harm allegations; to prevent such damage from recurring; and to punish or otherwise hold U.S. personnel accountable for injuries and deaths. These policies not only obscured the true toll of the conflict in Cambodia but also set the stage for the civilian carnage of the U.S. war on terror from Afghanistan to Iraq, Syria to Somalia, and beyond.

“You can trace a line from the bombing of Cambodia to the present,” said Greg Grandin, author of “Kissinger’s Shadow.” “The covert justifications for illegally bombing Cambodia became the framework for the justifications of drone strikes and forever war. It’s a perfect expression of American militarism’s unbroken circle.”

Kissinger bears significant responsibility for attacks in Cambodia that killed as many as 150,000 civilians, according to Ben Kiernan, former director of the Genocide Studies Program at Yale University and one of the foremost authorities on the U.S. air campaign in Cambodia. That’s up to six times the number of noncombatants thought to have died in U.S. airstrikes in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen during the first 20 years of the war on terror. Grandin estimated that, overall, Kissinger — who also helped to prolong the Vietnam War and facilitate genocides in Cambodia, East Timor, and Bangladesh; accelerated civil wars in southern Africa; and supported coups and death squads throughout Latin America — has the blood of at least 3 million people on his hands

All the while, as Kissinger dated starlets, won coveted awards, and rubbed shoulders with billionaires at black-tie White House dinners, Hamptons galas, and other invitation-only soirées, survivors of the U.S. war in Cambodia were left to grapple with loss, trauma, and unanswered questions. They did so largely alone and invisible to the wider world, including to Americans whose leaders had upended their lives.

Henry Kissinger dodged questions about the bombing of Cambodia for decades and has spent half his life lying about his role in the killings there. In 1973, during his Senate confirmation hearings to become secretary of state, Kissinger was asked if he approved of deliberately keeping attacks on Cambodia secret, to which he responded with a wall of words justifying the assaults. “I just wanted to make clear that it was not a bombing of Cambodia, but it was a bombing of North Vietnamese in Cambodia,” he insisted. The evidence from U.S. military records and eyewitness testimony directly contradicts that claim. So did Kissinger himself.

In his 2003 book, “Ending the Vietnam War,” Kissinger offered an estimate of 50,000 Cambodian civilian deaths from U.S. attacks during his involvement in the conflict — a number given to him by a Pentagon historian. But documents obtained by The Intercept show that number was conjured almost out of thin air. In reality, the U.S. bombardment of Cambodia ranks among the most intense air campaigns in history. More than 231,000 U.S. bombing sorties were flown over Cambodia from 1965 to 1973. Between 1969 and 1973, while Kissinger was national security adviser, U.S. aircraft dropped 500,000 or more tons of munitions. (During all of World War II, including the atomic bombings, the United States dropped around 160,000 tons of munitions on Japan.)

At a 2010 State Department conference on U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia from 1946 through the close of the Vietnam War, I asked Kissinger how he would amend his testimony before the Senate, given his own contention that tens of thousands of Cambodian civilians died from his escalation of the war.

“Why should I amend my testimony?” he replied. “I don’t quite understand the question, except that I didn’t tell the truth.”

“Anything That Flies on Anything That Moves”

One night in December 1970, Nixon called his national security adviser in a rage about Cambodia. “I want the helicopter ships. I want everything that can fly to go in and crack the hell out of them,” he barked at Kissinger, according to a transcript. “I want gunships in there. That means armed helicopters. … I want it done! Get them off their ass. … I want them to hit everything.”

Five minutes later, Kissinger was on the phone with Gen. Alexander Haig, his military aide, relaying the command for a relentless assault on Cambodia. “It’s an order, it’s to be done. Anything that flies on anything that moves. You got that?”

Two years earlier, Nixon had won the White House promising to end America’s war in Vietnam, but instead expanded the conflict into neighboring Cambodia. Fearing public backlash and believing that Congress would never approve an attack on a neutral country, Kissinger and Haig began planning — a month after Nixon took office— an operation that was kept secret from the American people, Congress, and even top Pentagon officials via a conspiracy of cover stories, coded messages, and a dual bookkeeping system that logged airstrikes in Cambodia as occurring in South Vietnam. Ray Sitton, a colonel serving the Joint Chiefs of Staff, would bring a list of targets to the White House for approval. “Strike here in this area,” Kissinger would tell him, and Sitton would backchannel the coordinates into the field, circumventing the military chain of command. Authentic documents associated with the strikes were burned, and phony target coordinates and other forged data were provided to the Pentagon and Congress.

Kissinger, who went on to serve as secretary of state in the Nixon and Gerald Ford administrations, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1973 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom — America’s highest civilian award — in 1977. In the decades that followed, he has continued to counsel U.S. presidents, most recently Donald Trump; served on numerous corporate and government advisory boards; and authored a small library of bestselling books on history and diplomacy.

Born Heinz Alfred Kissinger in Fürth, Germany, on May 27, 1923, he came to the United States in 1938, amid a flood of Jews fleeing Nazi oppression. He became a U.S. citizen in 1943 and served in the U.S. Army in Europe during World War II. After graduating summa cum laude from Harvard College in 1950, he continued on to an M.A. in 1952 and a Ph.D. in 1954. He subsequently joined the Harvard faculty, working in the Department of Government and at the Center for International Affairs until 1969. While teaching at Harvard, he served as a consultant for the administrations of John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson before his senior roles in the Nixon and Ford administrations. A believer in Realpolitik, Kissinger heavily influenced U.S. foreign policy between 1969 and 1977.

Through a combination of relentless ambition, media savvy, and the ability to muddy the truth and slip free of scandal, Kissinger transformed himself from a college professor and government functionary into the most celebrated American diplomat of the 20th century and a bona fide celebrity. While dozens of his White House colleagues were engulfed in the swirling Watergate scandal, which cost Nixon his job in 1974, Kissinger emerged unscathed, all the while providing fodder for the tabloids and spouting lines like “Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.”

Kissinger was the chief architect of U.S. war policy in Southeast Asia, achieving almost co-president status in such matters. Kissinger and Nixon were also uniquely responsible for attacks that killed, wounded, or displaced hundreds of thousands of Cambodians and laid the groundwork for the Khmer Rouge genocide.

Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge leadership cannot be exonerated for committing genocide on the Cambodian people, said Kiernan, the Yale scholar, but neither can Nixon nor Kissinger escape responsibility for their role in the slaughter that precipitated it. The duo so destabilized the tiny country that Pol Pot’s nascent revolutionary movement took over Cambodia in 1975 and unleashed horrors, from massacres to mass starvation, that would kill around 2 million people.

Kaing Guek Eav (known as “Duch”) who ran the Khmer Rouge’s Tuol Sleng prison, where thousands of Cambodians were tortured and murdered in the late 1970s, made the same observation. “Mister Richard Nixon and Kissinger,” he told a United Nations-backed tribunal, “allowed the Khmer Rouge to grasp golden opportunities.” After he was overthrown in a military coup and his country was plunged into genocide, Cambodia’s deposed monarch, Prince Norodom Sihanouk, leveled similar blame. “There are only two men responsible for the tragedy in Cambodia,” he said in the 1970s. “Mr. Nixon and Dr. Kissinger.”

In his 2001 book-length indictment, “The Trial of Henry Kissinger,” Christopher Hitchens called for Kissinger’s prosecution “for war crimes, for crimes against humanity, and for offenses against common or customary or international law, including conspiracy to commit murder, kidnap, and torture” from Argentina, Bangladesh, and Chile to East Timor, Laos, and Uruguay. But Hitchens reserved special opprobrium for Kissinger’s role in Cambodia. “The bombing campaign,” he wrote, “began as it was to go on — with full knowledge of its effect on civilians, and with flagrant deceit by Mr. Kissinger in this precise respect.”

Others went beyond theoretical indictments. As a teenager, Australian-born human rights activist Peter Tatchell felt greatly affected by the U.S. war — and war crimes — in Indochina. Decades later, believing that there was a strong case to be made, he took action. “It surprised me that no one had tried to prosecute Kissinger under international law, so I decided to have a go,” he told The Intercept by email.

In 2002, with Slobodan Miloševic, the former president of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, on trial for war crimes, Tatchell applied for an arrest warrant at Bow Street Magistrates’ Court in London under the Geneva Conventions Act of 1957, an act of Parliament that incorporated some components of the laws of war as defined by the 1949 Geneva Conventions into British law. He alleged that while Kissinger “was National Security Advisor to the U.S. President 1969-75 and U.S. Secretary of State 1973-77 he commissioned, aided and abetted and procured war crimes in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.” Judge Nicholas Evans denied the application, stating that he was not “presently” able to draft a “suitably precise charge” based on the evidence Tatchell submitted.

When the arrest warrant was denied, Tatchell tried to engage international humanitarian organizations to help or take over the case, he told The Intercept, but they “did not see it as a priority.” He tried unsuccessfully to contact potential American witnesses and engage U.S. human rights groups.

But Tatchell maintains that Kissinger should still have his day in court. “I believe that age should never be a barrier to justice. Those who commit or authorise war crimes should be held to account, regardless of their age,” he wrote, “providing they have the mental capacity for a fair trial, which I understand is the case with Kissinger.”

Five Decades of Impunity

Kissinger and his acolytes frequently cast blame for the American war in Cambodia on the North Vietnamese troops and South Vietnamese guerrillas who used the country as a base and logistics hub, while giving short shrift to U.S. involvement there. “What destabilized Cambodia was North Vietnam’s occupation of chunks of Cambodian territory from 1965 onwards,” wrote former Kissinger aide Peter Rodman. But three years earlier — long before most Americans knew their country was at war in Southeast Asia — U.S. “bombs hit a Cambodian village by accident … killing several civilians,” according to an Air Force history. And the “accidents” never stopped. Between 1962 and 1969, the Cambodian government tallied 1,864 border violations; 6,149 violations of its air space by U.S. and South Vietnamese forces; and nearly 1,000 civilian casualties.

To Nixon and Kissinger, Cambodia was a sideshow: a tiny war waged in the shadow of the larger conflict in Vietnam and entirely subsumed to U.S. objectives there. To Cambodians on the front lines of the conflict — farming folk living hardscrabble lives — the war was a shock and a horror. At first, people were awed by the aircraft that began flying above their thatched-roof homes. They called Huey Cobra attack helicopters “lobster legs” for their skids, which resembled crustacean limbs, while small bubble-like Loaches became “coconut shells” in local parlance. But Cambodians quickly learned to fear the aircraft’s machine guns and rockets, the bombs of F-4 Phantoms, and the ground-shaking strikes of B-52s. Decades later, survivors still had little understanding of why they were attacked and why so many loved ones were maimed or killed. They had no idea that their suffering was due in large part to a man named Henry Kissinger and his failed schemes to achieve his boss’s promised “honorable end to the war in Vietnam” by expanding, escalating, and prolonging that conflict.

In 2010, I traveled to Cambodia to investigate decades-old U.S. war crimes. I searched the borderlands, looking for villages mentioned in U.S. military documents, carrying binders filled with photos of Cobras, Loaches, and other aircraft, asking villagers to point out the military hardware that killed their loved ones and neighbors. My interviewees were uniformly shocked that an American knew about attacks on their village and had traveled across the globe to speak with them.

For decades, the U.S. government has shown little interest in examining allegations of civilian harm caused by its military operations around the world. A 2020 study of post-9/11 civilian casualty incidents found that most have gone completely uninvestigated, and in those cases that have come under official scrutiny, U.S. investigators regularly interview American military witnesses but almost totally ignore civilians — victims, survivors, family members, and bystanders — “severely compromising the effectiveness of investigations,” according to researchers from the Center for Civilians in Conflict and the Columbia Law School Human Rights Institute. The U.S. military rarely conducted investigations of civilian harm allegations in Cambodia and almost never interviewed Cambodian victims. In all 13 Cambodian villages I visited in 2010, I was the first person to ever interview victims of wartime attacks initiated 9,000 miles away in Washington, D.C.

Over the last two decades, investigative reporters and human rights groups have documented systemic killing of civilians, underreporting of noncombatant casualties, failures of accountability, and outright impunity extending from the drone pilots who slay innocent people to the architects of America’s 21st-century wars in Libya, Somalia, Syria, Yemen and elsewhere. A 2021 investigation by New York Times reporter Azmat Khan — which revealed that the U.S. air war in Iraq and Syria was marked by flawed intelligence and inaccurate targeting, resulting in the deaths of thousands of innocent people — finally forced the Defense Department to unveil a comprehensive plan for preventing, mitigating, and responding to civilian casualties. The 36-page Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response Action Plan provides a blueprint for improving how the Pentagon addresses noncombatant deaths but lacks a concrete mechanism for addressing past civilian harm.

The Defense Department has been clear that it isn’t interested in looking back. “At this point we don’t have an intent to re-litigate cases,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told Rep. Sara Jacobs, D-Calif., when she asked last year whether the Pentagon was planning to revisit past civilian harm allegations from the forever wars. The possibility that the Defense Department will investigate civilian harm in Cambodia 50 years later is nil.

I share some responsibility for the delay in publishing these accounts. For 13 years — while I was reporting on drone strike victims in Somalia, ethnic cleansing in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and civil wars from Libya to South Sudan — survivors’ accounts from Cambodian villages like An Lung Kreas, Bos Phlung, Bos Mon (upper), Doun Rath, Doun Rath 2, Mroan, Por, Sati, Ta Sous, Tropeang, Phlong, Ta Hang, and Udom were lodged in my notebooks. Other projects and imperatives, coupled with the vagaries of the news industry that doesn’t always view past atrocities as “news,” kept them there.

When I conducted my interviews, in 2010, the life expectancy in Cambodia was about 66 years. Many of the people I spoke with — their ages in this article pegged to the date we spoke — are likely dead. Few in these rural villages had cellphones 13 years ago, so I have no way to reach them. But their accounts remain vibrant and the horrors they recounted have not diminished. Nor has their pain necessarily passed on with them from this world. We know from Holocaust survivors, for example, that trauma can have intergenerational effects; it can be passed on, whether genetically or otherwise. Even at this late date, the pain of America’s war in Cambodia lives on — along with the architect of that country’s agony.

Map: The Intercept

Memories of Atrocity

Crossing a bridge over the Mekong River, I sped into the Cambodian countryside, along highways where SUVs passed tiny carts pulled by tiny ponies, motorbikes loaded with sheaves of bamboo or brightly colored textiles or baskets of squealing pigs, and ancient flatbed trucks piled high with rough-hewn, ochre bricks. I rolled through market towns of open-air butcher shops and wooden stalls selling cases of motor oil or motorcycle helmets or child-sized bags of rice or cases of Angkor Beer. I raced past thick, unruly forests and rubber plantations and rice fields where you could spot lines of water buffalo loping, single file, along the paddy dikes. Finally, I turned off the pavement onto a path of rutted, red dirt, looking for villages unknown even to the local police. At the end of one of these dusty, pitted trails, I found a hamlet straddling the border with Vietnam.

The air in Doun Rath was dry and musty during the day and punctuated, in the late afternoon, by the comforting smell of cooking fires that wafted up to wooden homes built on stilts to maximize air circulation on sweltering days like these.

I came looking for members of a ravaged generation who had survived both the American war and the Khmer Rouge genocide that followed. One of them, Phok Horm, spry and 84 years old at the time of our meeting, with close-cropped salt and pepper hair, told me: “Bombing was very common in this area. Sometimes, it happened every day. Sometimes there were dive bombers. Sometimes, the aircraft with the legs of a lobster would fly over and shoot at everything.”

Vietnamese guerrillas operated in the nearby forest, Phok and fellow village elders recalled. They came to Doun Rath to buy supplies from residents already living hard lives, growing rice and selling it across the border in Vietnam, before the war flooded the hamlet with refugees from other bomb-ravaged Cambodian villages. But the guerrillas generally weren’t present during the attacks. “Many people here were shot,” said Chneang Sous, who was in his 20s during the conflict. “Most of them were Cambodian.”

When the shooting started, villagers would scatter, running for the uncertain protection of paddy dikes and, as the war dragged on, subterranean bunkers that families dug beside their homes. Min Keun, a teenager in 1969, remembered the regular intrusion of “lobster legs” in the skies over the village. “People would panic. They would run. Sometimes they made it. Sometimes they would be killed,” she recalled. “There was so much suffering.” Min and others remembered helicopters firing on fleeing villagers. Water buffalo and cattle were repeatedly machine-gunned. At night, the helicopters’ bright search beams lit up the darkness as they hunted for enemy forces. Bombs might fall at any time.

Around 1969, Phok’s husband was caught in the open during a “bombardment” and hit in the neck with shrapnel. He hung on for seven days before succumbing to his wounds. Chneang recalled an instance when an American Huey gunship popped up from behind a tree line, forcing villagers to bolt for safety. The helicopter raked the area with machine gunfire, killing his aunt and uncle. Nouv Mom told me that his younger sister was gravely wounded in a 1972 bombing. Vietnamese guerrillas arrived after the attack and took her away for medical treatment, but his family never saw her again. All told, survivors believed that more than half of all the villagers living in Doun Rath during the late 1960s and early 1970s were either killed or wounded by American attacks.

In nearby Doun Rath 2, former village chief Kang Vorn said residents led a simple life before the war, growing rice, beans, and sesame seeds. They began to see Vietnamese guerrillas around 1965, but the bombing didn’t begin until about 1969. Vet Shea, a one-eyed woman, recalled that the attacks intensified as time went on. “Sometimes we were bombed every day. Once, it was three or four times in one day,” she said. She herself survived a helicopter attack targeting farmers working in the nearby fields. “I ran flat out when I saw it,” Vet told me. “One person was wounded. A few others died.”

Thirteen elders of Doun Rath 2 did their best to recall the names of the dead. “Nul, Pik, Num, Seung,” said Sok Yun, an 85-year-old who relied on a weathered walking stick, as she ticked off the names of four villagers killed when their bomb shelter collapsed under a direct hit from an airstrike. Vet said her aunt was slain in another attack. Tep Sarum was just a teenager when a bomb hit his aunt’s house, killing her. Mom Huy, 80 years old at the time of our interview, said deaths and injuries from the bombs were common, while Kang, the former chief, estimated that at least 30 villagers were wounded by airstrikes but survived.

Just how many people in and around Doun Rath and Doun Rath 2 were killed by Nixon and Kissinger’s war was already lost to history when I visited. The U.S. documentary record is quite sparse, but it does exist. On the night of August 9 and the morning of August 10, 1969, according to an Army inspector general’s report, a U.S. “Nighthawk” helicopter team — consisting of one Huey, equipped with a spotlight and high-powered M-60 machine guns, and a Cobra gunship outfitted with a powerful Gatling gun, rockets, and a grenade launcher — was operating in a so-called free fire zone near the South Vietnamese border with Cambodia.

The previously unreported investigation reveals that while only some members of the helicopter crews mentioned sporadic ground fire that night, they all agreed that lights were seen in “living structures.” Helicopter crew members claimed that radar operators told them they were over South Vietnam, but the radar operators said otherwise. One of them, Rogden Palmer, speaking to investigators about the Huey commander, said:

[H]e told his Tiger bird (the cobra accompanying him) that he thought he saw a light. At this time I advised him that he was close to the Cambodian border, and he rogered my transmission. Night Hawk and Tiger started circling … about the same time I advised him that he appeared to be over the border. I don’t remember if he rogered my transmission, but I beleive [sic] he did. At one time I told him he was over the border.

Apparently undaunted, the Huey focused its searchlight on the houses and the Cobra gunship commenced a firing run, blasting three of what the Pentagon documents referred to as “hooches” — shorthand for civilian dwellings — with machine gunfire and rockets filled with “flechettes,” tiny nails designed to tear through human flesh.

The U.S. investigation determined that the helicopters “did engage a target in the vicinity of the Cambodian border which could have been the village of Doun Rath.” The survivors in Doun Rath and Doun Rath 2 didn’t recall this particular incident, emphasizing that attacks were so common for so long that they blended together. The report concluded that the “aircraft commander exercised poor judgement [sic] in engaging a target under these circumstances.” The inspector general, however, recommended that “no disciplinary action be taken,” and until I arrived decades later no one, apparently, had tried to investigate what actually happened in Doun Rath.

Fifty years on, most U.S. attacks in Cambodia are unknown to the wider world and may never be known. Even those confirmed by the U.S. military were ignored and forgotten: cast into history’s dustbin without additional reviews or follow-up investigations.

On January 6, 1970, for example, five helicopters breached Cambodian airspace and fired on the village of Prastah, killing two civilians and severely wounding an 11-year-old girl, according to an Army inspector general’s summary report. That perfunctory review found that helicopter gunships from the 25th Infantry Division had fired on enemy forces, who allegedly withdrew into Cambodia. The inquiry determined that the “gunships continued to engage and rounds did impact in Cambodia.” As to the question of civilian casualties and property damage resulting from the attack, the report stated only that “it was possible that civilian personnel … could have been struck by fire from the gunships and some crops could have been destroyed.” There is no indication that anything was done to compensate the survivors.

In the early evening of May 3, 1970, a helicopter circled the Cambodian village of Sre Kandal several times, scaring villagers and forcing them to flee, according to a formerly classified Army report. The file states that witnesses said a “helicopter of unknown type circled their village several times. They became frightened and started to run, at which time the helicopter allegedly fired.” According to Cambodians who the U.S. military encountered just after the attacks, three people suffered burns when a home was set ablaze in the attack and one person was wounded by shrapnel. One of the burn victims, his name likely engraved in the hearts of his Cambodian relatives but otherwise lost to history, later died.

“Everything Was Completely Destroyed”

Less than a month after Kissinger and Haig began planning the secret bombing of Cambodia, the U.S. launched Operation MENU, a callously titled collection of B-52 raids codenamed BREAKFAST, LUNCH, SNACK, DINNER, DESSERT, and SUPPER that were carried out from March 18, 1969, to May 26, 1970. The attacks were kept secret through multiple layers of deception; Kissinger approved each one of the 3,875 sorties.

Survivors say that living through a B-52 bombing is unimaginably terrifying, bordering on the apocalyptic. Even within the confines of a deep, well-built bomb shelter, the concussive force from a nearby strike might burst eardrums. For those more exposed, the earth-shaking strikes could be extraordinarily lethal.

One morning, at the end of a busted dirt and gravel road near the Vietnamese border, I found Vuth Than, 78 years old at the time, with a shorn head of bristly gray hair and a mouth stained red with juice from betel nut, a natural stimulant popular in Southeast Asia.

Both Vuth and her sister, 72-year-old Vuth Thang, broke down as soon as I explained the purpose of my reporting. They were away from their home in the village of Por when a B-52 strike wiped out 17 members of their family. “I lost my mother, father, sisters, brothers, everyone,” Vuth Than told me, tears streaming down her cheeks. “It was so terrible. Everything was completely destroyed.”

Exposed by North Vietnam’s Hanoi Radio and confirmed by the New York Times in May 1969, the secret bombing of Cambodia was officially denied and unknown to the public and the relevant congressional committees at the time. Congress and the American people were kept so deep in the dark that on April 30, 1970, as he announced the first publicly avowed U.S. ground invasion of Cambodia to strike at suspected enemy base areas, Nixon could baldly lie, telling the country: “For five years neither the United States nor South Vietnam has moved against these enemy sanctuaries because we did not wish to violate the territory of a neutral nation.”

It was only in 1973, during the Watergate scandal, that the secret bombing allegations came to the fore, prompting the first effort to impeach Nixon on the grounds that he had waged a secret war in a neutral nation in violation of the U.S. Constitution. Eventually, that article of impeachment was voted down in the name of political expediency. In the face of the other charges, however, Nixon resigned from office.

“That was in essentially unpopulated areas and I don’t believe it had any significant casualties,” Kissinger told me at the 2010 State Department conference, titled “The American Experience in Southeast Asia, 1946-1975,” when I questioned him about the bombing. It was effectively the same reply he offered British journalist David Frost during a 1979 NBC News interview in which Frost charged that Kissinger’s Cambodia policy set in motion a series of events that would “destroy the country.” Kissinger stormed out of the studio after the taping and Frost quit the project, alleging interference by NBC, which was then also employing Kissinger as a consultant and commentator. NBC later released a transcript of the interview but allowed Kissinger to amend his comments through an attached letter to NBC News President William Small.

“We did not start to destroy a country from anybody’s point of view when we were bombing seven isolated North Vietnamese base areas within some five miles of the Vietnamese border, from which attacks were being launched into South Vietnam,” Kissinger told Frost. In typical fashion of seizing on discrepancies and muddying debates, he accurately denied Frost’s contention that Base Area 704 was bombed — a mistake stemming from a typographic error in a Pentagon document — during the secret B-52 attacks, noting that “base area 740” was actually attacked. He said recommendations of targets were accompanied by a statement “that civilian casualties were expected to be minimal.”

There were in fact 1,136 civilians living in Base Area 740, according to the Pentagon; a formerly top secret Air Force report, declassified decades after the Frost interview, noted that only 250 enemy forces were present there. An Army document I discovered in the National Archives also notes that the military was aware that civilians “were wounded/killed by B-52 strikes in Base area 740” between May 16 and 20, 1970, around the time of the SUPPER attacks. According to the confidential case file, those slain and injured were “Montagnards,” members of an ethnic minority whose “hamlets were not accurately reflected on commonly used maps.”

Meak Hen, left; Koul Saron, center; and Meak Nea, right, speak with reporter Nick Turse in Tralok Bek in 2010. Photos: Tam Turse

“I Was the Only Survivor of My Whole Family”

In 2010, the village was officially known as Ta Sous, but to its inhabitants it was still known by its name during the American war: Tralok Bek. “Every house had a bunker during the war. But during the day, if you were out tending to the cows, your life might depend on a termite hill and whether you could hide behind it,” Meas Lorn explained. “Planes dropped bombs. Helicopters strafed. Many people died,” said Meak Satom, a gray-haired man with a gold tooth. A B-52 strike in 1969 killed about 10 people, including a young friend, he recalled.

