Global Research Editor’s Note

We bring to the attention of our readers the following text of Osama bin Laden’s interview with Ummat, a Pakistani daily, published in Karachi on September 28, 2001. It was translated into English by the BBC World Monitoring Service and made public on September 29, 2001.

The authenticity of this interview remains to be confirmed. It was available in recognized electronic news archives including the BBC. 

The interview tends to demystify the Osama bin Laden persona.

Osama bin Laden categorically denies his involvement in the 9/11 attacks.  Bin Laden’s statements in this interview are markedly different from those made in the alleged Osama video tapes.

In this interview, Osama bin Laden exhibits an understanding of US foreign policy. He expresses his views regarding the loss of life on 9/11. He focusses on CIA support to the narcotics trade.

He also makes statements as to who, in his opinion, might be the likely perpetrator of  the September 11 attacks.

This is an important text which has not been brought to the attention of Western public opinion.

We have highlighted key sections of this interview.

It is our hope that the text of this interview, published on 28 September 2001 barely a week before the onset of the war on Afghanistan, will contribute to a better understanding of the history of Al Qaeda, the role of Osama bin Laden and the tragic events of September 11, 2001.

I should be noted that on the day preceding the 9/11 attacks, Osama Bin Laden had been admitted for treatment in a Military Hospital in Rawalpindi, Pakistan.

This was confirmed by Dan Rather in a CBS News Report. 

This interview is published for informational purposes only.

GR does not in any way endorse the statements in this interview. Nor are we in a position to confirm its authenticity.

Michel  Chossudovsky, September 2, 2023


Full text of September 2001 Pakistani paper’s “exclusive” interview with Usamah Bin-Ladin

translated from Urdu by the BBC World Monitoring Service

Karachi, 28 September 2001, pp. 1- 7.

Ummat’s introduction

Kabul: Prominent Arab mojahed holy warrior Usamah Bin-Ladin has said that he or his al-Qa’idah group has nothing to do with the 11 September suicidal attacks in Washington and New York. He said the US government should find the attackers within the country. In an exclusive interview with daily “Ummat”, he said these attacks could be the act of those who are part of the American system and are rebelling against it and working for some other system. Or, Usamah said, this could be the act of those who want to make the current century a century of conflict between Islam and Christianity. Or, the American Jews, who are opposed to President Bush ever since the Florida elections, might be the masterminds of this act. There is also a great possibility of the involvement of US intelligence agencies, which need billions of dollars worth of funds every year. He said there is a government within the government in the United States.

The secret agencies, he said, should be asked as to who are behind the attacks. Usamah said support for attack on Afghanistan was a matter of need for some Muslim countries and compulsion for others. However, he said, he was thankful to the courageous people of Pakistan who erected a bulwark before the wrong forces. He added that the Islamic world was attaching great expectations with Pakistan and, in time of need, “we will protect this bulwark by sacrificing of lives”.

Following is the interview in full detail:

Ummat: You have been accused of involvement in the attacks in New York and Washington. What do you want to say about this? If you are not involved, who might be?

Usamah [Osama bin Laden]: In the name of Allah, the most beneficent, the most merciful. Praise be to Allah, Who is the creator of the whole universe and Who made the earth as an abode for peace, for the whole mankind. Allah is the Sustainer, who sent Prophet Muhammad for our guidance. I am thankful to the Ummat Group of Publications, which gave me the opportunity to convey my viewpoint to the people, particularly the valiant and Momin true Muslim people of Pakistan who refused to believe in lie of the demon.

I have already said that I am not involved in the 11 September attacks in the United States. As a Muslim, I try my best to avoid telling a lie. I had no knowledge of these attacks, nor do I consider the killing of innocent women, children, and other humans as an appreciable act. Islam strictly forbids causing harm to innocent women, children, and other people.

Such a practice is forbidden ever in the course of a battle. It is the United States, which is perpetrating every maltreatment on women, children, and common people of other faiths, particularly the followers of Islam. All that is going on in Palestine for the last 11 months is sufficient to call the wrath of God upon the United States and Israel.

There is also a warning for those Muslim countries, which witnessed all these as a silent spectator. What had earlier been done to the innocent people of Iraq, Chechnya, and Bosnia?

Only one conclusion could be derived from the indifference of the United States and the West to these acts of terror and the patronage of the tyrants by these powers that America is an anti-Islamic power and it is patronizing the anti-Islamic forces. Its friendship with the Muslim countries is just a show, rather deceit. By enticing or intimidating these countries, the United States is forcing them to play a role of its choice. Put a glance all around and you will see that the slaves of the United States are either rulers or enemies of Muslims .

The US has no friends, nor does it want to keep any because the prerequisite of friendship is to come to the level of the friend or consider him at par with you. America does not want to see anyone equal to it. It expects slavery from others. Therefore, other countries are either its slaves or subordinates.

However, our case is different. We have pledged slavery to God Almighty alone and after this pledge there is no possibility to become the slave of someone else. If we do that, it will be disregardful to both our Sustainer and his fellow beings. Most of the world nations upholding their freedom are the religious ones, which are the enemies of United States, or the latter itself considers them as its enemies. Or the countries, which do not agree to become its slaves, such as China, Iran, Libya, Cuba, Syria, and the former Russia as received .

Whoever committed the act of 11 September are not the friends of the American people. I have already said that we are against the American system, not against its people, whereas in these attacks, the common American people have been killed.

According to my information, the death toll is much higher than what the US government has stated. But the Bush administration does not want the panic to spread. The United States should try to trace the perpetrators of these attacks within itself; the people who are a part of the US system, but are dissenting against it. Or those who are working for some other system; persons who want to make the present century as a century of conflict between Islam and Christianity so that their own civilization, nation, country, or ideology could survive. They can be any one, from Russia to Israel and from India to Serbia. In the US itself, there are dozens of well-organized and well-equipped groups, which are capable of causing a large-scale destruction. Then you cannot forget the American Jews, who are annoyed with President Bush ever since the elections in Florida and want to avenge him.

Then there are intelligence agencies in the US, which require billions of dollars worth of funds from the Congress and the government every year. This funding issue was not a big problem till the existence of the former Soviet Union but after that the budget of these agencies has been in danger.

They needed an enemy. So, they first started propaganda against Usamah and Taleban and then this incident happened. You see, the Bush administration approved a budget of 40bn dollars. Where will this huge amount go? It will be provided to the same agencies, which need huge funds and want to exert their importance.

Now they will spend the money for their expansion and for increasing their importance. I will give you an example. Drug smugglers from all over the world are in contact with the US secret agencies. These agencies do not want to eradicate narcotics cultivation and trafficking because their importance will be diminished. The people in the US Drug Enforcement Department are encouraging drug trade so that they could show performance and get millions of dollars worth of budget. General Noriega was made a drug baron by the CIA and, in need, he was made a scapegoat. In the same way, whether it is President Bush or any other US president, they cannot bring Israel to justice for its human rights abuses or to hold it accountable for such crimes. What is this? Is it not that there exists a government within the government in the United Sates? That secret government must be asked as to who made the attacks.

Ummat: A number of world countries have joined the call of the United States for launching an attack on Afghanistan. These also include a number of Muslim countries. Will Al-Qa’idah declare a jihad against these countries as well?

Usamah: I must say that my duty is just to awaken the Muslims; to tell them as to what is good for them and what is not. What does Islam says and what the enemies of Islam want?

Al-Qa’idah was set up to wage a jihad against infidelity, particularly to encounter the onslaught of the infidel countries against the Islamic states. Jihad is the sixth undeclared element of Islam. The first five being the basic holy words of Islam, prayers, fast, pilgrimage to Mecca, and giving alms Every anti-Islamic person is afraid of it. Al-Qa’idah wants to keep this element alive and active and make it part of the daily life of the Muslims. It wants to give it the status of worship. We are not against any Islamic country nor we consider a war against an Islamic country as jihad.

We are in favour of armed jihad only against those infidel countries, which are killing innocent Muslim men, women, and children just because they are Muslims. Supporting the US act is the need of some Muslim countries and the compulsion of others. However, they should think as to what will remain of their religious and moral position if they support the attack of the Christians and the Jews on a Muslim country like Afghanistan. The orders of Islamic shari’ah jurisprudence for such individuals, organizations, and countries are clear and all the scholars of the Muslim brotherhood are unanimous on them. We will do the same, which is being ordered by the Amir ol-Momenin the commander of the faithful Mola Omar and the Islamic scholars. The hearts of the people of Muslim countries are beating with the call of jihad. We are grateful to them.

Ummat: The losses caused in the attacks in New York and Washington have proved that giving an economic blow to the US is not too difficult. US experts admit that a few more such attacks can bring down the American economy. Why is al-Qa’idah not targeting their economic pillars?

Usamah: I have already said that we are not hostile to the United States. We are against the system, which makes other nations slaves of the United States, or forces them to mortgage their political and economic freedom. This system is totally in control of the American Jews, whose first priority is Israel, not the United States. It is simply that the American people are themselves the slaves of the Jews and are forced to live according to the principles and laws laid by them. So, the punishment should reach Israel. In fact, it is Israel, which is giving a blood bath to innocent Muslims and the US is not uttering a single word.

Ummat: Why is harm not caused to the enemies of Islam through other means, apart from the armed struggle? For instance, inciting the Muslims to boycott Western products, banks, shipping lines, and TV channels.

Usamah: The first thing is that Western products could only be boycotted when the Muslim fraternity is fully awakened and organized. Secondly, the Muslim companies should become self-sufficient in producing goods equal to the products of Western companies. Economic boycott of the West is not possible unless economic self-sufficiency is attained and substitute products are brought out. You see that wealth is scattered all across the Muslim world but not a single TV channel has been acquired which can preach Islamic injunctions according to modern requirements and attain an international influence. Muslim traders and philanthropists should make it a point that if the weapon of public opinion is to be used, it is to be kept in the hand. Today’s world is of public opinion and the fates of nations are determined through its pressure. Once the tools for building public opinion are obtained, everything that you asked for can be done.

Ummat: The entire propaganda about your struggle has so far been made by the Western media. But no information is being received from your sources about the network of Al-Qa’idah and its jihadi successes. Would you comment?

Usamah: In fact, the Western media is left with nothing else. It has no other theme to survive for a long time. Then we have many other things to do. The struggle for jihad and the successes are for the sake of Allah and not to annoy His bondsmen. Our silence is our real propaganda. Rejections, explanations, or corrigendum only waste your time and through them, the enemy wants you to engage in things which are not of use to you. These things are pulling you away from your cause.

The Western media is unleashing such a baseless propaganda, which make us surprise but it reflects on what is in their hearts and gradually they themselves become captive of this propaganda. They become afraid of it and begin to cause harm to themselves. Terror is the most dreaded weapon in modern age and the Western media is mercilessly using it against its own people. It can add fear and helplessness in the psyche of the people of Europe and the United States. It means that what the enemies of the United States cannot do, its media is doing that. You can understand as to what will be the performance of the nation in a war, which suffers from fear and helplessness.

Ummat: What will the impact of the freeze of al-Qa’idah accounts by the US?

Usamah: God opens up ways for those who work for Him. Freezing of accounts will not make any difference for Al-Qa’idah or other jihad groups. With the grace of Allah, al-Qa’idah has more than three such alternative financial systems, which are all separate and totally independent from each other. This system is operating under the patronage of those who love jihad. What to say of the United States, even the combined world cannot budge these people from their path.

These people are not in hundreds but in thousands and millions. Al-Qa’idah comprises of such modern educated youths who are aware of the cracks inside the Western financial system as they are aware of the lines in their hands. These are the very flaws of the Western fiscal system, which are becoming a noose for it and this system could not recuperate in spite of the passage of so many days.

Ummat: Are there other safe areas other than Afghanistan, where you can continue jihad?

Usamah: There are areas in all parts of the world where strong jihadi forces are present, from Indonesia to Algeria, from Kabul to Chechnya, from Bosnia to Sudan, and from Burma to Kashmir. Then it is not the problem of my person. I am helpless fellowman of God, constantly in the fear of my accountability before God. It is not the question of Usamah but of Islam and, in Islam too, of jihad. Thanks to God, those waging a jihad can walk today with their heads raised. Jihad was still present when there was no Usamah and it will remain as such even when Usamah is no longer there. Allah opens up ways and creates loves in the hearts of people for those who walk on the path of Allah with their lives, property, and children. Believe it, through jihad, a man gets everything he desires. And the biggest desire of a Muslim is the after life. Martyrdom is the shortest way of attaining an eternal life.

Ummat: What do you say about the Pakistan government policy on Afghanistan attack?

Usamah: We are thankful to the Momin and valiant people of Pakistan who erected a blockade in front of the wrong forces and stood in the first file of battle. Pakistan is a great hope for the Islamic brotherhood. Its people are awakened, organized, and rich in the spirit of faith. They backed Afghanistan in its war against the Soviet Union and extended every help to the mojahedin and the Afghan people. Then these are the same Pakistanis who are standing shoulder by shoulder with the Taleban. If such people emerge in just two countries, the domination of the West will diminish in a matter of days. Our hearts beat with Pakistan and, God forbid, if a difficult time comes we will protect it with our blood. Pakistan is sacred for us like a place of worship. We are the people of jihad and fighting for the defence of Pakistan is the best of all jihads to us. It does not matter for us as to who rules Pakistan. The important thing is that the spirit of jihad is alive and stronger in the hearts of the Pakistani people.

Copyright Ummat in Urdu, BBC translation in English, 2001


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A deluge of articles have been quickly put into circulation defending France’s military intervention in the African nation of Mali. TIME’s article, “The Crisis in Mali: Will French Intervention Stop the Islamist Advance?” decides that old tricks are the best tricks, and elects the tiresome “War on Terror” narrative.TIME claims the intervention seeks to stop “Islamist” terrorists from overrunning both Africa and all of Europe. Specifically, the article states:

“…there is a (probably well-founded) fear in France that a radical Islamist Mali threatens France most of all, since most of the Islamists are French speakers and many have relatives in France. (Intelligence sources in Paris have told TIME that they’ve identified aspiring jihadis leaving France for northern Mali to train and fight.) Al-Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), one of the three groups that make up the Malian Islamist alliance and which provides much of the leadership, has also designated France — the representative of Western power in the region — as a prime target for attack.”

What TIME elects not to tell readers is that Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) is closely allied to the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG whom France intervened on behalf of during NATO’s 2011 proxy-invasion of Libya – providing weapons, training, special forces and even aircraft to support them in the overthrow of Libya’s government.

As far back as August of 2011, Bruce Riedel out of the corporate-financier funded think-tank, the Brookings Institution, wrote “Algeria will be next to fall,” where he gleefully predicted success in Libya would embolden radical elements in Algeria, in particular AQIM. Between extremist violence and the prospect of French airstrikes, Riedel hoped to see the fall of the Algerian government. Ironically Riedel noted:

Algeria has expressed particular concern that the unrest in Libya could lead to the development of a major safe haven and sanctuary for al-Qaeda and other extremist jihadis.

And thanks to NATO, that is exactly what Libya has become – a Western sponsored sanctuary for Al-Qaeda. AQIM’s headway in northern Mali and now French involvement will see the conflict inevitably spill over into Algeria. It should be noted that Riedel is a co-author of “Which Path to Persia?” which openly conspires to arm yet another US State Department-listed terrorist organization (list as #28), the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) to wreak havoc across Iran and help collapse the government there – illustrating a pattern of using clearly terroristic organizations, even those listed as so by the US State Department, to carry out US foreign policy.Geopolitical analyst Pepe Escobar noted a more direct connection between LIFG and AQIM in an Asia Times piece titled, “How al-Qaeda got to rule in Tripoli:”

“Crucially, still in 2007, then al-Qaeda’s number two, Zawahiri, officially announced the merger between the LIFG and al-Qaeda in the Islamic Mahgreb (AQIM). So, for all practical purposes, since then, LIFG/AQIM have been one and the same – and Belhaj was/is its emir. “

“Belhaj,” referring to Hakim Abdul Belhaj, leader of LIFG in Libya, led with NATO support, arms, funding, and diplomatic recognition, the overthrowing of Muammar Qaddafi and has now plunged the nation into unending racist and tribal, genocidal infighting. This intervention has also seen the rebellion’s epicenter of Benghazi peeling off from Tripoli as a semi-autonomous “Terror-Emirate.” Belhaj’s latest campaign has shifted to Syria where he was admittedly on the Turkish-Syrian border pledging weapons, money, and fighters to the so-called “Free Syrian Army,” again, under the auspices of NATO support.

Image: NATO’s intervention in Libya has resurrected listed-terrorist organization and Al Qaeda affiliate, LIFG. It had previously fought in Iraq and Afghanistan, and now has fighters, cash and weapons, all courtesy of NATO, spreading as far west as Mali, and as far east as Syria. The feared “global Caliphate” Neo-Cons have been scaring Western children with for a decade is now taking shape via US-Saudi, Israeli, and Qatari machinations, not “Islam.” In fact, real Muslims have paid the highest price in fighting this real “war against Western-funded terrorism.”

….

LIFG, which with French arms, cash, and diplomatic support, is now invading northern Syria on behalf of NATO’s attempted regime change there, officially merged with Al Qaeda in 2007 according to the US Army’s West Point Combating Terrorism Center (CTC). According to the CTC, AQIM and LIFG share not only ideological goals, but strategic and even tactical objectives. The weapons LIFG received most certainly made their way into the hands of AQIM on their way through the porous borders of the Sahara Desert and into northern Mali.

In fact, ABC News reported in their article, “Al Qaeda Terror Group: We ‘Benefit From’ Libyan Weapons,” that:

A leading member of an al Qaeda-affiliated terror group indicated the organization may have acquired some of the thousands of powerful weapons that went missing in the chaos of the Libyan uprising, stoking long-held fears of Western officials.”We have been one of the main beneficiaries of the revolutions in the Arab world,” Mokhtar Belmokhtar, a leader of the north Africa-based al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb [AQIM], told the Mauritanian news agency ANI Wednesday. “As for our benefiting from the [Libyan] weapons, this is a natural thing in these kinds of circumstances.”

It is no coincidence that as the Libyan conflict was drawing to a conclusion, conflict erupted in northern Mali. It is part of a premeditated geopolitical reordering that began with toppling Libya, and since then, using it as a springboard for invading other targeted nations, including Mali, Algeria, and Syria with heavily armed, NATO-funded and aided terrorists.

French involvement may drive AQIM and its affiliates out of northern Mali, but they are almost sure to end up in Algeria, most likely by design.

Algeria was able to balk subversion during the early phases of the US-engineered “Arab Spring” in 2011, but it surely has not escaped the attention of the West who is in the midst of transforming a region stretching from Africa to Beijing and Moscow’s doorsteps – and in a fit of geopolitical schizophrenia – using terrorists both as a casus belli to invade and as an inexhaustible mercenary force to do it.

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Salafism and the CIA: Destabilizing the Russian Federation?

September 14th, 2012 by F. William Engdahl

Part I: Syria comes to the Russian Caucasus

On August 28 Sheikh Said Afandi, acknowledged spiritual leader of the Autonomous Russian Republic of Dagestan, was assassinated. A jihadist female suicide bomber managed to enter his house and detonate an explosive device.

The murder target had been carefully selected. Sheikh Afandi, a seventy-five-year old Sufi Muslim leader, had played the critical role in attempting to bring about reconciliation in Dagestan between jihadist Salafi Sunni Muslims and other factions, many of whom in Dagestan see themselves as followers of Sufi. With no replacement of his moral stature and respect visible, authorities fear possible outbreak of religious war in the tiny Russian autonomous republic.[1]

The police reported that the assassin was an ethnic Russian woman who had converted to Islam and was linked to an Islamic fundamentalist or Salafist insurgency against Russia and regional governments loyal to Moscow in the autonomous republics and across the volatile Muslim-populated North Caucasus region.

Ethnic Muslim populations in this region of Russia and of the former Soviet Union, including Uzbekistan, Kyrgystan and into China’s Xinjiang Province, have been the target of various US and NATO intelligence operations since the Cold War era ended in 1990. Washington sees manipulation of Muslim groups as the vehicle to bring uncontrollable chaos to Russia and Central Asia. It’s being carried out by some of the same organizations engaged in creating chaos and destruction inside Syria against the government of Bashar Al-Assad. In a real sense, as Russian security services clearly understand, if they don’t succeed in stopping the Jihadists insurgency in Syria, it will come home to them via the Caucasus.

The latest Salafist murders of Sufi and other moderate Muslim leaders in the Caucasus are apparently part of what is becoming ever clearer as perhaps the most dangerous US intelligence operation ever—playing globally with Muslim fundamentalism.

Previously US and allied intelligence services had played fast and loose with religious organizations or beliefs in one or another country. What makes the present situation particularly dangerous—notably since the decision in Washington to unleash the misnamed Arab Spring upheavals that began in Tunisia late 2010, spreading like a brushfire across the entire Islamic world from Afghanistan across Central Asia to Morocco—is the incalculable wave upon wave of killing, hatreds, destruction of entire cultures that Washington has unleashed in the name of that elusive dream named “democracy.” They do this using alleged Al-Qaeda groups, Saudi Salafists or Wahhabites, or using disciples of Turkey’s Fethullah Gülen Movement to ignite fires of religious hatred within Islam and against other faiths that could take decades to extinguish. It could easily spill over into a new World War.

Fundamentalism comes to Caucasus

Following the dissolution of the USSR, radical Afghanistani Mujahadeen, Islamists from Saudi Arabia, from Turkey, Pakistan and other Islamic countries flooded into the Muslim regions of the former USSR. One of the best-organized of these was the Gülen Movement of Fethullah Gülen, leader of a global network of Islamic schools and reported to be the major policy influence on Turkey’s Erdogan AKP party.

Gülen was quick to establish The International Dagestani-Turkish College in Dagestan. During the chaotic days after the Soviet collapse, the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation officially registered and permitted unfettered activity for a variety of Islamic foundations and organizations. These included the League of the Islamic World, the World Muslim Youth Assembly, the reportedly Al-Qaeda friendly Saudi foundation ‘Ibrahim ben Abd al-Aziz al-Ibrahim.’ The blacklist also included Al-Haramein a Saudi foundation reported tied to Al-Qaeda, and IHH, [2] a Turkish organization banned in Germany, that allegedly raised funds for jihadi fighters in Bosnia, Chechnya, and Afghanistan, and was charged by French intelligence of ties to Al Qaeda.[3] Many of these charities were covers for fundamentalist Salafists with their own special agenda.

As many of the foreign Islamists in Chechnya and Dagestan were found involved in fomenting the regional unrest and civil war, Russian authorities withdrew permission of most to run schools and institutions. Throughout the North Caucasus at the time of the Chechyn war in the late 1990’s, there were more than two dozen Islamic institutes, some 200 madrassas and numerous maktabas (Koranic study schools) present at almost all mosques.

The International Dagestani-Turkish College was one that was forced to close its doors in Dagestan. The College was run by the Fethullah Gülen organization.[4]

At the point of the Russian crackdown on the spread of Salafist teaching inside Russia at the end of the 1990’s, there was an exodus of hundreds of young Dagestani and Chechyn Muslim students to Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and other places in The Middle east, reportedly to receive training with the Gülen movement and various Saudi-financed organizations, including Salafists. [5] It is believed in Russia that the students trained by Gülen supporters or Saudi and other Salafist fundamentalist centers then were sent back to Dagestan and the North Caucasus to spread their radical strain of Islam.

By 2005 the situation in the Caucasus was so influenced by this Salafist intervention that the Chechen Salafist, Doku Umarov, cited by the UN Security Council for links to Al-Qaeda,[6] unilaterally declared creation of what he called the Caucasus Emirate, announcing he planned to establish an Islamic state under Sharia law encompassing the entire North Caucasus region including Dagestan. He modestly proclaimed himself Emir of the Caucasus Emirate. [7]

*  *  *

WWIII Scenario

*  *  *

 

Part II: Salafism at war with Sufi tradition

Salafism, known in Saudi Arabia as Wahhabism, is a fundamentalist strain of Islam which drew world attention and became notorious in March 2001 just weeks before the attacks of September 11. That was when the Salafist Taliban government in Afghanistan willfully dynamited and destroyed the historic gigantic Buddhas of Bamiyan on the ancient Silk Road, religious statues dating from the 6th Century. The Taliban Salafist leaders also banned as “un-islamic” all forms of imagery, music and sports, including television, in accordance with what they considered a strict interpretation of Sharia.

Afghani sources reported that the order to destroy the Buddhas was made by Saudi-born jihadist Wahhabite, Osama bin Laden, who ultimately convinced Mullah Omar, Taliban supreme leader at the time to execute the act.[8]

Before and…After Salafist Taliban …

While Sufis incorporate the worship of saints and theatrical ceremonial prayers into their practice, Salafis condemn as idolatry any non-traditional forms of worship. They also call for the establishment of Islamic political rule and strict Sharia law. Sufism is home to the great spiritual and musical heritage of Islam, said by Islamic scholars to be the inner, mystical, or psycho-spiritual dimension of Islam, going back centuries.

As one Sufi scholar described the core of Sufism, “While all Muslims believe that they are on the pathway to God and will become close to God in Paradise–after death and the ‘Final Judgment’– Sufis believe as well that it is possible to become close to God and to experience this closeness–while one is alive. Furthermore, the attainment of the knowledge that comes with such intimacy with God, Sufis assert, is the very purpose of the creation. Here they mention the hadith qudsi in which God states, ‘I was a hidden treasure and I loved that I be known, so I created the creation in order to be known.’ Hence for the Sufis there is already a momentum, a continuous attraction on their hearts exerted by God, pulling them, in love, towards God.” [9]

The mystical Islamic current of Sufism and its striving to become close to or one with God is in stark contrast to the Jihadist Salafi or Wahhabi current that is armed with deadly weapons, preaches a false doctrine of jihad, and a perverse sense of martyrdom, committing countless acts of violence. Little wonder that the victims of Salafist Jihads are mostly other pacific forms of Islam including most especially Sufis.

The respected seventy-five year old Afandi had publicly denounced Salafist Islamic fundamentalism. His murder followed a July 19 coordinated attack on two high-ranking muftis in the Russian Volga Republic of Tatarstan. Both victims were state-approved religious leaders who had attacked radical Islam. This latest round of murders opens a new front in the Salafist war against Russia, namely attacks on moderate Sufi Muslim leaders.

Whether or not Dagestan now descends into internal religious civil war that then spreads across the geopolitically sensitive Russian Caucasus is not yet certain. What is almost certain is that the same circles who have been feeding violence and terror inside Syria against the regime of Alawite President Bashar al-Assad are behind the killing of Sheikh Afandi as well as sparking related acts of terror or unrest across Russia’s Muslim-populated Caucasus. In a very real sense it represents Russia’s nightmare scenario of “Syria coming to Russia.” It demonstrates dramatically why Putin has made such a determined effort to stop a descent into a murderous hell in Syria.

Salafism and the CIA

The existence of the so-called jihadist Salafi brand of Islam in Dagestan is quite recent. It has also been deliberately imported. Salafism is sometimes also called the name of the older Saudi-centered Wahhabism. Wahhabism is a minority originally-Bedouin form of the faith originating within Islam, dominant in Saudi Arabia since the 1700’s.

Irfan Al-Alawi and Stephen Schwartz of the Centre for Islamic Pluralism give the following description of Saudi conditions under the rigid Wahhabi brand of Islam:

Women living under Saudi rule must wear the abaya, or total body cloak, and niqab, the face veil; they have limited opportunities for schooling and careers; they are prohibited from driving vehicles; are banned from social contact with men not relatives, and all personal activity must be supervised including opening bank accounts, by a male family member or “guardian.” These Wahhabi rules are enforced by a mutawiyin, or morals militia, also known as “the religious police,” officially designated the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice (CPVPV) who patrol Saudi cities, armed with leather-covered sticks which they freely used against those they considered wayward. They raid homes looking for alcohol and drugs, and harassed non-Wahhabi Muslims as well as believers in other faiths.” [10]

It’s widely reported that the obscenely opulent and morally-perhaps-not-entirely-of- the-highest-standards Saudi Royal Family made a Faustian deal with Wahhabite leaders. The deal supposedly, was that the Wahhabists are free to export their fanatical brand of Islam around to the Islamic populations of the world in return for agreeing to leave the Saudi Royals alone.[11] There are, however, other dark and dirty spoons stirring the Wahhabite-Salafist Saudi stew.

Little known is the fact that the present form of aggressive Saudi Wahhabism, in reality a kind of fusion between imported jihadi Salafists from Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood and the fundamentalist Saudi Wahhabites. Leading Salafist members of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood were introduced into the Saudi Kingdom in the 1950’s by the CIA in a complex series of events, when Nasser cracked down on the Muslim Brotherhood following an assassination attempt. By the 1960’s an influx of Egyptian members of the Muslim Brotherhood in Saudi Arabia fleeing Nasserite repression, had filled many of the leading teaching posts in Saudi religious schools. One student there was a young well-to-do Saudi, Osama bin Laden.  [12]

During the Third Reich, Hitler Germany had supported the Muslim Brotherhood as a weapon against the British in Egypt and elsewhere in the Middle East. Marc Erikson describes the Nazi roots of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood thus:

…as Italian and German fascism sought greater stakes in the Middle East in the 1930s and ’40s to counter British and French controlling power, close collaboration between fascist agents and Islamist leaders ensued. During the 1936-39 Arab Revolt, Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, head of German military intelligence, sent agents and money to support the Palestine uprising against the British, as did Muslim Brotherhood founder and “supreme guide” Hassan al-Banna. A key individual in the fascist-Islamist nexus and go-between for the Nazis and al-Banna became the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin el-Husseini.[13]

After the defeat of Germany, British Intelligence moved in to take over control of the Muslim Brotherhood. Ultimately, for financial and other reasons, the British decided to hand their assets within the Muslim Brotherhood over to their CIA colleagues in the 1950s. [14]

According to former US Justice Department Nazi researcher John Loftus,  “during the 1950s, the CIA evacuated the Nazis of the Muslim Brotherhood to Saudi Arabia. Now, when they arrived in Saudi Arabia, some of the leading lights of the Muslim Brotherhood, like Dr Abdullah Azzam, became the teachers in the madrassas, the religious schools. And there they combined the doctrines of Nazism with this weird Islamic cult, Wahhabism.” [15]

“Everyone thinks that Islam is this fanatical religion, but it is not,” Loftus continues. “They think that Islam–the Saudi version of Islam–is typical, but it’s not. The Wahhabi cult has been condemned as a heresy more than 60 times by the Muslim nations. But when the Saudis got wealthy, they bought a lot of silence. This is a very harsh cult. Wahhabism was only practised by the Taliban and in Saudi Arabia–that’s how extreme it is. It really has nothing to do with Islam. Islam is a very peaceful and tolerant religion. It always had good relationships with the Jews for the first thousand years of its existence.” [16]

Loftus identified the significance of what today is emerging from the shadows to take over Egypt under Muslim Brotherhood President Morsi, and the so-called Syrian National Council, dominated in reality by the Muslim Brotherhood and publicly led by the more “politically correct” or presentable likes of Bassma Kodmani. Kodmani, foreign affairs spokesman for the SNC was twice an invited guest at the Bilderberg elite gathering, latest in Chantilly, Virginia earlier this year.[17]

The most bizarre and alarming feature of the US-financed  regime changes set into motion in 2010, which have led to the destruction of the secular Arab regime of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt and Muhammar Qaddafi in Libya, and the secular regime of President Ben Ali in Tunisia, and which have wreaked savage destruction across the Middle East, especially in the past eighteen months in Syria, is the pattern of emerging power grabs by representatives of the murky Salafist Muslim Brotherhood.

By informed accounts, a Saudi-financed Sunni Islamic Muslim Brotherhood dominates the members of the exile Syrian National Council that is backed by the US State Department’s Secretary Clinton and by Hollande’s France. The Syrian Muslim Brotherhood is tied, not surprisingly to the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood of President Mohammed Morsi who recently in a meeting of the Non-Aligned in Iran called openly for the removal of Syria’s Assad, a logical step if his Muslim Brothers in the present Syrian National Council are to take the reins of power. The Saudis are also rumored to have financed the ascent to power in Tunisia of the governing Islamist Ennahda Party,[18] and are documented to be financing the Muslim Brotherhood-dominated Syrian National Council against President Bashar al-Assad. [19]

Part III: Morsi’s Reign of Salafi Terror

Indicative of the true agenda of this Muslim Brotherhood and related jihadists today is the fact that once they have power, they drop the veil of moderation and reconciliation and reveal their violently intolerant roots. This is visible in Egypt today under Muslim Brotherhood President Mohammed Morsi.

Unreported in mainstream Western media to date are alarming direct reports from Christian missionary organizations in Egypt that Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood has already begun to drop the veil of “moderation and conciliation” and show its brutal totalitarian Salafist colors, much as Khomeini’s radical Sharia forces did in Iran after taking control in 1979-81.

In a letter distributed by the Christian Aid Mission (CAM), a Christian Egyptian missionary wrote that Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood “announced they would destroy the country if Morsi didn’t win, but they also said they will take revenge from all those who voted for [his opponent Ahmed] Shafiq, especially the Christians as they are sure we did vote for Shafiq. Yesterday they began by killing two believers in el Sharqiya because of this,” the missionary added, speaking on condition of anonymity.[20]

This report came only weeks after Egyptian State TV (under Morsi’s control) showed ghastly video footage of a convert from Islam to Christianity being murdered by Muslims. The footage showed a young man being held down by masked men with a knife to his throat. As one man was heard chanting Muslim prayers in Arabic, mostly condemning Christianity, another man holding the knife to the Christian convert’s throat began to cut, slowly severing the head amid cries of “Allahu Akbar” (“Allah is great”), according to transcripts. In the letter, the Egyptian missionary leader added that, “soon after Morsi won, Christians in upper Egypt were forcibly prevented from going to churches.” Many Muslims, the letter claimed, “also began to speak to women in the streets that they had to wear Islamic clothing including the head covering. They act as if they got the country for their own, it’s theirs now.” [21]

Already in 2011 Morsi’s Salafist followers began attacking and destroying Sufi mosques across Egypt. According to the authoritative newspaper Al-Masry Al-Youm (Today’s Egyptian), 16 historic mosques in Alexandria belonging to Sufi orders have been marked for destruction by so-called ‘Salafis’. Alexandria has 40 mosques associated with Sufis, and is the headquarters for 36 Sufi groups. Half a million Sufis live in the city, out of a municipal total of four million people. Aggression against the Sufis in Egypt has included a raid on Alexandria’s most distinguished mosque, named for, and housing, the tomb of the 13th century Sufi Al-Mursi Abu’l Abbas.[22]

Notably, the so-called “democratically elected” regime in Libya following the toppling of Mohamar Qaddafi by NATO bombs in 2011, has also been zealous in destroying Sufi mosques and places of worhip. In August this year, UNESCO Director General Irina Bokova expressed “grave concern” at the destruction by Islamic Jihadists of Sufi sites in Zliten, Misrata and Tripoli and urged perpetrators to “cease the destruction immediately.” [23] Under behind-the-scenes machinations the Libyan government is dominated by Jihadists and by followers of the Muslim Brotherhood, as in Tunisia and Egypt. [24]

The explosive cocktail of violence inherent in allowing the rise to power of Salafist Islamists across the Middle East was clear to see, symbolically enough on the night of September 11,th when a mob of angry supporters of the fanatical Salafist group, Ansar Al-Sharia, murdered the US Ambassador to Libya and three US diplomats, burning the US Consulate in Bengazi to the ground in protest over a YouTube release of a film by an American filmmaker showing the Prophet Mohammed indulging in multiple sex affairs and casting doubt on his role as God’s messenger. Ironically that US Ambassador had played a key role in toppling Qaddafi and opening the door to the Salafist takeover in Libya. At the same time angry mobs of thousands of Salafists surrounded the US Embassy in Cairo in protest to the US film. [25]

Ansar Al-Sharia (“Partisans of Islamic law” in Arabic) reportedly is a spinoff of Al-Qaeda and claims organizations across the Middle East from Yemen to Tunisia to Iraq, Egypt and Libya. Ansar al-Sharia says it is reproducing the model of Sharia or strict Islamic law espoused by the Taliban in Afghanistan and the Islamic State of Iraq, a militant umbrella group that includes al-Qaeda in Iraq. The core of the group are jihadists who came out of an “Islamic state”, either in Afghanistan in the mid-1990s, or among jihadists in Iraq after the US-led invasion in 2003.[26]

The deliberate detonation now of a new round of Salafist fundamentalist Jihad terror inside Muslim regions of the Russian Caucasus is exquisitely timed politically to put maximum pressure at home on the government of Russia’s Vladimir Putin.

Putin and the Russian Government are the strongest and most essential backer of the current Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad, and for Russia as well the maintenance of Russia’s only Mediterranean naval base at Syria’s Tartus port is vital strategically. At the same time, Obama’s sly message to Medvedev to wait until Obama’s re-election to evaluate US intent towards Russia and Putin’s cryptic recent comment that a compromise with a re-elected President Obama might be possible, but not with a President Romney, [27] indicate that the Washington “stick-and-carrot” or hard cop-soft cop tactics with Moscow might tempt Russia to sacrifice major geopolitical alliances, perhaps even that special close and recent geopolitical alliance with China.[28] Were that to happen, the World might witness a “reset” in US-Russian relations with catastrophic consequences for world peace.

F. William Engdahl*  is the author of Full Spectrum Dominance: Totalitarian Democracy in the New World Order

Notes:

[1] Dan Peleschuk, Sheikh Murdered Over Religious Split Say Analysts, RIA Novosti, August 30, 2012, accessed in

http://en.rian.ru/russia/20120830/175517955.html.

[2] Mairbek  Vatchagaev, The Kremlin’s War on Islamic Education in the North Caucasus, North Caucasus Analysis Volume: 7 Issue: 34, accessed in http://www.jamestown.org/single/?no_cache=1&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=3334

[3] Iason Athanasiadis, Targeted by Israeli raid: Who is the IHH?, The Christian Science Monitor, June 1, 2010, accessed in http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2010/0601/Targeted-by-Israeli-raid-Who-is-the-IHH.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Mairbek Vatchagaev, op. cit.

[6] UN Security Council, QI.U.290.11. DOKU KHAMATOVICH UMAROV, 10 March 2011, accessed in http://www.un.org/sc/committees/1267/NSQI29011E.shtml. The UN statement reads: “Doku Khamatovich Umarov was listed on 10 March 2011 pursuant to paragraph 2 of resolution 1904 (2009) as being associated with Al-Qaida, Usama bin Laden or the Taliban for “participating in the financing, planning, facilitating, preparing, or perpetrating of acts or activities by, in conjunction with, under the name of, on behalf of, or in support of”, “recruiting for”, “supplying, selling or transferring arms and related materiel to” and “otherwise supporting acts or activities of” the Islamic Jihad Group (QE.I.119.05), the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (QE.I.10.01), Riyadus-Salikhin Reconnaissance and Sabotage Battalion of Chechen Martyrs (RSRSBCM) (QE.R.100.03) and Emarat Kavkaz (QE.E.131.11).”

[7] Tom Jones, Czech NGO rejects Russian reports of link to alleged Islamist terrorists al-Qaeda, May 10, 2011, accessed in http://www.ceskapozice.cz/en/news/society/czech-ngo-rejects-russian-reports-link-alleged-islamist-terrorists-al-qaeda?utm_source=tw&utm_medium=enprofil&utm_campaign=twennews.

[8] The Times of India, Laden ordered Bamyan Buddha destruction, The Times of India, March 28, 2006.

[9] Dr. Alan Godlas, Sufism — Sufis — Sufi Orders:

[10] Irfan Al-Alawi and Stephen Schwartz, Wahhabi Internal Contradictions as Saudi Arabia Seeks Wider Gulf Leadership, Center for Islamic Pluralism, May 21, 2012, accessed in http://www.islamicpluralism.org/2040/wahhabi-internal-contradictions-as-saudi-arabia

[11] Irfan Al-Alawi and Stephen Schwartz, Wahhabi Internal Contradictions as Saudi Arabia Seeks Wider Gulf Leadership, May 21, 2012, accessed in http://www.islamicpluralism.org/2040/wahhabi-internal-contradictions-as-saudi-arabia.

[12] Robert Duncan, Islamic Terrorisms Links to Nazi Fascism, AINA, July 5, 2007, accessed in http://www.aina.org/news/2007070595517.htm.

[13] Marc Erikson, Islamism, fascism and terrorism (Part 2), AsiaTimes.Online, November 8, 2002, accessed in http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/DK08Ak03.html.

[14] Ibid.

[15] John Loftus, The Muslim Brotherhood, Nazis and Al-Qaeda,  Jewish Community News, October 11, 2006, accessed in http://www.canadafreepress.com/2006/loftus101106.htm

[16] Ibid.

[17] Charlie Skelton, The Syrian opposition: who’s doing the talking?: The media have been too passive when it comes to Syrian opposition sources, without scrutinising their backgrounds and their political connections. Time for a closer look …, London Guardian, 12 July 2012, accessed in http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jul/12/syrian-opposition-doing-the-talking.

[18] Aidan Lewis, Profile: Tunisia’s Ennahda Party, BBC News, 25 October 2011, accessed in http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-15442859.

[19] Hassan Hassan, Syrians are torn between a despotic regime and a stagnant opposition: The Muslim Brotherhood’s perceived monopoly over the Syrian National Council has created an opposition stalemate, The Guardian, UK, 23 August, 2012, accessed in http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/aug/23/syrians-torn-despotic-regime-stagnant-opposition.

[20] Stefan J. Bos, Egypt Christians Killed After Election of Morsi, Bosnewslife, June 30, 2012, accessed in http://www.bosnewslife.com/22304-egypt-christians-killed-after-election-morsi.

[21] Ibid.

[22] Irfan Al-Alawi, Egyptian Muslim Fundamentalists Attack Sufis, Guardian Online [London],

April 11, 2011, accessed in http://www.islamicpluralism.org/1770/egyptian-Muslim-fundamentalists-attack-sufis

[23] Yafiah Katherine Randall, UNESCO urges Libya to stop destruction of Sufi sites, August 31, 2012, Sufi News and Sufism World Report, accessed in http://sufinews.blogspot.de/.

[24] Jamie Dettmer, Libya elections: Muslim Brotherhood set to lead government, 5 July, 2012, The Telegraph, London, accessed in http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/9379022/Libya-elections-Muslim-Brotherhood-set-to-lead-government.html.

[25] Luke Harding, Chris Stephen, Chris Stevens, US ambassador to Libya, killed in Benghazi attack: Ambassador and three other American embassy staff killed after Islamist militants fired rockets at their car, say Libyan officials, London Guardian, 12 September 2012, accessed in http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/sep/12/chris-stevens-us-ambassador-libya-killed.

[26] Murad Batal al-Shishani, Profile: Ansar al-Sharia in Yemen, 8 March 2012, accessed in  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-17402856.

[27] David M. Herszenhorn, Putin Says Missile Deal Is More Likely With Obama, The New York Times, September 6, 2012, accessed in http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/07/world/europe/putin-calls-missile-deal-more-likely-if-obama-wins.html. According to an interview Putin gave on Moscow’s state-owned RT TV, Herszenhorn reports, “Mr. Putin said he believed that if Mr. Obama is re-elected in November, a compromise could be reached on the contentious issue of American plans for a missile defense system in Europe, which Russia has strongly opposed. On the other hand, Mr. Putin said, if Mr. Romney becomes president, Moscow’s fears about the missile system — that it is, despite American assurances, actually directed against Russia — would almost certainly prove true.

“Is it possible to find a solution to the problem, if current President Obama is re-elected for a second term? Theoretically, yes,” Mr. Putin said, according to the official transcript posted on the Kremlin’s Web site. “But this isn’t just about President Obama. “For all I know, his desire to work out a solution is quite sincere,” Mr. Putin continued. “I met him recently on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Los Cabos, Mexico, where we had a chance to talk. And though we talked mostly about Syria, I could still take stock of my counterpart. My feeling is that he is a very honest man, and that he sincerely wants to make many good changes. But can he do it? Will they let him do it?”

[28] M.K. Bhadrakumar, Calling the China-Russia split isn’t heresy, Asia Times,  September 5, 2012, accessed in http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/NI05Ad01.html.

 

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Putin’s Strategic Blunder

May 20th, 2024 by Dr. Paul Craig Roberts

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The blunder began years before February 2022. Putin failed to realize that the US was preparing the overthrow of the Ukraine government. When the overthrow began, Putin took no action to prevent the overthrow. Instead, Russia permitted Washington to take over the former province of the Russian state.

A hostile Ukraine is an existential threat to Russia.

Why did Russia stand aside and permit Washington’s takeover?

Why did Russia sit for the next eight years on its hands, rejecting the votes of the independent Donbas republics to be reunited with Russia from which they were torn by Soviet leaders and stuck in Ukraine?

The culprit in these strategic blunders was the Kremlin’s lack of realism.

Putin relied on diplomacy despite the fact that Washington relies on threats, bribes, and coercion. The Kremlin simply did not understand that with the Minsk Agreement it was saddling a dead horse that could go nowhere.

When Putin was finally forced to intervene by the prospect that the inhabitants of Russian Donbas were about to be slaughtered like Palestinians in Gaza today, Putin failed to respond decisively. Still playing all by himself a diplomatic game, he insisted that there be no Russian invasion of Ukraine, only a “special military operation” to clear hostile Ukrainian forces from Donbas.

Lost in a diplomatic world that no longer exists, Putin failed to realize that regardless of what he said or did, Western propaganda would present the intervention as a reconstruction of the Soviet Empire that would extend to all of Europe.

It was immediately obvious that the limited and slow-paced “special military operation” would provide Washington and its NATO puppets abundant time to become involved in the conflict, thus endlessly widening the conflict until the conflict became an existential issue for Russia. This is what has occurred.

Still the Kremlin thinks unrealistically. Putin is on the verge of succeeding with his purpose of driving Ukrainian forces out of, and away from, the Russian populated areas, and the assumption is that the war will be over and Russia’s success will be acknowledged in a negotiated settlement.

This delusion persists despite Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov’s acknowledgement that Washington intends Russia’s destruction. Both Lavrov and Putin continue to stress that they are willing to negotiate with Washington Washington’s intention to destroy Russia. It would be hilarious if were not so deadly.

Listen to Lavrov’s speech. He understands the threat to Russia but is incapable of matching a Russian response to the threat.

Thinking Russia’s intervention to be limited, Putin was unprepared for war. He has done very little to hamper the Ukrainian government’s ability to conduct war. Rather than shutting down Ukraine, Putin chose a long drawn-out village by village conquest. The West interpreted this as limited Russian military capability, and this provided both encouragement and time for the West to involve itself in the conflict.

The West is so involved now and the Western political leaders are so certain that Russia intends more aggression that they are preparing for war against Russia. Still, Putin and Lavrov speak of negotiation. After a decade of the West’s rejection of negotiation, how can the Kremlin still see negotiation as a solution?

What needed to be done was to knock Kiev out of the war, install a Russian friendly government in place of the American puppet regime, and present the West with a fait accompli before the West had time to get involved. It is Western involvement that presents the danger of the conflict widening into a war between Russia and the West.

Possibly the solution is still viable. It would leave a neutral Ukrainian state west of the Dnieper River with no Black Sea access. It is highly unlikely that such an outcome can be achieved by negotiation. It can only be imposed by force.

By restraining Russia’s use of force, Putin has opened the road to nuclear Armageddon?

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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.

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This interview was recorded for the Global Research News Hour. Published May 18, 2024. Find a link here:

University Encampments and the Freedom Flotilla: Fighting Back Against Historical Racist Genocide – Global ResearchGlobal Research – Centre for Research on Globalization

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.

This interview  discusses the article King Bibi’s Land Grab. Here, Mr. Whitney describes the racism at the root of Israel’s cruelty toward the Palestinian people, and also how it is rooted in the same dynamic as other European nations and the settler tribes of North America.

Global Research: Your article states that eradicating Hamas is not the goal of the mission. I mean, the real goal is essentially to get Palestinians out of Gaza, your ethnic cleansing or your Nakba 2.0. You go on mentioning the cheers and the dancing from Israelis when Rafah was being hit. You even show of Norman Finkelstein, a Jew, lamenting about how 95% of Israelis support the war, and you maintain that all this springs from a deep-seated anti-Palestinian racism that goes way, way back to the origins of Zionism in the 19th century as a European Jewish imperialist phenomenon.

Could I get you to expand on that concept, what you’re talking about?

Mike Whitney: I mean, it actually goes back 50 years before the creation of the Jewish state, you know, when Theodor Herzl originated the idea. And it was realized at that time that if they transplanted this idea to Palestine, that eventually the immigration of Jews, European Jews and, you know, Russian Jews suffering from the pogroms there, European, Ukrainian, etc., that they still would not have the demographic numbers needed to be the majority to maintain a Jewish state. So you need a clear Jewish majority to be able to maintain that.

And that means that a certain number of the population of Indigenous people, the Palestinians, would have to be removed. And that was achieved, of course, in 1948 under Ben-Gurion. But a lot of people fault Ben-Gurion for not having been more expansive at the time and just completing the expulsion of Palestinians.

They also call it transfer from the West Bank and Gaza. Of course, they had limited resources, so that really wasn’t an option. But I think that’s basically why there’s so much support in Israel for this.

The average Israeli is not confused about the fact that Hamas is not going to be defeated by levelling all of Gaza and reducing it all to rubble. You know, Hamas is already making a reappearance in northern Gaza, and they’re fighting quite admirably. But regardless, they’re trying to make an inhabitable Gaza so that the people will have no homes, no hospitals, no schools, no infrastructure to return to.

And once it’s no longer a livable place, then they’ll be living in tent cities and they’re counting on the empathy from people around the world, other leaders who will take them 100,000 or 200,000 at a time and export them to their own countries. That’s essentially the plan. So I think the average Israeli is aware of that.

They don’t think at all that this Hamas is just basically a hoax.

GR: One of the people you referred to, Lawrence Davidson, had written an article way back in 2012, and he was talking about the roots of anti-Arab prejudice among the European Jews. That white supremacist attitude was really all the rage in Europe, right? It seems to have been preserved in Israel, whereas it fell away in the other countries eventually, right?

MW: Well, exactly.

I mean, the colonial period has essentially ended, but, you know, I mean, now we call it white supremacy, but that’s typical of the colonial attitude. Of course, if you come from a culture that can dominate another, say, third world country and you become the dominant force, you’re going to have all the high paying jobs, the government positions, all the power is going to be accrued to you and your group and your ethnicity and your religion. And so naturally, you’re going to bring up your children, etc., to feel like you’re superior to the people you are ruling over.

And that’s just typical of the colonial mindset. The thing is, is that Israel is really the last bastion of that form of settler colonial mindset. And you can see the impact of that over the decades, where the lack of sympathy and the lack of empathy that we see on Twitter and TikTok on a daily basis, these people taking food shipments, basically taking crusts of bread out of starving children’s mouth, throwing it on the ground and jumping on it with their feet, rolling over it with trucks and preventing any of these food and medical assistance trucks from even entering Gaza.

You wonder where this rash of sadistic behaviour comes from. And it comes from that years and years of colonial supremacy just steeped in these people’s bloodstreams. So it’s a very toxic environment that creates a very prejudicial mind.

And then eventually, when you see the other as distinctively inferior to yourself, then any form of crime can be perpetrated and justified because you are the superior being.

GR: Yeah, well, this phenomenon, if it is rooted in the racist roots of European settler colonialism, I mean, we’re looking at the past not only of Israel, but of South Africa, and also of the Canadian tradition of clearing the land of Indigenous people, so they can set up their own settler colonies. And there’s an article that was written in the National Post nine years ago, and it’s entitled, “Sure, John A. Macdonald, (that’s our first Prime Minister in 1867), was a Racist Colonizer and Misogynist, but So Were Most Canadians Back Then.”

If we are to understand the racism of Israelis today, should we just look at the racism of the White settlers in Canada 150 years ago? I mean, is it a direct cut and paste?

MW: Well, pretty closely. I think if we look at it, that’s why I think Americans should be at least sympathetic to what the Israelis are going for. It’s a terrible and vital predicament, but it’s not something that Americans haven’t experienced, and that its government still doesn’t foster by telling people how we’re the exceptional nation.

So the rules of international law don’t really apply to us. So we can have wars in Iraq and kill a million people, and Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, and just basically disrupt the large swaths of the entire planet. And the rules of international law don’t apply to us because we’re exceptional.

We’re actually this bumbling force that never really does anything intentionally wrong, but we kind of stumble into things where innocent people are injured. So it’s a whole narrative that’s really deceptive. But I mean, look at what we did to Black African-Americans and enslaved them for two or three hundred years.

And then the Indian Wars, where we just mercilessly slaughtered one tribe after the other, some for no reason whatsoever, and then, you know, try to jam our own religion down their throats, etc., etc. And, you know, the story of that is quite incredible, because, you know, you have people like William Tecumseh Sherman, who, you know, finished the march to Atlanta, where he completely destroyed the civilization down there, killing many White, you know, women and children. And then as soon as he was done with the Civil War, he went out to kill Indians.

So it’s this kind of attitude of superiority is insatiable. It’s just blood-lust. So in the case of Israel, it’s in some ways, it’s not that extraordinary, but it has to be stopped.

It’s transparently immoral. And, you know, hurrah for the student groups that are, you know, basically the tip of the spear in leading the opposition to this madness.

GR: Yeah. You know, Israel’s assault on Gaza, and particularly now on Rafah, is not popular outside of Israel. I mean, tent encampments, as you say, they’re propping up everywhere, and yet major leaders, you know, seem to keep up this so-called ironclad support for Israel.

And the people they preside over aren’t directing their leaders on this front. How has the support for this anti-Palestinian racism managed to go in between the leaders and the people that vote for them outside of Israel?

MW: Well, I don’t think it can be explained other than money. And the money that is going into the coffers of these elected officials as such from AIPAC and some of the other powerful Jewish groups, Israeli-sponsored groups, is really having a dramatic impact.

And I mean, how, for example, could you explain that sending additional weapons and bombs, etc., etc., basically giving Israel a blank check for as much weaponry, lethal weaponry, as they need was supported by nearly excluding for every Democratic congressman in Congress. And when you realize that, according to the recent Gallup poll, 75 percent of registered Democrats oppose the policy in Gaza. So they’re departing from their own, they’re, you know, opposing their own constituency.

The people who got them voted into office, they’re ignoring. And the only explanation you can have is that their coffers are being filled by wealthy people who have an interest in that. Does that make sense?

GR: Well, yeah, to a certain degree.

But maybe I’m missing something. I mean, like, please let me stress that I do not condone anti-Semitism, even for a second, neither do you. But this racist Zionist viewpoint, which is not shared by all Jews, that’s what we’re confronting.

And I see in our own background that we have a kind of a common heritage in the 19th century. So maybe we can offer something that could kind of unite us in a way. How can we transform the individuals in Israel to wake them up, to stop, you know, cheering on killing civilians? And, you know, is there a lesson from our own past that could affect the Israelis in the future?

MW: Yeah, the most effective tool we have right now, one of the EU leaders said it just two days ago, he said, “the only way Netanyahu’s going to stop bombing Gaza is when he runs out of bombs.”

And this is basically what the United States is called upon to do, is just to cease all provision of lethal weaponry until they start coinciding with not just our policy and the intentions of the Biden Administration, but the official policy of Democrats and Republicans alike, dating back 57 years. It’s always been the two-state solution. This creeping annexation is making the possibility of a two-state solution impossible.

So that is what we should be emphasizing. And that is what is in U.S. interests. It’s only to be humouring Israel by sending them more weaponry when it’s clearly in violation of our own goals in the region is foolish beyond, you know, beyond anything.

GR: And in the minute or so we’ve got left, I understand you’re following these student encampments throughout the United States and actually around the world. I mean, do you see this as basically a major lens through which we can force a change of the guard, both within our own country and in Israel?

MW: You know, this is a very interesting issue because I mean, I think the protesters and the demonstrations have captured the imagination of people who are hopeful for the people to have a positive impact on the government’s policy-making. But here’s where I’m really confused.

And I don’t have an answer for this, but since the Patriot Act in 2001, the government has prepared itself for a moment like this and intensified its warrant-less surveillance of people, its penetration of groups, its isolation of leaders of political organizations. This is not 1965 and we’re not, you know, going through the opposition to the Vietnam War again. This is an entirely different experience and they have a lot of the tools of coercion that can prevent this thing from succeeding.

So we can’t sit on our laurels and think that this is an idea whose time has come because the government is preparing, not only preparing, you’ve probably noticed if you look carefully at what’s happening, they are going great guns to a full show of force, overwhelming force in each case on these peaceful protesters to intimidate them and to coerce them not into going back and pursuing the same activity. So I think that we have to make sure that this whole opposition is nurtured along so that it produces some, you know, basically performs what the American people want it to, because right now the majority, according to Gallup and some other polls of Americans do not support the existing policy in Gaza. So we need something that represents the will of the people.

And this movement is the one that is really pushing the government in that direction.

GR: Mr. Whitney, thank you so much for this enlightened perspective. And we should talk again soon.

MW: Thank you, Michael.

 

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***

Introduction

There is a complex history behind Israel’s October 2023 plan to “Wipe Gaza off the Map”.

It’s genocide, an absolute slaughter:

“We are going to attack Gaza City very broadly soon,” Israel’s chief military spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, said in a nationally broadcast address, without giving a timetable for the attack.”

It’s a criminal undertaking based on Israel’s doctrine of “Justified Vengeance” which was first formulated in 2001.

The “Justified Vengeance” doctrine propounds in no uncertain terms that Palestine (despite its limited military capabilities) rather than Israel is “the Aggressor” and that Israel has the right to defend itself.

Below is the statement of the ICC Prosecutor Karim A.A. Khan KC which accuses Palestine of committing crimes against humanity as well as war crimes, while carefully ignoring the evidence pertaining to the “false flag” operation which has resulted in the deaths of innocent Israeli civilians.

The realities of the Genocide conducted against the People of Palestine including the massacre of more 35,000 civilians are simply not mentioned. 

False Flag. “Palestine Attacks Israel” 

It is now firmly established that the Hamas October 7, 2023 attack was a False Flag operation carried out by a “faction” within Hamas, in liaison with Mossad and U.S. intelligence.

In a bitter irony, the ICC Prosecutor’s accusations against Palestine –which include acts of “Extermination”, “Murder” and “Torture” intimate in no uncertain terms that the State of Israel rather than Palestine is the victim of Genocide.

The Lie Prevails. International Law is Criminalized

The actual conduct of the genocide against Palestine —confirmed by numerous official documents– is casually ignored by the ICC Prosecutor.

What we have on record is an official  memorandum –released and made public on October 13, 2023– by Israel’s Ministry of Intelligence, which confirms the conduct of a Genocide against the People of Palestine: 

the forcible and permanent transfer of the Gaza Strip’s 2.2 million Palestinian residents to Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula”.

Ask the ICC Prosecutor Karim A. A. Khan: What is the significance of this document?  

The document confirms the State of Israel’s prior intent to implement genocide against the people of Palestine in violation of the Genocide Convention.

In a bitter irony the ICC Prosecutor has accused Palestine of waging a war of aggression against Israel. 

Option. C. The Evacuation of the Civilian Population from Gaza to the Sinai

click here or below to access complete document (10 pages)

 

For further details and analysis see: “Wiping Gaza Off the Map”: Israel’s “Secret” Intelligence Memorandum “Option C” by Michel Chossudovsky

 

The document confirms the State of Israel’s prior intent to implement genocide against the people of Palestine in violation of the Genocide Convention.

The ICC Prosecutor is a “Double Speak”. 

While the ICC Prosecutor accuses Palestine, he nonetheless acknowledges the crimes committed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, specifically with regard to the starvation of civilians as a method of warfare. 

ICC Prosecutor Karim A..A. Khan does not want to be accused of double standards. 

The allegations directed against Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant which are fully corroborated, are intent upon providing “legitimacy” to the ICC’s far-reaching accusations against Palestine (“extermination and murder”).

They are not intent as a means to calling for a cease-fire or putting a term to the Genocide.

What is the Truth, What is the Lie? 

The Truth is that “Extermination” and “Murder” are being conducted by Israel, specifically targeting children (click here to access the video)

The ICC Prosecutor Makes No Reference to “Genocide”

Despite the evidence, the ICC Prosecutor fails to acknowledge that Israel is conducting a Genocide. 

The word Genocide is NOT mentioned in his statement. 

The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide is not mentioned. 

His statements point to the criminalization of the ICC. 

 

M. Chossudovsky, Global Research, May 4, 2024

***

 

Today I am filing applications for warrants of arrest before Pre-Trial Chamber I of the International Criminal Court in the Situation in the State of Palestine.

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On the basis of evidence collected and examined by my Office, I have reasonable grounds to believe that Yahya SINWAR (Head of the Islamic Resistance Movement (“Hamas”) in the Gaza Strip), Mohammed Diab Ibrahim AL-MASRI, more commonly known as DEIF (Commander-in-Chief of the military wing of Hamas, known as the Al-Qassam Brigades), and Ismail HANIYEH (Head of Hamas Political Bureau) bear criminal responsibility for the following war crimes and crimes against humanity committed on the territory of Israel and the State of Palestine (in the Gaza strip) from at least 7 October 2023: 

  • Extermination as a crime against humanity, contrary to article 7(1)(b) of the Rome Statute;
  • Murder as a crime against humanity, contrary to article 7(1)(a), and as a war crime, contrary to article 8(2)(c)(i);
  • Taking hostages as a war crime, contrary to article 8(2)(c)(iii);
  • Rape and other acts of sexual violence as crimes against humanity, contrary to article 7(1)(g), and also as war crimes pursuant to article 8(2)(e)(vi) in the context of captivity;
  • Torture as a crime against humanity, contrary to article 7(1)(f), and also as a war crime, contrary to article 8(2)(c)(i), in the context of captivity;
  • Other inhumane acts as a crime against humanity, contrary to article 7(l)(k), in the context of captivity;
  • Cruel treatment as a war crime contrary to article 8(2)(c)(i), in the context of captivity; and
  • Outrages upon personal dignity as a war crime, contrary to article 8(2)(c)(ii), in the context of captivity.

My Office submits that the war crimes alleged in these applications were committed in the context of an international armed conflict between Israel and Palestine, and a non-international armed conflict between Israel and Hamas running in parallel. We submit that the crimes against humanity charged were part of a widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population of Israel by Hamas and other armed groups pursuant to organisational policies. Some of these crimes, in our assessment, continue to this day.

