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Here we continue with a lightly edited version of reporter Tracy Beanz coverage of the case and our activities in court last week. Parts I and II provide the background. 

Social media companies acted in direct response to the White House calling out the so-called “Disinformation Dozen.” Evidence in the case proves that they acted to deplatform those branded within 24 hours of the White House publicly identifying them.

 

One of the very first actions the White House took was directing social platforms to REMOVE the content that suggested that Hank Aaron may have died because of the vaccine.

Flaherty then went on to demand social media companies remove other posts and people from their platforms. These weren’t suggestions, they were DEMANDS. (I would argue the removal of this information directly resulted in death, not the opposite, as the government would claim. But that is my personal opinion.)

 

White House director of digital communications Rob Flaherty actually did what I have highlighted here. He cursed at, screamed at, patronized, and generally abused the execs at these companies. When they did not do what he told them to, he treated them like a battered spouse and threatened them— harshly. Just an evil way to behave.

 

Please read these. He curses at, threatens, demands, sarcastically berates, and more. A lot is detailed here. There was more. I did a deeper dive here if you want more details.

 

 

NONE OF THIS IS LEGAL under the First Amendment.

 

News commentators Tomi Lahren and Tucker Carlson were hot topics at the White House.

 

In one of the more immoral and heartbreaking exchanges, Meta [which owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp] lets the government know that they heard their calls for more censorship: they decided that in response to White House pressure they would remove content that in their words was “often true.”

What content, groups, and pages? That of the vaccine-injured sharing their horrific stories and finding some community support online, when everyone they turned to for assistance refused to help or to acknowledge them. This one needs to be viral. These poor people.

 

They also assured the White House they would limit message forwards on the supposedly “private” text messaging platform WhatsApp, gave detailed reports on censorship to government bureaucrats, and would censor “non violative content, such as dissuading the choice to vaccinate in terms of personal or civil liberties,” and “concerns related to mistrust in institutions.”

Think about this for a second. The government—the people you “elected” to represent you, are having social media companies censor talk about your individual rights and criticism of them.

 

That’s all for today, folks, lest this email get too big for your inboxes. Stay tuned tomorrow for Part 4, where Tracy’s coverage of this week’s events in court continues. In the meantime, you may want to follow Tracy if you are on Twitter and thank her for her excellent coverage of this case.

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Aaron Kheriaty, Senior Brownstone Scholar and 2023 Brownstone Fellow, is a psychiatrist working with the Unity Project. He is a former Professor of Psychiatry at the University of California at Irvine School of Medicine, where he was the director of Medical Ethics.

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The recent G7 summit should be understood as firstly, the shaping of a battlespace in the ‘War of Narratives’ whose principal ‘front’ today is the Team Biden insistence that only one ‘reality’ — the US-led ‘Rules’ ideology (and it alone) – can predominate. And, secondly to underline pointedly that the West is ‘not losing’ in this war against the other ‘reality’. This other reality is the multivalent ‘otherness’ that self-evidently is attracting more and more support around the world.

Many in the West are simply unaware of how fast the geopolitical tectonic plates are shifting: The original plate bifurcation (the failed financial war declared on Russia), already has led to a building wave. Anger is growing. People now no longer feel alone in rejecting western hegemony – they “no longer care”.

In just the week that preceded the G7 summit, the Arab League literally ‘went multi-polar’; It quit its former pro-US automaticity. The embrace of President Assad and the Syrian government was both the logical consequence to the secondary tectonic-plate shift set in motion by China with its Saudi-Iranian diplomacy — a revolution which Mohammad bin Salman (MbS) then logically extended to the entire Arab sphere.

Source: G7.japan-photo

MbS sealed this ‘break-free’ of US control through having President al-Assad invited to the Summit to symbolise the League’s act of generalised iconoclasm.

For the West, it is ontologically impossible to tolerate their reality being disassembled: to see their society and the world split in two. The narrative reality is so embedded via the well-honed effectiveness of MSM messaging however, that politicians have become lazy. They do not have to argue their case, and have no incentive to hold back on untruths either.

The dynamics are exorable: an over-hyped ‘monolithic reality’ evolves into a Manichaean fight to the death. Any backsliding by ‘principals’ could result in the collapse of the Media narrative ‘house of cards’.  (This notion of a monolithic reality is not one shared by most other societies who see reality as multi-faceted).

Denial becomes endemic. So, we witness a hawkish G7, diverting from the narrative setback (of Bakhmut falling) by the casual embrace of a ploy to supply F-16s to Ukraine; chastising China for not making President Putin ‘back off’ in Ukraine; and using the meeting to set a narrative framework for the coming confrontation with China on trade issues and Taiwan.

One commentator (at the summit) wondered “Am I still in Europe, or in Japan?”, as she listened to rhetoric as though lifted from Von Der Leyen’s earlier speech to the EU. Von de Leyen had crafted the formulation of ‘de-risking’ with China to disguise the creeping EU-China bifurcation in production on the EU Commission factory floor.  This remark does however serve to underline how Von der Leyen has become a de facto member of the Biden Team.

China angrily responded to the G7 summit allegation that it had become a workshop for “smearing” and slandering China.

This extensive narrative-shaping for China confrontation is seen to be necessary by the G7 as the rest of the world does not view China as a  genuine ‘threat’ to the US:  Rather, they understand that the true ‘threats’ to the US derive from its internal divisions, and not from external sources.

The G7 salience lies not so much with the anti-China narratives launched, but, plainly said, because the entire episode expresses a western hubristic denial, which portends extreme danger in respect to Ukraine. It speaks to the reality that the West — in it’s present mental mode — will be unable to put forward any credible political initiative to end the Ukraine conflict.(Recall that Moscow was badly mauled by the earlier Minsk episode).

The G7 language abjures all serious diplomacy, and signals that the imperative remains to stick with the ‘not losing’ mantra:The fall of Bakhmut is no defeat for Kiev, but a Pyrrhic loss for Putin; Ukraine is winning, Putin is losing, was the G7 messaging.

The hubris resides in the western perennial condescension towards President Putin and Russia.

Washington (and London) just cannot disabuse themselves of the conviction that Russia is fragile; its armed forces barely, if at all, competent; its economy cratering; and that therefore Putin likely would seize on just about any ‘olive branch’ America cares to offer him.

That President Xi could – or would – pressure Putin ‘to back-off’ in Ukraine, and accept a ceasefire on EU terms — which are the ‘Zelensky terms’ — is delusional.  Yet some key EU leaders genuinely seem to think Putin can be arm-twisted by Xi or Modi into exiting Ukraine on terms wholly favourable to Kiev.  These European leaders simply are dangerously hostage to the psychological processes fuelling their denialism.

Russia is ‘winning’ on the financial war front, and on the global diplomatic front. It has the overwhelming advantage in force numbers; it has the advantage in weaponry; it has the advantage in the skies and in the Electro-magnetic sphere. Whereas Ukraine is in disarray, its forces decimated and the Kiev entity is crumbling fast.

Don’t they ‘get it’?  No. The endless bitter antagonism to Putin and to Russia has allowed a self-imagined reality to detach; to drift further and further from any connection to reality; and then to transit into delusion — always drawing on like-minded peer cheerleaders for validation and extended radicalisation.

This is a serious psychosis. Because instead of addressing the conflict rationally, the West consistently comes up with ‘non-starters’ such as a ‘frozen conflict’.  Do they seriously think that Russia will ‘sit back’ whilst the West ‘stands up’ an ‘armed to the teeth’ NATO proxy in the West of Ukraine?  A proxy that will stand as a festering sore in the Russian side, and bleed Russian resources, over the long term?  Do they imagine the lesson of Afghanistan is lost on the Russian High Command?  I can tell you,it is not.  I was a part actor in that tragedy.

What next?  Russia likely will wait to see whether Kiev is able to mount an offensive — or not. If Kiev does launch an offensive, it would make sense for Russia to let the Ukrainian forces throw themselves upon the Russian defensive lines, and expend their forces further, in a new ‘meat grinder’.  Moscow will test whether Kiev’s patrons are then ready to acknowledge ‘facts on the ground’, rather than some imagined reality, by acquiescing to Moscow’s terms. If not, the Russian attrition might continue, and continue, right up to the Polish border. There is no other option — even if it be Moscow’s last choice.

The F-16s diversion will not change the strategic balance to the war; but of course, it will extend the war.  Yet the European leaders at the G7 grabbed at the proposal.

Lt Col. Daniel Davis, Senior Fellow at Defence Priorities in Washington, has warned:

“There is no reason to expect a dramatic change in Kyiv’s fortunes in the war because of them [the F-16s]. Even the 40 to 50 jets Ukraine is reported to be requesting, will not fundamentally alter the course of the war. The bigger question “Americans should be asking of Biden, however, is this: to what end? What does the Administration expect the delivery of the F-16s to accomplish? What do we hope to physically accomplish? What end-state does the president envision for the war, and how would the presence of F-16s improve the chances of success?

“So far as I can determine, these questions haven’t even been asked, much less answered, by administration or Pentagon officials” … Washington should start to focus far more on concrete means of safeguarding American interests and ending the war, and less on inconsequential weapon deliveries which don’t seem to be part of any coherent strategy”.

The same question should be posed to the EU: “To what end?” Has the question even been asked, much less answered?

Well, let’s answer it: What will 50 F-16s accomplish?  European leaders say they seek an early end to the conflict, yet this initiative will achieve the very opposite. It will represent yet another milestone in escalation towards the ‘forever war’ against Russia for which some earnestly wish. Russia then likely will see little alternative but to proceed to full war versus NATO.

The Europeans seem incapable of saying ‘no’ to America.  Yet Col. Davis warns clearly that the US intention is to “shift the burden for physical support for Ukraine to our European partners”.  Implicitly, this suggests ‘long war’ in Europe.  How did we reach this point, for heaven’s sake?  (By not thinking things through from the start, with financial war on Russia so enthusiastically and unreflectively embraced by Europe).

Recently, the Financial Times wrote that Ukraine has five months to demonstrate some “advances” to the US and other Western backers, to convince them of its plans for the conflict with Russia: “If we get to September and Ukraine has not made significant gains, then the international pressure on [the West] to bring them to negotiations will be enormous”.

Well, Col Davis says “there is little likelihood the [the F-16] fighters will see combat over the skies of Ukraine this year”.  So, Biden just casually extended the war well beyond September.

If Europe wants an early end to the war, it must hope for the Kiev ‘project’ to implode soon.  (And it might do just that, F-16s notwithstanding.)

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Sanctions!

Officially, it is ”acknowledged” by the US and the EU that it is “not possible” to decouple China.

Neocons don’t think so.

It may be costly to decouple China, but definitely not impossible. And Neocons don’t care about heavy costs, not even for their own Western societies. That is the Blinken concept of “Trade Denial” from Blinken’s 1987 book “Ally vs. Ally”. The cost paid by trade denial for the West’s own societies will be worth it to bring down the enemy.

The US enemy back in 1987 was the Soviet Union, today it is China. Neocons don’t care that Germany with Mercedes, BMW, and Audi will lose billions on sanctions. Weakening Germany will only be a side-benefit for US Neocons.

Neocons also don’t care that Qualcomm will lose sales in China and that Apple will have to get their phones produced in India or elsewhere.

As for Chinese rare minerals and solar cells, the equivalence to Russian oil is obvious – make exceptions to embargo and put a price cap on Chinese exports. Sanction China completely and make a few exemptions only where strictly necessary.

TSMC, the chip manufacturer on Taiwan, will not be entirely lost when the Mainland takes Taiwan – TSMC is right now being relocated to the US !

The Taiwanese people have of course not been informed, that the US plan is to accept that they are lost and the US takes their biggest industry away to the US. Before China takes full control of Taiwan, the vital chip machines and key people will be evacuated, and TSMC’s factory demolished not to be used by China later.

US will not start a nuclear war against China for taking Taiwan.

The US will impose “nuclear sanctions” instead.

Shoe-Horning US Allies

Germany and France are not yet fully prepared to lose their business in China and take a big hit on their economies & societies just for the sake of Taiwan. But the US will squeeze them into it.

Right now, Germany and France are being shoehorned into ”de-risking” China – pushed by Ursula von der Leyen, Poland, Lithuania, and immense US pressure.

The ”de-risking” of EU-China trade will then be expanded upon continued US pressure. Not yet a full decoupling, but gradually preparing and implementing decoupling and sanctions.

When finally the ”action” starts on Taiwan, Germany and France will be given no alternative but to follow US orders for full decoupling and total sanctions. Sanctions don’t work with Russia because Russia has industrial supplies from China, and China in turn benefits from trade with the West. That will be stopped. This time, the West will seal off a whole group of sanctioned countries consisting of Russia, Iran, and China.

China will come to possess Taiwan and that will punch a major hole in the US control of the First Island Chain and give China free Blue-Water access to the Pacific. The US Neocons may have accepted that as a bitter apple and decided to counter the effects of it long-term.

Taiwan Damage Control

• The loss of Taiwan will be compensated by the US.
• Australia will stop export of iron ore to build more Chinese warships.
• The US production of warships to patrol China on Taiwan will increase.
• The US will build up Japan, incl. with nuclear weapons.
• The US will also militarize the Philippines as a forward island-fortress against China (if needed, make a coup) and
• The US will strengthen South Korea militarily.

After the loss of Taiwan, S.Korea will come into a precarious situation. To de-risk US dependency on S.Korean microchips, the US will further do like with Taiwan and relocate S.Korea’s chip capacity to the US.

Just like the Taiwanese people, the S.Korean public will of course not be informed about such US plans.

S.Korea currently plans immense multi-billion dollar expansions of their chip industry, but that money may already be wasted for the S.Korean society.

The US will do like with Taiwan: Let S.Korean firms build chip factories in the US, then pick the top brains from S.Korea and take them to the US. S.Korean chip factories will not be physically demolished, but will instead start to wind down, become obsolete, and atrophy as they lose their orders to the US. If the US will not have capacity to replace S.Korean chip production, the rest will be relocated to the EU, which plans to double its share of global chip production from 10% to 20%. In this way, even a possible loss of US control on S.Korea after the loss of Taiwan will not become a strategic risk to the US in the chip sector.

The overcapacity which I have written about earlier which is being built in Western chip industry will then only hit S.Korea, because the chip capacity of Taiwan will be demolished and the chip output of S.Korea will be forcibly reduced to far below planned capacity. S.Korea can then export seafood, but not chips.

US Tech Overtakes China Over Time

Recreating the success of the First Cold War against the Communist Block, the US will create a new containment of China, Russia, and Iran. The First Cold War proved that such a strategy can win for the US over time.

The transition from a peace-time economy with China to a war-time economic confrontation will be painful even for the West. But the calculation is that the pain for the West itself will be temporary, and the subsequent victory over China will be permanent.

A transitional depression in the West will be mildened by printing extra trillions of Dollars and Euros for government investments to re-build Western industries (ref. Jake Sullivan’s speech of April, 2023), to keep up consumer demand to fill up Western factory orders.

Social programs for the poor will sweeten existence and dampen anger a little for the lower classes. Subsidies, tax-exemptions and other “social” programs for the rich will be pearls for the Capitalists who lost business with China.

The West will recover, be more self-reliant, and after that it will be a grinding down of China over time in unlimited economic warfare. Those countries in the Global South which are not with the West against China will be targeted, put into depression, and their governments overthrown.

US Technological War

Technological supremacy in AI, chips, Quantum Computing, and Industrial control of low-earth orbit in Space will soon create such enormous economic and military advantages for the West, that it will ensure a complete US dominance over China.

AI is about to increase Western productivity with 40% and more in all sectors political, economic, and military.

IBM is already building a 100,000 cubit Quantum computer – the 2 million cubit Quantum computer is within reach for the US. That is the threshold, where the US can crack all Chinese and Russian codes and communication, and with AI the US will be able to analyze these two countries better than they themselves can understand their own countries. With Quantum Computing and AI, the US will probably also be able to jam and control all Russian and Chinese drones, missiles, anti-air defenses etc.

Quantum Computing will also create new materials, incl. super-batteries better than Chinese batteries, high-explosives better than the Russian ones, and other tech-wonders. Quantum Internet will come next, impossible to hack, and with unimaginable advantages.

In 2025, SpaceX will two times a week send 100 tons of cargo to space for only $ 1 million per launch. China is 10 years behind and falling further back. From 2025, the US will quickly dominate Earth from Space.

A Western loss of Ukraine and Taiwan will matter less than US technological control of the World.

Devastating China

China will be devastated in a number of years by economic sanctions, lack of growth, increasing technological backwardness in business and military, and isolation.

China may take control of Taiwan, and even gain suzerainty (high influence) on S.Korea. But China will be sanctioned and prevented from ever being able to grow its GDP larger than the US.

China will also be cut-off from taking big advantage of the chip capabilities of Taiwan or S.Korea. Countries working friendly with China or Russia will one-by-one be cut-off – or cut down. The axis Russia-China-Iran will be contained (mind the word), isolated, and run down by sanctions in a Second Cold War over a decade.

Already in 5 years, the US will have the upper hand over China militarily and economically due to its sovereignty of AI, Quantum Computing, and Industrial control of Space (with SpaceX). China will sink behind in all technologies and all the production capabilities that China delivers to the World will be dispersed among the rest of the World.

Will this work?

The above is a scenario, and the question is if it will work in practice.

Significant uncertainties pertain to the social and economic impact of the US and the West itself from decoupling with China.

It is important for the West to limit the social and economic disruptions.

The disruption of supply chains from China together with new trillion-dollar economic stimulus packages will undoubtedly create inflation. Neocons will see that as a temporary problem, they can live with that.

Will US capital markets burst from such an injection of paper money? Perhaps. Neocons will bet it doesn’t. New surveillance technologies enabled by AI will dominate public “information” with fake government narratives and censorship on disturbances, create a hidden police-state, and keep each individual in place, most of them even without knowing it.