While I interviewed locals about the many attacks that occurred there during the war, Sdeung Sokheung said little. But when I brought out a binder filled with photographs of many different types of American aircraft, she zeroed in on an F-4 Phantom. Pointing at it, she said that as a girl, she had witnessed the bombing of Ta Hang village, about eight kilometers away, by that type of plane.

After finishing our interviews in Tralok Bek, I traveled winding dirt roads, past stunted bushes and the occasional thin, tan-colored cow, until we reached an area of dry, rock-hard rice paddies and towering palms. A few minutes later, in a rustic wooden home, I found 64-year-old Chan Yath, a woman with a substantial head of dark hair and teeth stained from chewing betel nut. I asked if there had been a bomb strike in the area during the war. She said yes; a family had been nearly wiped out. The lone survivor, she explained, was her cousin, An Seun. A younger woman was dispatched to find An and, 20 minutes or so later, we saw her — a tiny, aging mother of 10 — ambling along a narrow paddy dike path leading to the rear of Chan’s home. “During the time of a full moon,” said An, referring to a Buddhist holy day, she was off visiting her grandfather’s house. “At around 10 a.m., an airplane dropped a bomb on my home. My parents and four siblings were all killed,” she told me with wet eyes and a catch in her throat. “I was the only survivor of my whole family.”

During these same years, the U.S. was also conducting clandestine, cross-border ground operations inside Cambodia. In the two years before Nixon and Kissinger took over the war, U.S. commandos conducted 99 and 287 missions, respectively. In 1969, the number jumped to 454. Between January 1970 and April 1972, when the program was finally shut down, commandos carried out at least 1,045 covert missions inside Cambodia. There may, however, have been others, ostensibly launched by Kissinger, that were never disclosed.

From January to May 1973, between stints as deputy assistant to the president for national security and White House chief of staff, Al Haig served as the vice chief of staff of the Army. Retired Army Brig. Gen. John Johns told me that during this time, he was in Haig’s office at the Pentagon when an important call came in. “I was briefing him on something, and the red phone rang, which I knew was the White House,” Johns recalled. “I got up to leave. He motioned me to sit down. I sat there and heard him tell them how to cover up our intrusions into Cambodia.”

Johns — who had never before revealed the story to a reporter — was relatively sure that Haig was referring to past covert actions, yet did not know if the operations were made public or who was on the other end of the phone line. But Kissinger was responsible for many of the cross-border missions, according to Roger Morris, a Kissinger aide who served on the senior staff of the National Security Council. “A lot of the time, he was authorizing the ongoing covert excursions into Cambodia,” he told me. “We were running a lot of covert ops there.”

“How Could the People Escape?”

After two days of driving local roads asking for directions, I turned off a highway onto a red dirt track that cut through lush farmland and finally spilled into a border village of simple wooden homes amid a sea of variegated greenery. During the war, these houses had looked much the same, said village chief Sheang Heng, a wiry man with calloused hands and bare feet wearing a loose dress shirt that had once been white. The only real change was that corrugated metal had replaced most of the old thatch and tile roofs.

In 1970, when Sheang was 17 years old, this village was on the front line of America’s Cambodian incursion. Halfway around the world, at Kent State University, members of the Ohio National Guard killed four students during a May 4, 1970, protest against this new stage in the war. While that massacre received worldwide attention, a larger one in Sheang’s village three days earlier went unnoticed.

On May 1, 1970, helicopters circled the Cambodian village of “Moroan” (an American’s phonetic spelling of the name) before opening fire, killing 12 villagers and wounding five, according to a formerly classified U.S. document that, until now, has never been publicly disclosed. After the assault, another helicopter landed and carried off the injured; the survivors fled their village to another named “Kantuot,” located in a neighboring district.

There is no village in Cambodia named “Moroan,” but the hamlet near the Vietnamese border where I located Sheang was, he said, called Mroan. As in the other Cambodian border villages I visited, focusing on a lone attack cited in U.S. military documents left residents baffled, given that they had endured many airstrikes over many years. Still, when asked about the date, Sheang gestured toward what is now the far edge of the village. “Many died in that area at that time,” he recalled. “Afterward, the people left this village for another named Kantuot.” 

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

*** 

A new investigation reveals the use of Pegasus spyware in an international war context.

The report, released on May 25, is a joint investigation between Access Now, CyberHUB-AM, the Citizen Lab at the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto (the Citizen Lab), Amnesty International’s Security Lab, and an independent mobile security researcher Ruben Muradyan.

According to its findings, at least 12 Armenian citizens were targeted with the spyware between October 2020 and December 2022. The list includes Armenia’s Ombudsperson, two Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) Armenian service journalists, a United Nations official, a former spokesperson of Armenia’s Foreign Ministry, and seven other representatives of Armenian civil society.

The evidence collected and presented in the report demonstrates that “the targeting is related to the military conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh.”

🚨 BREAKING: We reveal how NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware is being used in the Azerbaijan-Armenia war — first time recorded in international armed conflict.

There are at least 12 civil society targets incl. journalists, human rights defenders + activists.https://t.co/U6d9PokUvN

— Access Now (@accessnow) May 25, 2023

Forensic investigation of devices indicated the following exploits used in Armenia: PWNYOURHOME, FINDMYPWN, FORCEDENTRY (also referred to as Megalodon by Amnesty’s Security Lab), and KISMET. All these exploits were revealed and under investigation by Citizen Lab since 2020, but it were Armenian cases that helped Citizen Lab to first identify PWNYOURHOME exploit which was at the center of the most recent investigation published in April 2023.

According to the joint recent investigation published on May 25, the timing of infections was an indication of its relevance to the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, and was likely “the reason for the targeting”:

The backdrop of the first cluster of civil society Pegasus infections found in Armenia is the bloody 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war with Azerbaijan, the associated peace talks in October 2020, and the November 9, 2020 ceasefire agreement. At the same time, the Karabakh conflict itself began to intensify again with the Azerbaijan May 12, 2021 offensive and more clashes in July and November 2021. The majority of the Armenia spyware victims were infected during this time period in 2020-2021; between them, there were over 30 successful Pegasus infections.

In total, the forensic investigations identified over 40 infections and one failed attempt.

The report then dives into the identified cases, presenting the findings of the investigation. Five of the identified targets preferred to stay anonymous at the time of the report’s release.

The culprits

The authors of the report note that they have not been able to “conclusively link this Pegasus hacking to a specific governmental operator.” According to investigations published to date, Armenia was not among the list of clients identified as having purchased NSO’s Spyware. Azerbaijan, on the other hand, was. The use of Pegasus and other spyware technology used against civil society in Azerbaijan has been widely documented in recent years.

According to the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), one of the 17 media partners involved in the global Pegasus investigation, out of the 1,000 phone numbers from Azerbaijan, the project researchers were so far able to identify 245 numbers that were targeted, one-fifth of which belonged to reporters, editors, or media company owners. The list also includes activists and their family members.

The new investigation also notes that:

“The Citizen Lab’s ongoing internet scanning and DNS cache probing has identified at least two suspected Pegasus operators in Azerbaijan that they call “BOZBASH” and “YANAR.” According to the Citizen Lab, The YANAR Pegasus operator appears to have exclusively domestic-focused targeting within Azerbaijan, while the BOZBASH operator has targets including a broad range of entities within Armenia.”

The NSO Group

NSO Group was set up in Israel in 2010 by Niv Carmi, Shalev Hulio, and Omri Lavie. On its website, the company claims to develop technology “to prevent and investigate terror and crime.” But the surveillance technology appears to have been used against dissidents, journalists, and activists across the world.

“NSO Group insists that it sells its software only to governments, suggesting that the clients in these countries represent intelligence services, law enforcement agencies, or other official bodies,” the OCCPR has noted. Citizen Lab investigations reveal that NSO’s Pegasus was used against dissidents at least since 2016 in numerous countries.

In 2019, the company came under fire when accusations emerged that it was infecting users’ devices with malware by hacking WhatsApp. In response, WhatsApp and its parent company Facebook (now Meta) sued the NSO Group. In July 2020, a U.S. federal court judge ruled that the lawsuit against NSO Group could proceed despite the company’s defense that “its business dealings with foreign governments, granted it immunity from lawsuits filed in U.S. courts under the Foreign Sovereign Immunity Act (FSIA).” In December 2020, Microsoft, Google, Internet Association, GitHub, and LinkedIn joined as parties in Facebook’s [Meta’s] ongoing legal battle against NSO. The most recent hearing took place in April 2021 and according to the news site Politico, the NSO Group appeared “unlikely to prevail.”

Josh Gerstein, Politico’s Senior Legal Affairs Reporter, noted:

Even if the firm’s effort to head off the suit fails, it could continue to fight the case in the trial court, but will likely be forced to turn over documents about its development of Pegasus and make executives available for depositions.

In April of this year, nine international human rights and press freedom organizations penned a letter to Chaim Gelfand, Vice-President for Compliance at NSO Group, asking the company “to deliver on its commitments to improve transparency about sales of its advanced spyware, and due diligence to protect human rights.” The letter also rejected the NSO Group’s claims “of their unverified compliance with human rights standards.”

Ron Deibert, Director of the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto, considers NSO’s claims that they adhere to human rights standards to be “pure theater.”

The spectacle might be a mildly entertaining farce were it not for the very real and gruesome way in which its spyware is abused by the world’s worst autocrats. NSO’s irresponsible actions have proven their words are nothing more than hand-waving distractions from the harsh reality of the unregulated marketplace in which they, and their owners, thrive and profit.

Two years ago, the then-UN special rapporteur on freedom of expression, David Kaye, called for a moratorium on the sale of NSO-style spyware to governments until viable export controls could be put in place. Despite Kaye’s warnings, the sale of surveillance software continued without any transparency or accountability.

The most recent investigation not only brings the company to the spotlight but also highlights the importance of control mechanisms imposed on spyware companies. The authors of the new investigation go further, concluding that despite the scandals, lawsuits, and sanctions, “NSO Group continues to ignore how its technology is used in violation of human rights to target civil society, including journalists and human rights defenders.”

In a comment to Global Voices, Natalia Krapiva, the Tech-Legal Counsel at Access Now said:

“This investigation is key to understanding the full scope of harms of invasive Pegasus spyware and the entire industry which has been operating with little to no oversight for years. We have seen Pegasus used to intimidate the free press, destroy the civic space, silence dissidents, undermine democracy, suppress independence movements, and more. Now we have evidence of Pegasus being used against civil society and humanitarian actors in a major international military conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia. I am confident that our report will lead to more research and investigations as well as legal cases to bring accountability to the NSO, the spyware industry, and states who use these invasive technologies to attack human rights and humanitarian actors, journalists, and regime critics.”

At the time of writing, no official statements on the investigation have yet been made in Azerbaijan. On May 25, leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan were meeting in Moscow to discuss final peace agreement.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Featured image is by Waldemar. Free to use under Unsplash License.

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

*** 

Address (never given due to technicalities) at the 2023 Belt and Road Forum for Interconnected Land-Sea Development from 17 to 18 May, 2023 in Chongqing.[1]

*

Madame Yue Yanghua, Director General, Secretariat, Silk Road Think Tank Association,

Distinguished Organizers of the Belt and Road Forum,

Distinguished Guests,

My sincerest thanks for the honor of inviting me to be part of this important Forum.

The concept of what was originally called the “Silk Road Economic Belt” was announced in September 2013 during a state visit by President Xi Jinping to Kazakhstan.

However, I first learned about this extraordinary initiative when President Xi visited in March 2014 the Port of Duisburg in Germany, one of the world’s most important inland ports. The Belt and Road is a modern version of the ancient Silk Road of more than 2100 years back. I was – and still am – impressed beyond words.

The Duisburg event’s highlight was when a fully-loaded train originating from Chongqing, China slowly pulled into the Duisburg railway station — the ending point of the Chongqing-Xinjiang-Europe International Railway, connecting Asia and Europe, going through Xinjiang and Eurasia and terminating in Europe.

This had a significant symbolic meaning – linking regions and countries through joint infrastructure projects is a means of common development between and among countries in a myriad of sectors that benefit the local economies, local communities and people. It is a strategy for peaceful cooperation and cohabitation.

On the Duisburg occasion, President Xi Jinping said,

“The initiative of building the Silk Road Economic Belt, proposed by China, follows a philosophy of common development and common prosperity. It aims to link the two big markets of Asia and Europe together, giving new substance of the time to the ancient Silk Road, and benefit the people along the Road.”

He was right.

Although the target date for completion of the BRI is 2049, coinciding with the centennial celebration of the People’s Republic of China, the BRI’s potential in time and space is almost endless.

By January 2023, 151 countries had signed up to the BRI. The participating countries include almost 75% of the world’s population and account for more than half of the world’s GDP. In addition, many national and international organizations are also members of the New Silk Road Initiative.

In 2018, the B&R Initiative was included in China’s Constitution.

Today, the Belt and Road forms a central component of President Xi’s “Major Country Diplomacy” strategy, meaning for China to assume a more important leadership role in international affairs.

The Belt and Road is also China’s “grand political-economic project”.

The combination of diplomacy and economic cooperation is a formidable tool for promoting peace and for bringing about more harmony and equilibrium to a world plagued by conflict.

“Diplomacy” as an integral part of the Belt and Road, has already been demonstrated in recent times, including by President Xi’s visit to the Middle East, where he recently managed bringing together two feuding neighbors, Saudi Arabia and Iran.

The two countries re-established diplomatic relations and, hopefully, an added and important benefit of this Chinese initiative  may be the end of the atrocious war between Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Mind you, this war is a proxy war carried out by the Saudis on behalf of Washington and London. Yet, there is hope, thanks to China.

Already years ago, when I was still working with the World Bank, high-level country officials mainly in Africa and the Middle East told me that they prefer by far dealing with China and Russia, then with the ever conflictious west, referring to the United States and Europe.

With her colonial past – in many ways still ongoing today – Europe does not have the best reputation in the Global South.

Today, China’s drive for international diplomacy is already an important element of the Belt and Road. It is a Peace Initiative that no super-power has broached in the last century. China has already removed divisions between several Middle Eastern countries, that were remnants from colonial times, or more recently, of western instigated wars and conflicts.

What President Xi calls “a bid to enhance regional connectivity and embrace a brighter future” is already happening.

The Silk Road Economic Belt has already established several routes of connectivity. Three land routes – the northern Trans-Siberian Route, the central Khorasan Route, and the southern Karakoram Route. In addition, there are several Sea Routes, the Arctic Route, the Gulf Route, the Red Sea Route, and the Swahili Coast Route, connecting East Asia with Eastern Africa.

Maritime routes are also in the process of connecting China with Latin America. While China is Brazil’s primary trading partner, Brazil, so far, has abstained from signing on to the BRI.

On the other hand, in February 2022, Argentina joined the BRI, signing a memorandum of understanding with China.

By the end of 2022, seven countries in South America participated in the Belt and Road: Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina and Uruguay.

As of March 2022, 215 cooperation agreements had been signed with 149 countries and 32 international organizations.

By March 2023, a mere ten years after it was launched, BRI had already created more than 420,000 jobs, and lifted 40 million people out of poverty.

Various World Bank studies estimate that the Belt and Road may boost trade flows in participating countries by more than 4%, and cut global trade costs by about 1%.

According to London-based Center for Economic and Business Research, BRI is likely to increase the world GDP by US$7.1 trillion equivalent per year by 2040. The CEBR also estimates that benefits will be “widespread” since improved infrastructure reduces “frictions that hold back world trade”.

With such brilliant predictions, it is likely that more countries will be attracted to join the New Silk Road. Even against objections and opposition from the west, the prospects for a worldwide success story for peace and prosperity through the New Silk Road are superb.

Observing the world today from a distance, it looks like the west with its multiple wars and constantly instigated conflicts is on a steady course of destruction, while China with her Belt and Road is constructing, building alliances, and promoting peace, prosperity, and diplomacy throughout the world.

Thank you.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Peter Koenig is a geopolitical analyst and a former Senior Economist at the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), where he worked for over 30 years around the world. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for online journals and is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed; and co-author of Cynthia McKinney’s book “When China Sneezes: From the Coronavirus Lockdown to the Global Politico-Economic Crisis” (Clarity Press – November 1, 2020).

Peter is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). He is also a non-resident Senior Fellow of the Chongyang Institute of Renmin University, Beijing. 

Note

[1] Visa could not be secured in time.

Featured image is from iStock

Introduction

Globalization – characterized by political and economic integration both among European Union (EU) member states and between the EU bloc and the world at large — has produced three observable domestic sociopolitical consequences in European states explored in this research. These include increased transnational immigration rates, the perceived loss of national/ cultural/ ethnic identity among the affected populations, and uneven distribution of economic benefits across social strata, which will be explored and measured in the literature review section of this study.

These three phenomena induced by globalization may have produced domestic political backlash from the populations affected by them. For whatever benefits globalization might confer, the process necessarily requires some concessions from nationalists who identify culturally and politically with the state and from the states themselves, which must surrender some degree of sovereign control over their economies and national borders. This research will examine whether “far-right” (defined herein) electoral success in France and Hungary from 1990-2020 is the result of popular domestic blowback against globalization and liberal ideology broadly. France and Hungary will serve as the case studies here, the results of which may be extrapolated and tested in the context of other European states in future studies.

The thesis tested in this research is that three factors (immigration to EU member states, perceived loss of national identity and sovereignty, and uneven distribution of economic benefits across social strata) resulted in increased electoral votes for “far-right” parties as a percentage of the total vote in France and Hungary from 1990-2020.

Literature review

The section on globalization contains a trio of subsections: globalization’s effects on inequality, globalization’s potential to undermine national sovereignty, and the inherent conflict between protectionist policies and globalization. The section on effects of globalization on domestic politics and populations in France and Hungary is likewise comprised of three subsections: transnational immigration, perceived loss of national/cultural/ethnic identity, and uneven distribution of economic benefits across economic strata.

Globalization

The integration of the function of the state into broader governing bodies at the regional and global levels is termed is a key feature of globalization – otherwise known as “transnationalism.” The Geneva Centre for Security Policy summarizes globalization as “a process that encompasses the causes, course, and consequences of transnational and transcultural integration of human and non-human activities.” (Carminati, 2017) Since the 19980s, “one of the most striking features of the international economy… has been the proliferation and intensification of regional trading agreements around the world.” (Hanson, 1998, pg. 55) Beyond the regional level, so-called “mega-regional” trade agreements such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), which encompass huge swathes of the global economy, .have also proliferated in the increasingly globalized economy. (Gonzalez, 2016)

Globalization has impacted most of the world, including European Union (EU) member states. The EU was a post-WWII project to integrate Western Europe – and, later, after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, Eastern Europe. Prior to the advent of the European Union, the states of Europe existed in a realist anarchy at the international level in which economic competition had historically led to war. Per interdependence theory, of the neoliberal school of thought, offered as an alternative to realist conflict, transnational institutions that facilitate trade have the capacity to enhance cooperation between states and reduce the likelihood of war as a result. (Jervis, 1999, p. 62)

The initial iteration of the EU was the supranational European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), founded shortly after World War II which “pooled the coal and steel resources of six European countries: France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg (BENELUX)” (Carleton, 2023) in order to control the German steel and coal industries. The main motivation for the creation of the ECSC was to prevent another outbreak of war on the continent by constraining Germany. The next big change in European integration came with the 1985 Schengen Agreement, which abolished internal borders within the EU to allow the free flow of people and capital across member states. The Schengen Agreement included the original six members of the ECSC plus Denmark, Ireland, the UK, Greece, Portugal, and Spain. (Traynor, 2016)

In 2004, a major expansion of the EU welcomed member states from Eastern and Central Europe that had once been behind the Iron Curtain before the Soviet Union’s collapse in the early 1990s. With such a huge block of new members, some analysts called it the “big bang” of EU expansion. Europe had never achieved anything close to this level of political integration. The new EU members included Cyprus, Malta, Poland, Latvia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Slovenia, Lithuania, Slovakia and Hungary. Along with this enlargement came concerns relevant to this research, such as “government responses to perceived cultural threats and anti-immigration sentiments in public opinion” (Sedelmeier, 2014, p. 2) among member states. These concerns over popular backlash to the EU’s rapid development would bear out in later conflicts between EU member states, particularly between Eastern European states such as Hungary and EU leadership in Brussels.

The process of the integration of Europe into a supranational political body (in the form of the EU) and the process of globalization are distinct phenomena. However, in Europe, the expansion of the EU is paramount to the process of globalization because former lent the mechanisms needed for the latter, as “the EU developed a policy of regulated globalism in part because the union had to put in place regulatory frameworks for the governance of European integration, meaning that these frameworks offered themselves as templates when interdependence gathered pace at the global level.” (Youngs & Ulgen, 2022) So, since its inception, the EU has been outward-facing in its orientation, which has put it at the forefront of globalization. Per the KOF Globalisation Index, the top three most globalized countries in the world – the Netherlands, Belgium, and Switzerland — are located in Europe (although Switzerland is not a member of the EU). (Swiss Economic Institute, 2021)

Despite its dubious record of achieving stated aims, globalization is normatively attractive to adherents of liberal ideology such as the European Liberal Forum who prize internationally-oriented policies to reduce inequality and promote human welfare: “Over the course of the development of the EU, we have stressed how important cooperation and coordination among its Member States is to defending and enhancing the freedom and prosperity of their citizens.” (European Liberal Forum, 2014, p.3) The European Union has been described by some analysts as “a bulwark of the liberal international order” (de Paiva Pires, 2022) because of its emphasis on transnational governance.

Accordingly, “liberal political parties and organisations throughout Europe traditionally have a strong pro-European profile,” (European Liberal Forum, 2014, p.3) meaning they support greater political integration of the continent. Attenuating the destabilizing effects of inequality, according to liberal doctrine, produces stability and promotes prosperity and peace; Rodrik cites the importance of “social policies to address inequality and exclusion,” concluding that nations that implement these policies will fare enjoy greater economic and social benefits than those that do not (Rodrik, 2013, p. 447). Globalization is one such development “propagated by the international development agencies [that] focuses on the shift in thinking which occurred in the 1980s… known as the ‘Washington Consensus.'” (Gore, 2001, p. 318), which encouraged national governments to open up trade with the outside world and to liberalize capital accounts to enable free movement of capital as a means to achieving mutual prosperity among states.

Globalization has been a dominant and major international phenomenon following the political and economic devastation wreaked by World War II: “Since the Second World War, globalization has been underpinned by a liberal international order, a rules-based system structured around the principles of economic interdependence, democracy, human rights and multilateralism.” (Money, 1997) Neoliberalism, a branch of the liberal school of thought that gained popularity among Western political elites and policymakers in the late 20^th century, “postulates that the reduction of state interventions in economic and social activities and the deregulation of labor and financial markets… have liberated the enormous potential of capitalism to create an unprecedented era of social well-being in the world’s population.” (Navarro, 2007) Coinciding with the rapid increase in globalization beginning in the 1980s, “one of the most marked changes in the sociopolitical landscape of European societies since the 1980s has been the rapid and widespread adoption of neoliberal policies across the continent.” (Mijs, et al., 2016, p. 1)

Although globalization is largely favored among elite policymakers and academics, especially in the West where liberalism is arguably ideologically hegemonic, it does have its detractors. According to one critique, for instance, “neoliberal globalization is comprised of four processes: accumulation by dispossession; de-regulation; privatization; and an upward re-distribution of wealth” that, taken together, create numerous sociopolitical dilemmas such as “rising global inequality” and “threats to identity,” (Gandesha, 2018) both of which will be explored here.

Because “European governments and the EU collectively played important roles in shaping globalization… over many decades, the EU was a powerful force in extending international trade,” (Youngs & Ulgen, 2022) Europe is regarded as one of the foremost supranational organizations driving the phenomenon forward. As such, its member states have been among the first and most heavily affected by some of the (largely unintended) consequences of globalization, such as its effects on inequality, its diminishing impacts on national sovereignty, and strain on certain domestic industries within member states, explored now.

Globalization vs inequality

The evidence of globalization’s neutralizing effects on poverty and wealth inequality is mixed and nuanced. It does, importantly, bear out globalization’s neutralizing effect on inequality in certain contexts but, upon further examination, this claim is misleading when applied generally. Branko Milanovic, in “Global Income Inequality in Numbers,” parsed global inequality by applying three separate formulas to analyze global inequality numbers – “Inequality 1,” “Inequality 2,” and “Inequality 3.” Inequality 1 measures inequality between states without regard to population. Inequality 2 factors population into the otherwise same equation as Inequality 1, weighing countries with higher populations more heavily. Inequality 3, finally, the most data-intensive, uses an individual-level approach to measuring inequality without breaking the data up by nationality. (Milanovic, 2013, p. 417)

Milanovic then charts measurements of the three concepts, respectively, across time to determine whether, and to what extent, if any, inequality has declined using each metric. He found that, while Concepts 1 and 2 have declined precipitously since 1990, the same cannot be said of Inequality 3, which has remained more or less unchanged in the past several decades.

To summarize the relevancy of Milanovic’s findings to this research, globalization has produced reductions in inequality between nations, as promised. But an individual-level analysis of wealth inequality, as indicated in Concept 3 in the above illustration, shows that inequality between the ultra-wealthy and the ultra-poor regardless of nationality has remained elevated since the advent of globalization in the 1980s. 