My Office submits there are reasonable grounds to believe that SINWAR, DEIF and HANIYEH are criminally responsible for the killing of hundreds of Israeli civilians in attacks perpetrated by Hamas (in particular its military wing, the al-Qassam Brigades) and other armed groups on 7 October 2023 and the taking of at least 245 hostages. As part of our investigations, my Office has interviewed victims and survivors, including former hostages and eyewitnesses from six major attack locations: Kfar Aza; Holit; the location of the Supernova Music Festival; Be’eri; Nir Oz; and Nahal Oz. The investigation also relies on evidence such as CCTV footage, authenticated audio, photo and video material, statements by Hamas members including the alleged perpetrators named above, and expert evidence.

It is the view of my Office that these individuals planned and instigated the commission of crimes on 7 October 2023, and have through their own actions, including personal visits to hostages shortly after their kidnapping, acknowledged their responsibility for those crimes. We submit that these crimes could not have been committed without their actions. They are charged both as co-perpetrators and as superiors pursuant to Articles 25 and 28 of the Rome Statute.

During my own visit to Kibbutz Be’eri and Kibbutz Kfar Aza, as well as to the site of Supernova Music Festival in Re’im, I saw the devastating scenes of these attacks and the profound impact of the unconscionable crimes charged in the applications filed today. Speaking with survivors, I heard how the love within a family, the deepest bonds between a parent and a child, were contorted to inflict unfathomable pain through calculated cruelty and extreme callousness. These acts demand accountability.

My Office also submits there are reasonable grounds to believe that hostages taken from Israel have been kept in inhumane conditions, and that some have been subject to sexual violence, including rape, while being held in captivity. We have reached that conclusion based on medical records, contemporaneous video and documentary evidence, and interviews with victims and survivors. My Office also continues to investigate reports of sexual violence committed on 7 October.

I wish to express my gratitude to the survivors, and the families of victims of the 7 October attacks, for their courage in coming forward to provide their accounts to my Office. We remain focused on further deepening our investigations of all crimes committed as part of these attacks and will continue to work with all partners to ensure that justice is delivered.

I again reiterate my call for the immediate release of all hostages taken from Israel and for their safe return to their families. This is a fundamental requirement of international humanitarian law.

Benjamin Netanyahu, Yoav Gallant

On the basis of evidence collected and examined by my Office, I have reasonable grounds to believe that Benjamin NETANYAHU, the Prime Minister of Israel, and Yoav GALLANT, the Minister of Defence of Israel, bear criminal responsibility for  the following war crimes and crimes against humanity committed on the territory of the State of Palestine (in the Gaza strip) from at least 8 October 2023:

  • Starvation of civilians as a method of warfare as a war crime contrary to article 8(2)(b)(xxv) of the Statute;
  • Wilfully causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or health contrary to article 8(2)(a)(iii), or cruel treatment as a war crime contrary to article 8(2)(c)(i);
  • Wilful killing contrary to article 8(2)(a)(i), or Murder as a war crime contrary to article 8(2)(c)(i);
  • Intentionally directing attacks against a civilian population as a war crime contrary to articles 8(2)(b)(i), or 8(2)(e)(i);
  • Extermination and/or murder contrary to articles 7(1)(b) and 7(1)(a), including in the context of deaths caused by starvation, as a crime against humanity;
  • Persecution as a crime against humanity contrary to article 7(1)(h);
  • Other inhumane acts as crimes against humanity contrary to article 7(1)(k).

My Office submits that the war crimes alleged in these applications were committed in the context of an international armed conflict between Israel and Palestine, and a non-international armed conflict between Israel and Hamas (together with other Palestinian Armed Groups) running in parallel.

We submit that the crimes against humanity charged were committed as part of a widespread and systematic attack against the Palestinian civilian population pursuant to State policy. These crimes, in our assessment, continue to this day.

Click here to read the full text.

*

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***

Many scholars committed to Palestinian liberation can no longer do their jobs. That’s because many of the professors most supportive of Palestine don’t have jobs anymore.

This is nowhere truer than in the Gaza Strip — where all 12 universities have been reduced to rubble, and more than 90 professors have been reported killed during Israel’s assault on the territory. The gravity of what United Nations experts warn could amount to U.S.-backed “scholasticide” has no equivalent on American soil.

Yet Israel’s attempted eradication of intellectual life in Gaza echoes far beyond the territory, with U.S. universities ensuring that some professors vocal in their support of Palestine can no longer do their jobs either.

Since the beginning of Israel’s war on Gaza, academics in fields including politics, sociology, Japanese literature, public health, Latin American and Caribbean studies, Middle East and African studies, mathematics, education, and more have been fired, suspended, or removed from the classroom for pro-Palestine, anti-Israel speech.

These educators have little in common. They live in different cities and states and hail from different countries. Some have been teaching in their institutions for decades, some were newly hired. Some taught at private universities, others public. They have varying degrees of job security, from a tenured professor to the most precarious adjunct contracts. And they are racially, ethnically, religiously, age, and gender diverse.

What they share is that, in recent months, they have all staked out positions in favor of Palestinian freedom — positions that lead them to be targeted by pro-Israel groups.

From campus to campus, professors have defended students’ right to protest, but when scholars themselves espouse support for Palestine and opposition to the Israeli state, professional consequences have frequently been grave.

There’s no official tally of the number of academic workers who have lost jobs or faced suspension over support for Palestine, not least because higher education in this country is disarticulated, often privatized, and reliant on short-term contract labor. By and large, professors facing job loss and suspensions over Palestine have brought these allegations into public view by speaking out themselves. Scores of academics across the country are likely under investigation, and many stand to have their contracts quietly expire without renewals.

The Intercept spoke with more than a dozen professors, both adjuncts and those with tenure, whose employment has been imperiled by their pro-Palestine speech. Of the professors I talked to, all were at one point under investigation since October 7; some of the probes closed without findings of wrongdoing. Several faced varying degrees of suspensions, and four of the professors lost their jobs or expect to lose them next week when the semester ends without the renewal of their contracts.

The interviews, including those with campus labor activists and academic associations, revealed a pattern of politically motivated repression where campaigns by pro-Israel advocates can mar the careers of academics because of comments that express outrage at Israel’s ongoing occupation and its war in Gaza.

“The bulk of our inquiries, even our cases, have to do with violations of due process related to non-reappointment, to dismissal, to tenure award, et cetera,” said Anita Levy, senior program officer with the American Association of University Professors. Levy told me that the nonprofit organization, which advocates for faculty rights and academic freedom, currently has opened five cases in recent months related to pro-Palestinian speech.

“When we get five or six of these cases in a two-month period, where there are suspensions related to social media posts over a current event, shall we say, the war in Gaza, that is unusual,” she said. “Of the cases that we’ve opened, none of them have been related to pro-Israel speech. All of them have been in support of the Palestinian cause.”

We are at the dawn of a “new McCarthyism,” Levy said. “This may be the tip of the iceberg.”

Institutions are well positioned to eliminate political dissenters from their payrolls under the misleading banner of protecting Jewish people, primed by heightened Republican attacks on higher education.

“This is beyond the new McCarthyism. This has to deal fundamentally with Islamophobia, anti-Muslim racism, anti-Arab racism, anti-Palestinian racism,” said Mohamed Abdou, who is a visiting professor in Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African studies at Columbia University — that is, until this semester ends.

Columbia President Minouche Shafik announced that the university was cutting ties with Abdou during a congressional hearing last month about antisemitism on campus. Abdou was one of five professors named by the school administrator but the only one without the relative protection of tenure. His one-year contract ends this month.

“What she effectively did was blacklist me globally,” Abdou told me of Shafik’s testimony. (Columbia did not respond to a request for comment.)

Abdou said he was smeared for words in a Facebook post on October 11 that were taken dramatically out of context. The activist-scholar was framed in Congress and in the right-wing media as an antisemite and Hamas supporter. His lengthy post asks readers to think about a future for Palestine, and support for resistance, beyond the binary of a secularized, Eurocentric state formation, or “Hamas and Islamic Jihad’s neoconservative idea of Sharia.”

Screenshot from Abdou’s Facebook

“I’m against any form of authoritarianism,” Abdou — whose work focuses on Islam, anarchism, and settler colonialism since 1492 — told me.

One extramural social media post has been weaponized to undo Abdou’s career, after 20 years of teaching in Canada, Egypt, and the U.S. in fields including queer studies and Indigenous studies, leaving the scholar with scant recourse and limited options. He is hardly alone.

“Fired After 18 Years”

Anti-Palestinian repression on U.S. campuses since October 7 has not been subtle. Students and faculty face far-reaching discriminatory censure and defamatory allegations for pro-Palestinian advocacy, as administrators jump to appease pro-Israel donors and conservative political interests.

In the last months, school administrators called in riot cops to clear student encampments and arrest thousands at Columbia University, City College of New York, Emerson College, Emory University, New York University, the University of Austin at Texas, and more. It was brutal state violence against students not seen since the campus movement against the Vietnam War — justified this time by flimsy claims about student safety, undergirded by a conflation of anti-Zionism and antisemitism.

There have been scenes of faculty solidarity. Last week, faculty members at the New School in New York, where I teach, launched the first faculty-led solidarity encampment, following the shuttering of the student encampment with mass arrests. In late April, dozens of professors and others from New York University formed a line around their protesting students as police were called in to raid their encampment; faculty and students were all arrested together. Footage capturing the arrests of Emory Philosophy Department Chair Noëlle McAfee and economics professor Caroline Fohlin, the latter who was slammed brutally to the ground by cops, was shared widely online.

Yet once media attention moves away from encampment sweeps and violent arrests, many professors who have lost work will still be without their livelihoods or left facing precarious futures with their reputations unfairly besmirched.

“I was fired after 18 years as a professor of Latin American and Caribbean studies at John Jay College of Criminal Justice,” Danny Shaw said. He was told last month by administrators at the college, which is part of the public City University of New York system, that he would not be reappointed to his longtime adjunct position. Shaw’s colleagues had moved to reappoint him but were overruled by John Jay President Karol Mason, according to an open letter from the economics department.

https://x.com/JJayEcon/status/1775622502972084645

“The non-reappointment of Danny Shaw is an unacceptable action,” Shaw’s colleagues in the economics department wrote in their open letter. “Danny Shaw is a valuable member of his department who has been teaching at John Jay since 2007. Professor Shaw is an excellent teacher who has received a Distinguished Teaching Award.”

The dismissal followed right-wing, pro-Israel online harassment, Shaw said, in response to his showing vocal support for Palestine and opposition to Israel following October 7 and the start of Israel’s bombardments.

“I saw a genocide in motion, so I began to organize demonstrations and teach-ins and conferences,” Shaw told me.

On his X account in mid-October, in the wake of stridently bellicose remarks from Israeli officials, Shaw wrote in a now-deleted post that Zionism “is beyond a mental illness; it’s a genocidal disease.” The target was unambiguously Zionist ideology and its adherents, not Jews for being Jewish. The speech is also clearly within the bounds of First Amendment protections. It was, of course, decried as antisemitic.

The pattern is now familiar. Zionist groups like Canary Mission and Antisemitism.org, which have made a business of going after faculty and students online, single out those on campus with pro-Palestine views. Universities then face political and donor pressure to censure the targeted professors.

Many academics now facing termination, suspension, or having their contracts not renewed told me their open support for Palestinian freedom was nothing new and had never been a significant issue before. “I’ve been doing Palestinian solidarity work since the 1990s when I was a teenager,” Shaw said.

At the time John Jay cut ties with Shaw, CUNY was facing increasing pressure from the city and state, with the threat of funding loss tied to trumped-up claims of spiking antisemitism on campus. In late October, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul ordered an independent investigation into antisemitism at CUNY. (A spokesperson for John Jay College said the school can’t comment on personnel matters.)

CUNY has ended its relationship with at least on other professor because of speech related to Israel’s war on Gaza. One, Lisa Hofmann-Kuroda, a scholar of Japanese literature formerly at CUNY’s Hunter College, told me in a statement that a student reported several of her pro-Palestine social media posts to the head of her department in November. Nothing in the posts, she noted, was antisemitic. “The only thing I have done,” she said, “is to criticize the state of Israel for its 75-year brutal occupation of Palestine and criticize Americans for their complicity or silence in this genocide.”

Pro-Israel speech incurs consequences much less frequently, but it does happen. In one case, Arizona State University put postdoctoral research fellow Jonathan Yudelman on leave after a video of a pro-Israel rally went viral. In the video, shot near campus in May, Yudelman gets in the face of a woman in a hijab, who says her religious boundaries are being violated. Yudelman replies, “You disrespect my sense of humanity, bitch.” A statement released by the school last week said that Yudelman “is on leave from Arizona State University pending the outcome of an investigation” into the incident. The statement said that, prior to the event, “Yudelman had already resigned his position at ASU, effective June 30, and he was not scheduled to teach any additional courses.”

Yudelman’s case is a rare exception to the rule that treats support for Palestine as a professional liability.

Tenure in the Age of Unsafety

What the late, legendary civil rights attorney Michael Ratner coined as “the Palestine exception to free speech” is not new, though its escalation in the months since October has been ferocious.

“Repression of anti-Zionism has a long and ugly history in academe. It really started to pick up after 1967,” Palestinian American scholar and author Steven Salaita told me by email, referring to the period of the 1967 Arab–Israeli War, a time when support for Israel was growing in the U.S. “Too many people to remember have been negatively affected. But it’s worse now than I’ve ever seen it.”

Salaita was fired for pro-Palestinian speech in 2014, a forerunner for the current repressive moment. After Salaita was let go from a tenured position in American Indian Studies at the University of Illinois over tweets criticizing Israel, a public records request on Salaita’s behalf revealed communications between the university and several wealthy donors threatening to withdraw financial support unless Salaita was fired. The university eventually settled a lawsuit by Salaita for $875,000.

“I’d say that on the one hand my situation with the University of Illinois a decade ago is exactly like what so many of my colleagues and comrades currently suffer,” Salaita told me. “On the other hand, my situation was different insofar as I was fired from a tenured professorship, which is highly uncommon.”

In recent years, right-wing culture warriors and administrators with their eyes on the bottom line have been trying to find ways to fire tenured professors. As political theorist Joshua Clover, a tenured professor at the University of California, Davis, pointed out, universities for the most part have only been able to achieve this by closing down whole departments on purported economic grounds. The attack of pro-Palestinian speech, though, offers a whole new avenue, under the guise of protecting Jewish students.

Broad and vague charges of “making students feel unsafe” allow universities to scrutinize everything a professor does, inside or outside of the classroom. Clover, who has himself been targeted by Canary Mission for anti-Zionist speech, told me this enables “extramural speech to be treated as something relevant to people’s work situation.”

“There’s nothing extramural anymore,” he said. “We’re all at work 24 hours a day, wherever we are.”

It was extramural speech — an essay for a leftist publisher — that earned a suspension from teaching for Jodi Dean, a tenured political theorist at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in New York, where she has taught for 30 years. (She remains employed at the university.) Her essay was condemned for describing seeing images of the breach of the Gaza wall on October 7 as “exhilarating,” and the college president said in a letter that there “may be students on our campus who may feel threatened in or outside of the classroom.”

“I have been here for 20 years and I haven’t seen anything like this,” Paul Passavant, a professor of politics at Hobart and William Smith, told Middle East Eye of Dean’s suspension. “​​It is a total violation of academic freedom. And it violates the integrity of the institution as an academic institution.”

In response to requests for comment, a Hobart and William Smith spokesperson forwarded three letters from university leadership that had been sent out to the college community in mid-April.

“Professor Dean has the right to express her views,” the school’s provost and dean of faculty Sarah Kirk wrote in an April 15 letter. “It is also true that Hobart and William Smith has the obligation under federal anti-discrimination laws, including Title VI, to investigate and take prompt action where the possibility exists that there is a hostile environment based on national origin, shared ancestry, or other protected classes that may interfere with a student’s ability to learn and enjoy the benefits of an education.” The letters all say that Dean has been “relieved” of classroom duties while she is under investigation by the school.

Activist and scholar Amin Husain likewise was punished for extramural speech. He had called for Palestinian liberation for many years, but he was only suspended from his adjunct position at New York University in January of this year.

Husain told me that the university’s human resources department questioned him not only about his anti-Zionist statements, but also about social media content posted by an abolitionist art collective, Decolonize This Place, that he is affiliated with. None of the collective’s posts were attributed to Husain specifically.

“I’ve been teaching for seven or eight years. Never one complaint,” Husain told me. He added that his suspension was not the result of a student complaint but evidence taken from “doxing outlets.” While he is technically suspended, Husain is an adjunct with a contract ending this month. (NYU did not respond to a request for comment.)

“I’m never going to be hired by NYU,” he told me. Of the university, he said, “You destroyed my reputation, and you never even did the due diligence.”

A letter of support for Husain, signed by over 2,000 artists, writers, academics, and students, said, “These attacks on speech (and speakers) reflect the ideology behind the logic of destruction inflicted on the cultural infrastructure of Palestine itself.”

“Now Is the Time”

The issue of academic freedom on Palestine is inseparable from the labor struggles that have been rocking universities over the past decade.

“Until recently, labor unions in this country have been incredibly weak, the impact of which is emboldened university leaders who are enacting increasingly repressive policies on their campuses,” Molly Ragan, a union organizer with UAW Local 7902, who teaches at the Parsons School of Design, part of the New School university. “What I’ve learned in my two years as a UAW staff organizer working with faculty and student workers in NYC is that the labor movement and pro-Palestine movement go hand in hand.”

Alongside the New School’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter, two student worker unions, both unionized with the UAW, organized the student-led encampment on campus. Two weeks ago, that protest camp was cleared out in a surprise police raid involving over 40 arrests.

Ragan noted that labor involvement aimed to provide “a legal shield for the encampment because any retaliation is a violation of our basic Section 7 right to concerted activity under the NLRA” — a reference to the National Labor Relations Act’s protection of workplace collective action. On Monday, ACT-UAW Local 7902 filed an unfair labor practice charge against the school over the arrests on campus and treatment of the encampment participants.

The importance of supporting scholars who speak out for Palestine, however, goes far beyond free speech and worker protections. Israel’s occupation and its ongoing brutal war are constant reminders of the more salient issues at work.

Despite continuous police raids, the protest camps are spreading. Nearly 200 campuses nationwide established encampments in the last month to demand divestment from Israel, its military apparatus, and the corporations that benefit from it.

“I don’t think the repression will work, not if its ultimate goal is to keep people quiet. If the goal is punishment in and of itself, then the tactic is effective,” Salaita, the scholar, told me. “But if silence is the desired outcome, then Zionist organizations are failing miserably, and will continue to fail miserably. Nobody’s going to stop talking about Palestine at this point.”

Clover, the Davis professor, echoed the sentiment. “If you’re going to be fired for standing up for Palestine, now is the time to do it anyway,” Clover said. “Now is the time to do it in the most serious and principled ways.”

Nowhere is this principled defiance better exemplified than among the Palestinian scholars who have lost the most.

“We will never tire, be frightened, or threatened to stop advocating for justice and peace and to stop the ongoing slaughter and genocide in Palestine,” Ahmed Alhussaina, the vice president of Israa University, one of Gaza’s most celebrated institutions of higher education and research, told me by email.

“It’s really a shame to witness such a disgrace in the American political system,” said Alhussaina. “There is a McCarthyite campaign to silence the Palestinian voice in all American universities, large and small, but there is broad determination and support for Gaza and Palestine in all universities, and it will be difficult to contain this youth tide.”

Alhussaina, who has lost 102 relatives to Israel’s onslaught, fled Gaza in November. At the start of the war, the Israeli military seized his university and turned it into a barracks and a detention center, before destroying it in a massive, controlled explosion.

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***

This article was published in 2022.

A thriving trading nation or a land without a people? Historians and witnesses tell the other side of the Palestinian story.

“A land without a people, and a people without a land” is how the relationship between Palestine and the Jewish people was described by Christian writers in the 1800s. And the 20th-century history of the Middle East has largely been written through these eyes.

But this film from Al Jazeera Arabic looks at Palestine from a different angle. It hears from historians and witness accounts, and features archive documents that show Palestine as a thriving province of Greater Syria and the Ottoman Empire at the dawn of the 20th century.

The evidence suggests that its cities had a developing trade and commercial sector, growing infrastructure, and embryonic culture that would enable it to meet the challenges of the decades ahead.

However, the political ramifications of the Balfour Declaration, San Remo Conference and British Mandate set in motion a series of events that profoundly affected this vibrant, fledgeling society and led to the events of 1948 and beyond.

This film is the other side of the Palestinian story.

*

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Featured image: Palestinians in Jaffa in the 1920s (From the Public Domain)

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Introduction 

Israel has stated that they are not behind the death of President Raisi. 

Israel on Monday denied involvement in the death of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash that also killed several officials of his entourage.

“It wasn’t us,” news agency Reuters quoted an official, who requested anonymity.

For further details click here.

***

Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi has died after a helicopter carrying him and other officials crashed in a mountainous and forested area of the country in poor weather.

The 63-year-old, a figure representing conservative and hardline factions in Iranian politics, was president for nearly three years, and appeared on track to run for re-election next year.

A former chief justice, Raisi was touted as a potential successor to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the 85-year-old supreme leader of Iran.

Raisi was born in Mashhad in northeastern Iran, a religious hub for Shia Muslims. He underwent religious education and was trained at the seminary in Qom, studying under prominent scholars, including Khamenei.

Also like the supreme leader, he wore a black turban, which signified that he was a sayyid – a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad, a status with particular significance among Twelver Shia Muslims.

Raisi racked up experience as a prosecutor in multiple jurisdictions before coming to Tehran in 1985. It was in the capital city that, according to human rights organisations, he was part of a committee of judges who oversaw executions of political prisoners.

The late president was a longtime member of the Assembly of Experts, the body that is tasked with choosing a replacement for the supreme leader in the event of his death.

He became attorney general in 2014 for two years, when he was appointed by Khamenei to lead the Astan Quds Razavi. The colossal bonyad, or charitable trust, has billions of dollars in assets and is the custodian of the shrine of Imam Reza, the eighth Shia imam.

Raisi initially ran for president in 2017, unsuccessfully challenging the re-election of former President Hassan Rouhani, who represented the centrist and moderate camps.

After a short hiatus, Raisi was making headlines as the new head of the Iranian judiciary system, having been appointed by Khamenei in 2019. He presented himself as a defender of justice and a fighter against corruption, and made many provincial travels to garner popular support.

Raisi became president in 2021 amid low voter turnout and wide disqualification of reformist and moderate candidates, and appeared to have secured a firm footing for re-election.

Like other top Iranian officials, his harshest rhetoric was reserved for Israel and the United States, followed by their Western allies.

Raisi made many speeches since the start of the war on Gaza in October to condemn “genocide” and “massacres” committed by Israel against Palestinians, and called on the international community to intervene.

He promised revenge against Israel after it levelled Tehran’s consulate building in Syria and killed seven members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), including two generals.

And he welcomed Iran’s response, which was to launch hundreds of drones and missiles at Israel, most of which were shot down by a coalition of Israeli allies – but left Iran claiming an overall success.

Raisi was hawkish on Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, or the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which has been in limbo after former US President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from it in 2018.

He was a champion of the strategic policy of “resistance” and “resilience” that Khamenei has adopted in the face of the harshest-ever sanctions that Iran has faced – imposed after the nuclear deal fell through.

A close ally of the IRGC, the late president was also a staunch backer of the “axis of resistance” of political and armed groups that Iran supports across the region, including in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen.

And he was a strong backer of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who Iran has supported in his government’s war against the Syrian opposition, which has left hundreds of thousands dead.

Read the complete Al Jazeera article, click here

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Introductory Note

Today are thoughts are with the People of Palestine.

May 15, 2024. We commemorate the Nakba. 

Building solidarity requires confronting the crimes committed by the State of Israel from the very outset in 1948. 

This is the object of Felicity Arbuthnot’s article first published with foresight in 2017. 

According to Arbuthnot The “Nakba” (“catastrophe”) has been ongoing for 76 years

Global Research, May 15 , 2024 

***

Palestine: Apartheid, Stolen Lives and Land,

History Erased, United Nations Deaf Mute

by

Felicity Arbuthnot

July 30, 2017

 

The Washington Post reports that: “All 100 U.S. Senators signed a letter Thursday asking U.N. Secretary General António Guterres to address what the lawmakers call entrenched bias against Israel at the world body.” 

The letter: “… uses strong language to insist that the United Nations rectify what the Senators said is unequal treatment of Israel on human rights and other grounds.

“Through words and actions, we urge you to ensure that Israel is treated neither better nor worse than any other U.N. member in good standing,” they stated. 

The Senators appear to be on a parallel universe. Have they reflected, in context, on the UN’s fine founding words, avowing: 

“to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war … to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person … to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom … to practice tolerance and live together in peace with one another as good neighbours … to employ international machinery for the promotion of the economic and social advancement of all peoples …” 

Source Israelpalestinenews.org 

Israel – ever presented as the eternal victim – has not just made a mockery of the words but also of the Balfour letter of 2nd November 1917 and trampled on both ever since. Balfour: 

“His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine …” (Emphasis added.) 

So much for the “rights” of the Palestinians. Between November 1947 and November 1948 five hundred and thirty one Palestinian towns and villages had been “ethnically cleansed.” (1) By 1952 it was six hundred and fifteen. (2) 

This “Nakba” (“catastrophe”) seventy years after Israel’s final founding, is ongoing.

The land grabs are illegal and violate: U.N. Charter, Article 2(4) & 51 (1945); Declaration on Principles of International Law Concerning Friendly Relations…, Principle 1 (1970). 

Settlements on occupied lands violate Geneva Conventions IV, Article 49(6) (1949). It is illegal to colonize or transfer non-indigenous people to occupied land. 

Taking land by force and claiming sovereignty violates: U.N. Charter, Article 2(4) (1945); Declaration on Principles of International Law Concerning Friendly Relations…, Principle 1. 

Forbidding civilian populations the right to return to their homes following the end of armed conflict is in direct violation of international law and UN resolutions. Geneva Convention IV, Articles 45, 46 & 49 (1949), UN resolutions 194 (III) (General Assembly; 1948) & 237 (Security Council; 1967). 

Collective punishment violates Geneva Conventions IV, Article 33 (1949); Geneva Conventions (Protocol I), Article 75(2d) (1977). (3) 

The list of breaches of international law is near endless as are the attacks on a people with no army, air force or navy, plus the decimations of 1967, 2008-9 and 2014. 

Israel’s violations of United Nations Security Council Resolutions, legally binding on Member-nations, include Resolutions – 54, 111, 233, 234, 236, 248, 250, 252, 256, 262, 267, 270, 280, 285, 298, 313, 316, 468, 476, a small sample.

The Senators would seem to have as little knowledge of the iniquities inflicted on the Middle East by foreign powers and cuckoos in the nest as their rookie President.

It is not Israel being meted out “unequal treatment” it is the Palestinians, thieved of their land, history, justice and all normality.

.

Notes

1.    http://www.palestineremembered .com/Acre/Right-Of-Return/Stor y432.html

2.    https://972mag.com/mapping-the -palestinian-villages-erased-a nd-replaced-with-jewish-towns/ 124847/

3.    http://itisapartheid.org/Docum ents_pdf_etc/IsraelViolationsI nternationalLaw.pdf

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***

After the unexpected collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, there was an urgent necessity to preserve the relations between Russia and Africa. A lot of post-Soviet political changes took place at the crucial time, Boris Yeltsin became the first President of the Russian Federation. 

It is historically worthy to note that all the Soviet republics attained their political independence and territorial sovereignty. Consequently, Russia was among these new republics. The primary task at the beginning was to redesign the constitution, update several state documents and, most importantly, to decide on a new foreign policy.

Determining the new foreign policy parameters was not an easy national task, to incorporate and maintain continuity of diplomatic relations with countries in the different regions of the world. Measuring the impact of today’s experiences, the historical legacy carried over from Soviet times to the new phase (1991-1992) were made possible by a number of politicians, academics and researchers. Navigating carefully Russia’s historical chronology is paramount, and giving resonating credits to personalities, who initially supported Russia’s external relations with Africa, is duly significant here.

The post-Soviet political process entailed determining these initial tasks, reviewing policy performance with emerging challenges, highlighting various obstacles hindering policy implementation and charting future pathways into the multifaceted spheres with Africa. In addition, policy strategies were necessary tools carving new perceptions in dealing African leaders, public institutions, policymakers and the African public.

According reports, the Institute for African Studies under the Russian Academy of Sciences serves as a trusted intermediary between Kremlin/MFA and Africa, during the past three decades. It created platforms for high-level discussions and provided the necessary support, in terms of political dialogues, strengthening economic partnerships as well as education and cultural directions between Russia and Africa.

Post-Soviet Players in Russia-African Landscape: Professor Alexey Mikhailovich Vasilyev

Obviously, Russia took the most difficult task, reminiscent of the Cold War in the 1980s and early 1990s when East-West confrontation was at its heights. Unforgettable roles were taken by prominent personalities, among them Professor Alexey Mikhailovich Vasilyev, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) and the Honorary President of the Institute for African Studies (IAS). After him was appointed Professor Irina O. Abramova, who holds the position from 2016 until present. 

Professor Alexey Vasilyev was the director of the Institute for African Studies (IAS) during Yeltsin’s political administration (1992 until 2016). Later, in search for an experienced professional to positively influence Russian-African relations, Russian President Vladimir Putin appointed him as the first Special Representative of the President of the Russian Federation for contacts with the leaders of African states (2006-2011). Quite apart from that, he served as a member of the Foreign Policy Council of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Recipient of state awards: the Orders of Honour and Friendship, various medals.

Over five decades of academic, literary and journalistic work, Professor Vasilyev has published 40 books, including revised editions and translations, and more than 900 articles in Russian and foreign academic journals, not counting several hundred interviews given to Russian and foreign TV and radio channels. He has been the chief editor of about 50 monographs, including the two-volume Encyclopedia of Africa. 

Professor Vasilyev has pioneered the analysis of a number of socio-economic problems of Africa, in particular the assessment of the nature of the African society as multidimensional, combining patriarchal and traditional elements with modern ones. (The monographs Africa: The Stepchild of Globalization and Africa and the Challenges of the XXI Century).

Professor Vasilyev and Russia’s African Agenda

The history of the contemporary Russia’s relations with Africa largely has been built on the past, what was preserved since the Soviet times and early stages of post-Sovietism (1991 until now). 

Professor Vasilyev said, during the International Africanist Conference under the theme ‘Does Africa Need Russia or Russia Needs Africa’ held in 2010, that “this new stage and this new quality of relations should be based on common values. It is based on long-standing traditions of friendship and solidarity created when the Soviet Union supported the struggle of the peoples of Africa against colonialism, racism and apartheid, protected their independence and sovereignty, and helped establish statehood.”

This article underscores the fact that the Kremlin and MFA largely operated under the guidance of Professor Vasilyev, moreso officially recognized as the President’s Special Representative for African Affairs. He consistently offered the strategic initiatives in promoting the sustainability of relations with African countries. Undoubtedly, he created regularly platforms for high-level policy discussions and pathways for strengthening economic partnership between the Russian Federation and Africa.

Beyond that and still working under Putin, Professor Vasilyev also cooperated closely with Russian state institutions such the Federation Council and State Duma (the upper and lower legislative organs respectively) in adopting legislations and regulations relating to specific dimensions and aspects of bilateral agreements within the framework of the foreign policy for Africa.

Worth emphasizing here that Russia’s new strategy (post-Soviet strategy) on Africa was first pursued by Professor Vasilyev with the first Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrei Kozyrev, Evgeny Primakov (Deputy Prime Minister in charge of Foreign Relations), and later with the then Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov, and now Sergey Lavrov.

According to several narratives, since Soviet’s collapse Russia has embarked on fighting “neo-colonialism” which it considers as a stumbling stone on its way to regain a part of its Soviet-era influence in Africa. 

Russia continues to convince Africans, over the years, the likely dangers of neocolonial tendencies perpetrated by the former colonial Western and European powers and the scramble for resources on the continent. In order for Africa to have a fairer treatment and unified voice on international stage, Russia is relentlessly advocating for multipolarism, for establishing a new global order.

Professor Vasilyev’s Influence on Africa’s Development

Within the situation analysis, we can readily agree that Russia’s approach towards Africa is a derivative of its foreign policy goals and objectives, the three key areas being:

a) Ensuring national security, integrity and political sovereignty. In the African context, this means primarily the danger of anything, including competition with other centers of power, that may push for negative impact on its national security. Russia stands against these negative tendencies in Africa.

b) Ensuring social and economic development of Africa. Africa is a promising market for Russia, and it factors in to facilitate the diversification and modernization of the continent’s economy, but this is implemented on bilateral basis. 

c) Strengthening the position of the Russian Federation as one of the influential centers in African world. Political dialogues with individual African countries, regional organizations and the African Union as friendly players make important diverse contributions to these efforts mentioned in (point a) and (point b) above. 

Usually referred to as hugely endowed with resources, both natural and human, it is now an attraction for the global powers. Nevertheless, Russia’s explicit position right after the Soviet era has been helping African states to protect their political sovereignty, to attain steadfast regional peace and stability, and further to accelerate the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The fact can logically be established that “the early birds caught the flies” at this point of the discussion. There are personalities who supervised and implemented the policy after Soviet’s collapse. In this context, Professor Alexey Vasilyev as Director of African Studies Institute (1992 until 2016) and as the President’s Special Representative for African Affairs, in practical terms, has to his credit – so many landmark achievements and that has made an appreciable impact on Russia-African relations.

In a nutshell, the ideological basis for cooperation at this level is provided by the conceptual documents and ideas recognized and supported by African countries: the approach of – “African Solutions to African Problems” – is being followed, working within the framework of the African Union Agenda 2063 and the UN Development Goals 2030.

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Kester Kenn Klomegah, who worked previously with Inter Press Service (IPS), Weekly Blitz and InDepthNews, is now a regular contributor to Global Research. He researches Eurasia, Russia, Africa and BRICS. His focused interest areas include geopolitical changes, foreign relations and economic development questions relating to Africa. As a versatile researcher, he believes that everyone deserves equal access to quality and trustworthy media reports.

Featured image is from the author

The WHO Health Tyranny – Or Not?

May 20th, 2024 by Peter Koenig

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***

The World Health Organization’s (WHO) General Assembly, the World Health Assembly (WHA) representing all 194 member states, will take place in Geneva, from 27 May to 1 June 2024.

During that crucial week, the WHA is expected to vote on the controversial “Pandemic Treaty” and the new revised International Health Regulation (IHR, last revision 2005). With two thirds of the countries yes-vote, the treaty and the new IHR would be approved. This would give the WHO, more precisely, the WHO’s Director General, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, full power in matters of health and climate change over and above individual member countries health sovereignty.

Yes, climate change too, because climate change (the hoax) is pretended to also be responsible largely for human and animal health.

This approval would be creating a One World Health — in, maybe soon to come, a One World Government.

They are both on top of the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) and the UN’s agendas. The WEF/ UN alliance signed in June 2019, is officially to ‘accelerate the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development’, which is equivalent to the WEF’s Great Reset, that ends in “You will own nothing but will be happy”.

Dr. Tedros was put into this WHO Director General (DG) position by Bill Gates, one of the WHO’s largest donors. The WHA just rubber-stamped Tedros into the WHO-DG position. Mr. Tedros is pursued for criminal activities in his home country, Ethiopia.

Funding for UN agencies’ budgets usually comes from member countries set contributions. The case of WHO is quite different. WHO is funded up to 87% (the precise percentage depends on the year) by the private sector, of which Big Pharma including the infamous NGO, GAVI (the “Vaccination Association”), with their offices just across the drive-way from WHO – and other interest groups, like Big Tech, Big Finance and Bill Gates and more.

Therefore, WHO, created in 1948 as a Rockefeller initiative, is not a real UN agency.

Gates, Rockefeller, Rothschild foundations are known for their eugenist agendas. They are supporting WHO.

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According to Article 55 of the WHO’s IHR, the final text to be voted on (Pandemic Treaty and revised IHR) should have been distributed to all member countries four months ahead of the WHA, i.e. on 27 January 2024. That did not happen. As of today, no official distribution of the final texts has taken place.

Still, the fear is that despite this WHO Constitutional shortcoming the vote will take place, even if muddled through behind closed doors, as has happened in the past, in particular during the most secretive negotiations for these two technocratic and world-dictatorial agreements. It is said, unwilling country representatives (in most cases they are countries’ respective Health Ministers), maybe coerced, or exchanged for more willing participants.

The proposed amendments (Pandemic Treaty and IHR) among other threats to public freedom, stand to:

  • Require surveillance of online information and censorship of information deemed “misinformation.”
  • Require health documents that could be used to restrict access and travel.
  • Force extreme lockdown measures.
  • Allow the WHO to declare a “public health emergency of international concern” at will.

According to a “Global Health Policy” article, published on 1 April 2024, there is a possibility that the vote will be “postponed” – or “indefinitely deferred” – or set up for new negotiations, due to potentially insufficient votes. This is what they say:

What are possible outcomes of the agreement negotiations?”

“WHO member states are expected to vote on the final text of the agreement during the WHA meeting this year, which starts on May 27, 2024. It is also possible that before then, member states decide to delay the vote to allow for more negotiating time. They may also choose to halt the process temporarily or permanently if sufficient agreement cannot be reached. If member states vote in favor, the agreement would be adopted as one of several different types of international legal agreements allowed under the WHO Constitution. Which form it takes is the subject of ongoing negotiations at the International Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB), but possibilities include a “treaty”, a “regulation” or a “resolution” / ”decision,” each of which has specific characteristics and implications.”

For full article, see this.

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Dr. Meryl Nass, who has been thoroughly following the WHO “Pandemic Treaty / IHR” negotiating process, and founder and President of “Door to Freedom”, explains in a 16-min video, Why the WHO’s New Plan Should Worry Everyone. See video below.

Technocracy News further explains the wider implications of the new WHO treaty and IHR agreements, if they were to be approved. See this.

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Just in – on a more positive outlook, Dr. Meryl Nass, explains that according to latest accounts 22 Attorneys-General in the US have told Joe Biden that the WHO will not be making public policy in their States. See this

Simultaneously, US Senators Drop another Bombshell on the World Health Organization. In a shocking but positively surprising turn of events, all Republican senators (49), led by Senator Ron Johnson, have formally urged President Joe Biden to withdraw his support in expanding the WHO’s pandemic authority. For more on Senator Ron Johnson, see this.

Given these last-minute new circumstances and turns of events – it is possible that WHO / WHA will decide not to vote in their end-May 2024 Assembly, but to bring the new documents – Pandemic Treaty and revised IHR – to the UN General Assembly (UNGA) in September 2024.

What would happen there is uncertain. Even if the UNGA might vote for the new sovereignty-killing agreements, the vote might have to go to the UN Security Council (UNSC), where there is a chance that at least one of the veto countries might vote against it.

However, it is too soon to declare “victory”. The defeat of the planned WHO health tyranny – One Health Order – is not yet certain. For sure, the fight is far from over. But as the public at large is gaining more insight and awakening due to these recent events, hopes are that this Globalist agenda item in the Globalist’s plan to subdue the world into a One World Government under a One Health System – may be overturned.

It is still a Warning – but also a Big Hope. Collective Hope may have a tremendous impact on world events.

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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 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.

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Antarctica, a continent about 40% larger than Europe in area, has also been called the world’s largest desert and the coldest, windiest, loneliest continent. Such descriptions do not exactly make this the most attractive continent, but in keeping with our times, those looking for minerals and geo-strategic advantages can find their own allurements.

So far this continent has been among the relatively better managed places in the world, but this can change rapidly with the increasingly emerging fearful possibilities of ecological disruption and even militarization.

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If such a drift takes place, this will be a tragedy much beyond this continent as Antarctica has a very important role in protecting the badly endangered ecology of the entire planet.

The vast ice sheets which cover this continent almost entirely make an important contribution in maintaining heat balance by naturally deflecting sun rays, and this has an increasingly more protective role for earth. This continent contributes also by maintaining the water circulation system.

The glaciers here are estimated to have 70 per cent of the freshwater supply of the world.

This is a habitat for many species which are found only here, and some of the species found here, such as the larger whales, have important protective roles on their own.

Although best known for its many species of penguins and seals, Antarctica is also home to its unique krills which provide food for many species apart from playing other ecologically important roles.

Although ecologists have been warning against increasing dangers of plastics, other pollutants and above all invasive species being introduced here in recent times as well as the threat posed by destructive fishing practices, on the whole the continent has been reasonably well protected so far in terms of any locally caused ruin. However in terms of the impact of the wider climate change and global warming, of course the fragile ecology of this continent has suffered in terms of heavy melting of ice and glaciers and habitats of several species being threatened in the process.

However if future activities contribute much more heavily to local ecological ruin, then the vicious cycle will be completed as global warming melts the continent, also releasing more buried carbon, on the one hand and on the other hand local ruin disrupts the continent’s protective role and contributes further to climate change and other serious ecological ruin, pushing the continent closer towards tipping points.

So far much harm could be avoided because of the systems put in place by the Antarctica Treaty System (ATS) created by the Antarctica Treaty of 1959/1961 which put in place a system of avoiding exploitation and exploration of minerals as well as banning military activities/militarization. This was strengthened further by the follow-up protocol framed in 1998 which beautifully agreed to preserve the Antarctica as an ‘International Nature Reserve Dedicated to Science and Peace’. This protocol is supposed to last at least for 50 years up to the year 2048 when again hopefully this can be extended.

However this system could function reasonably effectively so far because most of the involved countries were not motivated to disrupt it. Now with an increasingly more divided world which is more hawkish on exploring geo-strategic advantages and which is also getting greedier for certain rare minerals or other valuable natural resources, this can change. 

While the systems on place have worked well here so far, their loopholes and susceptibilities will be exposed once the main actors involved become more aggressive. To give an example, the current system gives all exemptions for research stations, even some military personnel. This can be misused to get in more military personnel. Research is supposed to be for civilian purposes, but exploiting dual use possibilities as well as some hidden research, work of military importance can also be taken up. Similarly, research work can include secret mineral exploration work as well, which is most likely to lead to wider mineral exploration and ultimately mining work if the prospects are found to be very alluring.

There are prospects for lucrative fishing as well as for creating new sea routes. Domination of the sky here can lead to a big military advantage over a wide area. The clear sky here may delight nature lovers, but those interested in space warfare research and satellite tracking may take a very different view of the possibilities.

The original treaty was signed by 12 countries. Seven out of these have claimed territories—Argentina, Australia, Chile, France, New Zealand, Norway and UK. No less important is the reported fact that the USA, Russia and China have reserved rights to making future claims. Many more countries, over 30, have set up permanent research bases. Even efforts for dividing the region along imaginary lines have been discussed, making a mockery of existing treaty and protocol. However so far the treaty and the protocol are in place, and this is a saving grace. 

However clearly many more efforts for strengthening the provisions of peace and ecological protection are needed. One option is to entirely do away with territorial claims and to hand over the continent to the United Nations for governing it entirely on the basis of complete peace and ecological protection as a common heritage of all humankind and forms of life.

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Bharat Dogra writer is Honorary Convener, Campaign to Save Earth Now. His recent books include Protecting Earth for Children, Planet in Peril, Earth without Borders and A Day in 2071. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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In our contemporary education, a technological revolution is underway—a silent technological revolution that transcends the boundaries of ethics, law, pedagogy, sociology, and even the very essence of human existence.

At its epicenter lies the integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI), a force both awe-inspiring and terrifying in its potential to reshape the landscape of learning and knowledge. As educators and learners grapple with the profound implications of AI in education, they are confronted with a myriad of challenges that extend far beyond the realm of traditional academic discourse and educational praxis. 

This my present essay endeavors to delve deep into the philosophical, analytical, and critical dimensions of the challenges posed by AI in contemporary education, exploring the ethical, legal, pedagogical, technological, sociological, existential, and even the spiritual challenges that AI poses in our contemporary educational system, while examining the implications for issues of creativity, plagiarism, inauthenticity, intellectual rights breaches, academic deception, and cheating that Artificial Intelligence may pose for teachers and students alike.

Foremostly, the integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in our present educational system challenges our conceptions of ethics and of existential authenticity, forcing us to grapple with questions of “right and wrong”, “authentic and inauthentic” in an increasingly technologically mediated and digitalized world.

As AI algorithms shape educational experiences through personalized learning pathways and adaptive assessments, serious concerns arise about the erosion of student’s autonomy, creativity, originality, authenticity, genuine volition, and free agency in the learning process. The tension between individual freedom and algorithmic determinism underscores the need for ethical frameworks that prioritize intrinsic human values and human rights as well as social equity in the design and deployment of AI-driven educational technologies to students across digital and information divides.

In addition, the proliferation of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in our present education raises complex legal issues surrounding data privacy, intellectual property rights, and algorithmic accountability.

As educational institutions collect and analyze vast amounts of student and faculty data to inform AI-driven decision-making processes, questions emerge about the ownership, access, and use of this data. Additionally, concerns about algorithmic bias, algorithmic inauthenticity, skewed algorithmic programing, algorithmic discrimination, as well as algorithmic manipulations highlight the need for transparent, ethical, and accountable algorithms that adhere to principles of fairness and equity. Legal frameworks must evolve to address these challenges, ensuring that the rights and interests of students and educators are safeguarded and protected in an increasingly data-driven global landscape.

From the point-of-view of pedagogy, the integration of Artificial Intelligence presents both opportunities and challenges for educators seeking to foster meaningful learning experiences that transcend the limitations of technology.

On one hand, AI-powered tools and platforms offer the potential to enhance teaching effectiveness through personalized learning experiences, adaptive grading rubrics, students’ output feedback mechanisms, and intelligent mentoring systems. By leveraging AI to analyze student learning patterns and adapt instructional strategies accordingly, educators can create more tailored and responsive learning environments that cater to the diverse needs and abilities of individual learners. However, the reliance on AI also raises concerns about the “de-skilling” of teachers, replacement of warm, alive and personalized mentoring, and the commodification of education, as human instructors are supplanted by automated digitalized computer systems that prioritize impersonal standardization over real authentic creativity, critical thinking and genuine reflection or reflexivity.

Moreover, the integration of Artificial Intelligence in our present educational institutions poses profound technological challenges, ranging from infrastructure and resource constraints to issues of digital/information divide and access inequality to those students who do not have access to these AI programs and applications (apps). In order to fully harness the potential of AI to transform education, investments must be made in digital infrastructure, teacher training, and educational resources to ensure equitable and accessible AI-driven educational opportunities for all learners and mentors alike. Furthermore, efforts must be made to bridge the digital divide and address disparities in access to technology and internet connectivity, particularly in marginalized and economically disadvantaged teachers and students whose access to AI-powered educational tools, programs, and apps may be limited or non-existent.

From a sociological perspective, the integration of Artificial Intelligence in our contemporary educational institutions reshapes social dynamics and power structures within educational institutions, raising questions about the role of technology in mediating interpersonal relationships and shaping social interactions.

As AI-driven algorithms influence decision-making processes related to student admissions, academic performance, and career pathways, concerns arise about the potential for algorithmic discrimination and bias to perpetuate and exacerbate existing inequalities based on race, gender, socioeconomic status, religious, and other demographic factors. Additionally, the reliance on AI-mediated communication channels and virtual learning environments may erode the sense of community and interpersonal connection in educational activities that is integral to the educational experience, leading to feelings of isolation and disengagement among students and educators alike.

From both existential and spiritual frameworks, the integration of Artificial Intelligence in our present educational system confronts us with innermost questions about the nature of human consciousness, human creativity, and the pursuit of truth in an increasingly digitalized and computerized world. As AI algorithms mimic human behaviors and generate content with ever greater efficiency, the boundaries between human and machine, genuine and artificial, real and virtual blur in so many ways that challenge our understanding of what it means to be human and what Reality truly is. In the face of AI-generated content and virtual experiences, profound questions arise about the authenticity and integrity of human expression, as well as the spiritual dimensions of learning and knowledge acquisition that transcend the limitations of technology. As educators and learners grapple with these existential and spiritual challenges, they are called upon to cultivate a deeper awareness of the interconnectedness of all beings and the sacredness of the learning process and our journey to the search for Knowledge, Truth, and Reality.

One final but very crucial point: the integration of Artificial Intelligence in our contemporary educational system gives rise to a host of philosophical, analytical, critical, reflective and cautionary questions that demand careful consideration and thoughtful engagement from all educational stakeholders. By confronting the ethical, legal, pedagogical, technological, sociological, existential, and spiritual challenges posed by AI in education, both learners and mentors can work together towards harnessing the transformative potential of AI to create more inclusive, equitable, and empowering learning environments for both students and teachers. 

Only by navigating and embracing the complexities of AI in our present educational system with openness, justice, fairness, and equity can we trailblaze and traverse the ever-changing and ever-meandering landscapes of learning and ensure that the pursuit of genuine knowledge remains a deeply authentic human endeavor grounded in the values of truth, goodness, justice, and love: an authentic learning that is founded and built-up by genuine humanity, and engaged affective humaneness, and not merely a trivial learning coming from technologies that are separated from the human experience of Life and authentic Living.

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Prof. Henry Francis B. Espiritu is Associate Professor-7 of Philosophy and Asian Studies at the University of the Philippines (UP), Cebu City, Philippines. He was Academic Coordinator of the Political Science Program at UP Cebu from 2011-2014, and Program Coordinator of Gender and Development (GAD) Office at UP Cebu from 2015-2016 and from 2018-2019. He is presently the Focal Point Faculty for Gender and Development in the University of the Philippines (UP) Cebu, College of Social Sciences. 

Prof. Espiritu’s research interests include Theoretical and Applied Ethics, Islamic Studies particularly Sunni jurisprudence (Sunni Fiqh), Islamic feminist discourses, Islam in interfaith dialogue initiatives, Islamic environmentalism, Classical Sunni Islamic pedagogy, the writings of Al-Ghazali on pluralism and tolerance, Islam in the Indian Subcontinent, Turkish Sufism, Ataturk Studies, Ottoman Studies, Genghis Khan Studies, Central Asian Studies, Marxian Political Thought, Muslim-Christian Dialogue, Middle Eastern Affairs, Peace Studies, Public Theology, Political Economy, The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Postmodernism in Philosophy.

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

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First World War and Imperialism. Dr. Jacques Pauwels

May 20th, 2024 by Dr. Jacques R. Pauwels

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Imperialism, the worldwide expansion of capitalism, motivated by the lust for raw materials such as petroleum, markets and cheap labour, involved fierce competition among great powers such as the British Empire, czarist Russia, and the German Reich, and thus led to the Great War of 1914–1918, later to be known as the First World War or World War I.

The First World War was the product of the nineteenth century, a “long century” in the view of some historians, lasting from 1789 to 1914. It was characterized by revolutions of a political, social, and also economic nature, especially the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution, and ended with the emergence of imperialism, that is a new, worldwide manifestation of capitalism, originally a European phenomenon. This essay focuses on how imperialism played a decisive role in the outbreak, course, and outcome of the “Great War” of 1914–1918; it is based on the author’s book,

The Great Class War 1914–1918, James Lorimer, Toronto, 2016.

When the French Revolution broke out in 1789, the nobility (or aristocracy) constituted the ruling class in just about every country in Europe. But because of the French Revolution and other revolutions that followed – not only in France – in 1830 and 1848, the haute bourgeoisie or upper-middle class was able, by the middle of the century, not to unseat the nobility, but to join it at the apex of the social and political pyramid. Thus was formed an “active symbiosis” of two classes that were in fact very different. The nobility was characterized by great wealth based on large landownership, had a strong preference for conservative political ideas and parties, and tended to cultivate clerical connections. The upper-middle class, on the other hand, favored the ideology and parties of liberalism as well as free-thinking and even anti-clericalism, and its wealth was generated by activities in commerce, industry, and finance. The two had been on opposite sides of the barricades during the revolutions of 1789, 1830, and 1848, when the bourgeoisie had been a revolutionary class and the aristocracy the counter-revolutionary class par excellence. What united these two propertied classes, namely in 1848, was their common fear of a class enemy that threatened their wealth, power, and privileges: the poor, restless, and potentially revolutionary “underclass,” propertyless and therefore known as the proletariat, the “people who own nothing but their offspring.”

The upper-middle class ceased to be revolutionary and joined the nobility on the counter-revolutionary side after the revolutions that shook Europe in 1848. Those events revealed that the lower classes aspired to bring about not only a political but also a social and economic revolution that would mean the end of the power and wealth of not only the nobility but also the bourgeoisie. In the second half of the nineteenth century, then, and until the outbreak of the First World War, the nobility and the haute bourgeoisie formed one single upper class, one single “elite” or “establishment.” But while the bourgeois bankers and industrialists enjoyed more and more economic power, political power tended to remain a monopoly of the aristocrats in most countries, and certainly in big, quasi-feudal empires such as Russia. In any event, all members of the elite were obsessed by the fear of revolution, increasingly embodied by proletarian political parties that subscribed to revolutionary Marxist socialism.

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Illustrator T. Allom, Engraver J. TingleHistory of the cotton manufacture in Great Britain by Sir Edward Baines (From the Public Domain)

The nineteenth century was also the century of the Industrial Revolution. In all countries where that revolution took place, the economy became much more productive. But this eventually caused the economic supply to exceed the demand, as was revealed in 1873 by the outbreak of a totally new kind of economic crisis, a crisis of overproduction. (Earlier economic crises had always been crises of underproduction, in which supply was insufficient in comparison to demand, for example, the infamous potato famine in Ireland in the 1840s.) In the most developed countries, that is, in Western and Central Europe and in the USA, countless small industrial producers disappeared from the economic scene as a result of this economic depression.

The industrial landscape was henceforth dominated by a relatively restricted group of gigantic enterprises, mostly incorporated, joint-stock companies or “corporations,” as well as associations of firms known as cartels, and also big banks. These “big boys” competed with each other, but increasingly, they also concluded agreements and collaborated in order to share scarce raw materials and markets, set prices, and find other ways to limit as much as possible the disadvantages of competition in a theoretically “free” market – and in order to defend and aggressively promote their common interests against foreign competitors and, of course, against workers and other employees. In this system, the big banks played an important role. They provided the credit required by large-scale industrial production and, at the same time, they looked all over the world for opportunities to invest the surplus capital made available by the megaprofits achieved by the corporations. Big banks thus became partners and even owners, or at least major shareholders, of corporations. Concentration, gigantism, oligopolies, and even monopolies characterized this new stage in the development of capitalism. Some Marxist writers have referred to this phenomenon as “monopoly capitalism.”

The industrial and financial bourgeoisie had hitherto been very much attached to the liberal, laissez-faire thinking of Adam Smith, which had assigned to the state only a minimal role in economic life, namely that of “night watch.” But now the role of the state was becoming increasingly important, for example, as buyer of industrial commodities, such as guns and other modern weapons, supplied by gigantic firms and financed by major banks. The industrial-financial elite also counted on the state’s intervention to protect the country’s corporations against foreign competition by means of tariffs on the importation of finished products, even though this violated the classical liberal dogma of free markets and free competition. (It is one of the ironies of history that the USA, today the world’s most fervent apostle of free trade, was extremely protectionist at that time.) “National economic systems” or “national economies” thus emerged, and they proceeded to compete fiercely against each other. State intervention – to be labelled “dirigism” or “statism” by economists – was now also favored because only a strong state was able to acquire foreign territories useful or even indispensable to industrialists and bankers as markets for their finished products or investment capital and as sources of raw materials and cheap labor. These desiderata were not normally available domestically, or at least not in sufficient quantities or at sufficiently low prices, they privileged a country’s industrialists and bankers vis-à-vis foreign competitors, and they helped to maximize profitability.

The kind of territorial acquisitions that could only be achieved under the auspices of a strong and interventionist state, also suited the nobility, the partner of the industrial-financial bourgeoisie within the ruling elite, and in many if not most countries still the class with a near-monopoly of political power. The aristocrats were traditionally large landowners, so it is only natural that they favored territorial acquisitions; the more acreage one controlled, the better. In noble families, moreover, the eldest son traditionally inherited not only the title but the family’s entire patrimony. Newly acquired territory overseas or – in the case of Germany and the Danube Monarchy – in Eastern Europe could function as “lands of unlimited possibilities” where the younger sons could acquire domains of their own and lord it over natives who were to serve as underpaid peasants or domestic servants, just as the Iberian Peninsula’s Reconquista had provided “castles in Spain” to junior aristocrats during the Middle Ages, the nobility’s golden age. Adventurous scions of noble families could also embark on prestigious careers as officers in conquering colonial armies or as high-ranking officials in the administration of colonial territories. (The highest functions in the colonies, for example, that of Viceroy of British India or Governor General of Canada, were indeed reserved almost exclusively for members of aristocratic families.) Finally, the nobility had started to invest heavily in capitalist activities such as mining, a branch of industry interested in overseas regions rich in minerals. The British and Dutch royal families thus acquired enormous portfolios of shares in firms that were prospecting for oil all over the world, such as Shell, so they too were likely to profit from territorial expansion.

Like its upper-middle class partner in the elite, the nobility could also expect to gain from territorial expansion in yet another way; such expansion proved useful as a means to exorcize the spectre of revolution, namely by co-opting potentially troublesome members of the lower orders and integrating them into the established order. How was this achieved?

First but not foremost, considerable numbers of proletarians could be put to work in colonized lands as soldiers, employees, and foremen on plantations and in mines (where the natives served as slaves), low-ranking bureaucrats in the colonial administration, and even missionaries. There they could not only enjoy a higher standard of living than at home but also a certain amount of social prestige, since they could lord it over, and feel superior to, the colored natives. Thus, they became more likely to identify with the state that made this form of social climbing possible and to be integrated into its established order. Second, within the mother countries themselves, a similar socialization of an even larger segment of the lower orders resulted from the acquisition of colonies. The ruthless “super-exploitation” that was possible in the colonies, whose denizens were robbed of their gold, their land, and other riches, and be made to slave away for virtually nothing, yielded “super-profits.”

In the mother country, the employers could thus offer somewhat higher wages and better working conditions to their workers, and the state could start to provide modest social services. At least some of the proletarians in the mother lands thus became better off at the expense of the oppressed and exploited denizens of the colonies. In other words, the misery was exported from Europe to the colonies, to the unhappy lands that would later collectively be known as the “Third World.” (In the USA, the prosperity and freedom of the white population was similarly made possible by the exploitation and oppression of Afro-Americans and “Indians.”) In any event, under those conditions, most European socialists (or social-democrats) increasingly developed warm feelings towards a “fatherland” that treated them better, so they gradually abandoned their traditional Marxist internationalism to become rather nationalistic; discreetly, they – and their socialist (or social-democratic) parties – also ceased to believe in the inevitability and necessity of revolution and migrated from Marx’s revolutionary socialism to socialist “reformism.” This explains why, in 1914, most socialist parties would not oppose the war but would rally behind the flag to defend the fatherland that had presumably been so good to them. Third, territorial expansion also offered an advantage much appreciated by the many members of the elite who subscribed to Malthusianism, a trendy ideology at the time, which blamed overpopulation for the great social problems that ravaged all the industrialized countries. It made it possible to dump the restless and potentially revolutionary demographic surplus in distant lands such as Australia, where they could acquire land and start a farm, for example, by expelling or even exterminating the natives.

Projects for territorial acquisitions, undertaken under the auspices of a strong and even aggressive state, then, were favored by the aristocratic as well as the bourgeois factions of the elite. And they received considerable popular support, because they appealed to the romantic imagination and, more importantly, because even some of the proletarians could help themselves to the crumbs that fell off the table. The second half, and particularly the final quarter, of the nineteenth century thus witnessed a worldwide territorial expansion of European as well as two non-European industrial powers, the USA and Japan. However, the conquest of territories, where desiderata such as precious raw materials were to be found and where there existed plenty of investment opportunities, was rarely possible “next door.” The great exception to this general rule was provided by the USA, who grabbed the vast hunting grounds of the Native Americans, stretching all the way to the coast of the Pacific Ocean, and robbed neighboring Mexico of a huge part of its territory. It was generally more realistic, however, to dream of territorial acquisitions in faraway lands, above all in the “dark continent” that was to become the object of the famous “scramble for Africa.” Great Britain and France acquired vast territories, mostly in Africa but also in Asia. The USA expanded not only on its own continent but robbed Spain via a “splendid little war” of colonial possessions such as the Philippines, and Japan managed to turn Korea into a dependence. Germany, on the other hand, did not do very well, mostly because it remained focused for too long on the establishment of a unified state; as a latecomer in the scramble for colonies, it had to settle for relatively few and certainly less desirable possessions, such as “German Southwest Africa,” now Namibia. In any event, the industrial giants of Europe, plus the USA and Japan, without exception states organized according to capitalist principles, morphed at that time into “mother countries” or “metropoles” of vast empires. To this new manifestation of capitalism, originally a purely European phenomenon, that was henceforth spreading itself over the entire globe, a name was given in 1902 by a British economist, John A. Hobson: “imperialism.” In 1916, Lenin was to offer a Marxist view of imperialism in a famous pamphlet, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism.

Imperialism generated more and more tension and conflicts among the great powers that were competing to acquire control over as many economically important territories as possible. At that time, social Darwinism was a very influential scientific ideology, and it preached that competition was the basic principle of all forms of life. Not only individuals but also states had to compete mercilessly with each other in a struggle for survival. The strongest triumphed, and thus they became even stronger; the weak, on the other hand, were the losers, and they were left behind in the race for survival and were doomed to perish. To be able to compete with other states, a state had to be economically strong, and for that reason its “national economy” – that is, its corporations and banks – had to have control over as much territory as possible with raw materials, potential for the export of goods and investment capital, etc. Thus was generated a merciless worldwide scramble for colonies, even for lands one did not really need but did not want to fall into the hands of a competitor. Considering all this, the British historian Eric Hobsbawm drew the conclusion that capitalism’s trend towards imperialist expansion inevitably pushed the world in the direction of conflict and war.

Image: Head and shoulders portrait of Kaiser Wilhelm II by Court Photographer T. H. Voigt of Frankfurt, 1902. (From the Public Domain)

Photograph of a middle-aged Wilhelm II with a moustache

However, in spite of tensions and crises, including a conflict about East African real estate that brought Britain and France to the brink of war in 1898, the Fashoda Crisis, Europe’s imperialist powers managed to acquire vast territories without fighting a major war against each other. By the turn of the century, the entire globe seemed to be partitioned. 