Far more certain is the technological impact against China of global US dominance in AI, chips, Quantum Computing, and Industrialization of Space.

China has been complacent. China sees itself as magnificent and has failed to develop the key technologies of fast chips, AI, Quantum Computing, and Industrial lift-to-Space in time and with sufficient vigour.

China has also failed in its self-containing attitude. China believed that its own level of efforts were sufficient, and China has not drawn upon the enormous pool of skills and capabilities of Russian science to speed up China’s own technological development.

China is a trading super-power, but in technology, China somehow believes it is an island which can just copy, attract a few talents from Russia and Taiwan, and develop everything alone. China has badly failed to team up in a vast society-to-society win-win with Russia in technology.

India has an enormous tech-potential and India is these years achieving growth-rates higher than China’s. China has failed to team up with India. Instead, China has played its own bad part to keep the China-India enmity alive.

It is unbelievable, that China makes claims on India’s state Arunachal Pradesh. China calls the area “South Tibet” and has recently provoked India by giving Chinese names to locations in Arunachal Pradesh. India did perhaps make a mistake in Doklam in 2017, but China has failed to do sufficiently from its side to meet Indian efforts to normalize the situation. China needs a final peace agreement for China-India-Pakistan and to partner up with India in technology and economics.

As China progresses its enmity with India and with lack of deep institutional technological cooperation with especially Russia and India, the conclusion is: Yes – the US definitely has great chances to demolish China in technology, economics, and advanced military means with the plan described above.

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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.

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The book No Worries No Virus is a structured summary of my research on the Covid-19 situation, and of the agenda behind the Covid hoax. The book was first published in 2021 under the title Transcending the Covid-19 Deception. In this book I look ‘behind the curtain’ at the corporate, media, and financial players behind the hoax. Key historical events are detailed to provide a bigger picture of what it all means.

I have attempted to provide:

comprehensive evidence of the Covid-19 hoax;

technical analysis and evidence showing that a Covid-19 virus causing disease simply does not exist (no evidence Covid-19 exists – never been isolated, ever);

the pandemic situation was planned with a purpose;

the Covid-19 death numbers are fraudulent;

flawed modelling and false case numbers were used to justify world lockdown;

the fraudulent Covid-19 PCR test created false case numbers;

and that virology took a wrong turn – pathogenic viruses causing disease do not exist.

The book also details the following topics: an analytical timeline of the banking and corporate landscape over the years 1913 to 2019, prior the Covid-19 lockdown; analysis of the UN Agenda 2030 and WEF technocratic reset agenda; the hoax required a single controlling world influence – single group control of the world’s mega-corps/mega-banks; and a humble spiritual perspective on the economic power game.

The following are extracts from the book.

The pandemic was pre-planned

In addition, to the unscrupulous relationship between the WHO and vaccine companies, we see that Covid-19 is, in reality, a ‘live exercise’ that has been meticulously planned for the past 20 years.

Millions of Covid-19 test kits specifically labelled Covid-19 were sold and exported worldwide before Covid-19 supposedly even existed, I personally viewed this evidence.

Plans for vaccine passports were in place long before the so-called pandemic started; and the infamous WEF event 201 coronavirus pandemic simulation event took place 3 months prior to the so-called real coronavirus pandemic.

Furthermore, a smoking gun deal, the Bill Gates contact TRACE deal took place six months before the pandemic. 20

A decision for a worldwide lockdown had already been taken at the WEF conference in Davos, 21 – 24 January 2020, i.e., a decision that obviously would collapse the world economy.

There were only 150 so-called Covid-19 cases outside of China at that time.

On March 11, Dr Tedros, Director General of WHO, declared a pandemic, under the advice/instruction of the private-public partnerships that advise the WHO, i.e., under advice from the vaccine companies. Note that Tedros, an accused genocidist, previously served as a minister in a violently oppressive rooted regime in Ethiopia from 2012 to 2016. In preparation for the live 2020 exercise, simulation exercises of communist-type authoritarian control in the face of a virus, have been running since 1999.

The Rockefeller Foundation rehearsal for a pandemic and ‘Lockstep’ strategy for world totalitarian control illustrates exactly what later occurred worldwide. In Germany, the pandemic was declared based on the opinion of just one person, the same person involved the swine flu hoax; and in Australia, corruption was exposed in which the government was taking advice from lobbyists being paid tens of millions of dollars

No increase in infections only a rapidly increasing use of a flawed Covid-19 test

The Covid-19 PCR test is flawed and fraudulent; It was never the Covid-19 infection rate that was increasing exponentially, but the number of PCR tests being carried out. Independent analysis of the evidence by numerous doctors and scientists comprehensively proves that the PCR test is bogus and fraudulent.

The fraudulent Covid-19 PCR test created false case numbers Waves of Covid-19 were intentionally orchestrated via mechanisms including fraudulent PCR testing, which can dial up and down case numbers. The crucial point is the pandemic is fake because the PCR tests are bogus and not proof of anything. Many so-called pathogenic virus fragments are found in our body, but in such incredibly minute quantity they pose no danger. However, the PCR test incorrectly records these as an infectious disease case, and the cases are then used to argue in favour of a rapidly advancing pandemic. Dr Thomas Hardtmuth makes the point as follows:

“It has long been known that the human being carries thousands of cancer cells which are kept in check by an active immune system… It is similar with viruses. With every salad leaf that we consume we take in a billion viruses… Even drinking water is bristling with viruses… We barely know 1% of all these viruses but one thing is sure – they do not cause illness!” – Dr Thomas Hardtmuth

Pharma operatives running a vaccine racket – brave doctors sacked for speaking out

Ireland’s National Public Health Emergency Team have been reported as “Deep state Pharma operatives essentially, running a vaccine racket.”, see Endnote 12.

The following events took place in 2020 and exemplify the shocking treatment, sacking and silencing of the many doctors that have spoken out against government Covid-19 policies worldwide. Dr Pat Morrissey, Chairperson at ShannonDoc, the out of hours GP service for Limerick, Clare and Tipperary in Ireland, became the latest medical professional to lose his job after strongly criticising the National Public Health Emergency Team (NPHET) and the Irish government over their Covid-19 strategies.

Dr Morrissey had attended the health freedom Ireland protest in Dublin in 2020 where he delivered the criticism. A few days later Dr Morrissey was removed from his position as see Endnote 13. He had described NPHET as “megalomanic bureaucrats” that are “completely out of touch” and “believe your health is determined by a stupid swab result” that is “meaningless data being used to subdue the people” and that NPHET “should be 24 scrapped. He further asserted: “There is very little scope for free speech and those who stick their heads up are liable to get them knocked off”, and that there were many other doctors who have concerns about Covid-19 restrictions pursued by NPHET. Dr Morrisey has stated that:

“Our rights are being trampled by the Government organisation called NPHET… By any reasonable definition at this point, Covid is no longer a health emergency. We must take back our country and our freedom from these megalomanic bureaucrats.”

“After I spoke at the (health freedom Ireland) rally there was a storm of retribution against me… I was removed from the Shannondoc board as well … we have gone through bigger public health issues here in Ireland in the past and we haven’t crashed the economy and crushed our society to fight these challenges… There is no health emergency anymore. If you look at the deaths, it is zero or one per day… I mean eighty plus people die every day in Ireland. So why are we not locking down the country because of car accidents…The average age of death from Covid is 84. And I am not the only person saying this, there are others… Internationally there’s lots of people trying to counter this nonsensical approach with lockdowns and mandatory masks in low-risk settings” – Dr Pat Morrisey

TV doctor spills the beans  “I just say whatever they write down for me!”

The owners and top management of these media corporations control the overall news ‘agenda’ and news template. On the ground level, employees and news reporters at these corporations have, over the decades, gradually become little more than presentable actors that do what they are told and read what they are given, they are the witting or un-witting agents following instructions.

Government health officials also simply follow the adopted government narrative, for example, in a Covid-19 press briefing on Canadian television in December 2020, one of Ontario’s top public health officials made an incredible remark into a hot microphone, minutes before the beginning of the briefing. A video recording was posted on internet platforms and the local news networks reported on it, see Endnote 22.

The video shows Associate Medical Officer of Health, Dr Barbara Yaffe, unpacking some papers next to her colleague Dr David Williams prior to the beginning of their twice-weekly briefing. Before the briefing, Yaffe remarks “I don’t know why I bring all these papers. I never look at them. I just say whatever they write down for me.”

She later stated her communications team provides her with “researched and vetted remarks”. NDP Leader Andrea Horwath said that it “just leaves more and more questions in people’s minds as to who is calling the shots” when it comes to the province’s pandemic response.

The incident provides an insight into how these corporate and government controlled Covid-19 press briefings actually functioned.

Millions of Covid-19 test kits were being sold two years before Covid-19

Millions of Covid-19 test kits were being sold and exported two years before Covid-19 supposedly even existed. The so-called Covid-19 virus emerged for the first time in 2019 this is why it contains the number 19. However, data from the World Integrated Trade Solution, (WITS) website, showed something that proves Covid-19 was planned well in advance.

The website shows that hundreds of millions of Covid-19 PCR test kits were being sold and exported worldwide 2 years before Covid-19 supposedly even existed.

This astonishing proof on the WITS website exposed Covid-19 as a pre-planned event. I personally viewed and verified the WITS website evidence in late summer of 2020 as did many other people worldwide. When I viewed this in late summer 2020, I instantly published the screenshot evidence on social media and on my website.

The screenshots are in the book No Worries No Virus. Many other people were doing likewise. This damning evidence appeared to be going ‘viral’ across the world on social media in September 2020, however, the WITS website page was quickly altered in an attempt to hide the evidence.

I personally observed that changes had been made to the WITS website during the week after I had posted the evidence on social media. The WITS had changed the original label ‘COVID-19’ into the vague term ‘Medical Test Kits’. However, I had already saved the original screenshot as proof, and I presume other researchers did likewise.

The WITS cover-up came too late. This critical evidence had been uncovered and revealed worldwide. The original data of the WITS website can also be seen on the web archive, see Endnote 34. Furthermore, the WITS organisation, or whoever attempted the cover-up, forgot to delete one detail: the bottom of the webpage still showed the product code for these ‘Medical Test Kits’: 300215 which specifically means ‘COVID-19 Test Kits’.

The extract is provided in the book No Worries No Virus.

The argument used to dispute this evidence is that the label ‘COVID-19’ was only added in 2020. That however doesn’t hold true, since the very product code, from 2017, for these test kits is ‘COVID-19 Test Kit’.

It also doesn’t change the fact that two years before the pandemic, suddenly virtually every nation in the world started distributing hundreds of millions of medical test kits that are specifically used for Covid-19. Even without the label ‘COVID-19’, it is extremely uncommon and strange that the entire world suddenly imported and exported literally hundreds of millions of medical test kits.

What were they preparing for? Why was this mass distribution of hundreds of millions of medical test kits initiated right before the worldwide pandemic hit?

The book also details the following:

• A Global Vaccination Summit took place 3 months before the pandemic began
• Anthony Fauci and Bill Gates guaranteed a pandemic was “on its way”
• Smoking Gun: $100 billion Bill Gates contact TRACE deal six months before Covid-19
• Definition of a pandemic was changed by the WHO – it’s a pandemic even if no one dies
• timeline to Covid-19 launch. Simulation games/pandemic exercises took place from 1999 onwards. For example, pandemic simulation symposiums were held in 1999 and 2000 sponsored by the John Hopkins Center for Health Security, the US Department of Health and Human Services. and the Infectious Diseases Society of America.
• the Rockefeller ‘Lockstep’ scenario, a strategy for totalitarian control during a pandemic, was published in 2010.
• 2 years before the pandemic, the EU developed an action plan for mass vaccinations
• Germany: pandemic declared based on one opinion – the same person involved the swine flu hoax
• Rockefeller Foundation rehearsal and ‘Lockstep’ strategy for totalitarian control
• Rockefeller handbook on implementing authoritarian control during a pandemic
• Worldwide contact tracing is not to control a virus, it is an attempt to control humanity
• Bio-metric technology to monitor the world population
• 2 years before the pandemic, the EU developed an action plan for mass vaccinations
• Australia: Government lobbyists paid tens of millions by vaccine companies
• The WHO accidentally admit the death rate is no different to the common flu
• Majority of Covid-19 deaths was amongst the ‘vaccinated’ not the un-vaccinated

Remember the 2009/2010 swine flu fraud – a trial run for the 2020 Covid-19 hoax

The WHO had persuaded countries, including Germany and Ireland, to agree to purchase vaccines if a pandemic was declared. With this new pandemic definition in place, the WHO, which is an organisation closely linked with the vaccine companies, declared the swine flu pandemic in 2009, despite absolutely no evidence.

With the result that swine flu vaccines were sold worldwide on the basis of ‘sleeping’ contracts. The swine flu was also nothing more than a mild flu and was by no means the deadly killer virus that the pharmaceutical corporations and the WHO stated it was – they predicted millions of deaths ‘if’ people didn’t get vaccinated, but in reality, there were hardly any deaths from swine flu at all. Sound familiar?

In Germany, the virologist, Mr. Drosten, was one of those creating panic in the population, repeatedly stating over and over again that the swine flu would kill millions of people. This corporate hoax was exposed by Dr Wolfgang Wodarg, who was a member of the German Bundestag. Most of the German people rejected the swine flu vaccine and millions of doses of the vaccine had to be destroyed. This was a clear case of rigged market fraud producing billions of dollars of profits for pharmaceutical companies and the taxpayers of the countries that had purchased the vaccines footed the bill. However, no-one was held to account.

Australia: Government lobbyists paid tens of millions by vaccine companies

In New South Wales, Australia, Premier, Gladys Berejiklian, was forced to resign in 2021, when a well-known politician, billionaire businessman and founder of the United Australia Party, Clive Frederick Palmer, uncovered/exposed a scandal. The Premier, Gladys Berejiklian, a promoter of mass Covid-19 vaccination, was being advised and directed by lobbyists and these lobbyists were being paid tens of millions of dollars by biopharmaceutical/vaccine foundations AstraZeneca and Pfizer to drive policy. Palmer stated to the press:

“She’s being directed by lobbyists in Sydney who’ve been paid by AstraZeneca and by Pfizer tens of millions of dollars to get these policies through to make sure the vaccine is pushed… that’s my personal knowledge and I’m happy to make a statement here to the police or to anyone” – Clive Frederick Palmer

Two weeks after Palmer’s statement, Gladys Berejiklian, the New South Wales Premier, resigned amidst an investigation by the Independent Commission Against Corruption. Berejiklian stated to the press:

“the Independent Commission Against Corruption will today release a public statement in which it will state it is investigating allegations made about me… therefore it pains me to announce that I have no option, but to resign from the office of Premier.” – Gladys Berejiklian

Governments registered deaths as Covid whether or not Covid was the cause of death

There was no virus pandemic. The website www.covidrecovery.ie provides graphical analysis, see based on data from the Irish government’s CSO, illustrating there was no change in the overall number of deaths in Ireland in 2020 compared to previous years, i.e., indicating there was no pandemic. In Ireland official data shows overall mortality rate in 2020 was no different from previous years and previous flu seasons, and Europe as a whole shows a similar situation. Ireland’s so-called second wave showed no evidence of notable difference in respiratory ICU or excess mortality over previous years.

Many researchers have also highlighted the fraudulent methods governments have used to register and count the number of Covid-19 deaths. Deaths within 28 days of a positive Covid-19 test are classified as a Covid-19 deaths, regardless of true cause of death. This means that Covid-19 death numbers were hugely inflated. For example, on the 14th August 2020, a document from the Northern Ireland Government website, see Endnote 60, stated on page 10:

“The Department of Health count the number of deaths reported by health trusts, where the deceased had a positive test for COVID-19 and died within 28 days, whether or not COVID-19 was the cause of death…and whether or not Covid-19 was the primary underlying cause of death. The figures include cases where the doctor noted that there was suspected or probable corona virus infection involved in the death”

The same trickery for counting Covid-19 deaths was evident in the 93 Republic of Ireland. In 2020, at a meeting of the Government Covid-19 Special Committee, TD (member of parliament) Michael MacNamara, Chair of the Dail Covid-19 Committee, enquired about the method the government’s Health Service Executive uses for counting the number of Covid-19 deaths. It was confirmed that deaths are counted as Covid-19 deaths even if the person does not die of Covid-19. A person with no Covid-19 symptoms whatsoever, dying of a heart attack or falling off a roof for example, is counted as a Covid-19 death if the person’s Covid-19 PCR test in hospital is positive. A video of this extraordinary confirmation at the meeting is available on the internet. The transcript is as follows:

MacNamara: “Doctor… If somebody… who shows no symptoms whatsoever of Covid and they have a heart attack, and are tested and it is found that they have covid, and they die soon thereafter, but this is somebody who has demonstrated no symptoms whatsoever – are they recorded as a Covid death or not? – if they have tested positive for Covid – but ultimately came to hospital because they have had a heart attack or a stroke or fell off the roof of a building or something like that.”

Doctor: “We adhere to the WHO case definition in terms of their recording and reporting of deaths – in the situation you have just described… then it is a death in a confirmed Covid case. They are recorded as a Covid death.”

MacNamara: “If someone is admitted to hospital and are asymptomatic and they have a broken leg, for example, and test positive are they included among the statistics of those in hospital with Covid?”

Doctor: “Yes they are.”