Analysts often point to reductions in Inequality 1 and 2, on the heels of massive economic development in developing countries like India and China, as globalization success stories – and arguably deservedly so. Indeed, developing low and middle-income countries have, on average, economically benefitted significantly from globalization by many estimates, as “a government committed to economic diversification and capable of energizing its private sector can spur growth rates that would have been unthinkable in a world untouched by globalization.” (Rodrik, 2011)

As a result of the inflow of foreign investment and reduced trade barriers facilitated by globalization, worldwide “between 1990 and 2015… some 900 million people entered the $10-per-day middle class and another one billion people escaped dire poverty of just $2 a day or less.” (Birdsall, 2017, p. 130) Taking these numbers alone, it would appear that globalization is a boon for reduced inequality.

However, those bullish assessments of globalization’s economic benefits frequently neglect to mention that globalization has produced no such decrease in Inequality 3 – the kind that, again, measures individual inequality levels across the board, in both developed and developing countries. Since the 1990s, “the larger (and still far richer) middle class in the West has declined in size, and the prevailing mood among many of its members is one of anxiety and pessimism about their future prospects including those of their children,” (Birdsall, 2017, p. 131) indicating negligible benefits for the middle and working classes of developed countries, many of which are located in Europe.

This reality comes with electoral consequences for the states that champion pro-globalization, pro-liberalization economic policies. Although they might not necessarily begrudge the gains of the middle and working classes in other states, humans are not by nature altruistic. If the economic gains enjoyed by developing countries conferred by globalization are perceived to come at the expense of the electorates in developed countries such as Europe, far be it for the average European member of the middle or working class, whose life has not materially improved due to globalization based on Milanovic’s Inequality 3 model, to celebrate the relative gains of the working classes in India or China with the same level of enthusiasm.

Austerity – the practice of attempting to reduce national debts through tax hikes or spending cuts or a combination thereof, often under coercion from international creditors –

“lead[s] to sharp reductions in welfare spending, cancellation of school building programs, severe reductions in local government funding, increased VAT and tax levels, the abolition of governing bodies and reduced spending on public services.” (McMahon, 2017)

Austerity is increasingly relevant as a political issue, as by some estimates, “by 2023, 85% of the world’s population will live in the grip of austerity measures.” (Abed, 2022)

There are many potential domestic causes of austerity, including the collapse of internal tax revenues and national debt accumulation. (Maldowitz, 2014). However, globalization arguably plays a role in spurring austerity policy in developed countries, as evidenced by the international global financial crisis of 2007-2008 that “changed the post-war observation that sovereign debt burdens were largely the concern of emerging market countries. As government balances deteriorated, public debt-to-GDP ratios in advanced countries surpassed those of emerging markets, rising to levels not seen since World War II.” (Bosner-Neal, 2015, p. 545)

As Martell notes, “austerity has a lot to do with globalization… in terms of the global nature of the financial crisis.” (Martell, 2014, p. 12) In other words, national economies that are interconnected through globalization to other economies suffer the negative consequences of foreign economic downturns, in turn driving a need for political solutions that are often presented as austerity measures.

Globalization opened up new economic vulnerabilities to instability in the global banking system that previously did not exist, as “even countries that have benefited from globalization in the past… are vulnerable… globalization increases vulnerability through a variety of channels, including trade and financial liberalization.”  (United Nations, 1999, p.1)

As a result of the 2007-2008 economic crash and its aftermath, austerity policies were instituted across Europe: “either of their own volition or at the behest of the international financial institutions, [national governments in Europe] adopted stringent austerity policies in response to the financial crisis.” (McKee, et al., 2012)

Austerity is recognized to hit working-classes and middle classes, which depend more heavily on the public welfare system, the hardest:

“austerity measures aimed at curtailing public debt have impacted tremendously on the living standards of the middle class. Even in some of Europe’s most stable economies, the middle class is struggling.” (Ulbrich, 2015)

Specifically in the context of the EU, “austerity policies have expanded inequalities and undermined rights… Disparities in income have widened, the poorest getting poorer as welfare support declines and incomes are cut, while the rich continue accumulating income and wealth.” (Martell, 2014, p. 15) Some analysts have issued even starker warnings on the detrimental impacts of austerity on inequality and poverty in Europe: “austerity measures are weakening the mechanisms that combat inequality. Income is being increasingly unequally distributed; rising for the richest and falling for the poorest.” (OxFam, 2013a, p.11)  

Does globalization undermine national sovereignty?

People move more freely across national borders in a globalized state as well. In addition to trade liberalization and capital flows, globalization is characterized “by transnational movements of people in search of better lives and employment opportunities elsewhere.” (Cholewinski, 2005) Globalization has resulted in the increased freedom of movement of workers and tourists alike without regard for national borders: “The unprecedented volume and speed of human mobility are perhaps the most conspicuous manifestations of the present era of globalization…. the phenomenon’s main driving force is the global expansion of capitalism and the free-market system.” (Knobler, et al., 2006)

Increased freedom of movement is most evident in the case of the European Union, given the previously outlined, unprecedented transnational Schengen Area, joining together dozens of European states in a free movement zone with no internal migration controls. One of the “fundamental principles” of EU membership is the “free movement of workers… enshrined in Article 45 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union and developed by EU secondary legislation and the Case law of the Court of Justice.” (European Commission, n.d.) Under these provisions, EU citizens (which include every citizen of every EU member state) “are entitled to look for a job in another EU country, work there without needing a work permit, stay there even after employment has finished, [and] enjoy equal treatment with nationals in access to employment, working conditions and all other social and tax advantages.” (European Commission, n.d.) This has important implications for domestic workers that will be explored further in a later section of this research.

Global capital, along with post-nuclear geopolitics, environmental danger, and identity politics, is considered by some analysts to be one of the four principle threats to the state in the modern era. (Mann, 1997, p. 472) Globalization, which “has forced states into increasing competition for hi-tech industrial advantage” (Manchester Business School, 2017) in the global marketplace, weakens the position of the state. It exerts less and less influence over economic activities within its borders: “If globalization, in part, involves the emergence of supra national [sic] authorities because of new transnational problems resulting from growing trade, foreign investment, financial market interdependence and rapid technological change within a globalizing economy, then it seems only too natural that this process too will lead to supra national authorities eventually acquiring more jurisdictional power and nation states declining.” (Whalley, 1999, p. 1) This incursion of supranational authorities into areas of economic activity traditionally exclusively under the jurisdiction of states is a generally-held consensus, although some scholars like Mann point to the state’s continued social existence and the disparate impacts of globalization on various states as evidence that they maintain their primacy in the present era. (Mann, 1997, p. 472)

Protectionism vs globalization

Globalization stands in stark contrast to trade protectionism, which “protects domestic industries from unfair foreign competition… [using] tariffs, subsidies, quotas, and currency manipulation.” (Amadeo, 2022) Globalization is at odds with protectionist policies, as the latter are overwhelmingly favored by populist leaders who have “often used nationalism to justify protectionist policies that favor select domestic lobbies and have been at the forefront of trends in deglobalization.” (Ciravegna & Michailova, 2022, p. 175) There is debate regarding the extent of deglobalization and whether it exists as a phenomenon, but what is indisputable, as documented in an upcoming section on “far-right” politics and parties, globalization has increasingly become a highly relevant political issue in national politics in Europe.

Protectionism is anathema to liberalism. As Amadi notes, “a major contradiction of liberalism is ‘protectionism,’ which is the process of imposing trade restrictions such as tariffs to boost domestic industry.” (Amadi, 2020, p. 6) Under liberal theory, economic decisions are best left to the individual consumer outside of state influence to sort through cost, quality, etc. and make the most rational, self-interested decision possible. No preference is granted to domestically produced goods vs imported ones. The state does not intervene to favor domestic production over the import of foreign goods. Each nation unit produces the goods (and, increasingly in developed countries, the services) it is best suited to produce, based on its geographic location and human and natural resources. Adam Smith, one of the original purveyors of free trade, argued that if imported goods are cheaper than domestically produced ones, then importation makes good economic sense. (Smith, 1776, p.36) The EU has led the way in combating protectionism within its borders when it “implemented a program to create the world’s largest single market and embarked on creating a common currency.” (Hanson, 1998, p. 55)

Effects of globalization on domestic politics and populations in France and Hungary

Explored here are three potential effects of globalization on France and Hungary:

Transnational immigration 

Defined as “a process of movement and settlement across international borders in which individuals maintain or build multiple networks of connection to their country of origin while at the same time settling in a new country,” (Upegui-Hernandez, 2014, p. 2) transnational immigration is a consequence of globalization in highly globalized states. Academics disagree on its merits, but the fact is not disputed that globalization has been a boon for transnational immigration. Analysts note that “increased migration is one of the most visible and significant aspects of globalization.” (Tacoli & Okali, 2001, p.1)

Talani cites increasing interconnectivity between states, “resulting in more people than ever before choosing to live and work in other countries,” (Talani, 2022) as a result of globalization. Economic mandates factor heavily into the increase in transnational migration in globalized states. Demand for unskilled labor by developed economies, such as many of those in the European Union, drives transnational migration: “The global reorganisation of labour markets has an important impact on migration. In the North, demand is high for semiskilled and unskilled workers, such as cleaners and housemaids, and for seasonal agricultural workers.” (Tacoli & Okali, 2001, p. 2)

Central to the question of transnational immigration from a political perspective is whether any entity can truly control the phenomenon. And, if so, who or what is in control: “It is quite possible… that the forces unleashed by globalisation escape governance as they are structural necessities… and therefore the urge to migrate cannot be stopped by political entities,” (Talani, 2022) Essentially, it appears as if no one is steering the ship – no one or no thing is truly in control, including state authorities in charge of policing international borders. Perceived lack of control resulting from an influx of foreign migrants may aid “far-right” political parties because “sensing a lack of control tends to have a reinforcing effect on voters with nativist attitudes in support of [radical right populist parties].” (Heinisch & Jansesberger, 2022, p. 1) The connection between transnational immigration and the proliferation of populist, “far-right” parties and ideologies in Europe is explored in further detail in an upcoming section.

Perceived loss of national/cultural/ethnic identity

How does globalization impact national identity, if at all, from the perspective of the domestic voting public? In popular perception – if not also in reality — national identity is at odds with the phenomenon of globalization in fundamental ways: “Nationalists and religious traditionalists fear that globalization will undermine cultural and other norms.” (Friedan, et al. 2017, p. 16) Often, perhaps out of social convention and discretion, the exact theoretical mechanism through which the culture will be “undermined” is not explicitly stated, but it is understood to be caused by an influx of immigrants who will introduce their own cultures and norms which will then spread throughout the population at large. According to the “clash of civilizations” theory, pioneered by Samuel Huntington, states are “differentiated from each other by history, language, culture, tradition and, most important, religion.” (Huntington, 1996, p. 282) The differences serve to stoke distrust, resentment, and hostility between cultures. He warns that “the interactions among peoples of different civilizations enhance the civilization-consciousness of people that, in turn, invigorates differences and animosities stretching or thought to stretch back deep into history.” (Huntington, 1996, p. 282) Peoples tend to be protective of their own cultural heritages, which necessarily excludes others. Culturally-based conflicts spill over into the political sphere.

In-group/out-group identity forming is a foundational element of sociology, predicated on the distinction between members of a social group and the amorphous, excluded “other.” Per Tajfel, et al. (1979), social groups confer identity and, with it, a sense of pride. The world is then dichotomized between “us” and “them.” Through this process, the differences between the in-group and out-group are amplified along with similarities among members of the in-group. Nationalism is, by definition, exclusive, since “the most messianic nationalists do not dream of a day when all the members of the human race will join their nation in the way that it was possible, in certain epochs, for, say, Christians to dream of a wholly Christian planet.” (Anderson, 1993, p. 7) That is to say, nationalist ideology – specifically, “exclusive nationalism” as defined in the following paragraph — does not allow for the same kind of assimilation into the native culture that liberal states have traditionally advocated for because it rejects new members from the out-group out of hand.

In particular, the variety of nationalism driven by an aversion to the influences of the outside world and peoples and manifest in “far-right” politics is called “exclusive nationalism” because it emphasizes in-group/out-group dynamics: “many newly ascendant nationalisms legitimate internal racial, religious, and ethnic hierarchies among citizens of their own countries…. it is not nationalism per se, but exclusionary nationalisms (also called ethnic or essentialist nationalisms) that are problematic for outcomes such as democracy.” (Mylonas & Tudor, 2021, p. 111) Because there is no interest among certain factions of the population in mingling with the outside world – and indeed, such mingling is viewed not just as undesirable but as an inherent threat — there is nothing to be gained socio-politically from globalization in the same theoretical way that it might benefit the economy, and everything to be lost in that regard.

Uneven distribution of economic benefits across social strata 

The previous two effects of globalization touch on the issue of the threat to national identity. The final effect of globalization explored here is economic in nature. Specifically, globalization may exacerbate class divides by conferring disproportionate economic growth to the higher echelons of the socioeconomic ladder. As alluded to previously, globalization has disparate impacts across economic strata, tending to benefit upper-income brackets more so than the working and middle classes: “neo-liberal development aids the rich more than the poor, or at their expense… reproducing a linear rather than a relational conception of development’s co-ordinates of poverty and wealth.” (McMichael, 2012, p. 78) Various fleshed-out theories, such as trade theory, predict this dichotomy: “Trade theory tells us that the group… most likely to lose from globalization, or at best to gain less than everyone else, is labor.” (Deardoff & Stern, 2001, p. 6)

The lower economic classes, particularly low-skilled workers and the less-educated who benefit least from globalization, and the political parties that represent them, have taken note: “With growing economic inequality, low-skilled workers in the developed countries are turning increasingly against trade and immigration-feeding nationalist parties across Europe and North America.” (Friedan, et al. 2017, p. 16) Deardoff and Stern note “Growing opposition to globalization by organized labor… Because labor has lower income than those with income from other sources, and because trade lowers the relative wage, it tends to make the poor relatively poorer.” (Deardoff & Stern, 2001, p. 6) The working class – again, concentrated particularly in manufacturing and other unskilled labor-intensive economic activities — struggle with trade liberalization via globalization: “illiterate and other poorly trained workers in developing countries, designated as ‘NO-EDs/’ do not have even the minimal skills to benefit from unskilled labor-intensive exports. NO-EDs therefore may not have experienced the wage pull [from liberalization] that more educated but still unskilled compatriots might have enjoyed.” (Baker, 2005, p. 318)

Furthermore, globalization may not reduce inequality within states, despite popular perception to the contrary. Depending on the type of globalization, it may worsen inequality, as evidenced in Milanovic’s breakdown of three types of inequality explored in a previous section. To briefly rehash the results of his study, he found that, when the measure of inequality is conducted on an individual level independent of nationality, global inequality has remained the same since the 1980s. (Milanovic, 2013, p. 418)

In Heimberger’s meta-analysis of the effect of globalization on inequality, he refined the variables used to distinguish between the effects of trade globalization versus the effects of financial globalization on inequality, and concluded that “globalisation has, on average, a small-to-medium-sized effect of increasing income inequality. Trade globalisation has influenced income inequality to a lesser extent than financial globalization.” (Heimberger, 2020) Europe has become increasingly highly financially globalized: “after 1987 most of the [European] countries liberated their capital account[s]… [and] progressed significantly into financial globalization.” (García, 2012)

(Heimberger, 2020)

Globalization also makes the local population more aware of economic realities outside of their borders, as well as how the global economy at the global and regional levels of analysis is impacted by globalization in comparison to globalization’s effects on domestic national economies, partly due to “the greater influence of other people’s (foreigners’) standard of living and way of life on one’s perceived income position and aspiration.” (Milanovic, 2013, p. 416)  Domestic political awareness is also drawn to globalization’s potentially negative impact on domestic labor markets. (Dadush & Shaw, 2012) Interconnection and interdependency are a double-edged sword that is often overlooked by proponents of liberalism in order to emphasize its positive potential. The domestic electorate because increasingly aware, also, that “as the financial crisis of 2008 and the political instability that continue[d] to roil both developed and developing countries [made] clear, countries in the international economy are highly interdependent and closely integrated.” (Friedan, et al., 2017, p. 5) International economic malaise portends domestic political and economic malaise.

The economic goings-on in foreign countries impact everyone, potentially driving resentment or hostility towards foreign nationalities or ethnicities based on the damaging influences of foreign economic challenges as well as the increased competition faced in a globalized marketplace, particularly for blue-collar work: “Heightened import competition and increased offshoring… have affected the sectoral composition of employment and reduced the demand for low-skilled workers relative to medium- and high-skilled workers.” (Coe, 2010, p. 139) This trend, by its disparate impact on workers depending on skill level, will by its very nature drive inequality and potentially produce domestic political discontent within lower economic strata.

‘Far-right’ politics and parties

The previously described phenomena induced by globalization may have produced domestic political backlash from the voting populations affected by them. This backlash, in turn, may explain the largely unexpected rise in popular support for “far-right” political parties in Europe (with France and Hungary, the case studies here, serving as potential microcosms of European states across the continent as a whole).

For whatever benefits globalization might confer, the process of economic and social integration that is part and parcel of globalization necessarily requires concessions from nationalists who identify culturally and politically with the state. In popular usage, “far-right” politics are often used synonymously with “right-wing populism.” Far-right populism is defined as “a political ideology which combines right-wing politics and populist rhetoric and themes. The rhetoric often consists of anti-elitist sentiments, opposition to the perceived ‘establishment’, and speaking to the ‘common people’… populism of the right normally supports strong controls on immigration.” (European Center For Populism Studies, 2022) The interrelated ideologies of “nativism, authoritarianism and populism” are generally regarded as the three pillars of “far-right” ideology. (Remshardt, 2012)

There is a juxtaposition of terminologies at play that requires clarification. The term/label “liberalism” as it is used in the international realm should not be confused with domestic political ideologies of the same name in the West. At the domestic level, liberal (as in left-wing) ideology is, in fact, in the West, associated with protectionist policy positions, whereas “conservativism” (as in the right-wing) is traditionally more supportive of free trade (Friedan, et al., 2017, p. 8), arguably due to its business-friendly orientation. However, these left-right simple dichotomies in comparative politics are becoming more difficult to draw as ideologies bleed into each other and the international and national levels of analysis become more intertwined as globalization accelerates.

The “far-right” may also be referred to in social science literature as the “extremist right” (ER). Usually, although their ideological opponents use the labels, “far-right” parties do not label themselves “fascist” or “authoritarian” because of the stigma of these terms in post-WWII and post-Cold War Europe: “the spectacular growth in nationalist-populist parties in the nineties was made possible by an ideological renewal that had become necessary because of the discredit into which movements claiming to be in the tradition of fascism or authoritarian regimes… had fallen since 1945.” (Gjellerod, 2001)

In rhetoric and policy, right-wing populist parties are generally opposed to globalization. On the other hand, left-wing parties, though they criticize certain negative impacts of globalization, are more supportive of the phenomenon: “Whereas left-wingers have often been characterized as ‘new globals’ who seek to advance an alternative type of globalization, right-wingers emerge… as the true ‘no globals’, resisting any aspect of globalization.” (Della Porta & Caiani, 2012, p. 168) As previously alluded to, their principle objections to globalization is the detrimental impact on the native culture wrought by foreign influence and transnational immigration, although concern over economic impacts also features in their rhetoric.

Populism as a political ideology consists of several variants with important contrasts. The most prominent dichotomy is between right-wing and left-wing populism. Right-wing populism differs in fundamental ways from left-wing populism (sometimes described alternatively as “exclusionary” and “inclusionary” populism, respectively). Both forms of populism appeal, by definition, to the sensibilities of ordinary people – “the people” — outside of the prevailing power structure and champion their interests, at least rhetorically, against an elite governing class that is often considered corrupt or indifferent to the needs of the lower economic and social strata.

However, while left-wing populism conceptualizes “the people” in relation to prevailing institutions and social constructs – for example, to capital and the state — “right populism conflates ‘the people’ with an embattled nation confronting its external enemies: Islamic terrorism, refugees, the European Commission, the International Jewish conspiracy, and so on.” (Gandesha, 2018) In other words, right-wing populism has often been defined as “exclusionary” (of different ethnicities, religions, and nationalities, for instance) while left-wing populism is described as “inclusionary.” Left-wing populism is often internationalist in its orientation, sometimes going as far as decrying the concept of the state, while right-populism holds fidelity to the state above all as the homeland of “the people,” usually defined in ethnic/cultural/religious terms.

Research indicates that strong nationalist identity and ethnocentrism are important features of “far-right” ideology. (Falter & Schumann, 1988, p. 97)  “Far-right,” or right-wing populist, politics defies the conventional wisdom, according to which the working classes tend to support left-wing parties, which are generally considered friendlier to worker and organized labor: “Rightist parties which appeal to nationalism and traditional social issues can invoke more authoritarian values among the working class and those with less education. The consequences may be low and even ‘negative class voting’ where the conservative parties gain strong support from segments that belong to the left in contexts where the economic left–right divide” (Knutsen, 2013) is considered most relevant. “Far-right” supporters, however, need not necessarily fit any pre-conceived stereotype; activists across the ideological spectrum in Europe at large “worry that footloose corporations may undermine attempts to protect the environment, labor, and human rights,” and have accordingly embraced anti-globalization, nationalist, and protectionist political parties. (Friedan, et al., 2017, p. 16)

Daniel Oesch (2008, p. 349) explains that “during the 1990s, the working class has become the core clientele of right-wing populist parties in Western Europe.” The tendency for the poor and working classes to vote for, and identify with, the right vexes many analysts who see their economic interests represented more on the left: “across the world, blue-collar voters ally themselves with the political right – even when it appears to be against their own interests.” (Haidt, 2012) There are likely many possible reasons that the poor and working classes are predominately attracted to far-right party membership, but one clear reason is the disproportionate impact of immigrant/refugee policy on groups lower in the socioeconomic hierarchy: “The language of xenophobic discrimination in this context is often the language of perceived scarcity and competition… all over the world, the socio-economic implications of urban refugee protection disproportionately fall on the urban poor and working classes.” (Achiume, 2018)

One common argument for the often unexpected success of “far-right” populist parties in Europe in recent years is that the general “far right” at the international level (perhaps via globalization) influences and drives domestic far-right movements within European states, such as those in Hungary and France.  However, this appears not to be true because “right-wing extremist parties… are all (alleged) nationalistic movements, which would make them particularly country-specific and thus incomparable.” (Mudde, 2007, p. 226) Each nationalistic movement has its own objective of preserving the native culture, so its common cause with other nationalistic movements is limited.

Aside from a general shared European heritage, there is little that would bind far-right movements across national borders because their ideologies are so closely intertwined with local cultural and ethnic identities. Therefore, the thesis of this paper remains that there are localized phenomena — occurring at the domestic political level and induced by globalization — that explain the rapid growth of the “far-right” in Europe. Despite many illiberal facets of their ideology and governing philosophies, which would seem to eschew electoral politics, “the extremist parties and movements in Europe no longer operate outside the democratic system, which they have so often decried, but within it.” (Gjellerod, 2001)

The perception of a rigged or unfair (or both) economic system in the new century may have worsened popular anger along economic lines, and many point the finger at globalization for the relative decline of the middle-class standard of living due to austerity. Among the “multiple economic, social, cultural and political causes for the current rise in the radical right in various European countries,” Cesáreo Rodríguez-Aguilera concludes that the “economic crisis triggered in 2008 and the ensuing single-minded pursuit by EU and national authorities of neoliberal deficit-control and austerity measures are one key factor.” (Rodríguez-Aguilera, 2014)

Some analysts argue that austerity is an inevitable consequence of continued globalization: “Austerity is not just a consequence of the global financial crisis but is here to stay as states grapple with the wider impacts of globalisation and the difficulty of increasing state spending” arguing that “modern forces undermine the ability of nation states to increase both welfare and infrastructure spending.” (Alliance Manchester Business School, 2017) In the fallout of the 2007/08 crash, the media has documented “efforts of extremist parties to win support by plugging into popular discontent over the financial crisis, against the backdrop of a wider social unease and anti-immigrant sentiment.” (Smith-Spark, 2012)

Methodology 

This research will utilize a combination of qualitative and quantitative analysis. Globalization is a cultural and political as well as an economic phenomenon. Each of these varieties of globalization has distinct impacts on the populations that experience them that might inform voting behavior and voters’ attitudes. France and Hungary — from Western Europe and Eastern Europe, respectively, and a founding member and a relatively new member of the European Union since 2004, respectively – will serve as the dual case studies examined in this research.

The three sociopolitical phenomena associated with globalization examined in this study, in the context of France and Hungary, will be: transnational immigration rates, the perceived loss of national/cultural/ethnic identity among the populations, and uneven distribution of economic benefits across social strata.

Transnational immigration rates into Hungary and France are quantifiable using EU aggregate data and data compiled by national governments at the state level. Perceived loss of national/cultural/ethnic identity is quantifiable using public polling data. Uneven distribution of economic benefits across social strata is likewise quantifiable using private and public-sector reports.

Having established and measured the metrics to indicate what sociopolitical changes globalization has caused at the state level, the research will then measure globalization’s impact on voting behavior. This study will analyze voting behavior at the national level in two European states, France and Hungary, from 1990-2020, when globalization within the EU accelerated.

The research will use the share of the total vote going to “far-right” nationalist parties in France and Hungary – the National Rally (RN) (formerly known as the National Front; the reasons for the name change will be explored in the section on “far-right” politics in France) and Fidesz-KDNP, respectively — which tend to adopt hardline rhetorical and policy stances against globalization, as the bellwethers of support for the “far-right.” In addition, this research will examine public polling data that can detail voter motivations that might otherwise be unclear based on raw vote tallies alone.

Because voters may prefer “far-right” parties over alternative candidates for any number of reasons, this research will also include exit polling in addition to electoral outcomes in national elections, in which voters express their motivations for voting the way they did. The results from France and Hungary will then be compared to identify common trends shared by the two European Union member states.