According to historian Margaret MacMillan, this means that the imperialist powers no longer had any reason to quarrel, and she concludes that an accusing finger cannot be pointed at imperialism when the causes of the First World War are discussed. To this it can be replied – as the French historian Annie Lacroix-Riz has done – that there remained at least one “hungry” imperialist power which felt disadvantaged compared to “satisfied” powers such as Great Britain, was not prepared to put up with the status quo, aggressively pursued a redistribution of existing colonial possessions, and was in fact willing to wage war to achieve its objectives. That “hungry” power was Germany, which had belatedly developed an imperialist appetite, namely after Wilhelm II became emperor in 1888 and promptly demanded for the Reich a “place in the sun” of international imperialism, in other words, a redistribution of the colonial possessions that would provide Germany with a larger share. Colonial possessions, Lacroix-Riz points out, may have been distributed, but they could be redistributed. That redistributing the colonial possessions was possible, but also unlikely to be achieved peacefully, was demonstrated by the case of former Spanish colonies like the Philippines, Cuba, and Puerto Rico, which were transformed into satrapies of America’s “informal empire” as a result of the Spanish-American War of 1898.

Moreover, a considerable part of the world did in fact remain available for direct or indirect annexation as colonies or protectorates, or at least for economic penetration. MacMillan herself acknowledges that a “serious scramble for China,” similar to the earlier, risky race for territories in Africa, remained possible, the more so since not only the great European powers but also the USA and Japan displayed much interest in the land of unlimited possibilities that the Middle Empire seemed to be. The imperialist wolves were also keenly – and jealously – eying a couple of other major countries that had hitherto managed to remain independent, namely, Persia and the Ottoman Empire.

The competition between the imperialist powers was and remained very likely to lead to conflicts and wars, not only limited conflicts such as the Spanish-American War of 1899 and the Russian-Japanese War of 1905 but also a general conflagration involving most if not all powers. It almost came to such a conflagration in 1911 when, to the great chagrin of Germany, France turned Morocco into a protectorate. The case of Morocco shows how even supposedly satisfied imperialist powers such as France were never truly satisfied – just as immensely rich people never feel that they have enough riches – but continued to look for more ways to fatten their portfolio of colonial possessions, even if that threatened to cause a war.

Let us consider the case of the “hungry” imperialist power, Germany. The Reich, founded in 1871, had entered the scramble for colonies a little too late. It could actually consider itself lucky that it was still able to acquire a handful of colonies such as Namibia. But those hardly amounted to major prizes, certainly not in comparison to the Congo, a huge region bursting with rubber and copper that was pocketed by minuscule Belgium. With respect to access to sources of vital raw materials as well as opportunities for exporting finished products and investment capital, the tandem of Germany’s industry and finance thus found itself very much disadvantaged in comparison to its British and French rivals. Crucially important raw materials had to be purchased at comparatively high rates, which meant that the finished products of German industry were more expensive and therefore less competitive on international markets. This imbalance between extremely high industrial productivity and relatively restricted markets demanded a solution. In the eyes of numerous German industrialists, bankers, and other members of the country’s elite, the only genuine solution was a war that would give the German Empire what it felt entitled to and – to formulate it in Social-Darwinist terms – what it believed to be necessary for its survival: colonies overseas and, perhaps even more importantly, territories within Europe as well.

In the years leading up to 1914, the German Reich thus pursued an expansionist and aggressive foreign policy aimed at acquiring more possessions and turning Germany into a world power. This policy, of which Emperor Wilhelm II was the figurehead, has gone down in history under the label of Weltpolitik, “policy on a worldwide scale,” a term that was merely a euphemism for what was in fact an imperialist policy. In any event, Imanuel Geiss, an authority in the field of the history of Germany before and during the First World War, has emphasized that this policy was one of the factors “that made war inevitable.”

With respect to overseas possessions, Berlin dreamed of pinching the colonies of small states such as Belgium and Portugal. (And in Great Britain a faction within the elite, consisting mostly of industrialists and bankers with connections to Germany, was in fact willing to appease the Reich, not with a single square mile of their own Empire, of course, but with the gift of Belgian or Portuguese overseas possessions.) Nevertheless, it was above all within Europe itself that opportunities seemed to exist for Germany. Ukraine, for example, with its fertile farmland, loomed as the perfect “territorial complement” (Ergänzungsgebiet) for the highly industrialized German heartland; its bread and meat could provide cheap food for German workers, which would permit keeping their wages down. Likewise eyed by German imperialists was the Balkan, a region that might serve as source of cheap agricultural products and as market for German commodities. Germans in general were impressed with America’s conquest of the “Wild West” and Britain’s acquisition of the Indian subcontinent and dreamed that their country might similarly obtain a gigantic colony, namely by expanding into Eastern Europe in a modern-day edition of Germany’s medieval “push to the East,” the Drang nach Osten. The East would supply the Reich with abundant raw materials, agricultural products, and cheap labor in the shape of its numerous, supposedly inferior but muscular natives; and also a kind of social safety valve, because Germany’s own potentially troublesome demographic surplus could be shipped as “pioneers” to those distant lands. Hitler’s infamous fantasies with respect to “living space,” which he was to reveal in the 1920s in Mein Kampf and to put into practice during the Second World War, saw the light under those circumstances. In this respect, Hitler was not an anomaly at all, but a typical product of his time and space, and of the imperialism of that time and space.

Western Europe, more developed industrially and more densely populated than Europe’s east, was attractive to German imperialism as a market for the finished products of German industry, but also as a source of interesting raw materials. The influential leaders of the German steel industry did not hide their great interest in the French region around the towns of Briey and Longwy; that area – situated close to the border with Belgium and Luxembourg – featured rich deposits of high-quality iron ore. Without this ore, claimed some spokesmen of German industry, the German steel industry was condemned to death, at least in the long run. It was also believed that Germany’s Volkswirtschaft, its national economy, would profit greatly from the annexation of Belgium with its great seaport, Antwerp, its coal regions, etc. And together with Belgium its colony, the Congo, would of course also fall into German hands. Whether the acquisition of Belgium and perhaps even the Netherlands would involve direct annexation or a combination of formal political independence and economic dependence on Germany was a matter of debate among the experts within the German elite. In any event, in one way or another, virtually all of Europe was to be integrated into a “great economic space” under German control, The Reich would finally be able to take its rightful place next to Britain, the USA, etc. in the restricted circle of the great imperialist powers. (The historian Fritz Fischer has dealt with all this in his classical study of Germany’s objectives in World War I.)

It was obvious that Germany’s ambitions in the East could not be realized without serious conflict with Russia and the German aspirations with respect to the Balkans risked causing problems with Serbia. That country was already at loggerheads with the Reich’s biggest and best friend, Austria-Hungary, but it was supported by Russia. And the Russians were also very annoyed by Germany’s planned penetration of the Balkan Peninsula in the direction of Istanbul, since the straits between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean were at the very top of their own list of desiderata. St. Petersburg was almost certainly willing to go to war to deny Germany direct or indirect control of the Bosporus and the Dardanelles.

The German ambitions in Western Europe, and Belgium in particular, obviously ran counter to the interests of the British. At least as far back as the time of Napoleon, London had not wanted to see a major power ensconced in Antwerp and along the Belgian coast – and certainly not Germany, long a great power on land but now, with an increasingly impressive navy, also a menace at sea. With Antwerp, Germany would not only have at its disposal a “pistol aimed at England,” as Napoleon had described the city, but also one of the world’s greatest seaports. That would have made Germany’s international trade far less dependent on the services of British ports, sea lanes, and shipping, a major source of revenue of British commerce.

The real and imaginary interests and needs of Germany as a great industrial and imperialist power thus pushed the country increasingly rapidly, via an aggressive foreign policy, toward a war. But the possibility of war raised no great concerns within the elite of the military giant that Germany had already been for quite some time. To the contrary, among the industrialists, bankers, generals, politicians, and other members of the Reich’s establishment, only some rare birds did not wish for a war; most of them preferred a war as soon as possible, and many were even in favor of unleashing a preventive war. Of course, the German elite also featured less bellicose members, but among them, there prevailed the fatalist feeling that war was simply inevitable.

That the merciless competition between the great imperialist powers – a struggle of life and death, as seen from a social-Darwinist viewpoint – was virtually certain to lead to war, was also demonstrated by the case of Great Britain. That country marched into the twentieth century as the world’s superpower, in control of an unprecedented collection of colonial possessions. But the power and wealth of the Empire obviously depended on the fact that, thanks to the mighty Royal Navy, Britannia ruled the waves. And in that respect a very serious problem arose around the turn of the century. As fuel for ships, coal was quickly being replaced by petroleum on account of its far greater efficiency. Albion had plenty of coal but did not have petroleum, not even in its colonies, at least not in sufficient quantities. And so the search was on for plentiful and reliable sources of oil, the “black gold.” For the time being, that precious commodity had to be imported from what was then the world’s foremost producer and exporter, the USA. But that was not acceptable in the long run, since Britain often quarrelled with its former transatlantic colony about issues such as influence in South America, and the USA was also becoming a serious rival in the imperialist rat race.

Looking out for alternative sources, the British found a way to quench their thirst for petroleum, at least partly, in Persia. It was in this context that the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company was founded, later to be known as British Petroleum (BP). However, a definitive solution to the problem only appeared in sight when, still during the first decade of the twentieth century, significant deposits of oil were discovered in Mesopotamia, more specifically in the region around the city of Mosul. The patriciate ruling Albion – exemplified by gentlemen like Churchill – decided at that time that Mesopotamia, a hitherto unimportant corner of the Middle East destined to become Iraq after the First World War, but then still belonging to the Ottoman Empire, had to be brought under British control. That was not an unrealistic objective, since the Ottoman Empire was a large but weak country, from whose vast territory the British had already previously managed to carve attractive morsels, for example, Egypt and Cyprus. In fact, in 1899, the British had already snatched oil-rich Kuwait and proclaimed it a protectorate; they were to transform it in 1914 into a supposedly independent emirate. Possession of Mesopotamia, then, was seen to be the only way to make it possible for unlimited quantities of petroleum to flow unperturbed toward Albion’s shores.

However, in 1908, the Ottoman Empire became an ally of Germany, which meant that the planned acquisition of Mesopotamia was virtually certain to trigger war between Britain and the Reich. But the need for petroleum was such that plans were nonetheless made for military action. And these plans needed to be implemented as soon as possible. The Germans and Ottomans had started to construct the Bagdad Bahn, a railway that was to link Berlin via Istanbul with Baghdad, the Mesopotamian metropolis, situated close to Mosul, and that raised the prospect that barrels full of Mesopotamian oil might one day start to roll toward Germany for the benefit of the Reich’s growing collection of battleships, which happened to be the most dangerous rival of the Royal Navy! Since the Baghdad Bahn was expected to be completed in 1914, quite a few British political and military decision-makers were of the opinion that it was better not to wait very long before starting a war that appeared unavoidable in any event.

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German Baghdad Railway. (From the Public Domain)

It was in this context that London’s traditional friendship with Germany came to an end, that Britain joined two former archenemies, France and Russia, in an alliance known as the Triple Entente, and that the British army commanders started to work out detailed plans for war against Germany in collaboration with their French counterparts. The idea was that the massive armies of the French and the Russians would smash Germany’s host, while the bulk of the Empire’s armed forces would invade Mesopotamia from India, beat the Ottomans, and grab the oil fields. The Royal Navy also promised to prevent the German Navy from attacking France via the English Channel, and on land, the French army was to benefit from (mostly symbolic) assistance by the relatively tiny British Expeditionary Corps (BEF). However, this Machiavellian arrangement was concocted in the greatest secrecy, and neither the Parliament nor the public were informed about it.

On the eve of the Great War, a compromise with the Germans remained possible and even enjoyed the favor of some factions within Britain’s political, industrial, and financial elite. A compromise would have provided Germany with at least a share of the Mesopotamian oil, but London sought to achieve nothing less than exclusive control over the “black gold” of Mesopotamia. The British plans to invade Mesopotamia were prepared as early as 1911 and called for the occupation of the strategically important city of Basra, to be followed by a march along the banks of the Tigris to Baghdad. Complemented by a simultaneous attack by British forces operating from Egypt, this invasion was to provide Britain with control over Mesopotamia and much of the rest of the Middle East. This scenario would indeed unfold during the Great War, but in slow motion, as it turned out to be a much tougher job than expected, and the objectives would only be achieved at the end of the conflict. Incidentally, the famous Lawrence of Arabia would not suddenly appear out of nowhere; he was merely one of the numerous Brits who, during the years leading up to 1914, had been carefully selected and trained to “defend” their country’s interests – mostly with respect to oil – in the Middle East.

The conquest of the oil fields of Mesopotamia constituted the prime objective of Britain’s entry into the war in 1914. When the war broke out, and the German and Austrian-Hungarian partners went to war against the Franco-Russian duo plus Serbia, there seemed to be no reason for Britain to become involved in the conflict. The government in London was confronted with a dilemma; it was honor-bound to keep the promises made to France but that would have revealed that these plans had been concocted in secret. However, Germany’s violation of Belgium’s neutrality provided London with the perfect pretext to go to war. In reality, the fate of the small country was of little or no concern to the British leaders, at least as long as the Germans did not proceed to grab Antwerp. Neither was the violation of a country’s neutrality deemed to be a big deal; during the war, the British themselves would not hesitate to violate the neutrality of a number of countries, namely, China, Greece, and Persia.

Like all plans made in preparation for what was to become the “Great War,” the scenario concocted in London failed to unfold as anticipated. The French and Russians did not manage to crush the Teutonic host, so the British had to send many more troops to the continent – and suffer much greater losses – than foreseen. And in the distant Middle East, the Ottoman army – expertly assisted by German officers – unexpectedly proved to be a tough nut to crack. In spite of these inconveniences, which caused the death of about three quarters of a million soldiers in the UK alone, all was well in the end; in 1918, the Union Jack fluttered over the oil fields of Mesopotamia.

This short survey demonstrates that, as far as the rulers of Britain were concerned, World War I was not fought to save “gallant little Belgium” or to champion the cause of international law and justice. At stake were economic interests, the interests of British imperialism, which happen to be the interests of the rich and powerful British aristocratic gentlemen and bourgeois burghers whose corporations and banks lusted for raw materials such as petroleum – and for much else.

It is also obvious that for the patricians in power in London, the war was not a war for democracy at all. In the conquered Middle East, the British did nothing to promote the cause of democracy, to the contrary. Britain’s imperialist interests were better served by subtle and not-so-subtle un- and even anti-democratic arrangements. Occupied Palestine was ruled by them in approximately the same way that occupied Belgium had been ruled by the Germans. And in Arabia, London’s actions only took into account its own interests – as well as the interests of a handful of indigenous families that were considered to be useful partners. The vast homeland of the Arabs was parcelled out and distributed to those partners, who proceeded to establish states they could rule as if they were personal property. And when many denizens of Mesopotamia had the nerve to resist their new British bosses, Churchill ordered bombs to rain down on their villages, including bombs with poison gas.

On the eve of the outbreak of the Great War, in all the imperialist countries there were countless industrialists and bankers who favored a “bellicose economic expansionism.” Nevertheless, many capitalists – and possibly even a majority – appreciated the advantages of peace and the inconveniences of war and were therefore not warmongers at all, as Eric Hobsbawm has emphasized. But this observation has wrongly caused the conservative British historian Niall Ferguson to jump to the conclusion that the interests of capitalists did not play a role in the eruption of the Great War in 1914. For one thing, countless industrialists and bankers and member of the upper-middle class displayed an ambivalent attitude with respect to war. On the one hand, even the most bellicose among them realized that a war would have most unpleasant aspects, and for that reason, they preferred to avoid war. However, as members of the elite, they also had reason to believe that the unpleasantness would be experienced mostly by others – and of course mostly by the simple soldiers, workers, peasants, and other plebeians to whom the nasty jobs of killing and dying were traditionally entrusted.

Moreover, the assumption that peace-loving capitalists did not want war reflects a binary, black-and-white kind of thinking, namely that peace was the alternative to war and vice-versa. However, reality has a way of being more complex. There was in fact another alternative to peace, namely revolution. And that other alternative to peace was far more repulsive than war to most if not all capitalists and other bourgeois and aristocratic members of the elite. The aristocracy and the bourgeoisie had been obsessed with fear of revolution ever since the events of 1848 and 1871 had revealed the revolutionary intentions and potential of the proletariat. Afterwards, working-class parties subscribing to Marx’s revolutionary socialism had been founded, had become increasingly popular, and remained officially committed to overthrow the established political and social-economic order via revolution even though, as we have seen, they had in fact discreetly become reformist. The decade before the outbreak of war, finally, ironically called Belle Époque, witnessed not only new revolutions (in Russia, in 1905 and in China, in 1911) but also, throughout Europe, a never-ending series of strikes, demonstrations, and riots that seemed to be harbingers of revolution in the very heartland of imperialism. In this context, war was promoted not only by philosophers such as Nietzsche and other intellectuals, by military and political leaders, but also by leading industrialists and bankers as an effective antidote to revolution.

During the years leading up to 1914, countless members of the bourgeoisie (and the aristocracy) thus imagined themselves to be witnessing a race between war and revolution, a sprint whose outcome could be decided at any time. Which one of the two was going to win? The burghers, fearing revolution, prayed that war would be the winner. With revolution, rather than peace, as the most likely alternative to war, even the most peace-loving capitalists definitely preferred war. And since they were afraid that revolution might win the race, that is, might break out before war, the capitalists, and the bourgeois and aristocratic members of the elite in general, actually hoped for war to come as soon as possible, which is why they experienced the outbreak of war in the summer of 1914 as a deliverance from unbearable uncertainty and tension. This relief was reflected by the fact that the famous pictures of folks enthusiastically celebrating the declaration of war, taken mostly in the “better” districts of the capitals, almost exclusively featured well-dressed ladies and gentlemen, and not workers or peasants, who are known to have been mostly depressed by the news.

In its imperialist manifestation, capitalism was definitely responsible for the many colonial wars that had been waged and was also responsible for the Great War that broke out in 1914. Countless contemporaries realized this only too well. As the great French socialist leader Jean Jaurès already declared in 1895, “capitalism carries war within itself just like the thundercloud carries the storm.” Jaurès was a convinced anticapitalist, of course, but many members of the bourgeois and aristocratic elite were also keenly aware of the link between war and their economic interests, and occasionally acknowledged this. General Haig, for example, who would command the British Army from 1915 until the end of the war, declared on one occasion that he was not “ashamed of the wars fought to open up the markets of the world to our traders.” It was the fateful emergence of the imperialist version of capitalism, then, that, to use Eric Hobsbawm’s words, “pushed the world to conflict and war.” In comparison, the fact that numerous individuals among the industrialists and bankers may privately have cherished peace is of little or no importance and certainly does not permit the conclusion that capitalism did not lead to the Great War. It would be equally fallacious to conclude that Nazism was not really anti-Semitic and did not play a role in the origins of the Holocaust, because quite a few individual Nazis were personally not anti-Semitic.

It is also because imperialist aspirations were responsible for it, that the war that broke out in 1914, essentially a European conflict, developed into a world war. We should not forget that there was fighting not only in Europa but also in Asia and Africa. While the great powers would fight each other primarily, and most “visibly,” in Europe, their armies would also do battle in each other’s colonial possessions in Africa, in the Middle East, and even in China. Finally, in Versailles, the victors would divide and claim not only the relatively modest booty represented by Germany’s former colonies but especially the petroleum-rich regions of the Middle East that had belonged to the Ottoman Empire.

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Japanese troops landing near Qingdao (From the Public Domain)

Let us take a quick look at the role played by Japan in the Great War. With its victory over Russia in 1905, the “land of the rising sun” revealed itself to be the only “non-Western” member of the restricted club of imperialism’s great powers. Like all other imperialist powers, Japan was henceforth keen to acquire additional lands as colonies or protectorates in order to make raw materials and such available to its industry, thus making it stronger vis-a-vis the competition – for example, from the USA. The war that broke out in Europe in 1914 provided Japan with a golden opportunity in this respect. On September 23 of that year, Tokyo declared war on Germany for the simple reason that this made it possible to conquer the Reich’s mini-colony (or “concession”) in China, the Bay of Kiao-Chau (or Kiao-Chao), as well as its island colonies in the Northern Pacific. In the case of Japan, it is obvious that the country went to war in order to achieve imperialist objectives. In the case of the Western imperialist powers, however, we continue to be told that in 1914, arms were taken up solely to defend liberty and democracy.

The Great War was a product of imperialism. Its focus was therefore on profits for the big corporations and banks under whose auspices imperialism had developed and whose interests imperialism purported to serve. In this respect, the war did not disappoint. It was admittedly a catastrophe for millions of human beings, for the plebeian masses, for whom it offered nothing but death and misery. But for the industrialists and bankers of each belligerent country – and quite a few neutral countries, such as the USA before 1917 – it revealed itself as a cornucopia of orders and profits.

The conflict of 1914–1918 was an industrial contest in which modern weapons such as cannon, machine guns, poison gas, flamethrowers, tanks, airplanes, barbed wire, and submarines were decisive. This materiel was mass produced in the factories of the industrialists, yielding gargantuan profits, profits that were taxed only minimally in most countries. Profitability was also maximized by the fact that in all belligerent countries the wages (but not the prices) were lowered, while the working hours were lengthened and strikes were forbidden. (That was possible because, as we have seen earlier, imperialism had integrated the leaders and the rank-and-file of the supposedly internationalist and revolutionary socialist parties – and labor unions – into the established order and turned them into patriots, who in 1914 revealed themselves ready to rush to the defense of the fatherland and make the sacrifices presumably required to ensure its victory.) The most famous of the arms manufacturers to be blessed with war profits was Krupp, the world-famous German producer of cannon. But in France too, “merchants of death” did a wonderful business, for example, Monsieur Schneider, known as the French Krupp, who in 1914–1918 enjoyed “a veritable explosion of profits,” and Hotchkiss, the great specialist in the production of machine guns. State orders for war materiel signified huge profits not only for corporations but also for the banks that were asked to loan the huge sums of money needed by governments to finance these purchases and the costs of the war in general. In the USA, J.P. Morgan & Co, also known as the “House of Morgan,” was the undisputed champion glutton in this field. Morgan not only charged high interest rates on loans to the British and their allies but also earned fat commissions on sales to Britain by American firms that belonged to its “circle of friends,” such as Du Pont and Remington.

In the spring of 1917, after a revolution had broken out in Russia and the French ally was rocked by mutinies in its army, it was feared that the British might lose the war and therefore not be able to pay back their war debts. It was in this context that the Wall Street lobby, headed by Morgan, successfully pressured President Wilson to declare war on Germany, thus enabling Albion to ultimately win the war and avoid a catastrophe for the US banks, especially Morgan. This development likewise illustrates the fact that the First World War was primarily determined by economic factors, that it was the fruit of imperialism, a system that purported to serve the profit-maximizing interests of corporations and banks – and did.

With respect to the entry of the USA into the great clash of imperialisms of 1914–1918, another remark is in order. It was clear that the imperialist powers that would exit the war triumphantly would pocket great imperialist prizes, and that the losers would have to cough up some of their imperialist assets. And what about the neutrals? In January 1917, the French Prime Minister, Aristide Briand, publicly gave the answer, obviously anticipating a victory for the Triple Entente; neutral countries would not be invited to the peace conference and would not receive a share of the loot, that is, of goodies such as German colonies, the oil-rich regions of the doomed Ottoman Empire, and concessions and lucrative business opportunities in China. In this respect, Japan, America’s great competitor in the Far East, had already made a move in 1914 by declaring war on Germany and pocketing the Reich’s concession in China. In the USA, this conjured up the risk that Japan might end up monopolizing China economically, excluding American business. It is extremely likely that Washington took Briand’s hint and that this consideration also influenced the decision, taken in April of 1917, to declare war on Germany. In the 1930s, an inquiry by the Nye Committee of the American Congress was to come to the conclusion that the country’s entry into the war had indeed been motivated by the wish to be present when, after the war, the moment would come “to redivide the spoils of empire.”

The war provided a mighty stimulus for the maximization of profits made by corporations and banks. But was that not one of the reasons why they had looked forward to war? (Another reason was of course the elimination of the revolutionary threat.) But the conflict also yielded them other considerable benefits. In all belligerent countries, the war reinforced the trend toward gigantism, that is, the ongoing emergence of a relatively small elite of very big corporations and banks. This was so because only big firms could benefit from the state orders for weapons and other war materiel. Conversely, small producers did not profit from the war. Many of them lost their personnel, their suppliers, or their customers; their profits declined, and many of them disappeared from the scene, never to return. In this sense, it is true what Niall Ferguson has pointed out, that during the Great War, the average profits of businesses were not very high; however, the profits of the big firms and banks, the capitalist big boys who dominated the economy since the emergence of imperialism were in fact considerable, as Ferguson himself acknowledges.

Class conflict is a complex, multifaceted phenomenon, as Domenico Losurdo has emphasized in a book on that topic. It is not merely a bilateral conflict between capital and labor but also reflects contradictions between bourgeoisie and nobility, between industrialists of different countries, between the colonies and their mother countries, and also between factions within the bourgeoisie. An example of the latter is the conflict between big and small producers, big business and little business, the upper-middle class or haute bourgeoisie, and the lower-middle class or petite bourgeoisie. Imperialism was – and continues to be – the capitalism of the big boys, the corporations and big banks, and it was imperialism that gave birth to the Great War. It is no coincidence that this big war also favored the big capitalists in their struggle against the little capitalists.

The Great War also privileged the upper-middle class, the gentlemen of industry and finance, vis-a-vis their partner within the elite, the landowning nobility. The nobility had also wanted war, because it expected many advantages from it. But the conflict revealed itself as something very different from the old-fashioned kind of warfare they had expected, in which their beloved cavalry and traditional weapons such as swords and lances would be decisive but, as Peter Englund has written, “an economic competition, a war between factories.” The Great War was an industrial war, fought with modern weapons mass-produced in the factories of the bourgeois industrialists, and in the course of the war, representatives of corporations and banks – such as Walter Rathenau in Germany – played an increasingly important role as “experts” within governments and state bureaucracies. The bourgeoisie thus managed to increase not only its wealth but also its power and prestige – very much to the disadvantage of the aristocrats, whose weapons and expertise proved useless for the purpose of twentieth-century warfare. Until 1914, the haute bourgeoisie had been the junior partner of the nobility within the elite in most countries but that changed during the war and because of the war. After 1918, within the elite, the industrial and financial haute bourgeoisie was on top, with the nobility as its sidekick.

The Great War was very much determined by economic factors, and it was the product of the merciless competition among the imperialist powers, a competition about territories with considerable natural and human resources. It is therefore only logical that this conflict was eventually decided by economic factors; the imperialist powers that emerged as victors in 1918 were those who already controlled the greatest colonial and other territorial riches when the war started in 1914 and were therefore abundantly blessed with strategic raw materials, especially rubber and petroleum, needed to win a modern, industrial war. Let us examine this issue in greater detail.

In 1918, Germany managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, so to speak, because in the spring and summer of that year, the Reich had actually come tantalizingly close to achieving victory. The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, signed with revolutionary Russia on March 3, 1918, had enabled the Reich’s army commanders, led by General Ludendorff, to transfer troops from the eastern to the western front and launch a major offensive there on March 21. Considerable progress was achieved at first, but the Allies succeeded time and again to bring in the reserves of men and materiel needed to plug the gaps in their defensive lines, slow down the German juggernaut’s advance, and finally to arrest it. August 8 was the date when the tide turned. On that day, the Germans were forced onto the defensive and had to withdraw systematically until they finally capitulated on November 11. The allied triumph was made possible by the fact that they – and especially the French – disposed of thousands of trucks to quickly transport large numbers of soldiers to wherever they were needed. The Germans, on the other hand, still moved their troops mostly by train, as in 1914, but crucial sectors of the front were hard to reach that way. The superior mobility of the Allies was decisive. Ludendorff was to declare later that the triumph of his adversaries in 1918 amounted to a victory of French trucks over German trains.

However, this triumph can also be similarly described as a victory of the rubber tires of the Allies’ vehicles, produced by firms such as Michelin and Dunlop, over the steel wheels of German trains, produced by Krupp. Thus it can also be said that the victory of the Entente against the Central Powers was a victory of the economic system, and particularly the industry, of the Allies, against the economic system of Germany and Austria-Hungary, an economic system that found itself starved of crucially important raw materials because of the British blockade. “The military and political defeat of Germany,” writes the French historian Frédéric Rousseau, “was inseparable from its economic failure.” But the economic superiority of the Allies clearly has a lot to do with the fact that the British and French – and even the Belgians and Italians – had colonies where they could fetch whatever was needed to win a modern, industrial war, especially rubber, oil, and other “strategic” raw materials – plus plenty of colonial laborers to repair and even construct the roads along which trucks transported allied soldiers.

Rubber was not the only strategic type of raw material that the Allies had in abundance while the Germans lacked it. Another one was petroleum, for which the increasingly motorized land armies – and rapidly expanding air forces – were developing a gargantuan appetite. During a victory dinner on November 21, 1918, the British minister of foreign affairs, Lord Curzon, was to declare, not without reason, that “the allied cause floated to victory upon a wave of oil,” and a French senator proclaimed that “oil had been the blood of victory.” A considerable quantity of this oil had come from the USA. It was supplied by Standard Oil, a firm belonging to the Rockefellers, who made a lot of money in this type of business, just as Renault did by producing the gas-guzzling trucks. It was only logical that the Allies, swimming in petroleum, had acquired all sort of modern, motorized, gas-guzzling equipment. In 1918, the French not only had huge quantities of trucks but also a major fleet of airplanes. And in the war’s final year, the French as well as the British also disposed of cars equipped with machine guns or cannon and above all of large numbers of tanks. If the Germans had no significant quantities of trucks or tanks, it was also because they lacked petroleum; only insufficient amounts of Rumanian oil were available to them.

The Great War happened to be a war between imperialist rivals, in which the great prizes to be won were territories bursting with raw materials and cheap labor, the kind of things that benefited a country’s “national economy,” more specifically its industry, and thus made that country more powerful and more competitive. It is therefore hardly a coincidence that the war was ultimately won by the countries that had been most richly endowed in this respect, namely the great industrial powers with the most colonies. In other words: that the biggest imperialisms – those of the British, the French, and the Americans – defeated a competing imperialism, that of Germany, admittedly an industrial superpower, but underprivileged with respect to colonial possessions. In view of this, it is even amazing that it took four long years before Germany’s defeat was a fait accompli. On the other hand, it is also obvious that the advantages of having colonies and therefore access to unlimited supplies of food for soldiers and civilians as well as rubber, petroleum, and similar raw materials, as well as a virtually inexhaustible reserve labor force, were only able to reveal themselves in the long run. The main reason for this is that in 1914, the war started as a continental kind of Napoleonic campaign that was to morph – imperceptibly, but inexorably – into a worldwide contest of industrial titans. In 1914, Germany, a military superpower, still stood a chance to win the war, especially since it had excellent railways to ferry its armies to the western and eastern fronts – and more than enough of the coal needed as fuel for the steam trains. This is how a big victory was achieved against the Russians at Tannenberg. However, after four long years of modern, industrial, and in many ways “total” war, economic factors revealed themselves as decisive. By the time Ludendorff launched his spring-offensive in 1918, the prospects for a final victory had long gone up in smoke for a German Reich that was prevented by a Royal Navy blockade from reaching territories where it might have been able to fetch adequate amounts of the collective sine qua non of victory in a modern war – strategic raw materials such as petroleum, food for civilians as well as soldiers, cheap labor for industry and agriculture, and so forth.

The Great War of 1914–1918 was a conflict in which two blocks of imperialist powers fought each other for the possession of lands in Europe itself, Africa, Asia, and the entire world. The result of this titanic struggle was a victory for the Anglo-French duo, a major defeat for Germany, and the inglorious demise of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire. In reality, the outcome of the war was unclear, confusing, and unlikely to please anybody. Great Britain and France were the victors but were exhausted by the enormous demographic, material, financial, and other sacrifices they had had to bring; they were no longer the superpowers they had been in 1914. Germany had likewise paid a heavy price, found itself punished and humiliated at Versailles, and lost not only its colonies but even a large part of its own territory; the country was allowed to have only a tiny army, but it remained an industrial superpower that was likely to try once again to achieve great imperialist objectives, as in 1914. Moreover, the war had been an opportunity for two non-European imperialisms to reveal their ambitions, namely, Japan and the USA. The struggle for supremacy among imperialist powers, which is what 1914–1918 had been, thus remained undecided. To make the situation even more complex, along with Austria-Hungary yet another major imperialist actor had departed from the scene, though in a very different way. Russia had morphed, via a great revolution, into the Soviet-Union. That resolutely anti-capitalist state revealed itself to be a thorn in the imperialist side, because it functioned not only as source of inspiration for revolutionaries within each imperialist country but also encouraged anti-imperialist movements in the colonies. Under these circumstances, Europe and the entire world continued to experience great tensions and conflicts that were to yield a second world war or, as many historians now see it, the second act of the great “Thirty Years’ War of the 20th Century.”

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Dr. Jacques R. Pauwels was born in Belgium in 1946, moved to Canada in 1969. Undergraduate history studies at Ghent  University, Phd in history from York University in Toronto; MA and PhD in Political Science from University of Toronto. Part-time lecturer in history at various universities in Ontario from approximately 1975 to 2005.

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

Cross-References

  1. German Imperialism and Social Imperialism (1871–1933)
  2. United States, Imperialism in the Western Hemisphere
  3. United States, Imperialism, 19th century

Sources

Englund, P. (2012). The beauty and the sorrow: An intimate history of the first world war. London: Vintage.

Ferguson, N. (1999). The pity of war. New York: Basic Books.

Fischer, F. (1967). Germany’s aims in the first world war. New York: W. W. Norton.

Geiss, I. (1972). Origins of the first world war. In H. W. Koch (Ed.), The origins of the first world war: Great power rivalry and German war aims (pp. 36–78). London/Basingstoke: Macmillan.

Hobsbawm, E. (1994). The age of empire 1875–1914. London: Abacus. (Original edition: 1987).

Lacroix-Riz, A. (2014). Aux origines du carcan européen (1900–1960): La France sous influence allemande et américaine. Paris: Delga.

Lenin [Vladimir Ulyanov]. (1963). Imperialism, the highest stage of capitalism (new ed.). Moscow: Progress Publishers. (Original edition: 1916). http://​www.​marxists.​org/​archive/​lenin/​works/​1916/​imp-hsc.

Losurdo, D. (2013). La lotta di classe: Una storia politica e filosofica. Bari: Laterza.

MacMillan, M. (2013). The war that ended peace: The road to 1914. Toronto: Allen Lane.

Pauwels, J. R. (2016). The great class war 1914–1918. Toronto: James Lorimer.

Rousseau, F. (2006). La Grande Guerre en tant qu’expériences sociales. Paris: Ellipses Marketing.

Featured image: Vimy Ridge, April 1917–First World War–Photograph taken during Battle of Vimy Ridge. A large Naval gun. April, 1917. (CP PHOTO) 1999 (National Archives of Canada) PA-001187


Below are the author’s books:

The COVID-19 Endgame: Global Governance, “Digital Tyranny” and the Depopulation Agenda

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, May 20, 2024

There is a sense of urgency. A worldwide mass movement against the adoption of the Pandemic Treaty is required. The World Health Organization’s (WHO) General Assembly, the World Health Assembly (WHA) representing all 194 member states, will take place in Geneva, from 27 May to 1 June 2024.

Two Economic and Financial Periods with Similarities, But with Different International Monetary Systems: 1920-1929 and 2008-2024

By Prof Rodrigue Tremblay, May 20, 2024

The main financial similarity between the two periods is the prevalence of an inverted yield curve in both cases, which could hint at future financial and economic troubles. It remains to be seen whether financial and economic difficulties will unfold in the coming months or years, as it was the case in 1929.

Will the Sinai Peninsula See an Influx of Palestinians? What Will be Its Impact?

By Bharat Dogra, May 20, 2024

What is more important for most analysts in the context of the tension and conflict-ridden realities of the Middle East region is the geo-strategic importance of this region. You can stand at certain points in its coastal areas and point out — look it is Israel there, Gaza there, Jordan there and Saudi Arabia there. 

The Blood-Red Sunset of the West. Strengthening of the Sino-Russian Relations

By Manlio Dinucci, May 20, 2024

After the major gas pipeline Nord Stream, which transported its gas to Europe, was interrupted by US-NATO military sabotage and the country was subjected to sanctions by the EU – Russia is supplying more and more gas and oil to China and imports from there the industrial products that it previously imported from Europe.

Behold the Real “Axis of Evil”. Option C of Israel’s “Secret Intelligence Memorandum”

By Mark Taliano, May 20, 2024

The real “Axis of Evil” is currently presenting itself to Western populations as Western-supported Zionists unabashedly commit genocide against Palestinian civilians right now, in plain view, for all to see.

Old Genocide Joe Has Got to Go! Embracing Netanyahu Does Not Constitute a Foreign Policy

By Philip Giraldi, May 19, 2024

It is extremely difficult to discern what might be the thinking behind the clueless President Joe Biden and his Blinken-Austin-Mayorkas foreign-policy-plus national security team. Or rather, the problem is that there does not appear to be any thinking about it at all if one measures it by what benefits it brings to the American people.

Aboriginal and Treaty Rights: “Grave Error” on Alleged Mass Graves Adjacent to Indian Residential Schools in Canada

By Prof. Anthony J. Hall, May 19, 2024

The discovery of mass graves is often seen as a hallmark that acts of genocide have occurred. While the association of mass graves with genocide is virtually irrefutable in Gaza, the same is certainly not the case in Canada. The discussion in Canada about the supposed discovery of unmarked mass graves adjacent to Christian residential schools is just now heating up.

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version).

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“There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency… The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner, which not one man in a million is able to diagnose.  John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946). British economist, (in ‘The Economic Consequences of the Peace’, 1919, Ch. VI, pp. 235-236).

“The survivors of a generation that has been of military age during a bout of war will be shy, for the rest of their lives, of bringing a repetition of this tragic experience either upon themselves or upon their children, and… therefore the psychological resistance of any move towards the breaking of a peace… is likely to be prohibitively strong until a new generation … has had time to grow up and to come into power.” Arnold J. Toynbee (1889-1975), British historian, (in ‘A Study of History’, vol. 9, 1954).

“When every country turned to protect its own private interest, the world public interest went down the drain, and with it the private interests of all.” Charles Kindleberger (1910-2003). American economic historian, (in his book ‘The World Depression 1929-1939’, 1973).

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Introduction

Next year will be the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War (1939-1945). It is therefore likely that the world is approaching the end of the long post-war period, which has spanned three generations.

Likewise, in just a few years, it will be the 100th anniversary of the massive stock market crash in the autumn of 1929, which preceded the advent of the Great Depression (1929-1939).

Even though economic history does not necessarily repeat itself in every detail, there are long economic cycles in capitalist economies, which tend to repeat themselves at various intervals, provided that the economic imbalances and financial excesses which activate them are strong enough. Indeed, there are presently economic, financial and geopolitical circumstances that have some similarities with those that prevailed in the past, especially during the decade of the Roaring Twenties in the 1920’s, and even later during the 1930’s.

I. The Economic and Financial Situations in the United States During the 1920’s

The end of WWI in 1918 was followed by the influenza pandemic of 1918-1919, (it was called the Spanish flu pandemic because the press in Spain was the first to report it). It was a severely contagious viral disease that created numerous social and economic problems worldwide. Schools were closed, public gatherings prohibited and mortality rates rose.

However, after the pandemic and the brief but deep economic recession that followed, in 1920-1921, the American economy embarked upon a period of strong economic growth and widespread prosperity. It strongly benefited from the postwar reconstruction boom and from the emergence of many industrial innovations in the automobile, airline, telephone, radio, cinema and electric appliances industries, etc.

Manufactured consumer goods became more widely available to households through mass production. The US economy grew by 42 percent during the rest of the decade, from 1922 to 1929, as the building of roads, airports, gas stations, etc. progressed to meet the new needs in infrastructures. Unemployment was falling sharply and there was great optimism. However, this led to an overheated economy and to asset bubbles, especially in the stock market.

Indeed, the main reason the decade of 1920-1929 is so well remembered is because it led to the Great Depression of 1929-1939. The economy collapsed, deflation prevailed and unemployment reached a record high of 24.7 percent, in 1933.

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Unemployed people lined up outside a soup kitchen in Chicago. (From the Public Domain)

During the 1920’s, behind the façade of prosperity, there were major economic imbalances and financial excesses that developed, not only in the United States, but worldwide. The first consequences of these drawbacks were the Wall Street stock market crash of 1929 and the economic recession, which rapidly morphed into an economic depression that lasted a decade. Also, an important international bank, the Austrian Creditanstalt bank, failed in May 1931. This led to other bank failures and created banking panics in the U.K., in the USA and in other countries.

And when later on, countries began to adopt inward-looking protectionist trade policies, international trade contracted and the global economy as a whole collapsed.

Declining Interest Rates and Stock Market Speculation in the 1920’s

To counteract a mild economic recession in 1927, the Fed lowered its discount rate in September of that year, from 4% to 3.5%.

Nevertheless, even though short-term interest rates were still low, they were higher than longer-term rates, and this was the case in 1927, 1928, and 1929. That translated into an inverted yield curve, as opposed to a normal situation when longer rates are higher than shorter rates, since longer loans are riskier than shorter ones. Usually, this indicates a situation of tight banking credit lending conditions.

An inverted yield curve is one of the most accurate predictors of a future economic slowdown or a recession, since nearly all economic recessions since the 1920’s, including the onset of the Great Depression in 1929, have taken place after such a warning that an economic slowdown was unfolding.

During the years of 1927-1929, the financial warning sign of the inverted yield curve was ignored and speculation in the stock market only got worse. At the time, speculators big or small could buy shares in companies by investing on margin, with as little down as 10 percent of the value, while borrowing the rest from banks or brokers. This led, from 1923 to 1929, to a six-year stock market bull run, when stock prices kept rising on average by 20 percent, each year. This was clearly an unsustainable pace.  

After having vainly admonished banks and brokers to restrict their loans to speculators, the Fed finally decided to raise its discount rate three times, (the rate the Fed charges member banks for loans), between January and July 1928, from 3.5% to 5%. However, this turned out to be insufficient, because stock market speculation didn’t slow down. The Fed again raised its discount rate in August 1929, from 5 percent to 6 percent. That’s what broke the camel’s back!

The rest is history. The economic recession began in the United States in August 1929, as the economy started to shrink. However, the stock market only peaked on Tuesday, September 3, 1929, one day after Labor Day, but it began crashing for good on Black Thursday, Oct. 24, 1929.

II. The Subprime Mortgage Crisis of 2007-2008 and the Great Recession of 2008-2009

Let’s see how things stack up nowadays, financially and economically.

In the aftermath of the Subprime Mortgage Crisis of 2007-2008, and during the Great Recession of 2008-2009, governments and central banks of a number of countries changed profoundly their fiscal and monetary policies, especially in the United States.

Image: A continuous buildup of toxic assets in the form of subprime mortgages purchased by Lehman Brothers ultimately led to the firm’s bankruptcy in September 2008. The collapse of Lehman Brothers is often cited as both the culmination of the subprime mortgage crisis, and the catalyst for the Great Recession in the United States. (Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0)

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Indeed, there was a real fear among government officials, during the fateful years of 2007-2008, that the entire American financial system could collapse and bring down the economy. The American banking system was already severely weakened by the collapse of the large investment bank Lehman Brothers, and by the rescue in panic of the investment banks Bears Stearns and Merrill Lynch. It was then judged necessary to adopt extreme measures to bail out the system.

That is when the Fed adopted a novel form of monetary policy of extraordinary accommodation called “Quantitative Easing” (QE). The idea was that in such a time of financial trouble, it was not sufficient to lower interest rates and to advance loans to banks in trouble.

What was required was to flood financial markets with huge amounts of newly created liquidity, which is accomplished when a central bank purchases for its own account large quantities of Treasury bonds or private securities on the secondary market. If necessary, such a practice can push nominal interest rates to zero or to close to zero. This was the case in the United States when the federal funds rate (rate at which private banks borrow from each other for very short periods) was kept by the Fed close to zero, from 2008 to 2016, and again, from 2020 to 2022. 

The Economic Consequences of Quantitative Easing on Debtors

A Quantitative Easing monetary policy risks creating two problems. First, it tends to create important price bubbles in the stock and bond markets. Secondly, artificially low interest rates run the risk of encouraging consumers, businesses and governments alike to go deeper into debt. This raises the question of moral hazard when public policies encourage people to alter their normal prudent behavior and take bigger risks.

This is an important consideration nowadays, since the sum of all consumer, business and government debts in the world, the global debt, reached the record high level of $307 trillion in 2023, according to the Institute of International Finance. This has pushed the global debt-to GDP ratio to 336 percent.

In the event of a rise in inflation, accompanied by an increase in interest rates and mortgage rates, debtors in general who have become heavily indebted while interest rates were ultra low, may find themselves caught in a dangerous debt trap. Households and consumers, for example, who are saddled with high mortgage debts and credit debts, may have to renew their loans at much higher interest rates, thereby facing the unattractive prospect of making monthly payments that are inflated relative to their incomes.

III. The Major Differences Between the 1920-1929 Period and the 2008-2024 Period

The main difference between the 1920-1929 economic decade and the current economic and financial period since 2008 is the fact that the international monetary systems were different during these two periods.

The gold standard (1879-1933) had been suspended at the start of WWI, in 1914, but it had been reinstated in most major economies, including the United States, by 1925. It was an international monetary system in which the value of a standard unit of a currency was based on a fixed quantity of gold. For instance, if the official price of one ounce of gold was set at $20, that meant the one US dollar was worth 1/20 ounce of gold and could be exchanged at that price.

The Gold Standard had the advantage of imposing a strict discipline on governments regarding spending and borrowing and thus to prevent inflation. Indeed, with such a system, a government was less able to run large fiscal deficits, because the central bank could not print money at will to accommodate its need of funds. The government had to sell Treasury bonds to the  public to cover its excess spending over its tax revenues.

For example, countries running an external deficit in their balance of payments ran the risk of losing gold, while those countries with an external surplus stood to gain gold. The consequence was that central banks could not increase their country’s money supply at will, for fear of creating an external deficit and of losing gold. In the latter case, the domestic money supply would contract and this would place a deflationary burden on the economy. That is why the Gold Standard had, in general, a deflationary bias.

The Bretton Woods Monetary System of 1944

After WWII, the Gold Standard monetary system, which had been suspended in 1933, was replaced by the Bretton Woods monetary system. It was called a Gold Exchange Standard system, which meant that only the American dollar remained freely convertible into gold, at an official price of $35 an ounce, while other countries’ currencies had an exchange rate pegged to the US dollar.

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The price of gold, as denominated in US dollars, was stable until the collapse of the Bretton Woods system in the mid-1970s. (Licensed under CC0)

However, the US dollar became officially a genuine fiat currency on August 15, 1971, when the Nixon administration cancelled the official convertibility of the dollar into gold. This meant the end of the fixed exchange rate system. Shortly after, in fact, most other countries adopted a floating exchange-rate system for their fiat currencies. This is the international payment and exchange system that exists today. Contrary to the Gold Standard, the system of floating exchange rates for fiat currencies tends to be inflationary.

Digital Cryptocurrencies and Geopolitical Risks

To add to the overall speculative nature of our era, one must also mention the rise of the internet-based digital cryptocurrencies phenomenon, which began in 2009 with the creation of the Bitcoin. This is a system of digital assets with widely fluctuating prices. It is somewhat reminiscent of the exotic Tulip bubble, which took place in the Netherlands in the early part of the 17th century.

Also, it is important to note that geopolitical tensions between great powers are much more prevalent today than they were in the 1920’s. This is reflected in the current turmoil in international relations. It is a state of affairs somewhat similar to the one prevailing during the later part of the 1930 decade.

At the time, the League of Nations was incapable of preventing or of ending regional military conflicts, just as the United Nations nowadays is unable to maintain world peace. Therefore, in the coming years, serious military confrontations between great powers cannot be excluded, and this could be an additional cause of financial and economic dislocations, as it could mean higher oil prices and higher inflation.

Conclusions

There are similarities but also important differences between the economic and financial situations prevailing in the 1920’s and those unfolding int the current 2008-2024 period.

Both periods saw changing economic times, characterized by major economic imbalances and speculative excesses in financial markets.

The main financial similarity between the two periods is the prevalence of an inverted yield curve in both cases, which could hint at future financial and economic troubles. It remains to be seen whether financial and economic difficulties will unfold in the coming months or years, as it was the case in 1929.

On the other hand, the international monetary system in force during each period was completely different. In the first case, it was the Gold Standard system that prevailed. Currently, the world economy is under a system of floating exchange rates of fiat national currencies, with the US dollar serving as the main currency of exchange and for most of the official reserves of central banks.

However, such a system is presently in a flux, as many countries, especially those of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa and others), are trying to escape the arbitrary financial sanctions that the US government imposes sometimes on some countries, for political reasons. This would explain the efforts of the latter countries to develop other means of payments to conduct their international trade and financial transactions.

If and when a financial crisis or a severe economic downturn were to unfold in the future, triggered by some unforeseen event, it is likely that governments and central banks would respond by adopting the same policies as they did at the onset of the Covid-related economic lockdowns in 2020.

First, the governments of major advanced economies would be expected to increase their fiscal deficits, already very high. Secondly, central banks would try to accommodate governments and financial markets alike, by injecting large amounts of liquidity into the economy, through a policy of ‘Quantitative Easing’.

However, such extraordinary interventions are not without risk. Indeed, after the initial deflationary shock of a financial crisis, which would be followed by a recession, overly expansionary budgetary and monetary policies, possibly associated with protectionist trade policies similar to those adopted in the 1930’s, could result in a period of widespread stagflation, that is a period of slow economic growth and of persistent inflation.

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

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

International economist Dr. Rodrigue Tremblay is the author of the book about morals “The code for Global Ethics, Ten Humanist Principles” of the book about geopolitics “The New American Empire“, and the recent book, in French, “La régression tranquille du Québec, 1980-2018“. He was Minister of Trade and Industry (1976-79) in the Lévesque government. He holds a Ph.D. in international finance from Stanford University. Please visit Dr Tremblay’s site or email to a friend here.

Prof. Rodrigue Tremblay is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).


The Code for Global Ethics: Ten Humanist Principles

by Rodrigue Tremblay, Preface by Paul Kurtz

Publisher: ‎ Prometheus (April 27, 2010)

Hardcover: ‎ 300 pages

ISBN-10: ‎ 1616141727

ISBN-13: ‎ 978-1616141721

Humanists have long contended that morality is a strictly human concern and should be independent of religious creeds and dogma. This principle was clearly articulated in the two Humanist Manifestos issued in the mid-twentieth century and in Humanist Manifesto 2000, which appeared at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Now this code for global ethics further elaborates ten humanist principles designed for a world community that is growing ever closer together. In the face of the obvious challenges to international stability-from nuclear proliferation, environmental degradation, economic turmoil, and reactionary and sometimes violent religious movements-a code based on the “natural dignity and inherent worth of all human beings” is needed more than ever. In separate chapters the author delves into the issues surrounding these ten humanist principles: preserving individual dignity and equality, respecting life and property, tolerance, sharing, preventing domination of others, eliminating superstition, conserving the natural environment, resolving differences cooperatively without resort to violence or war, political and economic democracy, and providing for universal education. This forward-looking, optimistic, and eminently reasonable discussion of humanist ideals makes an important contribution to laying the foundations for a just and peaceable global community.

Click here to purchase.

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The Sinai Peninsula is the only part of Egypt which is considered a part of Asia. This is regarded as a bridge between Asia and Africa. The Sinai Peninsula is spread over about 60,000 square km. area or about 6% of the total area of Egypt.

However this is not its only claim to fame. This is a region known for many biblical memories and locations including Mount Sinai. This as well as its vast areas of solitude are likely to attract many spiritually inclined persons. The coral reefs and the special beauty of deserts close to beaches is likely to attract other tourists as well. 

Yes, this region has some well-liked tourism resorts, some famous places, but by and large this is an arid zone vast parts of which are very sparsely populated.

What is more important for most analysts in the context of the tension and conflict-ridden realities of the Middle East region is the geo-strategic importance of this region. You can stand at certain points in its coastal areas and point out — look it is Israel there, Gaza there, Jordan there and Saudi Arabia there. 

Perhaps most important just now is its border with Gaza. Rafah town used to be actually on both sides and after the artificial border was fenced heavily, the Sinai side of the town was gradually depopulated due to security-related factors including creation of buffer zones.

It is often said that when countries engage in avoidable but highly destructive wars, it is people in border areas who suffer the most. Yes, people on both sides of this border zone have suffered a lot, and not just during wars. To fortify their security preparations, Israeli forces have repeatedly carried out large-scale demolitions of houses in Rafah and nearby areas over the decades. Hamas and related organizations dug long and fortified tunnels and while searching for these tunnels on both sides of Israel and Egyptian authorities carried out very strong actions in which innocent people were caught badly. The Egyptian authorities have also carried out large-scale demolitions on their side of the border. In addition in the course of their other operations including anti-terror operations, Egyptian forces have carried out demolitions and forced displacement on a large scale in several parts of the Sinai Peninsula.

In the 1967 war the Sinai desert was captured by the Israeli forces and remained under Israeli control for over a decade. In 1979 an agreement was reached between Egypt and Israel which included the return of this vast territory to Egypt. Over the next decade Egypt got back this entire territory.

Subsequently there have been some incidents of violence and terrorism, including those reflecting the anger of some local people against the neglect of their welfare while promoting high-profile tourism.

However ever since the October 7 attack on Israel by Hamas and the subsequent invasion of Gaza by Israel, more attention has been concentrated on whether this will lead to an influx of the people of Gaza into the Sinai Peninsula. Some extreme right wing forces of Israel actively promoted the idea of using the conflict for driving the people of Gaza outside Gaza, and the most obvious destination to them appeared to be the Sinai desert with, as one such source noted, ‘its huge expanse and endless space’. What such suggestions ignored was that if vast parts of the Sinai desert have been very sparsely populated, there are environmental reasons for this including freshwater scarcity and livelihood constraints. If even the relatively smaller number of Bedouins and other local communities have found it difficult to sustain livelihoods, how can pushing a large number of people into the desert area be justified. When asked about the prospects of being sent to Sinai, several Palestinians who were interviewed have rejected the idea very strongly.

Some other Israeli sources have suggested that the people of Gaza should move to Sinai only temporarily and they can return when the action against Hamas is over. This is seen by some as a trap while even others fail to see how this can work out in practical terms. Egyptian sources have said that if at all a temporary shelter has to be found, Israel can use its own Negev desert.

Despite all this, the idea of several people of Gaza having to move to the Sinai Peninsula has continued to be in the news for some months. In February 2024 it was widely stated in sections of media, on the basis of satellite photos, that a large security enclosure is being created in Egypt adjacent to Gaza. This was confirmed by local sources who spoke of contracts having been given for this. Various reports suggest a 12 square km. area surrounded by a 23 feet high wall, capable of probably sheltering about 100,000 people in a tented city. However, given the fact that nearby urban locations such as Rafah and Sheikh Zuweid are reported to have suffered depopulation in recent times, it may be possible at relatively short notice to arrange some sort of shelter for more people. At the same time, local people who have been displaced in Sinai may not like the idea of others moving in while they have not been rehabilitated yet.

A recent report dated May 7, 2024 published first in Middle East and then in Middle East Monitor titled ‘Rafah Invasion: Egyptian army turns to Sinai tribes to prepare for the influx of Palestinians’ indicates that preparations for an influx of Palestinians into those parts of the Sinai peninsula which are closer to the Gaza border are still being made.

One part of the preparations may be to organize some of the local people into some sort of a para-military to take case of new security responsibilities if and when a significantly large number of the people of Gaza take shelter in Sinai, or rather are forced to take shelter here.

The Egyptian authorities have been apprehensive from the start regarding Hamas and other radical Palestinian elements coming along with Palestinian refugees and increasing security risks for Egypt. If, for example, they try to mobilize more fighters for the Palestinian cause in Egypt, or if they use the Egyptian territory for launching attacks across the border into Israel, this can create serious problems for Egypt’s relations with Israel, and if the Israeli forces come chasing them into Egyptian territory then the situation becomes even more precarious for Egypt.

Despite such serious apprehensions, however, it has been widely discussed that there is one factor which can still sweeten this bitter pill of increased security problems, and this factor is the possibility of Egypt getting big debt relief and other generous economic assistance from the USA in particular but also from its allies including oil-rich allies. Egypt is a very heavily indebted country and this makes it increasingly difficult for the Egyptian regime to meet the needs of its people, increasing discontent. If this factor is taken into consideration, then the chances increase that several people of Gaza may be forced to move towards the Sinai Peninsula.

A big question is—how big this number will be and for how long will they move to the Sinai Peninsula?

However if the number is very large and if the move is seen as a more or less permanent move, then certainly this will be a big blow to the wider Palestinian cause and to the two-state solution. The cause of the people of the West Bank region too will be weakened further once a very large number of people move away from Gaza.

Hence such forced displacement should be opposed by all people who stand for peace with justice, and instead solutions based on people of Gaza remaining in or very close to their original residential places within Gaza should be advanced and supported.

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Bharat Dogra is Honorary Convener, Campaign to Save Earth Now. His recent books include Protecting Earth for Children, Planet in Peril, A Day in 2071 and Man over Machine. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: Sinai Peninsula, produced by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. (From the Public Domain)

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On President of the People’s Republic of China Xi Jinping’s invitation, President Vladimir Putin paid a state visit to China.

It is not a formal act, but a further step in strengthening economic, political, and military relations between the two countries.

China produces a third of the world’s manufacturing products, more than the United States, Germany, Japan, South Korea, and Britain combined.

After the major gas pipeline Nord Stream, which transported its gas to Europe, was interrupted by US-NATO military sabotage and the country was subjected to sanctions by the EU – Russia is supplying more and more gas and oil to China and imports from there the industrial products that it previously imported from Europe.

The strengthening of relations between the two countries is part of the BRICS: this intergovernmental organization — made up of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa — has extended to Saudi Arabia, Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, and the United Arab Emirates. Several other countries want to join this international organization, chaired this year by Russia, which aims to create a multipolar world order alternative to the unipolar one of the West.

To maintain dominance in a changing world at all costs, the West resorts to war in a scenario that ranges from Europe to the Middle East and East Asia.

In his speech at the May 9th Parade for the 79th Anniversary of the Victory of the 1941-1945 Great Patriotic War against Nazi Germany, President Putin describes this scenario as follows:

“Feeding revanchist sentiments, mocking history and trying to justify the current followers of Nazism is part of what is the common policy of the Western elites to fuel regional conflicts, inter-ethnic and inter-religious struggles and to contain the sovereign and independent centre of global development.”

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This article was originally published in Italian on Grandangolo, Byoblu TV.

Manlio Dinucci, award winning author, geopolitical analyst and geographer, Pisa, Italy.

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

Featured image: With President of the People’s Republic of China Xi Jinping. Photo: Sergei Karpukhin, TASS

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The real “Axis of Evil” is currently presenting itself to Western populations as Western-supported Zionists unabashedly commit genocide against Palestinian civilians right now, in plain view, for all to see.

Apartheid Israel[1] is using Western financing, and Western bombs, and Western covert and overt support to bomb and snipe and bury alive Palestinian civilians who are herded from one place to another like so many heads of cattle only to be bombed and starved and further denied all rights, including the most precious one: the right to live.

Gaza itself is not unlike the WW2 Nazi-besieged Warsaw Ghetto where Jews were concentrated, besieged, starved, and ultimately exterminated.

As with the Nazi control of ghetto supplies,  Zionists control the two crossings into Gaza: Rafah and Beit Hanoun, and from there prevent international aid from entering Gaza.

See video here.

As with the Nazi persecution of Jews, the Zionist end-game is extermination and evacuation of Palestinians from Gaza.

This is Option C of Israel’s “Secret Intelligence Memorandum.”

“Option C”, writes Prof. Michel Chossudovsky, “defines and confirms Netanyahu’s criminal agenda directed against the People of Palestine:

‘It recommends a full population transfer as its preferred course of action. …’ ”

“Option C” continues Chossudovsky, “defines the framework of the operation directed against the People of Palestine, with the full support of the U.S. and NATO. It confirms that the ongoing genocide against the People of Palestine was a carefully planned undertaking.

It consists in ‘the evacuation of the civilian population from Gaza to Sinai.’ ”[2]

The propaganda that Israelis are somehow “victims” is increasingly absurd especially as details concerning the October 7 false flag[3] become more apparent, even according to Israeli sources.

 The truism that “Israeli accusations are its confessions” is especially poignant.
Those of us opposing the Zionist-perpetrated genocide of the trapped,starved, bombed, sniped and caged Palestinians are not “anti-semites”. The Zionists are the anti-semites, since they are the ones mass-murdering Palestinians who, after all, are semitic peoples. Zionists, by and large, are not.

See video here.

This War of Terror, this genocide, that the West and its Zionist proxies are waging against Palestinian civilians should weigh heavily on everyone’s conscience. Certainly, student protests against the slaughter are correct and righteous, and those professing neutrality are on the side of the oppressors at a time when the wrong-doers, the evil-doers, have rarely been so transparent.

As Washington-supported Israel tries to widen the war (and destroy 7 countries in 5 years), per General Clark, Global Terrorists have revealed their hand once again.

The real “Axis of Evil” consists of those countries such as the U.S and Israel which are currently committing crimes against humanity[4] against Palestinians in Gaza, all in the context of a “long war” against humanity which features permanent warfare and international lawlessness as policy.

Any “Rules Based Order” promised by Washington would offer more of the same.

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Mark Taliano is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) and the author of Voices from Syria, Global Research Publishers, 2017. He writes on his website where this article was originally published.

Notes

(1) Felicity Arbuthnot,”Palestine: Apartheid, Stolen Lives and Land, History Erased, United Nations Deaf Mute” Global Research, 04 November, 2023. (https://www.globalresearch.ca/palestine-apartheid-stolen-lives-and-land-history-erased-united-nations-deaf-mute/5601586?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTAAAR1ZWq8xQXOFhhJ2inXOFem3ZSulnw7ZAvOaKS1x-TM79l5zDWJTv3BPb14_aem_AaRT1dr_dlJMkkMVvORV0P5v5yzmXsBSTGKVpRVX1R4Hv08Fx8nDfZoLPp1KRgQ6VtCVBCwDvmCNncdZHjuoGogW) Accessed 17 May, 2024.