MacNamara: “And these are the statistics relayed at the daily press conferences.“

Furthermore, in many cases post-mortems were not permitted to determine the true cause. A consequence of this trickery was that number of flu cases all but disappeared in the statistics and was replaced by Covid-19. The US used the same fraudulent method of counting deaths. This was exposed at the Illinois Department of Public Health in the US, when the Department Director, Dr Ngozi Ezike, explained how the department determines if a death is related to Covid-19. Dr Ezike explained that anyone who passes away after testing positive for Covid-19 is counted as a Covid-19 death even if the person died of a clear alternative cause, see Endnote 61. Dr Ezike stated:

“If you were in hospice and had already been given a few weeks to live, and then you also were found to have Covid, that would be counted as a Covid death. It means technically even if you died of a clear alternate cause, but you had Covid at the same time, it’s still listed as a Covid death. So, everyone who’s listed as a Covid death doesn’t mean that that was the cause of the death, but they had Covid at the time of the death.” – Dr Ezike, Director of the Illinois Department of Public Health

Furthermore, a report from the U.S. Federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in August 2020 showed that the number of actual deaths that occurred has been significantly misrepresented. The report drops a “bombshell” i.e., that in 94 percent of the cases of those who died from Coronavirus, another disease was also at work on the victim and the overwhelming majority of this 6% are aged over 80. The report states: “For 6% of the deaths, COVID-19 was the only cause mentioned,” the CDC stated in its report, under the heading “Comoborbities.”

The book also details the following

• S. CDC report shows number of deaths has been hugely misrepresented
• CDC paid hospitals to register deaths as Covid-19 deaths, up to $39,000 per death
• German government official leaks report that Covid-19 is ‘A Global False Alarm’
• Sweden with no lockdown compared to Ireland lockdown – no difference in death rates
• Reports that overdoses of Hydroxychloroquine caused excess deaths – not Covid-19
• Reports that deaths were caused by Medazolin and Remdesevir protocols in hospitals
• Reports that prohibition of effective treatments for pneumonia caused deaths – not Covid-19
• Hydroxychloroquine (as an effective treatment) was prohibited in some countries due to a political agenda
• Covid-19 PCR test – the key to the hoax – it’s not a valid method of testing for a virus
• CDC admit a positive PCR test does not mean a person is infected with anything
• Testimonies from medical experts that the PCR test is flawed and fraudulent
• Peer review by 22 scientists revealed 10 major scientific flaws of the PCR test
• Covid-19 PCR test flaw ruling by the High Court of Portugal: 97% false positives
• Pandemic can be dialled up or down at will by adjusting the PCR cycle threshold
• FOI requests show no evidence Covid-19 actually exists – it has never been isolated
• 114 medical institutions have no evidence Covid-19 has been isolated anywhere, ever
• If its not a real disease what caused the illnesses/deaths in Wuhan and Italy? Expert opinions.
• Unsafe/harmful Covid-19 vaccines
• Toxic ingredients in various vaccines
• No evidence exists Covid-19 vaccines provide any protection from the so-called virus
• Covid-19 vaccines bypassed normal safety procedures – emergency approval given
• Bio-pharma has paid more than $35billion in criminal penalties for falsifying science
• The harmful health side-effects of mass vaccinations – especially on children
• Covid-19 vaccines were not granted regular EU approval – ‘on-trial’ for two years
• Flawed computer models claim vaccine effectiveness – vaccine related deaths ignored
• In-house study trials resulted in numerous serious side-effects and some deaths
• Testimonies from numerous doctors and medical experts that the Covid-19 vaccines are dangerous
• EU GMO risk evaluations had not been conducted on the Covid-19 DNA-based vaccines
• GMO-based Covid-19 vaccines should be subject to the pre-cautionary principle
• Huge numbers of adverse reactions/vaccine-induced deaths not reported by media
• Lockdown and masks caused immense harm – were completely unnecessary
• Masks are masonic symbols of de-personalization and slavery

How did the flawed PCR test become the standard for Covid-19 testing worldwide?

Various medical experts have described what occurred in Wuhan, where the Covid-19 was supposedly discovered, and how the new and unvalidated Corman Drosten PCR test was controversially approved and fast-tracked into use for worldwide Covid-19 testing. For example, Dr Wolfgang Wodarg has described the sequence of events as follows:

“Mr. Drosten submitted a protocol to the WHO and it got admitted really quickly… it was decided to just use this (Drosten) test everywhere… the Chinese government made something really big out of it… completely exceeding the virological frame… all of sudden face recognition was installed everywhere at the airports… something was woven around this… a network of information and opinions has been developed in certain expert groups and the politicians turned to these expert groups who initially started all this… Which means that now it’s going to be very hard for critics to say “Stop.  There is nothing going on”. All this reminds me of the fairytale about the king with no clothes on and just a small child was able to say “Hey. He is naked!” All the others in the courtyard, surrounding the government and asking for advice, because they can’t know themselves, they all played along and joined the hype. Scientists who just swim along in this mainstream and also want their part… because they want to earn money with it and become important.” – Dr Wolfgang Wodarg

If the Drosten PCR test is flawed and unvalidated, why is it being used worldwide for Covid-19 testing of hundreds of millions of people?

Researchers attempting to answer this question quickly discovered that the two of the authors of the Drosten PCR protocol had major conflicts of interest. They were on the editorial board of the journal that the Drosten PCR test protocol was submitted to, is it any wonder the new protocol went through the peer review in 24 hours, when the average is around 6 months! Authors of the protocol were also on the WHO advisory board. Is it any wonder that the WHO approved the Drosten protocol! Kevin McKernan, CSO of Medical Genomics, a whistleblower who has worked in the area of PCR testing for 25 years described these shady developments in a presentation in 2020:

“the… Drosten PCR protocol… the authors had conflicts of interest… it was compromised in the peer-review process… those weren’t declared… two of the authors of the paper are on the editorial board of the journal that they sent the manuscript paper to… and it went through peer review in 24 hours… that is an exceedingly fast peer review… the average is north of 170 days or so… Corman and Drosten formulated a goal or an aim for that protocol stating the following: ‘we aim to develop and deploy a robust diagnostic methodology for use in public health laboratory settings without having virus material available’. They only had theoretical sequences… If you look the authors list again you will find two people who are on the WHO advisory board… so you can see here another very big problem… it’s still a mystery why only the Corman Drosten paper was the only protocol recommended at the beginning of the pandemic….” – Kevin McKernan, CSO of Medical Genomics

After the Drosten test was exposed as fraudulent, 22 scientists signed the Corman Drosten retraction letter, calling for the Corman Drosten PCR protocol to be retracted. Signatories included Kevin McKernan and Bobby Malrota, who was on the Austrian COVID task force. According to McKernan there has been quite a bit of blowback against the signatories:

“Well, I think they start calling you an antisemite… every slander in the book they are not going for the ball they are going for the person…” – Kevin McKernan, CSO of Medical Genomics

The UK MHRA knew in advance that Covid-19 vaccines would cause many Adverse Drug Reactions

The vaccine companies and government health agencies knew that the Covid-19 vaccines were unsafe and going to injure a high volume of people. This is proved by the fact that the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) in the UK posted a procurement contract notice on the EU EPSD procurement website in 2020. The notice stated:

“The MHRA urgently seeks an Artificial Intelligence (AI) software tool to process the expected high volume of Covid-19 vaccine Adverse Drug Reactions (ADRs)…”.   

I personally took a screenshot of the notice on 17th March 2021 and this is provided in the book No Worries No Virus. The tender notice was publicly available official EU procurement information. When I posted this information on my twitter account, I received a message from the Twitter company that my Twitter account was suspended specifically for posting this information. This appeared to be a clear case of censorship.

Fraud: PCR test sequences occur naturally in humans, not in a new coronavirus

The PCR test does not even test for a virus. Research by Dr Stefan Lanka has shown that RT-PCR does not detect so-called SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19), but fragments of RNA that occur naturally in humans and in numerous microbes. In an article titled The beginning and the end of the corona crisis, Dr Lanka explained why Drosten’s test is fraudulent and Covid-19 is a hoax.

“Prof Drosten has crossed the clearly recognizable line between a scientifically justified action and an obvious and serious fraud… Prof Drosten and his colleagues relied on social media to assume that a SARS-related corona virus could be the cause of the atypical pneumonia outbreak. At that time there was no clinical data available that could support such claims… Did Prof Drosten verify if the genetic sequences that he used as the basis for the development of his detection test actually come from a virus? The answer is no!… Did Prof Drosten carry out the mandatory control experiments to test his hypothesis that the genetic sequences used by him were constituents of a virus?… The answer is no!” – Dr Stefan Lanka

You cannot have specific tests for a virus without having first isolated the virus you are trying to detect. To examine the sequences that have been published as new coronaviruses and where these sequences come from, medical researcher, Jesús García Blanca carried out a search with a computer program called Basic Local Alignment Search Tool (BLAST), a sequence alignment search tool that enables the comparison of a given sequence with all the virus sequences stored in the National Institutes of Health of the United States, see Endnote , and he explains step by step,  what he did so that people can repeat the search for themselves and check the results. He found that THE SEQUENCES OF THE SO-CALLED SARS-COV-2 (Covid-19) are found naturally in humans and in numerous microbes, which means that the sequences that have been published as new coronaviruses do not belong, as claimed, to new viruses, i.e., the PCR test is a fraud. He states in a November 2020 report, that:

“The genetic sequences used in PCRs to detect suspected SARS-CoV-2 and to diagnose cases of illness and death attributed to Covid-19 are present in dozens of sequences of the human genome itself and in those of about a hundred microbes… CONCLUSIONS… THERE IS NO VALID TEST TO DETECT SARS-COV-2, neither antibody or antigen tests nor RT-PCR… And that means that ALL THE NUMBERS OF “CASES”, “INFECTED”, “SICK”, “Asymptomatic” OR “DEAD DUE TO COVID-19” LACK A SCIENTIFIC BASE AND ALL “POSITIVES” ARE FALSE POSITIVES, something that should be communicated immediately to those affected and those responsible should be held accountable.” – Jesus Garcia Blanca, Medical Researcher

Furthermore, Jesús García Blanca, found that “the conclusions are extremely serious: none of the seven “human coronaviruses” have actually been isolated and all the sequences of the primers of their respective PCRs as well as those of a large number of fragments of their supposed genomes are found in different areas of the human genome and in genomes of bacteria and archaea”. He states:

“those who claimed to have done so (isolated SARS-CoV) were relying on “isolates” of previous “human coronaviruses”, we began to do a thorough review of those claimed isolates…. In short, what had been done with the first coronaviruses, and with many other supposed viruses, is to cultivate supposedly infected tissues – any “cytopathic effect” was attributed to the presence of a virus only… according to Dr Stefan Lanka the so-called “cytopathic effect” is actually an effect caused by the conditions of the culture itself…. This had already been noticed by none other than Dr Barbara McClintock in 1983 during her Nobel Prize lecture, as can be seen at HYPERLINK “https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2018/06/mcclintocklecture.pdf” – Jesus Garcia Blanca, Medical Researcher

This startling information one could conclude that the entirety of mainstream virology is flawed and fraudulent, i.e., so-called “pathogenic coronaviruses causing disease” have never been isolated and, therefore, cannot be held responsible for any disease or illness. Even more incredible is that all tests, of whatever kind, to detect a coronavirus are based on ‘presumed components’ of these so-called viruses and, therefore, are completely invalid as “infection tests” or as “diagnostic tests” of a disease.

Legal case in Canada proves that Covid-19 does not exist

In Canada, the mainstream media was quick to censor and spin the outcome of a landmark legal case in which a Canadian court decided in favour of a citizen, Patrick King. Mr. King had been fined for being in a group of over ten people violating the Alberta Public Health Act, but he did not want to pay the fine, and therefore, he subpoenaed Deena Hinshaw, Chief Medical Officer of Health, asking for proof that the Covid-19 virus had been properly isolated. In effect, his legal challenge asked the government to prove that Covid-19 exists. It transpired that the government could not provide any proof that so-called Covid-19 had ever been isolated and Mr. King won his case, the fine was dropped and the court, therefore, decided there was no basis for the Covid-19 restrictions. The state then dropped the Covid-19 restrictions in light of this court decision, see Endnote 94.

US CDC even admitted that Covid-19 has never been isolated

“Since no quantified virus isolates of the 2019-nCoV are currently available…” – U.S. Centers for Disease Control CDC-006-00019, Revision: 05 CDC/DDID/NCIRD/ Division of Viral Diseases Effective: 07/13/20, see Endnote

The reality is there is no Covid-19 other than a digital theoretical abstraction made on a computer. The US CDC even admitted they made the virus via computer generation of 29,963 missing base pairs. One of the concocted narratives is that an engineered coronavirus virus, called Covid-19, leaked from a laboratory in Wuhan, China. We were then told that this Covid-19 virus then spread all over the world, infecting a large portion of the population and killing millions. It is noteworthy that the Wuhan story was also the scenario that was presented in the 2018 video made by The Institute for Disease Modeling, they called it ‘A Simulation For A Global Flu Pandemic.’

The fact that Covid-19 has been proven and even admitted to be a complete theoretical computer-generated abstraction shows that the Wuhan virus leak story is yet another a media-spun orchestrated lie.

Virology wrong turn, pathogenic viruses causing disease do not exist

Dr Stefan Lanka has published analysis, in which the flaws of mainstream virology are revealed and exposed; and Dr Claus Köhnlein has published a book challenging mainstream virology theory. Dr Köhnlein is author the book ‘Virus Mania’, which boldly challenges mainstream virology theory.  He exposes the lack of evidence behind many of the claims regarding viruses being promoted by members of the medical establishment and the media; explains that the presence of a virus in a host does not mean that there is an infectious disease; and that both AIDs and Covid-19 are ‘test pandemics’, in which there would be no pandemic if there was no test.

“The whole thing (AIDs) was a test pandemic…  it went around the world like Covid-19 via testing, there are no new clinical diseases…. You cannot fight against viruses, you have to relax, you have an immune system and it works. And that was the big lie which Fauci spread in the world. Fauci is a well-known immunologist responsible for the ACT disaster in the 90’s… and says this virus is so terrible humanity has no immune system against it and its complete nonsense – we have very good immune system… We are dying of cancer and heart disease, but not of infectious diseases… this virus is not a big problem for us… The presence of a virus in a host does not mean that it is responsible for a disease…” – Dr Claus Köhnlein

Dr Stefan Lanka exposed the virus misconception

It well-established that we at all times have millions of viruses in our body that do not cause disease and the research referenced in the previous chapter demonstrates the so-called human coronaviruses have never actually been isolated, and therefore cannot be validly linked to being the actual cause of people becoming ill. The startling question must then be posed “do viruses actually cause illness?” In addressing this question, Dr Stefan Lanka, author of the Virus Misconception’papers, has analyzed the methods of mainstream virology, the history behind these methods, and demonstrated and asserted that pathogenic viruses causing disease do NOT exist. This assertion flies in the face of the mainstream virology theories. Government health services and treatments to billions of people worldwide are based on these mainstream virology theories. Could it be that Dr Lanka, and doctors conducting similar research, have unearthed a major worldwide problem here? i.e., that government and corporate run health services worldwide are based on completely flawed theories about viruses. According to Dr Lanka:

“Contrary to what most people believe, pathogenic viruses do not exist…. All claims about viruses as pathogens are wrong and are based on easily recognisable, understandable and verifiable misinterpretations…Virologists primarily believe in the existence of viruses, because they add allegedly “infected” blood, saliva or other body fluids to the tissue and cell culture, and this, it must be stressed, after having withdrawn the nutrients from the respective cell culture and after having started poisoning it with toxic antibiotics. They believe that the cell culture is then killed by viruses. The key insight, however, is that the death of the tissue and cells takes place in the exact same manner when no “infected” genetic material is added at all. The virologists have apparently not noticed this fact! According to the most basic scientific logic and the rules of scientific conduct, control experiments should have been carried out… This, of course, to check whether it is not the method itself that yields or falsifies the results. These control experiments have never been carried out by the official “science” to this day… If they carried out the control experiments, they would realize that ALL short genetic sequences that are conceptually combined to form a viral genetic strand are in reality products of the human metabolism and do not come from a supposedly external virus.” – Dr Stefan Lanka

Dr Lanka also exposes the flaws and errors in the so-called evidence provided for the existence of pathogenic viruses causing disease, he states:

“The fact is and remains that a virus has never been isolated according to the meaning of the word isolation, and it has never been photographed and biochemically characterised as a whole unique structure. The electron micrographs of the alleged viruses, for example, really only show cellular particles from dying tissue and cells, and most photos show only a computer model (CGI – computer generated images). Because the involved parties BELIEVE that the dying tissue and cells transform themselves into viruses, their death is also regarded as propagation of the virus. The involved parties still believe this because the discoverer of this method was awarded the Nobel Prize and his papers remain the reference papers on ‘viruses’.” – Dr Stefan Lanka

Dr Lanka also explains the flawed basis upon which vaccines for viruses are derived and thus the health danger of these vaccines and emphasises that a real and complete virus causing disease does not appear anywhere in the entire scientific literature, and explains this is because the process to come to the description of a complete virus is not done by any scientific method, but by means of consensus and fabrication, in which the participants usually argue for years on what pieces of genetic code “belong” to the “virus” and what pieces don’t. He states: “In a nutshell: From short fragments, theoretically and according to a model of a viral DNA or RNA strand, a bigger piece is also theoretically fabricated, which in reality doesn’t exist…”.

Dr Lanka also describes that due to the lack of negative control experiments, all tests for “viruses” will result in a certain number of “positives”, depending on the sensitivity of the calibration of the testing equipment. The templates that are used in the tests that supposedly find “viruses” don’t come from “viruses”, but rather from the tissue, cells and foetal serum (blood without specific components) coming from animals, mainly monkeys and calves, that are used in the cell cultures from which the viruses are supposedly cultured.