Evidence 

In this section, the research will seek to answer several relevant questions: How did the three identified consequences of globalization – increased transnational immigration, perceived loss of national identity, and uneven distribution of economic benefits across social strata – specifically manifest in Hungary and France, respectively? Did “far-right” parties achieve greater electoral success between 1990-2020 than before? If so, what issues did these “far-right” parties campaign on as centerpieces of their platforms, and what motivations can be discerned on the part of voters who supported them based on polling data?

Hungary

In domestic politics, right-wing populist European parties are “known for their opposition to immigration, especially from the Islamic world, and for Euroscepticism[emphasis in original text].” (European Center For Populism Studies, 2022). In Hungary, “far-right” parties position themselves rhetorically against EU integration and globalization more broadly, framing them as threats to national sovereignty and national identity.

Hungary’s main “far-right” party, Fidesz-KDNP, headed by Viktor Orban, won power in 2010, (Gawron-Tabor, 2015, p. 290) following the 2007/08 global financial crash. It has held power since, winning parliamentary supermajorities in four separate elections from 2010 to 2022. There is good evidence that distrust in neoliberal, multinational financial institutions drove its success, as the Fidesz-KDNP campaigned on specific and relevant policy changes: “Prime Minister Orbán put forth his explicit aim to increase domestic ownership in banking to over 50% and legitimized the ensuing re-nationalization of the financial sector with resentment over neoliberal banking practices.” (Sebok & Simons, 2022, p. 1625)

Eastern/Central Europe was once ripe for liberalization and democratization in the model of the West following the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991. Unfortunately for proponents of liberalism, Cianetti et al. recommend that “this optimistic picture of democratisation in East Central Europe needs revising… the region appears to be mired in a range of negative phenomena subsumed under the label ‘democratic backsliding’ which impact on democracy as a regime threatening… an authoritarian reversal.” (Cianetti et al., 2018, p. 244) In other words, Hungry has experienced a popular rejection of liberalism and pluralism. Krekó concurs: “Since 2010, Hungary has gradually become a competitive authoritarian state or ‘hybrid regime,’ where democratic institutions exist in theory, but the rule of law and civil liberties are severely limited in practice.” (Krekó, 2022) What follows is an explanation of the electoral factors that may have driven that “democratic backsliding” in favor of more authoritarian, populist ideologies and how they may have increased the political viability of the “far-right.”

Transnational immigration to Hungary and national identity

For the past hundred years, since the end of World War I and the collapse of the Austria-Hungary Empire, Hungary has been “one of the most ethnically homogenous states” (Freifeld, 2001) in Europe. The vast majority of the Hungarian population is ethnically Hungarian, and in this way the national identity is closely intertwined with the ethnic one.

But with the ascension of Hungary into the EU in 2004, Hungary effectively opened its doors to immigration from within the EU, threatening to dilute the long-standing ethnic hegemony of Hungarians within Hungary. “Far-right” political campaigners in Hungary have seized on the ethnicity issue to declare that in the post-EU integration era Hungary “had allowed its ethnic identity to be diluted, washed too thin by the pull to the West, by urbanization, and by the heavy influence of Hungarian Jews in the culture and prosperity of the country.” (Freifeld, 2001) This, again, highlights the previously established incorporation of anti-Semitic rhetoric into “far-right” campaigning.

It is arguably true that some, if not all, of the popular support for “far-right” parties in Hungary (and, as explored in an upcoming section, France) would have materialized regardless of any marketing/electioneering efforts on the part of the parties. But we know that these types of parties historically intentionally capitalize on the growing resentment of native populations against immigration as a concept and immigrants as people: “Xenophobic discrimination cannot [original emphasis in text] be reduced to socio-economic determinants. Politically motivated scapegoating of forced migrants and even criminal opportunism, for example, may play an important role in influencing when host communities mobilize to exclude or harm refugees.” (Achiume, 2018)

With the role of political parties in fueling xenophobia in mind, Hungary’s Constitution, called the “Fundamental Law of Hungary,” passed under the ruling Fidesz-KDNP Party in 2011, explicitly outlines the ethnic and religious contours of the state: “We are proud that our king Saint Stephen built the Hungarian State on solid ground and made our country a part of Christian Europe one thousand years ago.” (Constitute Project, 2011, p. 4).

The document also gives a nod to “safeguarding” Hungarian culture: “We commit to promoting and safeguarding our heritage, our unique language, Hungarian culture, the languages and cultures of nationalities living in Hungary.” (Constitute Project, 2011, p. 4) With the usually subdued and technical official government as a contrast, one will note the comparatively brazen nature of the ethnonationalism expressed; even under the leadership of like-minded social conservatives in other Western countries, it’s rare to see commitments to “safeguarding” the culture so explicitly rendered in an ostensibly liberal state.

Asked in a 2017 poll “What do you think is the most important aspect of the EU that does not function well?”, Hungarian respondents overwhelmingly cited immigration control (20%) over any other concern. The next-biggest concerns, at 5% respectively, were “independence of countries” and “protection of the EU borders,” which also speak to concerns over transnational immigration. (Ipsos Hungary ZRT, 2017, p. 28)

In its Constitution, the Fidesz-KDNP Party, in no uncertain terms, rejects pluralism and secularism — both essential features of liberalism, especially in the context of the EU. As critics put it, the “new constitution… [passed under Fidesz-KDNP rule]… referred to… the subject of the constitution not only as the community of ethnic Hungarians, but also as a Christian community, narrowing even the range of people who can recognize themselves as belonging to it.” (Halmai, 2018)

Owing to its geographic location in Eastern Europe, the period of 2015-2019 was particularly unprecedented for Hungary as millions of immigrants coming from the Middle East and North Africa attempted to make the journey to Germany and other further West European states – first via Greece to Macedonia to Hungary — due to their migrant-friendly policies and state support. (Ayoub, 2019, p. 4) In Hungary, “net migration ranged from 4,277 persons in 2013 to 38,786 persons in 2019.” (Statista, 2022) as illegal immigration became more widespread: “almost 12 thousand third country nationals were found to be illegally present in Hungary. This represented an increase of almost 100 percent compared to 2014.” (Statista, 2022)

(Statista, 2022)

The demographic effect of an influx of transnational migrants into Hungary is exacerbated by the extremely low birth rate among the native population. In 2021, while the raw total of immigrants rises, Hungary’s overall population growth rate dropped into negative figures at -0.29%. That year saw 12.88 deaths per 1,000 Hungarians and just 8.72 births per 1,000 Hungarians. (Migration Policy Institute, 2022). The figure below depicts the downward overall population trend in Hungary.

 (World Population Review, 2022)

Based on polling, the Hungarian population is overwhelmingly opposed to these demographic trends: “When it comes to Hungarians’ opinion on the topic, as of March 2020, over two-thirds of the population found illegal immigration a concerning issue.” (Statista, 2022) Expression of xenophobic attitudes expressed openly has increased along with the increase in transnational immigration and the rise of Fidez-KDNP in Hungary.

According to one analysis, “In 1992, 15 percent of Hungarians expressed xenophobic attitudes but the number increased to 39 percent by 2014 and reached a peak of 67 percent in October 2018.” (Krekó, 2022) This represents a more than four-fold increase in xenophobic attitudes in less than thirty years.

In an analysis alongside other EU member states, “Hungary… ranks extremely high compared with other European nations when it comes to exclusionary views on national identity.” (Manevich, 2016) A large majority hold negative views of Muslims and the more historic ethnic minority in Hungary, the Roma. Shockingly, one-third of Hungarians also express anti-Semitic views. (Manevich, 2016)

 (Manevich, 2016)

Xenophobic rhetoric within Hungary accelerated greatly around 2015, which coincides with “an unprecedented number of asylum-seekers” passing through Hungary,” (Krekó, 2022) mostly on their way to other EU member states perceived to be more welcoming of foreigners such as Germany. The Fidesz-controlled Hungarian government “was among the first countries in the European Union to capitalise upon the refugee crisis by politicising the question of immigration, therefore, several anti-immigration campaigns were initiated in Hungary during 2015 and 2016.” (Marton, 2017, p. 2)

Halmai (2018) notes that “The refugee crisis of 2015 has demonstrated the intolerance of the Hungarian governmental majority, which styled itself as the defender of Europe’s ‘Christian civilization’ against an Islamic invasion.” In 2015, amid criticism from the European Union and the broader international community to take in more refugees, Orban cited economic concerns in addition to the previously mentioned social ones over the question of immigration: “the stream of refugees would place an intolerable financial burden on European countries, adding that this would endanger the continent’s ‘Christian welfare states.'” (Reuters, 2015b)

In a 2015 speech, Fidesz-KDNP head and sitting prime minister Viktor Orban declared that “‘we would like to preserve Europe for Europeans…, ‘But there is something that we would not only like but we want: to preserve Hungary for Hungarians.'” (Reuters, 2015a) In his April 2022 victory speech, Orban targeted the EU, largely seen as the source of the influx of migrants and the resulting dilution of Hungarian culture: “Our win is so huge you can see it from the Moon, never mind from Brussels,” (Adler, 2022) referencing the EU headquarters in Belgium.

Moreover, in a 2022 speech Orban declared that “the great European population exchange [is] a suicidal attempt to replace the lack of European, Christian children with adults from other civilizations – migrants.” (Garamvolgyi & Borger, 2022) He also adeptly couches his rhetoric in the language of right-populism: “the millions with national feelings are on one side [apart from] the elite citizens of the world.” (Orbán, 2018)

Popular opinion notwithstanding, political pressure came to bear from within the EU, specifically from Germany, for other EU member states – especially those publicly opposed to accepting greater numbers of refugees such as Hungary — to foster more immigrants: “It isn’t just Germany, but all of Europe has a responsibility, and we have to remember that almost all refugees, and there are millions in the world, have often found refuge in a neighboring country,” said German Social Democrat head Scholz.” (Ridgwell, 2021) This may be seen as an imposition by a foreign power on the domestic politics of the state, a sentiment that might ironically be responsible for further entrenching the Hungarian electorate in opposition to immigration.

Inequality and austerity in Hungary

The chart below depicts the share of pre-tax national income going to the top 10% in red, juxtaposed to the share of pre-tax national income going to the bottom 50% in blue in Hungary from 1990-2021. In it, we see that Hungary, coming out of the Soviet Union, experienced a surge in top 10% elite wealth and a concomitant loss in the bottom half’s share of national wealth – the latter down from 30.6% in 1990 to 22.5% in 2020. Because of the collapse of state-planned communism in 1991 and the transition to a market economy, we may infer based on these figures – barring confounding factors — that neoliberal economic policies ostensibly did not reduce inequality in Hungary and, in fact, worsened it.

 (World Inequality Database, 2021b)

Viktor Orban and the Fidesz-KDNP have shrewdly avoided any austerity measures until very recently in 2022, when the party was forced to relinquish its hardline opposition to austerity due to skyrocketing inflation associated with the Russian invasion of Ukraine an energy shortages. (Varga, 2022) Prior to that, which may be considered an extenuating circumstance, austerity had come to Hungary in the aftermath of the 2007/08 financial crisis, during which time Hungary was forced into “more spending cuts following a balance of payments crisis [in 2008] that necessitated €20bn aid from the EU, IMF and World Bank,” (Traynor & Allen, 2010). Analysts compared Hungary to Greece, which was rocked by financial insolvency in the immediate past and forced to institute austerity packages. polling indicates that opposition to austerity measures was a major issue that originally won Fidesz-KDNP its 2/3 majority in parliament in 2010. (Benczes, 2014)

In Hungary, Viktor Orban and the Fidesz-KDNP, when it assumed power in 2010, following austerity, bucked International Monetary Fund orthodoxy and reversed course, refusing further austerity packages and instead levying a new bank tax to generative revenue for the public treasury. (Weisbrot, 2010) Even with concessions, the Fidesz-KDNP has continued to resist austerity measures, instead expanding state benefits to its constituents. In 2022, Orban “paid a ‘thirteenth-month’ pension to seniors, exempted people under 25 years of age from income tax, and buffered Hungarians from inflation by freezing fuel and food prices. In prior election years, such handouts have won many people over.” (Scheppele, 2022, p. 46)

Viktor Orban has consistently criticized the “left’s” penchant for austerity: “The left wing tightens belts, makes layoffs, raises taxes and lowers salaries in times of crisis, while the government does just the opposite: it supports job preservation, creates new workplaces, cuts taxes and provides wage support.” (Hungary Today, 2020) In 2018, “the [twenty] poorest villages and settlements in Hungary… voted overwhelmingly in favor of Fidesz-KDNP’s reelection.” (Vaski, 2022)

France 

The predominate “far-right” party in France is the National Rally (RN), headed by Marine Le Pen. French nationalists – sometimes described as “nativists” – founded the National Rally in 1972, led by Marine Le Pen’s father, Jean-Marie Le Pen. Since its inception, stopping transnational immigration has been its primary focus: “Since its beginnings, the party has strongly supported French nationalism and controls on immigration, and it often has been accused of fostering xenophobia and anti-Semitism.” (Ray, n.d.) In 2018, the National Rally rebranded itself in an attempt to achieve more mass appeal. Its original name, National Front was abandoned due to its association with extreme xenohphobia, including anti-Semitism. (France 24, 2018)

Until the 1990s, when globalization began in earnest, the National Front (FN) remained relatively obscure, rarely winning more than 10% of the popular vote in national elections. But “by the 1990s the FN had established itself… In 1995 Le Pen captured more than 15 percent of the vote in the presidential contest, the FN won mayoral elections in Toulon, Orange, and Marignane, and a former FN member was elected mayor of Nice.” (Ray, n.d.)

The true turning point for the party came when it moderated its most extreme anti-Semitic views under the new leadership of Marine Le Pen: “She and a younger generation of allies initiated a process of ‘de-demonisation’, dropping some of the party’s most radical proposals… [older party members] were replaced with younger, savvier political operators.” (Phalen, 2022) Since cleaning house, so to speak, “the party has skilfully tapped into disenchantment with Macron and anger over the rising cost of living, globalisation and the perceived decline in many rural communities.” (Phalen, 2022) In France, low-income voters disproportionately vote for Nationally Rally candidates in national elections. (Thomas, 2022)

National Rally’s electoral rise from obscurity has been remarkable: “Between the National Assembly elections of 1973, which the RN was founded to contest in the name of a unified French nationalist right, and the… corresponding elections of 2012, the party increased its national vote share from 0.5 per cent (fewer than 125,000 votes) to 13.6 per cent (over 3.5 million votes).” (Shields, 2014, p. 41) By 2019, the National Rally had become the single best-performing party in France’s multi-party system.

 (European Parliament, 2019)

Demographic research indicates that a strong majority of right-wing voters in France live in rural areas, whereas the cities are more populated proportionally by left-wing voters. Newly arrived immigrants, perhaps due to perceived corresponding social benefits, tend to cluster within cities: “Cities have a much higher share of people born in another country (17% of the population of 15 and older in 2019 in the EU28) than other areas do (12% in towns and suburbs, and 6% in rural areas).” (De Dominicis, et al., 2020, p. 10) Furthermore, in the West broadly, “rural people are much more likely to desire decreased immigration when compared with urban people.” (Garcia, 2013, p. 96) The National Rally and other “far-right” parties consistently outperform rivals in rural, mostly white, mostly working-class regions. In 2017, for instance, Marine Le Pen dominated the French countryside whereas Macron fared far better in the large cities, demonstrating rural areas as her party’s unquestionable seat of power:

 (BBC, 2017)

Interestingly, the major “Yellow Vest” protest movement against the French government’s proposed gas hike and social inequality generally originated due to “a feeling of neglect and exclusion in France’s exurbs and rural regions… where the French state and many institutions representative of French society have progressively disengaged over the past decade.” (Stephens, 2019) It is likely no coincidence that the regions of France that are most disaffected with social inequality and most hostile to transnational immigrants disproportionately vote for the National Rally.

Opposition to austerity and wealth inequality were central issues that drove the yellow vest protests: “The ‘yellow vest’ protests of hundreds of thousands that have taken place every week for the past six months have been driven by opposition to rising social inequality and poverty and dominated by demands for an end to austerity and a redistribution of wealth from the rich to the working class.” (Morrow, 2019)

In 2021, while running for the top elected national office against sitting PM Emmanuel Macron, popularly conceived to be friendly to the EU and globalization broadly, Le Pen laid bare the ideological divide that she hoped to exploit on her way to a victory: “[Emmanuel Macron] stands for unregulated globalisation, I defend the nation, which remains the best structure to defend our identity, security, freedom and prosperity.” (Reuters, 2021)

Transnational immigration to France and national identity

 Immigration to France accelerated greatly following 1990, as illustrated graphically below (the blue line representing the immigrant population’s raw numbers and the green line indicating immigrants as the share of the entire population). By 1999, immigrants represented 7.3% of the total population. By 2020, twenty years later, that share had risen to over 10%.

 (L’Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques, 2021)

The differential fertility rates between native-born French women and foreign-born French women exacerbate the demographic trends in France. Along with an increasing share of the population represented by immigrants, France has experienced a steady decline in birth rates since 2015. (RFI, 2020) Furthermore, while the overall fertility rate in France was 1.9 per woman (near replacement level), the fertility rate of foreign-born women was 2.6 per woman in 2017 compared to 1.8 in 2017. 19% of all babies that year were born to foreign-born women. (Volant, et al., 2019)

Even as Le Pen is considered “far-right” – despite moderating since the days of her father’s National Rally — domestic political pressure came to bear from the right of Le Pen to impose harsher anti-immigrant policies. Eric Zemmour threw his hat into the ring in 2021 as a candidate for prime minister, declaring at his campaign launch that “you feel like you are no longer in the country you once knew … you are foreigners in your own country.” (Melander, 2021)

Zemmour, following a trend within France, explicitly referenced the Great Replacement Theory, sometimes known as “white genocide.” The premise of the theory is that shadowy powers-that-be are working in secret to flood white-majority countries with immigrants. The ultimate goal is attaining the dilution and annihilation of Western culture: “These theories focus on the premise that white people are at risk of being wiped out through migration, miscegenation or violence… these concepts have come to dominate the ideology of extreme-right groups.” (Davey & Ebner, 2019, p. 4). In recent years, sensing the electoral opportunities, more center-right parties in France such as Les Républicains (LR) have hardened their anti-immigrant rhetoric: “Eric Ciotti, a hardline conservative who unexpectedly won the first round of the [Les Républicains] primary last week, has promised to set up a ‘French Guantanamo’ and espoused the far-right theory that the French people are being ‘replaced’ by foreign — Arab, black, Muslim —­ immigrants.” (Momtaz, 2021)

In a 2020 poll of French voters, 53% and 52%, respectively, of respondents believed curbing illegal immigration and the perceived social and financial costs of that immigration were priority issues that the government should be working to resolve. (Institut français d’opinion publique, 2020, p. 70) According to the results of a 2021 survey of French voters, 71% of respondents reported believing that France had fostered enough immigrants, expressing their wish for it to stop. 64% of respondents were keen to reject all asylum seekers, citing their perceived involvement in terrorism. Nearly three-quarters (74%) expressed a belief that ethnic diversity causes social problems. (Le Labo de la Fraternité, 2021, p. 7)

One analysis, studying Danish municipal elections from 1981 to 2001, found that “local ethnic diversity lead to rightward shifts in election outcomes by shifting electoral support away from traditional ‘big government’ left-wing parties and towards anti-immigrant nationalist parties.” (Harmon, 2017, p. 1043) In another 2020 survey of French voters, 60% reported a belief that assimilating foreigners is not “pragmatic” due to intransigent cultural differences. (Institut français d’opinion publique, 2020, p. 44)

The phrase “France belongs to the French” is an often-repeated expression of the “far-right,” which has strong ethnic overtones. For instance, when, in 2013, ethnically Algerian Muslims in France went on a killing spree in response to Charlie Hebdo’s cartoon depicting the prophet Muhammed, “pork was left on the steps of a mosque with the inscription ‘France belongs to the French'” (Frydman, 2016, p. 85) – pork being a forbidden food product in the Islamic faith. In another instance of political rejection of multiculturalism, in the context of a push to include meals in public schools compatible with Islamic doctrine, Marine Le Pen said “We will accept no religious requirements in the school lunch menus. There is no reason for religion to enter into the public sphere.” (Janmohamed, 2014)

Inequality and austerity in France

The chart below depicts the share of pre-tax national income going to the top 10% in red, juxtaposed to the share of pre-tax national income going to the bottom 50% in blue in France, from 1990 to 2020.

 (World Inequality Database, 2021a)

Here, we see that France’s bottom 50% marginally improved its share of national income from 20.1% in 1990 to 23.2% in 2020 while the top 10% essentially maintained its share. In this regard, the country is an outlier, as France was one of only five countries that OECD looked at from 1988-2008 that actually reduced inequality. (OECD, 2008, p. 1)

This has not stopped austerity from coming to France due to various international political crises, including the 2007/08 economic crash. In 2010, when France had a 99.1 percent debt-to-GDP ratio, it was forced to instate austerity programs under pressure from EU headquarters in Brussels. (Elleyatt & Amaro, 2018) The effects of globalization-induced austerity on the French population are felt disproportionately by the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder. The economic fallout from the transnational 2007/08 financial crash and the resulting austerity measures instituted by the French government resulted in the increase of poverty rates in France from 7.8 million in 2007 to 8.6 million in 2013. Wages to the bottom twenty percent of earners in France decreased 1.3 percent while wages to the top twenty percent of wage earners increased by 0.9 percent. (OxFam, 2013b, p. 3)

French voters reject austerity in public polling. In one such survey, French voters supported increased government spending on public services: “Similarly, 59% agree that the EU’s fiscal rules should be changed to allow governments to increase spending on improving public services… Even more respondents (64%) are concerned about the potential impact of austerity should the EU try to force governments to cut borrowing to reduce their debts over the next five years.” (Syndicat European Trade Union, 2022, p. 1)

The National Rally has positioned itself consistently against austerity, including in 2019 when National Rally candidates in the European election “exploit[ed] the social crisis and anger produced by the austerity… policies of so-called ‘center-left’ or social-democratic governments over decades.” (Morrow, 2019) In that election, “Marine Le Pen’s far-right party came first in France’s European election and gained half a million more votes than last time… the far-right has steadily become a regular and unquestioned part of French political life despite political opponents condemning it as racist, Islamophobic, xenophobic and hate-mongering.” (Chrisafis, 2019) The National Rally has repeatedly framed its criticism of the French welfare state as unfairly benefitting immigrants at the expense of the native population, and, in keeping with exclusionary populist rhetoric, in her most recent presidential campaign promised a policy “prioritising French people’s access to welfare, social housing and jobs.” (Parker, 2022)

Similarities between the rise of the ‘far-right’ in Hungary and France

At the outset of this research, it was established that transnational immigration is a documented byproduct of globalization. (Tacoli & Okali, 2001, p.1) Globalization is also seen to drive perceived loss of national/cultural/ethnic identity among the native population (Friedan, et al. 2017, p. 16) – thereby driving the political development of “exclusionary “nationalism” (Mylonas and Tudor, 2021, p. 111)  — and uneven economic benefits primarily advantaging the upper economic strata (McMichael, 2012, p. 78).

In turn, the effects of these general effects of globalization on political outcomes are examined in the two case studies here, using election results, public polling data, demographic characteristics of “far-right” voters, and “far-right” party rhetoric. There are numerous noteworthy parallels between Hungary and France that help answer the question of whether neoliberal, globalization-friendly policies within each respective space drove “far-right” political victories from 1990-2020.

Both political parties studied here, the National Rally in France and the Fidesz-KDNP in Hungary, rose to political prominence around the same time, in the context of broader political history, which coincided with a rise in transnational immigration since the early 1990s and the fallout of the 2007/08 financial crash, which included austerity measures. Fidesz won a supermajority in parliament in 2010, (Gawron-Tabor, 2015, p. 290) while the National Front won its largest-ever share of the vote (13.6%) in National Assembly elections in 2012, (Shields, 2014, p. 41). In each case, “far-right” parties have made opposition to foreign influence and international governance – transnational immigration, perceived loss of national/cultural/ethnic identity and uneven distribution of economic benefits being three effects of globalization — central to their platforms, particularly from 2010-2020.