(2)Prof Michel Chossudovsky, Pelham, and Mohammed al-Hajjar, “Wiping Gaza Off the Map”: “Option C” of Israel’s “Secret Intelligence Memorandum.” Global Research, 27 February, 2024. (https://www.globalresearch.ca/gaza-update/5841438) Accessed, 17 May, 2024

(3) Mark Taliano, “October 7 As Seen Through the Lens of the Military-Intelligence Complex.” Global Research, 03 January, 2024. (https://www.globalresearch.ca/october-7-seen-through-lens-military-intelligence-complex/5844939) Accessed 17 May, 2024.

see also: Video: Israel-Hamas War: Netanyahu’s “Planned Operation on All Fronts”

(4) Prof. Michel Chossudovsky, “A Message to Israeli, U.S. and NATO Soldiers and Pilots: It’s Genocide, ‘Disobey Unlawful Orders, Abandon the Battlefield’. ” Global Research, 21 March, 2024. (https://www.globalresearch.ca/this-christmas-i-have-tears-in-my-eyes/5844151) Accessed 19 May, 2024.

Featured image is from the author

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***

Mar. 30, 2024 (image above) – NSW, Australia – 42 year old rugby coach Damien Ingram (coach for Shellharour Sharks) died suddenly, as announced on March 30, 2024

Hundreds of Sports Coaches have died suddenly since the rollout of COVID-19 mRNA Vaccines. Here are 65 deaths from Oct. 1, 2023 to March 31, 2024, the “Winter of DIED SUDDENLY” for the COVID-19 Vaccinated.

Mar. 28, 2024 – Auckland, New Zealand – Aaron Thompson, coach for girls softball U15, died suddenly on March 28, 2024.

Mar. 24, 2024 – Coach at California Allstars Mesa, Ricky Smith died suddenly and unexpectedly March 24, 2024. “Matt and I are fully vaccinated. That’s 3 out of 4 in our house is vaccinated. Now can you turn on the tracking chip so I can meet new friends.”

Image

Mar. 20, 2024 – Bristol, TN – Kim Peer Bright, Tennessee High girls basketball coach died suddenly on Mar. 20, 2024

Mar. 15, 2024 – Bartow County, GA – Atlanta baseball coach 47 year old Dough Davis collapsed during a game and died from a massive heart attack.

Mar. 8, 2024 – Liverpool, UK – 42 year old Andrew “Stevo” Stevenson, soccer coach, died suddenly

Mar. 4, 2024 – 46 year old Char-ron Dorsey, former NFL football player for Dallas Cowboys who went on to be a high school football coach, died suddenly from a stroke

Mar. 3, 2024 – Romania – 46 year old international volleyball player and coach Ruxandra Dumitrescu died suddenly after a heart attack.

Feb. 27,2024 – Savannah, GA – 26 year old Britni Pafford, gymnastics coach, died suddenly from a brain stem bleed.

Feb. 26, 2024 – 33 year old Assistant UK ice hockey coach Dayle Keen died suddenly on Feb. 26, 2024.

Image

Feb. 26, 2024 – Czech Republic – 43 year old David Winkler, Coach of the Czech National baseball team, died suddenly on Feb. 26, 2024.

Feb. 24, 2024 – East Dubuque, IL – 55 year old William “Bill” Reisen, baseball coach, died suddenly from complications of pneumonia.

Click here to read the full article.

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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 COVID Intel


The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity

by Michel Chossudovsky

Michel Chossudovsky reviews in detail how this insidious project “destroys people’s lives”. He provides a comprehensive analysis of everything you need to know about the “pandemic” — from the medical dimensions to the economic and social repercussions, political underpinnings, and mental and psychological impacts.

“My objective as an author is to inform people worldwide and refute the official narrative which has been used as a justification to destabilize the economic and social fabric of entire countries, followed by the imposition of the “deadly” COVID-19 “vaccine”. This crisis affects humanity in its entirety: almost 8 billion people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings and our children worldwide. Truth is a powerful instrument.”

Reviews

This is an in-depth resource of great interest if it is the wider perspective you are motivated to understand a little better, the author is very knowledgeable about geopolitics and this comes out in the way Covid is contextualized. —Dr. Mike Yeadon

In this war against humanity in which we find ourselves, in this singular, irregular and massive assault against liberty and the goodness of people, Chossudovsky’s book is a rock upon which to sustain our fight. –Dr. Emanuel Garcia

In fifteen concise science-based chapters, Michel traces the false covid pandemic, explaining how a PCR test, producing up to 97% proven false positives, combined with a relentless 24/7 fear campaign, was able to create a worldwide panic-laden “plandemic”; that this plandemic would never have been possible without the infamous DNA-modifying Polymerase Chain Reaction test – which to this day is being pushed on a majority of innocent people who have no clue. His conclusions are evidenced by renown scientists. —Peter Koenig 

Professor Chossudovsky exposes the truth that “there is no causal relationship between the virus and economic variables.” In other words, it was not COVID-19 but, rather, the deliberate implementation of the illogical, scientifically baseless lockdowns that caused the shutdown of the global economy. –David Skripac

A reading of  Chossudovsky’s book provides a comprehensive lesson in how there is a global coup d’état under way called “The Great Reset” that if not resisted and defeated by freedom loving people everywhere will result in a dystopian future not yet imagined. Pass on this free gift from Professor Chossudovsky before it’s too late.  You will not find so much valuable information and analysis in one place. –Edward Curtin

ISBN: 978-0-9879389-3-0,  Year: 2022,  PDF Ebook,  Pages: 164, 15 Chapters

Price: $11.50 FREE COPY! Click here (docsend) and download.

You may also access the online version of the e-Book by clicking here.

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

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This article was first published in July 2022.

Updates and analysis. May 18, 2024

***

 

“This Pandemic Treaty, if implemented, will change the global landscape and strip you and me of some of our most basic rights and freedoms.

Make no mistake, the WHO Pandemic Treaty is a direct attack on the sovereignty of its member states, as well as a direct attack on your bodily autonomy.” (Peter Koenig)

***

Introduction

There is a Sense of Urgency. A Worldwide Mass Movement against the Adoption of the Pandemic Treaty is Required. 

The World Health Organization’s (WHO) General Assembly, the World Health Assembly (WHA) representing all 194 member states, will take place in Geneva, from 27 May to 1 June 2024.

During that crucial week, the WHA is expected to vote on the controversial “Pandemic Treaty” and the new revised International Health Regulation (IHR, last revision 2005).

The Covid-19 “Pandemic”and the mRNA “Vaccine”

These two strategic pillars of the covid-19 agenda are:  

  • The lockdown: an act of economic and social warfare which has triggered a Worldwide process of impoverishment, social marginalization and despair, 
  • The mRNA Covid “vaccine” which has resulted in a Worldwide upward trend in mortality and morbidity. 

Unprecedented in World history, these two strategic pillars are currently instrumental in triggering a process of depopulation which indelibly points to extensive crimes against humanity.

At the time of writing (June 2022) the fourth jab of the Covid-19 “vaccine” is being administered resulting in a dramatic increase in the number of victims. 

The enforcement of the depopulation agenda requires a socially repressive structure of “global governance” controlled by the financial establishment.

It also requires a cohesive propaganda apparatus with a view to enforcing social acceptance Worldwide. In turn, this process requires the demise of the institutions of representative government coupled with the criminalization of the judicial system. 

The first part of this article focusses on “digital tyranny”, namely the structures of “World Governance”,  which are slated to be implemented in late May 2024 under the auspices of the WHO Pandemic Treaty.

Were it to be adopted, the Treaty would override the authority of  WHO member states. It would create a giant data bank at the level of the entire planet, namely  “a global health governance entity”, which is the object of Part I of this article

Part II of the article focusses on the Eugenist Depopulation Agenda, its historical roots and its Worldwide implementation by the Globalists. 

.

 

Part I

“Digital Tyranny” and 

The Structures of “World Governance”

 

Towards a Digitized Global Police State 

The Worldwide QR Verification Code project lays the groundwork for the instatement of a “Digitized Global Police State” controlled by the financial establishment. It’s part of what the late David Rockefeller entitled “The March towards World Government” based on an alliance of bankers and intellectuals (See Michel Chossudovsky, Chapter XII).  Peter Koenig describes the QR Code as:

“an all-electronic ID – linking everything to everything of each individual (records of health, banking, personal and private, etc.).”

Towards a Worldwide Digital Currency System (CBDC)  

Consultations are also ongoing between the World Economic Forum (WEF) and central banks with a view to implementing a so-called Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) network. According to David Scripac 

“A worldwide digital ID system is in the making. … The aim of the WEF—and of all the central banks [is] to implement a global system in which everyone’s personal data will be incorporated into the Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) network.  

The QR Verification Code Software

In early 2022, the WHO signed a major contract with Deutsche Telekom T Systems to develop a QR Verification App and Software which is to be applied Worldwide.

The QR code-based software solution is slated to be used:

“for other vaccinations as well, such as polio or yellow fever, T-Systems said in a statement … adding that the WHO would support its 194 member states in building national and regional verification technology.”  (emphasis added)

According to a Deutsche Telekom I-T Systems Communique  “The WHO’s gateway service also serves as a bridge between regional systems“, which essentially implies a coordinated global structure of QR surveillance, which oversees the entire population of Planet Earth.

And once established: it will police “every aspect of our lives”, wherever our location.  “It can also be used as part of future vaccination campaigns and home-based records.

According to the CEO of Deutsche Telecom T Systems:

“Corona has a grip on the world. Digitization keeps the world running”.

Bill Gates had a long-standing relationship with Deutsche Telekom’s  former CEO Ron Sommer going back to the late 1990s.

Tracing and Tracking

T-Systems had previously set up the European Federation Gateway Service (EFGS). The service ensures that member states’ corona tracing apps work across borders.

The Telekom app is categorized as “one of the most successful tracing apps in the world”.

Who has the Grip on the World?

A giant data bank pertaining to the Planet’s 8 billion people is controlled by “Big Money”.

People are tagged and labeled, their emails, cell phones are monitored, detailed personal data are entered into a giant “Big Brother” data bank.

“Digital tyranny” requires repelling all forms of political and social resistance. 

People become Numbers

Individual human beings are categorized as “numbers”. Once these “numbers” are inserted into a Global digital data bank, humanity in its entirety is under the control of the Globalists, namely The Financial Establishment. 

The history, culture and identity of nation states is foreclosed. People become numbers inserted into a global data bank. In turn the formulation of societal projects (projets de société) at national, local and community levels is erased.

Social democracy, socialism, libertarianism: Under global governance, all forms of representative democracy and class struggle are precipitated into the dustbin of history.

“Progressives” should understand who is behind this hegemonic project, it’s part of a neoliberal agenda, it’s an endgame which destroys the identity of human beings, it destroys humanity.

It is important to organize a broad movement of resistance leading to the outright dismantling of this diabolical agenda, which is embedded in the WHO’s Pandemic Treaty, sponsored by the World Economic Forum (WEF) and the Gates Foundation.

The Infamous WHO Pandemic Treaty is Slated to be adopted in Late May 2024

In March 2022, the WHO launched an Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB) with a mandate to create “A Pandemic Treaty”, i.e. a global health governance entity which would override the authority of  WHO member states.

“The Global Pandemic Treaty on pandemic preparedness would grant the WHO absolute power over global biosecurity, such as the power to implement digital identities / vaccine passports, mandatory vaccinations, travel restrictions, lockdowns, standardized medical care and more.

This Pandemic Treaty, if implemented, will change the global landscape and strip you and me of some of our most basic rights and freedoms.

Make no mistake, the WHO Pandemic Treaty is a direct attack on the sovereignty of its member states, as well as a direct attack on your bodily autonomy.” (Peter Koenig, June 2022)

The Pandemic Treaty is tied into the WHO’s QR Verification Code project and the Covid-19 mRNA Vaccine.

The  legitimacy of both the Pandemic Treaty and the QR Verification Code under WHO auspices rests on the presumption that the alleged “Covid-19 Pandemic is Real” and that the mRNA vaccine constitutes a SOLUTION to curbing the spread of the virus. 

Fraud and “Fake Science”. There Is No Pandemic 

What is the legitimacy as well as the science behind this diabolical project?  NONE. Amply confirmedTHERE IS NO PANDEMICThe alleged Covid-19 Pandemic is based on “Fake Science” (See Michel Chossudovsky, Chapter III)

Both the EU Digital COVID Certificate Framework as well as the WHO QR Verification Code are predicated on outright lies and fabrications.

The Pandemic Treaty is the “Back Door” towards “Global Governance” and “Digital Tyranny” 

It is the End of “Representative Democracy”

“In the words of the late David Rockefeller:

“…The world is now more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government. The supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national auto-determination practiced in past centuries.” (quoted by Aspen Times, August 15, 2011, emphasis added)

The Global Governance scenario imposes an agenda of social engineering and economic compliance. It constitutes an extension of the neoliberal policy framework imposed on both developing and developed countries. 

It consists in scrapping “national auto-determination” and constructing a Worldwide nexus of pro-US proxy regimes controlled by a “supranational sovereignty” (World Government) composed of leading financial institutions, billionaires and their philanthropic foundations.” 

The Global Governance scenario attempts to impose an agenda of social engineering and economic compliance.

The World government envisaged by the Globalists is predicated on obedience and acceptance.

One of its major objectives is to carry out a Worldwide Depopulation Agenda. (See Part II below)

Part II

Depopulation and The History of Eugenics

 

Introduction 

The contemporary eugenics movement sponsored by the World Economic Forum (WEF) and the billionaire philanthropists hinges upon two strategic pillars: the Covid lockdown and the mRNA vaccine, which are instruments of global population reduction.

The manipulation of energy prices, which trigger bankruptcies as well as US-NATO led wars are also instruments of depopulation. 

What we are living now is unprecedented. Today’s depopulation agenda is by no means comparable to the eugenist movement which unfolded in the U.S. as of the early 20th century. Eugenics at the outset was based on legislation directed against specific population groups with so-called “learning or physical disabilities”:

“The 1907 law denied entry to anyone judged ‘mentally or physically defective, such mental or physical defects being of a nature which may affect the ability of such alien to earn a living.’ It added ‘imbeciles’ and ‘feeble-minded persons’ to the list. …

By 1938, 33 American states permitted the forced sterilisation of women with learning disabilities and 29 American states had passed compulsory sterilisation laws covering people who were thought to have genetic conditions. Laws in America also restricted the right of certain disabled people to marry. More than 36,000 Americans underwent compulsory sterilisation before this legislation was eventually repealed in the 1940s.” (Victoria Brignell)

Depopulation Directed against Third World Countries

Inspired by the eugenist ideology, depopulation in the post World War II era became an integral part of a Neo-colonial Agenda. It was carefully embedded into the tenets of US foreign policy, largely directed against so-called “Developing Countries”.

We recall U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger’s National Security Study Memorandum 200 entitled “Implications of Worldwide Population Growth For U.S. Security and Overseas Interests.”

According to Kissinger (NSSM 200, 1974):

“Depopulation should be the highest priority of foreign policy towards the Third World, because the U.S. economy will require large and increasing amounts of minerals from abroad, especially from less developed countries.”

The Vaccine Campaign Directed against Third World Countries

In regards to Third World countries, depopulation was carefully instrumented through vaccines. The “tetanus vaccines” project implemented under WHO-UNICEF auspices was intended to “secretly sterilize women in poor countries all over the planet”.

Kenya’s Catholic bishops are charging two United Nations organizations with sterilizing millions of girls and women under cover of an anti-tetanus inoculation program sponsored by the Kenyan government”

Kenya: Gates Killer Vaccine

Bill Gates, who is now at the forefront of the Globalists’ mRNA “vaccine” program was intricately involved.

“The Gates Foundation was sued by governments around the world, Kenya, India, the Philippines – and more” (Peter Koenig, April 2020)

Robert F Kennedy Jr, an avid Defender of Children’s Rights and anti-vaccination activist, in April 2020 launched a petition sent to the White House, calling for “Investigations into the ‘Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’ for Medical Malpractice & Crimes Against HumanityQuoted in Koenig 

Screenshot 

“At the forefront of this is Bill Gates, who has publicly stated his interest in “reducing population growth” by 10-15%, by means of vaccination.

Gates, UNICEF & WHO have already been credibly accused of intentionally sterilizing Kenyan children through the use of a hidden HCG antigen in tetanus vaccines”. (Excerpt from text of Petition)

The Globalists’ Depopulation Agenda.“What to Do with All These Useless People?”

Following in the footsteps of Henry Kissinger’s 1974 National Memorandum 200, the WEF Globalists consider that Planet Earth is overpopulated. They do not formally acknowledge that the Covid-19 mandates including the mRNA “vaccine” constitute the means to reducing the World’s population.

The “vaccine” is casually upheld as a means to “save lives”.

Klaus Schwab’s protégé Prof. Yuval Noah Harari, nonetheless begs the question, “what to do with all these useless people?”  

Harari is an influential member of the World Economic Forum (WEF) who supports the idea of creating a dystopian society managed by a handful of globalists who will rule over every human beings on earth from the day they are born. (Timothy Alexander Guzman, July 2022)

 .

Secret 2009 Meeting of “The Good Club”. “Billionaires Try to Shrink World’s Population”

Flashback to April 25, 2009: the World Health Organization (WHO) headed by Margaret Chan declared a Public Health Emergency of International concern (PHEIC) pertaining to the H1N1 Swine Flu Pandemic, which in many regards was a “dress rehearsal” of the Covid pandemic. (See Michel Chossudovsky Chapter IX). 

Barely two weeks later in early May 2009, at the height of the H1N1 “pandemic”, the billionaire philanthropists met behind closed doors at the home of the president of the Rockefeller University in Manhattan.

This secret gathering was sponsored by Bill Gates. 

They call themselves “The Good Club”. Among the participants were the late David Rockefeller, Warren Buffett, George Soros, Michael Bloomberg, Ted Turner, Oprah Winfrey and many more:  

“Some of America’s leading billionaires have met secretly to consider how their wealth could be used to slow the growth of the world’s population and speed up improvements in health and education.” (Sunday Times, May 2009)10

The emphasis was not on population growth (i.e. Planned Parenthood) but on “Depopulation”, i.e. the reduction in the absolute size of the world’s population.

To read complete WSJ article, click here.

According to the Sunday Times report:

The philanthropists who attended a summit convened on the initiative of Bill Gates, the Microsoft co-founder, discussed joining forces to overcome political and religious obstacles to change.

Stacy Palmer, editor of the Chronicle of Philanthropy, said the summit was unprecedented. “We only learnt about it afterwards, by accident. Normally these people are happy to talk good causes, but this is different – maybe because they don’t want to be seen as a global cabal,” he said.

Another guest said there was “nothing as crude as a vote” but a consensus emerged that they would back a strategy in which population growth would be tackled as a potentially disastrous environmental, social and industrial threat.

“This is something so nightmarish that everyone in this group agreed it needs big-brain answers,” said the guest.  …

Why all the secrecy? “They wanted to speak rich to rich without worrying anything they said would end up in the newspapers, painting them as an alternative world government,” he said. (Sunday Times)11

The decision-making is intricate and complex. The reports of this secret May 2009 meeting largely reveal the Depopulation Narrative. It was one among numerous similar meetings (which are rarely the object of media coverage).

What is significant is the criminal intent of these billionaire “philanthropists” to depopulate Planet Earth.

Bill Gates’ 2010 Depopulation Statement. The Role of “New Vaccines”

Was an absolute “reduction” in world population contemplated at that May 2009 secret meeting? A few months later, Bill Gates in his TED presentation (February 2010) pertaining to vaccination, stated the following:

“And if we do a really great job on new vaccines, health care, reproductive health services, we could lower that [the world population] by 10 or 15 percent”.12

(See quotation in the video starting at 04:21. See also screenshot of transcript of quotation below)

TED Talk at 04:21:

Transcript of quotation from the video13

Bill Gates’ “Absolute Reduction” in World Population 

The World’s population in 2022 is of the order of 8.0 billion. 

Bill Gates’ proposal is implement an “absolute reduction” in the World’s population based on 2022 data using “new vaccines” is as follows:

  • An absolute reduction of 10% in 2022 would be of the order of 800 million. 
  • An absolute reduction of 15% of the World Population in 2022 would be the order of 1.2 billion.

The same group of billionaires, who met at the May 2009 “secret venue”, has been actively involved from the outset of the COVID crisis in designing the lockdown policies applied worldwide, the mRNA vaccine and the “Great Reset”, the endgame of which is depopulation. 

Crimes against humanity are beyond description.

We are dealing with a criminal cabal which must be confronted. 


The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity

by Michel Chossudovsky

Michel Chossudovsky reviews in detail how this insidious project “destroys people’s lives”. He provides a comprehensive analysis of everything you need to know about the “pandemic” — from the medical dimensions to the economic and social repercussions, political underpinnings, and mental and psychological impacts.

“My objective as an author is to inform people worldwide and refute the official narrative which has been used as a justification to destabilize the economic and social fabric of entire countries, followed by the imposition of the “deadly” COVID-19 “vaccine”. This crisis affects humanity in its entirety: almost 8 billion people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings and our children worldwide. Truth is a powerful instrument.”

ISBN: 978-0-9879389-3-0,  Year: 2022,  PDF Ebook,  Pages: 164, 15 Chapters

As a means to reaching out to millions of people worldwide whose lives have been affected by the corona crisis, we have decided in the course of the next few weeks to distribute the eBook for FREE.

Price: $11.50. FREE COPY Click here to download.

You may also wish to make a donation in support of the book project at DonorBox “Worldwide Corona Crisis” Campaign Page(NOTE: User-friendly

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Il Tramonto Rosso Sangue dell’occidente

May 19th, 2024 by Manlio Dinucci

Il Presidente Vladimir Putin, su invito del Presidente della Repubblica Popolare Cinese Xi Jinping, ha effettuato una visita di Stato in Cina. Non è un atto formale, ma un ulteriore passo nel rafforzamento delle relazioni economiche, politiche e militari tra i due Paesi. La Cina produce un terzo dei prodotti manifatturieri mondiali, più di Stati Uniti, Germania, Giappone, Corea del Sud e Gran Bretagna messi insieme. La Russia – dopo che è stato spezzato con un sabotaggio militare USA-NATO il maggiore gasdotto, il Nord Stream, che trasportava il suo gas in Europa, ed è stata sottoposta a sanzioni da parte della UE – sta fornendo sempre più gas e petrolio alla Cina e importa da questa i prodotti industriali che prima importava dall’Europa.

Il rafforzamento delle relazioni tra i due Paesi si inserisce in quello dei BRICS: questa organizzazione intergovernativa – formata da Brasile, Russia, India, Cina e Sudafrica – si è estesa a Arabia Saudita, Iran, Egitto, Etiopia ed Emirati Arabi Uniti. Diversi altri Paesi vogliono entrare in questa organizzazione internazionale, presieduta quest’anno dalla Russia, che mira a creare un ordine mondiale multipolare alternativo a quello unipolare dell’Occidente.

Per mantenere a tutti i costi il predominio in un mondo che cambia, l’Occidente ricorre alla guerra in uno scenario che va dall’Europa al Medioriente e all’Asia Orientale. Nel discorso alla Parata del 9 Maggio per il 79° Anniversario della Vittoria della Grande Guerra Patriottica del 1941-1945 contro la Germania nazista, il Presidente Putin così descrive questo scenario: “Nutrire sentimenti revanscisti, farsi beffa della Storia e cercare di giustificare gli attuali seguaci del nazismo fa parte di quella che è la politica comune delle élite occidentali per alimentare i conflitti regionali, le lotte interetniche e interreligiose e per contenere i centri sovrani e indipendenti dello sviluppo globale.”

Manlio Dinucci

 

VIDEO :

Un’altra multinazionale del farmaco, questa volta Pfizer, batte in ritirata per evitare guai peggiori. In discussione vi sono quei prodotti definiti “sicuri” ma che forse tanto sicuri non lo erano poi mica tanto.

Sembrerebbe essere il caso dello Zantac, perché secondo il Financial Times l’azienda ha deciso di pagare 250 milioni di dollari per risolvere 10.000 cause negli Stati Uniti.

L’accusa per Pfizer è quella di avere nascosto i rischi di cancro associati al farmaco utilizzato per problemi di stomaco.

Zantac e rischio cancro: non solo Pfizer

Tra le altre società coinvolte vi sono anche i produttori GSK e Sanofi, che ha invece versato 100 milioni di dollari per 4.000 cause legate allo Zantac. Queste aziende hanno perso insieme 45 miliardi di dollari per via delle azioni legali.

La Food and Drug Administration aveva ritirato il farmaco dal mercato statunitense nel 2020 proprio per i possibili rischi cancerogeni.

Negli ultimi decenni Zantac è stato uno dei prodotti più venduti. Al suo interno vi era la ranitidina, ritirata in Italia tra il 2019 e il 2022 per un’impurità potenzialmente cancerogena.

Cancro: cause contro Pfizer per Zantac

Pfizer spiega che non commercializza lo Zantac da oltre 15 anni, oltre ad averlo fatto solo per un periodo di tempo limitato. La multinazionale fa sapere che continuerà a difendersi dalle cause legali.

“Riteniamo che non siano supportate da dati scientifici affidabili”, commenta la società, aggiungendo però che valuterà delle soluzioni per alcuni casi “se appropriate”.

L’obiettivo di Pfizer sarebbe quello di chiudere i casi prima di andare in tribunale, dove sarebbe accusata da gente malata di cancro. Nel frattempo, nell’ultimo anno, le azioni sono scese del 27% anche per il calo della domanda dei vaccini anti Covid.

Pfizer e AstraZeneca in ritirata dopo le cause

Un altro produttore in quest’ultimo ambito è AstraZeneca, che ha recentemente optato per il ritiro del vaccino Vaxzevria. Anche la società anglo-svedese è alle prese con decine di cause per via dei danni denunciati dalle persone a seguito della somministrazione.

Effetti collaterali, come la trombosi, ora peraltro ammessi dalla stessa azienda. Prima, però, come avvenuto con Pfizer per lo Zantac, l’utilizzo del vaccino era stato approvato in Europa e veniva definito “sicuro“.

Ma che problema c’è per queste multinazionali? Tanto, male che vada, ritirano il prodotto e propongono un risarcimento.

Andrea Murgia

VIDEO :

https://www.byoblu.com/2024/05/17/pfizer-in-ritirata-paga-per-evitare-le-cause-contro-il-cancro/

 

One of our most popular articles, first published on March 1st, 2013

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Update and Analysis

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On October 7, 2023, Hamas launched “Operation Al-Aqsa Storm.” which was led by its Military Chief Mohammed Deif.  On that same day, Netanyahu confirmed a so-called “State of Readiness For War”. Israel has now (October 7, 2023) officially declared a new stage of its long war against the people of Palestine. 

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Military operations are invariably planned well in advance (See Netanyahu’s January 2023 statement below). Was “Operation Al-Aqsa Storm” a “surprise attack” ?

U.S. intelligence say they weren’t aware of an impending Hamas attack. 

Did Netanyahu and his vast military and intelligence apparatus (Mossad et al) have foreknowledge of the Hamas attack.

Was a carefully formulated Israeli plan to wage an all out war against Palestinians envisaged prior to the launching by Hamas of  “Operation Al-Aqsa Storm”? This was not a failure of Israeli Intelligence, as conveyed by the media. Quite the opposite. 

Evidence and testimonies suggest that the Netanyahu government had foreknowledge of the actions of Hamas. And “They Let it Happen”:

Following the Al Aqsa Storm Operation on October 7, Israel‘s defence minister described Palestinians as “human animals” and vowed to “act accordingly,” as fighter jets unleashed a massive bombing of the Gaza Strip” (Middle East Eye).

A complete blockade of the Gaza Strip was initiated on October 9, 2023 consisting in  preventing and obstructing the importation of food, water, fuel, and essential commodities to 2.3 Million Palestinians. It’s an outright crime against humanity. 

Was “Operation Al-Aqsa Storm” a “surprise attack”?  Was it a false flag?

Netanyahu’s “New Stage” of “The Long War” against Palestine

Netanyahu’s stated objective, which constitutes a new stage in the 75 year old war (since Nakba, 1948, see below) against the people of Palestine is no longer predicated on “Apartheid” or “Separation”. This new stage –which is also directed against Israelis who want peace– consists in “total appropriation” as well as the outright exclusion of the Palestinian people from their homeland. 

The current Netanyahu government is committed to the “Greater Israel” and the “Promised Land”, namely the biblical homeland of the Jews. 

Benjamin Netanyahu is pressing ahead to formalize “Israel’s colonial project”, namely the appropriation of all Palestinian Lands. 

His position defined below several months prior to the October 7, 2023 “State of Readiness For War” consists in total appropriation as well as the outright exclusion of the Palestinian people from their homeland:

“These are the basic lines of the national government headed by me: The Jewish people have an exclusive and unquestionable right to all areas of the Land of Israel. The government will promote and develop settlement in all parts of the Land of Israel — in the Galilee, the Negev, the Golan, Judea and Samaria.” (January 2023)

 

History: The Relationship between Mossad and Hamas

What is the relationship between Mossad and Hamas? Is Hamas an “intelligence asset”? There is a long history. 

Hamas (Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiyya) (Islamic Resistance Movement), was founded in 1987 by Sheik Ahmed Yassin. It was supported at the outset by Israeli intelligence as a means to weaken the Palestinian Authority:

“Thanks to Mossad, (Israel’s “Institute for Intelligence and Special Tasks”), Hamas was allowed to reinforce its presence in the occupied territories. Meanwhile, Arafat’s Fatah Movement for National Liberation as well as the Palestinian Left were subjected to the most brutal form of repression and intimidation.

Let us not forget that it was Israel, which in fact created Hamas. According to Zeev Sternell, historian at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, “Israel thought that it was a smart ploy to push the Islamists against the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO)”. (L’Humanité, translated from French)

The links of Hamas to Mossad and US intelligence have been acknowledged by Rep. Ron Paul in a statement to the U.S Congress: “Hamas Was Started by Israel”?

“You know Hamas, if you look at the history, you’ll find out that Hamas was encouraged and really started by Israel because they wanted Hamas to counteract Yasser Arafat… (Rep. Ron Paul, 2011)

What this statement entails is that  “factions within Hamas” constitute “an intelligence asset”, namely “an “asset” which serves the interests of intelligence agencies. 

See also the WSJ (January 24, 2009) “How Israel helped to Spawn Hamas”. 

Instead of trying to curb Gaza’s Islamists from the outset, says Mr. Cohen, Israel for years tolerated and, in some cases, encouraged them as a counterweight to the secular nationalists of the Palestine Liberation Organization and its dominant faction, Yasser Arafat’s Fatah. (WSJ, emphasis added)

The Nakba

Commemoration on May 13, 2023: The Nakba. 75 years ago on May 13, 1948. The Palestinian Catastrophe prevails. In a 2018 report, the United Nations stated that Gaza had become “unliveable”:

With an economy in free fall, 70 per cent youth unemployment, widely contaminated drinking water and a collapsed health care system, Gaza has become “unliveable”,[in 2018] according to the Special Rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian Territories”

The above UN assessment dates back to 2018. Under Netanyahu, Israel is currently proceeding with the plan to annex large chunks of Palestinian territory “while keeping the Palestinian inhabitants in conditions of severe deprivation and isolation.

Creating conditions of extreme poverty and economic collapse constitute the means for triggering the expulsion and exodus of Palestinians from their homeland.  It is part of the process of annexation.

“If the manoeuvre is successful, Israel will end up with all of the territories it conquered during the 1967 war, including all of the Golan Heights and Jerusalem and most of the Palestinian Territories, including the best sources of water and agricultural land.

The West Bank will find itself in the same situation as the Gaza strip, cut off from the outside world and surrounded by hostile Israeli military forces and Israeli settlements.” (South Front) 

Human rights ended at the Palestinian border. The bought and paid for US Congress couldn’t genuflect enough:

“On July 19, 2023 the US Congress convened a special joint session for Israeli President Isaac Herzog. Both Democrats and Republicans bobbed up and down to applaud him 29 times.”

” Watching Palestine Disappear”, Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, September 12, 2023

“Greater Israel would create a number of proxy states. It would include parts of Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, the Sinai, as well as parts of  Iraq and Saudi Arabia.”

“Palestine Is Gone! Gone! راحت فلسطينThe Palestinian plight is savagely painful and the pain is compounded by the bafflingly off-hand dismissal and erasure by Western powers of that pain, Rima Najjar, Global Research, June, 7, 2020 

 

Michel Chossudovsky,  June 10, 2021, October 11, 2023, November 1, 2023

 


 

Introductory Text on “The Greater Israel Project” 

by Michel Chossudovsky 

 

The following document pertaining to the formation of “Greater Israel” constitutes the cornerstone of powerful Zionist factions within the current Netanyahu government,  the Likud party, as well as within the Israeli military and intelligence establishment. 

President Donald Trump had confirmed in January 2017 his support of Israel’s illegal settlements (including his opposition to UN Security Council Resolution 2334, pertaining to the illegality of the Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank). The Trump administration expressed its recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights. And now the entire West Bank is being annexed to Israel. 

Under the Biden administration, despite rhetorical shifts in the political narrative, Washington remains supportive of Israel plans to annex the entire Jordan River valley as well the illegal settlements in the West Bank.

Bear in mind: The Greater Israel design is not strictly a Zionist Project for the Middle East, it is an integral part of US foreign policy, its strategic objective is to extend US hegemony as well as fracture and balkanize the Middle East.  

In this regard, Washington’s strategy consists in destabilizing and weakening regional economic powers in the Middle East including Turkey and Iran. This policy –which is consistent with the Greater Israel–  is  accompanied by a process of political fragmentation.

Since the Gulf war (1991), the Pentagon has contemplated the creation of a “Free Kurdistan” which would include the annexation of  parts of Iraq, Syria and Iran as well as Turkey

 

“The New Middle East”:  Unofficial US Military Academy Map by Lt. Col. Ralph Peters

 

According to the founding father of Zionism Theodore Herzl, “the area of the Jewish State stretches: “From the Brook of Egypt to the Euphrates.”  According to Rabbi Fischmann,  “The Promised Land extends from the River of Egypt up to the Euphrates, it includes parts of Syria and Lebanon.”

When viewed in the current context, including the siege on Gaza, the Zionist Plan for the Middle East bears an intimate relationship to the 2003 invasion of  Iraq, the 2006 war on Lebanon, the 2011 war on Libya, the ongoing wars on Syria, Iraq and Yemen, not to mention the political crisis in Saudi Arabia.

The “Greater Israel” project consists in weakening and eventually fracturing neighboring Arab states as part of a US-Israeli expansionist project, with the support of NATO and Saudi Arabia. In this regard, the Saudi-Israeli rapprochement is from Netanyahu’s viewpoint a means to expanding Israel’s spheres of influence in the Middle East as well as confronting Iran. Needless to day, the “Greater Israel” project is consistent with America’s imperial design.

“Greater Israel” consists in an area extending from the Nile Valley to the Euphrates. According to Stephen Lendman,

A near-century ago, the World Zionist Organization’s plan for a Jewish state included:

• historic Palestine;

• South Lebanon up to Sidon and the Litani River;

• Syria’s Golan Heights, Hauran Plain and Deraa; and

• control of the Hijaz Railway from Deraa to Amman, Jordan as well as the Gulf of Aqaba.

Some Zionists wanted more – land from the Nile in the West to the Euphrates in the East, comprising Palestine, Lebanon, Western Syria and Southern Turkey.”

 

The Zionist project has supported the Jewish settlement movement. More broadly it involves a policy of excluding Palestinians from Palestine leading to the annexation of both the West Bank and Gaza to the State of Israel.

The Project of “Greater Israel” is to create a number of proxy States, which could include parts of Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, the Sinai, as well as parts of  Iraq and Saudi Arabia. (See map).

According to Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya in a 2011 Global Research article,   The Yinon Plan was a continuation of Britain’s colonial design in the Middle East:

“[The Yinon plan] is an Israeli strategic plan to ensure Israeli regional superiority. It insists and stipulates that Israel must reconfigure its geo-political environment through the balkanization of the surrounding Arab states into smaller and weaker states.

Israeli strategists viewed Iraq as their biggest strategic challenge from an Arab state. This is why Iraq was outlined as the centerpiece to the balkanization of the Middle East and the Arab World. In Iraq, on the basis of the concepts of the Yinon Plan, Israeli strategists have called for the division of Iraq into a Kurdish state and two Arab states, one for Shiite Muslims and the other for Sunni Muslims. The first step towards establishing this was a war between Iraq and Iran, which the Yinon Plan discusses.

The Atlantic, in 2008, and the U.S. military’s Armed Forces Journal, in 2006, both published widely circulated maps that closely followed the outline of the Yinon Plan. Aside from a divided Iraq, which the Biden Plan also calls for, the Yinon Plan calls for a divided Lebanon, Egypt, and Syria. The partitioning of Iran, Turkey, Somalia, and Pakistan also all fall into line with these views. The Yinon Plan also calls for dissolution in North Africa and forecasts it as starting from Egypt and then spilling over into Sudan, Libya, and the rest of the region.

“Greater Israel” would require the breaking up of the existing Arab states into small states.

“The plan operates on two essential premises. To survive, Israel must

1)  become an imperial regional power, and

2) must effect the division of the whole area into small states by the dissolution of all existing Arab states.

Small here will depend on the ethnic or sectarian composition of each state. Consequently, the Zionist hope is that sectarian-based states become Israel’s satellites and, ironically, its source of moral legitimation…  This is not a new idea, nor does it surface for the first time in Zionist strategic thinking. Indeed, fragmenting all Arab states into smaller units has been a recurrent theme.” (Yinon Plan, see below)

Viewed in this context, the US-NATO led wars on Syria and Iraq are part of  the process of Israeli territorial expansion.

In this regard, the defeat of US sponsored terrorists (ISIS, Al Nusra) by Syrian Forces with the support of Russia, Iran and Hezbollah constitute a significant setback for Israel.

 

Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, September 06, 2015, updated September 13, 2019

 


 

The Zionist Plan for the Middle East 

Translated and edited by

Israel Shahak

The Israel of Theodore Herzl (1904) and of Rabbi Fischmann (1947)

In his Complete Diaries, Vol. II. p. 711, Theodore Herzl, the founder of Zionism, says that the area of the Jewish State stretches: “From the Brook of Egypt to the Euphrates.”

Rabbi Fischmann, member of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, declared in his testimony to the U.N. Special Committee of Enquiry on 9 July 1947: “The Promised Land extends from the River of Egypt up to the Euphrates, it includes parts of Syria and Lebanon.”

Oded Yinon’s

“A Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties”

Published by the

Association of Arab-American University Graduates, Inc.

Belmont, Massachusetts, 1982

Special Document No. 1 (ISBN 0-937694-56-8)


Introductory Note

by Dr. Khalil Nakhleh

The Association of Arab-American University Graduates finds it compelling to inaugurate its new publication series, Special Documents, with Oded Yinon’s article which appeared in Kivunim (Directions), the journal of the Department of Information of the World Zionist Organization. Oded Yinon is an Israeli journalist and was formerly attached to the Foreign Ministry of Israel. To our knowledge, this document is the most explicit, detailed and unambiguous statement to date of the Zionist strategy in the Middle East. Furthermore, it stands as an accurate representation of the “vision” for the entire Middle East of the presently ruling Zionist regime of Begin, Sharon and Eitan. Its importance, hence, lies not in its historical value but in the nightmare which it presents.

The plan operates on two essential premises. To survive, Israel must 1) become an imperial regional power, and 2) must effect the division of the whole area into small states by the dissolution of all existing Arab states. Small here will depend on the ethnic or sectarian composition of each state. Consequently, the Zionist hope is that sectarian-based states become Israel’s satellites and, ironically, its source of moral legitimation.

This is not a new idea, nor does it surface for the first time in Zionist strategic thinking. Indeed, fragmenting all Arab states into smaller units has been a recurrent theme. This theme has been documented on a very modest scale in the AAUG publication,  Israel’s Sacred Terrorism (1980), by Livia Rokach. Based on the memoirs of Moshe Sharett, former Prime Minister of Israel, Rokach’s study documents, in convincing detail, the Zionist plan as it applies to Lebanon and as it was prepared in the mid-fifties.

The first massive Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1978 bore this plan out to the minutest detail. The second and more barbaric and encompassing Israeli invasion of Lebanon on June 6, 1982, aims to effect certain parts of this plan which hopes to see not only Lebanon, but Syria and Jordan as well, in fragments. This ought to make mockery of Israeli public claims regarding their desire for a strong and independent Lebanese central government. More accurately, they want a Lebanese central government that sanctions their regional imperialist designs by signing a peace treaty with them. They also seek acquiescence in their designs by the Syrian, Iraqi, Jordanian and other Arab governments as well as by the Palestinian people. What they want and what they are planning for is not an Arab world, but a world of Arab fragments that is ready to succumb to Israeli hegemony. Hence, Oded Yinon in his essay, “A Strategy for Israel in the 1980’s,” talks about “far-reaching opportunities for the first time since 1967” that are created by the “very stormy situation [that] surrounds Israel.”

The Zionist policy of displacing the Palestinians from Palestine is very much an active policy, but is pursued more forcefully in times of conflict, such as in the 1947-1948 war and in the 1967 war. An appendix entitled  “Israel Talks of a New Exodus” is included in this publication to demonstrate past Zionist dispersals of Palestinians from their homeland and to show, besides the main Zionist document we present, other Zionist planning for the de-Palestinization of Palestine.

It is clear from the Kivunim document, published in February, 1982, that the “far-reaching opportunities” of which Zionist strategists have been thinking are the same “opportunities” of which they are trying to convince the world and which they claim were generated by their June, 1982 invasion. It is also clear that the Palestinians were never the sole target of Zionist plans, but the priority target since their viable and independent presence as a people negates the essence of the Zionist state. Every Arab state, however, especially those with cohesive and clear nationalist directions, is a real target sooner or later.

Contrasted with the detailed and unambiguous Zionist strategy elucidated in this document, Arab and Palestinian strategy, unfortunately, suffers from ambiguity and incoherence. There is no indication that Arab strategists have internalized the Zionist plan in its full ramifications. Instead, they react with incredulity and shock whenever a new stage of it unfolds. This is apparent in Arab reaction, albeit muted, to the Israeli siege of Beirut. The sad fact is that as long as the Zionist strategy for the Middle East is not taken seriously Arab reaction to any future siege of other Arab capitals will be the same.

Khalil Nakhleh, July 23, 1982

 


Foreward

by Israel Shahak

The following essay represents, in my opinion, the accurate and detailed plan of the present Zionist regime (of Sharon and Eitan) for the Middle East which is based on the division of the whole area into small states, and the dissolution of all the existing Arab states. I will comment on the military aspect of this plan in a concluding note. Here I want to draw the attention of the readers to several important points:

1. The idea that all the Arab states should be broken down, by Israel, into small units, occurs again and again in Israeli strategic thinking. For example, Ze’ev Schiff, the military correspondent of Ha’aretz (and probably the most knowledgeable in Israel, on this topic) writes about the “best” that can happen for Israeli interests in Iraq: “The dissolution of Iraq into a Shi’ite state, a Sunni state and the separation of the Kurdish part” (Ha’aretz 6/2/1982). Actually, this aspect of the plan is very old.

2. The strong connection with Neo-Conservative thought in the USA is very prominent, especially in the author’s notes. But, while lip service is paid to the idea of the “defense of the West” from Soviet power, the real aim of the author, and of the present Israeli establishment is clear: To make an Imperial Israel into a world power. In other words, the aim of Sharon is to deceive the Americans after he has deceived all the rest.

3. It is obvious that much of the relevant data, both in the notes and in the text, is garbled or omitted, such as the financial help of the U.S. to Israel. Much of it is pure fantasy. But, the plan is not to be regarded as not influential, or as not capable of realization for a short time. The plan follows faithfully the geopolitical ideas current in Germany of 1890-1933, which were swallowed whole by Hitler and the Nazi movement, and determined their aims for East Europe. Those aims, especially the division of the existing states, were carried out in 1939-1941, and only an alliance on the global scale prevented their consolidation for a period of time.

The notes by the author follow the text under the title.

To avoid confusion, I did not add any notes of my own, but have put the substance of them into this Foreward and the Concluding Observations at the end. I have, however, emphasized some portions of the text.

Israel Shahak, June 13, 1982 

 


 

A Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties

by Oded Yinon

This essay originally appeared in Hebrew in KIVUNIM (Directions), A Journal for Judaism and Zionism; Issue No, 14–Winter, 5742, February 1982, Editor: Yoram Beck. Editorial Committee: Eli Eyal, Yoram Beck, Amnon Hadari, Yohanan Manor, Elieser Schweid. Published by the Department of Publicity/The World Zionist Organization, Jerusalem.

At the outset of the nineteen eighties the State of Israel is in need of a new perspective as to its place, its aims and national targets, at home and abroad. This need has become even more vital due to a number of central processes which the country, the region and the world are undergoing. We are living today in the early stages of a new epoch in human history which is not at all similar to its predecessor, and its characteristics are totally different from what we have hitherto known. That is why we need an understanding of the central processes which typify this historical epoch on the one hand, and on the other hand we need a world outlook and an operational strategy in accordance with the new conditions. The existence, prosperity and steadfastness of the Jewish state will depend upon its ability to adopt a new framework for its domestic and foreign affairs.

This epoch is characterized by several traits which we can already diagnose, and which symbolize a genuine revolution in our present lifestyle. The dominant process is the breakdown of the rationalist, humanist outlook as the major cornerstone supporting the life and achievements of Western civilization since the Renaissance. The political, social and economic views which have emanated from this foundation have been based on several “truths” which are presently disappearing–for example, the view that man as an individual is the center of the universe and everything exists in order to fulfill his basic material needs. This position is being invalidated in the present when it has become clear that the amount of resources in the cosmos does not meet Man’s requirements, his economic needs or his demographic constraints. In a world in which there are four billion human beings and economic and energy resources which do not grow proportionally to meet the needs of mankind, it is unrealistic to expect to fulfill the main requirement of Western Society, 1 i.e., the wish and aspiration for boundless consumption. The view that ethics plays no part in determining the direction Man takes, but rather his material needs do–that view is becoming prevalent today as we see a world in which nearly all values are disappearing. We are losing the ability to assess the simplest things, especially when they concern the simple question of what is Good and what is Evil.

The vision of man’s limitless aspirations and abilities shrinks in the face of the sad facts of life, when we witness the break-up of world order around us. The view which promises liberty and freedom to mankind seems absurd in light of the sad fact that three fourths of the human race lives under totalitarian regimes. The views concerning equality and social justice have been transformed by socialism and especially by Communism into a laughing stock. There is no argument as to the truth of these two ideas, but it is clear that they have not been put into practice properly and the majority of mankind has lost the liberty, the freedom and the opportunity for equality and justice. In this nuclear world in which we are (still) living in relative peace for thirty years, the concept of peace and coexistence among nations has no meaning when a superpower like the USSR holds a military and political doctrine of the sort it has: that not only is a nuclear war possible and necessary in order to achieve the ends of Marxism, but that it is possible to survive after it, not to speak of the fact that one can be victorious in it.2

The essential concepts of human society, especially those of the West, are undergoing a change due to political, military and economic transformations. Thus, the nuclear and conventional might of the USSR has transformed the epoch that has just ended into the last respite before the great saga that will demolish a large part of our world in a multi-dimensional global war, in comparison with which the past world wars will have been mere child’s play. The power of nuclear as well as of conventional weapons, their quantity, their precision and quality will turn most of our world upside down within a few years, and we must align ourselves so as to face that in Israel. That is, then, the main threat to our existence and that of the Western world. 3 The war over resources in the world, the Arab monopoly on oil, and the need of the West to import most of its raw materials from the Third World, are transforming the world we know, given that one of the major aims of the USSR is to defeat the West by gaining control over the gigantic resources in the Persian Gulf and in the southern part of Africa, in which the majority of world minerals are located. We can imagine the dimensions of the global confrontation which will face us in the future.

The Gorshkov doctrine calls for Soviet control of the oceans and mineral rich areas of the Third World. That together with the present Soviet nuclear doctrine which holds that it is possible to manage, win and survive a nuclear war, in the course of which the West’s military might well be destroyed and its inhabitants made slaves in the service of Marxism-Leninism, is the main danger to world peace and to our own existence. Since 1967, the Soviets have transformed Clausewitz’ dictum into “War is the continuation of policy in nuclear means,” and made it the motto which guides all their policies. Already today they are busy carrying out their aims in our region and throughout the world, and the need to face them becomes the major element in our country’s security policy and of course that of the rest of the Free World. That is our major foreign challenge.4

The Arab Moslem world, therefore, is not the major strategic problem which we shall face in the Eighties, despite the fact that it carries the main threat against Israel, due to its growing military might. This world, with its ethnic minorities, its factions and internal crises, which is astonishingly self-destructive, as we can see in Lebanon, in non-Arab Iran and now also in Syria, is unable to deal successfully with its fundamental problems and does not therefore constitute a real threat against the State of Israel in the long run, but only in the short run where its immediate military power has great import. In the long run, this world will be unable to exist within its present framework in the areas around us without having to go through genuine revolutionary changes. The Moslem Arab World is built like a temporary house of cards put together by foreigners (France and Britain in the Nineteen Twenties), without the wishes and desires of the inhabitants having been taken into account. It was arbitrarily divided into 19 states, all made of combinations of minorites and ethnic groups which are hostile to one another, so that every Arab Moslem state nowadays faces ethnic social destruction from within, and in some a civil war is already raging. 5 Most of the Arabs, 118 million out of 170 million, live in Africa, mostly in Egypt (45 million today).

Apart from Egypt, all the Maghreb states are made up of a mixture of Arabs and non-Arab Berbers. In Algeria there is already a civil war raging in the Kabile mountains between the two nations in the country. Morocco and Algeria are at war with each other over Spanish Sahara, in addition to the internal struggle in each of them. Militant Islam endangers the integrity of Tunisia and Qaddafi organizes wars which are destructive from the Arab point of view, from a country which is sparsely populated and which cannot become a powerful nation. That is why he has been attempting unifications in the past with states that are more genuine, like Egypt and Syria. Sudan, the most torn apart state in the Arab Moslem world today is built upon four groups hostile to each other, an Arab Moslem Sunni minority which rules over a majority of non-Arab Africans, Pagans, and Christians. In Egypt there is a Sunni Moslem majority facing a large minority of Christians which is dominant in upper Egypt: some 7 million of them, so that even Sadat, in his speech on May 8, expressed the fear that they will want a state of their own, something like a “second” Christian Lebanon in Egypt.

All the Arab States east of Israel are torn apart, broken up and riddled with inner conflict even more than those of the Maghreb. Syria is fundamentally no different from Lebanon except in the strong military regime which rules it. But the real civil war taking place nowadays between the Sunni majority and the Shi’ite Alawi ruling minority (a mere 12% of the population) testifies to the severity of the domestic trouble.

Iraq is, once again, no different in essence from its neighbors, although its majority is Shi’ite and the ruling minority Sunni. Sixty-five percent of the population has no say in politics, in which an elite of 20 percent holds the power. In addition there is a large Kurdish minority in the north, and if it weren’t for the strength of the ruling regime, the army and the oil revenues, Iraq’s future state would be no different than that of Lebanon in the past or of Syria today. The seeds of inner conflict and civil war are apparent today already, especially after the rise of Khomeini to power in Iran, a leader whom the Shi’ites in Iraq view as their natural leader.

All the Gulf principalities and Saudi Arabia are built upon a delicate house of sand in which there is only oil. In Kuwait, the Kuwaitis constitute only a quarter of the population. In Bahrain, the Shi’ites are the majority but are deprived of power. In the UAE, Shi’ites are once again the majority but the Sunnis are in power. The same is true of Oman and North Yemen. Even in the Marxist South Yemen there is a sizable Shi’ite minority. In Saudi Arabia half the population is foreign, Egyptian and Yemenite, but a Saudi minority holds power.

Jordan is in reality Palestinian, ruled by a Trans-Jordanian Bedouin minority, but most of the army and certainly the bureaucracy is now Palestinian. As a matter of fact Amman is as Palestinian as Nablus. All of these countries have powerful armies, relatively speaking. But there is a problem there too. The Syrian army today is mostly Sunni with an Alawi officer corps, the Iraqi army Shi’ite with Sunni commanders. This has great significance in the long run, and that is why it will not be possible to retain the loyalty of the army for a long time except where it comes to the only common denominator: The hostility towards Israel, and today even that is insufficient.

Alongside the Arabs, split as they are, the other Moslem states share a similar predicament. Half of Iran’s population is comprised of a Persian speaking group and the other half of an ethnically Turkish group. Turkey’s population comprises a Turkish Sunni Moslem majority, some 50%, and two large minorities, 12 million Shi’ite Alawis and 6 million Sunni Kurds. In Afghanistan there are 5 million

Shi’ites who constitute one third of the population. In Sunni Pakistan there are 15 million Shi’ites who endanger the existence of that state.

This national ethnic minority picture extending from Morocco to India and from Somalia to Turkey points to the absence of stability and a rapid degeneration in the entire region. When this picture is added to the economic one, we see how the entire region is built like a house of cards, unable to withstand its severe problems.

In this giant and fractured world there are a few wealthy groups and a huge mass of poor people. Most of the Arabs have an average yearly income of 300 dollars. That is the situation in Egypt, in most of the Maghreb countries except for Libya, and in Iraq. Lebanon is torn apart and its economy is falling to pieces. It is a state in which there is no centralized power, but only 5 de facto sovereign authorities (Christian in the north, supported by the Syrians and under the rule of the Franjieh clan, in the East an area of direct Syrian conquest, in the center a Phalangist controlled Christian enclave, in the south and up to the Litani river a mostly Palestinian region controlled by the PLO and Major Haddad’s state of Christians and half a million Shi’ites). Syria is in an even graver situation and even the assistance she will obtain in the future after the unification with Libya will not be sufficient for dealing with the basic problems of existence and the maintenance of a large army. Egypt is in the worst situation: Millions are on the verge of hunger, half the labor force is unemployed, and housing is scarce in this most densely populated area of the world. Except for the army, there is not a single department operating efficiently and the state is in a permanent state of bankruptcy and depends entirely on American foreign assistance granted since the peace.6

In the Gulf states, Saudi Arabia, Libya and Egypt there is the largest accumulation of money and oil in the world, but those enjoying it are tiny elites who lack a wide base of support and self-confidence, something that no army can guarantee. 7 The Saudi army with all its equipment cannot defend the regime from real dangers at home or abroad, and what took place in Mecca in 1980 is only an example. A sad and very stormy situation surrounds Israel and creates challenges for it, problems, risks but also far-reaching opportunities for the first time since 1967. Chances are that opportunities missed at that time will become achievable in the Eighties to an extent and along dimensions which we cannot even imagine today.

The “peace” policy and the return of territories, through a dependence upon the US, precludes the realization of the new option created for us. Since 1967, all the governments of Israel have tied our national aims down to narrow political needs, on the one hand, and on the other to destructive opinions at home which neutralized our capacities both at home and abroad. Failing to take steps towards the Arab population in the new territories, acquired in the course of a war forced upon us, is the major strategic error committed by Israel on the morning after the Six Day War. We could have saved ourselves all the bitter and dangerous conflict since then if we had given Jordan to the Palestinians who live west of the Jordan river. By doing that we would have neutralized the Palestinian problem which we nowadays face, and to which we have found solutions that are really no solutions at all, such as territorial compromise or autonomy which amount, in fact, to the same thing. 8 Today, we suddenly face immense opportunities for transforming the situation thoroughly and this we must do in the coming decade, otherwise we shall not survive as a state.

In the course of the Nineteen Eighties, the State of Israel will have to go through far-reaching changes in its political and economic regime domestically, along with radical changes in its foreign policy, in order to stand up to the global and regional challenges of this new epoch. The loss of the Suez Canal oil fields, of the immense potential of the oil, gas and other natural resources in the Sinai peninsula which is geomorphologically identical to the rich oil-producing countries in the region, will result in an energy drain in the near future and will destroy our domestic economy: one quarter of our present GNP as well as one third of the budget is used for the purchase of oil. 9 The search for raw materials in the Negev and on the coast will not, in the near future, serve to alter that state of affairs.

(Regaining) the Sinai peninsula with its present and potential resources is therefore a political priority which is obstructed by the Camp David and the peace agreements. The fault for that lies of course with the present Israeli government and the governments which paved the road to the policy of territorial compromise, the Alignment governments since 1967. The Egyptians will not need to keep the peace treaty after the return of the Sinai, and they will do all they can to return to the fold of the Arab world and to the USSR in order to gain support and military assistance. American aid is guaranteed only for a short while, for the terms of the peace and the weakening of the U.S. both at home and abroad will bring about a reduction in aid. Without oil and the income from it, with the present enormous expenditure, we will not be able to get through 1982 under the present conditions and we will have to act in order to return the situation to the status quo which existed in Sinai prior to Sadat’s visit and the mistaken peace agreement signed with him in March 1979. 10

Israel has two major routes through which to realize this purpose, one direct and the other indirect. The direct option is the less realistic one because of the nature of the regime and government in Israel as well as the wisdom of Sadat who obtained our withdrawal from Sinai, which was, next to the war of 1973, his major achievement since he took power. Israel will not unilaterally break the treaty, neither today, nor in 1982, unless it is very hard pressed economically and politically and Egypt provides Israel with the excuse to take the Sinai back into our hands for the fourth time in our short history. What is left therefore, is the indirect option. The economic situation in Egypt, the nature of the regime and its pan-

Arab policy, will bring about a situation after April 1982 in which Israel will be forced to act directly or indirectly in order to regain control over Sinai as a strategic, economic and energy reserve for the long run. Egypt does not constitute a military strategic problem due to its internal conflicts and it could be driven back to the post 1967 war situation in no more than one day. 11

The myth of Egypt as the strong leader of the Arab World was demolished back in 1956 and definitely did not survive 1967, but our policy, as in the return of the Sinai, served to turn the myth into “fact.” In reality, however, Egypt’s power in proportion both to Israel alone and to the rest of the Arab World has gone down about 50 percent since 1967. Egypt is no longer the leading political power in the Arab World and is economically on the verge of a crisis. Without foreign assistance the crisis will come tomorrow. 12 In the short run, due to the return of the Sinai, Egypt will gain several advantages at our expense, but only in the short run until 1982, and that will not change the balance of power to its benefit, and will possibly bring about its downfall. Egypt, in its present domestic political picture, is already a corpse, all the more so if we take into account the growing Moslem-Christian rift. Breaking Egypt down territorially into distinct geographical regions is the political aim of Israel in the Nineteen Eighties on its Western front.

Egypt is divided and torn apart into many foci of authority. If Egypt falls apart, countries like Libya, Sudan or even the more distant states will not continue to exist in their present form and will join the downfall and dissolution of Egypt. The vision of a Christian Coptic State in Upper Egypt alongside a number of weak states with very localized power and without a centralized government as to date, is the key to a historical development which was only set back by the peace agreement but which seems inevitable in the long run. 13

The Western front, which on the surface appears more problematic, is in fact less complicated than the Eastern front, in which most of the events that make the headlines have been taking place recently. Lebanon’s total dissolution into five provinces serves as a precendent for the entire Arab world including Egypt, Syria, Iraq and the Arabian peninsula and is already following that track. The dissolution of Syria and Iraq later on into ethnically or religiously unqiue areas such as in Lebanon, is Israel’s primary target on the Eastern front in the long run, while the dissolution of the military power of those states serves as the primary short term target. Syria will fall apart, in accordance with its ethnic and religious structure, into several states such as in present day Lebanon, so that there will be a Shi’ite Alawi state along its coast, a Sunni state in the Aleppo area, another Sunni state in Damascus hostile to its northern neighbor, and the Druzes who will set up a state, maybe even in our Golan, and certainly in the Hauran and in northern Jordan. This state of affairs will be the guarantee for peace and security in the area in the long run, and that aim is already within our reach today. 14

Iraq, rich in oil on the one hand and internally torn on the other, is guaranteed as a candidate for Israel’s targets. Its dissolution is even more important for us than that of Syria. Iraq is stronger than Syria. In the short run it is Iraqi power which constitutes the greatest threat to Israel. An Iraqi-Iranian war will tear Iraq apart and cause its downfall at home even before it is able to organize a struggle on a wide front against us. Every kind of inter-Arab confrontation will assist us in the short run and will shorten the way to the more important aim of breaking up Iraq into denominations as in Syria and in Lebanon. In Iraq, a division into provinces along ethnic/religious lines as in Syria during Ottoman times is possible. So, three (or more) states will exist around the three major cities: Basra, Baghdad and Mosul, and Shi’ite areas in the south will separate from the Sunni and Kurdish north. It is possible that the present Iranian-Iraqi confrontation will deepen this polarization. 15

The entire Arabian peninsula is a natural candidate for dissolution due to internal and external pressures, and the matter is inevitable especially in Saudi Arabia. Regardless of whether its economic might based on oil remains intact or whether it is diminished in the long run, the internal rifts and breakdowns are a clear and natural development in light of the present political structure. 16

Jordan constitutes an immediate strategic target in the short run but not in the long run, for it does not constitute a real threat in the long run after its dissolution, the termination of the lengthy rule of King Hussein and the transfer of power to the Palestinians in the short run.

There is no chance that Jordan will continue to exist in its present structure for a long time, and Israel’s policy, both in war and in peace, ought to be directed at the liquidation of Jordan under the present regime and the transfer of power to the Palestinian majority. Changing the regime east of the river will also cause the termination of the problem of the territories densely populated with Arabs west of the Jordan. Whether in war or under conditions of peace, emigration from the territories and economic demographic freeze in them, are the guarantees for the coming change on both banks of the river, and we ought to be active in order to accelerate this process in the nearest future. The autonomy plan ought also to be rejected, as well as any compromise or division of the territories for, given the plans of the PLO and those of the Israeli Arabs themselves, the Shefa’amr plan of September 1980, it is not possible to go on living in this country in the present situation without separating the two nations, the Arabs to Jordan and the Jews to the areas west of the river. Genuine coexistence and peace will reign over the land only when the Arabs understand that without Jewish rule between the Jordan and the sea they will have neither existence nor security. A nation of their own and security will be theirs only in Jordan. 17

Within Israel the distinction between the areas of ’67 and the territories beyond them, those of ’48, has always been meaningless for Arabs and nowadays no longer has any significance for us. The problem should be seen in its entirety without any divisions as of ’67. It should be clear, under any future political situation or military constellation, that the solution of the problem of the indigenous Arabs will come only when they recognize the existence of Israel in secure borders up to the Jordan river and beyond it, as our existential need in this difficult epoch, the nuclear epoch which we shall soon enter. It is no longer possible to live with three fourths of the Jewish population on the dense shoreline which is so dangerous in a nuclear epoch.