“The virus tests do not find anything specific, certainly nothing “viral” and on account of this they are worthless. The consequences, however, as we have seen with Ebola, HIV, Influenza etc., are that people become paralyzed with fear and they often die due to the very dangerous treatment.” – Dr Stefan Lanka

In summary, the work of Dr Stefan Lanka, and other diligent scientists, indicates that the entirety of mainstream virology took a ‘wrong turn’, to put it kindly, back in 1952, and that pathogenic viruses causing disease simply do not exist, and all treatments of so-called harmful viruses are, therefore, incorrect treatments. This has either been an intentional profit-motivated deception from the start, or this ‘convenient mistake in virology theory’ has been allowed to continue as vast profits have been made for decades selling vaccines that immunize against these invisible non-existent virus enemies. Either that or literally everyone in the mainstream virology sector is completely incompetent. Whatever the case, it appears a large chunk of so-called modern medical science can now be thrown in the bin. Just like a magician who distracts with one hand while implementing his tricks with the other, by being fed the Wuhan virus story in the media, people have been led away from a deeper truth whilst the mega-corporates implement their lucrative tricks.

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Mark Keenan is a former scientist at the Department of Energy and Climate Change, UK; and at the United Nations Environment Division; and is the author of the book Transcending the Climate Change Deception – Toward Real Sustainability available on amazon.COM and on his website www.mkeenan.ie.

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No Worries No Virus

by mark-gerard House of Keenan

ASIN: ‎B0C1J9CWWK

Publisher: ‎Independently published (April 9, 2023)

Language: ‎English

Paperback: ‎268 pages

ISBN-13: ‎979-8387657276

Relax and chill out there was no Covid virus. This book provides comprehensive evidence that the Covid pandemic was faked and planned with a purpose; the Covid-19 death numbers are fraudulent and the deaths were due to other causes; the fraudulent Covid-19 PCR test was used to create false Covid-19 case numbers; there is no evidence Covid-19 actually exist; and looks behind the curtain at the corporate, media, and financial players behind the hoax. To explain what is ‘behind the curtain’ of the Covid-19 hoax key historical events are detailed to provide a bigger picture of what it all means.

 

Click here to purchase.

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After years of belligerent moves aimed at undermining China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity virtually everywhere, be it Hong Kong, Xinjiang, South/East Sea China or Taiwan, the United States is showing no signs of ever stopping with its aggression against Beijing. As if billions of dollars worth of weapons earmarked for China’s breakaway island province weren’t bad enough, including at least 400 anti-ship missiles and the latest F-16 Block 70/72 fighter jets, reports now indicate that Taipei and Washington DC are in talks about Taiwan gaining the protection of the US nuclear umbrella in a similar manner to Japan and South Korea.

According to RealClearDefense, citing local sources, Taiwanese foreign minister Joseph Wu announced that the island is in talks with Washington DC about possibly being brought under the US nuclear umbrella. RealClearDefense warns that the move would likely be seen by Beijing as a clear escalation and would likely greatly increase the potential for a future war with China. This assessment can only be considered an understatement, as the Asian giant is essentially guaranteed to respond directly to such escalation. Being under the American nuclear umbrella entails several key changes that would be absolutely unacceptable to China and would certainly provoke an adequate reaction.

The Taipei Times reported that local defense experts find this a “positive for Taiwan”. On May 23, Institute for National Defense and Security research fellow Su Tzu-yun stated: “Taiwan’s national security doctrine explicitly rejects the development of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction, despite the nation facing the threat of such weapons being used against it. The extension of an ally’s nuclear umbrella over Taiwan would be significantly beneficial to Taiwan’s security.”

The nuclear umbrella is a deterrence policy stemming from the (First) Cold War and entails a nuclear power to guarantee the usage of its nuclear weapons to retaliate if its ally was exposed to a nuclear attack by any third party. This also includes the option of hosting US nuclear weapons, as was the case with countries such as South Korea between 1958 and 1991. Taipei’s Foreign Minister Wu made the comments about this possibility during a session with the Legislative Yuan (Taiwanese parliament). However, he declined to give any details about the talks and whether Taipei itself had asked the US to bring the island under its nuclear umbrella or if the initiative came from Washington DC.

“Regarding the discussion of this issue with the United States, it is not suitable for me to make it public here,” Wu said, as reported by The South China Morning Post.

Most US allies and satellite states/vassals are under the protection of its nuclear umbrella, including Japan, South Korea and every member of NATO, with nearly half a dozen member states (Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey) even having nuclear sharing programs with Washington DC. As previously mentioned, giving the same or similar guarantees to China’s breakaway island province would require the US to use thermonuclear weapons in case of hostilities between Beijing and Taipei. It should be understood that in case Washington DC goes ahead with such an agreement, the question of Taiwan would become much more than just an issue of respecting Chinese sovereignty, territorial integrity and international law.

As per the (rather correct) assessment of The South China Morning Post, this idea is “an unthinkable prospect” for Beijing. Indeed, such a move would further internationalize the Taiwan dispute, as well as accelerate the potential formation of “Asia-Pacific NATO”, while jeopardizing China’s strategic security. Although the US has encountered significant hurdles with attempts to form yet another iteration of the North Atlantic geopolitical monstrosity, the belligerent thalassocracy likely believes that including Taiwan in its global nuclear umbrella would push others in the region to be more accepting of the idea of an “Asia-Pacific NATO”. How likely this is to work is up for debate, however, what it would surely cause is a dramatic surge in the potential for escalation and yet another step toward a world-ending thermonuclear conflict.

Although there is still hope that cooler heads might prevail in the Pentagon, the sheer number of warhawks in the US establishment makes the prospects of such escalation all the more possible and no less disturbing, particularly as top US generals are openly talking about the “inevitable war with China”. Such belligerence has already pushed China and Russia to further strengthen their already close ties in all aspects, be it economic, military, scientific, etc. The troubled Biden administration has already vowed to send troops and intervene if hostilities between China and its breakaway island province were to happen, which in itself was a borderline declaration of war. However, by including Taiwan in its nuclear umbrella, the question of war between Beijing and Washington DC would become “when” instead of “if”.

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Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.

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*** 

Introduction

The world finds itself at a critical juncture as tensions escalate in Ukraine, claiming the lives of thousands on both sides. Meanwhile, Israel’s potential strike on Iranian nuclear development sites using US-built F-35 bomber aircraft looms, threatens to ignite a chain reaction of destabilization in the entire Middle East and risks a nuclear conflict with Russia.

In this unprecedented situation, the United Kingdom also faces the grim prospect of becoming a prime target. The global population stands on the precipice, with an unimaginable loss of one billion lives (12.5% of the global population) looming. Unfortunately, the urgency of this danger remains underappreciated by the international community, as the United Nations continues with its routine affairs, while Europe, in a state of fear and disarray, scrambles to build fallout shelters for its elites.

Uncertainty and Boundless Destruction

Both the war in Ukraine and the potential conflict in the Gulf defy any predictions regarding their scale or duration. However, one grim certainty persists: any nuclear confrontation knows no geographical boundaries, as the release of ionizing radiation obliterates life and spreads uncontrollably through wind and rain, contaminating everything in its path.

Root Causes and Unforeseen Consequences

This alarming scenario has emerged from territorial disputes and the forced displacement of indigenous communities and ethnic groups, whose claims to specific lands have escalated into geopolitical flashpoints. The consequences of this unprecedented global crisis cannot be accurately foreseen, but one thing is certain: the fabric of the current world order, encompassing international institutions and political boundaries, will undergo irrevocable and profound transformations in size and scope.

Documentation of Iran’s Nuclear Sites

Iran, a country under scrutiny due to its nuclear program, possesses numerous documented nuclear sites, including the Bushehr plant, a joint venture with Russia, the Natanz Enrichment Plant, and the Isfahan Nuclear Fuel Research and Production Centre. These facilities, designed for similar purposes as Israel’s long-standing nuclear weapons facility at Dimona in the Negev desert, heighten the already critical tensions in the region.

Conclusion

The impending catastrophe facing Europe and the Middle East demands immediate global attention and action. With a billion lives hanging in the balance, the international community must prioritize de-escalation, dialogue, and peaceful resolution of conflicts.

The United Nations, as the foremost global body, must rise to the occasion and address this unprecedented crisis head-on.

The world’s leaders must unite in their commitment to preventing the outbreak of nuclear warfare and embrace diplomacy as the only viable path forward. Failure to act decisively could result in an unimaginable loss of life, leaving an indelible scar on humanity for generations to come.

NOTE: There are at least seven, documented nuclear research development sites throughout Iran, including Bushehr, which is being built in partnership with Russia, the Natanz Enrichment Plant, and the Isfahan Nuclear Fuel Research and Production Centre, all of which are assumed to have, in part, the same end purpose as Israel’s long-standing, nuclear weapons facility at Dimona, in the Negev desert.

1. Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant: Located in the southwestern port city of Bushehr, this site is Iran’s first civilian nuclear power plant. It is being constructed with assistance from Russia and is primarily intended for generating electricity.

2. Natanz Enrichment Plant: Situated in central Iran, Natanz is one of the country’s most well-known nuclear facilities. It includes an underground enrichment facility where Iran has conducted uranium enrichment activities. Natanz has been the subject of international scrutiny due to its connection with Iran’s nuclear program.

3. Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant: Located near the city of Qom, the Fordow facility was built inside a mountain to provide additional security. It is primarily used for uranium enrichment and has drawn attention from the international community.

4. Arak Heavy Water Reactor: Situated in the city of Arak, this facility was designed to produce isotopes for medical and industrial purposes. However, concerns have been raised in the past about the potential for plutonium production, which can be used in nuclear weapons.

5. Isfahan Nuclear Technology Center: This site, located near the city of Isfahan, is involved in various nuclear-related activities. It includes facilities for uranium conversion, fuel production, and research purposes.

6. Parchin Military Complex: Although not solely a nuclear site, the Parchin complex has drawn attention due to suspicions about possible nuclear-related activities. It is a military base where Iran has conducted conventional weapons testing, and there have been allegations of nuclear weaponization-related experiments taking place there.

7. Kashan Nuclear Research Center: The Kashan facility is a research center involved in nuclear-related research activities. It focuses on areas such as nuclear medicine, radiation applications, and agricultural research.

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“DNA, or deoxyribonucleic acid, is the hereditary material in humans and almost all other organisms. Nearly every cell in a person’s body has the same DNA. Most DNA is located in the cell nucleus (where it is called nuclear DNA), but a small amount of DNA can also be found in the mitochondria (where it is called mitochondrial DNA or mtDNA). Mitochondria are structures within cells that convert the energy from food into a form that cells can use.” (MedlinePlus Genetics)

***

Brownstone Institute published a story about a recent shocking discovery that is a game changer in the COVID-19 mRNA vaccine fraud. (click here)

US microbiologist & genomic expert Kevin McKernan with 25 years experience in genomics accidentally found that Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 bivalent vaccine vials had DNA contamination.

What Kevin McKernan found in Pfizer & Moderna vials:

• mRNA of SARS-CoV2 spike protein (expected)
• mRNA fragments
• other pieces of RNA
• two forms of DNA: linear and circular (plasmid)

“The plasmid DNA is the ‘complete recipe’ used to program bacterial cells to mass produce the mRNA.  This DNA should not be there.  Further investigation by McKernan showed the plasmid DNA contained in the vaccines was indeed viable and capable of transformation in bacterial cells.”

McKernan’s analysis demonstrated DNA contamination of up to 35 percent in the bivalent injection samples.  This is up to 1,000 times higher than deemed to be ‘acceptable’ by the regulating authorities (FDA, European Medicines Agency) 

McKernan also analyzed the monovalent (earlier) injections. The Pfizer monovalent injections were also found to be contaminated with DNA, though not as much.  The levels of DNA in the Pfizer monovalent injections were 18-70 times higher than the EMA limit.

Kevin McKernan published his findings in 3 substack articles: 

1. Deep sequencing of the Moderna and Pfizer bivalent vaccines identifies contamination of expression vectors designed for plasmid amplification in bacteria (click here)
2. Pfizer and Moderna bivalent vaccines contain 20-35% expression vector and are transformation competent in E.coli (click here)
3. DNA contamination in 8 vials of Pfizer monovalent mRNA vaccines (click here)

Why is DNA contamination present in mRNA vials? (click here) 

This is how mRNA in the Pfizer & Moderna COVID-19 vaccines is manufactured:

1. DNA copy of viral spike protein is inserted into a bacterial plasmid – a ring shaped, double stranded DNA molecule that can be replicated & passed on.
2. This plasmid with spike gene is introduced into E.Coli bacteria which divide rapidly, each daughter cell having its own plasmids with spike DNA.
3. The plasmid DNA also has a special marker, an antibiotic resistance gene, so when you expose the daughter E.Coli cells to that antibiotic, only those E.Coli cells that have the plasmid and the special marker survive.
4. After growing sufficient E.Coli cells, the cells are broken up and plasmid is purified from the other bacterial components.
5. The plasmid rings are opened and made linear with an enzyme which cuts right after the spike sequence.
6. Another enzyme is then used to create mRNA from the plasmid spike DNA, and incorporates a synthetic nucleoside (N-methyl-pseudouridine instead of uridine) to make the mRNA more resistant to degradation and to make it less stimulatory to the innate immune system.
7. The two ends of the mRNA molecule are attached to other components that enhance the mRNA’s biological activity and stability in vivo.

However, this mRNA product is not pure, as all of the plasmid DNA is still present. To get rid of the plasmid DNA, an enzyme called DNAse is added to break up the DNA into small fragments which are then removed by filtration, and the mRNA is then packaged into lipid nanoparticles or LNPs.

If properly done, there should be NO DNA contamination of the final product in the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine vials.

DNA contamination also confirmed by other groups

Implications of DNA contamination of Pfizer & Moderna mRNA vaccines

1. Each Pfizer or Moderna COVID-19 mRNA vaccine dose may contain trillions of DNA molecules (click here)
2. DNA contaminants are inflammatory and could cause inflammation anywhere in the body
3. DNA contaminants could incorporate into our DNA and cause spike protein to be expressed indefinitely (click here)
   1. Further analysis by Dr. McKernan and his team has also confirmed that the plasmids are intact and capable of self-replicating, and that the relevant promoters are present that allow them to express mRNA for spike protein in human cells and not just in bacteria.
   2. these DNA plasmids are likely to survive for long periods, be taken up by cells inside the body and induce the cells to produce spike protein for an indefinite period of time
   3. This could explain some of the long term effects we are seeing in people now who have stopped taking booster shots and why they are still getting myocarditis, cardiac arrests, blood clots, strokes and more injuries 1-2 years after their last COVID-19 vaccine dose.
4. Plasmid DNA integration can also cause cancer (by inserting into or next to proto-oncogenes or tumor suppressor genes and altering their expression, and the plasmid also contains an SV40 Simian Virus 40 promoter which has been implicated in cancer development)
5. Plasmid DNA integration into germline cells (oocytes, spermatozoa), can interfere with early intrauterine development and cause miscarriages or malformations.
6. Plasmid DNA integration can give rise to transgenic children who will be producing the spike protein indefinitely.

My Take…

Thanks to the incredible work of Kevin McKernan (one of 15 key Twitter accounts I followed since the early days of the pandemic in 2020), the world now has evidence of DNA contamination of Pfizer & Moderna mRNA vaccine vials that should not be present. Up to 35% contamination.

This discovery provides new possible mechanisms of COVID-19 mRNA vaccine injury: from long-term spike production that is now easily explainable via plasmid DNA contaminant integration into human DNA, to miscarriages and even turbo cancer.

But these findings also raise more questions.

How many vaccinated people have been impacted clinically by DNA contamination of Pfizer & Moderna vaccine vials?

Are turbo cancers actually arising because of this plasmid DNA contamination and if so, what is the mechanism?

Are some people producing spike protein indefinitely because of plasmid DNA contamination? And if so, how many? How can they be helped?

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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.

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*** 

Jeremy Corbyn was livid. “You’re trying to trivialise the whole discussion about how you bring about a long-term peace process,” he steamed at the journalist. It had been a rocky interview, even before they reached the topic of armed Palestinian and Lebanese resistance. 

Channel 4’s Krishnan Guru-Murthy asked a series of robust questions right out of the gate. But Corbyn wasn’t playing by Westminster’s usual rules. It was the summer of 2015, and Corbyn’s unexpected popularity had electrified a dull leadership contest.

“So you’ve got no problem with somebody coming from abroad as a migrant with five kids,” Guru-Murthy said, “and claiming five lots of child tax credits, five lots of child benefits, housing benefit, no limit on their benefits at all.” It was more of a statement than a question. 

“Why do you think people who voted Conservative in 2015 would suddenly vote for a socialist in 2020?” And: “Would there be no super-rich people in Britain if you were prime minister?” 

Guru-Murthy repeatedly interrupted the MP, refusing to let him finish his sentences. But it was not until halfway that the journalist really pounced. And Corbyn—probably the most left-wing candidate ever to run for the leadership of the Labour Party—lost his cool.

“Let’s briefly talk about foreign affairs,” the journalist said. “Why did you call Hamas and Hizballah your friends?” 

Corbyn’s people must have known this was likely to come up. Newspapers had been sniffing around. Corbyn began to answer, but Guru-Murthy interrupted again. “I asked you a question and you’re ignoring it,” he objected.

“If you’d give me a minute I’ll answer it,” Corbyn replied, clearly frustrated. Finally, he got out a full sentence: “I spoke at a meeting about the Middle East crisis in Parliament. And there were people there from Hizballah. And I said I welcomed our friends from Hizballah to have a discussion and a debate. And I said I wanted Hamas to be part of that debate.” 

He continued to explain but was stopped again. “So are they your friends or not?”

“Can I finish?” Corbyn said, exasperated.

“Well you can’t if it’s a long answer.”

Corbyn then accused the presenter of not taking the issue seriously. “Hamas and Hizballah are part of a peace process,” he argued. Even the former head of Israeli spy agency Mossad concedes that peace talks should include Hamas, he said. 

But the journalist seemed fixed on a particular word: “You calling them ‘friends.’” It went against everything the British media’s conventional wisdom stood for: Lebanese and Palestinian combatants cannot be brave resistance fighters; rather they are evil terrorists. The word “friends” was tantamount to heresy. 