Anti-globalization, and particularly anti-EU, rhetoric – globalization being often cited as a nefarious and corrosive influence on their respective native cultures — features prominently in both French and Hungarian “far-right” party rhetoric, often combined with overtly racial overtones. In Hungary, “far-right” Fidesz-KDNP candidates have decried “the heavy influence of Hungarian Jews in the culture and prosperity of the country.” (Freifeld, 2001) Anti-semitic rhetoric is also seen in French “far-right” politics, and was indeed foundational in the establishment of the National Front, now known as the National Rally. (France 24, 2018)

In Hungary, the Fidesz-KDNP enshrined its commitment “to promoting and safeguarding our heritage, our unique language, Hungarian culture, the languages and cultures of nationalities living in Hungary” (Constitute Project, 2011, p. 4) in its Constitution. In France, multiple-time National Rally presidential candidate and party head Marine Le Pen, an avowed Eurosceptic, has pledged “to slash France’s contributions to the EU” if elected. (Parker, 2022) In a 2019 speech, Le Pen concluded with an admonition to “turn our backs on all that made European peoples suffer, on policies that led to the economic and social failure of the EU… the European Union is dead.” (Marlowe, 2019)

Transnational immigration rates rose steadily in each country from 1990-2020 as globalization accelerated in the 1980s. In France, immigrants as a share of the total population rose from around 4 percent in 1990 to over ten percent in 2020, a 250% increase.(L’Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques, 2021) At the same time, declining birth rates among non-immigrant French woman resulted in more than 19% of babies in France born to foreign-born women in 2017. (Volant, et al., 2019)

Historically “one of the most ethnically homogenous states” (Freifeld, 2001), Hungary experienced a 100% increase in transnational immigration rates from 2014 to 2019. At the same time, Hungary’s overall population has declined due to discrepancies between birth and death rates, (World Population Review, 2022) furthering the demographic impact of immigration to the country. In 2015, faced with calls to accept more immigrants to Hungary in the midst of a surge in migrants entering the EU, Orban claimed that “the stream of refugees would place an intolerable financial burden on European countries, adding that this would endanger the continent’s ‘Christian welfare states.'” (Reuter, 2015)

The effect of immigration on public political attitudes is also similar between France and Hungary. Numerically comparable proportions of the respective French and Hungarian populations respond negatively to transnational immigration in polling. In one survey in France, 60% reported a belief that assimilating foreigners is not “pragmatic” due to intransigent cultural differences. (Institut français d’opinion publique, 2020, p. 44) A full 71% in another poll among the French public believe that France has taken in enough refugees and should close the border. (Le Labo de la Fraternité, 2021, p. 7)

Similarly, in Hungary, an overwhelming plurality of poll respondents say that controlling immigration is the biggest concern they have with international governance from the EU (Ipsos Hungary ZRT, 2017, p. 28) Two-thirds of the population in one survey cite illegal immigration as a “concerning issue.” (Statista, 2022) Xenophobic attitudes within the Hungarian population spiked to 67% in 2018 from 15% in 1992. (Krekó, 2022) From 2015 to 2016, the Fidesz-KDNP-led government made Hungary “among the first countries in the European Union to capitalise upon the refugee crisis by politicising the question of immigration, therefore, several anti-immigration campaigns.” (Marton, 2017, p. 2)

“Far-right” parties in both France and Hungary couch the issue of transnational immigration and foreign cultural influences in existential, and often apocalyptic, terms. Eric Zemmour, “far-right” candidate in France’s 2021 national election, declare that “you feel like you are no longer in the country you once knew … you are foreigners in your own country.” (Melander, 2021) Zeymmour and other “far-right” figures on France have advanced the “white replacement” conspiracy theory, which espouses the claim that “white people are at risk of being wiped out through migration, miscegenation or violence.” (Davey & Ebner, 2019, p. 4) Xenophobic rhetoric such as “France belongs to the French” is now commonplace at “far-right” political events. (Frydman, 2016, p. 85)

Recently, in Hungary, Viktor Orban, Fidesz-KDNP head, claimed at American “far-right” political summit Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) that “the great European population exchange [is] a suicidal attempt to replace the lack of European, Christian children with adults from other civilizations – migrants.” (Garamvolgyi & Borger, 2022) Contrasting herself with left-centrist presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron, nationally Rally candidate Marine Le Pen said that he “stands for unregulated globalisation, I defend the nation, which remains the best structure to defend our identity, security, freedom and prosperity.” (Reuters, 2021)

This research also implicates a less stark, but relevant economic factor associated with globalization in the rise of “far-right” political parties in France and Hungary from 1990-2020, particularly related to austerity measures adopted throughout Europe following the 2007/08 international financial crash. Poverty in France, largely driven by austerity, impacted nearly a million more people from 2007 to 2013. (OxFam, 2013b, p. 3) Some analysts have argued that more international-oriented, mainstream political parties in France and Hungary arguably left an electoral lane open to “far-right” parties by going along, at least partially, with international pressure to institute austerity policies in the aftermath of the 2007/08 financial crisis to make up for budget shortfalls (Rodríguez-Aguilera, 2014) (Smith-Spark, 2012) This is because public polling of the French and Hungarian publics, respectively, showed that an overwhelming majority of voters were suspicious of austerity measures. In France, this is especially true of austerity policies perceived to be promoted by the EU. (Syndicat European Trade Union, 2022, p. 1)

In Hungary, polling indicates that opposition to austerity measures was a major issue that originally won Fidesz-KDNP its historic two-thirds majority in parliament in 2010 (Benczes, 2014) and later in the same year the party rejected a proposed IMF austerity package. (Weisbrot, 2010) Fidesz-KDNP leader Viktor Orban has consistently criticized Fidesz-KDNP’s rival parties in Hungary for their support of “left-wing” austerity measures. (Hungary Today, 2020) In France, National Rally head Marine Le Pen has leveled similar accusations of “left” support for austerity measures. Characterizing them as “policies of so-called ‘center-left’ or social-democratic governments.” (Morrow, 2019)

The most important distinction between Hungary and France in the context of the economic effects on domestic politics in each country is the disparate levels of inequality. As measured by wealth disparities between the top 10% and the bottom 50%, Hungary’s level of inequality skyrocketed during the period of study, (World Inequality Database, 2021b) whereas France’s inequality diminished slightly. (World Inequality Database, 2021a) This suggests, barring confounding factors, that income inequality may not drive support for “far-right” political parties as expected.

Like the parties themselves, the electoral bases of the National Rally and Fidesz-KDNP in their respective populations share a trio of demographic commonalities that are more likely to be adversely affected by globalization: they tend to be more rural, poorer and less educated than the average voter. Rural voters in France are likelier to support the National Rally than their suburban or urban peers. (BBC, 2017)

Fidesz-KDNP also dominates national contests in Hungary in the rural regions. One analysis found that Fidesz-KDNP subsidies targeting rural communities in Hungary fueled a 4.3% increase in vote share in targeted areas in 2019. (Reiff & Szabó, 2022) In 2018, “the [twenty] poorest villages and settlements in Hungary… voted overwhelmingly in favor of Fidesz-KDNP’s reelection.” (Vaski, 2022)  In France, low-income voters likewise disproportionately vote for “far-right” Nationally Rally. (Thomas, 2022)

Lastly, lower levels of education in Hungary have been statistically correlated to increased support for Fidesz-KDNP. (Hungary Today, 2022) In France, low education, combined with elevated immigration levels, has been demonstrated to drive support for “far-right” political parties. (Edo, et al., 2019) (Thomas, 2022)

A note on the potential confounding variable of COVID-19 

Researchers have long noted that “the increasing cross-border and cross-continental movements of people, commodities, vectors, food, capital, and decision-making power that characterize globalization, together with global demographic trends, have enormous potential to affect the emergence and spread of infectious diseases.” (Knobler, et al., 2006) Fears associated with the COVID-19 pandemic may have exacerbated the popular political backlash to transnational immigration in France and Hungary and provided a boon to support of “far-right” political parties. The potential explanatory mechanism is disgust – defined as “an evolved psychological system for protecting organisms from infection through disease avoidant behavior” (Curtis, et al, 2010, p. 389) – which is universal and fundamental to human nature.

Although more mundane, fully biologically hardwired reflexes such as gagging at the smell of rotten food are often the focus of biologists, “the last two decades have seen the development of a body of literature in evolutionary psychology that attributes many present-day political attitudes, such as social or political conservatism, ethnocentrism, and xenophobia, to evolved threat-management mechanisms.” (Kusche & Barker, 2019, p. 2) In other words, foreigners are perceived as a threat in much the same way as a food-borne pathogen to the health of the individual and community, thus inducing a visceral reaction of avoidance.

            The disgust mechanisms need not rise to the level of consciousness; it’s possible that the individual may not even be aware that his or her reaction occurs due to the association of foreigners with pathogenic illness., and in that way may impact those who even consider themselves otherwise open to transnational immigrants as people and immigration as a concept.

There are two potential mechanisms to explain the relationship between disgust and aversion to immigrants, “one of which emphasizes proximally avoiding outgroups, and the other of which emphasizes adherence to traditional norms. According to the former, immigrants are perceived as being more infectious because they carry novel pathogens… According to the latter, immigrants’ foreign norms are perceived as posing a pathogen threat.” (Karinen, et al., 2019)  This disgust mechanism, in the context of COVID, may have manifested in noteworthy ways elucidated in France and Hungary. Further research should examine the effects, if any, that the COVID-19 pandemic has had on voters’ attitudes toward globalization and how those changes may have affected their support for “far-right” political parties.

Hungarian PM Viktor Orban of Fidesz-KDNP has capitalized on the disgust and fear associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. When Orban was asked in March of 2020 why the Fidesz-KDNP had forced university closures but not school closures, the PM cited the presence of foreigners in the institutes of higher learning: “Our experience is that primarily foreigners brought in the disease, and that it is spreading among foreigners.” (Agence France-Presse, 2020)

Similarly, National Rally in France has also used COVID-19 to demonize foreigners and drive their anti-immigrant messaging: “Several political parties and groups, including in… France… have also latched onto the Covid-19 crisis to advance anti-immigrant, white supremacist, ultra-nationalist, anti-semitic, and xenophobic conspiracy theories that demonize refugees, foreigners, prominent individuals, and political leaders.” (Human Rights Watch, 2020) Numerous attacks against Asian immigrants, reportedly motivated by racial animus, have been documented in France. (Coste & Amie, 2020)

What ultimate effect the political fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic, if any, will have on globalization from the perspective of state policy and national politics is still unclear. Ciravegna and Michailova argue that “the pandemic will have significant long-lasting effects on globalization” (Ciravegna & Michailova, 2022, p. 172) due a trio of factors: worsened inequality post-COVID, the pandemic’s fueling of populist and nationalist political ideologies and parties, and the undermining of international institutions that the authors cite as providing the logistics for globalization. Their prediction of the pandemic’s detrimental effects on national political support for globalization may bear fruit, but more time is needed to fully study this phenomenon.

Policy

It was once popularly believed that, following the catastrophic damage wrought by WWII, the decades-long Cold War, and finally the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, that the West had reached the “end of history,” a phrase coined by Francis Fukuyama, meaning that there was not then and would not be ever an effective ideological challenge to the predominance of liberalism “as the final form of human government”: “What we may be witnessing is not just the end of the Cold War, or the passing of a particular period of post-war history, but the end of history as such.” (Fukuyama, 1992, p. 276) Under this theory, the democracies of the world would jointly prevail in the international system, and by the example of their economic and social progress, even the most hardened autocratic holdouts would eventually be compelled to sign cosign liberal ideology.

By the beginning of the 21^st century, many analysts have declared “an end to the end of history”: “The grand expectation that the world had entered an era of convergence has proved wrong. We have entered an age of divergence.” (Kagan, 2008) Critics of the “end of history” theory point to such authoritarian powers as Russia and China as examples of the failure of liberalism to take root across the globe, but also look to growing illiberal and anti-democratic political movements within liberal democracies such as France and Hungary – once thought beyond imagination.

Many analysts lament the rise of the far-right because of its destabilizing nature. As the Council of Europe has noted, “extremist parties and movements are propagating and defending ideologies that are incompatible with democracy and human rights and threaten the fundamental values that the Council of Europe sets out to defend.” (Gjellerod, 2001) Whereas “extremism” of other varieties once dominated the media and vexed policymakers, such as Islamic jihad, analysts have increasingly identified “far-right” political parties as the main threat to liberal democracy: “Currently the extremist parties and movements that pose the greatest threat to democracy in member states are those of the far right, and more generally those that encourage intolerance, xenophobia or racism.” (Gjellerod, 2001)

Arguably, the reason a clear and straightforward political solution to the problem has evaded policymakers so far is because the answer would require facing fundamental assumptions such as the peacemaking and growth-fueling merits of the liberal economic policy that drives globalization. As opposed to fundamentalist Islamic terrorism, which is largely an imported foreign phenomenon, the consequences of globalization identified in this research that contribute to the rise of “far-right” ideology and political parties within European member states are domestic in nature, resulting from government policy, and the resulting political fallout is likewise entirely domestic in nature. The call, as the expression goes, is coming from inside the house. Effective solutions, therefore, would require some degree of humility and ideological flexibility from elite policymakers, which has so far not manifested in any significant way.

There is much speculation about where and how a population is radicalized to the right. The rapid ascendance of “far-right” political parties in France, Hungary, and arguably beyond is best conceptualized as a form of populist with a decidedly right-wing bent, as previously delineated in the comparison of left-wing vs right-wing populism.

The Council of Europe has identified several potential strategies to curb the proliferation of “far-right” parties. These include “depriving extremist parties of their electoral support by addressing the social and economic issues, such as unemployment, immigration and security that these parties capitalise on,” increasing funding for education to inform citizens of their rights and responsibilities in a democracy, and implementing “measures against the abuse of asylum and illegal immigration linked to organised crime… more efficiently… in order to reduce xenophobic feeling.” (Gjellerod, 2001) The Council calls as well for more integrated policing of “far-right” elements between EU member states: “Given the international dimension of extremist movements and networks of racist or xenophobic character, co-operation between the competent authorities and police forces in Council of Europe member states should be increased.” (Gjellerod, 2001)

Lastly, the Council also recommends a censorship regime “to prohibit oral or written instigation to racism, anarchy, anti-Semitism and xenophobia; freedom of expression can not be accepted as an excuse for it.” (Gjellerod, 2001) Unfortunately, freedom of expression is a fundamental tenet of liberal ideology; in this case and others, many of the proposed means to mitigate the threat posed by the “far-right” ironically, and perhaps counter-productively, involve limiting the civil liberties central to liberal ideology.

Nearly a century ago, one analyst noted that “if you don’t want to talk about capitalism, then you had better keep quiet about fascism,” (Thompson, 2013) referencing the increased class divide that occurs due to unfettered liberalism and the potential dangers it poses to civil society if left unaddressed. There is no reason to believe that, if left to the forces of the international market, the inequality, large-scale immigration, and perceived loss of cultural/national/ethnic identity will resolve themselves in a peaceful manner.

Ultimately, populations adopt increasingly extreme populist politics when they feel they are ignored or marginalized. The only effective way to prevent this phenomenon, in this researcher’s estimation, is to address through policy these perceptions among the populations of France, Hungary, and beyond to eliminate or mitigate resentment against political elites.

One way to produce this desired effect would be for Brussels to return significant governing authority to the national level. This is clearly a thorny political prospect, as much has been invested in the European Union project to integrate the whole of the continent, and would clearly be perceived as a public admission that the EU project has experienced major setbacks, if not failed entirely. Unfortunately for proponents of liberalism and globalization, it seems that, one way or another, serious geopolitical changes are on the horizon in Europe and elsewhere.

Conclusion 

The data compiled and analyzed here demonstrates that the three identified phenomena associated with globalization — immigration to EU member states, perceived loss of national identity and sovereignty, and uneven distribution of economic benefits across social strata – between 1990-2020 drove a popular domestic political backlash within the electorates of Hungary and France, respectively, that resulted in the electoral ascendance of “far-right” political parties within them.

Both nations experienced similar upward trajectories during the period studied in popular support for “far-right” political parties among their respective electorates. In both cases, public polling indicates that the reasons for this increased support — which, again, have been demonstrated to be strongly associated with globalization — are opposition to transnational immigration, perceived loss of national identity, and uneven distribution of economic benefits by class. The only significant difference between the cases is that, in Hungary, inequality worsened substantially in the period studied while, in France, inequality slightly waned. This indicates that inequality may not directly foster “far-right” politics. In both cases, the French and Hungarian “far-right” parties’ electoral bases are poorer, more rural, and less educated than the national average.

Regarding opposition to transnational immigration, the overwhelming majority of respondents to public polling in each country indicate their skepticism of the assimilability of migrants and the perceived negative effects that immigration has on the native culture, particularly of immigrants from non-European, non-white, non-Christian countries. As it relates to a perceived loss of national/cultural/ethnic identity, it was found that in each case, French and Hungarian “far-right” political parties have appealed to nativist political sentiments, frequently explicitly in official platforms and other party and government documents, by framing the debate over transnational immigration in terms of civilizational conflict, highlighting perceived deleterious or dilutive effects of immigration and foreign cultural and political influences on the native culture. Public polling of “far-right” voters indicates that a desire to protect the native culture is a major driver of their ideological disposition.

Lastly, pertaining to the economic data and the disparate distribution of economic benefits of globalization by class, it was found that in globalization reduces inequality between states but does not reduce inequality on an individual level across nationalities. The economic benefits of globalization do not accrue to the working and middle classes. Also, it is low-skill, blue-collar jobs that have primarily been outsourced to developing countries in the pursuit of lower labor costs, further highlighting globalization’s disparate impacts by class.

Public polling in each case study indicates a class consciousness of this phenomenon, with lower-class and rural populations being more likely to vote for “far-right” parties in national elections due to the perception that moderate parties as beholden to foreign power centers, particularly Brussels, the location of EU headquarters. “Far-right” parties in each country made opposition to austerity a policy platform in the aftermath of the 2007/08 financial crash amid international pressure to institute an austerity regime, a policy position that voters across the ideological spectrum support in public polling. 

References

 Abed, Dana. (2022). “The Assault of Austerity.” Accessed via https://www.oxfam.org/en/research/assault-austerity

Achiume, Tendayi. (2018). Emerging Voices: The Socio-Economics of Xenophobia. Accessed via http://opiniojuris.org/2013/07/18/emerging-voices-the-socio-economics-of-xenophobia/

Adler, Katya. (2022). Victory for Hungary’s Orban means a headache for the EU. Accessed via https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60978909

Agence France-Presse. (2020). “Hungary’s Orban blames foreigners, migration for coronavirus spread.” Accessed via https://www.france24.com/en/20200313-hungary-s-pm-orban-blames-foreign-students-migration-for-coronavirus-spread

Aizenman, Joshua. (2010). “The Impossible Trinity (aka the Policy Trilemma).” in Frieden, Lake, & Broz, International Political Economy, pp. 211-220

Alliance Manchester Business School. (2017). “Globalisation leading to a new age of “permanent austerity.” Accessed via https://www.alliancembs.manchester.ac.uk/news/globalisation-leading-to-a-new-age-of-permanent-austerity-/

Amadeo, Kimberly. (2022). “What Is Trade Protectionism?” Accessed via https://www.thebalancemoney.com/what-is-trade-protectionism-3305896

Amadi, Luke. (2020). ” Globalization and the changing liberal international order: A review of the literature.” Accessed via https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590051X20300046

Anderson, B. (1993). “Imagined communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism.” Accessed via https://www.pdfdrive.com/imagined-communities-reflections-on-the-origin-and-spread-of-nationalism-d157993970.html

Ayoub, Maysa. (2019). “Understanding Germany’s response to the 2015 refugee crisis.” Accessed via https://www.researchgate.net/publication/337239104_Understanding_Germany’s_response_to_the_2015_refugee_crisis

Baker, Andy. (2005). “Who Wants to Globalize? Consumer Tastes and Labor Markets in a Theory of Trade Policy Beliefs.” in Goddard, Cronin, & Dash, International Political Economy, pp. 33-47

BBC. (2017). “The maps that show how France voted and why.” Accessed via https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-39870460

Benczes, István. (2014). “Crisis in the West and the East: Economic Governance in Times of Challenge.” Accessed via https://books.google.nl/books?id=a8j6AgAAQBAJ&pg=PA200&lpg=PA200&dq=hungary+polling+austerity&source=bl&ots=lPS88f0cOf&sig=ACfU3U1zYAwBSL0mVOLmNSkiDs6Er4rJWg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiKusO3ivj9AhVL8rsIHV-mAj44ChDoAXoECBcQAw

Birdsall, Nancy. (2017). “Middle Class: Winners or Losers in a Globalized World?” Accessed via https://www.cgdev.org/publication/middle-class-winners-or-losers-globalized-world

Bosner-Neal, Catherine. (2015). “Why ‘Fiscal Austerity’? A Review of Recent Evidence on the Why ‘Fiscal Austerity’? A Review of Recent Evidence on the Economic Effects of Sovereign Debt Economic Effects of Sovereign Debt.” Accessed via https://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1591&context=ijgls

Carminati, Daniele. (2017). “What is Globalization? Global Europe explained.” Accessed via https://euroculturer.eu/2017/01/23/what-is-globalisation-global-europe-explained/

Carleton University. (2023). “The European Coal and Steel Community.” Accessed via https://carleton.ca/ces/eulearning/history/moving-to-integration/the-european-coal-and-steel-community/

Carlson, Lisa and Dacey, Raymond. “Game Theory” in Palan, Global Political Economy, pp. 91-103

Chan, Steve. “In Search of Democratic Peace,” Mershon International Studies Review.

Cholewinski, Ryszard. (2005). “Protecting Migrant Workers in a Globalized World.” Accessed via

https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/protecting-migrant-workers-globalized-world

Chrisafis, Angelique. (2019). ” EU vote confirms French far right as Macron’s main opposition.” Accessed via https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/may/27/eu-vote-confirms-french-far-right-marine-le-pen-national-rally-as-emmanuel-macron-main-opposition

Cianetti, L., Dawson, J., & Hanley, S. (2018). Rethinking ‘democratic backsliding’ in Central and Eastern Europe – looking beyond Hungary and Poland. Accessed via https://rsa.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/21599165.2018.1491401

Ciravegna, Luciano and Michailova, Snejina. (2022). “Why the world economy needs, but will not get, more globalization in the post-COVID-19 decade.” Accessed via https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8419373/

Cohen, Benjamin. (2008). “Monetary Governance in a Globalized World.” in Goddard, Cronin, & Dash, International Political Economy, pp. 215-239

Constitute Project. (2011) Hungary’s Constitution of 2011.Accessed via https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/Hungary_2011.pdf

Coste, Vincent and Amiel, Sandrine. (2020). “Coronavirus: France faces ‘epidemic’ of anti-Asian racism.” Accessed via https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2020/02/03/coronavirus-france-faces-epidemic-of-anti-asian-racism

Cronin, Patrick. “The Doha Round” in Goddard, Cronin, & Dash, International Political Economy, pp. 369-390

Curtis, Valerie et al. (20110). “Disgust as an adaptive system for disease avoidance behavior.”

Dadush, Uri & Shaw, William. (2012). “Globalization, Labor Markets, and Inequality.” Accessed via https://carnegieendowment.org/2012/02/02/globalization-labor-markets-and-inequality-pub-47028

Davey, Jacob and Ebner, Julia. (2019). “‘The Great Replacement: The Violent Consequences of Mainstreamed Extremism.” Accessed via https://www.isdglobal.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/The-Great-Replacement-The-Violent-Consequences-of-Mainstreamed-Extremism-by-ISD.pdf

Deardorff, Alan and Stern, Robert. (2001). “What You Should Know About Globalization and the WTO.” Accessed via http://www-personal.umich.edu/~alandear/writings/what-rie.pdf

De Dominicis, Laura, Dijkstra, Lewis, et al. (2020). “The Urban-Rural Divide in Anti-EU Vote.” Accessed via https://iris.unibs.it/retrieve/handle/11379/536743/126292/discontent_urban_rural_2020.pdf

Della Porta, Giovanni and Caiani, Wagemann. (2012). “The Other ‘No Globals’: Right-wing Discourses on Globalization.” Accessed via https://academic.oup.com/book/12349/chapter-abstract/161915492?redirectedFrom=fulltext

de Paiva Pires, Samuel. (2022). “Brexit, the Rise of China, and the Future of the Liberal International Order and Great Power Competition.” Accessed via https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9360671/

Edo, Anthony, et al. (2019). “Immigration and electoral support for the far-left and the far-right.” Accessed via https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0014292119300418

Elleyatt, Holly and Amaro, Silvia. (2018). “Are we witnessing the end of austerity — and what does that mean for Europe?” Accessed via https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/05/austerity-over-in-europe-greece-what-does-that-mean-for-the-region.html

European Center For Populism Studies. (2022). Right-Wing Populism. Accessed via https://www.populismstudies.org/Vocabulary/right-wing-populism/

European Commission. “Employment, Social Affairs & Inclusion.” Accessed via https://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=457

European Liberal Forum. (2014). “Liberal perspectives on European integration.” Accessed via https://d66.nl/vanmierlostichting/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2021/05/Liberal-perspectives-on-European-integration.pdf

European Parliament. (2019). “2019 European Election Results.” Accessed via https://www.europarl.europa.eu/election-results-2019/en/national-results/france/2019-2024/

Falter, Jurgen and Schumann, Siegfried. (1988). “Affinity Towards Right-Wing Extremism in Western Europe.” Accessed via https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01402388808424684

France 24. (2018). “France’s National Front renamed ‘National Rally’.” Accessed via https://www.france24.com/en/20180601-france-national-front-renamed-national-rally-le-pen-marine

Frankel, Jeffrey. “Globalization and the Environment.” in Frieden, Lake, & Broz, International Political Economy, pp. 461-488

Friedan, Jeffry, Lake, David, Broz, J. Lawrence. (2017) “International Political Economy: Perspectives on Global Power and Wealth.” Sixth edition.