Dispersal of the population is therefore a domestic strategic aim of the highest order; otherwise, we shall cease to exist within any borders. Judea, Samaria and the Galilee are our sole guarantee for national existence, and if we do not become the majority in the mountain areas, we shall not rule in the country and we shall be like the Crusaders, who lost this country which was not theirs anyhow, and in which they were foreigners to begin with. Rebalancing the country demographically, strategically and economically is the highest and most central aim today. Taking hold of the mountain watershed from Beersheba to the Upper Galilee is the national aim generated by the major strategic consideration which is settling the mountainous part of the country that is empty of Jews today. l8

Realizing our aims on the Eastern front depends first on the realization of this internal strategic objective. The transformation of the political and economic structure, so as to enable the realization of these strategic aims, is the key to achieving the entire change. We need to change from a centralized economy in which the government is extensively involved, to an open and free market as well as to switch from depending upon the U.S. taxpayer to developing, with our own hands, of a genuine productive economic infrastructure. If we are not able to make this change freely and voluntarily, we shall be forced into it by world developments, especially in the areas of economics, energy, and politics, and by our own growing isolation. l9

From a military and strategic point of view, the West led by the U.S. is unable to withstand the global pressures of the USSR throughout the world, and Israel must therefore stand alone in the Eighties, without any foreign assistance, military or economic, and this is within our capacities today, with no compromises. 20 Rapid changes in the world will also bring about a change in the condition of world Jewry to which Israel will become not only a last resort but the only existential option. We cannot assume that U.S. Jews, and the communities of Europe and Latin America will continue to exist in the present form in the future. 21

Our existence in this country itself is certain, and there is no force that could remove us from here either forcefully or by treachery (Sadat’s method). Despite the difficulties of the mistaken “peace” policy and the problem of the Israeli Arabs and those of the territories, we can effectively deal with these problems in the foreseeable future.

 


 

Concluding Observations 

by Israel Shahak 

Three important points have to be clarified in order to be able to understand the significant possibilities of realization of this Zionist plan for the Middle East, and also why it had to be published.

The Military Background of The Plan

The military conditions of this plan have not been mentioned above, but on the many occasions where something very like it is being “explained” in closed meetings to members of the Israeli Establishment, this point is clarified. It is assumed that the Israeli military forces, in all their branches, are insufficient for the actual work of occupation of such wide territories as discussed above. In fact, even in times of intense Palestinian “unrest” on the West Bank, the forces of the Israeli Army are stretched out too much. The answer to that is the method of ruling by means of “Haddad forces” or of “Village Associations” (also known as “Village Leagues”): local forces under “leaders” completely dissociated from the population, not having even any feudal or party structure (such as the Phalangists have, for example). The “states” proposed by Yinon are “Haddadland” and “Village Associations,” and their armed forces will be, no doubt, quite similar. In addition, Israeli military superiority in such a situation will be much greater than it is even now, so that any movement of revolt will be “punished” either by mass humiliation as in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, or by bombardment and obliteration of cities, as in Lebanon now (June 1982), or by both. In order to ensure this, the plan, as explained orally, calls for the establishment of Israeli garrisons in focal places between the mini states, equipped with the necessary mobile destructive forces. In fact, we have seen something like this in Haddadland and we will almost certainly soon see the first example of this system functioning either in South Lebanon or in all Lebanon.

It is obvious that the above military assumptions, and the whole plan too, depend also on the Arabs continuing to be even more divided than they are now, and on the lack of any truly progressive mass movement among them. It may be that those two conditions will be removed only when the plan will be well advanced, with consequences which can not be foreseen. 

Why it is necessary to publish this in Israel?

The reason for publication is the dual nature of the Israeli-Jewish society: A very great measure of freedom and democracy, specially for Jews, combined with expansionism and racist discrimination. In such a situation the Israeli-Jewish elite (for the masses follow the TV and Begin’s speeches) has to be persuaded. The first steps in the process of persuasion are oral, as indicated above, but a time comes in which it becomes inconvenient. Written material must be produced for the benefit of the more stupid “persuaders” and “explainers” (for example medium-rank officers, who are, usually, remarkably stupid). They then “learn it,” more or less, and preach to others. It should be remarked that Israel, and even the Yishuv from the Twenties, has always functioned in this way. I myself well remember how (before I was “in opposition”) the necessity of war with was explained to me and others a year before the 1956 war, and the necessity of conquering “the rest of Western Palestine when we will have the opportunity” was explained in the years 1965-67.

Why is it assumed that there is no special risk from the outside in the publication of such plans?

Such risks can come from two sources, so long as the principled opposition inside Israel is very weak (a situation which may change as a consequence of the war on Lebanon) : The Arab World, including the Palestinians, and the United States. The Arab World has shown itself so far quite incapable of a detailed and rational analysis of Israeli-Jewish society, and the Palestinians have been, on the average, no better than the rest. In such a situation, even those who are shouting about the dangers of Israeli expansionism (which are real enough) are doing this not because of factual and detailed knowledge, but because of belief in myth. A good example is the very persistent belief in the non-existent writing on the wall of the Knesset of the Biblical verse about the Nile and the Euphrates. Another example is the persistent, and completely false declarations, which were made by some of the most important Arab leaders, that the two blue stripes of the Israeli flag symbolize the Nile and the Euphrates, while in fact they are taken from the stripes of the Jewish praying shawl (Talit). The Israeli specialists assume that, on the whole, the Arabs will pay no attention to their serious discussions of the future, and the Lebanon war has proved them right. So why should they not continue with their old methods of persuading other Israelis?

In the United States a very similar situation exists, at least until now. The more or less serious commentators take their information about Israel, and much of their opinions about it, from two sources. The first is from articles in the “liberal” American press, written almost totally by Jewish admirers of Israel who, even if they are critical of some aspects of the Israeli state, practice loyally what Stalin used to call “the constructive criticism.” (In fact those among them who claim also to be “Anti-Stalinist” are in reality more Stalinist than Stalin, with Israel being their god which has not yet failed). In the framework of such critical worship it must be assumed that Israel has always “good intentions” and only “makes mistakes,” and therefore such a plan would not be a matter for discussion–exactly as the Biblical genocides committed by Jews are not mentioned. The other source of information, The Jerusalem Post, has similar policies. So long, therefore, as the situation exists in which Israel is really a “closed society” to the rest of the world, because the world wants to close its eyes, the publication and even the beginning of the realization of such a plan is realistic and feasible.

Israel Shahak, June 17, 1982 Jerusalem

About the Translator

Israel Shahak is a professor of organic chemistly at Hebrew University in Jerusalem and the chairman of the Israeli League for Human and Civil Rights. He published The Shahak Papers, collections of key articles from the Hebrew press, and is the author of numerous articles and books, among them Non-Jew in the Jewish State. His latest book is Israel’s Global Role: Weapons for Repression, published by the AAUG in 1982. Israel Shahak: (1933-2001)

Notes

 1. American Universities Field Staff. Report No.33, 1979. According to this research, the population of the world will be 6 billion in the year 2000. Today’s world population can be broken down as follows: China, 958 million; India, 635 million; USSR, 261 million; U.S., 218 million Indonesia, 140 million; Brazil and Japan, 110 million each. According to the figures of the U.N. Population Fund for 1980, there will be, in 2000, 50 cities with a population of over 5 million each. The population ofthp;Third World will then be 80% of the world population. According to Justin Blackwelder, U.S. Census Office chief, the world population will not reach 6 billion because of hunger.

 2. Soviet nuclear policy has been well summarized by two American Sovietologists: Joseph D. Douglas and Amoretta M. Hoeber, Soviet Strategy for Nuclear War, (Stanford, Ca., Hoover Inst. Press, 1979). In the Soviet Union tens and hundreds of articles and books are published each year which detail the Soviet doctrine for nuclear war and there is a great deal of documentation translated into English and published by the U.S. Air Force,including USAF: Marxism-Leninism on War and the Army: The Soviet View, Moscow, 1972; USAF: The Armed Forces of the Soviet State. Moscow, 1975, by Marshal A. Grechko. The basic Soviet approach to the matter is presented in the book by Marshal Sokolovski published in 1962 in Moscow: Marshal V. D. Sokolovski, Military Strategy, Soviet Doctrine and Concepts(New York, Praeger, 1963).

 3. A picture of Soviet intentions in various areas of the world can be drawn from the book by Douglas and Hoeber, ibid. For additional material see: Michael Morgan, “USSR’s Minerals as Strategic Weapon in the Future,” Defense and Foreign Affairs, Washington, D.C., Dec. 1979.

 4. Admiral of the Fleet Sergei Gorshkov, Sea Power and the State, London, 1979. Morgan, loc. cit. General George S. Brown (USAF) C-JCS, Statement to the Congress on the Defense Posture of the United States For Fiscal Year 1979, p. 103; National Security Council, Review of Non-Fuel Mineral Policy, (Washington, D.C. 1979,); Drew Middleton, The New York Times, (9/15/79); Time, 9/21/80.

 5. Elie Kedourie, “The End of the Ottoman Empire,” Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 3, No.4, 1968.

 6. Al-Thawra, Syria 12/20/79, Al-Ahram,12/30/79, Al Ba’ath, Syria, 5/6/79. 55% of the Arabs are 20 years old and younger, 70% of the Arabs live in Africa, 55% of the Arabs under 15 are unemployed, 33% live in urban areas, Oded Yinon, “Egypt’s Population Problem,” The Jerusalem Quarterly, No. 15, Spring 1980.

 7. E. Kanovsky, “Arab Haves and Have Nots,” The Jerusalem Quarterly, No.1, Fall 1976, Al Ba’ath, Syria, 5/6/79.

 8. In his book, former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin said that the Israeli government is in fact responsible for the design of American policy in the Middle East, after June ’67, because of its own indecisiveness as to the future of the territories and the inconsistency in its positions since it established the background for Resolution 242 and certainly twelve years later for the Camp David agreements and the peace treaty with Egypt. According to Rabin, on June 19, 1967, President Johnson sent a letter to Prime Minister Eshkol in which he did not mention anything about withdrawal from the new territories but exactly on the same day the government resolved to return territories in exchange for peace. After the Arab resolutions in Khartoum (9/1/67) the government altered its position but contrary to its decision of June 19, did not notify the U.S. of the alteration and the U.S. continued to support 242 in the Security Council on the basis of its earlier understanding that Israel is prepared to return territories. At that point it was already too late to change the U.S. position and Israel’s policy. From here the way was opened to peace agreements on the basis of 242 as was later agreed upon in Camp David. See Yitzhak Rabin. Pinkas Sherut, (Ma’ariv 1979) pp. 226-227.

 9. Foreign and Defense Committee Chairman Prof. Moshe Arens argued in an interview (Ma ‘ariv,10/3/80) that the Israeli government failed to prepare an economic plan before the Camp David agreements and was itself surprised by the cost of the agreements, although already during the negotiations it was possible to calculate the heavy price and the serious error involved in not having prepared the economic grounds for peace.

The former Minister of Treasury, Mr. Yigal Holwitz, stated that if it were not for the withdrawal from the oil fields, Israel would have a positive balance of payments (9/17/80). That same person said two years earlier that the government of Israel (from which he withdrew) had placed a noose around his neck. He was referring to the Camp David agreements (Ha’aretz, 11/3/78). In the course of the whole peace negotiations neither an expert nor an economics advisor was consulted, and the Prime Minister himself, who lacks knowledge and expertise in economics, in a mistaken initiative, asked the U.S. to give us a loan rather than a grant, due to his wish to maintain our respect and the respect of the U.S. towards us. See Ha’aretz1/5/79. Jerusalem Post, 9/7/79. Prof Asaf Razin, formerly a senior consultant in the Treasury, strongly criticized the conduct of the negotiations; Ha’aretz, 5/5/79. Ma’ariv, 9/7/79. As to matters concerning the oil fields and Israel’s energy crisis, see the interview with Mr. Eitan Eisenberg, a government advisor on these matters, Ma’arive Weekly, 12/12/78. The Energy Minister, who personally signed the Camp David agreements and the evacuation of Sdeh Alma, has since emphasized the seriousness of our condition from the point of view of oil supplies more than once…see Yediot Ahronot, 7/20/79. Energy Minister Modai even admitted that the government did not consult him at all on the subject of oil during the Camp David and Blair House negotiations. Ha’aretz, 8/22/79.

 10. Many sources report on the growth of the armaments budget in Egypt and on intentions to give the army preference in a peace epoch budget over domestic needs for which a peace was allegedly obtained. See former Prime Minister Mamduh Salam in an interview 12/18/77, Treasury Minister Abd El Sayeh in an interview 7/25/78, and the paper Al Akhbar, 12/2/78 which clearly stressed that the military budget will receive first priority, despite the peace. This is what former Prime Minister Mustafa Khalil has stated in his cabinet’s programmatic document which was presented to Parliament, 11/25/78. See English translation, ICA, FBIS, Nov. 27. 1978, pp. D 1-10.

According to these sources, Egypt’s military budget increased by 10% between fiscal 1977 and 1978, and the process still goes on. A Saudi source divulged that the Egyptians plan to increase their militmy budget by 100% in the next two years; Ha’aretz, 2/12/79 and Jerusalem Post, 1/14/79.

 11. Most of the economic estimates threw doubt on Egypt’s ability to reconstruct its economy by 1982. See Economic Intelligence Unit, 1978 Supplement, “The Arab Republic of Egypt”; E. Kanovsky, “Recent Economic Developments in the Middle East,” Occasional Papers, The Shiloah Institution, June 1977; Kanovsky, “The Egyptian Economy Since the Mid-Sixties, The Micro Sectors,” Occasional Papers, June 1978; Robert McNamara, President of World Bank, as reported in Times, London, 1/24/78.

 12. See the comparison made by the researeh of the Institute for Strategic Studies in London, and research camed out in the Center for Strategic Studies of Tel Aviv University, as well as the research by the British scientist, Denis Champlin, Military Review, Nov. 1979, ISS: The Military Balance 1979-1980, CSS; Security Arrangements in Sinai…by Brig. Gen. (Res.) A Shalev, No. 3.0 CSS; The Military Balance and the Military Options after the Peace Treaty with Egypt, by Brig. Gen. (Res.) Y. Raviv, No.4, Dec. 1978, as well as many press reports including El Hawadeth, London, 3/7/80; El Watan El Arabi, Paris, 12/14/79.

 13. As for religious ferment in Egypt and the relations between Copts and Moslems see the series of articles published in the Kuwaiti paper, El Qabas, 9/15/80. The English author Irene Beeson reports on the rift between Moslems and Copts, see: Irene Beeson, Guardian, London, 6/24/80, and Desmond Stewart, Middle East Internmational, London 6/6/80. For other reports see Pamela Ann Smith, Guardian, London, 12/24/79; The Christian Science Monitor 12/27/79 as well as Al Dustour, London, 10/15/79; El Kefah El Arabi, 10/15/79.

 14. Arab Press Service, Beirut, 8/6-13/80. The New Republic, 8/16/80, Der Spiegel as cited by Ha’aretz, 3/21/80, and 4/30-5/5/80; The Economist, 3/22/80; Robert Fisk, Times, London, 3/26/80; Ellsworth Jones, Sunday Times, 3/30/80.

 15.  J.P.  Peroncell  Hugoz,  Le  Monde,  Paris  4/28/80;  Dr.  Abbas  Kelidar,  Middle  East  Review,  Summer  1979;

Conflict Studies, ISS, July 1975; Andreas Kolschitter, Der Zeit, (Ha’aretz, 9/21/79) Economist Foreign Report, 10/10/79, Afro-Asian Affairs, London, July 1979.

 16. Arnold Hottinger, “The Rich Arab States in Trouble,” The New York Review of Books, 5/15/80; Arab Press Service, Beirut, 6/25-7/2/80; U.S. News and World Report, 11/5/79 as well as El Ahram, 11/9/79; El Nahar El Arabi Wal Duwali, Paris 9/7/79; El Hawadeth, 11/9/79; David Hakham, Monthly Review, IDF, Jan.-Feb. 79.

 17. As for Jordan’s policies and problems see El Nahar El Arabi Wal Duwali, 4/30/79, 7/2/79; Prof. Elie Kedouri, Ma’ariv 6/8/79; Prof. Tanter, Davar 7/12/79; A. Safdi, Jerusalem Post, 5/31/79; El Watan El Arabi 11/28/79; El Qabas, 11/19/79. As for PLO positions see: The resolutions of the Fatah Fourth Congress, Damascus, August 1980. The Shefa’amr program of the Israeli Arabs was published in Ha’aretz, 9/24/80, and by Arab Press Report 6/18/80. For facts and figures on immigration of Arabs to Jordan, see Amos Ben Vered, Ha’aretz, 2/16/77; Yossef Zuriel, Ma’ariv 1/12/80. As to the PLO’s position towards Israel see Shlomo Gazit, Monthly Review; July 1980; Hani El Hasan in an interview, Al Rai Al’Am, Kuwait 4/15/80; Avi Plaskov, “The Palestinian Problem,” Survival, ISS, London Jan. Feb. 78; David Gutrnann, “The Palestinian Myth,” Commentary, Oct. 75; Bernard Lewis, “The Palestinians and the PLO,” Commentary Jan. 75; Monday Morning, Beirut, 8/18-21/80; Journal of Palestine Studies, Winter 1980.

 18. Prof. Yuval Neeman, “Samaria–The Basis for Israel’s Security,” Ma’arakhot 272-273, May/June 1980; Ya’akov Hasdai, “Peace, the Way and the Right to Know,” Dvar Hashavua, 2/23/80. Aharon Yariv, “Strategic Depth–An Israeli Perspective,” Ma’arakhot 270-271, October 1979; Yitzhak Rabin, “Israel’s Defense Problems in the Eighties,” Ma’arakhot October 1979.

 19. Ezra Zohar, In the Regime’s Pliers (Shikmona, 1974); Motti Heinrich, Do We have a Chance Israel, Truth Versus Legend (Reshafim, 1981).

 20. Henry Kissinger, “The Lessons of the Past,” The Washington Review Vol 1, Jan. 1978; Arthur Ross, “OPEC’s Challenge to the West,” The Washington Quarterly, Winter, 1980; Walter Levy, “Oil and the Decline of the West,” Foreign Affairs, Summer 1980; Special Report–“Our Armed Forees-Ready or Not?” U.S. News and World Report 10/10/77; Stanley Hoffman, “Reflections on the Present Danger,” The New York Review of Books 3/6/80; Time 4/3/80; Leopold Lavedez “The illusions of SALT” Commentary Sept. 79; Norman Podhoretz, “The Present Danger,” Commentary March 1980; Robert Tucker, “Oil and American Power Six Years Later,” Commentary Sept. 1979; Norman Podhoretz, “The Abandonment of Israel,” Commentary July 1976; Elie Kedourie, “Misreading the Middle East,” Commentary July 1979.

 21. According to figures published by Ya’akov Karoz, Yediot Ahronot, 10/17/80, the sum total of anti-Semitic incidents recorded in the world in 1979 was double the amount recorded in 1978. In Germany, France, and Britain the number of anti-Semitic incidents was many times greater in that year. In the U.S. as well there has been a sharp increase in anti-Semitic incidents which were reported in that article. For the new anti-Semitism, see L. Talmon, “The New Anti-Semitism,” The New Republic, 9/18/1976; Barbara Tuchman, “They poisoned the Wells,” Newsweek 2/3/75.

 

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First published on May 8, 2024

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The following is a transcript on a an interview with Richard C. Cook conducted by Ahmed Danyal Arif, Editor of the Economics Section for The Review of Religions.

Ahmed Danyal Arif (ADA): Mr. Cook, first of all thank you so much for giving us a little of your precious time. We are very grateful for this. I have to be honest I don’t know where to start as you have had such a long career in the US Government where you have essentially served (please correct me if I am wrong) as a policy analyst in the 70s and 80s. You then worked for NASA and ended your career in 2007 as a Project Manager in the US Treasury Department. You are now retired and writing with a particular focus on monetary reform. What led you to write about this?

Richard C. Cook  (RCC): I began to study monetary reform in 1979-1980 when I worked for the Carter White House in the office of consumer affairs. I had discovered the ideas of British engineer C.H. Douglas who explained the chronic gap in developed economies between GDP and national income, which meant that society never had enough money to purchase what their economies were able to produce. Some very notable people like Winston Churchill and Henry Ford were also aware of this. The system of Keynesian economics was developed to address the problem through government borrowing. But all this accomplished was to ‘kick the can down the road’ by creating debt that eventually had to be paid off, usually through war or hyperinflation.

A decade later I found myself working for the US Treasury Department, when I was able to carry out an in-depth study of the history of the US monetary system. I learned that the banking system existed to fill the GDP-income gap but that the debt it created in doing so led to massive profits to the banks but ruin for the nation at large. I also learned that the only successful alternative had been the spending of Greenbacks by the government during the Civil War. I then came into contact with Stephen Zarlenga who had founded the American Monetary Institute and was studying the same problems. Together we wrote the American Monetary Act which became Congressman Dennis Kucinich’s NEED Act introduced in Congress in 2011 but not yet passed. This would create a modern version of Greenback money. So one thing led to another, and I am still writing about these things. My latest is my new bookOur Country, Then and Now to be published soon by Clarity Press.

ADA: In your book We Hold These Truths: The Hope of Monetary Reform (Tendril Press, 2009), you have a whole chapter about morality and economics. What is the correlation between the two and do you still believe this is the ‘key issue of the 21st century’?

RCC: Our Declaration of Independence states that every person has a right to ‘life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.’ Of course along with these rights come responsibilities. One is that we act with kindness and compassion in accepting the rights of others. Our predatory financial system does not do this. The system is based on putting people into debt. That’s how money is generated in the economy. But this is wrong.

Of course we are all responsible for working to earn a living. But the system should assure that people can earn enough that they can live decently and respectably as well as save for the future. Naturally, the work of some will support the lesser financial contributions of others, but this is part of life. If people are dissatisfied with their opportunities for work they should be free to seek elsewhere or be able to improve their skills so as to earn more. But all of this requires a monetary system that supports individual freedom and initiative. We do not have such a system today. What we have is debt slavery where the 1% make out like bandits and the 99% struggle to survive. Such a system also promotes crime and war, where people and nations feel they must steal from their neighbour in order to get by.

ADA: When we take a look at the current economic climate and the news on a daily basis, there is clearly a popular discontent. I am obviously thinking about inflation which really is giving us a hard time. Price rises have slowed in some parts of the world, but they are still significant. How did we get there? Is it only Putin’s fault or did the unconventional monetary policies of the central banks following the 2008 crisis also play a role?

RCC: We have a war, with the West supplying billions of dollars of weapons to the Ukrainian regime. And Russia is winning that war.

The West also cut itself off from cheap Russian energy in order to cause the Russian economy to collapse. That didn’t work. So energy prices are skyrocketing. Then for reasons no one understands, the Federal Reserve and other Western banks began raising interest rates, making every purchase of consumer goods more expensive. I certainly don’t begrudge the payment by the government of stipends to citizens during the pandemic. People have to live. But that was not the cause of the present crisis. The cause is the banking system.

ADA: Interest rates are also soaring as you rightly mentioned, and many are now questioning whether they can still afford to pay their mortgage while prospective first-time homeowners are considering putting off buying in the hopes of securing a better deal in the future. I even came across  a company called ‘SimpleClosure raising $1.5m in less than 24h to help businesses shut down’ (especially startups). I mean, it seems to be the perfect recipe for… a systemic crash, no?

RCC: There have been previous times in history that the Federal Reserve raised interest rates that crashed the economy. This is what started the Great Depression in 1929. The Fed started the recession of 1979 when it raised interest rates to over 20 percent. There were periodic increases in the 1980s and 1990s that took down the economies of entire nations in Latin America and Asia. It is happening again now after the zero percent interest rates the Federal Reserve put in place during the 2008-2009 Great Recession. The Federal Reserve always claims that they raise interest rates to ‘fight inflation.’ But there is an equally sound argument that higher interest rates cause inflation by making every business transaction more expensive. The fact is that the Federal Reserve is a black hole.

No one but the bankers themselves know what they are doing or why. At the present time banks like JP Morgan Chase are making record profits while the economy is moving toward a recession and ordinary people increasingly cannot afford food, housing, education, or transportation.

The US federal government is now $33.1 trillion in debt.

State and local governments are $3.17 trillion in debt. Private sector debt is over $30 trillion.

This is just within the US.

It means that every individual is $211,000 in debt on average. According to the Federal Reserve, the average net worth of American families in 2019 was $746,820, with the median $121,760. We can deduce that a large majority of American families literally own nothing. It’s no different in most other countries. And with the Federal Reserve raising interest rates, mainly to attract overseas investment and shore up the dollar, the debt continually grows even if no new debt is added.

ADA: Turning to your latest insightful article titled ‘Is World War III About to Start’ (part I and part II), you say of the Ukraine war that ‘anyone with a discernible pulse is aware of the danger that the conflict could escalate into a conflagration large and destructive enough to morph into World War III.’ You also give a detailed analysis of the US military-industrial complex employing tens of millions of people. Do you think that military production is the only area where the “saturation” point can be postponed indefinitely as long as the ‘adversaries’ or ‘enemies’ are equally able to develop faster and better weapons?

RCC: The problem here are the words ‘adversaries’ and ‘enemies.’ Who says so? Personally, I have no ‘adversaries’ or ‘enemies.’ These are buzzwords used by governments to get people to kill other people and to get themselves killed. Why? So the fat cats can make money. It’s been that way for a long time, but it doesn’t have to be that way any longer. We have the knowledge and the understanding today to stop wars. Of course, there will always be competition, and some people will still try to cheat their competitors. So, we still need a system of law enforcement. But we don’t have to kill each other so the rich can get richer.

ADA: This brings me to the crucial issue of the dollar’s global hegemony. We know that this gives the US government power to impose crippling sanctions and wage other forms of financial warfare against adversaries. But this hegemony of the dollar is increasingly contested and the Sino-Russian agenda of opposition to the American currency has intensified with the Ukrainian conflict. Several historical allies of the United States (Saudi Arabia, Israel, etc.) or Brazil have affirmed their desire to gradually get rid of the dollar. Do you think that this geo-monetary tug of war and the recent gold accumulation of central banks could lead to World War III and, in the medium/long term, to a different international monetary system from the one we have known since 1944 and the Bretton Woods Agreement?

RCC: Yes, it does seem clear that the collapse of dollar hegemony could lead to World War III if the US decides, out of desperation, to simply knock over the chessboard now that it is in danger of being checkmated.

The U.S. had previously been heading toward bankruptcy around 1970 due to huge budget and trade deficits coming from the Vietnam War. So, the Nixon government, also acting in desperation, removed the gold peg, while the banking/oil cartels raised oil prices by a factor of four. It was done by the US/British financial class, not by the Arab oil producers. What it really represented was a gigantic theft of international resources by these cartels. The world has never been the same since, with real GDP and incomes not having grown at all since then. So, the Bretton Woods Agreement actually ended then. Obviously, we need a new Bretton Woods, one that recognizes parity among all national currencies. This is what BRICS is aiming at, even as the West goes bankrupt.

ADA: As you already know, and you mentioned it in your book, interest is strictly forbidden in the Islamic paradigm. But as a Muslim, I also know that the Qur’an actually quite explicitly links interest with war (Ch. 2: V. 280). I just wanted to take your view, as a defense analyst or economist, on the role of debt in this whole global warfare that we have been seeing for decades now.

RCC: The view of the Islamic nations on lending and interest is absolutely correct. In the West, the regime of usury based on compound interest is criminal psychopathy.

What really happened was that gradually the money lenders took over the U.S. economy during the late 19th century in exactly the same way the Bank of England took over the British economy after it was founded in 1694.

The British got rich by plundering India, China, and South Africa, but the profits went to the bankers in the City of London, who put the entire British ruling class into debt.

The British Empire and today the American Empire were both founded on bank-created debt. Global warfare, including the West’s proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, are manifestations of this financial imperative. It is no accident that the US hedge fund BlackRock is in process of buying up the assets in Ukraine now that Ukraine has been depopulated by the war. This is what they wanted to do with Russia when they enticed Russia to invade Ukraine in 2022 then imposed sanctions. Russia was supposed to collapse, but it didn’t happen.

ADA: Ultimately, dialogue with other nations and communities is vital. Is it possible, in your opinion, for nations and leaders to conciliate a focus on their own national interests and at the same time consider what is best for the world at large?

RCC: Is a multipolar world possible? Only if the people of the West, acting through their own governments, take back the unconstitutional power of the banks. The US banking system, going back to the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 and beyond, is in fact an ongoing insurrection against the U.S. Constitution. It’s the Constitution that gives Congress, not the banks, the authority to create and oversee the monetary system of the nation. In Russia and China, the central banks report to the government.

In the US, the Federal Reserve reports only to the wealthiest 1%. This is what has to change. Until then, there can be no peace in the world. Of course, we also need a spiritual renewal.

My inspiration has been the German spiritual master Bô Yin Râ (Joseph Anton Schneiderfranken–1876-1943). His books are becoming available in English translation from Kober.com. I would urge all your readers to take a look. One thing he writes about is the necessity for people and nations to live within their means.

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This article was originally published on The Review of Religions.

Richard C. Cook is a retired US government analyst who worked for the US Civil Service Commission, the Food and Drug Administration, the Jimmy Carter White House, NASA, and the US Treasury Department. While at NASA he became a whistleblower at the time of the January 1986 space shuttle Challenger disaster by disclosing NASA’s past knowledge of the problems that destroyed the shuttle and killed the 7-person crew. At Treasury, he developed and taught training courses on the American monetary system. After retirement in 2007, he published several books and numerous articles on public policy issues, including ‘We Hold These Truths: The Hope of Monetary Reform’. Most recently he has published articles on the dangers of World War III and the urgent need to confront the crimes of international finance in driving the world to destruction. He will soon be publishing a new book, ‘Our Country, Then and Now’, through Clarity Press.

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First published on May 16, 2024

Global Research Wants to Hear From You!

***

After Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu intentionally sabotaged the recent ceasefire agreement in order to resume his long plotted Rafah campaign last week, Biden halted one shipment of US bombs headed for Israel. The only reason “the pause” on the US weapons latest bomb delivery occurred, was simply to provide an illusion that the Biden regime “cares” about the ongoing Gaza carnage during an election year to stop the bleeding of his political base – young pro-Palestinian protesting voters and the Midwest’s swing state Arab population.

Bibi’s response to Biden’s first attempt ever to withhold aid was to defiantly proceed with his IDF offensive into Rafah, regardless. His latest “fuck you” refusal toward the weak Biden clown show, masquerading as the US presidential administration, has the Middle East war racing unimpeded towards growing regional turned world war. The melodrama queen martyr Netanyahu stated last week:

If we must stand alone, we shall stand alone. If we must, we shall fight with our fingernails. But we have much more than our fingernails, and with that strength of spirit, with God’s help, together we shall be victorious.

One major indication that Bibi’s previous cocksure bravado last December declaring Israeli forces had successfully neutralized Hamas’ command structure in northern Gaza is now clearly false.

The fact that last weekend Israel was forced to resume fighting in northern Gaza, only shows that Bibi’s earlier claim was either foolishly premature or an outright lie, and based on his history, most likely the latter.

On Saturday May 11th, Israel relaunched its ground invasion in north Gaza. On Sunday and Monday videos emerged amidst the deadly chaos depicting Palestinian families in the Jabalya refugee camp running for their lives, in desperate effort to escape Israeli drones, artillery shelling and automatic gunfire in the background. Civilians were observed on foot leaving a UN school in the refugee camp amidst the heavy explosions. IDF tanks were threatening the safety of these fleeing thousands of children and their families that had taken shelter in the schools within the refugee camp. According to ambulance personnel, Israeli soldiers indiscriminately shot at ambulances and civilians trying to escape.

As always, the IDF military claimed it had announced its warning for civilians to leave Jabalya camp to another camp location in west North Gaza City in response to a supposed intelligence report that Hamas militants had “reassembled” in north Gaza. This was Israel’s reported excuse for renewed IDF fighting in the north. Bottom-line, cocky Bibi the Butcher was wrong, claiming months earlier in December that Hamas was defeated with only four battalions left in the south Gaza city of Rafah. Moreover, it serves as more clear-cut evidence that Israel’s mighty military forces are unable to defeat Hamas. On Sunday May 12th on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” for the first time, even US Secretary of State Antony Blinken cast doubt that Israel will be able to ultimately destroy Hamas, framing it:

Israel is on the trajectory potentially to inherit an insurgency with many armed Hamas left or if it [Hamas] leaves [Gaza, there will be] a vacuum filled by chaos, filled by anarchy, and probably refilled by Hamas.

With more than 300,000 Palestinians fleeing Rafah this last week avoiding the ground invasion crossfire, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) for Palestinian refugees on Monday May 13th stated on X:

In north #Gaza bombardments & other evacuation orders have created more displacement & fear for thousands of families. There’s nowhere to go. There’s NO safety without a #ceasefire.

The day before on Sunday May 12th, commissioner general of UNRWA Philippe Lazzarini wrote on X:

Since the war began, most people in Gaza have moved multiple times: on average once a month. They desperately sought safety that they never found. Some have no choice but to stay in bombed out @UNRWA shelters. The claim of ‘safe zones’ is false and misleading. No place is safe in #Gaza. Period.

And just as many of us suspected, Joe Biden is still Israel’s ball-less eunuch lapdog operating for his globalist masters in their unholy crusade to wipe Palestinians and Palestine off the face of the earth. On Tuesday May 14th, Braindead informed Congress that the next billion-dollar weapons are heading off to Israel, to further aid this pariah rogue state in its relentless genocidal slaughter, as its bloody invasion of Rafah continues. On top of this latest giveaway to Israel reported on Tuesday, it comes less than four days after late on Friday May 10th, the State Department’s delayed investigative findings quietly confirmed what the world knew for months. According to the Middle East Eye , the State Department concluded:

There are reasonable grounds to believe Israel on several occasions used American-supplied weapons ‘inconsistent’ with international humanitarian law.

So, after the US government found reasonable evidence indicating that Israel violates humanitarian law with US supplied weapons, while Israel defies the US continuing its Rafah ground invasion, despite Biden pausing the next bomb shipment, on Tuesday we learn that Biden has again rewarded a criminal Jewish State, sending a billion more in weapons. This is so egregious, making absolutely no moral or legal sense whatsoever, unless Israel’s higher paygrade in this lawless world entitles it to continue using US weapons to complete its genocide in Gaza. That’s the only logical conclusion. Again, America’s dementia-ridden White House weakling submits every time to the Khazarian mafia pecking order, obviously deferring to Bibi as an anointed Rothschild Khazarian mafia chieftain.

A Wednesday May 15th Associated Press article states:

The [$1 billion US] package disclosed Tuesday includes about $700 million for tank ammunition, $500 million in tactical vehicles and $60 million in mortar rounds, the congressional aides said.

Now while still riding high off Bibi’s recent “victory,” sucking its US “Golden Calf” dry, comes the latest PR announcement from Israel. On Monday May 13th, Israeli government spokesman Avi Hyman insists that 14,000 Hamas terrorists and only 16,000 civilians have been killed since October 7th last year. Hyman sanctimoniously scolded the world for blindly accepting previous “inflated” figures released by the Palestinian health ministry with its latest number over 35,000 (that includes both identified and unidentified arriving at hospitals), 5,000 more than Avi’s “official” Israeli count. Hyman maintains that Israel has been globally condemned, wrongly accused and victimized by Hamas controlled Palestinian health ministry’s “fake and fabricated” numbers, adding:

We would expect everyone to now take these figures as a genuine estimate from a free democratic country that fights in strict accordance with the laws of armed conflict in one of the most challenging urban warfare scenarios in history. In reality, Israel is setting the new gold standard for urban warfare with what appears to be the lowest civilian-to-combatant casualty ratio in history.

Apparently also on Monday, the same day Israel released its lower estimated casualty count, the UN revealed its also revised lowered death toll, based on only fully identified cases. According to CNN:

The [UN’s] fully identified death toll comprises of 7,797 children, 4,959 women, 1,924 elderly, and 10,006 men.

As a result of incurring the overwhelming wrath of the increasingly appalled global nation majority and all decent people everywhere on earth, calling Israel out for its blatantly evil genocide, especially for the fatal majority of innocent Palestinian children and women, Israel has recalibrated its PR machine to answer and refute this charge.

Moreover, Israel now has the audacity to boast that the Jewish State painstakingly ensures its Gaza war actually has the lowest civilian casualty rate in all of history’s wars. You can’t make up this demonically false shit.

Again, we are dealing with a group of people that are proven masters of deception for over a millennium that have effectively used falsehoods as their unscrupulous, twisted propaganda weapon to literally get away with rape, murder and plunder, more so within this last century than any prior time. These evildoers plaguing humanity are tightening their noose around our necks through nonstop lies in virtually every domain of reality – history, religion, science, education, medicine, politics, economics and mass media. Virtually everything we’ve been taught in Satan’s world to allegedly be true is actually false.

Look how Israel’s owned and controlled US Congress recently made it a hate crime to dare criticize its ungodly bloodbath against Palestinians as falsely conflated antisemitism. And now these masterful deceivers are telling the world that they are the most scrupulous at preserving innocent civilian lives in the fog of war than any other war in human history. Its latest PR propaganda manipulation is geared to get the world to back off and let it finish its agenda wiping out all the Palestinian people right under our stench-filled noses, disregarding our very eyes watching so many thousands brutally die. For what? It’s unbelievable how these Satanic worshippers continue being able to prevail with total immunity in their inverse, upside-down world where good to them is actually evil, and evil to them is actually good. Again, they are such experienced masters at this demonic game, and is why they still hold such impugn, seemingly unchallenged power in this world.

Again, this is just one more in-our-face reminder of who rules our planet. The Zionist Rothschild City of London moneychangers have been granted supreme power by Satan to rule over this earthly devil’s dominion, through follow-the-money, usury debt-theft control system, and are not about to let anyone or anything stop them from plunging humanity right off their Armageddon depopulation cliff.

Everything presented as mainstream media news today has an underlying false hidden agenda behind it, because we live in an age of lawless deception and rampantly unchecked evil, where a total absence of ethics is played out daily before our eyes on this chessboard stage of geopolitics cloak and daggery. Be it another world war timed with the planned economy crash and CBDC “Great Reset,” or the next bioweapon pandemic (H5N1 bird flu) via the WHO’s latest Pandemic Agreement aka medical dictatorship, an increasing number of discerning minds have learned some recent harsh lessons. Though still a minority, enough of us are now onto the elites’ genocidal wet dream, and “won’t be fooled again” by the “same as the old boss,” be it the WHO or Satan himself.

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This article was originally published on The Government Rag.

Joachim Hagopian is a West Point graduate, former Army officer and author of “Don’t Let the Bastards Getcha Down” exposing a faulty US military leadership system based on ticket punching up the seniority ladder, invariably weeding out the best and brightest, leaving mediocrity and order followers rising to the top as politician-bureaucrat generals designated to lose every modern US war by elite design. After the military, Joachim earned a master’s degree in Clinical Psychology and worked as a licensed therapist in the mental health field with abused youth and adolescents for more than a quarter century. In Los Angeles he found himself battling the largest county child protective services in the nation within America’s thoroughly broken and corrupt child welfare system.

The experience in both the military and child welfare system prepared him well as a researcher and independent journalist, exposing the evils of Big Pharma and how the Rockefeller controlled medical and psychiatric system inflict more harm than good, case in point, the pandemic hoax and kill shot genocide. As an independent journalist for the last decade, Joachim has written hundreds of articles for many news sites, including Global Researchlewrockwell.com and currently https//jameshfetzer.orgInteldrop.org and  https://thegovernmentrag.com. As a published author of a 5-book volume series entitled Pedophilia & Empire: Satan, Sodomy & the Deep State, Joachim’s books and chapters are Amazon bestsellers in child advocacy and human rights categories. His A-Z sourcebook series fully document and expose the global pedophilia scourge and remain available free at https://pedoempire.org/contents/. Joachim also hosts the weekly Revolution Radio broadcast “Cabal Empire Exposed” on Friday morning at 7AM EST (ID: revradio, password: rocks!).

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version).

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Dr. Waleed al-Tabtabai, a former Kuwaiti member of the National Assembly, and a man integrally involved in the fundraising of the Radical Islamic terrorists who invaded Syria and killed thousands of unarmed civilians, was arrested by Kuwaiti authorities on May 12, after he posted on his X account, formerly Twitter.

In the post, al-Tabtabai accused unnamed countries of interfering in Kuwait’s internal affairs, calling this “unacceptable” and expressed hope that the National Assembly would be reinstated “with all its constitutional powers”.

Experts suspect al-Tabtabai was referring to Saudi Arabia and the UAE, who have both cracked down on the Muslim Brotherhood in an effort to reform their countries into places of peace and prosperity.

On Sunday, Kuwait’s public prosecution issued a statement saying it had ordered the arrest of one person and the detention of others, on the grounds that they had posted “expressions” on their X accounts “containing attacks on the rights and authority” of Kuwait’s emir.

Al-Tabtabai obtained a PhD in Islamic studies from Al-Azhar University, and was an assistant professor at Kuwait University before being elected to the National Assembly in 1996.

Kuwait is in a process of reform, and purging the National Assembly of Muslim Brotherhood influence and domination. Egypt and Tunisia both threw off their “Arab Spring” cloak of Muslim Brotherhood domination which had been imposed on them by President Barak Obama, to benefit American and Israeli interests.

During the US-NATO attack on Syria for regime change, Kuwaiti MPs, as well as Salafi clerics were funding and exporting armed terrorists, who they referred to as “jihadis”.

The Kuwaiti ruling family did not publicly support the funding of terrorists in Syria beginning in 2011, but instead turned a blind eye to the operation to overthrow the Damascus government, which was unsuccessful.

Kuwait had been a constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary system. The National Assembly consists of 50 elected members who represent different constituencies across the country.

The Emir holds extensive powers, including the ability to dissolve the National Assembly, dismiss the Prime Minister, and issue decrees. The ruling Al-Sabah family has been in power for centuries, and this has led to criticism of limited political reforms.

Emir of Kuwait, Sheikh Mishal Al Ahmed Al Sabah, said on May 11 he would suspend the parliament for up to four years, declaring that he had made the move “to save the country”.

“Unfortunately, we have faced some unimaginable, unbearable difficulties and impediments,” the 83-year-old said on Friday, according to the state news agency, a reference to the gridlock that has held back Kuwait’s development.

“We were left with no option other than taking this hard decision to rescue the country and protect its higher national interests and resources of the nation,” said Sheikh Mishal, and he added, “I will not allow that democracy will be exploited to destroy the state.”

The leader of Kuwait was wrestling with the ever present gridlock in the National Assembly due to the overwhelming chaos produced by its’ members following the Muslim Brotherhood, which stands on the same political platform as ISIS, Al Qeada, and other such terrorist groups cut from the same cloth.

Al-Tabtabai is a follower of Radical Islam, which is a political ideology, and is not a religion or a sect. He is one of the chief supporters of funding the terrorist groups in Syria.

Kuwait, one of the few semi-democratic countries in the Middle East, and the parliament had only been in existence for one month, having been elected in April 2024, with opposition MPs gaining the majority of the seats. It had not even met yet before the Emir’s dissolution decree.

Al-Tabtabai has been convicted of numerous crimes in the past, but while serving in the National Assembly enjoyed immunity. In December 2019, the former Emir of Kuwait pardoned him of past crimes. Now, with a new leader on the throne since December 12, 2023, al-Tabtabai has been arrested, and will face the full wrath of the law.

His arrest is not just the downfall of one man, but is a collective punishment of all the Muslim Brotherhood followers in Kuwait in the National Assembly or clerics, who have prevented the Kuwaiti government from necessary reforms to promote the peace and prosperity of all citizens.

The Muslim Brotherhood Threat to Kuwait

Although, Kuwait has among the largest oil reserves in the world, it lags far behind the dramatic pace of development as compared to its neighbors Saudi Arabia and UAE.

According to Hussain Abdul-Hussain, a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), all Arab countries that witnessed change between 2004 and 2011 saw Islamists climb the ladder of democratic election to take over government. In Kuwait a hybrid system emerged that allowed for a free press and the democratic election of the National Assembly, but kept the last word for the Emir. Kuwait came close to being a constitutional monarchy.

Every time Kuwait elected its representatives and formed a cabinet, the gridlock returned. With a population of a million or so, it was expected to compete with Dubai and Abu Dhabi in terms of growth and attraction. Yet, the democratic gridlock inhibited growth, and the once-shiny Kuwait City became shabby and backward compared with its oil-rich peers.

One of the main problems of the Kuwaiti democracy was its Muslim Brotherhood, whose lawmakers undermined the government at every turn. Democracy had become synonymous with Islamist tyranny, where elections are held routinely, but the rule of law is always absent.

Al-Tabtabai the Fundraiser

Since 2011, al-Tabtabai and other Kuwaitis were donating millions of dollars to fund the terrorists in Syria, who were not only targeting the government, but who were killing unarmed Syrian civilians in their homes and in the streets. The monies were flown from Kuwait to Turkey and Jordan, where the cash was distributed to the various terrorist groups.

Because Kuwait has been a US ally for decades, it was compliant with a directive from the Obama Oval Office to support the US-NATO attack on Syria.

The US, UK, France, Turkey and Jordan set up the “Friends of Syria” group which allowed for donations outside the official channels to supply funds and supplies to the terrorists. Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Qatar were among the biggest supporters of the US-NATO project, which supported Jabhat al-Nusra, Ahrar al-Sham, Jaysh al-Islam, and Al Qaeda.

In 2014, the Kuwaiti role involved not only creating military operation rooms and directing the course of certain battles, but also giving direct orders to commit massacres and then boasting about them.

Al-Tabtabai in Syria with the Terrorists

Al-Tabtabai is known as the director of the siege and massacre of Nubl and al-Zahraa. He made sure that the aid collected in Kuwait reached the terrorists either in the form of cash to cover the fighters’ salaries, or in the form of arms shipments, by numerous personal visits to Syria. One of his visits to Idlib lasted four months during which he participated in planning some attacks on civilians. Today, Idlib is the last terrorist controlled area in Syria, and is commanded by Mohammed al-Julani, formerly of ISIS, Al-Qaeda, Jibhat al-Nusra and currently the head of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham. The US, UK and the UN continue to supply Idlib with truck-loads of humanitarian aid which first passes through the hands of Julani and his militia.

In September 2013, al-Tabtabai appeared in a video clip on Youtube during his participation in preparing and launching Grad missiles at Latakia, west of Idlib. The terrorists thanked al-Tabtabai for his support during the siege imposed on the two towns of Nubl and al-Zahraa in the Aleppo countryside. Those villages were populated by civilians who were Shite Muslims. The massacre of men, women and children carried out over months of attacks by the al-Tabtabai supported terrorists were purely sectarian in nature, and had no military objective of bringing down the Syrian government.

In June 2013, a massacre was committed in the village of Hatla in Deir al-Zour’s countryside in which 60 victims were killed. People were killed with Kuwaiti knives and purely for sectarian reasons. Just like al-Nusra Front boasted at the time that it “cleansed Hatla of the Shia,” Kuwaiti Sheikh Shafi al-Ajami boasted of “slaughtering Shias with knives” amidst cheers and cries of “God is great.”

Saudi, Qatari and Kuwaiti media outlets celebrated the massacre each in its own way. When a journalist from Asia News Agency asked Ajami a few days later “if he feared that the Kuwaiti authorities might arrest him,” he replied: “This is an issue that concerns me and the Kuwaiti authorities,” who did not lift a finger.

The Council of Supporters, of Kuwait, was behind the creation of the Damascus operations room in September 2013. It included Jaysh al-Islam, al-Furqan Brigades, al-Habib al-Mustafa Brigades, the Islamic Ahrar al-Sham Movement, the Companions Brigades and Battalions and the Army of the Muslims Brigade.

One Salafist group in Kuwait, the Great Kuwait Campaign, had been so successful in raising money for terrorist groups that twelve thousand terrorists were fully armed as a result of their pledges in 2013.

The campaign was publicly launched in June 2013, at the same time as the Hatla massacre, and was titled: “Kuwait’s Major Campaign to Prepare 12,000 Invaders for Syria.” The campaign collected 8.4 million Kuwait dinars (about US$ 30 million), and its main promoter was al-Tabtabai.

In June 2013, al-Tabtabai was working alongside a terrorist group in Syria’s Aleppo that gathered and trained armed men to fight in Syria. Tabtabai spoke to al-Jazeera TV and said it was the final day of training for more than 3,000 armed men who have newly arrived in Aleppo. He said another 1,000 militants will be “graduated” in northwestern city of Idlib the following day. Al-Tabtabai said they had promised the Syria militants to train 12,000 terrorists to send to Syria.

Hypocrisy

On January 28, 2019 a Kuwaiti court sentenced al-Tabtabai to seven years in jail for failing to tell his wife he divorced her and continuing to have sexual relations with her. She only found out about the divorce when he refused to support his newborn daughter. Regardless of his pious Islamic reputation, he broke Islamic law by having relations with a woman outside of marriage, and forced his ex-wife to also commit a sin, unknowingly, for his pleasure. At the time, he was outside Kuwait and already facing a 42-month jail term handed down in July 2018 in another case for storming parliament and assaulting police.

Kuwait Reforms

Kuwait has been actively pursuing major developments and reforms to diversify its economy and revamp its infrastructure.

Kuwait’s Vision 2035 has taken center stage, aiming to transform the nation into a regional powerhouse by diversifying its economy, reducing reliance on oil revenues, and increasing private sector participation. The government is actively working to attract foreign investment, foster innovation, and enhance the ease of doing business.

Kuwait is steadfast in improving its infrastructure and enhancing connectivity to position itself as a business and tourism hub. Remarkable advancements have been made in renewable energy sources, with the country aiming to produce 15% of its electricity from renewables by 2030.

In Syria, where the Kuwaitis helped to destroy the country and infrastructure, currently the people have only three hours of electricity per day.

Kuwait deeply values its cultural heritage and is investing in the revival and preservation of its historical sites and landmarks, such as the UNESCO World Heritage Site nominations for Failaka Island and the city of Al-Jahra.

In Aleppo, Syria, according to the UN, the oldest continuously inhabited city on earth, the Kuwaitis participated in the wholesale destruction of antiquities far surpassing anything that Kuwait has.

Kuwait’s new initiatives aim to promote artists, galleries, museums and cultural centers to boost tourism.

Before the Syrian war began in 2011, in which the Kuwaitis participated, Syria was voted as the safest tourist destination in the Mediterranean region by the French Association of Tourist Agents in their annual conference.

Kuwait now wants to increase women’s participation in the workforce, while in Syria women have full rights the same as men in the civil code, and are doctors, lawyers, judges, and a past Speaker of the Syrian Parliament was a woman.

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This article was 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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China-Russia Far East Development

May 19th, 2024 by Karsten Riise

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The China-Russia Expo promoting Regional Development between China’s Heilongjiang Province and Russia’s Primorsky Krai (Vladivostok, Far East). See this.

Like last year, Putin goes to this event and promotes the China-Russia Far East economic-industrial-scientific-cultural development. Last year, I know this event attracted representatives from not only China and Russia, but from all South East Asia and beyond. Both countries are investing lots and LOTS in co-developing the Heilongjiang-Vladivostok Region – it’s ideally located for strategic high-level projects across borders. As Russia turns away from the West, this is where the future grows.

From my experience with cross-border Regions Denmark-North Germany (where I lived) and Denmark-South Sweden where I worked in both countries, these Regions can have enormous potential. Many such border regions are a bit isolated from the main-dynamism in their respective countries – but when looking across the border, they become centers of connectivity, diversity, and new ideas.

Viewed separately, Heilongjiang and Primorsky Krai (Vladivostok) are remote border areas.

Heilongjiang, for instance, is historically an isolated poor province, and since it reverted from being Russian to again become part of China, it doesn’t even have sea access. But with Vladivostok, and working with North Korea, Heilongjiang becomes a central region with great international connections, incl. sea access.

 

 

Viewed separately, two “remote” provinces – in China and Russia respectively.

 

 

Together, these provinces become dynamic crossing points for not only China and Russia, but even for Korea, Japan, rail-connection with Europe, and global maritime trade.

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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 and Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Mercedes-Benz in Denmark and Sweden.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

All images in this article are from the author

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It is extremely difficult to discern what might be the thinking behind the clueless President Joe Biden and his Blinken-Austin-Mayorkas foreign-policy-plus national security team. Or rather, the problem is that there does not appear to be any thinking about it at all if one measures it by what benefits it brings to the American people.

It all actually seems to derive from a desire to construct a narrative that will win the presidential election coming up in November, which will fortunately be run against a deeply flawed GOP candidate named Donald J. Trump.

But look at what is on the Biden record:

–The country’s southern border with Mexico is a porous as a Swiss cheese, allowing literally millions of illegal immigrants into the USA since Biden took office;

–Washington is both de facto and de jure simultaneously fighting and losing two unnecessary wars involving nuclear powers which has cost a nearly bankrupt Treasury well into the hundreds of billions of dollars;

–And the White House is needlessly sanctioning non-hostile competitors like China while also making illegal popular social media sites like TikTok which have committed the sin of reporting and disseminating accurate narratives about good old “best friend and closest ally” Israel.

Predictably, neither of the assertions about the value of the Jewish state is true, nor is it a democracy, but who cares when you’re having fun shooting people and spending someone else’s money?

Oh, and just try to exercise your first amendment free speech rights by demonstrating against Israel’s slaughter of upwards of 40,000 Palestinian civilians using US provided weapons and you will be hit on the head by a cop, possibly arrested, and even expelled from college!

If you want to see where this is all going, check out reports of the recent FBI detention and interrogation of distinguished Israeli historian Ilan Pappe seeking to enter the US through the Detroit International Airport. Pappe is a critic of the Netanyahu government and of US policy so he was held, questioned in detail about his contacts, and had his phone copied before being allowed to proceed. Meanwhile, a group of top federal judges have signed a letter stating that they will strike back against the demonstrating students by refusing to hire any graduates of Columbia University Law School as law clerks.

And there even is a bill currently before Congress that would empower the government to label the foreign protesters “antisemites and terrorism supporters” and deport them, with some going to Gaza with the expectation that they would be killed, possibly by the mighty Israel Defense Forces (IDF)! It would be a startling new development to punish those whose crime consists mostly of trespass even given the rather loose ethical boundaries established by the war on terror and the Antisemitism Awareness Act!

Or indeed one might follow the Senatorial route led by a chirping Lindsey Graham who recommends dropping a nuclear bomb on Gaza to kill everyone who has survived the Israeli onslaught. The area then might be developed after the radiation dies down for those splendid seaside villas for Jews only suggested by the esteemed Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner.

To be sure, Joe sometimes mumbles something that might just be viewed positively, like his recent blocking on humanitarian grounds of a consignment of bunker buster bombs on their way to Israel due to Benjamin Netanyahu’s insistence that, no matter what, he would invade Rafah to completely destroy Hamas and whoever else might happen to get in his way.

Joe predictably reversed that decision last Tuesday, approving a $1 billion supply of munitions after he came under pressure from the Israelis and their many friends in the US, to include a host of Israel-loving GOP congressmen who have carried their fight on behalf of the Jewish state to

The Hague, where the International Criminal Court (ICC) is being directly threatened with American wrath lest it try to punish Israeli leaders for their genocide in Gaza. As Bill Astore put it “Last week, President Biden appeared to have strapped on a temporary spine in delaying shipments of ‘offensive’ weaponry to Israel for its murderous invasion of Rafah in Gaza. That spine had a short duration as Biden announced [Tuesday] renewed shipments of tank and mortar rounds to Israel.” Congress has also gotten into the game with the GOP controlled House of Representatives having passed a bill that would compel the White House to continue all arms shipments to Israel. Joe might also be thinking of political contributions, as American Jews donate the majority of Democratic Party funding, as well guaranteeing a friendly media in his campaign as they dominate both the news and the entertainment industries. See, Joe can figure some things out all by himself every once in a while!

Here’s the problem with Joe, apart from the roughly $12 million in gift-donations from Jewish/Israeli sources that he has obtained in his political career.

His tactical thinking does not extend beyond his personal interests, to include his corrupt children, a trait very much like that which is possessed by his good buddy Netanyahu who is facing corruption charges of his own in Israel. Joe believes he is much cleverer than he actually is and thinks that an occasional mild verbal criticism of the Israeli behavior will convince his target audience of voters that he really is concerned about the continuing death toll in Gaza, where the Israelis have already been taking initial steps in their attack on Rafah by using their tanks to penetrate into the targeted zone to destroy and kill.

And as for the reported completion and initial functioning of the floating pier connected to Gaza constructed by US military engineers, it will not dramatically change reality on the ground even though Biden is claiming that it will enable the entry of much needed food and medical aid. Israel will still “security” control what is allowed to enter into Gaza proper while Netanyahu is seeing the pier as a bridge to nowhere, usable primarily to export excess Palestinians to foreign lands that are either willing or unwilling to accept them. And its existence creates some interesting possibilities. As it presumably will be logistically supported on the pier itself by US-based personnel, Netanyahu might well be tempted to stage a false flag attack blamed on Hamas to kill a few Americans and lock Biden into Israel’s right-wing Gaza policies from now on.

Bear in mind that, in reality, Biden could care less if all the Palestinians might be “disappeared” just as he would like to see any and all critics of Israel be subjected to the harshest punishments, including prison and denial of basic rights as well as being stripped of government benefits. He has called the protesters “lawbreakers” and spreaders of “chaos” and congress is currently investigating the alleged “subversive organizers” of the “anti-Israel terrorists.”

Biden and company, as well as Trump, who is advising the Israeli government to “finish the job” with the Palestinians, clearly have no actual red lines that must not be crossed when it comes to Israel.

The war of extermination of the Gazans has been accompanied by a more hidden war being conducted by the Jewish settlers on the West Bank, which has been largely under Israeli occupation since 1967. The frequently armed settlers have been attacking unarmed Palestinians, destroying their homes and businesses, ruining their crops and vineyards, and even killing them on occasion. Israeli police and army standing by do nothing to stop the fun and even frequently participate themselves by arresting and beating Palestinians who are guilty only of being Palestinian. Hundreds of Palestinians have been arrested without charges apart from “preventive detention” since the troubles began in October and the jails are overflowing. The clear intention, verbalized without any shame by senior Israeli government officials like Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, is to produce a Greater Israel cleansed of Arabs. And Biden, who pretends to favor a two-state solution to the unrest, helps the process along by vetoing UN resolutions that would help create separate sovereignty for Palestine.

Some of the most outrageous recent developments have been the settlers’ interfering with shipments of food and medicines entering into Gaza, a point that a faux-sympathetic Biden stresses repeatedly when pontificating regarding bringing aid to the starving people who are trapped with nowhere to go inside the enclave. The Israel clampdown even includes the Mediterranean Sea being blocked off by the Israeli navy which shoots any desperate Gazans who try to go close to the water so they can fish for food. In the most recent incidents, observed by the standing-by but inert Israeli army and police, truckloads of food were blocked, the drivers and aid workers removed and beaten, and the food was destroyed and burned before the trucks were treated likewise. In another incident settlers dumped huge boulders on one of the access roads to a checkpoint leading into Gaza, rendering it impassible and blocking any aid. Journalists and aid workers are meanwhile being killed by the army to prevent any reporting of what is going on while the US State Department refuses to condemn the activity. Biden called the interference with assistance convoys “outrageous” but has done nothing whatsoever about it, nor has he followed up on pledges to sanction Israelis who attack Palestinians or their property on the West Bank.

The whole problem is that Israel is a monster, an apartheid state that somehow feels it is empowered by God and the United States to kill all its neighbors and rob the American taxpayer to pay for and equip the slaughter. Israel is backed by an all-powerful US domestic lobby that includes unlimited Jewish money and activist Zionist groups like the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) led by the hideous Jonathan Greenblatt and the venerable American Israel Political Affairs Committee (AIPAC), both of which are now busy raising money to defeat all congress critters who have ever criticized the Jewish state. ADL and AIPAC are also linked to “that old time religion” knucklehead Christian Zionists concentrated in the Republican Party who have their Scofield Bibles firmly embedded between their ears where their brains are supposed be. A partial solution would be to make the Jewish-Zionist groups register as foreign government agents directed by Israel under the the terms of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), which is exactly what they are, but that will never happen. President John F. Kennedy tried to register the predecessor group to AIPAC and many believe he paid the ultimate price for that affront as well as for his bid to stop Israel’s nuclear weapons program.

So, my fellow Americans, what should we do?

Well, we should do whatever we can, which includes speaking out about how we have been sold out by our leaders and opinion makers, and we should continue to do that even knowing that they will try to silence us by destroying free speech in this country. It is all we have left and we should continue to oppose what is happening.

The first step however, is to get rid of politicians like Joe and Donald, who have been completely corrupted by more than fifty years in the “system” and are totally sold out and irresponsible in their behavior. There are honest politicians and journalists out there and we just have to find them, support them and get them elected and in positions where they will be able to bring about change in how things are done in Washington! One might call it the New American Revolution to restore our rights and free us from foreign oppression!

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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].

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Tornados of controversy are swirling around the subject of mass graves in Canada and Gaza. In recent months mass graves were created along with the Israeli occupation and destruction of hospitals in Gaza. These grave sites are being dug up between rounds of Israeli bombing of Palestinian civilians. The evidence of mutilated humans coming out of Gaza’s mass graves have reportedly contained evidence of organ removal, handcuffing of doctors and patients, as well as point-blank executions including shots to the head. See this.

The discovery of mass graves is often seen as a hallmark that acts of genocide have occurred. While the association of mass graves with genocide is virtually irrefutable in Gaza, the same is certainly not the case in Canada. The discussion in Canada about the supposed discovery of unmarked mass graves adjacent to Christian residential schools is just now heating up.

From the late 1800s until the 1970s these federally-funded institutions were a core institution in providing education to Indian students. Issues concerning the provision of education to Indian groups often figured prominently in Crown-Aboriginal treaty negotiations with Indian groups east of the Pacific watershed. To this day, this watershed marks much of the border of British Columbia with the rest of Canada.

The claims concerning the discovery of unmarked graves adjacent to Indian residential schools have been accepted as established fact by the government of Canada and much of the media since 2021. The story was quickly absorbed and adopted by the government of Justin Trudeau.

The mass grave story provided the Canadian PM with a wide open political arena to throw around big talk and bundles of cash outside the stifling theatre of expensive legal gabble channeled into land claims litigation. In 2022 the story further reified when it was adopted by Parliament without investigation as if unsubstantiated claims of the mass graves were already proven.