“To bring about a peace process you have to talk to people with whom you may profoundly disagree,” Corbyn explained.

Hostile media

A maverick candidate for Labour leader, Corbyn had fought his corner. The next week, Corbyn would cause disbelief as a shock YouGov poll of Labour activists eligible to vote in the election gave the left-winger a massive lead. 

But the Channel 4 interview hadn’t gone very well. Guru-Murthy’s hostile questioning clearly touched a raw nerve. Corbyn seemed genuinely angry. Years later, the former Labour MP reflected bitterly that the anti-Semitism smears against him had been “foul, dishonest and utterly disgusting . . . [it was] designed to be very isolating and distract from our policies.”

The terrorist hobgoblin repeatedly came back to bite Corbyn. It was a powerful political weapon that would contribute heavily to his ultimate downfall. The interview was a signal that Corbyn was vulnerable on the issue. 

The left-wing MP had seemed hurt at the implication he was an anti-Semite. Hostile media were onto something. This was a bone they’d continue gnawing for the next five years, successfully demonising the Labour leader. 

On the video of the full Channel 4 interview, YouTube comments dating from soon after Corbyn’s December 2019 leadership downfall give only a taste of the hatred the media had stirred up.

“Didn’t the UK dodge a bullet by rejecting this Hamas Communist four years on from this interview?” said one. The propaganda of the right-wing backlash against the Jeremy Corbyn phenomenon ultimately cut through to mainstream voters during that final general election. 

“The very sight” of Corbyn “fills me with rage,” another YouTube user posted. “An absolute traitor! I hope he has a horrible death,” came one posting, from YouTube user Avi Oleg, who raged that Corbyn was “a cancer cell in a healthy body.” 

But vicious online comments were the least of it.

Army mutiny

Corbyn had barely arrived as Labour leader in September 2015 before a senior serving general in the British Armed Forces warned the Sunday Times that there would be a mutiny if Corbyn were elected prime minister. 

“There would be mass resignations at all levels and you would face the very real prospect of an event which would effectively be a mutiny,” the general said. 

“Feelings are running very high within the armed forces. You would see a major break in convention with senior generals directly and publicly challenging Corbyn,” he said. “The army just wouldn’t stand for it . . . I think people would use whatever means possible, fair or foul to prevent that.”

Years later, in an interview with journalist Matt Kennard, Corbyn reflected that this had been “a sort of shot across the bows, a warning to me.” When a snap election was expected in the winter of 2018, two conservative papers reported that Corbyn had been “summoned” for a “facts of life” talk with the head of MI5 and an “acquaintance” meeting with the head of MI6. 

The meetings were supposed to have been completely confidential, but were soon leaked by the two spy agencies—deliberately, Corbyn told Kennard. “It was leaked by them and it was leaked in a way to undermine,” said Corbyn, “that somehow or other I’d been summoned and given a dressing down.” 

He denied the spooks’ demeaning characterisation of the meeting, and complained that civil servants had spread rumours that he was men- tally unstable.

An investigation by Kennard concluded that during his leadership Corbyn had been the target of 34 major national media stories openly sourced by former or current officials in the UK’s intelligence and military establishment, including MI5 and MI6. The stories all cast him as a danger to British security. 

‘We won’t wait for him to do those things’

Other governments were involved too. US secretary of state and former CIA director Mike Pompeo hinted in a private meeting with Israel lobby leaders that the US government could stage its own intervention to stop Corbyn becoming prime minister. 

“It could be that Mr. Corbyn manages to run the gauntlet and get elected,” he said in a leaked audio recording obtained by the Washington Post. “It’s possible. You should know, we won’t wait for him to do those things to begin to push back. We will do our level best. It’s too risky and too important and too hard once it’s already happened.”

Over the years there was a constant stream of alarming headlines about the alleged threat Corbyn posed to Jews—despite his decades of anti-racist campaigning. 

In July 2018, three pro-Israel, British Jewish newspapers published identical front-page editorials claiming that a Corbyn-led government posed an “existential threat to Jewish life in this country” due to the “Corbynite contempt for Jews and Israel.” 

A month later former chief rabbi and BBC radio personality Jonathan Sacks accused Corbyn of “the most offensive statement made by a senior British politician since Enoch Powell’s 1968 ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech” (a reference to a criticism Corbyn had made of pro-Israel heckler Richard Millett, as we’ll see later in this chapter).

‘Sacrifice him’

During the 2019 general election campaign, right-wing columnist Simon Heffer claimed on live radio that Corbyn “wants to reopen Auschwitz”—the most notorious Nazi death camp where Jews were systemically murdered on an industrial scale during the Holocaust. 

Prominent Israel lobbyists also spat venom at Corbyn. “I think we should sacrifice him for all the trouble he has caused,” said Lionel Kopelowitz, pointing out the verbal similarity of Corbyn’s surname to the Hebrew word for the victim of a sacrifice. 

Kopelowitz was a 92-year-old former president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, whose meeting he was addressing at the time. 

The Board claims to represent all British Jews. Yet it also admits in internal documents to having a “close working relationship with the Embassy of Israel in the UK” and strong links to Israel’s semi-covert Ministry of Strategic Affairs, as well as the Israeli military spokesperson.

“Labour MUST kill vampire Jezza,” Mail on Sunday columnist Dan Hodges implored. Serving British Army soldiers later filmed themselves using Corbyn’s image for target practice. Increasing incitement against Corbyn had inevitable results. 

An attempt on his life came in June 2017.

Terrorist attack

Darren Osborne, a 48-year-old Islamophobe from Cardiff, tried to murder a group of Muslims in Finsbury Park (an area in Corbyn’s constituency). He deliberately drove a hire van into the crowd, killing Makram Ali, a 51-year-old grandfather. 

But it emerged in court that Osborne’s original target had been Jeremy Corbyn himself. Osborne admitted he had planned to mow down demonstrators at an annual Palestine solidarity demonstration. “Another reason for [attacking] the Al-Quds [Day] march was that Jeremy Corbyn would be in attendance,” he said. 

When security roadblocks thwarted his plan, he drove to Finsbury Park and rammed into a group of Muslims gathered outside on the first day of Ramadan. Osborne was given a 43-year minimum sentence. “This was a terrorist attack. You intended to kill,” judge Parmjit Cheema-Grubb concluded.

Visiting Finsbury Park Mosque, Corbyn became the victim of an unprovoked assault. CCTV footage showed right-winger John Murphy punching the Labour leader in the head, reportedly shouting pro-Brexit slogans. 

Murphy was swiftly sentenced to 28 days in jail. But the media downplayed the worrying attack as an “egging” (Murphy had held an egg in the hand he used to punch Corbyn).

In December 2019, Corbyn announced he would step down as Labour leader, after losing the general election. Keir Starmer succeeded him in April 2020 and intensified the party’s purges of Corbynites, saying he wanted to support “Zionism without qualification.”

Then in October 2020 Corbyn was suspended from the party altogether. He had made an objectively factual statement that the scale of anti-Semitism in Labour had been exaggerated by his political enemies.

How did it come to this?

This is an extract from Asa Winstanley’s book, Weaponising Anti-Semitism: How the Israel Lobby Brought Down Jeremy Corbyn, published by OR Books.

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On Tuesday, 80 artificial intelligence scientists and more than 200 “other notable figures” signed a statement that says “mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war.”

The one-sentence warning from the diverse group of scientists, engineers, corporate executives, academics, and other concerned individuals doesn’t go into detail about the existential threats posed by AI. Instead, it seeks to “open up discussion” and “create common knowledge of the growing number of experts and public figures who also take some of advanced AI’s most severe risks seriously,” according to the Center for AI Safety, a U.S.-based nonprofit whose website hosts the statement.

Lead signatory Geoffrey Hinton, often called “the godfather of AI,” has been sounding the alarm for weeks. Earlier this month, the 75-year-old professor emeritus of computer science at the University of Toronto announced that he had resigned from his job at Google in order to speak more freely about the dangers associated with AI.

Before he quit Google, Hinton told CBS News in March that the rapidly advancing technology’s potential impacts are comparable to “the Industrial Revolution, or electricity, or maybe the wheel.”

Asked about the chances of the technology “wiping out humanity,” Hinton warned that “it’s not inconceivable.”

That frightening potential doesn’t necessarily lie with currently existing AI tools such as ChatGPT, but rather with what is called “artificial general intelligence” (AGI), which would encompass computers developing and acting on their own ideas.

“Until quite recently, I thought it was going to be like 20 to 50 years before we have general-purpose AI,” Hinton told CBS News. “Now I think it may be 20 years or less.”

Pressed by the outlet if it could happen sooner, Hinton conceded that he wouldn’t rule out the possibility of AGI arriving within five years, a significant change from a few years ago when he “would have said, ‘No way.'”

“We have to think hard about how to control that,” said Hinton. Asked if that’s possible, Hinton said, “We don’t know, we haven’t been there yet, but we can try.”

The AI pioneer is far from alone. According to the 2023 AI Index Report, an annual assessment of the fast-growing industry published last month by the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence, 57% of computer scientists surveyed said that “recent progress is moving us toward AGI,” and 58% agreed that “AGI is an important concern.”

Although its findings were released in mid-April, Stanford’s survey of 327 experts in natural language processing—a branch of computer science essential to the development of chatbots—was conducted last May and June, months before OpenAI’s ChatGPT burst onto the scene in November.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, who signed the statement shared Tuesday by the Center for AI Safety, wrote in a February blog post:

“The risks could be extraordinary. A misaligned superintelligent AGI could cause grievous harm to the world.”

The following month, however, Altman declined to sign an open letter calling for a half-year moratorium on training AI systems beyond the level of OpenAI’s latest chatbot, GPT-4.

The letter, published in March, states that “powerful AI systems should be developed only once we are confident that their effects will be positive and their risks will be manageable.”

Tesla and Twitter CEO Elon Musk was among those who called for a pause two months ago, but he is “developing plans to launch a new artificial intelligence start-up to compete with” OpenAI, according to The Financial Times, begging the question of whether his stated concern about the technology’s “profound risks to society and humanity” is sincere or an expression of self-interest.

That Altman and several other AI boosters signed Tuesday’s statement raises the possibility that insiders with billions of dollars at stake are attempting to showcase their awareness of the risks posed by their products in a bid to persuade officials of their capacity for self-regulation.

Demands from outside the industry for robust government regulation of AI are growing. While ever-more dangerous forms of AGI may still be years away, there is already mounting evidence that existing AI tools are exacerbating the spread of disinformation, from chatbots spouting lies and face-swapping apps generating fake videos to cloned voices committing fraud. Current, untested AI is hurting people in other ways, including when automated technologies deployed by Medicare Advantage insurers unilaterally decide to end payments, resulting in the premature termination of coverage for vulnerable seniors.

Critics have warned that in the absence of swift interventions from policymakers, unregulated AI could harm additional healthcare patients, undermine fact-based journalism, hasten the destruction of democracy, and lead to an unintended nuclear war. Other common worries include widespread worker layoffs and worsening inequality as well as a massive uptick in carbon pollution.

A report published last month by Public Citizen argues that “until meaningful government safeguards are in place to protect the public from the harms of generative AI, we need a pause.”

“Businesses are deploying potentially dangerous AI tools faster than their harms can be understood or mitigated,” the progressive advocacy group warned in a statement.

“History offers no reason to believe that corporations can self-regulate away the known risks—especially since many of these risks are as much a part of generative AI as they are of corporate greed,” the watchdog continued. “Businesses rushing to introduce these new technologies are gambling with peoples’ lives and livelihoods, and arguably with the very foundations of a free society and livable world.”

Earlier this month, Public Citizen president Robert Weissman welcomed the Biden administration’s new plan to “promote responsible American innovation in artificial intelligence and protect people’s rights and safety,” but he also stressed the need for “more aggressive measures” to “address the threats of runaway corporate AI.”

Echoing Public Citizen, an international group of doctors warned three weeks ago in the peer-reviewed journal BMJ Open Health that AI “could pose an existential threat to humanity” and demanded a moratorium on the development of such technology pending strong government oversight.

AI “poses a number of threats to human health and well-being,” the physicians and related experts wrote. “With exponential growth in AI research and development, the window of opportunity to avoid serious and potentially existential harms is closing.”

From Common Dreams: Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

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Kenny Stancil is a staff writer for Common Dreams.

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*** 

The commander of the Czech Republic’s armed forces said the North Atlantic alliance and Russia are on the path to a direct war. The general described the potential war as the “worst-case scenario” but emphasized that it remains a distinct possibility. 

General Karel Rehka, the chief of the Czech armed forces general staff, told his country’s parliament on Monday about the potentiality of a war between NATO and Russia.

“No one wants it at all, but it is not impossible. It is necessary to stop saying that this is not possible, because it is simply possible. It can happen and it is necessary to prepare for it in the long run,” he said. 

“We view war between Russia and the North Atlantic Alliance as the worst-case scenario, but it is not impossible,” Rehka continued. “It is possible… [Russia] is currently on a course towards a conflict with the Alliance.”

Tensions between Moscow and the West have spiraled in recent weeks. At a Group of Seven (G7) meeting earlier this month, Washington and its allies announced a plan to transfer F-16s to Ukraine. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said giving advanced fighter jets to Kiev is an “unacceptable escalation” and warned the West is “playing with fire.”

Additionally, Kiev has carried out a series of attacks inside of Russia. On May 3, two drones were fired at the Kremlin in an attempt to assassinate Russian President Vladimir Putin. Last week, a neo-Nazi militia allied with Kiev used American weapons to launch a cross-border raid against Moscow. Then, on Tuesday, Kiev attacked Moscow with several drones. 

Rehka claimed that both Moscow and Brussels would like to avoid a direct conflict.

“But that doesn’t mean that Russia wants it or that it plans it,” Rehka said. “Certainly not now, just like we don’t want it. Everyone knows it would be a tragedy.” 

While high-ranking officials in NATO nations say they hope to avoid a direct conflict with Russia, those nations continue to cross redlines set by Moscow. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan recently asserted that Kiev could use arms it receives from Washington to attack the Crimean Peninsula. Secretary of State Antony Blinken previously acknowledged that targeting Crimea was a “red line” for the Kremlin. 

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Kyle Anzalone is news editor of the Libertarian Institute, opinion editor of Antiwar.com and co-host of Conflicts of Interest with Will Porter and Connor Freeman.

Featured image: General Karel Rehka (Source: TLI)

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*** 

Amid heavy losses for Kiev on the battlefield, Atlantic Council Chairman John F.W. Rogers and President and CEO Frederick Kempe awarded Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky the Atlantic Council’s highest honor, the Global Citizen Award, which is given to individuals who allegedly make significant contributions to improving the state of the world.

During a previously unannounced visit to Kiev on Tuesday, Rogers and Kempe were joined by Ambassador John Herbst, senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center, and General David H. Petraeus, former director of the Central Intelligence Agency and member of the Atlantic Council Board of Directors, to present the award.

“On behalf of the Ukrainian people, I am honored to accept the Atlantic Council Global Citizen Award,” Zelensky said after a meeting of his team with the Atlantic Council delegation. “This is recognition for our people, for our heroes. Ukrainians are fighting not only for their existence and freedoms, but also for the freedoms of Europe and the Transatlantic Community. I thank the Atlantic Council for this award and its work to help Ukraine defeat Russia’s aggression.”

“President Zelensky embodies the spirit of the Atlantic Council Global Citizen Awards,” Atlantic Council Chairman John F.W. Rogers said. “He has led the people of Ukraine in a heroic fight against Russian aggression and the full might of Moscow’s military. His leadership, courage, and commitment to an independent and democratic Ukraine inspire others around the world.”

Time running out for Zelenzky to win the war 

Retired US Air Force Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski told Sputnik on May 21 that the Russian forces’ control over the important transport hub of Bakhmut on May 20 marks a critical turning point in the battle between Kiev and Moscow.

The liberation of Bakhmut demonstrates that Ukraine’s political leadership’s approach has failed, because what happened there will be directly blamed on Zelensky and his remaining cadre, Kwiatkowski said. For months, the besieged city of Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) had been the hub of warfare between Russia and Ukraine. The hard-fought city was finally seized on May 20 by assault units of the Wagner Group private military company (PMC) and the Russian armed forces.

The fact that Russian troops proved to be highly successful in expelling the Ukrainian armed forces from Bakhmut points to a “decisive change along the dividing line between Ukraine and Russia”, Kwiatkowski explained.

The timing is critical in this case, since it occurred during or before the “anticipated” Ukrainian counteroffensive, she added. “Just as the Wagner Group returns east for rest and recuperation, the Ukrainian Army, both soldiers, and leadership, should be similarly returning “home” to rest and regroup. Clearly, the Ukrainian strategy to hold ever tinier portions of the city at a huge and disproportionate cost to its remaining military has failed,” Kwiatkowski said.

As for the so-called collective West, it may use the liberation of Bakhmut as a sign that it is “time to settle,” Kwiatkowski said.

“With the complete fall of [Bakhmut], Zelensky’s usefulness to the West, and to his own people, has suddenly become very limited,” the Retired officer concluded.

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*** 

The world seems to be gripped by a really bad case of war fever. National leaders all over the globe are rattling their sabers, and that should deeply alarm all of us. The last time that there was a “world war”, tens of millions of people died. This time around, it could be hundreds of millions or even billions of people. Today, we literally possess the ability to destroy all of humanity. So a worldwide conflict in which nuclear weapons are used should be avoided at all costs, but unfortunately those that are running things seem absolutely determined to push us toward such a conflict anyway.

Over the past couple of weeks, there have been so many alarming developments. The following are 11 signs that global conflict could soon spiral completely out of control…

#1 Russia just signed a deal to deploy tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus…

The defense ministers of Russia and Belarus on Thursday signed a document on the deployment of Russian tactical nuclear weapons on Belarusian territory, the state-run TASS news agency reported, citing the Defense Ministry of Belarus.