Freifeld, Alice. (2001). Nationalism and the Problem of Inclusion in Hungary. Accessed via https://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/238-nationalism-and-the-problem-inclusion-hungary

Frydman, Genevieve. (2016). “Je Ne Suis Pas Manipulable.” Accessed via https://studenttheses.universiteitleiden.nl/access/item%3A2665873/view

Fukuyama, F. (1992). “The End of History and the Last Man.” Comparative Politics: Classic and Contemporary Readings

Gandesha, Samir. (2018). “Understanding right and left populisms.” Accessed via https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/can-europe-make-it/understanding-right-and-left-populisms/

Garamvolgyi, Flora and Borger, Julian. (2022) “Orbán and US right to bond at Cpac in Hungary over ‘great replacement’ ideology.” Accessed via https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/18/cpac-conference-budapest-hungary-viktor-orban-speaker

Garbinti, Bertrand and Goupille-Lebret, Jonathan. (2019). “Income and Wealth Inequality in France: Developments and Links over the Long Term.” Accessed via https://www.insee.fr/en/statistiques/fichier/4253139/510_511_512_Garbinti_Goupille-Lebret_EN.pdf

Garcia, Carlos. (2013). “Are Rural People more Anti-Immigrant than Urban People? A Comparison of Attitudes toward Immigration in the U.S. ” Accessed via https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=1008&context=sociology_pub

García, Edgar Demetrio Tovar. (2012). “Financial globalization and financial development in transition countries.” Accessed via https://www.scielo.org.mx/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0188-33802012000100007

Gawron-Tabor, Karolina. (2015). “Viktor Orban’s Illiberal Democracy in the Indices of the Quality of Democracy.” Accessed via https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Results-of-parliamentary-elections-in-2010-and-2014-Share-of-Fidesz-KDNP-supporters-and_tbl1_335905502

Gjellerod, Henning. (2001). “Threat posed to democracy by extremist parties and movements in Europe.” Accessed via https://assembly.coe.int/nw/xml/XRef/X2H-Xref-ViewHTML.asp?FileID=8818&lang=EN

Gonzalez, Anabel. (2016). “The Changing Trade Landscape: Trade Agreements, Globalization and Inequality.” Accessed via https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/opinion/2016/09/14/the-changing-trade-landscape-trade-agreements-globalization-and-inequality

Gore, Charles. (2001). “The Rise and Fall of the Washington Consensus as a Paradigm for Developing Countries.” in Goddard, Cronin, & Dash, International Political Economy, pp. 317-340

Haidt, Jonathan. (2012). “Why working-class people vote conservative.” Accessed via https://www.theguardian.com/society/2012/jun/05/why-working-class-people-vote-conservative

Halmai, Gabor. (2018). “Fidesz and Faith: Ethno-Nationalism in Hungary.” Accessed via https://verfassungsblog.de/fidesz-and-faith-ethno-nationalism-in-hungary/

Hanson, BT. (1998). ” What Happened to Fortress Europe?: External Trade Policy Liberalization in the European Union.” Accessed via https://www.jstor.org/stable/2601327

Harmon, Nikolaj. (2017). “Immigration, Ethnic Diversity, and Political Outcomes: Evidence from Denmark.” Accessed via https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/sjoe.12239

Heimberger, Philipp. (2020). “How economic globalisation affects income inequality.” Accessed via https://wiiw.ac.at/how-economic-globalisation-affects-income-inequality-n-431.html

Heinisch, Reinhard and Jansesberger, Viktoria. (2022). “Lacking control – analysing the demand side of populist party support.” Accessed via https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23745118.2022.2150027?src=

Hungary Today. (2020). “Fidesz: Left-Wing Municipal Councils Address Covid-19 Crisis with Austerity.” Accessed via https://hungarytoday.hu/fidesz-left-wing-municipal-councils-address-covid-19-crisis-with-austerity/

Hungary Today. (2022). “Hungarian People of Lower Education Level Show Overwhelming Support for Fidesz.” Accessed via https://hungarytoday.hu/hungary-lower-education-level-support-fidesz-opposition-2022-elections/

Human Rights Watch. (2020). “Covid-19 Fueling Anti-Asian Racism and Xenophobia Worldwide.” Accessed via https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/05/12/covid-19-fueling-anti-asian-racism-and-xenophobia-worldwide

Huntington, S. P. (1996). “The Clash of Civilizations.”

Institut français d’opinion publique. (2020).”Immigration: Le Regard Des Français.” Accessed via https://www.ifop.com/publication/le-regard-des-francais-sur-limmigration/

International Monetary Fund. (2007). “Globalization and Inequality.” Accessed via https://www.imf.org/-/media/Websites/IMF/imported-flagship-issues/external/pubs/ft/weo/2007/02/pdf/_c4pdf.ashx

Ipsos Hungary ZRT. (2017). “Public Opinion in Hungary.” Accessed via https://www.iri.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/hungary_poll_presentation.pdf

Janmohamed, Shelina Zahra. (2014). “Eat pork or starve, say French politicians.” Accessed via https://www.thenationalnews.com/eat-pork-or-starve-say-french-politicians-1.258026

Jervis, Robert. (1999). “Realism, Neoliberalism, and Cooperation.” Accessed via https://academiccommons.columbia.edu/doi/10.7916/D8VM4B30

Kagan, Robert. (2008). “The End of the End of History.” Accessed via https://carnegieendowment.org/2008/04/23/end-of-end-of-history-pub-20030

Karinen, Annika, et al. (2019). “Disgust sensitivity and opposition to immigration: Does contact avoidance or resistance to foreign norms explain the relationship?” Accessed via https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0022103118304220

Knobler, Stacey, et al. (2006). ” A World in Motion: The Global Movement of People, Products, Pathogens, and Power.” Accessed via https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK56593/

Knutsen, Oddbjørn. (2013). “Social structure, social coalitions and party choice in Hungary.” Accessed via https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0967067X12000815

Kusche, Isabelle and Barker, Jessica. (2019). “Pathogens and Immigrants: A Critical Appraisal of the Behavioral Immune System as an Explanation of Prejudice Against Ethnic Outgroups.” Accessed via https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02412/full

Le Labo de la Fraternité. (2021). “Baromètres de la Fraternité 2021.” Accessed via https://www.labodelafraternite.fr/home/2149/barometre

Lindsey, Brink. “The Invisible Hand vs. the Dead Hand.” In Goddard, Cronin, & Dash, International Political Economy, pages 59-70

L’Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques. (2021). “L’essentiel sur… les immigrés et les étrangers.” Accessed via https://www.insee.fr/fr/statistiques/3633212#graphique-Tableau1_radio1

Lodhi, Iftikhar. (2021). “Globalisation and public policy: bridging the disciplinary and epistemological boundaries.” Accessed via https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14494035.2021.1987137

Krekó, P., Hunyadi, B., & Szicherle, P. (2022, March 9). Anti-Muslim populism in Hungary: From the margins to the mainstream. Accessed via https://www.brookings.edu/research/anti-muslim-populism-in-hungary-from-the-margins-to-the-mainstream/

Madowitz, Michael. (2014). “What Have We Learned About Austerity Since the Great Recession?” Accessed via https://www.americanprogress.org/article/what-have-we-learned-about-austerity-since-the-great-recession/

Manevich, Dorothy. (2016) “Hungary Less Tolerant of Refugees, Minorities than Other EU Nations.” Accessed via http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/09/30/hungarians-share-europes-embrace-of-democratic-principles-but-are-less-tolerant-of-refugees-minorities/

Mann, Michael. (1997). “Has Globalization Ended the Rise and Rise of the State?” Accessed via https://www.jstor.org/stable/4177235

Marlowe, Lara. (2019). “Marine Le Pen: ‘The EU is dead. Long live Europe’.” Accessed via https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/europe/marine-le-pen-the-eu-is-dead-long-live-europe-1.3801809

Martell, Luke. (2014). “Austerity, globalization, and alternatives.” Accessed via http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/49556/6/1864-5179-1-SM.pdf

Marton, Zsolt. (2017). Populism and the refugee crisis. Accessed via https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:1482071/FULLTEXT01.pdf

McKee, Martin, et al.. (2012). “Austerity: a failed experiment on the people of Europe.” Accessed via https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4952125/

McMahon, Paul. (2017).”Globalisation and Austerity.” Accessed via http://brexitlegalguide.co.uk/globalisation/

McMichael, Philip. (2012). “Globalization: a project in crisis.” In Ronen, Global Political Economy.  

Melander, Ingrid. (2021). “Far-right figure Zemmour announces presidential run to ‘save’ France.” Accessed via https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/french-far-right-commentator-zemmour-announces-presidential-run-2021-11-30/

Migration Policy Institute. (2022). Hungary. Accessed via https://www.migrationpolicy.org/country-resource/hungary

Mijs, Jonathan J.B., et al. (2016). “Neoliberalism and Symbolic Boundaries

in Europe: Global Diffusion, Local Context, Regional Variation.” Accessed via https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/lamont/files/neoliberalism_and_symbolic_boundaries_in_europe.pdf

Milanovic, Branko. (2013). “Global Income Inequality in Numbers.” in Frieden, Lake, & Broz, International Political Economy, pp. 416-427

Momtaz, Rym. (2021). “How France pivoted to the right.” Accessed via https://www.politico.eu/article/how-france-pivoted-to-the-right/

Money, Jeannette. (1997). “Globalization, international mobility and the liberal international order.” Accessed via https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8499882/

Morrow, Will. (2019). “Le Pen’s neo-fascist National Rally leads European election polls in France.” Accessed via https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/05/21/lepe-m21.html

Mudde, Cas. (2007). “The war of words defining the extreme right party family.” Accessed via https://www.researchgate.net/publication/248943991_The_war_of_words_defining_the_extreme_right_party_family

Mylonas, Harris and Tudor, Maya. (2021). “Nationalism: What We Know and What We Still Need to Know.” Accessed via https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/10.1146/annurev-polisci-041719-101841

Navarro, Vicente. (2007). “Neoliberalism as a class ideology; or, the political causes of the growth of inequalities.” Accessed via https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17436985/

OECD. (2008). “Growing Unequal?: Income Distribution and Poverty in OECD Countries.” Accessed via https://www.oecd.org/france/41525323.pdf

Oesch, Daniel. (2008). “Explaining Workers’ Support for Right-Wing Populist Parties in Western Europe: Evidence from Austria, Belgium, France, Norway, and Switzerland.” Accessed via https://www.jstor.org/stable/20445147

Orbán V. 2018. “Ceremonial speech on the 170th anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution of 1848, Mar. 15.” Accessed via http://abouthungary.hu/speeches-and-remarks/orban-viktors-ceremonial-speech-on-the-170th-anniversary-of-the-hungarian-revolution-of-1848

OxFam. (2013a). “A Cautionary Tale: The True Cost of Austerity and Inequality in Europe.” Accessed via https://www-cdn.oxfam.org/s3fs-public/file_attachments/bp174-cautionary-tale-austerity-inequality-europe-120913-en_1_1.pdf

OxFam. (2013b). “The True Cost of Austerity and Inequality in Europe: France Case Study.” Accessed via https://oi-files-d8-prod.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/file_attachments/cs-true-cost-austerity-inequality-france-120913-en_0.pdf

Parker, Jessica. (2022). “French elections: EU apprehensive of Le Pen ahead of French run-off vote.” Accessed via https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-61144679

Phalen, Jessica. (2022). “How far has France’s far-right National Rally come in 50 years?” Accessed via https://www.rfi.fr/en/france/20221008-how-far-has-france-s-far-right-national-rally-come-in-50-years

Ray, Michael. “National Rally.” Accessed via https://www.britannica.com/topic/National-Rally-France

Remshardt, Katharina. (2012). “The Return of the Radical Right.” Accessed via https://www.e-ir.info/2012/04/23/the-return-of-the-radical-right/

Reuters. (2015a). “Illegal migration clearly linked with terror threat: Hungary PM.” Accessed via https://www.reuters.com/article/us-europe-migrants-hungary-idUSKCN0PZ08F20150725

Reuters (2015b). “Hungary’s Orban: migrants crossing Europe are immigrants, not refugees.” Accessed via https://www.reuters.com/article/us-europe-migrants-orban-migrants-idUSKCN0R70TD20150907

Reuters. (2021). “France’s Le Pen proposes referendum on immigration if elected president” Accessed via https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/frances-le-pen-proposes-referendum-immigration-if-elected-president-2021-09-27/

RFI. (2020). ” Fewer births, more deaths sees lowest French growth rate since WWII.” Accessed via https://www.rfi.fr/en/france/20200114-birth-rate-slows-lowest-level-post-wwii-population-growth-fertility-life-expectancy

Ridgwell, Henry. (2021). Germany Vows ‘No Repeat’ of 2015 Refugee Influx as Election Looms. Accessed via https://www.voanews.com/a/germany-vows-no-repeat-of-2015-refugee-influx-as-election-looms-/6230141.html

Rodríguez-Aguilera, Cesáreo. (2014). “The Rise of The Far Right in Europe.” Accessed via https://www.iemed.org/publication/the-rise-of-the-far-right-in-europe/

Rodrik, Dani. (2011). “Global Poverty Amid Global Plenty: Getting Globalization Right.” Accessed via https://www.americasquarterly.org/fulltextarticle/global-poverty-amid-global-plenty-getting-globalization-right/

Rodrik, Dani. (2013). “The Past, Present, and Future of Economic Growth.” in Frieden, Lake, & Broz, International Political Economy, pp. 428-448

Rosato, Sebastian. “The Flawed Logic of Democratic Peace Theory.” American Political Science.

Scheppele, Kim. (2022). “How Viktor Orban Wins.” Accessed via https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/how-viktor-orban-wins/

Sedelmeier, Ulrich. (2014). “Europe after the Eastern Enlargement of the European Union: 2004-2014.” Accessed via https://eu.boell.org/en/2014/06/10/europe-after-eastern-enlargement-european-union-2004-2014

Shenghen Visa Info. (2022). “4,900 Hungarians Have Been Repatriated So Far.” Accessed via https://www.schengenvisainfo.com/news/4900-hungarians-have-been-repatriated-so-far/

Shields, James. (2014). “The Front National since the 1970s.” Accessed via https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/modernlanguages/academic/jgs/shields_-_france_since_the_1970s_-_final_proofs.pdf

Sebők, Miklós and Simons, Jasper. (2022). “How Orbán won? Neoliberal disenchantment and the grand strategy of financial nationalism to reconstruct capitalism and regain autonomy.” Accessed via https://academic.oup.com/ser/article/20/4/1625/6414337

Smith, Adam. (1776). “The Wealth of Nations.” in Goddard, Cronin, & Dash, International Political Economy, pp. 33-47

Statista. (2022). “Net migration (immigration minus emigration) in Hungary from 2006 to 2019.” Accessed via https://www.statista.com/statistics/1011177/hungary-net-migration/

Stephens, Hampton. (2019). “Why Tackling Global Economic Inequality Is Liberal Democracy’s Next Big Challenge.” Accessed via https://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/why-tackling-global-economic-inequality-is-liberal-democracy-s-next-big-challenge/

Syndicat European Trade Union. (2022). “Survey: 59% support end to EU austerity rules.” Accessed via https://www.etuc.org/en/pressrelease/survey-59-support-end-eu-austerity-rules

Swiss Economic Institute. (2021). “KOF Globalisation Index: the Netherlands overtakes Switzerland as the most globalised country in the world.” Accessed via https://kof.ethz.ch/en/news-and-events/media/press-releases/2021/12/kof-globalisation-index-2021.html

Tacoli, Cecilia and Okali, David. (2001). “The Links Between Migration, Globalisation and Sustainable Development.” Accessed via https://iied.org/11020iied

Tajfel, H., et al.. (1979). “An integrative theory of intergroup conflict.”

Talani, Leila Simona. (2022). “Migration and the ‘dark side’ of globalization.” https://eprints.lse.ac.uk/114156/

Thomas, Leigh. (2022). “Poverty, education levels draw battle lines in French election.” Accessed via https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/poverty-education-levels-draw-battle-lines-french-election-2022-04-12/

Thompson, Peter. (2013). “The Frankfurt school, part 5: Walter Benjamin, fascism and the future.” Accessed via https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2013/apr/22/frankfurt-school-walter-benjamin-fascism-future

Traynor, Ian and Allen, Katy. (2010). ” Austerity Europe: who faces the cuts.” Accessed via https://www.theguardian.com/business/2010/jun/11/europe-deficit-crisis-austerity-budgets

Traynor, Ian. (2016). “Is the Schengen dream of Europe without borders becoming a thing of the past?” Accessed via https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/05/is-the-schengen-dream-of-europe-without-borders-becoming-a-thing-of-the-past

Ulbrich, Joseline. (2015). “Who are the ‘middle’? – The struggle of the European middle class to improve their living standards.” Accessed via https://www.thebrokeronline.eu/who-are-the-middle/

United Nations, Refugees and Migrants. (2017). Input of Hungary to the UN Secretary General’s report on the global compact for safe, orderly and regular migration. Accessed via https://refugeesmigrants.un.org/sites/default/files/stocktaking_hungary.pdf

Upegui-Hernandez, Deborah. (2014). “Transnational Migration Theory.” Accessed via https://www.academia.edu/6358406/Transnational_Migration_Theory

United Nations. (1999). ” Vulnerability and Poverty in a Global Economy.” Accessed via https://www.un.org/en/development/desa/policy/cdp/cdp_publications/1999cdpreport.pdf

Varga, Aron. (2022). “Austerity measures in Hungary: The shape of the crisis to come. Accessed via https://cz.boell.org/en/2022/07/28/austerity-measures-hungary

Vaski, Tamás. (2022). ” Hungary’s Poorest Villages Vote Overwhelmingly in Favor of Fidesz.” Accessed via https://hungarytoday.hu/hungary-fidesz-voters-villages/

Volant, Sabrina and Pison Gilles. (2019). ” French fertility is the highest in Europe. Because of its immigrants?” Accessed via https://www.ined.fr/en/news/press/french-fertility-is-the-highest-in-europe-because-of-its-immigrants/

Wade, Robert Hunter. (2006). “Should we worry about income inequality?” Accessed via https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16878393/

Weisbrot, Mark. (2010). “To Viktor go the spoils: how Hungary blazes a trail in Europe.” Accessed via https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/aug/09/viktor-orban-hungary-imf

Whalley, John. (1999). “Globalization and the decline of the nation state.” Accessed via https://forumfed.org/document/globalization-and-the-decline-of-the-state/

World Inequality Database. (2021a). “France.” Accessed via https://wid.world/country/france/

World Inequality Database. (2021b)”Hungary.” Accessed via https://wid.world/country/hungary/

World Population Review. (2022). Hungary Population 2022. Accessed via https://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/hungary-population

Youngs, Richard and Ulgen, Sinan. (2022). “The European Union’s Competitive Globalism.” Accessed via https://carnegieeurope.eu/2022/02/17/european-union-s-competitive-globalism-pub-86329

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

*** 

Dr. Brian Hooker has served on the board of Children’s Health Defense (CHD) since 2018 and has been their Chief Scientific Officer for two years. He has a Ph.D. in biochemical engineering from Washington State University and has been involved in bioresearch and biotechnology for 35 years. His work has spanned environmental restoration and applied plant molecular biology. He has also been a researcher for the U.S. Department of Energy and operated his own biotech company. With a strong background in molecular biology and genetics, Dr. Hooker has published over 65 papers in peer-reviewed scientific journals. At CHD, he is supervising a team researching environmental toxins and vaccine safety.

***

The news coverage of the presidential campaign of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. continues to discredit the known dangers of vaccines. The motives for this gratuitous denigration range from fear of Mr. Kennedy’s intentions to remove corporate influence from the U.S. Government to the intelligence community’s recognition of his defiance of their dominance over Washington. However, all who condemn Mr. Kennedy, rely on the continuing ignorance of the public and the press regarding vaccine safety.

Blind obedience to an ungrounded dogma allows Mr. Kennedy’s entire platform to be ignored with venomous disdain. Most articles about him don’t bother providing any backup to sweeping statements that he has been proven wrong in his assessment that some vaccines have inherent risks. News media that mention “proof” of “incorrect misinformation,” refers to dated and questionable studies. 

This conversation with Dr. Hooker, a scientist and father of an autistic child, was initially planned to explore the details that continue to be neglected by the press in the dismissals of RFK, Jr. While this important knowledge is presented, Dr. Hooker also offers fascinating facts and insights into autism and vaccines that have been kept from the public by government agencies and corporate mainstream media.

*

Forum: Dr. Hooker, when did you first become aware of autism? How did you get involved with research?

Dr. Hooker: Growing up, I sort of knew what autism was. I remember seeing a movie in 1979, called Son-Rise: A Miracle of Love, about Raun Kaufman, a boy with autism. Through his parents’ intervention, he fully came out of autism. It was a really interesting movie. I can remember seeing that and just sort of tucking it away in my mind. But I didn’t really think about it much until my son received an autism diagnosis in August of 1999 when he was 18 months old. It was at his well-baby checkup when the pediatrician actually coded it as autism – I’ll never forget that day. And that’s really what launched my quest to understand what caused this; how can it be reversed, and what can we do about it. 

Forum: Where did you first seek out information about autism?

Dr. Hooker: I looked at research that was coming out of institutions like the Center for Disease Control (CDC), the National Institutes of Health, and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) – and I was wholly dissatisfied. This bolstered my quest to find out, especially around autism causation, what indeed was the truth.

Forum: What were your initial findings about your son?

Dr. Hooker: I was astounded to find out that the vaccines that my son received contained mercury. The first vaccine he received at two weeks of age was for hepatitis B, and that contained 12.5 micrograms of mercury. Mercury is a neurotoxin, and there continues to be a contention that this amount doesn’t exceed the safe limits. But I did the calculation, and when my son was receiving these mercury-laden vaccines, he was exceeding the EPA and the FDA limits by over 80 times. I was very, very concerned about the mercury-containing preservative thimerosal that was used in many, if not most of the vaccines that my son received in the late 1990s.

I looked at what was publicly available and the prevailing thought was that mercury was responsible for neurodevelopmental disorders. And I also read the research coming out of the CDC. There was such cognitive dissonance there because mercury is neurotoxic. And looking at the dubious types of statistics on kids who received mercury, and those who didn’t receive mercury in their infant vaccines, it seemed very evident that the CDC was hiding something. 

And then a paper came out by an autism parent and an analyst, Sallie Bernard, confirming the mercury autism hypothesis. Ms. Bernard looked at all of the symptoms of mercury poisoning and she lined them up with all of the symptoms of autism. And there was such a strong overlap there that it shocked me. I was mortified because of what I had done to my son unwittingly, but it really challenged me to look further into this issue. And when I started my analysis, I was looking primarily at mercury in vaccines, and later on it expanded to the timing of the MMR – the measles, mumps rubella vaccine – and then I began looking at other vaccines as well.

Forum: When did the FDA start limiting the use of mercury in vaccines? 

Dr. Hooker: The FDA has never curbed the level of mercury in infant and childhood vaccines. The voluntary phase-out of thimerosal from infant vaccines was between 2001 and 2003 after a joint PHS statement (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services) was issued asking for such a phase-down. In 2004, the flu shot — which in some cases still contains thimerosal — was added to the infant child schedule for 6 months of age and then each year thereafter. During the same year (2004) the flu shot, with or without thimerosal, was recommended for pregnant women in any trimester of pregnancy. Thimerosal has never been completely taken out of vaccines in the US.

Forum: Do we know which vaccines still contain thimerosal? 

Dr. Hooker: Some formulations of the flu shot, those in multidose vials, still contain 25 micrograms of mercury via thimerosal.  The CDC claims that 93% of all flu shots made in 2021-2022 were thimerosal-free.  However, they do not state whether that calculation is made per vaccine dose or per vaccine vial. Indeed, if this refers to individual vials, that would mean that up to 43% of all doses contain thimerosal.

Forum: What is the implication of increasing cases of autism despite the limitation of thimerosal in vaccines?

Dr. Hooker: I believe that vaccination itself is related to autism and that mercury is just one factor that can cause this multifaceted disorder. It should be noted that the vaccine schedule has expanded significantly since 2001 when the voluntary phase-out of thimerosal in some vaccines began. 

Forum: If the mercury in thimerosal is a neurotoxin, how does it cross the blood-brain barrier?

Dr. Hooker: I was astounded at the combination of detergents that are used in the manufacturing of vaccines. For example, different forms of polysorbate molecules actually poke holes in the blood-brain barrier. And that allows neurotoxins like mercury, formaldehyde, and aluminum to enter the brain of vaccinated individuals. There have been seminal studies that show when mercury gets in the brain of individuals in the form of thimerosal, its half-life is nearly infinite, so it’s really locked into brain tissues. It appeared to me that these vaccines were the perfect mechanism to inject mercury directly into the brain.

Forum: And can mercury be cleared from the brain? 

Dr. Hooker: Absolutely. We were very aggressive in finding ways to detoxify my son. But because of his genetic profile, those genes that he received from my wife and me, he had a really difficult time excreting any type of toxic heavy metals. It wasn’t limited to mercury, but mercury seemed like it was the worst offender. It’s the second most toxic naturally occurring substance on earth, bar uranium. And so we wanted to get rid of the mercury first and we were very intent on that. We did a process called chelation, and it very aggressively removed mercury from my son’s body. We also included other types of supplements that were helpful. These were over-the-counter things like glutathione and n-acetylcysteine which will actually enter into the brain and cleanse the mercury. And so we did that very aggressively probably from the time he was two years old until he was ten.

Forum: Did you see a difference in your son symptomatically? Was this helpful for him?

Dr. Hooker: Indeed, it was very good for him and I think that it really helped in terms of his challenges later on in life. Some children with autism have a horrible time with puberty and they become aggressive – they may become physically violent. My son can at times be self-injurious, but he has never really lashed out at anybody else. And during those years when you would expect this behavior because these children are in pain, some of that would ramify, but we never really struggled with that and it can be attributed to detoxifying his system. My son is very gentle and very, very kind. And we also saw that in his neurodevelopment while we were chelating him, we saw that cognitively. Even though he does not speak there was a light in his eyes. In some respects, it helped us to get cognitive. It also helped from a social-emotional perspective because we were taking him out of pain. We were removing neurological stress from his body.

Forum: What is the range of onset of autism? Some parents describe one day having a normal child, then after being vaccinated, within minutes, hours, days, or weeks, having a different child. Do you have an understanding of how often vaccination and autism are directly associated?

Dr. Hooker: There are several studies regarding how autism ramifies in young children. One type is called infantile autism where a child appears from birth to have the autistic condition. Then there’s regressive autism, where a child stops developing normally; these are children that seem fine and have eye contact, expressive and receptive language, and they have social and emotional interactions with their parents. And then suddenly there’s some type of cataclysmic event, and then rapidly after that they regress. 