These claims have been subjected to vigorous scrutiny and a concerted effort of debunking. This project is being advanced by a formidable group of academics, editors, journalists, retired judges and such. The volume is entitled Grave Error: How the Media Misled Us (and the Truth About Residential Schools)

Before and After Pictures were a staple of Indian Residential Schools in Canada and the United States.The Idea was to illustrate the success of a “civilizing” process.

The Foreward to Grave Error is written by the legendary neocon elder, Conrad Black. Black is the former Zionist media mogul and prison inmate who some see with justification as an authentic embodiment of a renaissance man. Besides making business history with his edgy (too edgy?) handling of Hollinger Inc., Black has written many important history books. I remember when I was working on my Ph.D. in Canadian history at the University of Toronto in the late 1970s that Black’s biography of former Quebec Premier, Maurice Duplessis, was required reading.

The co-editors of Grave Error are C.P. Champion and Tom Flanagan.

Professor Flanagan’s career as an academic and political quarterback rivals the importance of Conrad Black’s exploits in terms of the mark he has made, for better or worse, on Canadian history. Flanagan was at the core of the transformation of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada into the Conservative Party of Canada.

The “Progressive” part was removed by design. The iconic leader of the CP and then the government of Canada was Stephen Harper. As Prime Minister from 2006 to 2015, Harper led one of the few Canadian governments not dominated by Laurentian elites. It could not have happened without the advice and guidance provided by Prof. Flanagan.

In the 1990s, Flanagan took hold of the Social Credit legacy of Alberta that came to be embodied in Preston Manning’s Reform Party. Flanagan and Manning teamed up. Coming in from the edges was Torontonian Stephen Harper. By performing well as a student in Flanagan’s circle, Harper helped advance his successful quest to present himself as a credible Albertan politician.

Flanagan mixed the Manning heritage with Reagan-Thatcherite enthusiasms of his circle of students who pretty much saw their prof as the rock star of the Texas North University in Alberta’s rising oil and gas metropolis. Among the Flanagan’s devotees were Harper, Ezra Levant, and the current Alberta Premier, Danielle Smith.

In the 1990s when I was a member of the Native American Studies Department (NAS) at the University of Lethbridge, I saw Tom Flanagan as something of a professional nemesis.

I invited Prof. Flanagan to speak in some of my classes so my students could hear an academic voice that went against the grain of my interpretation of “Aboriginal and treaty rights.” Our governments have a constitutional obligation to “recognize and affirm” these existing Aboriginal and treaty rights. (See Section 35, Canada’s Constitution Act, 1982) My colleagues in NAS were not pleased by my decision to have Tom Flanagan give guest lectures but I thought it correct to model open academic debate between proponents of competing interpretations.

This American political scientist was one of the the original hires in 1968 at the nascent University of Calgary. In seeking to fit into his new adopted country as well as his new academic home, Prof. Flanagan chose as his first Canadian subject the life and times of Metis Rebel Leader Louis Riel. Did Prof. Flanagan picture himself as the ring leader of an Alberta rebellion in the making?

Flanagan built on this base to become sufficiently expert on Aboriginal Affairs in Canada that he was able to hire himself out to federal agencies as a source of expert advice including appearances in court as an expert witness. I saw it then and as see it now, Prof Flanagan’s main expertise lay in directing judges how to undermine the exercise of Aboriginal and treaty rights as they have come to be defined in key court rulings that often reflected his interpretations.

Regardless of my view of these matters, this aspect of Flanagan’s career has put him in a good position to intervene with insight into the growing furor driven by the supposed discovery of unmarked mass graves adjacent to Indian residential schools.

Thus it is that Black and Flanagan, both heavy hitters, have joined forces with a high-powered team of devoted writers and thinkers. Their shared aim is to say enough is enough to what they see as woke opportunists.

It is well known that Justin Trudeau tends to be especially generous with his patronage dollars to those who attach themselves to his agendas for First Nations peoples. Trudeau inherits a long Liberal tradition of using large concentrations of money to keep hand-picked leaders in partisan line with Liberal policies.

Not surprisingly, Trudeau did not do his homework as he has latched onto yet another divisive boondoggle to float his “post-national” contention that Canada is a genocidal country that should be enwrapped asap into more globalist webs of conniving intrigues. In my view, neither Black nor Flanagan have been exempt from implicating Canada in their own forms of globalist intrigue.

This background helps explain how it is that a seemingly obscure book on an seemingly narrow subject is suddenly selling lots of copies in spite of its being banned here and there. As far as I know there hasn’t been a ritual book burning yet but the volume has definitely been removed from the shelves of several libraries and book stores.

In the BC town of Quesnel, just being caught looking at Grave Error was made to seem like an act of heresy to be punished by spurning, economic boycott, and various forms of deplatforming. As in many small communities throughout Canada, Quesnel businesses depend on the ample purchasing power of many First Nations people in the region.

See this.

Dr. Frances Widdowson attended the meeting of the Quesnel town council with the intention of explaining her own essay, “Billy Remembers.” Even before she made the long drive from her home in Calgary to Quesnel, she was interrogated by a CBC journalist, Jordan Tucker. The flamboyant, combative and ill-read Jordan Tucker embodies the transcend priorities of the Liberal government’s state broadcaster these days.

It seems Dr. Widdowson has been appointed by some overseeing committee of high wokedom as the main embodiment of a new type of heresy designated as a “residential school denialism.” This title was invented by people in and around the Canadian version of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Investigation.

Dr. Widdowson has long wrangled with her former employer at Mount Royal in Calgary because her discourse was allegedly not in line with the College’s pedagogical policy of “Indigenization.”

Then in February of 2023 the then-President of the University of Lethbridge, Dr. Mike Mahon, gave the green light to silence Dr. Widdowson by overwhelming her scheduled talk with well-organized drumming, chanting and electric guitar screeching. The object of this attack on free speech and open debate was to overwhelm her capacity to make herself heard.

When witnessing this troubling spectacle, I thought back to the time in the mid-1990s when I invited Prof. Tom Flanagan to give lectures to NAS students. My aim was to present them with interpretations that ran contrary to those emanating from the dominant viewpoint regularly conveyed by my colleagues and I in Native American Studies. See this.

Many in Alberta and beyond saw the silencing of Dr. Widdowson at the University of Lethbridge as a very powerful symbol of the DEI intolerance. The episode shines a light on the phenomenon that independent thought and articulation are giving way to enforced group think in increasingly authoritarian universities throughout the West.

As a result of the extension of the debacle in Gaza to sharp divisions on university campuses, this pattern of sacrificing to large donors control over curriculum and faculty staffing is being put on full display by many prominent IVY League schools in the USA. This phenomenon has been described by Norman Finkelstein as “the greatest threat ever to the principle of academic freedom.”

See Mike Whitney here.

Conclusions

I agree with the authors in Grave Error that the existence of unmarked mass graves adjacent to Indian residential schools has not been proven. The great weight of evidence points against the narrative introduced in a press release in May of 2021. The release came from Rosanne Casimir, Chief of the Tk’emlúps te Secwepemc (Kamloops Indian Band). Without presenting credible evidence, Chief Casimir made the startling claim that an unmarked mass grave containing 215 bodies had been discovered in an apple orchard beside Kamloops Indian residential school.

The authors of Grave Error’s prove that a solid evidentiary basis has not been established to support the new thesis that mass murder and mass graves constitute an integral part of the history of Indian residential schools in Canada.

I do not agree, however, that these findings preclude the need to look at the possible role of various forms of genocidal activity in the transformation of northern North America from pre-Columbian times to the Canada that exists today. I find the conclusion that because certain claims about the existence of mass graves attending Indian residential schools have been conclusively disproven, the possibility of genocidal expressions in Canadian history need never be raised again.

I think it ill-advised to declare that all of Canadian history is devoid of genocide before and after the UN’s creation of the Genocide Convention in 1948. Canadian history does not exist in an isolated void. I have repeatedly put forward the view that the entire Western Hemisphere has been the site since 1492 of an inter-generational genocide that can be pictured as a single monumental event whose commemoration might be marked by a different kind of holocaust memorial.

For now, however, I’ll leave it at that. I’ll simply add that Dr. Widdowson and I are working together these days. We are engaged in a case study of the assault on free speech and open debate at University of Lethbridge, where I taught for 26 years. See the announcement of our upcoming meeting on the matter in the Appendix below.

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This article was originally published on Looking out at the World from Canada.

Dr. Anthony Hall is currently Professor of Globalization Studies at the University of Lethbridge in Alberta Canada. He has been a teacher in the Canadian university system since 1982. Dr. Hall, has recently finished a big two-volume publishing project at McGill-Queen’s University Press entitled “The Bowl with One Spoon”.

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

All images in this article are from the author


Appendix

10 May, 2024
Dear Friends, Colleagues and Associates;

Above is the poster for an important upcoming public event on the afternoon of Saturday May 25 at the main branch of the Lethbridge Public Library. Many of you will remember when Dr. Frances Widdowson was overwhelmed by chanting, drumming and the screech on an electric guitar. The object of the ruckus was to prevent the speaker from delivering a public presentation in the Atrium of the University of Lethbridge. The censorship action proved to be a “success.”

Dr. Widdowson was silenced and those who came to hear her talk were deprived of her articulation. Certain faculty members had decided Frances Widdowson was afflicted with a malady they labelled “residential school denialism.” 

Some faculty members decided to act on this judgment. For their students, these faculty members painted a picture of Dr. Widdowson as an embodiment of a constituency they identified as hostile to the idea that all residential schools at all times should be equated with genocide.

Disgruntled faculty and others pressured U of L President, Dr. Mike Mahon, to cancel Dr. Widdowson’s lecture after he had already announced that his Office approved of her talk. Some interpret what happened as a cave in by Dr. Mahon to political pressure. He ordered that a speaker on campus should be cancelled because she was the bearer of interpretations that some faculty and students wanted to censor. The rest, as they say, is history.

The key point in this matter is not that one side or the other is right or wrong. Individuals especially in the hallowed Halls of Academia have a right and sometimes even a responsibility to decide such matters for themselves. The key point is that academics must be able to research, argue and articulate issues in an environment of protected free speech and academic freedom regardless of the prevailing group think. Certainly it is not the role of academic administrators to jump in arbitrarily by making themselves instant experts in whatever academic debate they want to dominate and/or disrupt.

Dr. Widdowson has written academic essays and books in and around the topic of the history of Indian education in Canada. Whether one agrees with her views or not, it was wrong to have tried to silence her at an Alberta University. I attended the organized shutdown of her talk. In my view and in that of many other people I have since met and talked to about what happened, the shutdown of Dr. Widdowson in February of 2023 was not a proud moment. It was a very troubling occurrence in the history of the institution of higher learning where I taught from 1990 to 2016.

I moved to Lethbridge in 1990 to be Associate Professor of Native American Studies. In the early weeks of 2016 this tenured full professor was abruptly suspended without pay completely outside the rules of the Board’s collective agreement with the Faculty Association. Then in 2017 the matter went to court in the Lethbridge Court of (then) Queen’s Bench. 

By court order the judge ruled that I should be reinstated into my academic position at the U of L. As I plan to discuss, there is every reason that the Board’s objective in trying to deplatform me was to silence my interpretations because my views went contrary to the agenda of a very rich and powerful lobby. I would still like to know how this lobby gained such a tight grip on the policies and actions of the administration of the University administration. 

As the commentator in Frances’ forthcoming presentation on 25 May, I’m sure I will disagree with her on many points. Agreeing to disagree is a vital attribute of healthy academic life. But trying to shut down those with whom one disagrees, undermines the entirety of the whole academic project that is supposed to be a fair and balanced meritocracy.

When I met Frances after the event where her talk was shut down, we of course compared notes about our treatment at the University of Lethbridge. Eventually we came up with the idea of mounting the initiative we started earlier this year. In due course, as this process unfolds I intend to talk about my own experiences with the process of being deplatformed in ways that include many elements outside the set of facts outlined above.

I never did get back into the classroom. In 2018 I decided to retire. I did retire as a full professor in good standing. I gained the new title of Professor Emeritus. I am announcing here that I am henceforth acting in my capacity as a Professor Emeritus of the University of Lethbridge in the remaining part of the process that Frances and I have mounted. I think my taking on this responsibility in unusual times and under unusual circumstances is entirely consistent with the duties of an individual carrying the title of Emeritus Professor. 

As I see it, I shall be speaking and acting in this process from within the U of L’s faculty. I have devoted some of the best years and professional efforts of my life to my academic endeavours at the University of Lethbridge. I would like to see the institution thrive and prosper. 

As a senior faculty member I want to help in the process of making some suggestions that might assist our school in getting back on track. A University simply cannot fulfil a mission to be a school of authentic higher learning without creating a sound foundation for the expression of unhindered speech and academic freedom.

Since retiring from teaching I have continued to involve myself in research and publication as well as in very active community involvement starting with the manufactured COVID crisis. The questions come up in my community work: Where are all the hundreds of University professors and why are they not contributing more actively to working through issues of immense import– life and death issues in, for instance, public health matters. 

What kind of message does our university send when it shuts down, rather than encourages, the highlighting of a diversity of perspectives in public discourse in local, regional, national and global contexts? The community wants and deserves better than what we have seen from the University of Lethbridge in recent years.

In this context I am not making any claim about who is right or wrong in the matters we have recently faced and are facing. But in my view there is no doubt that the University of Lethbridge has become way too isolated and partisan in key aspects of the community life of this region.

Please consider attending the public event at the Lethbridge Public Library on Saturday May 25 at 2 pm.

Sincerely,

Dr. Tony Hall

Professor Emeritus,

University of Lethbridge

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While very serious life-threatening conditions have existed at the planetary level for several decades due to the accumulation of nuclear weapons, a number of emerging technologies are aggravating this danger in several serious and complex ways. The Arms Control Association and author Michael T. Klare have made a very important contribution to the understanding of this grave danger in the form of their very timely report titled ‘ Assessing the Dangers—Emerging Military Technologies and Nuclear (In) Stability’. 

This report says,

“Increasingly in recent years, the major powers have sought to exploit advanced technologies— artificial intelligence (AI), autonomy, cyber, and hypersonic, among others—for military purposes, with potentially far-ranging, dangerous consequences. Similar to what occurred when chemical and nuclear technologies were first applied to warfare, many analysts believe that the military utilization of AI and other such “emerging technologies” will revolutionize warfare, making obsolete the weapons and the strategies of the past. In accordance with this outlook, the U.S. Department of Defence is allocating ever increasing sums to research on these technologies and their application to military use, as are the militaries of the other major powers. But even as the U.S. military and those of other countries accelerate the exploitation of new technologies for military use, many analysts have cautioned against proceeding with such haste until more is known about the inadvertent and hazardous consequences of doing so. Analysts worry, for example, that AI-enabled systems may fail in unpredictable ways, causing unintended human slaughter or uncontrolled escalation.”

More specifically this report warns,

“Of particular concern to arms control analysts is the potential impact of emerging technologies on “strategic stability,” or a condition in which nuclear armed states eschew the first use of nuclear weapons in a crisis. The introduction of weapons employing AI and other emerging technologies could endanger strategic stability by blurring the distinction between conventional and nuclear attack, leading to the premature use of nuclear weapons.”

On the positive side, this report informs us that arms control advocates and citizen activists in many countries have sought to slow the weaponization of AI and other emerging technologies or to impose limits of various sorts on their battlefield employment. To give an example, state parties to the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) have considered proposals to ban the development and the deployment of lethal autonomous weapons systems—or “killer robots,” as they are termed by critics.

Providing more details of these trends, this report tells us that among the most prominent applications of emerging technologies to military use is the widespread introduction of autonomous weapons systems— devices that combine AI software with combat platforms of various sorts (ships, tanks, planes, and so on) to identify, track, and attack enemy targets on their own.

At present, each branch of the U.S. military, and the forces of the other major powers, are developing— and in some cases fielding—several families of autonomous combat systems, including unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs), unmanned surface vessels (USVs), and unmanned undersea vessels (UUVs). Russian and Chinese forces are also developing and deploying unmanned systems with similar characteristics.

Coming to the problems created by this, the report says,

”The development and the deployment of lethal autonomous weapons systems like these raise significant moral and legal challenges. To begin with, such devices are being empowered to employ lethal force against enemy targets, including human beings, without significant human oversight—moves that run counter to the widely-shared moral and religious principle that only humans can take the life of another human. Critics also contend that the weapons will never be able to abide by the laws of war and international humanitarian law, as spelled out in the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 and the Geneva Convention and 1949. These statutes require that warring parties distinguish between combatants and non-combatants when conducting military operations and employ only as much force as required to achieve a specific military objective.” 

In recognition of these dangers, a concerted effort has been undertaken under the aegis of the CCW to adopt an additional protocol prohibiting the deployment of lethal autonomous weapons systems.

Regarding hypersonic weapons this report tells us that hypersonic weapons are usually defined as missiles than can travel at more than five times the speed of sound (Mach 5) and fly at lower altitudes than intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), which also fly at hypersonic speeds. At present, the United States, China, Russia, and several other countries are engaged in the development and fielding of two types of hypersonic weapons (both of which may carry either nuclear or conventional warheads): hypersonic glide vehicles (HGVs), unpowered projectiles that “glide” along the Earth’s outer atmosphere after being released from a booster rocket; and hypersonic cruise missiles (HCMs), which are powered by high-speed air-breathing engines, called “scramjets. All three major powers have explored similar types of hypersonic missiles. 

Regarding the dangers related to this, the report tells us,

”Analysts worry, for example, that the use of hypersonic weapons early in a conventional engagement to subdue an adversary’s critical assets could be interpreted as the prelude to a nuclear first-strike, and so prompt the target state to launch its own nuclear munitions if unsure of its attacker’s intentions.”

Coming to cyber-attack related threats this report tells us these range from cyber-espionage, or the theft of military secrets and technological data, to offensive actions intended to disable an enemy’s command, control, and communications (C3) systems, thereby degrading its ability to wage war successfully. Such operations might also be aimed at an adversary’s nuclear C3 (NC3) systems; in such a scenario, one side or the other—fearing that a nuclear exchange is imminent—could attempt to minimize its exposure to attack by disabling its adversary’s NC3 systems.

Analysts warn, this report says, that any cyber-attack on an adversary’s NC3 systems in the midst of a major crisis or conventional conflict could prove highly destabilizing. “Upon detecting interference in its critical command systems, the target state might well conclude that an adversary had launched a pre-emptive nuclear strike against it, and so might launch its own nuclear weapons rather than risk their loss to the other side.” The widespread integration of conventional with nuclear C3 compounds these dangers. 

The major powers also plan, this report tells us, to rely increasingly on AIenabled battlefield decision-making systems to aid human commanders in processing vast amounts of data on enemy movements and identifying possible combat responses. The increased automation of battlefield decision making, especially given the likely integration of nuclear and conventional C3 systems, gives rise to numerous concerns. Many of these technologies are still in their infancy and prone to often unanticipated malfunctions.  

This import report concludes,

“The drive to exploit emerging technologies for military use has accelerated at a much faster pace than efforts to assess the dangers they pose and to establish limits on their use. It is essential, then, to slow the pace of weaponizing these technologies, to carefully weigh the risks in doing so, and to adopt meaningful restraints on their military use.”

The following proposed action steps, derived from the toolbox developed by arms control advocates over many years of practice and experimentation, are suggested in this report to reduce risks.

  • Awareness-Building: Efforts to educate policymakers and the general public about the risks posed by the unregulated military use of emerging technologies.
  • Track 2 and Track 1.5 Diplomacy: Discussions among scientists, engineers, and arms control experts from the major powers to identify the risks posed by emerging technologies and possible strategies for their control. “Track 2 diplomacy” of this sort can be expanded at some point to include governmental experts (“Track 1.5 diplomacy”). 
  • Unilateral and Joint Initiatives: Steps taken by the major powers on their own or among groups of like-minded states to reduce the risks associated with emerging technologies in the absence of formal arms control agreements to this end. 
  • Strategic Stability Talks: Discussions among senior officials of China, Russia, and the United States on the risks to strategic stability posed by the weaponization of certain emerging technologies and on joint measures to diminish these risks. These can be accompanied by confidence-building measures (CBMs), intended to build trust in implementing and verifying formal agreements in this area.
  • Bilateral and Multilateral Arrangements: Once the leaders of the major powers come to appreciate the escalatory risks posed by the weaponization of emerging technologies, it may be possible for them to reach accord on bilateral and multilateral arrangements intended to minimize these risks.

One hopes that the warnings and recommendations presented in this report get wide attention of peace activists as well as policy makers.

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Bharat Dogra is Honorary Convener, Campaign to Save Earth Now. His recent books include Planet in Peril, Protecting Earth for Children, Earth without Borders and A Day in 2071. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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There appears to be no limit to Russophobia in the Baltic countries. In a new de-Russification measure, the Estonian government decided to abolish Russian language teaching in a region where almost the entire population is ethnic Russian. The case adds to a series of recent measures taken by Estonia and other Baltic countries to end the historic Russian presence in their territories.

In the Narva region, on the border between Estonia and Russia, 97% of the population is Russian.

The city is just 130km from Saint Petersburg, which is one of the main centers of Russian culture.

Considering these particular circumstances of the city, the local authorities submitted a special request to the Estonian government to allow the Russian language to continue to be taught and spoken in schools. The letter sent by the Narva City Council demanded authorization for at least 40% of the school curriculum to be taught in Russian during the next school year.

However, the Estonian government rejected the proposal, not alleviating its strongly Russophobic position.

According to the country’s authorities, there is no “legal basis” to reduce de-Russification measures in the Narva region. More than that, in her official statement on the case, Minister of Education and Science Kristina Kallas stated that studying in the Estonian language is “in the students’ interest”, which sounds absolutely false and hypocritical, considering that local children are mostly Russian and they obviously have no “interest” in studying a language other than the one they speak at home with their families.

The negative response from the Estonian government was actually expected, considering the advanced level of anti-Russian paranoia among the country’s authorities. The measure in Narva comes amid a series of cultural genocide policies whose objective is to gradually eradicate the use of the Russian language throughout Estonian territory. Not only are students victims of this type of measure, but also the teachers themselves.

Many children’s teachers are also ethnic Russians. Some of them even speak Estonian, but they do not have advanced knowledge of grammar or great fluency in speaking. Now, with the new rules, these teachers will have to study Estonian and prove their knowledge of the language to continue working. If they fail to learn Estonian, these professionals risk losing their jobs.

It is not just the Russian Federation that is denouncing this situation. The attempted cultural genocide in Estonia is already beginning to be criticized by international organizations, such as the UN itself. The United Nations human rights office recently classified Estonia’s policies as “potentially discriminatory” due to the fact that they affect the rights of an ethnic minority.

25% of Estonia’s population are Russian citizens. Estonia, like all post-Soviet states, has a strong presence of ethnic Russians due to the fact that until 1991 all Soviet republics belonged to the same country. Many experts describe the Soviet collapse as a humanitarian tragedy precisely because it suddenly made millions of Russians “foreigners.” Currently, Russians are not only living in countries other than their own, but also suffering discriminatory policies simply because they are Russians.

Estonia is not alone in its Russophobic measures. Latvia and Lithuania are also advancing policies to eradicate the Russian language.

The Latvian government, as well known, is promoting Latvian language proficiency tests for Russian citizens. Citizens who fail the tests can simply be expelled from the country. As expected, those who have the most difficulty in this situation are elderly Russians, who have lived their entire lives speaking Russian only and are now being forced to learn a new language at risk of cancellation of their citizenship.

Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine has served as an excuse for countries allied with the West to openly take actions of cultural genocide and apartheid. Russians are simply being treated as “inferior” citizens in states that until recently belonged to the same country as Russia. For now, such measures are being implemented against the language and civil rights of Russian citizens, but it is possible that Russophobia will escalate to the point where the physical safety of Russian speakers begins to be threatened.

There is a process of “Ukrainization” in the Baltic countries. Now, their main “enemy” is the language, but it remains to be seen how governments will react to the Russians’ insistence on preserving their ethnic and cultural heritage. For the Russian Federation, there is a clear red line when it comes to its international relations, which is precisely the security of its citizens abroad. If the Baltic states begin to physically threaten the Russians, there will be a serious escalation with Moscow.

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Lucas Leiroz is a member of the BRICS Journalists Association, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, military expert. You can follow Lucas on X (former Twitter) and Telegram. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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Note: This statement was submitted at the request of the All-African People’s Revolutionary Party (GC) for its African Liberation Day rally being held on Sunday May 19, 2024 in Malcolm X Park in Washington, D.C. The event was organized under the theme: “From Cape Town to Cairo, the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, Pan-Africanism and Palestine Liberation are Indivisible! Smash the Genocide of International Zionism and Apartheid!”


This commemoration of African Liberation Day comes at a critical conjunction in the overall struggle against imperialism and for the total liberation of our continent along with other oppressed and exploited peoples throughout the globe.

Since October 7, the people of Palestine have once again renewed their leading role in ending the yoke of Zionism and imperialism over their land and people.

Some 76 years ago on May 15, 1948, the Zionists regime was recognized by the United States under President Harry S. Truman as the purported “legitimate” entity over the land of Palestine. Even prior to 1948, the Zionist project had been advanced by the French and British imperialists.

From its inception in the 1890s, the World Zionist Movement was committed to an “ironclad” alliance with western imperialism. This is why today the U.S. national security capitalist state is the main supporter of the oppression and genocide against the Palestinians.

Our solidarity and close operational work with the Palestinian liberation movement is rooted in the actual history of the most revolutionary forces to emerge over the last seven decades. In many years past, ancestors such as Malcolm X (El Hajj Malik El Shabazz), Ethel Minor, Kwame Ture, John Watson and others representing organizations such as the Nation of Islam, Organization of Afro-American Unity (OAAU), Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Black Panther Party, League of Revolutionary Black Workers, All-African People’s Revolutionary Party (A-APRP), etc., spoke out strongly against the Zionist state and its imperialist backers. Within Africa itself, the work of Presidents Gamel Abdel Nassar, Kwame Nkrumah, Ahmed Sekou Toure, Nelson Mandela, Col. Muamar Gaddafi, etc., remains a living force in the overwhelming support for the Palestinians throughout the continent in this latest phase of the war to liberate Palestine and the entire West Asia and North Africa regions.

Stokely Carmichael, Ethel Minor and Kwame Nkrumah in Guinea

There must no cooperation with the genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza and throughout the Occupied Territories. Those elements posing as representatives of the African people in the U.S. who continue to side with Zionism in defiance of the mood of billions around the world, should be denounced. They are not in accord with the interests of their own people in the U.S., around the world and all other oppressed and exploited masses globally.

Students and Youth Expose the Links with Zionism and Imperialism

The movement for the liberation of Palestine has impacted the university and college campuses around the U.S. and in other centers of imperialism such as the UK, Western Europe and Australia. The conscious students and faculty members are demanding documents related to the investments by their educational institutions which perpetuate Zionism.

These students have constructed encampments and seized buildings in their call for the end of the genocide and the freedom of the Palestinians. The White House and majority of officials within both Houses of Congress decided recently to send additional weapons to the Israeli regime so they can displace, injure and kill more Palestinians. This same aid package for imperialist war also included funds to undermine the sovereignty of the People’s Republic of China, to harass and kill more people crossing the southern border as well as additional weapons to the neo-fascist government in Ukraine for a war in which they have no prospect of winning against the Russian Federation.

Over the last month, a coordinated effort engineered by President Joe Biden’s White House and the Justice Department to crush the campus protests against the genocide in Gaza and for the complete disinvestment from Israeli apartheid, has resulted in nearly 3,000 arrests. The ruling class propaganda against the students falsely accusing them of being “outside agitators”, has not hampered the capacity to mobilize thousands. These are the same slanderous accusations made decades ago against the organizers of the Civil Rights, Black Power and Pan-African Movements.

The mass arrests of students and faculty members has only fueled the anti-Zionist movement in the U.S. In the most recent period, many young and older Jewish people who previously bought into the myths of Zionism related to the fundamental rights of the Palestinians along with other Arabs, related ethnic groups and Africans in the region, have joined demonstrations and rallies not only demanding an immediate ceasefire some are now calling for the creation of a unitary Palestinian state.

An independent Palestinian state would be a profound contribution to the anti-imperialist struggle worldwide. Consequently, Africans within the various sectors, whether it be education, labor or religion, will undoubtedly intensify their efforts aimed at ending the genocide and bringing about the liberation of Palestine.

Labor for Palestine committees have been established in many states. The African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME) and African Methodist Episcopal Zion (AMEZ) Church issued a joint statement demanding a shift in the policy of the Biden administration on Palestine. These denominations represent 4.9 million Africans in the U.S. and other regions of the world.

There is a tremendous level of political ferment surrounding the anti-Zionist movement worldwide. The revolutionary organizations in the U.S. should provide maximum solidarity with the students and faculty opposing the genocide in Gaza.

Neo-Colonialism and the Struggle for Pan-Africanism

In order for the unification and liberation of Africa to occur the external elements which conspire to contain and dominate the continent will have to be defeated. We have witnessed over the last year the upsurge of anti-imperialist sentiment in the Sahel region of West Africa.

France and the U.S. have been ordered to leave Niger despite the presence of the Pentagon’s Africa Command (AFRICOM) which staffs drone stations and 1000 troops. A scheme to prompt an imperialist-backed military intervention in Niger was rejected by various political parties and mass organizations throughout the West Africa region. These developments led to the formation of an Alliance of Sahel States encompassing Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali. After this coalition was formed, the sanctions leveled by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) were lifted.

The failures of U.S. imperialism and NATO in various geopolitical regions of the world have emboldened working and oppressed peoples to fight against exploitation and hegemony. This political upsurge will play an important role in the struggle to achieve African unification, sovereignty and socialism.

As noted by Dr. Kwame Nkrumah in 1965 when he published “Neo-Colonialism: The Last Stage of Imperialism” that:

“The ideal neo-colonialist State would be one which was wholly subservient to neo-colonialist interests, but the existence of the socialist nations makes it impossible to enforce the full rigor of the neo-colonialist system. The existence of an alternative system is itself a challenge to the neo-colonialist regime. Warnings about ‘the dangers of Communist subversion’ are likely to be two-edged since they bring to the notice of those living under a neo-colonialist system the possibility of a change of regime. In fact, neo-colonialism is the victim of its own contradictions. In order to make it attractive to those upon whom it is practiced it must be shown as capable of raising their living standards, but the economic object of neo-colonialism is to keep those standards depressed in the interest of the developed countries. It is only when this contradiction is understood that the failure of innumerable ‘aid’ programs, many of them well intentioned, can be explained.” 

African people around the world who are politically educated and organized can overcome the legacies of enslavement, colonialism, neo-colonialism and imperialism. African unification will achieve its full realization through a socialist path of development.

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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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Things are looking dire for the Ukrainian war effort.  Promises of victory are becoming even hollower than they were last summer, when US President Joe Biden could state with breathtaking obliviousness that Russia had “already lost the war”. The worst offender in this regard remains the United States, which has been the most vocal proponent of fanciful victory over Russia, a message which reads increasingly as one of fighting to the last Ukrainian.

Such a victory is nigh fantasy, almost impossible to envisage.  For one thing, domestic considerations about continued support for Kyiv have played a stalling part. In the US Congress, a large military aid package was stalled for six months. Among some Republicans, in particular, Ukraine was not a freedom loving despoiled figure needing props and crutches. 

“From our perspective,” opines Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul, “Ukraine should not and cannot be our problem to solve.  It is not our place to defend them in a struggle with their longtime adversary, Russia.” 

The assessment, in this regard, was a matter of some clarity for Paul. 

“There is no national security interest for the United States.”

Despite this, the Washington foreign policy and military elite continue to make siren calls of seduction in Kyiv’s direction.  On April 23, the Senate finally approved a $US95.3 billion aid package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, with the lion’s share – some US$61 billion – intended for Ukraine’s war effort.

On April 24, a press release from US Secretary State Antony Blinken announced a further US$1 billion package packed with “urgently needed capabilities including air defense missiles, munitions for HIMARS, artillery rounds, armored vehicles, precision aerial munitions, anti-armor weapons, and small arms, equipment, and spare parts to help Ukraine defend its territory and protect its people.”

On May 14, in his address to the Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute, Blinken described what could only be reasoned as a vast mirage. 

“Today, I’m here in Kyiv to speak about Ukraine’s strategic success.  And to set out how, with our support, the Ukrainian people can and will achieve their vision for the near future: a free, prosperous, secure democracy – fully integrated into the Euro-Atlantic community – and fully in control of its own destiny.” 

This astonishingly irresponsible statement makes Washington’s security agenda clear and Kyiv’s fate bleak: Ukraine is to become a pro-US, anti-Russian bastion, with an open cheque book at the ready.

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has made the prevention of that vision an article of faith.  While Russian forces, in men and material, have suffered horrendous losses, the attritive nature of the conflict is starting to tell. While Blinken was gulling his audience, the military realities show significant Russian advances, including a threatening push towards Kharkiv, reversing Ukrainian gains made in 2022.

There are also wounding advances being made in other areas of the conflict.  US and NATO artillery and drones supplied to Ukraine’s military forces have been countered by Russian electronic warfare methods.  GPS receivers, for instance, have been sufficiently deceived to misdirect missiles shot from HIMARS launchers.  In a number of cases, the Russian forces have also identified and destroyed the launchers.

Russian airpower has been brought to bear on critical infrastructure. Radar defying glide bombs have been used with considerable effect.  On the production and deployment front, Colonel Ivan Pavlenko, chief of EW and cyber warfare at Ukraine’s general staff, lamented in February that Russia’s use of drones was also “becoming a huge threat”.  Depleted stocks of weaponry are being replenished, and more soldiers are being called to the front.

Despite concerns, one need not scour far to find pundits who insist that such advances and gains can be neutralised.  Michael Kofman of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace admits to current Russian “material advantage” and holding “the strategic initiative,” though goes on to speculate that this “may not prove decisive”.

The gong of deceit and delusion must, however, go to Blinken.  Americans, he claimed, understood “that our support for Ukraine strengthens the security of the United States and our allies.”  Were Putin to win – and here, that old nag of appeasement makes an undesirable appearance – “he won’t stop with Ukraine; he’ll keep going.  For when in history has an autocrat been satisfied with carving off just part, or even all, of a single country?”

Towards that end, “we do have a plan,” he coyly insisted.  This entailed ensuring Ukraine had “the military that it needs to succeed on the battlefield”.  Biden was encouraged by Ukrainian mobilisation efforts, skipping around the logistical delays that had marred it.  Washington’s “joint task” was to “secure Ukraine’s sustained and permanent strategic advantage”, enabling it to win the current battles and “defend against future attacks.  As President Biden said, we want Ukraine to win – and we’re committed to helping you do it.”

Even by the standards of US Secretaries of States, Blinken’s conduct in Kyiv proved brazen and shameless.  A perfect illustration of this came with his musical effort alongside local band, 19.99, involving a rendition of Neil Young’s “Rockin’ in the Free World.”

Local indignation was quick to follow. “Six months of waiting for the decision of the American Congress” had, fumed Bohdan Yaremenko, legislator and former diplomat with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s party, “taken the lives of very, very many defenders of the free world”.  What the US was performing “for the free world is not rock ’n’ roll, but some other music similar to Russian chanson.”

As for the performance itself, the crowd at Barman Dictat witnessed yet another misreading – naturally by a US politician – of an anthem intended to excoriate American failings, from homelessness to “a kinder, gentler machine gun hand”.  Appropriately, the guitar, much like the performer, was out of tune.

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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge.  He currently lectures at RMIT University.  He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). Email: [email protected] 

Featured image: Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken meets with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in Kyiv, Ukraine, on May 6, 2021. [State Department photo by Ron Przysucha]

Estônia impede que crianças russas aprendam sua língua nativa.

May 18th, 2024 by Lucas Leiroz de Almeida

Parece não haver limites para a russofobia nos países bálticos. Numa nova medida de desrussificação, o governo estônio decidiu abolir o ensino da língua russa numa região onde quase toda a população é de etnia russa. O caso junta-se a uma série de medidas recentes tomadas pela Estônia e outros países bálticos para acabar com a histórica presença russa nos seus territórios.

Na região de Narva, na fronteira entre a Estónia e a Rússia, 97% da população é russa. A cidade fica a apenas 130km de São Petersburgo, que é um dos principais centros da cultura russa. Considerando estas circunstâncias particulares da cidade, as autoridades locais apresentaram um pedido especial ao governo da Estônia para permitir que a língua russa continuasse a ser ensinada e falada nas escolas. A carta enviada pela Câmara Municipal de Narva exigia autorização para que pelo menos 40% do currículo escolar fosse ministrado em russo durante o próximo ano letivo.

No entanto, o governo estônio rejeitou a proposta, não aliviando a sua posição fortemente russofóbica. Segundo as autoridades do país, não existe “base jurídica” para reduzir as medidas de desrussificação na região de Narva. Mais do que isso, na sua declaração oficial sobre o caso, a Ministra da Educação e Ciência Kristina Kallas afirmou que estudar em estoniano é “do interesse dos estudantes”, o que soa absolutamente falso e hipócrita, considerando que as crianças locais são maioritariamente russas e obviamente não têm “interesse” em estudar uma língua diferente daquela que falam em casa com as suas famílias.

A resposta negativa do governo estônio era esperada, tendo em conta o nível avançado de paranóia anti-russa entre as autoridades do país. A medida em Narva surge no meio de uma série de políticas de genocídio cultural cujo objectivo é erradicar gradualmente o uso da língua russa em todo o território estônio. Não só os alunos são vítimas deste tipo de medidas, mas também os próprios professores.

Muitos professores de crianças também são de etnia russa. Alguns deles até falam estoniano, mas não possuem conhecimentos avançados de gramática ou grande fluência na fala. Agora, com as novas regras, esses professores terão de estudar estoniano e comprovar o seu conhecimento da língua para continuarem a trabalhar. Se não conseguirem aprender estoniano, esses profissionais correm o risco de perder os seus empregos.

Não é apenas a Federação Russa que denuncia esta situação. A tentativa de genocídio cultural na Estônia já começa a ser criticada por organizações internacionais, como a própria ONU. O gabinete dos direitos humanos das Nações Unidas classificou recentemente as políticas da Estônia como “potencialmente discriminatórias” devido ao fato de afetarem os direitos de uma minoria étnica.

25% da população da Estônia são cidadãos russos. A Estônia, como todos os estados pós-soviéticos, tem uma forte presença de russos étnicos devido ao facto de até 1991 todas as repúblicas soviéticas pertencerem ao mesmo país. Muitos especialistas descrevem o colapso soviético como uma tragédia humanitária precisamente porque de repente transformou milhões de russos em “estrangeiros”. Atualmente, os russos não só vivem em países que não o seu, mas também sofrem políticas discriminatórias simplesmente por serem russos.

A Estônia não está sozinha nas suas medidas russofóbicas. A Letônia e a Lituânia também estão a avançar com políticas para erradicar a língua russa. O governo letão, como é sabido, está a promover testes de proficiência na língua letã para cidadãos russos. Os cidadãos que não passarem nos testes podem simplesmente ser expulsos do país. Como esperado, quem tem mais dificuldades nesta situação são os russos idosos, que viveram a vida inteira falando apenas russo e agora são forçados a aprender uma nova língua sob risco de cancelamento da sua cidadania.

A operação militar especial da Rússia na Ucrânia serviu de desculpa para os países aliados do Ocidente tomarem abertamente acções de genocídio cultural e de apartheid. Os russos estão simplesmente a ser tratados como cidadãos “inferiores” em Estados que até recentemente pertenciam ao mesmo país que a Rússia. Por enquanto, tais medidas estão a ser implementadas contra a língua e os direitos civis dos cidadãos russos, mas é possível que a russofobia aumente ao ponto de a segurança física dos falantes de russo começar a ser ameaçada.

Existe um processo de “ucranização” nos países bálticos. Agora, o seu principal “inimigo” é a língua, mas resta saber como os governos reagirão à insistência dos russos em preservar a sua herança étnica e cultural. Para a Federação Russa, existe uma linha vermelha clara no que diz respeito às suas relações internacionais, que é precisamente a segurança dos seus cidadãos no estrangeiro. Se os Estados Bálticos começarem a ameaçar fisicamente os russos, haverá uma grave escalada com Moscou.

Lucas Leiroz de Almeida

Artigo em inglês :

https://infobrics.org/post/41202/

Imagem : InfoBrics

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Lucas Leiroz, jornalista, pesquisador do Center for Geostrategic Studies, consultor geopolítico.

Você pode seguir Lucas Leiroz em: https://t.me/lucasleiroz e https://twitter.com/leiroz_lucas

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David Skripac’s Book, first published on January 22, 2022

 

 

 


 

 

 

 

 

 

Our Species is Being Genetically Modified

Are We Witnessing

Humanity’s March toward Extinction?

Viruses Are Our Friends, Not Our Foes  

 

by David Skripac

 

Global Research E-Book, December 2021


 

About the Author

 

David Skripac has a Bachelor of Technology degree in aerospace engineering. During his two tours of duty as a captain in the Canadian Air Force, he flew extensively in the former Yugoslavia, Somalia, Rwanda, Ethiopia, and Djibouti.

Using an inquisitive mind, a keen eye for detail, and problem-solving skills honed during his university years and throughout his career, David devoted close to 200 hours researching the latest scientific findings in the fields of virology and microbiology to bring this book to fruition.

Since the spring of 2020, he has also written several essays on the subject of COVID-19 for Global Research.

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


 

Table of Contents

 

Preface

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Chapter I

The Microbiome and The Virome

Chapter II

Our War against Nature

Chapter III

What Happened in 2020

Chapter IV

Ignoring the Wreckage


 

Preface

 

When the alleged “pandemic” was declared in March of 2020, I, like millions of other people around the world, was paying close attention to politicians and public health officials as well as to bureaucrats from the Rockefeller Foundation-created World Health Organization (WHO), all of whom announced, in almost perfect synchronicity, “This is the new normal until a vaccine can be developed.”

How odd, I thought. Why is it that the immediate default position is a vaccine? And why is it that a single coronavirus is being blamed for causing people to fall ill in every corner of the earth? Could something else—perhaps one or more toxins in the environment—be the real culprit?

It was impossible to stop myself from asking question after question and pondering possible answers. For, if public health authorities in nearly every jurisdiction (from international healthy organizations to national health agencies to state and local health departments) on the planet were truly concerned about citizens’ well-being, then:

  • Why was it that natural immunity, which has been a key component to human health and survival for over 200,000 years, was suddenly being treated as if it didn’t exist anymore?
  • Why was no one in charge urging us to eat a healthy, nutritionally balanced, organic diet, low in sugar content?
  • Why did no one mention the importance of getting enough sleep?
  • Why were we not being encouraged to go outdoors and exercise?
  • Why was no one suggesting we increase our zinc and vitamin D intake? After all, scientists have known for over fifty years that vitamin D, either absorbed naturally from the sun or taken orally in tablet form, is extremely beneficial to the human body in many ways, especially in building a strong innate immune system.

All of the preceding points, if taken seriously, could have helped us improve our immune system and given us an opportunity to combat the negative effects of the syndrome known as COVID-19.

Even more bizarre was the fact that, from the very start of the “pandemic,” the corporate-controlled media had been continually seeking the opinion of Bill Gates, who is neither a doctor nor a scientist, on what course of action governments around the world should be taking to combat the spread of the so-called SARS-CoV-2 virus.

As two weeks of global lockdowns—allegedly “to flatten the curve”—dragged on and turned into several months of lockdowns, it became painfully obvious that none of the “public health measures”—ranging from physical distancing to masking to self-isolation—being implemented by governments around the world had anything to do with their stated purpose of keeping everyone COVID-free.

These measures did, however, perform two key roles completely unrelated to public health:

First, they were calculated from the beginning to create a polarized population. Indeed, we have been made the subjects of a social engineering experiment intended to divide humanity—thus preventing us from communicating, converging, cooperating, and rising up together against a diabolical plan designed to eradicate representative democracy, sovereign nation-states, and individual liberties.

Second, they had the intended consequence of shutting down the global economy, sending millions of people into bankruptcy, extreme poverty, and despair. The vultures devouring the dead and decaying pieces of the shattered economy are powerful financial interests—big banks and businesses and billionaires whose goal is to control every sector of the economy, including all natural resources and all public and private assets. These predators, though few in number, have wreaked the havoc requisite for them to buy—for pennies on the dollar—every possible possession in the entire world. But they are neither content to be wealthy beyond belief nor satisfied with owning everything. Rather, it seems they will not rest until they have achieved complete world domination by exploiting and enslaving all of us.

In the two years of a “pandemic”-driven panic that most of the world seems to have succumbed to, many nations have been ruled by illegal executive orders and health department guidelines, all promulgated in the name of “following the science.” What this hijacked term really means is that scared-out-of-their-wits citizens are following the worldwide mandate to believe a false narrative that lays all the blame for all the destruction on an alleged virus—a non-isolated, unpurified, computer-generated, allegedly “novel” virus. Meanwhile, the enshrined constitutional and civil rights of billions of human beings are being shredded.

Of all the thoughts that ran through my mind, the one that struck the deepest chord was the realization that a naturally occurring, helpful element in the environment was being blamed as the source of the pseudo pandemic. I understood that, just as there are “global warming” swindlers who falsify climate data and write inaccurate academic reports so they can pretend to vilify carbon dioxide (an element that generateslife on earth—the opposite of killing life!) and thus make scads of money from their scam, so are there “pandemic” gangsters who pretend to vilify another marvel of the natural world—the virus—for the same venal purpose.

I knew I must do something with my realization. That is, I had to research to prove my theory was fact, not fancy. For four solid months, I spent all my free hours reading countless articles and watching umpteen interviews. (See my acknowledgements below to find out who my main sources were.) Next, I amassed everything I had learned and wrote a four-part article. When it was published on the Global Research website, it received so many views and positive comments that the Global Research editor encouraged me to turn it into a short book.  This is that book.

My hope is that I have succeeded in deconstructing the official narrative: first, by explaining how viruses have been blanketing the earth with their genetic codes for eons, creating biodiversity and allowing for adaptation throughout the ecosystem, and, second, by pointing out the myriad ways reckless human behaviour is creating a real environmental catastrophe—not the carbon-is-the-culprit con, but actual pollution and deforestation and species extinction, to name a few such scourges. These real problems are being ignored by the fake “climate change” crowd, who hide their mercenary motives behind euphemisms like “sustainable development goals” (SDGs) and “environmental, social, and governance” benchmarks (ESGs) and florid phrases such as the “Great Reset” and “Build Back Better.”


 

Acknowledgements

 

I would like to give special thanks to Dr. David Martin, Dr. Sucharit Bhakdi, Dr. Andrew Kaufman, and Dr. Byram Bridle. From the very outset of the “pandemic,” they have distinguished themselves with a high degree of intelligence and courage—calling upon these qualities to challenge the official narrative. Their scientific expertise, sound reasoning, and logical questions enabled me to grasp the bigger picture—not just the facts that were being hidden, but also the underlying agenda of the “pandemic” players.

In addition, I humbly credit Dr. Zach Bush for helping me learn about the complex and minute intricacies of the natural world. Had I not had access to the vast body of work he has produced and the important insights he has gained over the years, it would have taken me a lifetime to pull together the material you are about to read.

Furthermore, I truly appreciate Global Research editor Michel Chossudovsky for suggesting the idea of turning my original four-part article into a short book. If it were not for Professor Chossudovsky’s decision to create his news aggregator website and his incredible efforts to sustain it for more than two decades, this book would probably not exist.

Finally, I would like to express my sincerest gratitude to my editor, who, for personal reasons, prefers to remain anonymous.


 

Introduction

 

The war is not meant to be won, it is meant to be continuous. —George Orwell

This year marks a seminal turning point in human history.

For the first time since human civilization began, our species is being genetically modified.

Vaccine manufacturers have now made it possible for the human genome to be permanently altered—and humanity’s relationship with nature forever changed—by means of an experimental pharmaceutical injection that is being falsely referred to as a “vaccine.”

In light of this defining event, I believe we must take a sober look at the motives and acts that are revamping humanity as we know it. Simultaneously, we must examine our increasingly destructive treatment of the natural world.

In order to investigate the many variables that are hastening the demise of humanity and sabotaging our unique role as stewards of the earth and its billions of plant and animal species, I have divided this short book into four main chapters.


 

Chapter I

The Microbiome and The Virome

 

In this chapter, we will discover that, contrary to what Western allopathic medicine has been teaching us for over a century, viruses are not here to attack our cells or harm us in any way. In fact, rather than being our mortal enemies, viruses are actually our friends.

Does this assertion sound too outlandish to be true? If your answer is “yes,” I wouldn’t be surprised. But I believe if you were to study the intricate ecosystem of microorganisms that make up the microbiome and delve into the fascinating world of the virome, you would come to the same realization I finally did: We are literally swimming in a vast sea of viruses, which, from the beginning of time, have been essential for life to form and flourish on this precious earth. The information communicated by these viruses helps all species of life survive—even thrive.

The Microbiome

The microbiome (derived from the Greek words micro, meaning “small,” and biotikos, meaning “pertaining to life”) is a massive ecosystem consisting of trillions of microorganisms. Incredibly, some 40,000 species of bacteria, 300,000 species of parasites, 65,000 species of protozoa, and between 3.5 million and 5 million species of fungi inhabit the environment around us and live in or on the human body. This complex world of microorganisms continually secretes a sea of viruses, which serve as a communication network for the bacteria, parasites, protozoa, and fungi. And, as we will discover shortly, these viruses have always been here to help us, not hinder us. In other words, they are life-affirming, not death-inducing.

Here’s a hint of the microbiome’s intricacy, incredible diversity, and infinitesimal size: The number of genes within the fungal kingdom is at least 125 trillion! The human genome, by comparison, consists of a mere 20,000 genes. A fruit fly has 13,000 genes, a flea 31,000. Thus, in terms of genetic complexity, the human genome has just a tiny fragment of genetic information compared to the vast world of genomic information contained within the microbiome.

One intriguing aspect of the microbiome is its symbiotic communication network, which allows the transmission of protein information from one microorganism to one another. For example, the mycelial network (a matrix of fine white filaments) in fungi allows the fungi to communicate with each other over distances that can stretch to several kilometers. These mycelial structures are capable of transferring mineral and protein resources more than a kilometer. How? They use light energy and electrons that flow through the pathways within the soil system. In this way, the microbiome helps plants and other multicellular life forms flourish. It is no exaggeration to call the mycelial network in the fungal kingdom the literal “brain” of the planet. Incidentally, all of the tiny, intelligent organisms that make up the microbiome are powered by the biophotonic energy of the sun.

Hard as it is to fathom, at least 1.4 quadrillion bacteria and 10 quadrillion fungi live inside the human body. Within the human colon alone are 3.8 x 1013bacteria cells. Every single organ in the body, including the brain, has its own microbiome. The purpose of the bacteria and fungi in our bodies is to nourish and nurture our cells, keeping us healthy and in equilibrium with the larger microbiome surrounding us.

The Virome

The virome is the immense world in which Mother Nature’s messengers exist. It is composed of trillions upon trillions of viruses produced by the aforementioned microbiome’s bacteria, parasites, protozoa, and fungi. The average adult human body contains 1 x 1015 viruses. By contrast, in the air enveloping the earth there are 1 x 1031viruses; in the earth’s soil there are 2.5 x 1031 viruses; and in the earth’s oceans there are 1.2 x 1030 viruses. To provide some perspective on these awe-inspiring numbers, 1 x 1031is 10 million times greater than the number of known stars in the entire universe.

Simply put, a virus is genomic information, either DNA or RNA, wrapped in a protein envelope. The small strands of protein protruding outward from the outer surface of a virus’s protein envelope are called spike proteins. Viruses are not living organisms. They do not produce their own fuel. They have no metabolism for producing energy. And they cannot reproduce.

Viruses have been traveling globally, above the atmospheric boundary layer, for millions of years, long before machines for air travel were invented. Their genetic codes have been blanketing the earth for eons, creating biodiversity and allowing for adaptation throughout the ecosystem. By adaptation, I mean that viruses are always seeking to adapt their genetic codes for the purpose of creating resilient health in all of the planet’s life forms. It is ridiculous to suggest that, in order to travel from one region of the globe to another, a virus must hop on an aircraft, as RAND’s National Security Research Division would have us believe.

Furthermore, viruses—including coronaviruses—do not come in waves and then disappear without a trace, only to miraculously reappear later in the same spot or a different one. Instead, viruses never leave, never expire. They inhabit every element in the environment around us. In short, they are omnipresent and ever-present.

Our relationship with particular viruses can change as a consequence of our harmful actions toward nature. Whenever humans poison and pollute the air, soil, and water, they create an imbalance between humanity and the virome—an imbalance that can cause us to come into disequilibrium with a particular virus.

Unfortunately, the allopathic medicine regime, which plutocrats John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie forced on most of the world with their 1910 Flexner Report, still has a large segment of the scientific community believing that bacteria, fungi, and viruses are our enemies.

The foundation of Rockefeller’s allopathic medicine scheme is Louis Pasteur’s flawed “germ theory,” which claims that outside microorganisms such as bacteria and viruses attack, invade, and infect the body, thereby causing disease. Though he had no formal education in science, most of the Western world credits Pasteur (1822–1895) with playing a fundamental part in establishing what we call “modern medicine”—a paradigm that traces the origin of each disease to a single germ. Without Pasteur’s theory, most modern drugs would never be produced, promoted, or prescribed—a fact that explains why today’s medical establishment and its codependent pharmaceutical industry refuse to recognise their flaws or own up to their ineffectiveness.

By contrast, “terrain theory,” which was initiated by Claude Bernard (1813–1878) and later built upon by Antoine Béchamp (1816–1908), alleges that the terrain—that is, the internal environment of the body—and not an external germ determines our health or lack thereof. What Béchamp referred to as “terrain” is very close to what modern medicine has now termed the innate immune system. As we will see in the following paragraphs, Béchamp was definitely on the right track in discovering how the human body really interacts with the outside environment.

Unlike Pasteur, Béchamp did have an academic background in science. He believed disease to be a biological result of the changes that take place in the body when its metabolic processes become imbalanced. When the body is in a state of imbalance, Béchamp alleged, germs become symptoms that in turn stimulate more symptoms, which eventually lead to disease.

Although Béchamp was moving in the right direction with his terrain theory, Rockefeller’s germ-dependent pharmaceutical tyranny has prevailed, due largely to substantial infusions of money, which Rockefeller and Carnegie gladly supplied in the form of grants to universities, hospitals, and medical research facilities. Their “philanthropic” largess, which easily exceeded $100 million ($2.9 billion in current dollars), enabled them to influence the policy of the entire US medical establishment and eventually most of the Western nations, steering them toward an exclusively chemical-based allopathic regime.

I contend in this book that, contrary to what Rockefeller medicine has been teaching us for over one hundred years, viruses are not here to attack our cells or to harm us in any other manner. On the contrary, the DNA and RNA genetic molecular information contained within the viruses are literally the building blocks of life on earth. To use a modern analogy, we can think of a virus’s information stream as a software update carrying important molecular intelligence that can be uploaded, when required, to any cell of a living multicellular organism—including any one of the 70 trillion cells contained in the human body. Our cells regulate which new genomic information is received and which information is not received. The viruses are simply seeking to adapt to the cells for the purpose of creating resilient human health.

Innate and Adaptive Immunity

A word here about the immune system. There are two kinds of immunity: innate and adaptive.

The innate immune system is the initial and primary means by which our bodies interact with a virus. The innate system helps the body find a genetic balance with each new viral update that is being presented to it. The body does not need to replicate or reproduce the new viral information after more than four or five days of updates. The innate immune system functions on healthy boundaries in the human body, such as the physical barriers between the gut and the bloodstream, or on the blood vessels that tightly regulate the movement of ions, molecules, and cells between the bloodstream and the brain (termed the blood-brain barrier), or at the genetic level in our cells (like the mutagen proteins in our cells). Also, the innate immune system operates through a variety of enzymes—like the APOBec3A/3G and CAS9. These enzymes are now considered central to innate immunity.

The adaptive immune system is the secondary means by which our bodies interact with viruses. The adaptive system mounts a highly specific response to a virus by utilizing the body’s white blood cells, known as lymphocytes (B cells and T cells). The B cells are responsible for releasing antibodies into the bloodstream.

Antibodies are the body’s second—not first—method of interaction with a virus after it receives a new viral update or after it develops an imbalance with a particular virus. Antibodies are specific, targeted defences. They usually show up on the scene 3 to 6 weeks after the body’s initial exposure to a virus. Simply put, antibodies act like a cleanup crew, assisting the body in cleaning out viruses and bacteria that are no longer needed. Meanwhile, the T cells are responsible for stimulating the B cells into making antibodies.

To understand how quickly the human body adapts when exposed to the virome, consider a seven-day-old infant. He has 1 x 108 virus particles in just one gram of feces. Even though that child does not have the capacity to develop any antibodies at such an early stage in life, he nonetheless instantly adapts to these virus particles and stays perfectly healthy. Instead of developing a fever, he remains in stable equilibrium—homeostasis—with the virome, both microbially and genetically. That fact alone proves that we do not interact with the virome through our adaptive immune system but, rather, interact with it through our innate immune system.

What is the key takeaway from these facts? To me, it is that the body’s decision to take in genetic information is a highly intricate and controlled biological process. There are numerous ways our bodies stay in equilibrium with the huge sea of genetic information that we breathe in and come into contact with every moment of our lives.

Since a virus is not a living organism, our innate immune system cannot kill viruses—nor would it want to. Instead, as mentioned above, the innate immune system simply comes into genetic balance with a new virus. It does this by replicating or receiving updates from that virus—and by immediately responding to that new viral upload. Once genetic balance has been achieved, typically four to five days after initial exposure to the virus, our innate immune system refuses to receive further updates.

From these facts, we may conclude that humans cannot stop an “epidemic” or a “pandemic” from occurring, nor can they change the trajectory of either one. In other words, it is useless—actually, worse than useless: it is harmful—to try to check an always-helpful virus by deploying an unapproved experimental gene-editing device that is designed to produce an antibody response (otherwise known as an adaptive immune system response induced by the injection). That antiquated scientific model is biologically illogical and can never work. We now know that it interferes with our beautifully designed innate immune system, which is perfectly capable of handling any virus with which we may develop a temporary imbalance. (Exactly how we develop an imbalance with a particular virus, like the HIV virus or any coronavirus, will be explained later in the book.)

Furthermore, contrary to the official narrative propagated by vaccine makers and governmental health agencies around the world, our immune systems do retain a memory of the viruses that our bodies have interacted with and of the genes that were inserted naturally—upon receiving a new viral update—into our cells. In the innate immune system, for instance, the Cas9 enzyme, which is responsible for cleaving excess DNA when too much of a viral upload is presented to a cell, is the natural memory data bank that will remember which DNA pattern it encountered.

In addition, the permanent records kept by an innate immune system are passed down to succeeding generations of humans, who therefore will never have an inflammatory-inducing reaction to a particular virus. Even in the adaptive immune system, the B cells (the source of antibodies) and T cells (the B cells’ stimulus) provide lasting immunity.

A multipronged NIH study presented by the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP) in 2008 proved conclusively that antibody immunity can last for a lifetime. In that study, a group of scientists, led by Dr. Eric Altschuler, collected blood samples from thirty-two survivors—between the ages of 91 and 101—of the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic. (Actually, the correct name for that pandemic is the Kansas Flu—its place of origin.) To their amazement, the scientists discovered that, almost a century later, all of the study’s participants still carried the antibodies to the same strain of influenza.

Based on the findings of that twenty-one-year-old study, we can dismiss the propaganda foisted upon us by the mainstream media and medical organizations. It is not true that natural immunity to the SARS-CoV-2 virus may wear off six months to a year after initial exposure. And it is not true that an experimental injection is the only way one can reach immunity. Such unfounded claims are simply ruses invented to further the avaricious agenda of the pharmaceutical industry and the other technocrats operating behind the scenes.

Bottom line: The power of natural immunity will always outperform any perceived immunity to a virus said to result from an injection, whether experimental or government-approved.

The HIV-leads-to-AIDS Hypothesis

Biologically speaking, all life on earth is built from the RNA and DNA molecular genetic sequences contained in viruses. These viruses are exquisitely designed genetic delivery systems essential to initiating and sustaining life on earth. In fact, more than 50% of the 20,000 genes inherited by today’s humans were inserted millions of years ago into the mammalian genome by these tiny marvels of nature. At least 8% of those genes were inserted by RNA retroviruses similar to the HIV retrovirus. (A retrovirus is an RNA virus which inserts a DNA copy of its genome into the host cell in order to replicate itself.) Equally intriguing is the fact that millions of years ago retroviral updates played a key role in the emergence of placental mammals.

Interestingly, a 2017 study published by the National Institute of Health (NIH) demonstrates that many of us are carrying the HIV retrovirus without even knowing it. In this study, the researchers “explored non-human sequence data from whole-genome sequencing” the blood of 8,240 adults living in the US and Europe—none of whom were ascertained to have any infectious disease. They found that a full 42% of the participants tested positive for the presence of ninety-four known viruses. These viruses included the HIV virus, the hepatitis B virus, the hepatitis C virus, and the influenza virus.

We have been trained by the medical community and the corporate-controlled media to believe that the HIV virus should predominate in people living in Sub-Saharan Africa. After all, we are told, 95% of all “HIV positive” cases come from that region of the globe. If that were the case, we would expect to see in other regions very little HIV and a far higher prevalence of, say, hepatitis C or influenza. Not so: It is just the reverse! In fact, the 2017 study found a fivefold higher prevalence of the HIV virus than of hepatitis C and influenza in those 8,240 asymptomatic Americans and Europeans. Remarkably, each one was completely in balance with the HIV virus, even though none of them had ever travelled to Africa. We must conclude from this study that not only has the world completely misunderstood the prevalence of the HIV virus in all corners of the globe but that our fear of it—and of the virome in general—is entirely unjustified.

Given that many powerful organizations, both public and private, profit from the huge grants and donations that perpetuate the endless AIDS movement, it is unsurprising that no scientific peer-reviewed study has been done to provide conclusive evidence that a virus called HIV causes a disease named AIDS. Were any such study to be undertaken, it would prove that the HIV-leads-to-AIDS hypothesis is baseless and, more to the point, fraudulent.

The question scientists should be focusing on is: What is taking place in Sub-Saharan Africa that is creating such an abnormal relationship between people living in that area and the HIV retrovirus, causing 95% of them to test HIV-positive?