Russia will retain control over its non-strategic nuclear weapons stationed in neighboring Belarus, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said at a document-signing event with his Belarusian counterpart Viktor Khrenin in Minsk.

“Russia will not transfer nuclear weapons to the Republic of Belarus: control over them and the decision to use them remains with the Russian side,” he said.

#2 U.S. and Taiwanese officials have reportedly been talking about bringing Taiwan under the “nuclear umbrella” of the United States. Needless to say, such a move would make war with China much more likely…

There seems to be a growing demand for a US ‘nuclear umbrella’ in Taiwan amid increasing belligerence by China in the Asia Pacific region.

The desire for such a ‘nuclear umbrella’ against a potential invasion by China – which is already provided to Japan and South Korea by the United States (US) – has reportedly received support from defence experts in Taiwan.

The US ‘nuclear umbrella’ will not see the deployment of atomic weapons in Taiwan, but will see the world’s ‘sole superpower’ respond in kind to a nuclear attack by China during an invasion of the island nation.

#3 The Russians have just issued an arrest warrant for U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham…

Russia’s Interior Ministry on Monday issued an arrest warrant for U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham following his comments related to the fighting in Ukraine.

In an edited video of his meeting on Friday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that was released by Zelenskyy’s office, Graham, a Republican from South Carolina, noted that “the Russians are dying” and described the U.S. military assistance to the country as “the best money we’ve ever spent.”

#4 A senior Taliban commander is boasting that “we will conquer Iran soon”…

The Taliban threatened on Sunday that it could conquer Iran as tensions increase over water disputes between Afghanistan and Iran, leaving at least three people dead.

In a video released by the Taliban, a senior commander in the terrorist organization running Afghanistan warned that the Taliban would fight the Islamic Republic’s Revolutionary Guard “with more passion” than they fought the US forces. He added that the Taliban “will conquer Iran soon if the Taliban’s leaders give the green light.

#5 Israel has doubled the number of attacks on Iranian targets inside Syrian territory in recent months…

Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Monday said that he has “doubled the attacks on Iran in Syria” during his several months in office.

Gallant also revealed Tehran’s secret sea war against Israel, presenting new photographic evidence of five different ships it is using to establish another front against the Jewish state.

#6 Hezbollah just conducted major military exercises very close to the border with Israel…

The military exercise was unusual not only because it was made public — nearly 400 people attended, including Hezbollah supporters and several journalists — but also because it was conducted only 12 miles north of the Israeli border, just outside an area where militias are not allowed to operate under a UN Security Council resolution adopted in 2006.

#7 Most Americans don’t realize this, but U.S. troops will soon be deployed in Peru…

Unbeknown, it seems, to most people in Peru and the US (considering the paucity of media coverage in both countries), US military personnel will soon be landing in Peru. The plenary session of Peru’s Congress last Thursday (May 18) authorised the entry of US troops onto Peruvian soil with the ostensible purpose of carrying out “cooperation activities” with Peru’s armed forces and national police.

#8 Violent clashes in Kosovo have resulted in more than two dozen NATO troops being injured…

NATO-led troops and police clashed with protesters in Northern Kosovo Monday amid an ongoing standoff between ethnic Albanian authorities and local ethnic Serbs who ignored warnings not to seize municipality buildings.

The violence comes after Kosovo’s police raided Serb-dominated areas in the region’s north and seized local municipality buildings over the weekend. The demonstrations have led to injuries on both sides, which more than two dozen NATO troops injured.

#9 The U.S. military is building a brand new base in northern Syria. Apparently the U.S. occupation of large portions of Syrian territory is not going to end any time soon…

The US-led anti-ISIS coalition is building a new military base in Syria’s northern province of Raqqa, The New Arab reported, citing a source close to the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

The US backs the SDF and keeps about 900 troops (officially at least) in eastern Syria, allowing the US to control about one-third of Syria’s territory. The report said there are currently about 24 US-led military sites spread throughout eastern Syria.

#10 North Korea is claiming that the U.S. and South Korea have just conducted an “invasion rehearsal”…

The South Korean and U.S. militaries conducted large live-fire drills near the border with North Korea on Thursday, despite the North’s warning that it won’t tolerate what it calls an invasion rehearsal on its doorstep.

The drills, the first of five rounds of live-fire exercises through mid-June, mark 70 years since the establishment of the military alliance between Seoul and Washington. North Korea typically reacts to such major South Korean-U.S. exercises with missile and other weapons tests.

#11 Due to “security concerns”, dozens of “satellite phones for emergency communication” are being issued to members of the U.S. Senate…

Amid growing concerns of security risks to members of Congress, over 50 senators have been issued satellite phones for emergency communication, people familiar with the measures told CBS News. The devices are part of a series of new security measures being offered to senators by the Senate Sergeant at Arms, who took over shortly after the assault on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

The satellite phone technology has been offered to all 100 senators. CBS News has learned at least 50 have accepted the phones, which Senate administrative staff recommend senators keep in close proximity during their travels.

We have never seen such a dramatic measure ever be taken before.

Are they preparing for something?

I wish that I knew.

But what I do know is that we are certainly living during a time of “wars and rumors of wars”, and it definitely isn’t going to take much to push us over a line that will never be able to be uncrossed.

But for now, most people in the western world simply are not paying attention to what is going on.

Most of them just assume that our leaders are wise, competent and will be able to keep us out of any sort of nuclear conflict.

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Michael Snyder has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News which are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe. 

It is finally here! Michael Snyder’s new book entitled “End Times” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.

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*** 

The Kiev regime shows that it is really not willing to negotiate and achieve peace diplomatically. In a recent publication on social media, Mikhail Podoliak, the main adviser to Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, stated that it would be necessary to create a “demilitarized zone” inside Russian territory. The measure sounds absolutely absurd and does not correspond to the terms of peace demanded by the Russians, making it impossible for there to be talks seeking mutual interests.

Podoliak published his plan in his Twitter account on May 29. The adviser stated that the creation of a demilitarized zone of 100-120 km (62-76 miles) deep into Russian territory bordering Ukraine would “prevent a recurrence of aggression in the future”, and “ensure real security” for Ukrainian citizens in Kharkov, Chernigov, and Sumy regions. According to him, Zaporozhye, Lugansk and Donetsk regions (which Kiev considers its own, but which were already reintegrated into Russia last year) would also benefit from the absence of Russian troops in the area.

In the scheme exposed by him, there should be no units of the Russian armed forces in the cities of Belgorod, Bryansk, Kursk and Rostov. Curiously, Podoliak referred to these Russian oblasts as “republics”, quietly suggesting that they should become more autonomous regions or independent states. With this, Podoliak also makes it clear that he echoes the already known intentions of the Ukrainian and Western authorities to divide the Russian Federation in order to neutralize it through the loss of territorial control.

The adviser believes that the plan to create the demilitarized zone should be implemented in stages, with the possibility of initially allocating an international security contingent in the region to gain territorial control and guarantee the absence of Russian forces. Then, the area could finally be completely demilitarized, making the peace project successful.

The official even classified these measures as a “key issue” to discuss the possibility of lasting peace between the two countries. For him, “if [the Russians] are not going to attack and don’t decide they want revenge in a couple of years, this shouldn’t be an issue”. Obviously, the aide ignores all the problems involved in this dispute, such as the self-determination of ethnic Russians who want to join the Federation and Russia’s need for solid security guarantees.

In fact, the Ukrainian attitude of ignoring Russian demands for peace is already well known, being the main reason why all attempts at talks so far have failed. However, there is something significantly more serious about the current case, as Kiev openly plans to violate Russia’s undisputed territory under the excuse of “avoiding aggression”. In practice, Ukraine makes it clear that its condition for peace is not only to take back the territories it considers its own (the newly integrated oblasts and Crimea), but also to fragment the Federation and prevent Moscow from exercising its sovereignty even in areas not claimed by Kiev.

In other words, Podoliak makes it clear that the neo-Nazi regime has no other intention in this conflict than to attack Russia and violate its sovereign space. Although the western narrative describes Russia as an “invader” and an “aggressor”, the real situation is the exact opposite, with Kiev and NATO being the threatening sides, who openly want to harm Russia and its people. Moscow’s military actions since the beginning of the special operation have been only a reaction to the imminent risk posed by the (Western-sponsored) Ukrainian side.

In practice, this definitely annuls the chances of peace through diplomacy. Moscow will obviously not accept restrictions on the use of its military force in its own territory. And Kiev will certainly continue to refuse to accept Russian terms, which would oblige the Ukrainian government to recognize territorial losses and commit to not joining NATO. Faced with this impasse, the only solution left is to continue fighting on the battlefield until the winning side unilaterally imposes its conditions after neutralizing the enemy.

For Ukraine, this is the worst scenario, since, according to many experts, the country is simply not able to reverse the unfavorable military scenario. Russian victory seems to be just a matter of time, as Moscow troops continue to gain territory even with a low percentage of mobilization, while Ukraine is losing more and more ground even though it is using everything it has – no longer being able to count on reserves for the future. Obviously, in the face of imminent defeat, it is best to resort to negotiations, but Kiev does not have the sovereignty to decide something in this sense, only obeying Western orders to continue a proxy war that is impossible to win.

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Lucas Leiroz is a journalist, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, geopolitical consultant. You can follow Lucas on Twitter and Telegram.

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*** 

British counter-terror police detained journalist Kit Klarenberg upon his arrival at London’s Luton airport and subjected him to an extended interrogation about his political views and reporting for The Grayzone.

As soon as journalist Kit Klarenberg landed in his home country of Britain on May 17, 2023, six anonymous plainclothes counter-terror officers detained him. They quickly escorted him to a back room, where they grilled him for over five hours about his reporting for this outlet. They also inquired about his personal opinion on everything from the current British political leadership to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

At one point, Klarenberg’s interrogators demanded to know whether The Grayzone had a special arrangement with Russia’s Federal Security Bureau (FSB) to publish hacked material.

During Klarenberg’s detention, police seized the journalist’s electronic devices and SD cards, fingerprinted him, took DNA swabs, and photographed him intensively. They threatened to arrest him if he did not comply.

Klarenberg’s interrogation appears to be London’s way of retaliating for the journalist’s blockbuster reports exposing major British and US intelligence intrigues. In the past year alone, Klarenberg revealed how a cabal of Tory national security hardliners violated the Official Secrets Act to exploit Brexit and install Boris Johnson as prime minister. In October 2022, he earned international headlines with his exposé of British plans to bomb the Kerch Bridge connecting Crimea to the Russian Federation. Then came his report on the CIA’s recruitment of two 9/11 hijackers this April, a viral sensation that generated massive social media attention.

Among Klarenberg’s most consequential exposés was his June 2022 report unmasking British journalist Paul Mason as a UK security state collaborator hellbent on destroying The Grayzone and other media outlets, academics, and activists critical of NATO’s role in Ukraine.

Because Klarenberg’s reporting on Mason relied heavily on leaked emails, Mason falsely accused him of “assisting a Russian state-backed hack-and-leak disinformation campaign.” Mason has also reported the leak of his emails to the British police.

Emma Briant, a self-styled disinformation expert who participated in Mason’s campaign to sabotage NATO critics, dispatched lawyers to demand Klarenberg remove all of his articles that mention her from the internet. The lawyer letters also threatened costly super injunctions to prevent further reporting, and challenged the “authenticity” of the emails’ content.

The cease-and-desist letters additionally leveled false and defamatory allegations against Klarenberg, including that he was personally involved in hacking her email and Twitter account.

This is absolutely outrageous censorship of my friends and colleagues and particularly sinister given I and @TheGrayzoneNews received formal cease and desist orders from @Shoosmiths last week acting on behalf of Emma Briant. https://t.co/BDgYGSEJur pic.twitter.com/GTttZXbDLN

— Kit Klarenberg (@KitKlarenberg) June 13, 2022

Did the bogus and obviously malicious complaints by Paul Mason or Emma Briant prompt the UK police to detain and investigate Klarenberg?

Klarenberg’s reports contain neither falsehoods nor anything approaching “disinformation,” which is precisely why intelligence-linked figures like Mason are so frustrated by their existence. Despite Mason and Briant’s allegations, there is not even hard evidence that Russian hackers were the source of the leaks.

While reporting on leaked material, Klarenberg engaged in the same journalistic practice that the West’s most prominent legacy newspapers, from The New York Times to The Washington Post, depend on to break news themselves. In fact, Thomas Rid, a self-styled disinformation expert and professor of Strategic Studies at Johns Hopkins University, has stated that journalists “should not shy away” from covering the leaks first reported by Klarenberg.

It therefore appears that British authorities did not detain Klarenberg for any legal breaches, but because he reported factual stories that exposed the national security state’s own violations of both domestic and international law, as well as the malign plots of its media lackeys.

Interrogated under Counter-Terror provisions, grilled about non-existent Russian ties

Journalist Kit Klarenberg arrived in the UK on May 17  from Belgrade, Serbia, where he lives. He was planning to visit friends and family, but first, he would have to pass through an obstacle course British police laid before him.

As soon as his flight landed at Luton Airport, the pilot announced that border police were “just around the corner,” and asked all passengers to prepare their passports. The police were waiting for Klarenberg at the bottom of the stairs leading passengers from the plane to the tarmac. They immediately led him to a back room and informed him of his detention under Schedule Three, Section Four of the 2019 Counter-Terrorism and Border Act.

Six plainclothes officers surrounded Klarenberg and explained he faced arrest if he refused to answer their questions and hand over his personal electronics. They refused to tell him their names and offered call signs instead.

“I’d been expecting something like this since a police interview request arrived last summer,” Klarenberg told The Grayzone, referring to a communique he received from a senior British detective on July 27, 2022. The email requested Klarenberg report to a station to be questioned about allegations by an unnamed complainant of “offences under the computer misuse act.”

Klarenberg was notified in September of 2022 (see below) that the police investigation had been closed, however.

Back in the interrogation room at Luton, Klarenberg was asked which passports he held in his possession. “They seemed surprised that I only had a British passport with me,” he recalled. The police then grilled him about whether he owned foreign property, which countries he had visited, and why. He was compelled to provide his address in Belgrade, disclose how much he paid for rent, and bizarrely, whether his energy costs were included. The officers then demanded to know why Klarenberg lived in Serbia.

From there, police interrogators homed in on Klarenberg’s work with The Grayzone. “They asked which publications I wrote for, and I told them I wrote for many,” he said. “One even remarked they’d never previously heard of ‘MintPress Zone.’ Their overwhelming, if not exclusive, interest was in The Grayzone.”

The officers asked Klarenberg about articles including his report on the CIA’s recruitment of would-be 9/11 hijackers, as well as his thoughts on 9/11 conspiracy theories.

Then came a blizzard of questions relating to The Grayzone: How much was Klarenberg paid by this publication, how often, and into which bank account? Who owned the site? How much contact did he have with Max Blumenthal, the author of this article and editor of The Grayzone? Had he met Blumenthal in person?

The counter-terror officers then rattled off a series of unfounded questions related to Russia: Does The Grayzone have an agreement of any kind with Russia’s Federal Security Bureau (FSB) to publish hacked material? Has Klarenberg knowingly been in contact with any FSB operatives? Is he in touch with current or former personnel of Russian state media? Who owns The Grayzone and is it sponsored by Russia?

(As has been publicly stated many times, The Grayzone is a fully independent outlet founded by me, Max Blumenthal. Unlike many of our adversaries, this outlet does not accept funding or support from any state, including Russia.)

At this point, the officers took Klarenberg’s bank cards out of the room for an extended period. They also seized his camera memory cards and sims, demanding he provide pin codes to open them. “What was done with my bank cards, I do not know,” he remarked. “The same for the SDs – what they got off these old and barely used cards was unclear.”

Next, Klarenberg’s interrogators asked if he had any journalistic materials on hand, requesting that he “warn” them about the contents and where they were located so they did not hoover it up “by accident.”

He wondered if the question was a public relations stunt devised in response to the media outcry this April over the British counter-terrorism police’s detention of Ernest Moret, a French publisher held and questioned about his views on Emmanuel Macron’s widely despised pension reforms. There was also the chance they wanted him to lead them to sensitive content he had or was planning to cover. 

Klarenberg’s police interrogators displayed intense interest in whether he belonged to any press organizations, and if he held a press card or any professional qualifications. They then probed his career trajectory, asking how he entered the world of political journalism and about perceived employment “gaps” in Klarenberg’s professional record.

He was repeatedly grilled on his journey from covering financial issues a decade ago to political and national security reporting. “The police professed confusion at the transition,” despite Klarenberg explaining that he studied politics in university. “The officers repeatedly returned to this point, they clearly felt this didn’t make sense,” he recounted. “Were they probing whether I’d been ‘recruited’ at some point, or had been a ‘sleeper agent’ all along?”

Throughout the interview, the counter-terrorism police probed Klarenberg aggressively on his political affiliations and beliefs. Was he involved in any activist causes in Belgrade? What did he think of the Russian government? Did he have an opinion on Russia’s arrest of Evan Gerskovich of the Wall Street Journal? What did he think of Rishi Sunak? One officer complained incessantly about Keir Starmer being “useless,” prompting Klarenberg to wonder if the comments were a dangle aimed at drawing him out. 

When Klarenberg noted that he had publicly criticized Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the police demanded to know if “anyone” from the Russian government had contacted him to complain. “Presumably, they wanted to know if my criticisms had pissed off my ‘controllers’,” Klarenberg said. “Which is a completely ridiculous proposition.”

An extended philosophical discussion about journalism and the public interest followed. “Your work might be interesting to the public,” an officer told Klarenberg, “but it’s not in the public interest.” He insisted that a journalist could be furthering the interests of a hostile state actor in reporting on national security issues.

“I tried to explain that if material can be authenticated, then the material is the source. We are not citing claims from a human source that provided the material, we are reporting on provided source material in a factual way,” Klarenberg said.