There was a paper that came out of the University of California at Davis, The Mind Institute, which is a very prestigious academic-based organization that is focused on autism. The lead author was Dr. Sally Ozonoff and she found that by looking at developmental milestones in a group of children, and following them over time, that regression occurred in 80% of the cases. And that is a really strong number – showing that four out of five children have some type of event or something happens that initiates a regression. I would contend that many, if not most of those children who regress have sustained some type of vaccine or environmental injury. Although there are anecdotal reports, there’s not a lot of data, and it is a key area that needs further study.

Forum: There appears to be a growing emphasis on biomedical treatment of autism, what is the differentiation between a psychological approach and a biomedical one?

Dr. Hooker: There is the cognitive neuropsychological approach that does not consider other types of symptoms of autism except for neurodevelopmental deficits, social-emotional deficits, and things that solely focus on the neurological. The biomedical approach is different because it looks at what’s going on with the whole child. And many, if not most children with autism have other complaints, particularly gastrointestinal issues. This was actually put forward by Dr. Andrew Wakefield in the 1990s. And one of the things that he did that was very important was look at these gastrointestinal issues that were very unique in children with autism. People tend to associate Dr. Wakefield with his questioning the MMR vaccine, but perhaps one of his greatest contributions was the autism–gastrointestinal connection. And parents like myself, we were living through it. It seemed like my son’s gastrointestinal system was extremely unstable. He was going through constipation, diarrhea, distress, irritable bowel syndrome – so many different issues, including food sensitivities.

We started very early with biomedical treatment where we were looking at dietary interventions. My son responded very well when we eliminated gluten and casein from his diet by limiting his intake of wheat, dairy, and also soy. All of these interventions helped to stabilize his gastrointestinal system. On top of that, there was supplementation and chelation in order to get rid of toxic heavy metals. So this was more of a holistic approach that considered autism from a systems perspective – that we term as biomedical rather than neuropsychiatric. A lot of it is allopathic. We were fortunate to work with an integrated physician starting when my son was very young, and there are a number of effective therapies; chiropractic, naturopathic, acupuncture – there’s a real nexus. Underlying all of these approaches are nutrition and diet which are so fundamental in order to continue to heal the gastrointestinal system. It’s not a one-time thing; you just have to continue to keep the digestive system as stable as possible, and then that also helps to heal the brain.

Forum: What is the effect of mercury on digestion? Has that been studied?

Dr. Hooker: It’s actually been established that mercury toxicity will promote the overgrowth of candida yeast in the gut. It turns out that yeast is tolerant to mercury, whereas other intestinal flora are not. So when you add mercury to the microbial community, it responds by killing off those bacteria that are susceptible to mercury and allowing those organisms that are not susceptible to mercury like yeast to flourish. Also, some nasty anaerobic bacteria like Clostridia are tolerant to mercury. The gut biome is basically set out of balance when exposed to mercury.

Forum: It’s difficult enough to have digestive complaints, but intestinal disorders also diminish the ability to absorb the energy of food. Meanwhile, mercury is crossing the blood-brain barrier causing neurological symptoms, so really there are numerous fronts for the damage that is happening. Without a broad approach to understanding autism, an irrational focus dominates — on finding a single cause and a single cure.

Dr. Hooker: Absolutely. The causation of autism is so multifaceted — and there are so many different stressors. I’ve met individuals who have come up to me and said, my son or daughter never had a vaccine, yet they’re diagnosed with autism. But there are numerous toxins that pregnant mothers, infants, and our children encounter in the environment. If you’re close to coal-fired power plants, there’s mercury in the air because coal contains mercury. If you are close to manufacturing facilities or freeways, that can also be a risk factor. And then there are countless additives in our food with potential risks. We are increasingly exposed to glyphosate, which is associated with genetically modified organisms. There are so many insults to our children. And I think one of the ramifications besides just neurodevelopmental disorders in general, is this increase in autism. My son didn’t get vaccinated in a vacuum.

So there were other toxins that we had to consider. Not only were we getting rid of mercury, but he had a high load of antimony, which is in fire retardants that are applied to baby’s clothing and bedding. We had arsenic in our water, so we were looking at that. We lived in an area in the Pacific Northwest that had naturally high-occurring uranium in the soil, so we were concerned about that as well. Considering the toxic burden that these children were exposed to in the 1990s, and only increasing in this century, I think that the causes of autism are really multifaceted.

Forum: There’s some research connecting autism and acetaminophen. Have you looked at those studies?

Dr. Hooker: The connection between autism and acetaminophen has been affirmed just recently. I remember our pediatrician telling us, after a vaccine, if your child has a fever give them Tylenol. And it turns out that was the worst possible remedy that could be given. Acetaminophen also impairs sulfation, a process physiologically that actually tags and removes toxins. Sulfate groups attach to toxins directly, and that is how the body identifies them. It’s a coded tag for elimination through the renal system – or through bowels, hair, skin, and nails. If you impair sulfation, as Tylenol does, then the body doesn’t know that something is a neurotoxin and it will continue to circulate.

Forum: Are glyphosates problematic as well?

Dr. Hooker: Yes. Glyphosates are especially insidious. They become a surrogate for the amino acid glycine, they’re very similar in structure. And glyphosate gets incorporated instead of glycine. They appear especially in animal products that are rich in protein like pork products. Even in pharmaceuticals, there is sometimes a substrate of pork collagen. Because collagen is primarily glycine, it’s laden with glyphosates, which have been used so extensively. We’ve seen glyphosate in residues and foods, especially in genetically modified foods where they’re spraying massive amounts of glyphosate for weed control. We’ve seen it in vaccines and other biologics. There was a study that was initiated by Zen Honeycutt, and working with other researchers, she found extremely high levels of glyphosate in the MMR vaccine.

Forum: People continue to go to the garden store and buy Roundup and spray it around their houses, not knowing the risks.

Dr. Hooker: Absolutely. Roundup has been tied to specific types of cancers, and there was a well-publicized lawsuit regarding non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and its association with Roundup. There are now many lawsuits involving glyphosate and cancer, but yet it’s still readily available. You can go to your hardware store or your garden store, and you can pick up glyphosate. And not only is it used in genetically modified crops, but it’s also used in the drying process for grains like oats and wheat. When these crops are not quite ready for harvest, regardless of whether they’re GMO or not, they’ll spray glyphosate on them to hasten the ripening process.

Forum: When your son was diagnosed in the late 1990s, did you know about the incidence of autism? Has their been an increase since then?

Dr. Hooker: The incidence of autism has increased dramatically since the early 1980s. It was estimated as anywhere between one in 10,000 to one in 2000, at the highest level. By the time my son was diagnosed in 1999, it was one in 250. It had increased dramatically, almost tenfold in that short period of time. There’s a researcher from MIT, Stephanie Seneff, who looked at the exponential growth curve of autism. She started looking at these numbers twenty years ago, and her predictions have been verified. The latest autism numbers show that the incidence in the United States is one in 36 children, and I believe that’s one in 29 boys.

Forum: Is there an understanding of why boys are more susceptible to autism?

Dr. Hooker: Estrogen is protective against heavy metal toxicity such as mercury or aluminum poisoning, whereas testosterone is not. We’re also seeing a racial disparity. It’s actually more prevalent in African American children where the incidence now is one in 34. 

These numbers inspire many questions, but it also generates fear because if this exponential growth continues according to Dr. Seneff’s figures, in ten to fifteen years, one in every two children will be autistic – including 80% of all boys. Because the growth curve is potentially so dramatic, we’ll have a scenario in our society where you are autistic – or you taking care of somebody who is autistic. I remember thinking to myself, it’s going to taper off eventually and we’re going to hit some critical mass, but that has not happened. It does paint a very scary scenario.

Forum: There are those who say the increasing number of autistic children has to do with increased monitoring — there’s more testing and awareness. What would you say in response to that view?

Dr. Hooker: Autism is really hard to miss. When I take my son out to a restaurant, and with all due respect to him, he can’t place his own order or he’s not using utensils – it’s like missing a train wreck. Saying that it’s improved diagnosis revealing the number of cases is not only incorrect, but it also seems duplicitous. How could you really come to that conclusion? Particularly with 60% of all autistic children and adults not functioning independently without some level of lifetime care. There have also been studies, again from the UC Davis Institute, that showed over a 20-year time period that better diagnosing only accounts for under 30% of the true increase in autism. So the increase is being caused by something. There are toxic environmental factors, things that are injected, breathed, or ingested – that are driving this epidemic.

Forum: One would imagine that the CDC, aware of these increases for decades, would have some sense of where the problem lies and what the causes are. The rejection of the possibility that it’s environmental toxins including those in vaccines, suggests at a minimum, negligence. Would you agree with that?

Dr. Hooker: The CDC’S response is wholly inappropriate. I would go as far as saying that their negligence is criminal because they completely sidestep the whole issue of causation. They published a paper in March of 2023 on the autism incidence for children who were born in 2012. They look at the children until they turn eight years old, and then it takes about two or three years for them to complete their analysis, which seems excessive to me. But in that paper, there is absolutely no commentary regarding what’s driving the very stark statistically significant increase in the rates of autism.  

I worked with a whistleblower, Dr. William Thompson from the CDC. In his comment when I asked about autism causation, he said that the CDC was completely paralyzed regarding the question of autism because it always led them back to vaccinations. So because they could not ever consider that vaccines could be driving the autism epidemic, then they were simply not going to go there. And they were not even going to look at other factors. I mean, thank God that researchers outside of the CDC have actually looked at things like glyphosates and acetaminophen. At least that research is moving forward. 

Forum: Studies and reports on the MMR vaccine are extrapolated to generally confirm that childhood vaccines do not cause autism. Are these studies as conclusive as they are presented?

Dr. Hooker: There are myriad studies that attempt to indemnify the MMR vaccine, especially the CDC’s hallmark study from 2004 on the MMR vaccine and autism. The abstract concludes there’s no relationship between the timing of the MMR vaccine and autism in a cohort of children that they looked at in metropolitan Atlanta. But yet when you look at the tables, it shows something very different. Particularly for males and overall, for those children who received the MMR as infants. These children were significantly more likely to get an autism diagnosis than those where the children waited until they were at least three years of age. It’s right there in black and white and it’s statistically significant.

The authors state these higher numbers had to do with special education requirements, with those children who were already diagnosed with autism and had to get the MMR early in order to be a part of special education programs in the city of Atlanta. First of all, there’s no requirement that those children have to get the MMR. In fact, it’s illegal and goes against the  Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). And so first it was preposterous, and second of all, if that was the case, then they would see the effect in both males and females. It would be a consistent effect, but they only saw it in males. And when you look further, they saw it primarily in African American males. So it would not be a special education requirement that would drive that increase in the rates of autism. And this is one of the seminal studies that the Institute of Medicine uses to say that vaccines don’t cause autism, and it is terribly flawed. When you look under the veneer, along with what the CDC whistleblower exposed to me, it was also fraudulent. They actually hid results from the public regarding the effects of the MMR vaccine, specifically on African American children.

Forum: The New York Times reported on Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s presidential candidacy, and they used a few of these epidemiological studies to conclude that his questioning of vaccines had no basis. Yet they are all about the MMR vaccine and certainly don’t consider his other concerns about vaccine safety or environmental toxins.

Dr. Hooker: Yes. Many of these studies are designed not to find an effect. There are about 12 in total that I’ve reviewed; some of them were ecological, where you were just looking at population-based data. Some are what we would call cohort studies where you were looking at a population or a sample of children, some who received the MMR on time, and some who received it late. Others may have not received it at all, but each was designed not to find an effect. And one of the main studies was done by Dr. Christon Madson in 2002, and it appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine. I went back and looked at the numbers of autistic children in that study, and the authors made simple errors – there’s an arithmetic inconsistency between the different tables that they provide.

In this often cited study from Denmark, they’ve got a variable amount of autistic children who were vaccinated versus children who are autistic and unvaccinated. And so it’s never quite clear exactly how many children in the study were already autistic who received the MMR vaccine – or how many did not receive the MMR vaccine – because none of the tables are consistent with each other. Also, there were two different types of MMR vaccines that were distributed in Denmark over the time period of the study, and there was never any type of control or allowance for that. Also, the study was funded directly by the CDC – an agency that is conflicted and appeared to be working overtime to minimize any type of relationship between the MMR vaccine and autism.

Forum: It is unusual that safety studies aren’t presented in defense of vaccines.

Dr. Hooker: It’s very rare that you’ll find a safety study for a vaccine that used a true placebo control. When you do a study for the FDA for the approval for a drug or a biologic – and a vaccine is a biologic – then you need to make sure that you have two blinded groups in your study; one that receives the vaccine and the other group receiving a saline placebo. With vaccines, even with a double-blind study, the FDA has accepted different or flawed standards.

In the case of the Gardasil vaccine against HPV in women, approved in 2006, the control group received the same aluminum adjuvant that was in the Gardasil vaccine. So instead of having a pure saline placebo group, they had an aluminum placebo group. And this happened to be an aluminum adjuvant that had never really been tested. The results of this study showed 3% of the women in both the vaccinated and control groups responded with some type of autoimmune disorder. So they concluded there was no difference between the groups, and moved forward claiming there was no problem. But that certainly leaves a question: where did this 3% come from and what would the results be if the control group actually got a clean saline placebo?

Forum: With the growing number of recommended childhood vaccines, the possibility of side effects and damage grows. What is the number of vaccines that children are supposed to get?

Dr. Hooker: Well, right now there are 74 different individual vaccinations given to protect against 17 different diseases by the time they are 18, including COVID-19, which is on the childhood vaccination schedule for infants as young as six months of age. And I do believe that they’re approving yearly boosters now for the COVID-19 vaccine. I may be underestimating the number of vaccines, but by the time a child is one year of age, they’ve received 26, so the plurality – a very large portion of the vaccines – are given to infants.

Forum: Considering just how many vaccines are recommended, from numerous manufacturers, and how many batches there are with differentiating amounts of potentially toxic substances in them; what’s needed in order to make a better evaluation of their risks?

Dr. Hooker: First of all, I would make sure that there was always a saline placebo control. I think that that’s fundamental to any type of clinical trial or study. When you look outside of the realm of vaccines and consider the evaluation of other types of treatments, that is the norm. Yet with vaccines, there’s a willingness to skip this because there’s always an emphasis and scare that you’re delaying life-saving vaccines from children or adults. But it’s unethical to do so. Even with cancer drugs, there’s a placebo group in stage three and stage four cancer patients who don’t receive the drugs – in order to establish safety. Somehow placebos are appropriate for cancer research, but it’s not needed for vaccines. Public health officials are tolerating vaccine approval without double-blind safety studies – and are talking out of both sides of their mouths.

The other thing that I would do is make sure that these studies were long-term. We just saw how the clinical studies for the COVID-19 shots, when they were rapidly rolled out under emergency use authorization, lasted for a duration of anywhere between 10 to 14 weeks. So you do not know what’s going to happen with these patients long term if they receive a COVID-19 shot because they simply stopped following the unvaccinated individuals. In some cases, they actually got rid of their control group by offering the vaccine after 10 weeks, which appeared duplicitous to me. They essentially destroyed any type of longer comparison between individuals who received the vaccine and the control group who did not. I hesitate to ascribe motive to that, but it seemed like something was afoot there that they were possibly covering up. There were a number of questionable practices and hidden results. For example, we now know from previously unreleased clinical trial data that there were inferences from animal studies pointing to cardiac events and cardiac damage due to the COVID-19 shot.

Forum: Is there any indication that in addition to other concerns, the COVID-19 vaccination could initiate neurodevelopmental disorders, including autism?

Dr. Hooker: It’s very difficult to tell because an autism diagnosis comes later. Still today, the average age for an autism diagnosis is about 42 months or three and a half years. And so it’s difficult to know how these children will respond after getting an mRNA vaccine. I fear that it’s going to be very cataclysmic as these vaccinated children grow older. I also fear cardiac damage because repeated vaccination is associated with myocarditis and pericarditis in younger individuals. The age group that seems to be primarily affected by that is 16 to 19-year-old boys, and perhaps even slightly older males. I have not seen a robust study regarding cardiac damage in children, and that really scares me.

Forum: Is there research that confirms contaminants or metals in the COVID-19 vaccines?

Dr. Hooker: There have been studies that show particulates in the COVID-19 vaccine associated with the manufacturing process. There are also studies where they’ve looked at the vaccine microscopically, and I’ve seen some images that show particulate contamination which concerns me. Whether it’s naturally occurring or intentional, it’s just not good for you to have microscopic pieces of metal in something that is being injected into your body. 

It has also been established that the body can reverse transcribe the messenger RNA into DNA and that DNA can be incorporated into the human genome. So I’m really concerned about that. And I’m concerned for women who received the COVID-19 vaccine during pregnancy and for men and women who received it prior to conception. What are they passing on through their genes to an unborn child? So there are a lot of unanswered questions about mRNA, and the lipid nanoparticles accumulating selectively in women’s ovaries. It’s going to take years to be able to unravel this, not only due to possible contaminants but also the known components that are in the vaccines.

Forum: If a reporter approached you and honestly wanted to fully understand this subject before rejecting the candidacy of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., how would you recommend wrapping your head around this debate?

Dr. Hooker: I direct people to studies, of which Mr. Kennedy has a full understanding, that considers the entire vaccination schedule. There are three main studies that have been done on this and the incidence of developmental delays, neurodevelopmental disorders, autism, ADHD, sleep disorders, and speech and language disorders. 

The first study was done by Dr. Anthony Mawson. He actually did a series of two papers on the vaccination schedule and different disorders, including neurodevelopmental disorders. That paper came out in 2017 in the Journal of Translational Science. And he showed that autism rates were at least five times higher in the vaccinated group compared to the completely unvaccinated group. 

I did a follow on study with Neil Miller, who’s a medical journalist, that was published in 2020. It appeared in the journal, Sage Open Medicine, and we looked at vaccines during the first year of life. And what we found was children who received any vaccine in the first year of life compared to those that didn’t, were twice as likely to get a developmental disorder diagnosis. By the time they were eight years old, they were four and a half times as likely to get a diagnosis of asthma by the time they were eight years old. And then they were twice as likely to get recurrent ear infections. 

The third study was done by Dr. James Lyons-Weiler and Dr. Paul Thomas, who published their findings in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. They affirmed the results of Mawson and my results with Neil Miller using a different type of analysis where they were looking at the number of doctor’s office visits for these different disorders. Unfortunately, this last paper was retracted by the journal.

The journal said that Dr. Paul Thomas, a medical doctor, was biased toward finding an association between vaccines and conditions like autism. They retracted the paper after some months after it had been on the journal’s website. It’s completely unmerited.

These are the three studies where they look at the entire vaccination schedule, where we see definitively, statistically, and significantly – a relationship between the vaccination schedule and neurodevelopmental disorders like autism. 

If you don’t look deeper, you’ll only find the CDC website page that says, Vaccines do not Cause Autism. The only things that they present are weak arguments about thimerosal and the MMR vaccine. That’s all they’ve looked at in rejecting any other association. With a herculean leap in logic, the CDC applies this to the entire vaccination schedule. They focus on one component, they look at one vaccine, and then suddenly they take that and extrapolate it – and state that vaccines don’t cause injury. It’s just a logical fallacy. 

Forum: The vehement denial from the CDC is suspicious. How do you personally deal with the aggressive defensive approach to this topic?

Dr. Hooker: I want individuals who are genuinely questioning, who want to learn about this subject, to do a deep dive into the science on both sides. That’s a message that I want to make clear – and it counters the message repeated through the COVID-19 era. We were told to trust the experts, trust the science, and the scientists. Fundamentally, we need to question everything. That’s how things move along. If we were trusting science in the Middle Ages, then the Earth would still be considered flat. Science moves on and progresses because we question it, we test it, and we generate hypotheses. We test those hypotheses and theories and learn more.

I encourage individuals to look closely at the pronouncements that say that vaccines don’t cause autism. Consider the veracity and viability of the studies on both sides. Look at the completeness of the science saying that there is a relationship between vaccines and autism. And once you do that, the important questions and answers will begin to appear.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

This article was originally published on Report From Planet Earth.

Featured image is from RFPE

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

*** 

Kim Petersen is an independent writer. He can be emailed at: kimohp at gmail.com. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from OneWorld

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version). Visit and follow us on Instagram at @crg_globalresearch.

Ongoing processor vaccine related eye disorders first reported two year ago in May 2021

First published on May 6, 2021

***

In just a few months, the World Health Organization received approximately 20,000 reports of new eye disorders that occurred post covid-19 vaccination. These reports include 303 cases of blindness and 1,625 cases of visual impairment! The European drug monitoring agency had never recorded such a severe spike in eye injuries until after the experimental vaccines were launched. These reports were collected by VigiBase and analyzed by the Uppsala Monitoring Centre in Uppsala, Sweden.

About half of the new eye disorders were additionally reported to the U.K.’s Yellow Card adverse event reporting system, which was set up to monitor the influx of adverse events that were anticipated during this live, experimental vaccine study. Back in 2020, the vaccine makers had already entered into liability-free contracts with governments around the world. This has enabled mass vaccine injury with no recourse or accountability and set up the framework for a historic, worldwide holocaust.

Ophthalmologists need more training to properly recognize and report vaccine injury

These experimental vaccines are designed to cause inflammation throughout the body, by reprogramming human cells to produce inflammatory spike proteins that are derived from the bio-weapon itself. Eye damage is merely a symptom of this inflammation, a sign of more serious problems to come with capillaries and autoimmune issues. The inflammatory conditions caused by the vaccines provide a new revenue stream for various industries within the medical system, including ophthalmology.

With mounting evidence of eye injury post-vaccination, ophthalmologists are ethically obligated to denounce these covid-19 vaccines. The vaccines are causing acute eye injuries at scale and are an underlying cause of inflammation for future eye disorders and other health problems. However, ophthalmologists are not properly trained to recognize, diagnose and report vaccine injury.

When the U.S. FDA issued Emergency Use Authorization for these experimental ‘vaccines’, they did not mention eye disorders specifically. In their fact sheet, they warn, “additional adverse reactions, some of which may be serious, may become apparent with more widespread use of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine.”

In the UK’s Yellow Card System, vaccine-induced eye damage includes 4,616 cases of severe eye pain, 3,839 cases of blurred vision, 1,808 cases of light intolerance, and 559 cases of double vision. These issues were not prevalent until the vaccine was used. Some of the eye issues are mild but could be a sign of more serious issues within the cardiovascular or nervous systems. There were 768 cases of eye irritation, 731 cases of itchy eyes, 788 cases of ocular hyperemia, 459 cases of eye strain, 400 cases of dry eye, and 653 cases of increased lacrimation.

The covid vaccine holocaust is destroying people’s hearing and vision

More serious issues of swelling were documented as well, including swelling around the eye (366 incidences), swelling of the eyelid (360 incidences) eyelid oedema (298) conjunctival haemorrhage or breakage of a small eye vessel (236), periorbital oedema (171), and eye haemorrhage (169). The swelling can be indicative of more serious cerebral, spinal, and/or cardiovascular issues. Blood clots and nervous system disorders are a commonly reported adverse event. The eye disorders provide a window of opportunity to understand just how severe the inflammation is. Ophthalmologists are able to identify early signs of vaccine-induced brain swelling, cardiovascular issues and stroke to help patients seek emergency care before the patient becomes another casualty to these horrid vaccines.

One 33-year-old pilot had severe migraines and sudden vision problems following the Pfizer vaccine. The pain migrated down the back of his neck toward the bottom of his skull. The pain lasted for several days and was accompanied by dizziness, nausea, disorientation, confusion, uncontrollable shaking, and tingling in his toes and fingers. He was ultimately evaluated by doctors. The Pfizer COVID vaccine had increased the pressure in his spinal cord and brain stem, rupturing his left inner ear, and damaging his eyesight.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, @crg_globalresearch. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Featured image is from NaturalNews.com

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on Instagram at @globalresearch_crg.

First published on November 7, 2022

***

An employee at a hospital in Fresno, Calif., leaked an email to the media showing that stillbirth rates have been spiking ever since the introduction of Wuhan coronavirus (Covid-19) “vaccines.”

In August of this year, there were 22 stillbirths at the facility, the email revealed. And the trend is only expected to continue, it went on to state. (Related: Some of Canada’s most-vaccinated areas saw a 28-fold increase in stillbirths due to covid injections.)

So far in September, there have been seven stillbirths, though at the time of reporting only eight days had passed in the month. Extrapolated to October, we would expect the total number of stillbirths at the hospital in September to be around 40, or more than twice that of August.

Prior to Operation Warp Speed, the average number of stillbirths per month at the hospital in question was less than one. Only about two deaths every three months were reported at the facility prior to the rollout of Fauci Flu shots.

The Epoch Times, which was among the first to obtain the email in question, reached out to the head nurse who sent the email for clarification. No response was received as of this writing.

As many as 28 out of 29 pregnant women who get “vaccinated” lose their babies

According to Dr. James Thorpe, a Florida physician who specializes in maternal-fetal medicine, the contents of the leaked email are consistent with the findings of more than 1,300 peer-reviewed papers that have been published in the last 15 months.

Severe complications and death are both common outcomes post-injection for the Chinese Flu. Only a fraction of these cases appears in the government’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), however.

“This shot was designed to cross into the ovary; this shot was designed to cross into the brain barrier. This shot was designed to go everywhere,” revealed Dr. Chris Alan Shoemaker in a powerful speech on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Canada.

“And that’s why people are dying in such strange circumstances, unexplained circumstances, and the numbers are horrific. Sixty-seven percent of people who get the vaccine while pregnant lose the pregnancy.”

It turns out that Pfizer’s own internal documentation shows that the figure is even higher, with 28 out of 29 pregnant women losing their babies after getting jabbed for the Wuhan Flu.