For an answer to that question, we need to look at the terrain where viruses reside and stay in balance with the human body. (By “terrain” I mean a geographic area with its associated ecosystem. I am not referring here to the aforementioned Bernard/Béchamp terrain theory.) When a terrain is disrupted by anything unnatural to it—for example, poisoning of the environment by irresponsible human behaviour—the viruses become overexpressed and the body’s balance with the virome is lost.

Taking account of the terrain, we find that the number one factor common to all so-called infectious disease epidemics or pandemics is the destruction of the ecosystem. In other words, the natural terrain has been altered by irresponsible human behaviour to such an extent that our innate adaptation to all the genetic information surrounding us is undermined.

It is not that the viruses are causing a disease. Rather, it is that they are simply presenting the body with a new genetic adaptation option. The body’s innate immune system then determines how much of that new information it will absorb. If the cells are in dire need of repair—perhaps as a result of poor dietary choices, a sedentary lifestyle, or toxicity in the environment—the virus will create an inflammation event as the body goes through its regenerative process. This is usually accompanied by a fever, loss of appetite, and an elevated white blood cell count. Such an inflammatory event is what we commonly refer to as “the flu.”

What we derogatively call a viral infection or an inflammatory event—implying it is bad for the body—is actually a part of the body’s healing process. The inflammation is needed to create regeneration within the body. It is acting on behalf of the body, not against it. But if the body’s microbiome is replete instead of wanting, it will not need an update, and therefore no inflammation will take place.

In the case of Sub-Saharan Africa, the ecosystem is dying. The collapse of nutrient-rich soil systems, poor water hygiene, a lack of basic sanitation, a chronically undernourished population, and the complete elimination of traditional organic farming—overtaken by the oxymoronic Green Revolution, foisted on developing countries by industrial agriculture—have caused a large portion of that population to develop an imbalance between their innate immune system and the environment. The syndrome known as “AIDS” is an expression of that imbalance. The HIV virus, which was first discovered by French virologist Luc Montagnier, has been falsely accused of being the primary culprit responsible for AIDS—a form of guilt by association. In actual fact, the HIV virus is benign and is not trying to take over the mechanics of any cell.

The real root of the problem is that the innate immune system of the Sub-Saharan African people has been degraded by a lack of nutrition to such an extent that they are falling prey to a myriad of illnesses (tuberculosis, pneumonia, Hodgkin’s lymphoma, endocarditis, etc.), which have been collectively grouped under the single title “AIDS.” However, instead of coming to terms with the reality of what the dire ecological disaster is causing, “scientists” are blaming the HIV virus as a cover to hide decades of government and corporate environmental and economic crimes.

From the information covered thus far, we can rightly conclude that it is impossible for viruses or pathogens to create infectious disease pandemics and epidemics—for there is no such thing as an infectious disease in the traditional sense of the term—examples being “AIDS,” “Ebola,” and other unfounded “viral” pandemics. Yes, pharmaceutical propaganda has been pushing the infectious disease paradigm on world thought for centuries. But the belief that such diseases exist is no more than an outgrowth of Pasteur’s debunked germ theory. What we commonly refer to as an epidemic or a pandemic is simply the result of a degraded innate immune system showing up in a segment of the planet’s population. The reasons for this degradation can include chemical poisoning from herbicides, pesticides, or genetically modified foods, which we will look at in more detail below.

As we can see by the above description of the virome, it is no exaggeration to say that the virome is the language of all life on earth. We are literally swimming in a vast sea of genomic information that was essential for life to begin and flourish on this precious earth and that is still trying to help all species survive. The matrix of organisms that make up the microbiome have built a viromic information stream that has allowed for adaptation and biodiversity to occur on the planet. And that very same viromic information stream is responsible for building the human species.

Thus, humans are not separate from the virome and the microbiome but are, rather, integral to the virome and microbiome’s vast, complex ecosystem. Yet we have increasingly placed ourselves in direct opposition to the very living system of which we are an intrinsic part: nature.


 

Chapter II

Our War against Nature

 

In this chapter we will explore how our own reckless behaviour is destroying the environment, thereby moving us toward the sixth mass extinction. By that I mean, I will be covering the real environmental catastrophe, not the billionaire-funded “global warming/climate change” hoax initiated by the Club of Rome and further promulgated by the World Economic Forum (WEF).

The species known as Homo sapiens is the only one on this planet that is actively seeking to eradicate itself and its habitat. All of the earth’s life support systems—soil, water, and air—are in decline as a direct result of our current economic activity, which is geared to extract as much from the sacred earth as possible without any regard for the consequences that ensue.

By embracing such an intolerable economic paradigm, we fail to respect ecological and ethical limits. Our consumption-driven economic model, which we have designed and are now enslaved by, causes perpetual deficiencies—resource depletion, biodiversity loss, and contamination by toxic substances, all of which wreak perpetual havoc on the entire ecosystem and its surrounding environment. Megacorporations continue to propagate the ideology of endless economic growth, which they intend to squeeze out of a planet with finite resources and from which they alone will benefit financially. Their self-centered aims clash with the generous motives of the masses, who favor the concept of equal opportunity, including the equal right of all humans to live in a healthy environment. The billionaire set’s relentless quest for profits at the expense of everyone’s social well-being is fueling worldwide competition for resources and causing an eco-holocaust. In short, what we are witnessing is a new form of colonialism that is being imposed by the predator class on all of humanity as we enter what is commonly referred to as the sixth mass extinction.

Consider what we are doing to our fresh water. A full 80% of our planet’s surface is composed of water, of which 97% is salt water. The remaining 3% of our available supplies of drinking water have been treated so recklessly that they are highly polluted and rapidly depleting. Of that 3% fresh water, at least 29% is siphoned off by the water-intensive meat and dairy industries. The United Nations estimates that over the next decade two billion people will suffer extreme water scarcity and that by the end of this century half of the world’s population will experience some kind of water scarcity.

The mining and oil industries are no friends of the environment either. In the US, mining companies have removed over 500 mountains in the Appalachians, causing immense ground pollution and surface water pollution. In other parts of the country, drilling for shale oil and gas, called hydraulic fracturing but better known as fracking, pumps carcinogens and toxins into the air, water, and soil, further exacerbating the pollution problem. Though touted as a solution to America’s dependency on foreign oil, fracking is in fact the final act of stupidity by a petrostate.

The aforementioned meat and dairy industries do more harm than just hogging water.  Animal agriculture—encompassing huge factory farms and small family farms—is also the leading cause of greenhouse gases, deforestation, species extinction, and ocean “dead zones.” The industrial intensive farming of animals and their feed crops is largely to blame for the highest rate of species mass extinction in 65 million years. Moreover, no other industry on the planet needs as much acreage as animal agriculture: It hoards 45% of all ice-free land on the planet. According to the World Animal Foundation, 70% of the Amazon rainforest is being destroyed for the sole purpose of growing GMO soybean or corn crops that feed livestock in South America and Europe. Between 1970 and 2019, a total of 718,927 square kilometers of the Brazilian portion of the Amazon rainforest was deforested.

A few more facts to consider:

  • Fully half of the world’s grain supply is destined for food animals at the same time that one billion people face starvation.
  • In the US, 54% of all fresh water is diverted by animal agriculture at a time when 99.8% of the geographic area of California is in a critical drought.
  • Worldwide, the animal agriculture industry, which kills at least 72 billion land animals every year (200 million every day), contributes 51% of all “greenhouse gas emissions”, far exceeding the 13% contributed by all modes of transportation combined.

The most surprising “fact” about the devastation wrought by animal agriculture, though, is that almost all of the purported environmental nonprofits are silent on this issue.

The environmental calamity is even direr in the world’s oceans. The commercial fishing industry is destroying ocean life, including ocean floors, at a pace never seen in recorded history. No other industry kills more animals than this trade. A report by Matthew Zampa for Sentient Media observes that between 37 billion and 120 billion fish are killed in manmade commercial fish farms each year and at least another trillion aquatic animals living in natural water bodies are killed for food each year. Research presented on the Oceana website contends that this staggering total does not include the 100 million sharks and 650,000 whales, dolphins, and seals that are killed every year as bycatch. (Bycatch is the total number of sea animals who fishermen unintentionally catch in their nets and kill, either by discarding at sea or bringing back to port.)

As a result of all this extraction and extermination, global populations of numerous species of aquatic life are plummeting to near-extinction levels. A scientific study presented in The New York Times predicts that if commercial fishing around the world continues at its present pace, by 2048 the oceans will be practically empty.

Equally worrisome, the oceans are used as a dumping ground for manufacturing and mining enterprises around the world. It should come as no surprise that researchers at UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography have found that fish populations in the oceans are contaminated with heavy metals like mercury, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), organochlorine pesticides (DDTs and CHLs), polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), plastic compounds, and hexachlorobenzene.

Chemical Farming and GMOs

The makers of synthetic chemicals, pesticides, insecticides, herbicides, and fertilizers are among Earth’s worst enemies. The newest threat to our environment comes from genetically modified industrial crops, known as genetically modified organisms, or GMOs. With the introduction of these new crops we have accelerated our ability to manipulate nature at a rate unimaginable in any earlier era. Unfortunately, as a consequence of our meddling, we are seeing an explosion of chronic disease.

How does our aforementioned discussion of the microbiome, the virome, and immunity fit into this picture of environmental desolation?

For one thing, ever since the introduction of chemical farming and the use of GMOs on a global scale in 1996, we have altered our natural surroundings to such an extent that we are decimating our innate immune system. (Remember that date: 1996.) As a result, autoimmune and other chronic diseases that at one time affected only a minute percentage of the general population are now exploding in prevalence. The timing of this surge is not lost on us: These diseases began afflicting humans in a big way beginning in, yes, 1996. It is not farfetched, then, to conclude that the profligate use of GMOs is related to the marked decline in human health over the past two-and-a-half decades.

I’ll cite a few examples: one in four people worldwide now suffer from allergies; one in three in North America are obese; one in two women and one in three men in the US will develop cancer in their lifetime. In addition, the developmental disability termed autism spectrum disorder has risen from one in 5,000 children in 1975 to one in thirty-six in 2016. If the current trend continues, we can expect to see one in three children plagued by autism by 2035. Meanwhile, in the same time period, we have seen a dramatic rise in other immune system disorders, such as Crohn’s, celiac disease, Parkinson’s (in men), Alzheimer’s (in women), dementia, and type 1 diabetes.

GMO crops are sprayed with herbicides, such as Bayer’s Roundup, which contains the active ingredient glyphosate and which is the most ubiquitous cancer-causing herbicide/antibiotic on the planet. In 2014, over 747 million kg of glyphosate was used worldwide. Now, a mere seven years later, that figure has more than doubled, to two billion kg. Being a water-soluble compound, glyphosate contaminates ground water everywhere, from China to North America. As if that weren’t bad enough, glyphosate is also contaminating the air we breathe. A study from the US Geological Survey conducted in 2007 reveals that Roundup (aka glyphosate) and its toxic by-product aminomethylphosphonic acid (AMPA) were found in over 75% of the air samples and rain samples tested in Mississippi in 2007.

Meanwhile, the longest river in the United States, the mighty Mississippi, and its hundreds of tributaries collect more than 80% of the Roundup sprayed on crops in the entire USA. The Mississippi River is also the recipient of thousands of other chemical pollutants that are dumped into it by petrochemical companies. It’s no surprise that the people residing along the last 140 km stretch of the river, which runs through Louisiana—specifically in the Baton Rouge and New Orleans area—have some of the highest rates of cancer in the entire world.

With the Roundup patent once owned by Monsanto (now Bayer) having expired in 2000, China has become the leading user and exporter of glyphosate in the world. In 2017, China exported over 300,000 tons of glyphosate globally. It turns out that Hubei Province, where the infamous Wuhan sits, is one of the leading users of glyphosate in China. The combined toxic effects of pork production, heavy manufacturing, and chemical farming in Hubei have made this region one of the most polluted places on earth. The once-diverse and clean ecosystem in Wuhan has been utterly ravaged by manmade pollutants and the massive use of glyphosate in industrial farming.

There is an indisputable link between the current high rate of cancer and the extensive use of glyphosates. Within a single generation, the rate of cancer diagnosed in men has doubled. Paralleling that rise, in the 25 years (roughly a generation) between 1990 and 2015, the toxicity of the environment also doubled.

Statistical data compiled by Nancy L. Swanson et al. in the Journal of Organic Systems provides overwhelming evidence of a precise correlation, from 1975 to 2010, between glyphosate usage and the incidence of many different types of cancer, including urinary/bladder cancer, liver cancer, thyroid cancer, and myeloid leukemia. The graphs presented in the Swanson study show that the increased prevalence of cancer perfectly overlaps the increased use of glyphosate.

Another link that cannot be ignored is the decline in male sperm counts in Western countries. Shanna Swan, an epidemiologist at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York and a leading scholar of reproductive health, projects that sperm counts of the median man are set to hit zero by 2045. With the introduction of endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs), male sperm counts have dropped 50% to 60%—an average of 1% to 2% per year—between 1973 and 2011. Granted, endocrine-disruptor microplastics in our drinking water pose a problem, but that problem pales in comparison with the damaging effects of chemical farming and the use of glyphosate, contends internal medicine, endocrinology, and metabolism specialist Zach Bush, MD, on his Global Health Education website.

Moreover, writes Dr. Bush, “glyphosate functions as a potent chelation agent, locking up the nutrients within soil, plant, and water systems such that we can now find ourselves in the equivalent biologic state of starvation in the midst of the most extreme caloric excess that humanity has ever produced.”

Worldwide warnings from other scientists, doctors, and environmentalists abound. For instance, Dr. Vandana Shiva, an environmental and food sovereignty activist and ecofeminist based in Delhi, India, has been continually cautioning, in books and articles she pens and in speeches and interviews she gives around the world, that GMOs have ruined soil and plant life by inhibiting their ability to maintain microorganisms and minerals, such as zinc, iron, and magnesium, which are vital for immune response in animals and humans. In her 2012 opinion piece titled “Myths About Industrial Agriculture,” Dr. Shiva cited a 1995 study that found industrial agriculture (which began in 1965) to be responsible for 75% of the earth’s biodiversity erosion, 75% of its water destruction, and 40% of its greenhouse gases, while producing only 30% of humans’ food supply.

Ever since the mid-1990s, industrial/chemical farming has decimated the microbiome in the soil on a global scale. Consider: In 2014, a senior United Nations official, Maria-Helena Semendo of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), explained to a forum that unless new approaches to farming were developed, the global amount of arable and productive land per person in 2050 will be only one-quarter of the 1960 level. Also consider: In a study conducted by Lancaster University in September 2020, researchers found that 90% of the earth’s conventionally farmed soils were thinning, and 16% of them had a lifespan of less than a century.

In short, the aforementioned reduction in male sperm counts, combined with soil degradation around the globe, are the two key factors that are driving humanity toward extinction.

Every time we spray Roundup or any of the other even-more-toxic herbicides that are now being widely used—such as 2,4-D (2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic is a primary ingredient in the chemical warfare herbicide widely known as Agent Orange) or dicamba (an herbicide 200 times more toxic than the glyphosate in Roundup)—we are destroying the microbiome in the soil, in weeds and plants, in animals, and in our own microbiome. And, to hammer home a previously made point, Roundup disperses not only in the soil but also in the air. So do its rival products.

Lamentably, herbicides are not the only toxic substance found in the air we breathe. Many other pollutants—mercury, arsenic, sulfur, and cyanide, to name but four—likewise circulate in the atmosphere. These toxins, which are produced by the transportation and energy sectors, are adept at binding with carbon particulate matter. Fine carbon particulate, referred to as PM2.5 (that is, particulate matter that is less than 2.5 micrograms per cubic meter, or 100 times thinner than a human hair), is a by-product of burning fuel and chemical reactions. It is of particular concern to human health when levels of PM2.5 in the air are high, as these two 2017 studies from the NIH National Library of Medicine and The New England Journal of Medicine demonstrate.

It turns out that not only toxins bind to PM2.5; so do viruses. Before the Industrial Revolution, viruses dispersed themselves equally throughout the atmosphere. However, now that carbon particulate matter is ubiquitous in the air, viruses are abnormally concentrating themselves around this substance. The greater the concentration of PM2.5, the greater the concentration of viral material.

Every single year, beginning in the last week of September and ending by late June, nature goes into its sleep cycle in the Northern Hemisphere. During this period, concentrations of carbon particulate and CO2 emissions and other pollutants that would normally be absorbed by trees, plants, oceans, and soil are unable to be absorbed. The result is very high concentrations of pollutants traveling in an easterly direction with the wind currents. (Along for the ride: clumps of spiked viruses that have hooked themselves onto the carbon particulates.) Compounding the problem—and reminiscent of the damaging effects of chemical farming—are increased concentrations of PM2.5 in areas where the soil has been degraded to the point that its living, breathing microbiome has lost the ability to absorb carbon at any time of year, regardless of the season.

Through NASA satellite imagery, we can see, starting in mid-October every year, a huge plume of carbon material floating from the heavy-industry hubs in China and other industrial regions of the world and dispersing in an easterly flow pattern across the Northern Hemisphere. By the month of May, this toxic haze blankets the Northern Hemisphere. You can check out IQAir for real-time data analysis of PM2.5 toxicity around the world.

Strangely, what we call “the seasonal flu” perfectly coincides with the time period when nature goes into its sleep cycle in the Northern Hemisphere. During the months we refer to as “flu season,” our bodies are more apt to experience an inflammatory event—fever, congestion, coughs, and a loss of appetite. This phenomenon takes place as our bodies adapt and come into balance with the industrial toxins in the environment. When summer arrives in late June, nature resumes its regenerative cycle: The plumes of PM2.5 slowly dissipate and finally disappear, reducing our risk of respiratory illness. That is why we seldom, if ever, experience influenza during the summer months in the Northern Hemisphere. Hence, by following the carbon particulate flows, we can actually map out and predict exactly where the hot spots of respiratory infections, of “pandemics,” and of seasonal influenza will occur.


 

Chapter III

What Happened in 2020

 

We will now examine how this real environmental devastation has contributed to the “pandemic” that was rolled out in 2020—a “pandemic” that led to the mass experimental injection of unknown substances into human “subjects” in 2021 and that has no foreseeable end. (Throughout this book, I have been putting quote marks around “pandemic” because of its fraudulent character. Indeed, it is more accurately and aptly described as a plandemic, a scamdemic, a pseudo pandemic or any other term indicating fakery.)

In the months leading up to 2020, the earth experienced a series of unprecedented wildfires from Australia to the Amazon and from Indonesia to California. In California alone, the wildfire season of 2019 destroyed more than 250,000 acres of land, along with 732 structures. All told, global wildfires in 2019 sent 7.8 billion metric tons of CO2 and carbon particulate into the stratosphere—the highest level of PM2.5 since 2002. Once in the stratosphere, the carbon particulate was able to travel thousands of kilometers from its source. Many cities around the globe, such as Canberra, Wuhan, New York, and Milan, experienced extremely low air quality as a result of the extremely high levels of PM2.5.

It turns out that one of the most toxic substances generated by the combustion of synthetics such as plastics, nylon, wool, and silk—combustion caused either by wildfires or by industrial chemical reactions—is cyanide. Specifically, hydrogen cyanide gas. Cyanide is a highly toxic agent that causes vascular hypoxia and even death if not treated properly.

Thus, as we entered “flu season” in the latter half of 2019 and the start of 2020, we had the perfect storm of toxicity circulating the globe. The abnormally high levels of PM2.5, in conjunction with high levels of industrial by-products like sulfur, mercury, arsenic, carbon, glyphosate, and cyanide, created ideal conditions for suppressing the innate immune system, especially in the frail and elderly, who are in many instances already dealing with serious underlying medical conditions.

To make matters worse, most of the patients afflicted with these underlying conditions—hypertension, diabetes, obesity, coronary artery disease, and renal disease—are placed on commonly prescribed drugs, which include angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors (ACE-I) to control blood pressure and statins to lower cholesterol. However, we now know, thanks to a study first published on March 31, 2020, in the American Journal of Physiology Heart and Circulatory Physiology (Volume 318, Issue 5), that ACE-I and statin drugs upregulate the angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) receptor by which the coronavirus enters the body. ACE2 is a protein that sits on the surface of many types of cells in the human body, including the intestine, kidney, uterus, testes, brain, heart, and, most importantly for our coverage of this topic, the lungs and nasal and oral mucosa.

The ACE2 enzyme plays an important role in helping the body to regulate blood pressure and in the healing of wounds and inflammation. In addition, the ACE2’s amino acids help capture and chop up a harmful protein called angiotensin II, which drives up blood pressure and damages tissues. That is why physicians in the Western world will normally prescribe ACE-I in an effort to boost ACE2 expression, thereby reducing the risk of high blood pressure. What’s more, when the ACE2 enzyme is upregulated, it can very easily capture—or snag—any one of the numerous spike proteins emanating from the surface of a coronavirus.

Gain-of-Function Research

While we are on the topic of spike proteins, I would like to make a few comments, in the form of a Q&A, on gain-of-function (GoF) research in this field. Gain-of-function research, which in October 2021 was intentionally and misleadingly redefined by the National Institute of Health (NIH) to enhanced potential pandemic pathogens (EPPPs), is research that seeks to alter the functional characteristics of a virus with the aim of enhancing a viruses’ ability to infect a species and to potentially increase its impact as an airborne pathogen.

By making a virus more “deadly,” it is believed that it could then be used as a biological warfare weapon (bioweapon) against a potential foe. We know there are GoF labs in Wuhan, China, and at the US Army installation at Fort Detrick, Maryland. (As of 2018, at least fifteen other countries beside the US and China, including Canada, the UK, France, Israel, Germany, and Russia, had documented biological weapons programs and bioweapon research laboratories.)

(1) Is it possible that either both or one of the Wuhan and Ft. Detrick labs may have manipulated one of the spike proteins on a coronavirus that would make it even more apt to connect to the ACE2 receptor, as this document from the Human Microbiology Institute in New York suggests? Absolutely.

(2) Does Dr. Anthony Fauci have deep financial ties to the Wuhan lab through his position as director, since 1984, of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious diseases (NIAID)? Absolutely.

(3) By extension, is the US government either indirectly or directly involved in funding the Institute of Virology in Wuhan? Absolutely.

(4) Have both Dr. Fauci and University of North Carolina GoF specialist Ralph Baric received millions of dollars in research grants from several federal agencies—NIH, DARPA, and NIAID—to study GoF in coronaviruses, as this dossier by Dr. David Martin clearly outlines? Absolutely.

Nevertheless, we mustn’t lose sight of the fact that all of this coverage of GoF may actually be a cleverly disguised psychological operation meant to conveniently distract us from the fact that we have zeropeer-reviewed scientific proof that a coronavirus causes the respiratory syndrome known as COVID-19.

In addition, the sudden, intense media focus on Dr. Fauci and the Wuhan connection may be a tactic designed to deflect the blame to China for creating the “crisis,” all the while cleverly obscuring the fact that numerous players from many nations and organizations, like the WEF, the World Health Organisation (WHO), and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, are working in concert with China to enslave all of humanity in a technocratic dystopian nightmare.

Or, is it possible that the real gain-of-function bioweapons are the unapproved experimental injections (called COVID-19 vaccines) now being rolled out around the world? Time will tell.

Toxins or Viral Infections?

Returning to the events of 2020, we can see that by upregulating the ACE2 receptor that is sitting on the surfaces of the lungs and nasal mucosa, we made it very easy for a coronavirus, in conjunction with the PM2.5 particles that were carrying with them cyanide and other possible pollutants, to get snagged and pulled into the respiratory track. Once in the respiratory track, the toxins eventually go into the bloodstream and enter the body’s red blood cells. When a toxin enters the red blood cell, it changes the shape of the hemoglobin protein that carries the oxygen in the red blood cell and causes the red blood cell to become unable to carry oxygen. This process literally starves the body of oxygen. Therefore, with that combination of variables, the stage was set in the latter half of 2019 for the perfect delivery system enabling cyanide poisoning to take place.

Cyanide poisoning causes a condition known as histotoxic hypoxia. The condition includes these symptoms:

  • Changes in the colour of the skin (ranging from blue to red)
  • Confusion
  • Cough
  • Elevated heart rate
  • Rapid breathing
  • Shortness of breath (loss of red blood cells’ capacity to carry oxygen)
  • Sweating

Consequently, in late 2019 and the early part of 2020, health professionals in Hubei Province, in northern Italy, in the New York metropolitan area, and elsewhere were dealing with patients who were presenting symptoms of cyanide poisoning. As outlined by an April 2020 JAMA article, these symptoms have all the hallmarks of histotoxic hypoxia but none of the symptoms of either pneumonia or respiratory failure. In other words, they had no fever (afebrile), no fluid buildup in the lungs, and no white blood cell elevation (which one would expect to see if there were an infection present).

We must conclude, then, that these patients in acute distress, many of whom were in their senior years, had to have been initially suffering from hypoxia, not from pneumonia and not from respiratory failure. The pneumonia and micro blood clots, which eventually killed them, occurred several days or weeks after the initial poisoning event—and that was only because their innate immune system had been so weakened that their bodies succumbed to the cascading effects of secondary infections.

Incidentally, all of the people who were acutely affected by SARS in 2002 and by MERS in 2012 showed the same symptoms of histotoxic hypoxia—not of viral infection. That is to say, their symptoms were identical to the acute cases in 2020 of what was erroneously labeled COVID-19.

Ultimately, most of the patients hospitalized in 2020 died from a toxicology event—which was misleadingly named “COVID-19” after what was called a new strain of coronavirus—not from the so-named infectious disease. Even at the height of the “pandemic,” the purported COVID-19 accounted for a very small percentage of the total deaths in Italy and elsewhere.

Fortunately, the reported overall infection mortality rate of the COVID-19 syndrome is only slightly higher than the alleged seasonal flu. Equally fortunately (though not for its victims), the syndrome posed a danger to only one major population group—elderly people who had two or more major chronic diseases. The presence of comorbidities—heart disease, stroke, and lung cancer—made up the vast majority of their deaths. But for people under age 70 without these comorbidities, the risk of dying in a car accident is higher than the risk of dying from what is being billed as the disease COVID-19. Indeed, severe illness and death from COVID-19 occurred only in younger people who had immune deficiency disorders—obesity, diabetes, autoimmune diseases, and hereditary immunodeficiencies.

Nevertheless, these deaths, though tragic, in no way justify any government violating citizens’ natural rights. These rights include the freedom to:

  • move about (including leaving one’s home at any time of day or night)
  • travel (including between states, provinces, countries, and continents)
  • associate (that is, gather with friends and family in person)
  • assemble (in peaceful protests against unjust edicts, corrupt practices, and censorship)
  • worship (including meeting together with fellow believers)
  • express one’s individuality (including choosing whether or not to wear a mask)
  • enjoy bodily autonomy (including not being psychologically coerced or physically forced into receiving experimental injections of any kind)
  • stay in business (instead of being deemed by tyrannical politicians and public health bureaucrats to be “nonessential”—a label that forced millions of small companies to shut their doors, often permanently).

Dr. Bush summarizes the cases of severe acute respiratory illnesses he saw in 2020 this way:

“Unfortunately, we didn’t look at this as a poisoning; we looked at this as an infection. We kept believing that these people who were dying were dying of infection. I believe they were very clearly being overloaded with PM2.5 bound to cyanide that was being trafficked into the lung environment and ultimately into the bloodstream by the virus. The virus is naturally designed to actually enter the body through lung and vascular tissue and neural tissue like our nasal sinuses. We see all of this loss of taste and scent in people exposed to this virus because it’s trafficking through the ACE2 receptor on the surfaces of all these tissues. The ACE2 receptor binds to the coronavirus and pulls cyanide straight into the [red blood] cell to poison the human body with high amounts of air pollution that were not being breathed in but were literally being smart-targeted into the bloodstream by the innocent bystander of a virus that was in our environment for a very long time.”

From his detailed description, we can clearly see that people were dying from environmental toxicity, not from a viral infection. That is precisely why there is no scientific, peer-reviewed study providing conclusive evidence that a virus called SARS-CoV-2 causes a fatal disease named COVID-19. Such evidence doesn’t exist, because the coronavirus, so-called, is not out to harm anyone but is merely presenting a viral update to those who need it.

Not surprisingly, as of November 30, 2021, 127 health/science institutions in over twenty-five countries have failed to provide or cite even one record describing the purification of the alleged SARS-CoV-2 virus from any patient sample. Though some scientists—notably, in Australia, China, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, and New Zealand—claim to have purified a coronavirus from a patient sample, upon closer examination, their allegations appear to be baseless in light of the meticulous research conducted by biostatistician Christine Massey, M.Sc.

Calling upon that research, Massey has sent, over the span of a year, numerous Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to more than one hundred health institutions around the world. The results of her requests are alarming, yet not surprising. All of the responses confirm that there is, as she puts it, no record of “isolation/purification of SARS-CoV-2 having been performed by anyone, ever, anywhere on the planet.”

(For those of you who are unfamiliar with the isolation/purification procedure, I refer you to Dr. Andrew Kaufman’s analysis of the process. He uses six criteria (developed by Dr. Thomas Rivers, who modified Koch’s postulates) for detecting viral disease in the following manner: first, isolate the virus from the diseased host; second, cultivate the virus in host cells; third, provide proof of filterability; fourth, produce the same disease in a new host; fifth, re-isolate the virus; sixth, detect a specific immune response to the virus.)

Also, according to Massey’s research, not only has the original SARS-CoV-2 never been isolated/purified, but it is no surprise that, as of this book’s publication, no lab had isolated/purified samples of the alleged “Delta variant” either.

Most importantly, the World Health Organisation—the main fear-mongering machine driving people into a state of panic by its unsubstantiated claims—does not have in its possession an isolate of the original 2019 novel coronavirus, nor does it have in its possession an isolate from any other variant—including the latest “Omicron variant.”

What the WHO does have in its possession, though, is a computer-generated genomic sequence of the purported 2003 SARS-CoV virus, transmitted in early 2020 by Dr. Christian Drosten and his colleagues from the Berlin Virology Institute at Charité Hospital (an institution that, not incidentally, is generously financed by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation). Eurosurveillance, a weekly peer-reviewed medical journal based in Europe, confirmed this point at the onset of the pseudo pandemic on January 23, 2020, when it made the following assertion:

“We report on the establishment and validation of a diagnostic workflow for 2019-nCoV screening and specific confirmation [using the RT-PCR test], designed in absence of available virus isolates or original patient specimens. Design and validation were enabled by the close genetic relatedness to the 2003 SARS-CoV, and aided by the use of synthetic nucleic acid technology.”

Therefore, given the preceding facts, we can conclude that, not only has no one isolated/purified the virus, but there is no scientific evidence to support the fraudulent claim that we are dealing with a “novel” variant of the 2002/03 SARS coronavirus.

Summary of 2020 Scenarios

We had two different scenarios taking place in 2020. I will summarize each below.

In one scenario, we saw people with an inflammatory event marked by fever, congestion, loss of appetite, elevated white blood cell count, and malaise. All of these symptoms are what would be expected when a possible new variant of a coronavirus or any other virus triggers the innate immune system—and eventually the adaptive immune system—to do what it always does in order to bring us back into balance with a new genomic update from a virus. Let’s remember, coronaviruses provide genetic information that regenerates our bodies; they work on our behalf and are not infecting us with diseases.

In the other scenario, we saw people with serious, sometimes multiple comorbidities eventually succumbing to a toxicology event, as described by Dr. Bush in the long quotation above.

Granted, in both scenarios the coronavirus is present, but only benignly. As I clarified earlier, a virus does not try to take over the mechanics of any cell in the body. It does not cause or force anything. It is simply present—another example of guilt by association, just like the false link between the HIV virus and AIDS that I related in Chapter One.

However, instead of differentiating between the two scenarios, public health officials everywhere, instructed by the utterly corrupt WHO leadership, conveniently grouped them under a single category: COVID-19. They did this by using the monstrously inappropriate and inaccurate RT-PCR test, which its inventor Kary Mullis insisted (before his untimely death in August 2019) was not meant to diagnose disease but was designed simply to ascertain the presence of a viral load.

Despite its easy-to-falsify-and-thus-frequently-falsified results, the PCR test is still being used around the world as a replacement for clinical analysis. Why? The only logical answer is that testing for the coronavirus is a form of control meant to create public hysteria. Not understanding that most positive readings are fraudulent, that the scary words “positive case” do not signify the presence of an infection, and that asymptomatic people can neither have nor spread disease, the public has been deceived into believing that a dangerous pathogen is killing a large percentage of the population. Therefore, what we are witnessing, in reality, is nothing more than a pandemic of “PCR test positive cases,” not of “COVID-19 positive cases.”

By fanning fear, governments around the world have been able to justify harmful, totally ineffective lockdown measures and mask mandates as well as nonsensical physical distancing measures.

But why intentionally induce panic and why clamp down like dictators?

Politicians and public health officials must be either obeying threatening orders or taking irresistible bribes or just following instructions from their superiors, naïvely believing that they are doing the “right thing” in the interest of public safety. In most cases, they have to be induced, by hook or by crook, to persuade citizens to take part in the largest medical experiment in history—a worldwide mass “vaccination” campaign devised for the purpose of injecting every compliant human with an untested, unapproved, experimental gene-therapy called COVID-19 mRNA. (In many places, like parts of Europe, parts of North America, Saudi Arabia, China, and Tajikistan, even the unwilling are compelled to submit to the COVID-19 needle.)

The parallels between the “AIDS epidemic” and the “COVID-19 pandemic” are too striking to ignore. Both feature, as the central actor, a benign virus that can conveniently be blamed as the root cause of a professed disease, despite the absence of any peer-reviewed, truly scientific evidence to support that assertion. Also, in both cases the virus can be used as a cover to obscure decades of environmental degradation spawned by government and corporate entities, whose ringleaders never pay for their crimes in fines or jail time. Finally, in both cases, the virus story provides immense profits to the global pharmaceutical industry, which is never held financially liable for the injuries and deaths caused by its vaccines or its drugs—the latter as long as they are not discovered to be the real cause of death (think AZT).


 

Chapter IV

Ignoring the Wreckage

 

Instead of coming to terms with how we are destroying our habitat, instead of learning the lessons nature has been trying to teach us over the past twenty months, most of us have ignored the wreckage and have refused to be taught. If anything, humanity has only intensified its war against nature during the past year’s pseudo pandemic.

For example, since January of 2020, 129 billion face masks (most of them made from polypropylene) and 65 billion latex gloves have been disposed of every month, according to a study published in Environmental Science & Technology. A significant portion of this waste will eventually end up in the world’s oceans, where it will take the form of polluting microplastics. Then there are the billions upon billions of plastic and paper food containers that have been used—and discarded—as a result of the pandemic-created surge in takeout food orders when restaurants were closed to dine-in customers.

And that’s only part of the environmental damage being wrought by this scam of all scams. Governments around the world—notably, in China and Italy—are spraying cancer-causing biocides into the atmosphere. That act of madness, an effort to contain or destroy the unjustifiably feared virus, subjects pedestrians to still more harmful chemicals. These disinfectants will eventually end up in the tap water of millions of households. In short, we have no idea of the consequences that biocides may be having on the microbiome and on our long-term health.

Medical Professionals Silenced

Meanwhile, hundreds if not thousands of medical professionals and scientists around the world have dared to stand on their oath to do no harm and to follow their conscience by telling the truth about the devastating consequences of adhering to the fake pandemic’s mandates.

These brave men and women—all of whom are either physicians or PhDs and thus have the title “Dr.”—include Robert Malone, inventor of the mRNA and DNA vaccine technology; pediatrician Lawrence Palevsky; primary care physician Vladimir Zelenko; former NIAID scientist Judy Mikovits; attorney, physician, and America’s Frontline Doctors founder Simone Gold; family physician Stephen Malthouse; microbiologist Sucharit Bhakdi; associate professor of viral immunology Byram Bridle; pediatrician Paul Thomas; cardiologist Richard Fleming; emergency room and family physician Patrick Philips; pathologist Roger Hodkinson; and former Pfizer Chief Science Officer Mike Yeadon, to name but a few.

Each has raised serious concerns about the potential side effects these never-tested-or-approved-or-used “vaccines” may have on human health. And, for speaking out, each is being threatened and censored and worse. Collectively, their apprehensions range from (1) the possible effects that Lipid Nano Particles (LNPs) may be having on the human brain to (2) how the use of polyethylene glycol (PEG) may be causing anaphylactoid immune reactions to (3) how the artificially induced spike proteins that travel throughout the human body may be producing blood clotting disorders in different parts of the body to (4) how these excess spike proteins, which are a neurovascular toxin to the body, may be causing myocarditis (inflammation of the heart muscle) in children and young adults.

One way medical practitioners are being bullied is through the strong-arm tactics of the agencies that licence them to practice. For instance, Canada’s College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO) issued an ominous statement in late April 2020 threatening to remove the licence to practice medicine of any doctor who publicly spoke out against—or even raised questions about—the harmful side effects of lockdowns and/or the COVID vaccines that they witnessed while working on the frontlines in their local hospitals and communities. In the US, the process of removing a doctor’s license is slightly different, but the end result is the same. Each state has its own Medical Board that can temporarily suspend a medical license without a hearing if “the Board finds that Licensee’s conduct has breached the standard of care and has placed the health and safety of many of his patients at risk of harm.”

Other attempts to prevent vital scientific information from reaching the public include the discrediting and stifling of medical practitioners, doctors, and scientists by Big Tech mainstream social media platforms like Google’s YouTube. This should come as no surprise, since Google, which was created by the CIA, also has major ties to pharmaceutical companies like GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), registered in England. These individuals are also being deplatformed from Facebook—another DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency)/CIA-created private company—as well as by Instagram, Amazon Web Services (AWS), LinkedIn, and Twitter.

Alternative Treatments Available?

Worse yet, doctors have faced extreme censorship for providing evidence that there are indeed viable, effective, and inexpensive treatments for COVID-19—treatments that obviate the need for a “vaccine.” For instance, all of the physicians mentioned above, plus hundreds more from many countries, have not only praised but have repeatedly demonstrated the effectiveness of anti-malarial drugs chloroquine (CQ) and hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) and other remedies like Ivermectin, azithromycin, doxycycline, and zinc, in treating their COVID-19 patients. They have proven, for example, that CQ and HCQ, when administered in small prescribed doses, exert relatively few to no adverse effects. Numerous studies out of South Korea, China, and France bear further witness to that fact.

Nevertheless, government health agencies—the FDA, the NIH, and the CDC in the US, the MHRA in the UK, and Health Canada—as well as the WHO continually ban these inexpensive treatments, try to discourage people from using them, and, with the mainstream media’s complicity, make provably false claims about them.

To find out why this suppression of effective treatments is occurring, we need look no further than the FDA’s Emergency Use Authorization for Vaccines (EUA) to Prevent COVID-19 that was issued in October 2020. On page six of this document, under Section lll, Criteria and Consideration for the Issuance of an EUA for a COVID-19 Vaccine, the last bullet point clearly states that the FDA may issue an EUA only if the FDA has determined that “there is no adequate, approved, and available alternative to the product for diagnosing, preventing, or treating the disease or condition.” This statement means that the entire premise of the EUA is based on a presupposition that there is no alternative intervention available.

In reality, there are several inexpensive off-patent products to choose from, as we cited above—and as the FDA well knows. However, if it were to allow a cheap and readily available product like HCQ to dominate the market, the pharmaceutical industry—which appears to dictate policy to the FDA—would stand to lose billions in sales of COVID-19 vaccines.

So, is greed behind Big Pharma’s concealment of life-saving information on these efficacious alternative products? Most assuredly. And will Big Pharma’s cozy relationships with government agencies (think “revolving door,” “regulatory capture,” and “big payoffs”) and with the news media (heavily dependent upon pharmaceutical advertising) continue to prevent word of the alternatives from reaching the public? It would seem so. In other words, the EUA for the COVID-19 vaccines would surely have run into a major roadblock had the truth about other cures and treatments been allowed to be widely shared instead of censored, ignored, and hidden.

Inconvenient Data

But because that truth has been suppressed, “COVID-19 vaccine” deaths are mounting. As of September 2021, at least 24,000 people in the twenty-seven countries comprising the European Union (EU) have died from being injected with these gene-altering devices, according to data collected by EudraVigilance. In the US, meanwhile, more than 19,000 people have succumbed to the shots, according to the data supplied to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS).

The US figure is shocking: It means that these experimental injections have caused more deaths in a six-month period than has the combination of seventy different approved vaccines in circulation over the last thirty years. As if that weren’t bad enough, a Harvard Pilgrim Health Care study concluded that only 1% of injuries and deaths from all vaccines in the US are ever reported to VAERS. Even if the reporting is as high as 10%, that’s still low compared to the actual statistics.

Equally dire, VAERS data reveals there has been a fiftyfold increase in ectopic pregnancies following the introduction of the gene-therapy COVID-19 injections. That is, fifty times more pregnant women have suffered from this condition after taking the COVID-19 shot than they did from all vaccines given to them over the previous thirty years. (Ectopic pregnancy, also referred to as extrauterine pregnancy, is when a fertilized egg grows outside a woman’s uterus, somewhere else in her belly. It is life-threatening to the mother and needs medical attention immediately.)

Yet the COVID-19 gene-modification injections are still being aggressively pushed by the propagandists and their unscientific, unproven theories—and this despite overwhelming evidence that asymptomatic spread is not possible; that to remain healthy we do not need these injections, which have been proven to be neither safe nor effective; that COVID-19 is nowhere near as life-threatening as it was predicted to be; and that children need no protection from this virus. Besides, notwithstanding their insistence to the contrary, there is no proof that SARS-CoV-2 exists, much less causes COVID-19.

Governments around the world continue to bribe, threaten, and coerce citizens—in direct violation of the Nuremburg Code and only ostensibly “in the interest of public health”—into submitting to these injections. For instance, on December 1, 2021, the president of the European Commission (EC), Ursula von der Leyen, urged European Union member states to consider implementing mandatory COVID jabs within the EU. Since one-third of Europe’s population is not “vaccinated,” this draconian measure, if put into effect, would strip approximately 150 million people of their right to bodily autonomy.

Those of us who have been researching and reading about this subject since its inception know that it has never been about preserving public health. It has always been about the goal of implementing a global biosecurity plan and a transhumanist control grid that, if allowed to come to fruition, would signify the end of the human species.

This manufactured crisis has provided the perfect launching pad for biodigital convergence to take place. For those of you who think the notion of combining the human body with digital systems is hyperbole or fantasy, may I draw your attention to the “Exploring Biodigital Convergence” paper issued February 11, 2020, by Policy Horizons Canada. The document indicates that the Canadian policy steering committee has discussed the frightening concept of altering the evolution of the human body through the integration of biological and digital nano-technologies. Indeed, it turns out that the broad genetic modification of the human species being engineered by the experimental COVID-19 injections is just the first phase of this transhumanist convergence.

As if the Canadian paper were not alarming enough, elsewhere an even greater menace to humanity is being rolled out. In May of 2021, the UK Ministry of Defence issued a “Human Augmentation—The Dawn of a New Paradigm” document. It was worked on by the UK’s Development, Concept and Doctrine Centre (DCDC) in partnership with the German Bundeswehr Office for Defence Planning. Their purpose is “to understand the future implications of human augmentation (HA), setting the stage for more detailed defence research and development.” By incorporating research from German, Swedish, Finnish, and UK defence specialists, the DCDC project attempts to better apprehend how emerging technologies, such as genetic engineering, brain-computer interfaces, and bioinformatics, can further enhance security and defence capabilities. Although it is being touted as a strategic tool for military use, HA will undoubtedly, like the development of so many military programs throughout history, be eventually deployed for use in the civilian sector.

The vaccine passports (vaxxports) being rolled out by a large number of national governments are just the tip of the dystopian iceberg. Granted, for the moment they are being used only as a tool to punish individuals who refuse to surrender their bodily autonomy to the biomedical gene editing injection. But vaxxports will soon extend beyond that purpose: They are the transition from our would-be controllers not being able to completely dominate us (by not complying, we manage to retain some of our individual autonomy and sovereignty) to our total subservience to the IoT (Internet of Things) and IoB (Internet of Bodies) and the CBDC (Central Bank Digital Currency). In the latter stage, unelected technocrat rulers become our supreme masters and we their “own nothing and be happy” slaves.

I must say in no uncertain terms: The transhumanist projects in Canada, in the UK/Europe, and likely surreptitiously in other countries, combined with our willful destruction of the ecosystem, are the two greatest existential threats facing humanity today. Perhaps ever.

Concluding Remarks

We are being relentlessly bombarded by a belief that lays blame squarely on one ancient virus (including its variants) as the sole culprit causing a global health crisis. Yet there exists not a shred of evidence proving that the virus called SARS-CoV-2 causes a disease named COVID-19. This myopic view is preventing us from understanding the true, helpful nature of viruses, as we have detailed above. For, viruses are our friends.

Moreover, this view is blinding us to the real ecological disaster unfolding around us, which viruses are trying to help us uncover and recover from. Not only is humanity marching towards its own extinction but it is also moving rapidly away from science and is instead suffocating in technocratic anti-science dogma—a dogma that has turned into a rigid religion whose adherents worship many deities, two of whom are named “Vaccines” and “Technology.”

As I observed at the beginning of this book, we are living in unprecedented times, in which humans can be genetically altered beyond recognition and the natural world is being ravaged almost beyond repair.

Yet, though these threats are lethal, there are also signs of hope. It is not too late to envision another possible path—one that does not point to our doom but, rather, invites us to accept that humanity has been made, from the beginning, to be an intrinsic part of nature. If we learn from the errors of our ways, we have a window of opportunity to step back from the abyss of transhumanism and species extinction. We can instead embrace our beautiful planet with all of its glorious biodiversity—an earth teeming with abundant life that offers a glimpse of the perfect universe made by God, Spirit, and bestowed on divinity’s spiritual creation.

Let us allow our good earth and our innate goodness to be made apparent instead of obscured and eventually annihilated. Earth and every man, woman, child, and creature inhabiting it are actually infinite, eternal, divine ideas created by an infinite, eternal, divine Mind. It is time for us to acknowledge this truth—and demonstrate it in our lives.


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First published on April 23, 2023

The Pandemic Treaty  scheduled for May 27, 2024 must be the object of a Worldwide mass movement against the Globalists Power Grab 

*** 

Mr. Andrew Bridgen, Member UK Parliament, slams the new WHO International Health Regulation (IHR) and Pandemic Treaty as an unheard-of Power Grab – robbing all 194 WHO, member countries, the entire world, of their sovereignty over national health issues.

The new IHR and the Pandemic Treaty would be transferring the authority to decide what is a pandemic and what deserves the status of a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC), and literally how any matters of health ought to be treated – a limitless mandate of dictates – to the Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO).

The WHO Director General may call an outright prohibition with punishment on using “WHO-banned” medication, even though proven effective. This is precisely what happened during COVID. Medical doctors and pharmacies were not allowed to prescribe, recommend, and sell medication that was effective against COVID, because WHO prohibited to do so.

This WHO power would be expanded as an International Law, or rather as a “rules-based order”, the new tyrannical term chosen by the elite, to circumvent literally any national and international laws.

Both the IHR and the Pandemic Treaty will be voted on by the upcoming World Health Assembly, from 21-30 May 2023. The vote is planned on 24 May 2023. A two-thirds majority is needed by the 194-member delegates to pass.

See this 20-min video of Mr. Andrew Bridgen, UK Member of Parliament, explaining to the UK Parliament why the new WHO IHR and Pandemic Treaty must be voted against.

This universal authority over world health issues would rest solely in the hands of a non- medical doctor, nor health scientist, Bill Gates-implanted WHO General Director, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who was previously a Board member of GAVI, the Vaccination Alliance and close partner of WHOs. GAVI is a creation of and funded by Bill Gates.

WHO is registered as a UN agency, which it is not really. WHO was created in 1948 at the behest of David Rockefeller (1915 – 2017), a known eugenist and globalist, to control the world population’s “health” – and death.

WHO has full immunity from criminal prosecution, and its senior employees have diplomatic and tax-free status in Switzerland.

WHO is more than 80% funded by private sources, mostly from the pharmaceuticals industry, the Gates Foundation, and other private sponsors. WHO is clearly working for the interests of its donors, mostly the pharmaceuticals and Bill Gates, also an eugenist – not for the people.

We have seen how badly – or better, criminally – WHO has handled COVID since the beginning of 2020, with worldwide lockdowns, social distancing, tremendous fear-mongering, destroying economies, people’s livelihoods, and causing death, not by COVID but by fear-induced diseases, depression and misery, for a disease which at the worst is very similar to the annual flu. And for a virus that to this date has NEVER been isolated.

And later, in December 2020, by imposing and coercing every government in the world to force its people to get injected with what they called a vaccine, a gene-modifying trial vaxx of the mRNA-type, never tested before. People were threatened and lost their jobs, were banned from public places – and much worse – if they would not submit to the untested, dangerous and even deadly vaxxes.

According to WHO’s orders, COVID hit the entire world, all its 194 member states at once, thus, justifying declaring on 16 March 2020 general lockdowns around the globe. This is an absolute impossibility. Even if a virus would exist – let me repeat, the COVID “virus” was NEVER isolated – a virus does not hit the entire globe at the same time.

As of March 16, 2020, the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health (JHSPH) reports 179,165 confirmed “COVID cases” in 155 countries, with 7,081 deaths. The JHSPH is largely financed by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. These figures, even if they were true, would be far from justifying a global lockdown.

Already on 30 January 2020 WHO declared COVID a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC).

Coincidentally, The World Economic Forum (WEF), infamous Davos meeting took place from 21-24 January 2020. WHO’s DG Tedros, Gates, the world’s power brokers and power structure, Big Pharma, Big Finance, most UN and other international organization were present at the 2020 WEF, when the pandemic decision, with global lockdowns, mask-wearing and all the social humiliating measures and dictates were decided.

These “decisions” were following a desk top dry-run called Event 201, simulating a “corona” virus, where also all the international, financial and pharma key players were present, on 18 October 2019 in NYC, barely three months before the infamous and unreal “outbreak” took place.

The powers behind the WEF put WHO in charge of committing this colossal, never-before witnessed crime on humanity, a “corona” virus, later called by WHO’s DG Tedros COVID-19.

This background on WHO’s COVID crime on humanity is just a forerunner to what may follow if the new International Health Regulation (IHR) and the intimately related Pandemic Treaty were to pass the World Health Assembly’s vote on 24 May 2023. It would take a two-thirds majority to be ratified.

If accepted, the new IHR and Pandemic Treaty would become law to be enforced by each and every country by WHO in 2024.

If approved, the members of WHO would just have passed a ”rule” eliminating a key human right, peoples right to decide over their bodies.

There is not much time to lobby against this “rule-based order”. Do whatever you can to have your government vote against this tyrannical power grab  — which would put humanity into a worldwide open air Health Prison.

If the new IHR and Pandemic Treaty are approved, We, the People, must take the necessary action and massively, in an organized and peaceful fashion, but relentlessly and decisively requesting our governments to Exit WHO, with immediate effect.

*

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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 from Reclaim the Net


The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity

by Michel Chossudovsky

Michel Chossudovsky reviews in detail how this insidious project “destroys people’s lives”. He provides a comprehensive analysis of everything you need to know about the “pandemic” — from the medical dimensions to the economic and social repercussions, political underpinnings, and mental and psychological impacts.

“My objective as an author is to inform people worldwide and refute the official narrative which has been used as a justification to destabilize the economic and social fabric of entire countries, followed by the imposition of the “deadly” COVID-19 “vaccine”. This crisis affects humanity in its entirety: almost 8 billion people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings and our children worldwide. Truth is a powerful instrument.”

ISBN: 978-0-9879389-3-0,  Year: 2022,  PDF Ebook,  Pages: 164, 15 Chapters

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

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

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Global Research Wants to Hear From You!

***

Armenia is one of the oldest continually existing countries (and civilizations) in the world. Spanning millennia and starting with the ancient Kingdom of Urartu nearly 3000 years ago, the now small nation has been limited to the South Caucasus region, particularly after the Turks committed the Armenian Genocide, one of the worst in known history, killing up to 1.5 million Armenians (in addition to well over a million native Greeks and Assyrians).

In such a long span of its undoubtedly magnificent history, Armenia most likely never had a worse “leader” than Nikol Pashinyan. A man who has been promoting closer ties with Turkey instead of Russia since the 1990s pushed his way into power through the so-called “anticorruption” agenda. Pashinyan argued that the supposedly “pro-Russian” (i.e. actually patriotic) government that was in power until 2018 was allegedly “corrupt” and that he would “make things better”.

Well, he certainly changed things since 2018. In just two years of his power, Pashinyan lost most of Artsakh (better known as Nagorno-Karabakh), the complete fall of which was prevented only by Russia’s intervention. For approximately three years, Moscow’s peacekeepers were the only thing standing between the Azeri military and the remaining population of native Armenians. And yet, instead of building closer ties with Russia in order to ensure that whatever was left of Artsakh survives, Pashinyan focused on building phantom “alliances” with the political West, particularly after the latter escalated its crawling aggression against Moscow. The Kremlin was left with a rather difficult choice – either help its historical ally which was (slowly but surely) turning into anything but, or leave Yerevan to its own devices so as not to risk derailing the strategically important rapprochement with Ankara and Baku.

Unfortunately for the Armenian people, things have only gotten considerably worse in recent months. Pashinyan, a Sorosite who came to power by insisting that the government prior to 2018 was allegedly “corrupt” and “autocratic”, turned out to be truly corrupt, while his rule is effectively a dictatorship. His brutal crackdown on protesters is unprecedented, never seen under any of the previous Armenian governments. Any opposition to Pashinyan’s dictatorial rule is being quashed, including through the suppression of free press, one of the principles of “democracy” that he was so insistent on back in 2018, when press freedom actually existed. Pashinyan, once a journalist, is now sending his henchmen to arrest other journalists who oppose his suicidal policies. And yet, no matter how bad his internal schemes are, his foreign policy is far worse. Namely, Pashinyan keeps distancing himself from Russia.

According to his assessment, Yerevan is “ready to join the European Union as early as 2024”. Pashinyan actually said so at this year’s Copenhagen “Democracy” Summit. Such a statement is not only ridiculous to anyone who knows anything about the EU’s current state, but also because of the simple fact that the troubled bloc has long been exposed as a mere geopolitical pendant of NATO. Even the most naively optimistic spectator would laugh at the idea of Armenia joining the EU in 2030, let alone 2024. To put that into perspective, the neighboring Georgia has been trying to join the troubled bloc for over 20 years. In that time, its suicidal pro-Western government managed to lose around 20% of its territory and turn Russia into an enemy, destroying their centuries-old historical alliance. It seems Pashinyan is pushing Yerevan in the exact same direction. Worse yet, he plans to ally himself with Moscow’s other enemies.

Namely, Armenia will appoint a military attaché to the United Kingdom for the first time. This inexplicable move comes at a time when the latter is essentially looking to start a war with Russia. This is even worse than trying to establish closer ties with the EU, as London has no capacity to help Yerevan in any way, be it economic or military assistance. Its only motivation is to hurt Moscow’s interests in the region. However, the Kremlin is not exactly jeopardized by this, while Armenia is the one paying the price of its government’s suicidal tilt towards the political West. Earlier, the Speaker of the Armenian Parliament Alen Simonyan stated that the country is “ready to take a course towards European integration” and that “this will provide it with the greatest security”. However, in around half a decade of Pashinyan in power, Armenia’s security situation has never been this bad, perhaps even worse than during the Armenian Genocide.

Namely, the country is in serious danger of being overrun by Turkey and Azerbaijan. The opposition sees it, which is why protests have been raging for months. According to Garegin Miskaryan, Director of the Democratic Platform Foundation, the country’s geopolitical choice is the central point of contention between the Pashinyan regime and the opposition, as the former chose to focus on the political West without calculating the risks. Miskaryan believes that, in the context of a changing world order and tensions in the region, turning away from Russia is an adventure that could result in disastrous consequences. His concerns are also shared by the Armenian Apostolic Church. Namely, the Head of the northeastern Tavush diocese, Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan, demanded Pashinyan’s resignation, supported by everyone at a last week’s rally that involved thousands of people gathered in the center of Yerevan.

“Nikol Pashinyan, we give you an hour to resign. I am ready to meet within this hour and discuss all the conditions for resignation. You no longer have any power in Armenia,” Archbishop stated, adding: “They destroyed the entire security system, from the first day of their rule they turned the Church into a target, struck a blow at the pillars of our identity, denied the fact of the Armenian Genocide, destroyed the educational system, lost Artsakh. But most importantly, for the current authorities, in foreign relations, there is nothing to be said anywhere, not at any negotiating table.”

It should be noted that Archbishop Galstanyan certainly didn’t do this on his own, as the Catholicos (Church leader) of All Armenians Karekin II gave his blessing for the procession that the Archbishop has been leading since May 4. It started precisely in his Tavush region, when Galstanyan announced protests in Yerevan (starting from May 9) against Pashinyan’s border delimitation agreement with Azerbaijan. The heads of all other dioceses of the Armenian Apostolic Church joined the protest, starting processions from their respective regions of Armenia. The Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin, the governing body of the Church, stated that “[we] consider processes carried out under the pretext of border demarcation in the Tavush region of Armenia to be extremely dangerous without comprehensive and guaranteed solutions”. However, Pashinyan outright rejected the Armenian Church’s appeals.

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Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

The High Risks of AI and Robotic Weapons

May 18th, 2024 by Bharat Dogra

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Recent tragic experiences in Gaza have confirmed the fears of those scientists who have been warning about the use of AI and robotics in weapon systems and warfare. The use of AI in targeting systems was supposed to facilitate more precise targeting and thereby spare innocent civilians– using Lavender system to target personnel and Gospel system to target buildings where militants were supposed to be located. However this AI technology, used hastily, has actually resulted in a lot of indiscriminate killing of innocent civilians.

This is not the only recent example of high risk use of AI weapons. Highly scary but fact-based warnings by well-recognized experts have been followed by increasing investments by big powers to strengthen their preparations for developing a wide range of robot weapons.

While some of the civilian applications of robots have also faced increasing criticism regarding fears of large scale unemployment likely to be caused by them in several lines of work in a world already suffering from the adverse impacts of jobless growth, the adverse impacts of military use of robots are likely to be much more dangerous. Yet one of the arguments given for not checking military use of robot weapons (also called lethal autonomous weapons or LAWs) is that work for civilian and military use of robots, particularly in the context of scientific research and innovation, can be closely related. The message given is that as civilian research on robots advances, there will be accompanying implications for military use of robots which cannot be ignored by any leading military power.

Hence on the one hand it is stated that civilian advances in robots by cutting costs and offering other narrow advantages regardless of social costs will inevitably lead to the spread of robotics in civilian applications and on the other hand it is stated that the military possibilities that arise in the context of this technological development will equally inevitably be used by various military establishments in various parts of the world. Of course once the importance of robots for military becomes clearer and clearer, then military establishments will also invest a lot in purely military development of robots. This stage has already been reached in the case of the leading military powers of the world. Hence we are in a situation where despite increasing expert warning about robot weapons, the trend towards development of more and more destructive robot weapons appears unstoppable just now. In the USA several new start-ups are appearing to take forward the increasing willingness of Pentagon to invest in AI weapons, and other powers are unlikely to lag behind.   

As early as 2012-13 as a part of the efforts of the International Committee for Robot Arms Control as many as 270 computing experts, AI experts and engineers had called for a ban on the development and deployment of weapon systems that make the decision to apply violent force autonomously, without any human control. They said clearly that the decision about the application of violent force should not be delegated to machines. These experts questioned how devices controlled by complex algorithms will interact, warning such interactions could create unstable and unpredictable behavior that can initiate or escalate conflicts or cause unjustifiable and serious harm to civilian populations.              

In August 2017 as many as 116 specialists from 26 countries, including some of world’s leading robotics and artificial intelligence pioneers, called on the United Nations to ban the development and use of killer robots. They wrote,

“Once developed lethal autonomous weapons will permit armed conflict to be fought at a scale greater than ever, and at time scales faster than humans can comprehend. These can be weapons of terror, weapons than despots and terrorists use against innocent population, and weapons hacked to behave in undesirable ways.”

“We do not have long to act.” This letter warned. “Once this Pandora’s box is opened, it will be hard to close.”

Ryan Gariepy, the founder of Clearpath Robotics, has said,

“Unlike other potential manifestations of AI which still remain in the realm of science fiction, autonomous weapon systems are on the cusp of development right now and have a very real potential to cause significant harm to innocent people along with global instability.”

The Economist (January 27, 2017) noted in its special report titled ‘The Future of War’,

“At least the world knows what is like to live in the shadow of nuclear weapons. There are much bigger question marks over how the rapid advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and deep learning will affect the way wars are fought, and perhaps even the way people think of war. The big concern is that these technologies may create autonomous weapon systems that can make choices about killing humans independently of those who created or deployed them.”

This special report distinguished between three types of AI weapons or robot weapons

(i) in the loop (with a human constantly monitoring the operation and remaining in charge of critical decisions,

(ii) on the loop (with a human supervising machines that can intervene at any stage of the mission) or

(iii) out of the loop (with the machine carrying out the mission without any human intervention once launched).

Fully autonomous robot weapons (third category) are obviously the most dangerous. 

A letter warning against the coming race of these weapons was signed in 2015 by over 1000 AI experts. An international campaign called ‘Campaign to Stop Killer Robots’ is working on a regular basis for this and related objectives. Elon Musk has stated that competition for AI superiority at national level as the “most likely cause of World War 3.”

Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk and many other experts said in a joint statement that, handled badly, AI as weapon could be an existential threat to the human race. 

Paul Scharre, an expert on autonomous weapons, has written that “collectively, swarms of robotic systems have the potential for even more dramatic, disruptive change to military operations.” One possibility he mention is that tiny 3D-printed drones can be formed into smart clouds that can permeate a building or be air-dropped over a wide area to look for hidden enemy forces.

In my novel A Day in 2071 I visualize such a situation in which powerful elites use such a force of very tiny robot soldiers to suppress a revolt of common people.

Several countries are surging ahead with rapid advances in robot weapons. In 2014 the Pentagon announced its ‘Third Offset Strategy’ with its special emphasis on robotics, autonomous systems and ‘big data’. This is supposed to help the USA to maintain its military superiority. In July 2017 China presented its “Next-Generation Artificial-Intelligence Development Plan”, which gives a crucial role to AI as the transformative technology in civil as well as military areas, with emphasis on ‘military-civil fusion’.