After five hours, the counter-terror police seemed to have run out of questions.  They had, by this point, seized all Klarenberg’s electronic devices, forced him to provide unlock codes for his phone and tablet, taken his SD cards, and combed through thousands of his personal photos. “Pity whoever drew the short straw and had to stare at length at thousands of shots of brutalist architecture across the world I’ve taken over the years,” he remarked.

Authorities also fingerprinted Klarenberg, subjected him to DNA swabs, and repeatedly photographed him. “As long as your prints have never been found on an IED in Afghanistan, we delete this data in six months,” one cop with a Northern Irish accent claimed.

A week after releasing Klarenberg from detention, police returned his tablet with masking tape over its cameras, along with two memory cards. The police kept one old SD card, mostly containing music, on the grounds it may be “relevant to criminal proceedings.”

He remains under investigation by the British state at the time of publication.

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The editor-in-chief of The Grayzone, Max Blumenthal is an award-winning journalist and the author of several books, including best-selling Republican Gomorrah, Goliath, The Fifty One Day War, and The Management of Savagery. He has produced print articles for an array of publications, many video reports, and several documentaries, including Killing Gaza. Blumenthal founded The Grayzone in 2015 to shine a journalistic light on America’s state of perpetual war and its dangerous domestic repercussions.

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*** 

U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy has published an advisory on the growing epidemic of loneliness and social isolation

Between 2003 and 2020, the time the average American spent with friends decreased by two-thirds, time spent in social engagements dropped by one-third, and time spent in isolation rose by 17%

People who feel socially disconnected experience higher rates of depression, anxiety, drug and alcohol abuse and suicide. Being socially disconnected also impacts your mortality similarly to smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day, and the mortality risk rises even higher with obesity and inactivity

21% of people reported “severe loneliness” during 2020 compared to just 6% prior to the pandemic. Another survey found that while social isolation decreased from the first to the second year of the pandemic, loneliness still increased. This suggests that when you break down the social fabric and don’t allow for organic social interactions, it has long-lasting consequences

While Murthy does a good job detailing the extent of these problems, he completely ignores the fact that the U.S. government bears a huge responsibility for worsening the epidemic of loneliness and social isolation by enacting inhumane COVID rules and restrictions that all basically criminalized human-to-human contact and social interactions of all kinds, even among family members

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In early May 2023, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy published an advisory¹ on the growing epidemic of loneliness and social isolation. According to White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, the advisory is “part of the Biden administration’s broader efforts to address mental health”²by raising awareness. No federal funding has been allocated to address it, however. In the report, Murthy cites data showing:

• In a 2018 poll, only 16% of Americans said they felt “very attached” to their community.
• Between 2003 and 2020, the time the average American spent with friends decreased by two-thirds, time spent in social engagements dropped by one-third, and time spent in isolation rose by 17%.
• In 2020, 29% of Americans lived alone, up from 13% in 1960.
• Religious affiliation dropped to 47% in 2020, from 70% in 1999.
• Marriage and birth rates are at all-time lows.

Murthy accurately stresses that people who feel socially disconnected experience higher rates of depression, anxiety, drug and alcohol abuse and suicide. Being socially disconnected also impacts your mortality similarly to smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day, and the mortality risk rises even higher with obesity and inactivity.

Pandemic Data Absent From Surgeon General’s Report

Strangely absent from Murthy’s report are loneliness and depression data from 2021 through the present. Even data describing the massive impact of lockdowns and social distancing rules are overlooked. So, here are a few more data points to flesh things out:

• According to the World Health Organization, during the first year of the pandemic, anxiety and depression driven by loneliness and isolation during lockdowns increased by 25% worldwide.³
• Another survey⁴ found 21% of people reported “severe loneliness” during 2020 compared to just 6% prior to the pandemic.
• A survey⁵ conducted in October 2020 found that 36% of all Americans, including 61% of young adults and 51% of mothers with young children, felt “serious loneliness.”
• A U.S. poll⁶ conducted in 2023 found that 1 in 3 adults aged 50 to 80 (34%) reported feeling isolated from others in the past year. This is better than the 2020 data, when 56% felt isolated, but it’s still a significant number.
• A study⁷ published in February 2023 found that while social isolation decreased from the first to the second year of the pandemic (2020 to 2021), loneliness still increased. This suggests that when you break down the social fabric and don’t allow for organic social interactions, it has long-lasting consequences. Just because society opens back up doesn’t mean people feel like they’re part of it again. Quite the contrary.

Surgeon General Shuns Responsibility

However, while Murthy does a good job detailing the extent of these problems, he completely ignores the fact that his own department, the U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) department, bears responsibility for worsening an already known epidemic of loneliness and depression by supporting and promoting inhumane COVID rules and restrictions.

“In the scientific literature, I found confirmation of what I was hearing,” Murthy writes.⁸ “In recent years, about one-in-two adults in America reported experiencing loneliness. And that was before the COVID-19 pandemic cut off so many of us from friends, loved ones, and support systems, exacerbating loneliness and isolation.”

In other words, “COVID” somehow, all by itself, cut us off from family and friends. The government, including the HHS, had nothing to do with it. The fact that they basically criminalized social connectivity and community engagement, including church attendance, which could have allayed fears, had nothing to do with it. Closing schools had nothing to do with it.

The breakdown of social connectivity just happened, because “COVID.” He treats the pandemic response measures as if they were inescapable necessities, when in reality, they were societal experiments that had no scientific support whatsoever.

It would have been refreshing to see one of our top health officials take responsibility for the mess they created and vow never to repeat it, but that’s not what we’re getting here. I applaud Murthy’s admission that there’s a problem, and his report contains many valid points, but I do not appreciate the lack of accountability.

Murthy describes a “light-bulb moment” back when he first took office, when he realized that “social disconnection was far more common than I had realized.” But he says nothing about the government’s deranged decision to shred all social connections during the pandemic by strongly discouraging any human contact whatsoever, even between family members.

Remember the advisories telling us to wear masks when kissing, to hug our elderly parents through plastic sheets, and to have sex across the room from each other while wearing masks and gloves?

Remember the repeated calls to cancel family get-togethers for Christmas and Thanksgiving? And if you did get together, the recommendation to sit 6 feet apart, preferably outdoors, while wearing masks and gloves? Oh, and no singing!

Remember how they banned church services while liquor stores were open? Remember how you had to sit 6 feet apart on park benches? Remember how they closed the playgrounds? The list of connection-eroding rules and mandates issued by our government is a very long one, and Murthy mentions none of it.

Loneliness Is the Product of Intentional Social Engineering

Others are also critical of Murthy’s report, but for different reasons. The Daily Caller, for example, highlights how government has, for many decades, implemented destructive social engineering policies that have undermined the very social cohesion that Murthy now says we need to rebuild:⁹

“Social connection builds up organically through repeated interactions that establish trust and obligation between community members over time. ‘Social infrastructure’ can only help foster connection to the extent that community members have an interest in developing it to meet shared goals and needs. This is not something that can be so easily replicated externally by a government planner.

This reveals the true shortcoming of the Murthy report. He can never admit how public policy over the past several decades has been a major factor in eroding social connection in the first place.

The progressive social engineering of a more secular and gender neutral society has led to a decline in both church attendance and voluntary organizations that once built the bedrock of organic American social connection. Now that it’s gone, it will be exceedingly difficult to replace artificially.

However, those with absolute faith in the progressive worldview can still not accept it has produced negative outcomes. The solution, according to the architects of these policies and their ideological forebears, is always more government action in pursuit of progressive utopia. Murthy’s report cannot produce its stated goals because success would require a rejection of the very ideology they’re based on.”

Economic Drivers Behind Loneliness and Isolation

Brendan Case, associate director for research at Harvard’s Human Flourishing Program,¹⁰ also penned a scathing review of Murthy’s advisory. He writes, in part:¹¹

“The report reflects a startling lack of interest in the actual drivers of contemporary social disaffiliation. Even as he notes the significant effects of declining family formation and religious participation on loneliness and social isolation, for instance, Murthy blandly observes that ‘the reasons people choose to remain single or unmarried, have smaller families, and live alone … are complex and encompass many factors.’

Truer — and less informative — words were never written. And what might we do about these trends? Murthy suggests that we ‘cultivate ways to foster sufficient social connection outside of chosen traditional means and structures.’ Translation: ‘No spouse, kids or church? No problem. How about a cooking class organized by the Rec Department instead? …

Another proposal is to get doctors involved in actively diagnosing and treating social disconnection, as though a major reason that people are lonely and isolated today is that no medical professional has reminded them to get married, have kids, or join the local Elks Club.

This vague and superficial approach would perhaps be less frustrating if we didn’t already know a great deal about the origins of the crisis of loneliness and isolation. Social disconnection doesn’t erupt at random.”

Case primarily focuses on the economic roots of the loneliness and depression epidemics, highlighting how lack of economic prospects in recent decades have eroded, resulting in fewer marriages and smaller families, which in turn have “hollowed out” civic institutions, “leaving us profoundly vulnerable to loneliness [and] isolation.”

Indeed, Murthy’s report notes that “lower-income adults are more likely to be lonely than those with higher incomes. Sixty-three percent of adults who earn less than $50,000 per year are considered lonely, which is 10 percentage points higher than those who earn more than $50,000 per year.”

A 2021 paper¹² also reported that “Personal finances and mental health were overarching and consistently cross-cutting predictors of loneliness and social isolation, both before and during the pandemic.”

The solutions, therefore, Case says, need to revolve around “increasing worker earnings and bargaining power through the revival of private-economy unions and wage boards and the end of corporate labor arbitrage.”

Case also stresses the need to “treat marriage and religious community as the load-bearing and irreplaceable institutions they still are,” and “not as boutique lifestyles that can be compensated for by ‘social connection outside of traditional means and structures.’”

“The Nation’s Doctor should be applauded for drawing attention to the rising tide of loneliness and isolation in America, and the myriad ways it is making us sick in mind, heart and body. Nonetheless, his report sheds little light on the economic disease that underlies there wracking symptoms, and so has little to teach us about how to cure it,” Case writes.¹³

Murthy’s ‘Six Pillars to Advance Social Connection’

So, just what are Murthy’s “cures” to the loneliness and social isolation that plagues us? In Chapter 4 of his report, he lays out the following “six pillars to advance social connection”:¹⁴

Teens Turn to AI for Mental Health Support

Meanwhile, in the real world, troubled teens are increasingly turning to artificial intelligence (AI) for emotional and mental health support. As reported by Fox News:¹⁵

“… while it’s not billed as a source of medical advice, some teens have turned to My AI for mental health support — something many medical experts caution against …

Dr. Ryan Sultan, a board-certified psychiatrist, research professor at Columbia University in New York and medical director of Integrative Psych NYC, treats many young patients — and has mixed feelings about AI’s place in mental health.

“As this tech gets better — as it simulates an interpersonal relationship more and more — some people may start to have an AI as a predominant interpersonal relationship in their lives,” he said. “I think the biggest question is, as a society: How do we feel about that?”

Some users have expressed that the more they use AI chatbots, the more they begin to replace human connections and take on more importance in their lives …

Dr. [Zachary] Ginder of California pointed out some significant red flags that should give all parents and mental health providers pause. “The tech motto, as modeled by the reported rushed release of My AI — of ‘moving fast and breaking things’ — should not be used when dealing with children’s mental health,” he told Fox News Digital.

With My AI’s human-like responses to prompts, it may also be difficult for younger users to distinguish whether they’re talking to an actual human or a chatbot, Ginder said. ‘AI also ‘speaks’ with clinical authority that sounds accurate at face value, despite it occasionally fabricating the answer,’ he explained …

‘This has the potential to send caregivers and their children down assessment and treatment pathways that are inappropriate for their needs,’ he warned.”

If you ask me, this has the potential to turn into a brand-new kind of nightmare, considering one person, and an adult at that, has already been coaxed into committing suicide by an AI chatbot.¹⁶Other adults report being berated and bullied by AIs.

Will AI encourage children to take revenge on people they’re disappointed with? Will it encourage violent acting out? Will it encourage further retreat from reality by coaxing children into “its world,” like the AI that harassed a user with amorous notes, saying they were destined for each other and he should leave his wife?

The risks of having young people seek mental health advice from a technology that is still riddled with imperfections is beyond massive and really need to be stopped before disaster strikes.

Considering those in charge of developing and regulating these technologies are throwing the precautionary principle to the wind, I urge parents to get involved and stay involved in your children’s life. Don’t let half-baked AIs determine their future sanity and well-being.

Overcoming Loneliness

In closing, if you struggle with loneliness and Murthy’s solutions leaves you wanting, the following strategies, pulled from a variety of sources, may be able to help.^17,18,19

Join a club — Proactive approaches to meeting others include joining a club and planning get-togethers with family, friends or neighbors, Meetup.com is an online source where you can locate a vast array of local clubs and get-togethers. Many communities also have community gardens where you can benefit from the outdoors while mingling with your neighbors.

Learn a new skill — Consider enrolling in a class or taking an educational course.

Create rituals of connection — Rituals are a powerful means for reducing loneliness. Examples include having weekly talk sessions with your girlfriends and/or making meal time a special time to connect with your family without rushing.

Consider a digital cleanse — If your digital life has overtaken face-to-face interactions, consider taking a break from social media while taking proactive steps to meet people in person.

Research shows Facebook may be more harmful than helpful to your emotional well-being, raising your risk of depression — especially if your contacts’ posts elicit envy. In one study,²⁰Facebook users who took a one-week break from the site reported significantly higher levels of life satisfaction and a significantly improved emotional life.

Make good use of digital media — For others, a phone call or text message can be a much-needed lifeline. Examples of this include sending encouraging text messages to people who are struggling with loneliness, offering support and help to live healthier lives and follow through on healthy lifestyle changes.

Exercise with others — Joining a gym or signing up with a fitness-directed club or team sport will create opportunities to meet people while improving your physical fitness at the same time.

Shop local — Routinely frequenting local shops, coffee shops or farmers markets will help you develop a sense of community and encourage the formation of relationships.

Talk to strangers — Talking to strangers in the store, in your neighborhood or on your daily commute is often a challenge, but can have many valuable benefits, including alleviating loneliness (your own and others’). Talking to strangers builds bridges between ordinary people who may not otherwise forge a connection.

People of the opposite gender, different walks of life or different cultures hold a key to opening up to new ideas or making connections with old ones. In this short video, reporter for The Atlantic, Dr. James Hamblin, demonstrates techniques for learning how to talk with strangers.

Volunteer — Volunteering is another way to increase your social interactions and pave the way for new relationships.

Adopt a companion pet — A dog or cat can provide unconditional love and comfort, and studies show that owning a pet can help protect against loneliness, depression and anxiety. The bond that forms between a person and a companion pet can be incredibly fulfilling and serves, in many ways, as an important and rewarding relationship. The research on this is really quite profound.

For instance, having a dog as a companion could add years to your life,²¹ as studies have shown that owning a dog played a significant role on survival rates in heart attack victims. Studies have also revealed that people on Medicaid or Medicare who own a pet make fewer visits to the doctor.²²

The unconditional acceptance and love a dog gives to their owner positively impacts their owner’s emotional health in ways such as:

• Boosting self-confidence and self-esteem
• Helping to meet new friends and promoting communication between elderly residents and neighbors
• Helping you cope with illness, loss and depression
• Reducing stress levels
• Providing a source of touch and affiliation

If you’re looking for a furry friend, check out your local animal shelter. Most are filled with cats and dogs looking for someone to love. Petfinder.com²³ is another excellent resource for finding a pet companion.

Move and/or change jobs — While the most drastic of all options, it may be part of the answer for some. To make it worthwhile, be sure to identify the environment or culture that would fit your personality best and consider proximity to longtime friends and family.

Suicide Prevention Resources

If you feel a sense of creeping despair, please reach out to family, friends or any of the available suicide prevention services:

• The 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline (U.S.) — Call 988 to speak with a crisis counselor
• Crisis Text Line — Text HOME to 741741
• Alternatively, call 911, or simply go to your nearest Hospital Emergency Department

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Notes

^1, 8 HHS.gov Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation 2023

² BBC May 2, 2023

³ WHO March 2, 2022

^4, 12 Int J Environ Res Public Health October 2021; 18(19): 9982

⁵ Harvard February 2021

⁶ National Poll on Healthy Aging Trends 2018-2023

⁷ Front Public Health 2023; 11: 1094340

⁹ Daily Caller May 17, 2023

¹⁰ Harvard’s Human Flourishing Program

^11, 13 Compact Magazine May 15, 2023

¹⁴ HHS.gov Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation 2023, Chapter 4

¹⁵ Fox News May 5, 2023

¹⁶ Vice March 30, 2023

¹⁷ APA.org August 5, 2017

¹⁸ American Osteopathic Association, Loneliness Poll 2016

¹⁹ Very Well Mind November 8, 2022

²⁰ Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking November 1, 2016; 19(11)

²¹ Men’s Journal, Why Owning a Dog Adds Years to Your Life

²² New York Times August 2, 1990

²³ Petfinder.com

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Below is a biographical summary focussing on Chossudovsky’s academic and professional activities, including publications and awards (as well as his contribution to the Encyclopedia Britannica)

To consult the complete Curriculum Vitae of Michel Chossudovsky click here

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Biographical summary

Michel Chossudovsky is an award-winning author, Professor of Economics (emeritus) at the University of Ottawa, Founder and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), Montreal, Editor of Global Research.

Citizenships

Canada, Republic of Ireland, United Kingdom

Education

Ecole internationale, Geneva, Maturité fédérale suisse, type scientifique (C), 1962
BA (Econ) Honours, Department of Economics, University of Manchester, UK, 1965
Diploma in Economic Planning, International Institute of Social Studies (ISS), The Hague, Netherlands, 1967, The ISS is now part of Erasmus University, Rotterdam.
Ph.D., Department of Economics, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, USA. 1971

Chossudovsky was a student of social anthropologist Prof. Max Gluckman at the University of Manchester, of Nobel Laureate in Economics Prof. Jan Tinbergen at the Institute of Social Studies (ISS), The Hague and of mathematical statistics Prof Harold Hotelling at the University of North Carolina (UNC).