This is why Dr. Sucharit Bhakdi has repeatedly warned pregnant women against taking the vaccine(s). To do so is to basically have a death wish for the baby since the chances of stillbirth are exceptionally high.

“The vaccine package insert from Biotech even says that pregnant women aren’t allowed to be vaccinated because vaccine injury cannot be ruled out,” Bhakdi says. “And if a young woman decides to get vaccinated, she should avoid becoming pregnant for two months.”

Despite the warnings, many pregnant women have gone ahead and gotten injected anyway, resulting in many additional stillbirths and the needless suffering associated with this tragic loss of unborn human life.

“They knew and they did nothing about it,” wrote a commenter. “They knew the clot shot didn’t stop transmission and they lied. Biden lied and millions died or will die.”

“All the grandstanding and ostracization of those who were skeptical and smart. All the relatives who mocked and shamed their children into getting it. They have no shame. They think we’ll forget. I for one will never forget.”

Another pointed out that these revelations are why some, including Emily Oster of The Atlantic, are now calling for covid “amnesty” – because they know We the People want not just answers but justice for these crimes against humanity.

The latest news about Chinese Virus shots can be found at Vaccines.news.

Sources for this article include:

RAIRFoundation.com

NaturalNews.com

Kiev continues to maintain its strategy of targeting Russian non-military areas. According to information recently admitted by spokespeople for the Ministry of Defense of Germany, the Ukrainian regime have requested from Berlin long-range missiles capable of striking Moscow. The news reveals how the Ukrainian government plans to carry out attacks against Russia’s demilitarized territory, which certainly will not be tolerated by the Russian authorities.

Author’s Note and Update 

The US Navy’s “Blue Angel” fighter jet squadron are scheduled to “perform” at Duluth, Minnesota’s military air show on July 15/16, 2023. The economic and environmental costs of such pro-military propaganda stunts that heavily contribute to the trillion dollar annual “defense department” budgets and federal deficit crises and the promotion of the aggressive militarization of our nation by such things as this weekend’s National Memorial Day celebration that was sponsored by Lockheed Martin Corporation, one of the largest, most profitable military weapons manufacturers in the world that depend on war-readiness, military dominance, massive deficit spending and “keeping our nation safe”.

Incidentally, Lockheed’s stock price today is $450 per share and is scheduled to pat a $3 quarterly dividend at the end of this quarter. Witnessing the over-the-top patriotic propaganda of the Memorial Day concert in Washington, D.C. today, I felt it was necessary to re-issue an old Duty to Warn article,  which was published by Global Research on July 10, 2019.

Dr. Gary G. Kohl, May 29, 2023 

***

In 1825, long before anybody even thought about air flight, the US Navy began operations in the Pensacola, Florida area, when the federal government built a naval yard on Pensacola Bay.

90 years later, in 1914, the naval yard became home to the Navy’s first permanent air station. Since that time, NAS (Naval Air Station) Pensacola has served as the primary training base for naval aviators and has housed the Blue Angels aerobatic programs, which will be giving 61 shows at 32 locations from March through November of 2019. The two Blue Angel shows in Duluth are scheduled for July 20 – 21, 2019.

The US Navy pilots that came back in one piece from World War II returned flush with pride for doing their part in winning the war in the Pacific. So, in 1946, the Navy established a base of naval air operations on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico where the Blue Angels began training pilots to perform aeronautic stunts to entertain the public (Pentagon budgetary costs partially offset by attendance fees). The airshow were done partly for recruiting future pilots, partly for raising unit morale, partly to gain the support of congresspersons who vote on military budgets and, one supposes, to further glorify America’s military conquests in the eyes of the public.

The United States Air Force (USAF) shortly established a similar air base in Texas, where the first Thunderbird team began doing air shows for public entertainment in 1953.

Source: salinasairshow.com

The Gulf of Mexico has been the Blue Angels’ base of operations ever since 1946, first at Jacksonville, Florida (until 1950), then at Corpus Christi, Texas (from 1950 to 1954), and finally settled into its permanent home at Pensacola, Florida. The NAS that houses the Blue Angels occupies 5,900 acres on a peninsula just south of Pensacola in western Florida.

However, all has not been well. According to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), base operations and maintenance activities (at 47 separate US Navy sites around the nation) have generated a variety of waste materials, including waste oils and solvents, human waste material, paints, electroplating wastes, radium paint waste, pesticides and insecticides. Supposedly the Navy is leading the cleanup and review processes, with oversight occasionally provided by the EPA and, for the NAS at Pensacola, the Florida department of Environmental Protection (FDEP)”.

N 1989 the EPA placed the Pensacola site on the National Priorities List (NPL) of contaminated sites (Super Fund sites), with no apparent end to the clean-up 30 years later. Of course, the contamination of the ground water and the contamination of the waters of the Gulf of Mexico will be impossible to clean up.

Fouling Their Own Nests

Of course, the bases of operations of the USAF Thunderbirds (now located near Las Vegas, Nevada) are no different. One can safely assume that ALL US military bases have serious environmental contamination beneath them as well as downstream and downwind, just like every military base of every nation in the history of the world.

The Blue Angels began petrochemically poisoning the Gulf of Mexico when the Department of the Navy decided to have all its jets dump their excess fuel over the Gulf just prior to landing, in order to decrease the remote possibility of a lethal fireball engulfing the plane and pilot in case of a crash landing.

No records have been kept quantifying the volume or frequency of such fuel dumps, and environmental impact study was ever done or even considered until 1989. Apparently, the Blue Angels have discontinued pre-landing fuel dumping a number of years ago when the price of fuel rose dramatically; so now they only dump fuel in certain emergency situations.

JP-5 Jet Propellant is Highly Toxic Whether Burned or Dumped

The current jets (BoeingF/A-18 Hornets) that the Blue Angels fly burns a highly toxic propellant fuel which is called JP-5. And the many additives in the fuel do not burn “clean”, no matter what the Navy (or Air Force) says.

JP-5 is actually a highly refined kerosene that contains a complex mixture of hundreds of volatile chemical additives, some of which are carcinogenic and most of which can be toxic to liver, brain, kidney and human or animal immune systems.

The post-combustion exhaust from jet engines is equally poisonous to air, water, soil animal, plant and all forms of aquatic life.

The military personnel on the ground that handle the JP-5 fuel are at high risk of being poisoned by the chronic inhalation of either the raw fumes or the engine exhaust. Those exposed can easily develop, in a delayed fashion, any or all of the multitude of common chronic illnesses, cancers, mental ill health, suicidalities, premature deaths and neuropsychiatric disabilities that are suffered by both military personnel and domestic staffers that live on, downwind or downstream of the bases.

The Sobering Economics of Military Air Shows

The fuel consumption data for the Blue Angel and the Thunderbird air shows are generally kept secret – and for good reasons. The alarmingly high fuel consumption would tend to dampen the enthusiasm of all but the most patriotic, thrill-seeking or willfully ignorant ticket-buyers.

The aviation industry says that JP-5 jet fuel costs 2-3 times more than automotive fuel. A few years back JP-5 cost the Pentagon between $8 and $12/gallon!

It was in 2014 and 2016 that the Blue Angels last flew in Duluth. During the 2014 pre-show promotional build-up, a local reporter for the Duluth News-Tribune was given a publicity ride, and he enthusiastically wrote in his column that the jet burned 1,200 gallons of fuel per hour!That number should sober up every thinking person, for a very fuel-efficient car (that gets 40 mpg) could drive 48,000 miles on 1,200 gallons of fuel.

Back in 2014, 1,200 gallons of JP-5 cost the military upwards of $12,000 (at $10/gallon). If one multiplied that consumption by 6 (the number of jets in each performing team) the fuel costs would be $72,000 per hour just for the fuel used up doing the performance. And that is not counting the essentially daily stunt practice sessions that also last an hour. It also does not factor or the fuel consumption for the round trip to Florida and back for each of the scores of air shows that the Blue Angels do in a typical year.

Do the math and you will start to reconsider the wisdom of supporting such environmentally-insensitive and earth-unsustainable entertainment events. Surely some of the “missing” $23 trillion dollars (23,000,000, 000,000 dollars) that the Pentagon recently acknowledged that it can’t account for can be blamed on fuel wastage on air shows.

On Bastille Day of 2014 (July 14) eight USAF Thunderbird F-16 jets arrived in Duluth along with the obligatory C-17 cargo plane carrying 30 support staff and spare parts for the jets (for air shows the support contingent usually numbers 50-55 members).

The next day, 6 of the 8 Thunderbird jets left Duluth to do a 10 second flyover for the start of the Major League Baseball All-Star game at Target Field in Minneapolis – the only reason for them to be in Minnesota! (No information on the economics of the event was published. Hopefully, Major League Baseball partially footed the bill.)

The flyover was to coincide with the last strains of the Star-Spangled Banner. The two spare jets, who made the trip for nothing except as back-ups, were left sitting on the tarmac in Duluth. The News Tribune reporter covering that story wrote that “each of the multi-million-dollar fighter jets will consume about 500 gallons of fuel just to make the 30-minute round trip to and from Minneapolis”.

What are the Fuel Costs for 4 USAF Thunderbirds to Fly From Duluth to Minneapolis and Back?

Here’s the math: $10 dollars/gallon X 500 gallons, X 6 Thunderbirds = $30,000!! And that is not considering the costs of the maintenance and the crews of the other planes involved, the practice sessions, the salaries and pensions and health care costs of all the military personnel involved.

We’re talking big bucks and a massive amount of fuel wastage every time the two stunt-flying teams perform or practice, even if one acknowledges that a portion of the costs are covered by civilian event sponsors. But there is more to understand about US military air shows that should raise additional concerns.

A Duluth News-Tribune reporter covering one of Duluth’s past air shows wrote that the commanding officer of one of the flight teams was required to fly a minimum of 3,000 training hours (paid for by the US taxpayer) to qualify for the role of commander. The other team members had to fly 1,350 training hours. The reporter noted in that article that there were 15 pilots in the team, although only 6 perform at a time. The team members (the subs as well as prime time flyers) practice their highly technical and dangerous stunts virtually every day of the year in order to keep their skills honed and the air shows relatively safe.

Some More Sobering Math

As of 2006, there had reportedly been 230 fighter pilots since the Blue Angels started their stunt-flying for audiences. Since the Blue Angels teams began flying in 1946, about 25 of their pilots have died in crashes, which means that as many as 25 multimillion-dollar planes went down in the crashes as well (this figure does not factor in the number of planes that were demolished while the pilot survived by ejecting safely).

In 2011, 70 Blue Angel air shows (two shows per weekend) were presented at 35 different sites, with rehearsal flights the day before each performance. When they are not touring, the Blue Angels practice their routines year-round, usually over the Gulf of Mexico at their Pensacola base of operations, while the Thunderbirds practice over Nevada’s vast desert north of Las Vegas, which is where a rookie Thunderbird pilot died in a practice session crash on April 4, 2018, just a couple of months before he was to be in Duluth. The crash was the third Thunderbird crash in the 22 months prior to the 2018 crash.

Using the figures that the journalist obtained from the Blue Angels, the 3,000 hours of training for the single Commanding Officer (CO) used up as many as 2,400,000 gallons of jet fuel just to qualify (3,000 hours X 800 gallons/hour = 2,400,000 gallons)! Of course, this training number does not include the equally enormous amounts of fuel consumed during the air show performances, the rehearsals or the flights to and from Pensacola.
The 1,350 training hours for the other pilots on the team (at one time there were as many as 15 pilots on the Blue Angels teams) consumed as much as 1,080,000 gallons for each pilot’s training (1,350 hours X 800 gallons/hour). Multiply that by 14 non-CO pilots and you get 15,120,000 gallons of fuel just for the hours spent training those pilots.

Considering the fact that in 2012, a gallon of JP-5 jet fuel cost $8 to $12/gallon (average $10/gallon), every new Navy pilot who succeeds at becoming a Blue Angel pilot cost the US taxpayer approximately $10,080,000 per pilot (1,080,000 gallons X $10/gallon) – just for the fuel used to become a member of the team! And the 10 million dollars is not factored into the airmen’s salaries, the retirement pensions or the tens of millions of dollars that each jet costs.

I challenge readers to try to estimate in dollar figures the enormous fuel costs for all of the US military shows/year, and then try to calculate the fuel used up in the flights to and from Pensacola (or Las Vegas in the case of the Thunderbirds). And then add in the costs of the huge transport planes that carry all the repair parts and the 50-55 support crew members that work in supply and maintenance. And what about retirement costs for the lifers and the lifetime VA healthcare costs for virtually everybody else that qualifies.

Of course, the costs to the American taxpayer are impossible to calculate precisely, but it must be tens of billions of dollars per year, admittedly partly offset by ticket sales. Nevertheless, since so many of America’s economic wars and military wars are for control of oil, the burning of precious fuel for whatever reason must be taken into account if and when the future of fuel-wasting military air shows are to be re-considered.

Squandering Increasingly Scarce Fossil Fuel for our Amusement

In 2016 the USAF Thunderbirds headlined the Duluth Air Show. Every year there are a number of other stunt-flying participants, all using up increasingly scarce petroleum products for purposes of entertainment and, of course, for the recruitment of starry-eyed, vulnerable young boys (and girls) who are being primed, partly because of their extensive experience with first person shooter videogames, to want to join the death-dealing military professions that make homicidal violence normal and attractive.

The world is over-populated and heading for a catastrophic economic and climate change cliff, so isn’t it about time for people to get serious about what should be the very sobering realities mentioned above? We live in a world of dwindling, irreplaceable fossil fuel resources that are already being squandered by thousands of corporate misleaders on Wall Street, War Street and Capital Hill, including Big Oil, Big Agribusiness, Big Chemical, Big Food, Big Media and Big Armaments. Each of these sociopathic industries (look up the definition of sociopathy) – in one way or another – profits from wars and rumors of war, and so the mesmerizing beat goes on.

Too many American military veterans are now physically, neurologically and/or spiritually dead or dying (often by suicide – 22 per day for active duty soldiers and veterans combined!). These once-gung-ho, now-wounded warriors were too easily seduced by the pseudo-patriotic jingoism coming from the “military-industrial complex” during the best years of their lives. And then they were sacrificed, not for American “democracy”, but for American capitalism and the money-hungry, pro-militarism, war-profiteering corporations (and their subservient politicians and presidents of both political parties) that cunningly waved the flag and dutifully wore the flag pins on their 3-piece suit coat lapels.

Now we know that these corporate entities never really cared about the well-being of their “cannon fodder” warriors who were doing the dirty work for their evil enterprises abroad. The flag that the corporation’s CEOs pledge allegiance to is NOT the Stars and Stripes, but it is a flag that has their corporate logo on it. And they are NOT our friends.

Millions of dead and dying American veterans from every war since 1898 (the year that the US military murderously captured the Philippine Islands, Puerto Rico and Cuba from Spain and started feeling their imperialist oats) joined the US military partly out of a sense of patriotic duty, partly to “see the world” and partly to get out of poverty; but most of them soon found themselves either:

1) disillusioned by the atrocities they saw or had been ordered to commit;

2) sickened from their exposures to military toxins (including the obligatory, massive over-vaccination agendas for every member, no matter how irrational);

3) malnourished or sickened from the, toxic, highly processed pseudo-food in their rations;

4) neurologically and psychiatrically sickened from the ubiquitous overuse of alcohol, tobacco, illicit drugs or the cocktails of psych drugs given to them by military psychiatrists, medics and the VA; and/or

5) tormented by the post-combat demons, the nightmares, the mental ill health (of known causation) and the suicidality – while at the same time earning less than the minimum wage.

And part of the process that led many of the above victims think that there was glory involved in killing and dying for their nation’s financial elites, began with the thrill of experiencing military air shows.

America’s soldiers, airmen, seamen and Marines have been, in reality, working not for the US Constitution to which they pledged allegiance, but rather for a whole host of nefarious special interest groups that stopped supporting them when their broken bodies, their  broken brains and the body bags came home under cover of darkness.

Hopefully, honestly acknowledging the above unwelcome realities may someday set America free from the war-glorifying, war-profiteering warmongers on Wall Street and War Street. Good examples would include Lockheed-Martin, General Dynamics and McDonnell Douglas/Boeing, the suppliers of the planes, who depend on wars and rumors of war to continue doing business and maintaining dividend payments and high stock prices for their wealthy investors.

So, while thousands of patriotic Duluthians watch in wide-eyed wonder as the highly skilled jet pilots do their breath-taking stunts, there will also be tens of thousands of Duluthians that refuse to spend their time and money attending and supporting these shows.

Sadly, the airshow sponsors are unconsciously hastening America’s moral, energy, climate and financial collapse by ignoring the wastefulness of burning up precious, expensive, non-renewable fossil fuel resources while simultaneously poisoning the planet and risking the health of everybody, including America’s progeny.

*

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

Dr Kohls is a retired family physician from Duluth, MN, USA. Since his retirement from his holistic mental health practice he has been writing his weekly Duty to Warn column for the Duluth Reader, northeast Minnesota’s alternative newsweekly magazine. His columns, which are re-published around the world, deal with the dangers of American fascism, corporatism, conscienceless industrialization, militarization, racism, xenophobia, malnutrition, sea level rise, global warming, geo-engineering, solar radiation management, electromagnetic radiation, Big Copper Mining’s conscienceless exploitation of northeast Minnesota’s water-rich environment, Big Medicine’s over-screening, over-diagnosing, over-treating, Big Pharma’s over-drugging and Big Vaccine’s over-vaccination agendas (particularly of tiny infants), as well as other movements that threaten human health, the environment, democracy, civility and the sustainability of life on earth.  Many of his columns have been archived at a number of websites, including these four:

http://duluthreader.com/search?search_term=Duty+to+Warn&p=2;

http://www.globalresearch.ca/author/gary-g-kohls;

http://freepress.org/geographic-scope/national; and

https://www.transcend.org/tms/search/?q=gary+kohls+articles

Siamo alla 100ª puntata di Grandangolo, cui si aggiunge una decina di video “Dentro la notizia” e soprattutto il docufilm “Per i bambini del Donbass” di Maya Nogradi. nostra regista, e Luca Belardi, nostro collaboratore.

L’occasione non è rituale. Rivedendo queste 100 puntate ci rendiamo conto di che cosa è trascorso in questi due anni. Ci rendiamo conto di un intrecciarsi di strategie, che vedono da un lato l’attacco vero e proprio sotto forma di lockdown della pandemia e, dall’altro, varie azioni belliche, non necessariamente tutte sul campo di battaglia, ma in campo mediatico, in campo politico e in qualsiasi altro campo.

Ci rendiamo conto dell’importanza di tutto ciò che ha fatto la TV dei cittadini Byoblu in questi due anni. Se non ci fosse stato questo canale, se non fosse stato possibile entrare nelle case degli italiani con queste notizie, non saremmo a questo punto. Certo il momento è molto critico, però quello che abbiamo fatto, e soprattutto fa Byoblu, è di un’importanza che travalica la consapevolezza che la stessa redazione ha di quello che sta facendo.

Vi presentiamo quindi una sorta di promemoria di ciò che è avvenuto in questi due anni attraverso alcune puntate di Grandangolo, alcuni brani che contrastano la strategia del sistema politico-mediatico:  quella dell’orwelliano “Ministero della Verità” di cancellare la memoria. Ogni fatto è collegato: questo è il senso del promemoria della guerra che oggi vi proponiamo.

Manlio Dinucci

VIDEO :

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

Here we are at the 100th episode of Grandangolo, plus a dozen “Inside the news” videos and, above all, the documentary “For the children of Donbass” (https://www.byoblu.com/2021/12/01/per-i-bambini-del-donbass/ ) by Maya Nogradi, our director, and Luca Belardi, our collaborator.

The occasion is no ritual. Revisiting these 100 episodes, we realize what happened in those two years. We see an interweaving of strategies, which see on the one hand the real attack, in the form of containment, of the pandemic and, on the other, various warlike actions, not necessarily all on the battlefield, but in the media field, in the political field and in every other field.

We realize the importance of everything that Byoblu citizens’ TV has done in the last two years. If this channel hadn’t existed, if it hadn’t been possible to enter the homes of Italians with this information, we wouldn’t be where we are today. Of course, this is a very critical moment, but what we have done, and above all what Byoblu is doing, is of an importance that exceeds even the editorial staff’s awareness of what it is doing.

We therefore present you with a kind of memorandum of what has happened in these two years, through a few episodes of Grandangolo, a few extracts that combat the strategy of the political-media system: that of the Orwellian “Ministry of Truth” to erase memory. Every fact is connected: that’s the meaning of the memorandum of war we’re offering you today.

Presentation of the hundredth episode of the Grandangolo international press review on Friday May 26, 2023 at 8.30pm, on TV Byoblu,

https://www.byoblu.com/2023/05/26/promemoria-della-guerra-grandangolo-pangea/

VIDEO (in italian) :

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

When it comes to COVID-19 vaccines, Big Pharma isn’t very concerned about the vaccine injured. They are collateral damage in a multi $100 billion profit scheme and their plight can always be blamed on Long COVID or Climate Change.

But they fear suicides. A COVID-19 vaccine injured person driven to suicide can do tremendous damage to the fraudulent COVID-19 vaccine narrative about “safe and effective”. Especially if they document their nightmare. Such is the case of Italian swimming champion Claudio Rais.

And he is not the only swimmer to suffer COVID-19 vaccine injuries, in fact, swimmers are dying suddenly in very high numbers now.

Sassari, Italy – 37 year old personal trainer, swimmer and triathlete Claudio Rais committed suicide by jumping off the Rosello Bridge, the highest bridge in the city of Sassari in Italy, on March 14, 2023. (click here)

Claudio Rais had his first two COVID-19 mRNA vaccine doses with Pfizer in 2021, and then had a Moderna booster shot on Feb.10, 2022.

He had a successful swimming summer season of 2022, winning multiple championships.

But by September 2022, he described suffering horrible injuries from his Moderna COVID-19 booster shot. In his own words:

By December 2022, he was seriously contemplating suicide:

Claudio Rais would go on to commit suicide only 3 months later on March 14, 2023, by jumping off the Rosello bridge in his town of Sassari, Italy.

Lanang, Philippines – 49 year old swim coach Jerry Kasim had a heart attack and died during the Davao Ironman competition on March 26, 2023 (click here)

US Virgin Islands – 42 year old Jamie Cail, former swimmer, was found dead by her boyfriend on the floor of their home on Feb.21, 2023 (click here)

Hamilton, ON – Fully COVID-19 vaccinated 27 year old Canadian doctor, pediatrician and triathlete Dr. Candace Nayman collapsed in the water during a triathlon (and died four days later on July 28, 2022) (click here)

Esterhazy, SK – Fully COVID-19 vaccinated 44 year old Canadian family doctor Dr.Shahriar Jalali Mazlouman died suddenly at 1:30pm while swimming in a public swimming pool on July 23, 2022. (click here)

VIDEO – Budapest, Hungary – World Championships in Artistic Swimming – 25 year old professional swimmer Anita Alvarez collapsed in water on June 22, 2022. She survived the incident.

Naples, Italy – 27 year old professional swimmer Mariasofia Paparo died suddenly of a heart attack on April 11, 2022, just shy of her 28th birthday and a month after getting engaged. (click here)

Redlands, CA – 21 year old Sydney Rae Benveniste, a college swimmer at Azusa Pacific University, died suddenly on March 1, 2022 (click here)

Pima County, AZ – 23 year old University of Arizona swimmer Ty Wells died suddenly on Jan.27, 2022, autopsy showed a disseminated Strep infection following a protracted upper respiratory infection (click here)

Ty Wells may have suffered from severe immune system injury from COVID-19 vaccines, allowing Strep to become systemic and fatal. These types of deaths (from Strep) have become common in COVID-19 vaccinated young people.

My Take…

Triathlon and competitive open water swimming have higher rates of death compared to other forms of endurance sport. Studies have found that sudden cardiac arrhythmia is the most likely etiology of swimming related death (click here).

Furthermore, data from triathlons have shown that most sudden deaths occur during the swimming segment of the race (click here).

This means that COVID-19 mRNA vaccine induced myocarditis is even more dangerous and deadly for Triathletes and competitive swimmers than for other athletes and regular people.

Doctors should be warning swimmers and triathletes about this elevated risk of sudden cardiac death if they’ve had any COVID-19 vaccine. However, at this time, these increased risks of sudden death are being ignored and swept under the rug.

Competitive triathletes and swimmers are dying suddenly and doctors remain “baffled”.

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

In December 2022, founder Elon Musk gave an update on his other, other company, the brain implant startup Neuralink. As early as 2020, the company had been saying it was close to starting clinical trials of the implants, but the December update suggested those were still six months away. This time, it seems that the company was correct, as it now claims that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has given its approval for the start of human testing.

Neuralink is not ready to start recruiting test subjects, and there are no details about what the trials will entail. Searching the ClinicalTrials.gov database for “Neuralink” also turns up nothing. Typically, the initial trials are small and focused entirely on safety rather than effectiveness. Given that Neuralink is developing both brain implants and a surgical robot to do the implanting, there will be a lot that needs testing.

It’s likely that these will focus on the implants first, given that other implants have already been tested in humans, whereas an equivalent surgical robot has not.

The news is undoubtedly a relief for both the staff of the company and its owner, Musk, given that Neuralink has had several negative interactions with federal regulators of late. It’s a bad sign when having an earlier bid to start clinical trials rejected by the FDA was the least of the company’s problems. The company has also been accused of being abusive toward its research animals and violating transportation rules by shipping implants contaminated with monkey tissue and pathogens.

Typically, when the FDA rejects an application for clinical trials, it is willing to communicate in detail why it found the plan for trials insufficient. It’s a positive sign for Neuralink that the company was able to address the concerns of federal regulators in a relatively short period.

***