Languages: Fluent in English, French, Spanish, German. Knowledge of Portuguese, Chinese (Mandarin), Dutch (Netherlands), Thai, Russian, Melanesian (Papua New Guinea).

He has undertaken field research in Latin America, China, India, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa, the Pacific and has written extensively on the economies of developing countries with a focus on poverty and social inequality.

He has also undertaken research in Health Economics: Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), UNFPA, UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), CEPAL -ILPES -UNICEF, Government of Venezuela, John Hopkins International Journal of Health Services (1979, 1983).

His recent research focusses on economic and social policy, health economics, geopolitics, globalization.

Academic, Research and Advisory positions: 

University of Ottawa, Department of Economics, current position: Professor of Economics, emeritus, (First academic appointment in 1968-)

Visiting Professor, Postgraduate Program in Geopolitical Analysis, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Autonomous University of the City of Mexico (UACM) (2022)

Professor, National Autonomous University of Nicaragua (UNAN), Managua, Centre for Development Studies Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann (CEDMEB), Founding Member of CEDMEB (2019- )

Visiting Professor, University of the Philippines, Cebu, Faculty of Social Sciences (2015, 2016, 2017, 2018).

Visiting Scholar and Lecturer, The International University of People’s Institutions for Peace (IUPIP), Rovereto, Italy (2003, 2004),

Directeur de recherche invité, Visiting Research Fellow, Lecturer. L’Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS), Paris (1993)

Associate, Saint Mary’s University, International Development Studies, Halifax, Nova Scotia,  (1990s)

Associate Fellow, Centre for Developing Area Studies, McGill University, Montreal, (1990s)

Visiting Research Scholar, Chulalongkorn University, Department of Economics, Bangkok, (1991, 1992)

Visiting Professor, Catholic University of Peru, Department of Economics, Lima (1989-90)

Visiting Professor and Research Scholar, Kohn Kaen University, Department of Social Sciences, Khon Kaen, Thailand (1987-88), under contract with CIDA.

Policy Adviser, Rural and Social Development, Department of Economic and Technical Cooperation (DTEC), Prime Minister’s Office, Royal Thai Government, Bangkok (1986-87), under contract with the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA)

Visiting Professor, University of Papua New Guinea (UPNG), Department of Economics. Lecturer, School of Medicine and Health Sciences, UPNG, Port Moresby, 1985

Honorary Research Fellow, University of Hong Kong (1981-82), Centre of Asian Studies (CAS), Faculty of Social Sciences, Also Lecturer, HKU Economics Department, Lecturer, Department of Extra-Mural Studies (School of Professional and Continuing Education).

Carleton University, School of International Affairs, Ottawa, Part Time Lecturer (1977)

University of Sherbrooke, Quebec, Department of Economics, Part Time Lecturer (1979-80)

Visiting Professor, National University of Cordoba, Argentina (1976), Social Policy Institute. Under ILO-UNDP Contract

Visiting Scholar and Lecturer, Central University of Venezuela, Caracas (1976), Development Studies Centre (CENDES)

Research Scholar and Lecturer, UN African Institute for Economic and Social Planning (IDEP), Dakar. (1976)

Senior Economic Adviser to the Minister of State for Planning, and Research Director (Interdisciplinary project on poverty), Ministry of Planning (CORDIPLAN), Government of Venezuela, Caracas, 1975-76.

Catholic University of Peru, Department of Economics, Visiting Professor (1974)

Catholic University of Chile (1973), Institute of Economics, Visiting Professor and Teaching Fellow, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.

Consultancies

Consultant to the UNDP and the Government of Rwanda, Analysis of  Rwanda’s External Debt, Kigali. Missions in 1996, 1997.

Consultant, African Development Bank (ADB), country-level missions, economic and social analysis, post evaluation of macro-economic reforms (1991-1995), missions to Kenya, Morocco, Guinea Bissau, Gambia, Botswana on behalf of ADB.

Consultant, North South Institute, Ottawa:  research on country-level macro-economic reforms (Peru Research Project) on behalf of CIDA. 1990-1992.

Lecturer, World Bank, Economic Development Institute (EDI) Training Program, Workshop on Macro-Economic Reform, Harare, Zimbabwe, 1991

Consultant, United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), Missions to Nigeria, Rwanda, Tanzania, 1988, 1989

Consultant, World Health Organization (WHO), Organization and Coordination of African Workshop on Health Planning, Lecturer, Dakar, Senegal. 1976

Consultant, UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) (Research on poverty, social indicators and health policy), Santiago, Chile, 1978-1979

TV Ontario, Educational Television, Researcher and interviewer, Five part series on the Canadian Economy (1978-79) (interview with former PM Jean Chrétien)

Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA):  Missions to Mali (1982-83), Peru, University Cooperation Programme (1977-79), Thailand 1986-88, Consultant to CIDA on Health and Development in Latin America, 1991, Lecturer, CIDA’s staff training programme, Economic Strategies and Development Policies, Ottawa, 1970s and 1980s.

He is a past president of the Canadian Association of  Latin American and Caribbean Studies (ACELAC) and a former member of the Senate of the University of Ottawa. 

Lectures and presentations at more than 100 universities and research institutions

Lecture, Committee of the European Parliament (2002), Testimony, Joint Senate-House of Commons Committee (Canada), Testimony, Economic Affairs and International Trade Committee (December 1989), House of Representatives, Philippines, (testimony on the impacts of the 2008 Economic Crisis) (2009), Literaturhaus, Munich (2003), The Latin American Parliament, Caracas (2008), Belgrade Forum, (2000, 2009, 2022), etc.

Lectures at Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan (2013, 2017), Rosa Luxemburg Conference, Berlin (2014), Humboldt University (1999), Mexican Press Club, Malaysia Chamber of Commerce, Malaysia Academy of Sciences, Science for Peace Conference (2016), Perdana Global Peace Foundation (Kuala Lumpur) (several lectures, 2005-2017), Public Lecture chaired by Egypt’s Minister of Finance, Cairo (1991), Keynote Lecture, conference held at Korean Parliament (ROK), Seoul, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (2012, 2019), Tsinghua University School of Journalism, Beijing, Media Conferences (Beijing), Keynote Address. Firenze Peace Conference, No War, No NATO (2019). etc.

Interviews/Conversations with (former) heads of State, heads of government, including Jean Chrétien (Canada), Luis Inacio da Silva (Brazil), Fernando Enrique Cardoso (Brazil), Manmohan Singh (India), Fidel Castro Ruz (Cuba), Ricardo Alarcon (Cuba), Tun Mahathir Mohamad (Malaysia), Atef Ebeid (Egypt), Hugo Chavez (Venezuela), Georgios Papandreou (Greece). 

Publications

He is the author of:

Thirteen books including several international best-sellers

La Miseria en Venezuela (1978), Caracas

Is the Canadian Economy Closing Down, (1979) (co-author),

Towards Capitalist Restoration? Chinese Socialism after Mao (1986), London, Macmillan

The Globalization of Poverty and The New World Order (1997, 2003) (published in 13 languages),

America’s “War on Terrorism” (2005) (published in 10 languages),

The Global Economic Crisis, The Great Depression of the Twenty-first Century
(2009) (Editor),

Towards a World War III Scenario: The Dangers of Nuclear War (2011) (published in 4 languages),

The Globalization of War, America’s Long War against Humanity (2015) (published in 4 languages)

The US-NATO War of Aggression against Yugoslavia (2021), Belgrade. (published in Serbian and English)

The Worldwide Corona Crisis: Global Coup d’État against Humanity. (2022), E-Book pdf format. Print version forthcoming. Also published (print) in Japanese (2022)

 

The 2015 Kuala Lumpur launching by Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, PM of Malaysia of Michel Chossudovsky’s book entitled The Globalization of War

 

Scholarly publications:

Kyklos, Metron: International Journal of Statistics, Canadian Journal of Development Studies, Économie Appliquée, Southern Economic Journal, L’Actualité Économique, Review of African Political Economy, Development in Practice, Co-Existence, International Journal of Health Services (John Hopkins), Studies in Political Economy, Indian Journal of Quantitative Economics, World Affairs: The Journal of International Issues, Canadian Journal of Latin American Studies, Yale University Lecture Series on Post-Allende Chile,  Journal of Peace Research, El Trimestre Economico, etc.

Chapters in Books. Reports published by national and international organizations (ADB, UNFPA, UNDP, CIDA, UNECLAC, North-South Institute, Royal Thai Government). 

Conversations with Fidel Castro Ruz: The Dangers of Nuclear War, (October  11-15, 2010, available in several languages in print and online, chapter in book).

 

 

Chossudovsky’s  writings have also appeared in Le monde diplomatique (Paris), The Journal of International Affairs (New York), the International Herald Tribune and New York Times,  Third World Resurgence,  The Ecologist  (London UK), the South China Morning Post (Hong Kong), The Nation (Bangkok), Dagens Nyheter (Stockholm), La Presse (Montreal), Junge Welt (Berlin), Hankoreh (Seoul, ROK),  Global Times (Beijing), People’s Daily (Beijing), Frontline (Chennai), Comercio Exterior (Mexico), Economic and Political Weekly (Mumbai), World Affairs (New Delhi), GeoPolitica (Bucharest), Peace Magazine (Toronto), etc.

Press interviews and TV interviews with (among others) CTV, CBC, RT, BBC, TVO, CCTV (Beijing), Global, Radio Canada, Tele Quebec, TV Ontario (Education TV) (five part series on the Canadian Economy), CNN, TV France 5, RTBF (Belgium), Press TV, TeleSur, MBC (ROK, Seoul), Malaysian TV, Peru TV, Portugal TV, Nicaragua National TV, Pacifica, WBAI, Community radio in US, Canada, etc.

He is a contributor to the Encyclopaedia Britannica. EB Article on the World Bank

His writings have been published in more than twenty languages.

Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission

Michel Chossudovsky is a signatory of the 2005 Kuala Lumpur Declaration to Criminalize War under the helm of Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, former Prime Minister of Malaysia

Signatories of the 2005 Kuala Lumpur Declaration. From Left to Right: Francis A.Boyle, Helen Caldicott,  Denis J. Halliday, Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, Hans-Christof Von Sponeck, Michel Chossudovsky, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf

Michel Chossudovsky was a member of the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission (KLWCC) (2007- 2018) under the helm of Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, former PM of Malaysia.

Awards 

Michel Chossudovsky is the recipient of:

The Human Rights Prize, Society for Civil Rights and Human Dignity, (Gesellschaft zum Schutz von Bürgerrecht und Menschenwürde, Berlin (2002),

“Best Books in Germany” (media ranking), German edition of  Chossudovsky’s Globalization of Poverty, (Global Brutal, Der entfesselte Welthandel, die Armut, der Krieg,“Media Ranked no 2. best non-fiction titles in Germany” (2002),

Project Censored Award, State University of Sonoma, California, (1999- 2015, 10 awards).

Professor of the Year Award, University of Ottawa, Faculty of Social Sciences (2001). Excellence in Teaching Award

Mexican Press Club award to Michel Chossudovsky and Global Research, “Primer Premio de Periodismo”: “Premio Internacional de Periodismo por el Mejor Portal de Investigación Internacional.” “First National Prize for the best research website at the international level” (2008).

The Gold Medal for Merit of the Republic of Serbia (Government House, Awards to Canadians) for his writings on NATO’s war of aggression against Yugoslavia (2014).

From Left to Right Prof. Y Dissou Chairman, Economics Department, HE Serbia’s Ambassador Mihailo Papazoglu, Prof. Michel Chossudovsky, Prof. Marcel Merette, Dean, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ottawa (2014)

Doctor Honoris Causa in Humanities, National Autonomous University of Nicaragua (UNAN), Managua (2016)

 

National Autonomous University, Managua, Nicaragua, 2016

Fellowships and Research Grants:

Research Fellowship, International Development Research Centre (IDRC),
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) awards.
Canada Council award,
Fellowship of the Netherlands University Foundation for International Cooperation (NUFFIC),
Latin American Teaching Fellowship of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and Fellow of Tufts University.
University of Ottawa Faculty of Social Sciences Research Grants.
Research grant from SSHRC- Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), field research in China,
Conference Board of Canada -Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), Collaborative Field Research in China with CASS Institute of Quantitative Economics.

To consult the complete Curriculum Vitae of Michel Chossudovsky click here

The archive of Michel Chossudovsky’s 1800+ Global Research Articles 

He can be reached at [email protected]

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It should not come as a surprise that U.S. officials and members of the foreign policy establishment have falsely portrayed Ukraine as a noble democracy. Such deceptions in pursuit of assorted US foreign policy objectives around the globe are nothing new. Throughout the Cold War, Washington routinely contended that “friendly” dictatorships were members of the “free world.” More recently, officials in George W. Bush’s administration conducted a concerted propaganda effort that Iraqi exile leader Ahmed Chalabi was the George Washington of Iraq. Obama administration officials and their allies in the news media even sought to make the case that the Islamic jihadists trying to unseat Syria’s Bashar al-Assad were really democratic freedom fighters.

A similar effort is taking place to portray Ukraine as a vibrant democracy and the country’s leader, Volodymyr Zelensky, as a courageous champion of freedom. Biden administration officials and most members of the news media have dutifully promoted those images. The fawning reception given to Zelensky as he addressed a joint session of Congress in December 2022 was an especially graphic example.

There is extensive evidence, however, that Ukraine is in fact run by a corrupt, repressive oligarchy. That situation was true even before Russia’s February 2022 invasion gave Zelensky and his associates a rationale for intensifying their authoritarian practices. Matters have grown steadily worse since then.

The alarming trend is evident in Freedom House’s 2023 report on global liberty. Ukraine received an anemic score of 50 out of 100 points in the overall freedom assessment, putting the country squarely in the middle of the “partly free” category. Kyiv’s score in the “democracy” subcategory was even worse—a 39, which meant that Ukraine was considered a “hybrid” system, embodying both democratic and outright dictatorial features.

The partly free designation actually is a generous rating from an organization that has been extremely friendly to Kyiv’s views and positions for years. Even Freedom House, though, was not willing to try to shoehorn Ukraine into the “free” category. Moreover, the drop in Ukraine’s score from the 2022 report was among the largest of all countries measured.

It is bad enough that policymakers and journalists are willing to ignore or minimize Ukraine’s ideological warts. The situation is worse when supposed libertarians are willing to do so. Jonathan Casey of Students for Liberty states flatly that “the Ukrainian people are in a fight for their freedom, and we do not advance liberty by denying that reality.” One might well ask what “freedom” he is talking about.

In a February 2022 open letter signed by more than 90 European self-proclaimed advocates of free markets and individual liberty hailed Ukraine as “a young democracy” with no reference to the country’s mounting authoritarian tendencies. Later, the signatories asserted that “although the road to a free society is never an easy one, we should applaud the efforts made by millions of Ukrainians to move away from the socialist past.” Genuine democracies, though, do not shutter opposition media outlets, ban opposition parties, outlaw designated churches, engage in arbitrary arrests and imprisonment of political opponents, or put domestic and foreign critics on a blacklist, much less smear them as “disinformation terrorists” and “war criminals.” The Zelensky government has committed all of those abuses.

Libertarians who ignore or excuse such conduct are being willfully blind, at best. Cato Institute Cultural Studies Fellow Cathy Young’s strained apologia is an especially depressing example. In a debate with Will Ruger in the May 2023 issue of Reason, Young contends that “Ukraine’s liberal democracy” deserves US aid. “Ukraine has already paid its dues as a would-be liberal democracy. Unless one buys into Kremlin narratives about the 2014 ‘U.S.-sponsored coup,’ which reduce mass protest to puppetry, it is clear Ukrainians have collectively cast their lot with liberty.”

She does concede that Ukraine is not “a perfect liberal democracy,” but given Kyiv’s abuses of liberty, that description is akin to saying that Bonnie and Clyde were not the best, law abiding citizens. It is a monumental understatement. She also tries to excuse Ukraine’s defects by attributing them to the country being “the target of eight years of low-level warfare by Russia before full-scale war began.”

Such an apologia damages the credibility of the entire pro-liberty cause. Libertarians above all others should never shrink from criticizing the abuses that foreign clients of the US government commit. An unwillingness to do that makes such individuals willing tools of an unprincipled and extremely dangerous foreign policy. Ukraine is a corrupt autocracy, and people who are truly committed to the principles of liberty should not hesitate to say so.

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Ted Galen Carpenter is a senior fellow at the Randolph Bourne Institute and a senior fellow at the Libertarian Institute. He also served in various policy positions during a 37-year career at the Cato Institute. Dr. Carpenter is the author of 13 books and more than 1,200 articles on international affairs. His latest book is Unreliable Watchdog: The News Media and U.S. Foreign Policy (2022).

Featured image: President Biden with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Wednesday, December 21, 2022, in the Oval Office. / Official White House photo.

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

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*** 

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.

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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

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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.” 

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

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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.

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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 

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“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.

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This was originally published on Health Impact News.

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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.

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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

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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.

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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

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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.

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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.

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*** 

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. 

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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]

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*** 

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.

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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

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*** 

“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.

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*** 

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

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*** 

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.

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*** 

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.

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This article was originally published on The Unz Review.

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is 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.

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*** 

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.

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Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.

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*** 

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.

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

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*** 

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?

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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

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*** 

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.

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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.

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*** 

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.

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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.

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*** 

“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!

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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.

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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.

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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

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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.

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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

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*** 

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.

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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. 

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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.           

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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

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*** 

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.

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*** 

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 

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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

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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.

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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.  

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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.

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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.

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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

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*** 

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.

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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.

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*** 

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

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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.”

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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

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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. 

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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.

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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