The campaign called Stop Killer Robots wants a legally binding international treaty banning LAWs. But there are certain questions whether this can be effective without the big military powers signing it and these big powers are going ahead with big investments in robot weapons. Certainly whatever efforts that are being made at present to check robot weapons should continue and should be strengthened but beyond this it is also important to take a very serious look at why our world, the way it is organized at present, is increasingly found to be incapable of checking some of the most dangerous threats.

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Bharat Dogra is Honorary Convener, Campaign to Save Earth Now. His recent books include Planet in Peril, Protecting Earth for Children, A Day in 2071 and Earth without Borders. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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The naming of the former First Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Belousov as the Defense Minister in Russia’s new government is perhaps one of the most important decisions President Vladimir Putin ever made.

It sent shockwaves in diplomatic circles and among people familiar with Belousov’s stellar career.

Namely, the new Defense Minister is not a soldier like his predecessor Sergei Shoigu. The mainstream propaganda machine likes to call him a “technocrat”, but that’s not only far too simplistic.

It also serves as an attempt to denigrate Belousov. In reality, he is one of the architects of Russia’s economic renaissance.

What’s more, his accomplishment is all the more praiseworthy given the circumstances of the political West’s siege. It’s precisely the wise policies of the likes of Belousov and his associates from the country’s other economic and financial institutions that made sure Russia not only survives, but also thrives in a highly contested (and ever more dangerous) geopolitical environment.

The mainstream propaganda machine is even speculating that the replacement of Shoigu is a supposed “reshuffling” of the power structure in the Kremlin, even suggesting that he and Belousov essentially got “demoted”. However, nothing could be further from true.

In reality, both of them effectively got promoted, as Shoigu will be the Head of the Security Council, while Belousov will be leading Russia’s most powerful ministry.

This reshuffling in the Russian government suggests that President Putin certainly realizes the necessity of turning the country’s growing economic power into even greater military might. Namely, the extremely volatile global security situation is being exacerbated by NATO’s incessant aggression against the world. The Kremlin would certainly rather invest any surplus income into other sectors of the economy, but that’s not really possible at a time when the most powerful countries of the political West are simply pushing for a confrontation with Russia.

This includes not only the United States, but also the United Kingdom and other European NATO members such as France and even Germany. There are many other vassals and satellite states that are keen on picking a fight with Moscow, but their military power is far too inconsequential to be taken seriously. Washington DC is not only surrounding the Eurasian giant with military bases and long-range weapons, but is also encouraging the likes of the Neo-Nazi junta to keep attacking Russia and even organizing sabotage and terrorist attacks within the country.

London is even worse in this regard, while Paris and Berlin are also trying to get more directly involved. In such a hostile environment, Moscow is left with no other choice but to be prepared for a direct confrontation of continental and perhaps even global proportions. Precisely Belousov as the new Defense Minister is there to ensure that the transition of Russia’s economy to a war footing runs as smoothly and as efficiently as possible.

In a recent statement during a meeting with his closest associates, President Putin announced that military spending in 2024 will reach 8.7% of the country’s GDP.

If Russia’s nominal GDP of $2.24 trillion is taken into account, it would mean that its military budget will reach a massive $195 billion. However, in reality, the figure is far bigger.

Namely, estimates of Russia’s GDP PPP (which shows the actual size of its economy) stand anywhere between $4.2 and $5.8 trillion, depending on the source. If the latter is taken into account, we can calculate that Russia’s real defense spending transcends the unprecedented $500 billion mark. In an analysis of Moscow’s military budget policies, written more than half a decade ago, I calculated that its real military spending at the time was around $250 billion. This explains why the Kremlin has been able to resist the combined might of NATO powers for so long, while the latest increase is in line with that, especially considering just how much the world has changed ever since.

Namely, ever since they restarted the Cold War, the US and NATO have announced the doubling of their “defense” spending well over a year ago, despite the fact that such a move could easily lead them into bankruptcy. Last year, I argued that Russia would be left with no choice but to rebuild its Soviet military power, which is precisely what’s happening with the latest government reshuffling. Terrified of this prospect, the political West was determined to prevent Moscow’s previous 2030 military program. However, all they’ve managed to accomplish is that the Kremlin adopted a more proactive strategic doctrine. Worse yet (for NATO), the massive increase in Russian military spending will not only speed up the current rearmament program, but it will also incorporate previously frozen projects, such as the new advanced IRBM (intermediate-range ballistic missile) that Moscow tested recently. Such weapons put the entire European NATO in range of Russia’s unrivaled long-range missiles.

In addition, the massively expanded manufacturing capacity of its military industry means that everything from infantry weapons and equipment to tanks, armored vehicles, attack helicopters, fighter jets and even space-based assets are produced in greater numbers than seen in decades. When it comes to tactical fighting capabilities, the Russian military has massively expanded its drone and electronic warfare (EW) capabilities. The now legendary ZALA “Lancet” drones are not only being improved incrementally, but are also getting domestic competition which is further pushing the development of such systems. The drones are now longer-ranged than ever, as evidenced by regular drone strikes on the Kiev regime forces even 100 km away from the frontlines. These unmanned systems are a perfect alternative to the much more expensive long-range missiles that should be reserved for much more high-priority targets. And yet, Moscow also massively increased the production of such weapons.

This is particularly true for hypersonic weapons that have proven to be immune to NATO’s air and missile defenses.

Worse yet for the political West, it’s simply unable to match Russia in the development of such missiles.

Even the US is lagging decades behind the Kremlin in this regard. Russia also adapted regular strike aircraft to carry hypersonic weapons (they were previously limited only to the modified superfast, high-flying MiG-31 jets). This has significantly expanded its already potent strike capabilities against NATO. At the same time, Moscow keeps upgrading other high-tech systems, such as its virtually unrivaled electronic warfare (EW) assets, as well as new directed energy weapons (DEW). Many of the latter were just prototypes for decades, but as their usefulness on the battlefield is being proven on a daily basis, an increase in funding has finally put them in mass production. This will help Russia create an unmatched fighting force that will rely even more on various high technologies.

Namely, as automation and technological prowess take the lead over the human factor, this new approach will both increase the overall capabilities of the Russian military and reduce the need for massive increases in manpower.

As former US Army Colonel Douglas McGregor stated, the result is that the Eurasian giant’s forces are now more capable than they were in the 1980s. To put that into perspective, the Soviet Union was allocating up to 14% of its GDP on military spending, which was well over twice that of the Russian defense budget previously projected for 2024 (around 6% of GDP). In other words, Moscow is spending much less and investing several times less resources and manpower to accomplish the same or greater tactical and strategic military power than was the case during the (First) Cold War, when the USSR reached its peak. At the same time, the Russian economy is more robust than ever before. NATO will surely regret its decision to wake up the sleeping Bear.

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Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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***

The Prime Minister of Slovakia, Robert Fico, suffered an assassination attempt on May 15th. The politician was shot during a visit to the city of Handlova, being hospitalized in serious conditions. According to the latest updates, however, his surgery was successful, and he is expected to recover well.

The attacker was arrested and then identified as Juraj Cintula, 71 years old. Cintula was described by the media as a poet and member of the “Progressive Slovakia” party, which is opposition to Fico. He confessed to the police that he shot Fico due to political agenda disagreements, further stating that his shots were aimed “against Russian-Slovak relations.”

The aggressor’s pro-Ukrainian fanaticism makes it clear what is behind the attack: the desire to stop Fico’s sovereigntist policies. Since returning to power in October 2023, the prime minister has taken a series of measures to protect Slovak national interests amid the anti-Russian madness that is currently affecting the EU and NATO.

Described as “pro-Russia” by Western media, Fico has been a critic of the military aid to Kiev, as well as admitting that the war did not start in 2022, but “in 2014, when Ukrainian Nazis and fascists started murdering the Russian population of Donbass.”

This is Fico’s third term. Previously, he governed Slovakia between 2006 and 2010 and between 2012 and 2018. His policies are seen as aligned with left-wing nationalism, mixing strong patriotism and social concerns – what the Western media often calls “populism”. Fico is a social democrat who prioritizes Slovak interests over EU and NATO agendas – which is enough for these organizations to see him as an enemy.

Being a strong critic of American military influence in Europe, Fico adopted a pro-peace stance in the current conflict. He correctly identifies Ukraine as being responsible for the conflict due to its genocidal actions in Donbass, which is why the Slovak prime minister rejects any possibility of supporting Kiev. His policies have broad popular support as friendship between Slovaks and Russians is extremely strong.

“Russophilia” is common among Slovak citizens, who preserve the memory of the Second World War, when their territory was liberated by the Red Army. Brainwashing and fascist historical revisionism, which affected Ukraine, the Baltics, Poland and other Eastern European countries, do not appear to have been successful in Slovakia. Fico’s election and popularity reflect this.

Fico’s foreign policy, focused on friendship with Russia, is not only the explanation for the assassination attempt – according to the criminal himself – but also a key factor in understanding why some international actors are interested in removing the Slovak prime minister. Fico has advocated for Ukraine to remain outside NATO, stating that Kiev’s membership is a risk to European security. He advocates Ukrainian neutrality, which is one of the points also demanded by Moscow in its peace terms.

In practice, Fico represents a dissident position in NATO and the EU, as does Viktor Orban, in Hungary.

There is fear on the part of NATO and the Kiev regime that this dissent will begin to grow. With Ukraine losing the war and Western citizens seeing their tax money wasted in assisting the Kiev regime, it is possible that dissident politicians will start to be elected, which would be terrible for Western interests.

In this sense, it is very likely that the attack was not just a voluntary act by a Russophobic “lone wolf”. It is necessary to investigate whether there was international involvement and whether foreign agents financed or in any way influenced the attack. Knowing that there are groups interested in removing Fico, it is possible that there is a big plot behind the case.

It must also be remembered that recently there have been cases of terrorism outside Ukrainian territory involving the Kiev’s security service. Russian authorities have already identified Ukrainian participation in the Crocus City Hall attack, for example. In the same vein, on April 26, the Russian Embassy in Brasília suffered a bomb attack threat that generated a major police operation, paralyzing activities around the embassy for several hours.

At the time, Brazilian political analyst Raphael Machado commented in an article that the Kiev regime could be preparing a wave of attacks against Russian and pro-Russian targets outside Ukraine. He recalled on the occasion that there are even heads of state on the Ukrainian kill list, such as Brazilian president Lula da Silva, who’s included in Kiev’s “Myrotvorets” website.

Knowing that Kiev openly wants to kill “pro-Russian” politicians, Slovak authorities must expand their investigations beyond the country’s borders.

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Lucas Leiroz is a member of the BRICS Journalists Association, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, military expert. You can follow Lucas on X (former Twitter) and Telegram. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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First published on May 15, 2024

***

The world is dangerous to live, 

not so much because of those who do evil, 

but because of those who watch and let it happen. *

Let’s not go around the bush. 

I am referring to the so-called COVID-19 pandemic that led to the injection of a product of composition still unknown to billions of people, from 2021, under a pretext advanced as an indisputable dogma, that of stopping the said pandemic.

So-called experts took turns on all the radio and television waves of the world to tell us that this infection was fatal and that the only way to stop it was to be injected with a product presented as a new generation, effective and harmless vaccine.

And billions of people believed it and received this injection, not once, but for a large number, several times. And it is not over and continues to be advocated, strongly recommended for pregnant women, children and old people.

Today, in May 2024, what can we say about it, by being humble, honest, scientific, the most impartial examiner possible of the facts, free from any conflict or even any link of interest and only seeking to get as close as possible to the truth, whether we like it or not?

As soon as I perceived the discrepancies in the official speech (the canary in the mine**), fully assuming my function as anesthesiologist-resuscitator, intensivist, at the front lines in a large acute hospitalization service in Belgium, I published an article entitled:

COVID-19, check your sources. War against…corruption? “, April 12, 2020 [1].

The term “war” refers to the expression used six times by French President Emmanuel Macron in his speech of March 16, 2020, We are at war“, implied, for him, against a virus while a war against pandemic scientific and media corruption would save many more human lives!

It was premonitory because it is vital in this kind of crisis to discern the truth of the lie; to verify what we are told, especially when the author of the lie is presented as an expert and expresses himself without citing any of his sources, relying only on his largely manufactured reputation and on the complicity, conscious or not, of journalists who do not question anything that this expert says.

Beware that the most effective lies are half-truths or are sown in the otherwise coherent discourse, like almost invisible, imperceptible grains.

The devil is always in the details.

This is what has happened to almost all the official statements denounced in the last four years as indisputable truths by our “benevolent” authorities, assertions subsequently denied, quickly or later, by the facts and serious, independent and courageous analysts given the extreme censorship and extensive intimidation to which they have been subjected.

For my part, I refer you to the many articles written between April 2020 and January 2023, on this site www.mondialisation.ca, addressing almost all the subjects concerned, confinements, early treatments including ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine, RT-PCR diagnostic technique, vaccines, masks and totalitarian drift [2].

For almost everything, the facts will have proved me right.

I’m far from being the only one.

I only come back to a few illustrative points.

Hydroxychloroquine, an old and well-known treatment, with marginal side effects if the pharmacology and dosages (doses) are respected and which has been shown to be effective in the early treatment of COVID-19. 

With other doctors, including many fields, from many nations, I said this very early and the facts confirmed this truth yet offended by official experts, including the prestigious medical journal, the Lancet, which withdrew its hostile and fraudulent article 12 days after its publication [3] creating the scandal called Lancetgate.

However, you will notice, and it is a habit, that all the doctors in the world, those in the field called general practitioners or family doctors, have not been warned of this rehabilitation of hydroxychloroquine by these same media from all countries, unanimous and very noisy when it came to spreading a lie, discreet or even silent when it came to restoring the truth.

We can make the same observation with ivermectin [4].

As a doctor, I personally treated hundreds of people with acute respiratory infection labeled COVID-19 in 2021 with correctly dosed ivermectin.

This treatment has been safe and effective, often from the first day of treatment, including in people at risk and fragile, very old, obese, chronic heart or respiratory insufficiency, thus avoiding changes to more serious forms, reducing hospital overload and the period of contagiousness; with an inexpensive, harmless drug that can be prescribed to pregnant women without risk to the fetus, and known since the 1980s, widely prescribed in Africa in particular.

Where are the articles and documentaries relating this truth, in all our written or spoken media?

Have you seen a rehabilitation of these really effective and safe treatments (at the recommended dosages) since the facts proved right to all those who advocated them as early as 2020 or 2021?

Me, no.

On the contrary, doctors, among others, who have treated and talked about their success have been (and still are) threatened with radiation, suspension, prosecution and defamed in this press that continues to lie and support the vaccine in its entirety.

While the facts prove us right. And the so-called “vaccine”?

Based on current data and the decline since 2021, in England, it has been known since September 2023 that COVID-19 vaccinated people die more than unvaccinated people: Further Proof: The “Age Adjusted Argument” has been Crushed by the mRNA Data Avalanche. While this will thankfully Crush mRNA investment, sadly it has also Crushed so many Victims along the way. (substack.com), as analyzed by the French statistician Pierre Chaillot, author of a remarkable book, COVID-19, which is revealed by the official figures, éditions l’Artilleur. Here is the video where Pierre Chaillot analyzes English statistics: Revelation of a new English study: we know who dies the most! (youtube.com).

Really, I encourage you, 4 years after my first article, to reread them all.

On the one hand, we have inexpensive treatments, effective especially since they are early, harmless in case of use according to the prescription rules, treatments that have proven their worth (I can attest to it personally), 

And on the other hand, we have injections of a product with an unknown complete composition, fraudulently called “vaccines”, very expensive but very profitable for the shareholders of the companies that manufacture them and all those they have corrupted, and which we now know to cause excess mortality and an outbreak of side effects in populations around the world (cancers, autoimmune diseases, degeneration, acceleration of cellular aging…).

But our authorities, the press, the official “experts” continue their way without blinking, continuing to shoot honest scientists and caregivers who are independent of any financial link with the globalized system, and who contradict them by relying on the facts.

Why do the vast majority of people continue to let it happen? And to let yourself go? Because the key to the exit door is in them.

In each of us.

It’s about our survival.

Now, I will give more of my personal opinion, my deduction. 

It’s only that, my opinion, even if the past showed that I had seen clearly on many of the subjects concerned, do not believe me on my word or by friendship.

Check, check, read articles, books, watch the videos I inform you to enlighten you, and make your own opinion.

Everything I say from now on can still evolve. 

This is the true honest science, never to freeze on a position, a belief that would become an unbeatable dogma, regardless of the contradictory facts or the painful need to admit to having been wrong. No. Especially not.

While having the courage to affirm what we think at some point, whether we like it or not, even if it attracts us trouble, suspension, cancellation, tax control, or even worse.

I hope that all readers on this site will therefore have understood that we have been lied to; sometimes intelligently and subtly, more often in a rude and authoritarian way, using human weaknesses through fear, conformism, selfishness and lazioness.

Why?

To depopulate an overcrowded land, using odious means, an almost imperceptible, “sweet” genocide, in which, if we do nothing, do not react, we are all accomplices, by action or omission.

It began with the abandonment of vulnerable and fragile people, the elderly, isolated, dead of dehydration, deprivation of affection, love, and the most basic care on the pretext of… saving them!

This continued by prohibiting early treatments that were safe and effective and by inducing immense fear in people, since they were told to wait to get worse, that while waiting for that, they could do nothing (impotence) except ingest paracetamol, toxic to the only element that could still protect them, glutathione.

I will always remember this elderly doctor, abandoned to his fate, and crying when he came to my house, just because I had listened to him and reassured him.

This has been amplified by launching this global campaign to inject a toxic, ineffective and yet presented as safe and effective product and of which we know today, at least on the basis of the statistics of the countries that want to publish them, that it kills more than it saves.

While everything or almost everything is forbidden in pregnant women, magically, it had become acceptable to “violate” their immune-compromised sacred body, endangering the most vulnerable being, totally dependent on others for its survival, the human fetus.

How many miscarriages, stillbirths, malformations in the world today, in connection with this criminal policy?

This video, the first chapter of a series that has three, based on serious and documented research (sources cited in the video), will enlighten you on the issues and the underside of this tragedy.

🧠Eugenist 2.0 & Transhumanist: their open war against peoples – 1/3🗣️ Alain Schollaert – CrowdBunker

It is on the Crowdbunker platform, because on YouTube, immediately published, immediately censored which, indirectly, is a strong indication that it really disturbs liars, as only the truth can do.

The following episodes will be published on May 19 and May 26.

Watch, listen and draw your conclusions.

It is vital because we want to train you in a world that you, here, do not want, neither for you, nor above all, for your children.

Depopulation. 

It is in this case of a cruel, revolting cynicism because those who decide to do so do it in their golden bunker, well sheltered, having proclaimed themselves kings of the world simply because they have looted this world, stolen the riches that belong to all humanity and that strong of their dollars and euros, their relationships, their “powers”, they decide who will die or live. 

They use lies brilliantly and coldly, they exploit the flaws of the democratic system and above all, rely on our weaknesses skilfully excited by all the means at their disposal, drugs, sports, music, television, agitation, sex…

We have become too many for them, walking on their flower beds and they have launched what corresponds to the 2030 agenda. Yes, you read well, it’s for 2030 and we are there!

Psychological manipulation pushed to its climax, fears, invisible or little visible attacks for many years [5] by chemical pollution of air (chemtrails), water, electromagnetic waves (4G, 5G, but also our Wifi, televisions, electrical appliances…), and today, these nanomolecular poisons directly injected into the human body.

As a corollary, it is a question of removing cash and replacing it with all-digital.

To make the human as inert and predictable as a machine without a soul or own mind, much easier to direct and exploit.

This video developed by the Corsican-Belgian researcher Alain Schollaert, on the channel of the very good Akina, the Media Front, also talks about a delicate but oh so vital subject, too!

The manufactured, so-called “controlled” opposition. The false opposition or Trojan horse that participates in a perverse, sometimes unconscious way, in the dissemination of the official narrative and its fulfillment by capturing dissenting wills.

How to find your way around without paranoia or discouragement?

Here again, these are my deductions, I assume them but make your own opinion.

However, do not delay or make a mistake because this is what your life is at stake, yours and that of your loved ones.

The decisions you will make, the actions you take will all depend on the information you have chosen to trust, the whistleblowers you have chosen to follow because yes, there are false ones, more or less aware of what they are doing.

First, beware of the “heroes” made by this tragedy. 

Seek humility, discretion, true modesty in those who speak to you.

There are no heroes. No pedestal, no resistance elites, no prestigious characters! 

Look for those who can talk about everything, without taboos, both messenger RNA and graphene oxide, programmed genocide and the deadly vaccine industry! Look for those who admit their mistakes, are tolerant, those who do not take others from above, who do not present themselves as experts in turn, which would mean that by their title alone, we should listen to them religiously.

Do you remember the Swiss researcher Astrid Stuckelberger, censored in a congress of “resistants” just because she wanted to address the subject of graphene oxide, as if some could decide their sole authority on what we can talk about or not.

We are all ordinary citizens immersed in extraordinary circumstances that have revealed what our true nature is made of. 

Those who spoke and acted, some of whom were very conformist in normal times, those who resisted, refused to blindly follow the orders only did so because they could not do otherwise, yet very lucid about the terrible risks they ran, dismissal, harassment, imprisonment, poisoning, social or fiscal murder.

It is not out of heroism but out of moral obligation.

It is in these circumstances, at the heart of the action, that we really discover who we are. Not before.

Then, look at who was visible, carried to the clouds even, and who was ostracized, very quickly or gradually. 

Look at who is censored especially on YouTube and who is not or less so. Do not draw hasty conclusions but make your spirit of deduction work.

When some have been able to publish books without problems, translated even into several languages, talk about them on radio, you have other serious authors who are never talked about and translated. It’s a sign.

Do you know Didier Raoult, Louis Fouché, Alexandra Henrion-Caude, Jean-Dominique Michel, Xavier Azalbert…? 

I’m sure it is. The “tenors“, the “pillars“…

And Melody Feron, Denis Rancourt, Sasha Latypova, Tess Lawrie, Alain Schollaert, Laurence Kayser? Much less, right?

But again and it’s crucial, make your own opinion.

The real whistleblowers are invisible. It makes sense. The lie does not tolerate the truth that destroys it with a single glance. 

The real resistance fighters are excluded, even by the so-called resistant or awakened circles, who therefore do what they criticize precisely in the other camp, elitism and selection.

The video report by Alain Schollaert, sourced, connecting all the points of this labyrinth of corruption and secret objectives, speaks for itself.

The intention of these forces of evil is terrible.

It is Primum Nocere: above all, harm (as opposed to the oath of any caregiver, primum non nocere, above all not to harm).

These are conspiracies. This is not a theory and those who still tell you this are either individuals of the mental age of a child preferring a false world but they know, or dishonest or even complicit people.

All the evidence of this plot against humanity is there, before our eyes, today. As evidenced by the enormous work of lawyer Reiner Fuellmich now imprisoned [6]. 

And it will not be the well-known collectives, which have become well-oiled and admitted machines for some time, nor the so-called resistant press organs that will help you get out of there.

It’s you, us, me, you, him, her.

We. Together.

Everyone defending their soul and spirit in the face of the devastating attack.

Starting by freeing yourself from the evil influences that capture you and lock you in a dead end of the labyrinth. They have foreseen an impasse for each of us, since the time they have been working on this diabolical project.

They knew very well that some would not swallow their lies and would have the courage to resist. They left nothing to chance. They tried to plan everything, to propose an alternative solution for each of us.

Whatever the name of this trap for you, I pray that as many people as possible, after reading this article and especially the vision of Eugenist 2.0 & Transhumanist: their open war against the peoples, directed by Alain Schollaert, will see clearly and take back the personal power they have at the bottom of their soul and we will survive all this.

Because they won’t win. 

They cannot violate your soul without your consent, which is why they do everything to deceive it, mislead it, weaken it and steer it in the wrong direction.

Be brave, lucid, calm, think and then act, be afraid of nothing and allow the best in you, brighter, good and beautiful, the love force of your blazing heart to radiate and extinguish all this darkness.

Dr. Pascal Sacré

Featured image: Screenshot. Whistleblower.

* I do not put an author because this kind of sentence is attributed to one or the other, without the possibility of verifying it. It is the sentence itself, universal, that is important because it summarizes the whole current problem.

** the canary in the coal mine: What does it mean to be a canary in a coal mine? – Spiegato

Endnotes: title translated into English, link to the original French

[1] COVID-19 – Check your sources. War against… corruption? | Globalization – Center for Research on Globalization

[2] Dr. Pascal Sacré | Globalization – Globalization Research Center

[3] The corruption of science. The scandal of the hydroxychloroquine study. Who was behind all this? Anthony Fauci’s intention to block the HCQ on behalf of major pharmaceutical companies | Globalization – Center for Research on Globalization

[4] COVID-19, a simple change of method and it’s over | Globalization – Globalization Research Center 

[5] Read the author Claire Séverac, and her book “the war against the peoples”: Claire Séverac – The secret war against the peoples: Claire Séverac: Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming: Internet Archive. This courageous activist was murdered through a mysterious dazzling disease in December 2016 (The death of Claire Séverac, an activist who disturbed the “establishment” – Health and Well-being – Sott.net)

[6] This is the beginning of the trial of Reiner Fuellmich (youtube.com)

*

Pascal Sacré has graduated in medicine, in Belgium, since 1995, at the University of Liège. He began a specialty in anesthesia-resuscitation in 1997, completed in 2002 and supplemented by a specialization in critical care in 2003.
He worked in a hospital environment, mainly in intensive care, for 18 years without anything ever being blamed for.
In his department, he worked on the development of a protocol for the management of pain, drug sedation and neurological complications such as delirium, a protocol retained by many peers in other hospitals.
Dismissed in 2020 from the hospital where he had been working for 9 years, due to positions contrary to the official health policy and a conflict with management over the COVID-19 crisis, he continued to defend his point of view despite adversity (dismissal without compensation, summons to the police station, defamation in the press, blacklisting in all Belgian intensive care services despite the recognition of his competence and professionalism, invisibility).
In 2021, he found an anesthesio-intensivist position at the center of the great burns, at the military hospital, in Belgium. This center depends on the Ministry of Defence and not directly on the Ministry of Health.
Dr Sacré trained at the University of Liège (Professor M-E Faymonville) in hypnotherapy in a medical environment.
Interested in everything that can help his patient get better, Dr. Sacré considers that nothing can be a priori rejected, such as the addition of natural medicines to chemical practices recognized in hospital settings, or conversely, a priori considered an untouchable dogma such as vaccination.
Everything deserves open-mindedness, tolerance, curiosity and honest research, with humility and good faith.
His mantra: “think for yourself”.
 Dr. Sacré, in order to help each person regain control of his health without waiting for interested circles to do so, gives training in the management of the mind, emotions, stress through the tools he has himself learned (cardiac coherence, breathing, language, self-hypnosis) and organizes workshops on health topics such as digestion, endocrine glands (thyroid, adrenal…), vagus nerves, in a language that is simple and accessible to all.
Its website: www.pascal-sacre.be and the associated email: [email protected] 
He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization since 2009.

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***

Last Wednesday marked the 76th anniversary of the great tragedy of Palestine. A day when hundreds of thousands of homes were destroyed and desecrated, their peaceful inhabitants killed or expelled and for what? The crime of Palestinian people was their vulnerability. They could not counter the aggression of Zionist militias. They were the original inhabitants of this Holy Land. They did not believe in any Nazi ideology, they had nothing to do with any crimes against the Jewish people. Muslims, Christians and Jews were living peacefully in this Holy Land. The church, the mosque and wall had coexisted.

Humanity begins at home. A sanctuary that provides love and care to nurture a generation but sadly several generations of Palestinian people have been deprived of this basic human right. A refugee camp can never become a home.

What the world has been witnessing since last October is like a recall of this great tragedy. A second Nakba where Gazans are being deprived of their homes.

Most of our generation has recently become aware of the Palestinian cause but in reality this is a 76 year long continuous tale of unilateral aggression.

This serves as an example of how manipulative our sources of information are and how many other atrocities that are hidden from general human consciousness. We have been chasing one shadow after another with out actually realising our true adversaries.

If we follow the “controlled” trends of our global mainstream media as well as social media, climate crises would be at the top of the list; from academia to the vendors sitting at a tea stall we are discussing this imminent threat, pseudo-representatives of the young generation are cursing the elders for destroying the future but oddly praising the banks for being instrumental in transitioning to an eco-friendly future. The ugly truth is that institutions like World Economic Forum (WEF) and their proposed solutions like carbon exchange will only ensure the ever increasing profits of the mega corporations while the suffering of humanity and environmental pollution will further increase. Climate has always been changing and we need to adapt accordingly. The biggest polluters are the global war machines and the mega corporation, don’t put a humble farmer on the stake. Why are we so gullible? Why have we forgotten about the population crises? How supposedly people would resort to eating each other due to the immense scarcity of food by the early 2000 or how we are all going to die from the beaming radiation penetrating from the gaps in the ozone layer?

The “powers that be” have figured out that fear is the best motivation for masses because we have this “self preservation” instinct that takes charge when we perceive a threat that is deadly.

Carrot or the stick just don’t provide such a kick; any how, there are certain strings that even the people at the very top can’t control. It seems to me that Israel, the illegitimate child of these fearmongers has come under the spotlight. Like a conman, this apartheid state is becoming uncomfortable from this unwanted attention. One of the ugly scars on its hideous underbelly is the Jewish law of return.

Israeli law of return is no law and there is no returning.

It’s an instrument of ethnic cleansing, land grab, loot and plunder.

They are not returning but forcing themselves upon an innocent population.

Law of return is not a Jewish belief but the belief of a fringed minority, an extremist group called Zionists.

They do not represent Judaism. In 1950 this illegality was falsely termed a law, according to which “every Jewish person has a right to Israeli citizenship and a claim to the land of Palestine.”

They had already committed Nakba, displaced millions and settled hundreds of thousands of people but they wanted an instrument for perpetual land grab.

Later on in the 70s this law was amended to make sure only a certain minority might benefit from it.

Judaism is a religion, not a settlement if you follow its ideology you can be a Jew, you don’t have to relocate to follow its teachings.

Moses, peace be upon him, was against the oppressor and struggled for the oppressed, which the Pharaoh is chasing these new age settlers. Rather they are lured by free housing provided by the Zionist lobby.

A movement that started at the end of 19th century cannot claim absolute authority over a religion almost 4,000 years old. Specially when the original inhabitant of Palestine, whether Muslim, Christian or Jew, have more claim over the descent of Israelites then people of Eastern European descent.

There is no doubt in the hardships faced by Jewish people. It is wrong to judge, penalise and punish a community as a whole specially when you’re talking about a group of people with such diversity as the Jewish people.

It sickens me to my core when some ignorant keyboard warriors post pictures of innocent victims of global power politics, people who suffered in the Nazi war camps, they absolutely deserve our sympathy and to celebrate their suffering is incredibly evil.

Hitler and his movement was not based on any religious identity rather it was a nationalistic idealogy based on the superiority of the Arian race.

Like any leader, he tried to use every emotion to his advantage. Germans hate for Jews was based on the biases that most Europeans had against Jewish people but after the loss of the previous war, many Germans blamed the Jewish people for their defeat because it was the Jewish Zionist lobby that brought America into the war against the Germans.

If law of return is a scar, the tumor hiding inside this scar is the Balfour Declaration.

The Balfour Declaration is drenched in so much misery, suffering and deceit that no article can fully explain its treachery.

Germany had the upper hand in the First World War. Its Uboats had surrounded England, if the United States had remained neutral, the outcome of the war would have been much different. When the British crown was under immense burden, a shadowy group of international bankers dictated this declaration and changed the course of history.

So even before the tragedy of the holocaust, this evil plan was conceived to rob the people of Palestine of their homes.

Even though the British government had declared to safeguard the rights of local Palestinian population, Zionists not only attacked the local population they also attacked the hand that fed them.

The Bombing of the King David Hotel

The British administrative headquarters was housed in this building and it’s a known fact that Irgun a Zionist militia was responsible for this attack. They had disguised themselves as Arabs, such acts of terrorism persuaded the British to leave the Holy Land in a haste.

Zionist use of propaganda and deception is evident in the recent escalation. The story of beheaded Jewish babies is a prime example of this deception. They control the global economy and countries like Pakistan are enslaved by a dubious debt so we are reluctant even to verbally condemn the Zionist regime.

We need to become self-reliant in order to support this righteous cause. We should support “made in Pakistan” products and become part of the global BDS movement.

Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions is a way the masses can get the attention of global powers. In our recent history, this BDS movement was instrumental in getting the people of South Africa their basic rights.

Awareness is the key. We should not lose focus of this tragedy.

Gaza, this small strip of land, has been leveled by bombs and innocent civilians are being starved to death. The Zionist are not even letting the much needed humanitarian aid to reach them. They deserve our attention, our sympathy and our loyalty.

If this fire is not contained, it won’t end in Palestine; this fire will engulf every home on this planet. We are not dealing with a fringe minority. It’s a state armed to teeth with nuclear weapons.

Peace in Palestine is not essential for Peace in the Middle East but it is necessary for global peace.

May Allah have mercy on the deceased and help with victims of this Zionist aggression.

*

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Featured image: Where Have All the Flowers Gone – by Mr. Fish

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***

The shooting of Robert Fico, Prime Minister of Slovakia, on May 15th was a clear move by hidden forces around the world that represent global finance, to intimidate all politicians and leaders, and determine the fate of humanity. The shooting of Prime Minister Fico was an unmistakable act of war.

This war has been launched in secret against those who have worked to reject the World Health Organization’s infamous Pandemic Treaty, a false treaty created by organizations pretending to be governments, that provides the rich and powerful unlimited powers.

It does so by creating opaque multinational institutions run in secret which usurp the rights of the citizens, of local governments, of nation states, and of all other institutions of civil society that refuse to bow before the puppets and puppy dogs that are propped up by hidden hands of the money changers.

The WHO Pandemic Treaty will do so specifically through revised “International Health Regulations” that introduce a modern form of slavery.  

We may not understand, or agree, with everything Prime Minister Robert Fico, has said and done, but we should be clear as to the message we have been sent through his shooting. 

It is a fact that Slovakia has rejected the Pandemic Treaty and that the administration of Prime Minister Fico has launched investigations into the corruption surrounding the COVID-19 operation, the vaccine regime, and that he has personally called for investigations of the deaths that have resulted from those vaccines.

Those moves were connected with efforts to reject global mandates for the control of energy and the economy supposedly in order to prevent climate change. Those mandates are not aimed at protecting the environment, but rather at creating absolute dependency on multinational corporations and banks for survival, for all the citizens of the world.

 

Click here to watch the video

This shooting is an act of war not unlike the shooting of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary on June 28, 1914, almost exactly 110 years ago in Sarajavo, just to the south of Slovakia.

This event is tied to both globalist efforts to destroy civil society and to render all inhabitants of the earth as slaves, and tied to nationalist battles between NATO states like Germany, Britain, and the US, and Russia and its allies and associates. We do not know the full story yet but we can be sure, as the old saying goes, that all wars are bankers’ wars.

The cancerous growth of private equity and investment banks that has captured the government of the United States, and that represents a handful of the richest families has once again crossed the Rubicon in its campaign to destroy humanity and we can be certain that they are making it clear to the entire world through this attack that any political figure who dares to oppose their campaign to enforce the universal slavery that they will affect by seizing control of food supplies, energy, transportation, information, money and land—and combining that operation with the control of the human mind through mindless entertainment and news, and the human body, through vaccines and foodstuffs, will be extirpated.

I look around at the other candidates for president, expecting them to recognize the danger inherent in this declaration of war, hoping that they will denounce this crime, that they will expose its purpose and that they will stand with me against the rule of global finance. But sadly, this attack has had, so far, the intended effect of increasing even more the already towering cowardice of politicians.

Yet, this shall not stand!

I speak to the citizens of the United States, and to the citizens of the world.

To my fellow citizens of the United States of America, I call on you all to recognize this declaration of war for what it is: a war of the few against humanity itself. We must stand up against this rule by a handful of the rich on their yachts, their private islands and their jet planes, and we must reject their push to destroy our bodies through false international agreements that neuter nation states like the WHO Pandemic Treaty.

That means that our entire defense and intelligence system must be transformed, rebuilt from the ground up, starting today, so as to defend the citizen and to resist oppression by the powerful. It matters not if it be but a handful of the brave who will lead the first charge against great odds.

I promise you that we will be there with you, and that there will be others who will follow you. Go forward bravely and transform through your courageous acts the very firmament that shelters our humble lives.

Security and defense will no longer consist of the protection of profits for the rich and powerful or the promotion of multinational banks and corporations over citizens and over nature itself. Remember that most of those multinational banks and corporations behind these attacks, although they may seem to be “American” are in fact incorporated abroad, pay little or no taxes, and their stock is held by the wealthy few, psychopaths who have only contempt for local governance and sovereignty. Why should our children shed their blood, or other’s blood, to generate profits for the few at our expense?

No, security must be entirely about protecting the minds, the bodies, the intellectual autonomy, and the spiritual integrity of the citizens of our country in accord with the words and the import of the Constitution.

That means, fellow soldiers, that you are entrusted to defend the people, not the rich, and it means that those orders that task you with promoting or defending the totalitarian regime of the pandemic must be rejected and, when necessary, a new chain of command that represents the people in accord with the Constitution must be established. You, fellow soldiers, are sworn to defend the Constitution and, through it, our citizens. There is not a single word about the privately held “World Health Organization,” billionaires, investment banks, private equity, or the Democratic and Republican parties to be found anywhere in the Constitution.

Once we are clear that the United States is a constitutional republic that reports to the citizens in a democratic manner, then we will be ready to clean house, to cut all ties with the financial interests who have taken over wide swaths of our government, and to respond effectively against the war on human sovereignty represented by this attack on an individual politician. Similar attacks are taking place right now in the United States as well.

To the citizens of the world, I ask for cooperation. We must form an international alliance against this full-blown techno-fascism, and we must fight on every front against these powers who strive to reduce citizens to idiocy through foolish education and insipid journalism and to pump their bodies full of poisons using foods, drinks, medicines, and the very air that we breathe.

We must do so without falling pray to the canny political operators who would trick us into joining movements that are controlled by those very same financial interests who would slaughter us.

Join with us today, not as part of a corrupt alliance system that brings profits to the merchants of death, but rather as part of an alliance of the citizens of the earth, everywhere, who stand for truth, for freedom, for sovereignty and for intellectual, spiritual, and bodily integrity of the citizen at every level.

Do join me, join us, in condemning this attack on Prime Minister Robert Fico, and also join me in organizing the next stage of citizens’ resistance based on America’s most sacred text, the Declaration of Independence. That Declaration of Independence states, based on natural law dating back to the distant past of humanity,

“When a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce the citizens under absolute despotism, it is the citizens’ right, it is their duty, to throw off such a government, and to provide new guards for their future security.”

*

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This article was originally published on Fear No Evil.

Emanuel Pastreich served as the president of the Asia Institute, a think tank with offices in Washington DC, Seoul, Tokyo and Hanoi. Pastreich also serves as director general of the Institute for Future Urban Environments. Pastreich declared his candidacy for president of the United States as an independent in February, 2020.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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***

Retired German general Roland Kather, on the TV channel Die Welt, called for examining possible scenarios for exiting the Ukrainian conflict. On the same day as Kather’s comments, retired colonel and former Swiss intelligence officer Jacques Baud said that US Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin could not define what would be considered a victory in Ukraine.

“Ukraine is gradually running out of blood. It does not have enough personnel to create an appropriate reserve,” Kather noted, adding that Ukrainian soldiers are “tired, weak,” and their morale has fallen.

The presenter asked Kather if it is necessary to start “at least thinking” now about what the exit scenarios for this “war of attrition” might be.

“For months, we can say, since the beginning of this terrible war of attrition, I have always advocated that behind the scenes – at least not publicly, not in the media – think about, as you said, what exit scenarios are possible,” said the general.

However, Kather acknowledged that this would be “very difficult” if one side or the other saw military opportunities for progress.

It is recalled that in an interview with US journalist Tucker Carlson, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that negotiations with Ukraine in 2022 were almost completed. However, after the withdrawal of Russian troops from Kiev, the Ukrainian side “threw away” all agreements, and later, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky legislatively banned any negotiations with Russia.

Kather’s comments come as Baud said in an interview with the YouTube channel Dialogue Works that US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin has failed to define what victory over Russia in Ukraine means to him.

During the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, US Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin was asked to determine what would be considered a victory in Ukraine, and he was unable to answer the question, the expert noted.

Baud stressed that if the West does not know why it is fighting in Eastern Europe, it will not be able to conduct combat operations and prevail. According to him, without a strategy, tactics are just noise before defeat. The former military officer said this is exactly what we are witnessing in Ukraine with the North American and Ukrainian approaches.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on May 13 that Moscow is ready if the West wants to resolve the Ukrainian crisis on the battlefield. Russia’s top diplomat also highlighted that the conference on Ukraine in Switzerland, scheduled for mid-June and to which Russia was not invited, is only for drawing up an ultimatum for Moscow.

Although Switzerland has not invited Russia to the conference, China, Brazil, and other major Global South countries have been pushing to involve Moscow in the process. Russia said it is not against peace negotiations, but even if invited, it would not participate because it does not consider Switzerland a neutral actor since the country joined US-led sanctions against Moscow, discrediting its role as a mediator to the conflict.

Effectively, Switzerland’s neutrality is a sham, and the peace conference will achieve nothing in ending the war since Russia was obviously not invited despite being in control of the situation on the ground and continuing to liberate territory. Therefore, while Switzerland and the West will pretend to work for peace in Ukraine and give self-adulation, Ukraine will continue “running out of blood,” as Kather highlighted.

Last month, former Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu revealed that Ukraine had suffered half a million personnel losses since Moscow launched its special military operation in February 2022. 215,000 Ukrainian soldiers were lost in 2023 alone. This is a calamitous loss of life or permanent injury for survivors.

Despite self-adulation and promises of never-ending support for Ukraine, the US and Europe will not be able to continue providing endless cash flow to Ukraine since they are already struggling with economic crises, growing unemployment, and multiple social issues. This reality once again raises questions about the purpose of the Swiss peace conference since Russia is not participating.

Yet, with the Ukrainian military “running out of blood,” President Volodymyr Zelensky is refusing to accept reality. Instead, according to The Guardian, the Kiev regime believes they can win the war. The British newspaper said, “Nonetheless, it is true that the prospect of some decisive breakthrough routing Russian troops from Ukrainian soil looks more remote than ever.” Essentially, the longer Zelensky and the West allow the war to go on, the culling of young Ukrainians will continue at a catastrophic rate.

*

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Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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First published more than six months ago on October 17, 2023 at the outset of Israel’s act of genocide against Palestine

Introductory Note. Was it a False Flag? 

Military operations are invariably planned well in advance. Was “Operation Al-Aqsa Storm” a “surprise attack” ? Or Was it “A False Flag”.

In the words of Philip Giraldi

“As a former intelligence officer, I find it impossible to believe that Israel did not have multiple informants inside Gaza as well as electronic listening devices all along the border wall which would have picked up movements of groups and vehicles.

In other words, the whole thing might be a tissue of lies as is often the case.” 

A Tissue of Lies 

“A Tissue of Lies” has served to justify the killing in the Gaza Strip of more than 35,000 civilians, of which 70% are women and children coupled with total destruction and an endless  string of atrocities. 

The Cat is out of the bag. Netanyahu has tacitly acknowledged that it was “A False Flag” which was intent upon justifying a carefully planned genocidal attack against Palestine: 

“Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas,” he [Netanyahu] told a meeting of his Likud party’s Knesset members in March 2019. “This is part of our strategy – to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza from the Palestinians in the West Bank.” (Haaretz, October 9, 2023, emphasis added)

Does this candid statement not suggest that Netanyahu and his military-intelligence apparatus are responsible for the killings of innocent Israeli civilians? 

On that same day of October 7, 2023 Netanyahu launched a carefully planned military operation against the Gaza Strip entitled “State of Readiness For War”.  

Military operations are invariably planned well in advance.

Had  “Operation Al-Aqsa Storm” been a “surprise attack” as parroted by the media, Netanyahu’s “State of Readiness For War” could not have been carried out (at short notice) on that same day, namely October 7, 2023. 

South Africa’s  Legal Procedure against The State of Israel 

On January 11, 2024, The Republic of South Africa  presented to The Hague World Court, a carefully formulated Legal Procedure against the State of Israel predicated on  The Genocide Convention.

This legal procedure, however, has not contributed to repealing the ongoing genocide and saving the lives of tens of thousands of civilians.

I should mention that the False Flag issue –which constitutes a crime against humanity– was casually ignored by the ICJ.

Our suggestion is that  an investigation followed by a legal procedure pertaining to the “False Flag” should be undertaken.

The heads of State and heads of government who have endorsed Israel’s Genocidal Acts are from a legal standpoint complicit. 

The ICJ Judgement was contradictory. The Presiding Judge (former legal advisor to Hillary Clinton) was in conflict of interest: 

The ICJ Judgment of January 26, 2024 assigns the Netanyahu government representing the State of Israel –accused by the Republic of South Africa of genocide against the People of Palestine– with a mandate to “take all measures within its power” to “prevent and punish” those responsible for having committed “Genocidal Acts”. (under Article IV of the Genocide Convention)

Sounds contradictory? What the ICJ judgment intimates –from a twisted legal standpoint– is that Netanyahu’s Cabinet which was “appointed” to implement  the “prevent and punish” mandate cannot be accused of having committed “Genocidal Acts”.

See

“Fake Justice” at The Hague: The ICJ “Appoints” Netanyahu to “Prevent” and “Punish” Those Responsible for “Genocidal Acts”

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, April 24, 2024

 

Our intent is to provide a broad and detailed understanding of the false flag issue: 

The titles of the videos, articles and texts presented below:  

  1. Is the Gaza-Israel Fighting “A False Flag”? They Let it Happen? Their Objective Is “to Wipe Gaza Off the Map”?, by Dr. Philip Giraldi. 
  2. Video: ICJ Hearings in The Hague, 
  3. Text of Israel’s Secret Intelligence Memorandum. Planning the Forcible Exclusion of Palestinians from Their Homeland
  4. Video: “False Flag. Wiping Gaza Off the Map”, Interview. Michel Chossudovsky with Caroline Mailloux
  5. “False Flag. Wiping Gaza Off the Map”, by Michel Chossudovsky
  6. Gaza Strikes Back. It’s Another 9/11 or Pearl Harbor? But Who Actually Did What to Whom? “This Was More Likely a False Flag Operation”, by Philip Giraldi 

 

In solidarity with the People of Palestine.

Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, January 11, 2024, April 25, 2024 

 

Part I

Is the Gaza-Israel Fighting “A False Flag”?

They Let it Happen?

Their Objective Is “to Wipe Gaza Off the Map”?

by Dr. Philip Giraldi 

October 8, 2023

Am I the only one who read about a speech given by Netanyahu or someone in his cabinet about a week ago in which he/they in passing referred to a “developing security situation” which rather suggests (to me) that they might have known about developments in Gaza and chose to let it happen so they can wipe Gaza off the map in retaliation and, possibly relying on the US pledge to have Israel’s “back,” then implicating Iran and attacking that country.

I cannot find a link to it, but have a fairly strong recollection of what I read as I thought at the time it would serve as a pretext for another massacre of Palestinians.

As a former intelligence officer, I find it impossible to believe that Israel did not have multiple informants inside Gaza as well as electronic listening devices all along the border wall which would have picked up movements of groups and vehicles.

In other words, the whole thing might be a tissue of lies as is often the case.

And as is also ALWAYS the case Joe Biden is preparing to send some billions of dollars to poor little Israel to pay for “defending” itself.

 

 Part II

VIDEO. ICJ Hearings in The Hague

ICJ Hearings 

1. January 11, 2024. Click Here to View the ICJ Hearings,

2. January 12, 2024. Israel’s Legal Team’s response to South Africa, ICJ The Hague at 10 am. Video in Real Time 

3. Video: South Africa’s Closing Argument against Israel for Genocide. January 11 Hearing at the World Court

 

Part III

Israel’s Secret Intelligence Memorandum

Planning the Forcible Exclusion of Palestinians from Their Homeland

 

An official “secret” memorandum authored by Israel’s  Ministry of Intelligenceis recommending the forcible and permanent transfer of the Gaza Strip’s 2.2 million Palestinian residents to Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula”, namely to a refugee camp in Egyptian territory. There are indications of Israel-Egypt negotiations  as well as consultations with the U.S. 

The 10-page document, dated Oct. 13, 2023, bears the logo of the Intelligence Ministry … assesses three options regarding the future of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip … It recommends a full population transfer as its preferred course of action. … The document, the authenticity of which was confirmed by the ministry, has been translated into English in full here on +972.

See below, click here or below to access complete document (10 pages)

For further details and analysis see:

“Wiping Gaza Off the Map”: Israel’s “Secret” Intelligence Memorandum “Option C” by Michel Chossudovsky

 

Part IV 

Video: “False Flag. Wiping Gaza Off the Map”

Interview: Michel Chossudovsky and Caroline Mailloux 

October 17, 2023

 

 

To comment or access Rumble 

 

 

 

 

Part V 

“False Flag”. Wiping Gaza Off the Map

by

Prof. Michel Chossudovsky

October 12, 2023

 .

Introduction

.

Early Saturday October 7, 2023, Hamas launched “Operation Al-Aqsa Storm” led by Hamas’ Military Chief Mohammed Deif. On that same day, Netanyahu confirmed a so-called “State of Readiness For War”.  

Military operations are invariably planned well in advance (See Netanyahu’s January 2023 statement below). Was “Operation Al-Aqsa Storm” a “surprise attack” ?

U.S. intelligence say they weren’t aware of an impending Hamas attack. 

“One would have to be almost hopelessly naïve to buy the corporate state media line that the Hamas invasion  was an Israeli “intelligence failure”. Mossad is one of, if not the, most powerful intelligence agencies on the planet.”

Did Netanyahu and his vast military and intelligence apparatus (Mossad et al) have foreknowledge of the Hamas attack which has resulted in countless deaths of Israelis and Palestinians.

Was a carefully formulated Israeli plan to wage an all out war against Palestinians envisaged prior to the launching by Hamas of  “Operation Al-Aqsa Storm”? This was not a failure of Israeli Intelligence, as conveyed by the media. Quite the opposite. 

Evidence and testimonies suggest that the Netanyahu government had foreknowledge of the actions of Hamas which have resulted in hundreds of Israeli and Palestinian deaths. And “They Let it Happen”:

“Hamas fired between 2-5 thousand rockets at Israel and hundreds of Israeli are dead, while dozens of Israelis were captured as prisoners of war. In the ensuing air response by Israel, hundreds of Palestinians were killed in Gaza.” (Stephen Sahiounie)  

Following the Al Aqsa Storm Operation on October 7, Israel‘s defence minister described Palestinians as “human animals” and vowed to “act accordingly,” as fighter jets unleashed a massive bombing of the Gaza Strip home of 2.3 million Palestinians…” (Middle East Eye). A complete blockade on the Gaza Strip was initiated on October 9, 2023 consisting in   blocking and obstructing the importation of food, water, fuel, and essential commodities to 2.3 Million Palestinians. It’s an outright crime against humanity. It’s genocide. 

It is worth noting, that Netanyahu’s military actions are not targeting HAMAS, quite the opposite: he is targeting 2.3 million innocent Palestinian civilians, in blatant violation of the Four Basic Principles of  The Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC)

“….respect for and protection of the civilian population and civilian objects [schools, hospitals and residential areas], the Parties to the conflict shall at all times distinguish between the civilian population and combatants and between civilian objects and military objectives and accordingly shall direct their operations only against military objectives.” [Additional Protocol 1, Article 48]

Ironically, according to Scott Ritter, Hamas’ has acquired U.S. weapons in Ukraine. 

.

This was Not a “Surprise Attack”

Was the Hamas Attack a “False Flag”? 

“I served in the IDF 25 years ago, in the intelligence forces. There’s no way Israel did not know of what’s coming.

A cat moving alongside the fence is triggering all forces. So this??

What happened to the “strongest army in the world”?

How come border crossings were wide open?? Something is VERY WRONG HERE, something is very strange, this chain of events is very unusual and not typical for the Israeli defense system.

To me this suprise attack seems like a planned operation. On all fronts. 

If I was a conspiracy theorist I would say that this feels like the work of the Deep State.  

It feels like the people of Israel and the people of Palestine have been sold, once again, to the higher powers that be. 

(Statement by Efrat Fenigson, former IDF intelligence,  October 7, 2023, emphasis added)

Ironically, the media (NBC) is now contending that the “Hamas attack bears hallmarks of Iranian involvement”

History: The Relationship between Mossad and Hamas

What is the relationship between Mossad and Hamas? Is Hamas an “intelligence asset”? There is a long history. 

Hamas (Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiyya) (Islamic Resistance Movement), was founded in 1987 by Sheik Ahmed Yassin. It was supported at the outset by Israeli intelligence as a means to weaken the Palestinian Authority:

“Thanks to Mossad, (Israel’s “Institute for Intelligence and Special Tasks”), Hamas was allowed to reinforce its presence in the occupied territories. Meanwhile, Arafat’s Fatah Movement for National Liberation as well as the Palestinian Left were subjected to the most brutal form of repression and intimidation.

Let us not forget that it was Israel, which in fact created Hamas. According to Zeev Sternell, historian at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, “Israel thought that it was a smart ploy to push the Islamists against the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO)”. (L’Humanité, translated from French)

The links of Hamas to Mossad and US intelligence have been acknowledged by Rep. Ron Paul in a statement to the U.S Congress: “Hamas Was Started by Israel”?

“You know Hamas, if you look at the history, you’ll find out that Hamas was encouraged and really started by Israel because they wanted Hamas to counteract Yasser Arafat… (Rep. Ron Paul, 2011)

What this statement entails is that Hamas is and remains “an intelligence asset”, namely “an “asset” to intelligence agencies”

See also the WSJ (January 24, 2009) “How Israel helped to Spawn Hamas”. 

Instead of trying to curb Gaza’s Islamists from the outset, says Mr. Cohen, Israel for years tolerated and, in some cases, encouraged them as a counterweight to the secular nationalists of the Palestine Liberation Organization and its dominant faction, Yasser Arafat’s Fatah. (WSJ, emphasis added)

 

“The Hamas Partnership” is confirmed by Netanyahu

 

“The Cat is Out of the Bag”

“Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas,” he [Netanyahu] told a meeting of his Likud party’s Knesset members in March 2019. “This is part of our strategy – to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza from the Palestinians in the West Bank.” (Haaretz, October 9, 2023, emphasis added)

Does this statement not suggest that Netanyahu and his military-intelligence apparatus are responsible for the killings of innocent Israeli civilians? 

“Support” and “Money” for Hamas. 

“Transferring Money to Hamas” on behalf of Netanyahu is confirmed by a Times of Israel October 8, 2023 Report: 

“Hamas was treated as a partner to the detriment of the Palestinian Authority to prevent Abbas from moving towards creating a Palestinian State. Hamas was promoted from a terrorist group to an organization with which Israel conducted negotiations through Egypt, and which was allowed to receive suitcases containing millions of dollars from Qatar through the Gaza crossings.” (emphasis added)

.

The Dangers of Military Escalation?

 

Let us be under no illusions, this “false flag” operation is a complex military-intelligence undertaking, carefully planned over several years, in liaison and  coordination with US intelligence, the Pentagon and NATO. 

In turn, this action against Palestine is already conducive to a process of military escalation which potentially could engulf a large part of Middle East.

Israel is a de facto member NATO (with a special status) since 2004, involving active military and intelligence coordination as well as consultations pertaining to the occupied territories.

Military cooperation with both the Pentagon and NATO is viewed by Israel’s Defence Force (IDF) as a means to “enhance Israel’s deterrence capability regarding potential enemies threatening it, mainly Iran and Syria.”

The premise of NATO-Israel military cooperation is that “Israel is under attack”. Does Israel’s agreement with the Atlantic Alliance “obligate” NATO “to come to the rescue of Israel” under the doctrine of “collective security” (Article 5 of the Washington treaty)?

In recent developments, U.S. military deployments in the Middle East are ongoing allegedly to avoid escalation.

According to NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg:

There is always the risk that nations and/or organisations hostile to Israel will take try to take advantage. And that includes, for instance, organisations like Hezbollah or a country like Iran. So this is a message to countries and organisations hostile to Israel that they should not try to utilise the situation. And the United States have deployed, or has deployed more military forces in the region, not least to deter any escalation or prevent any escalation of the situation. (NATO Press Conference, Brussels, October 12, 2023, emphasis added) 

Netanyahu’s “New Stage”

“The Long War” against Palestine

 

Netanyahu’s stated objective, which constitutes a new stage in the 75 year old war (since Nakba, 1948) against the people of Palestine is no longer predicated on “Apartheid” or “Separation”. This new stage –which is also directed against Israelis who want peace— consists in “total appropriation” as well as the outright exclusion of the Palestinian people from their homeland:

“These are the basic lines of the national government headed by me [Netanyahu]: The Jewish people have an exclusive and unquestionable right to all areas of the Land of Israel. The government will promote and develop settlement in all parts of the Land of Israel — in the Galilee, the Negev, the Golan, Judea and Samaria.” (Netanyahu January 2023. emphasis added)

We bring to the attention of our readers the incisive analysis of  Dr. Philip Giraldi pointing to the likelihood of a “False Flag’”. 

Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, October 8, 2023, Above text updated on October 12, 2023

.

 

Part VI

Gaza Strikes Back. It’s Another 9/11 or Pearl Harbor?

But Who Actually Did What to Whom?

“This Was More Likely a False Flag Operation”

by

Dr Philip Giraldi

October 16, 2023

.

“As a former on-the-ground intelligence officer, I am somewhat convinced that this was likely more like a false flag operation rather than a case of institutional failure on the part of the Israelis.”

It’s amazing how America’s thought-controlled media is able to come up with a suitable narrative almost immediately whenever there is an international incident that might be subject to multiple interpretations.

***

Since 1948 Israel has expelled hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homes,

has occupied nearly all of the historic Palestine, has empowered its army to kill thousands of local people, and

has more recently established an apartheid regime that even denies that Palestinian Arabs are human in the same sense that Jews are.

Netanyahu-allied government minister Ayelet Shaked memorably has called for Israel not only to exterminate all Palestinian children, whom she has described as “little snakes,” but also to kill their mothers who gave birth to them.

But when the Arabs strike back against the hatred that confronts them with their limited resources it is Israel that is described as the victimand the Palestinians who are dehumanized and portrayed as the “terrorists.”

Media in the US and Europe were quick to label the Hamas offensive breaching the formidable Israeli border defenses as “Israel’s 9/11” or even “Israel’s Pearl Harbor” to establish the context that the Israelis have been on the receiving end of an “unprovoked” attack by a cruel and heartless enemy.

Israel has responded to the attack with a heavy bombardment of Gaza that has destroyed infrastructure, including hospitals and schools, while also cutting off food supplies, water and electricity.

It has demanded that residents of north Gaza, all 1.1 million of them, evacuate to make way for a possible ground offensive but there is nowhere to go as all the borders are closed, and the United Nations is calling it a demand with “devastating humanitarian consequences.” Journalist Peter Beinart has commented “This is a monstrous crime. It’s happening in plain view, with US support.”

And the United States government is indeed typically on the same page as Israel. President Joe Biden, citing fabricated stories about dead Jewish babies, speaks of how Israel has a “duty” to defend itself, while the Palestinians somehow have no right to protect themselves at all, much less to rise up against their persecutors in a struggle for freedom.

And Washington has also unhesitatingly chosen to directly involve itself in the conflict, completely on the side of the Jewish state, asserting repeatedly that “Israel has a right to defend itself” and telling the Israelis that “we have your back” while also dispatching two aircraft carrier groups to the scene of the fighting as well as the 101st Airborne to Jordan and increasing the readiness of Marines stationed in Kuwait.

The White House could have taken more aggressive steps to encourage a ceasefire and talks but has chosen instead to issue essentially toothless calls to let the trapped civilians escape while also backing a devastating Israeli military response.

 

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv, Oct. 12, 2023. – Secretary Antony Blinken on X

Israel is also hosting the worthless and brain dead Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin who will be providing advice along the lines of his insightful comment that Hamas is “evil” and “worse than ISIS.” Secretary of State Antony Blinken is already in Jerusalem, announcing that the US is there to support Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s unity government “as long as America exists” after first saying “I come before you not only as the United States Secretary of State, but also as a Jew.”

Blinken’s explicit association of his personal religion with his official role as a representative of the US government makes clear that a key element in why he is there is because he is “a Jew.” Perhaps he should recuse himself from policy making involving Israel as being “a Jew” would not appear to be a United States national interest and is likely to produce irrational responses to developing situations.

If all of this sounds a lot like Ukraine it should, except that in Ukraine the US and NATO are fighting against Russia, which is being demonized for occupying what is claimed Ukrainian territory, whereas in Palestine they are supporting the occupier of actual Palestinian territory, Israel.

Funny thing that, and the word “hypocrisy” comes immediately to mind. As it turns out, however, I am somewhat on the same page as much of the media, agreeing that the Hamas incursion is something like 9/11, though I am sure that my take would not be found acceptable to the CNN Jake Tappers of this world.

My thinking is that Israel knew in advance about 9/11 in the United States due to its extensive spying network and chose not to share the information because it was to their advantage not to do so.

Indeed, a pleased Netanyahu even stated several years later that “9/11 was a good thing because it made the United States join us in our fight.”

That the attacks killed 3,000 Americans did not bother the Israeli government as Israel has a long history of killing Americans when it can benefit from so doing, starting with the attack on the USS Liberty in 1967 which killed 34 sailors.

So too in this case in Gaza, Netanyahu may have decided to encourage an unexpected development, making it like 9/11, that would enable him to escalate and “mow the grass” as the Israelis put it, in the remainder of Arab Palestine.

And bear in mind that the actual incident that triggered the uprising was a rampage involving at least 800 Israeli settlers in and around the al-Aqsa mosque, the third holiest site in Islam, beating pilgrims and destroying Palestinian shops, all without any interference from the nearby Israeli security forces. The rioting was clearly allowed and even encouraged by the government.

Drawing on my experience as a former on-the-ground intelligence officer, I am somewhat convinced that this was likely more like a false flag operation rather than a case of institutional failure on the part of the Israelis.

Israel had an extensive electronic and physical wall backed by soldiers and weaponry that completely surrounded Gaza on the landward side, so effective that it was claimed that not even a mouse could get in.

The Mediterranean side of Gaza was also tightly controlled by the Israeli Navy and boats to and from Gaza were completely blocked.

Egypt tightly controlled the southern part of Gaza bordering on the Sinai. So Gaza was under 24/7 complete surveillance and control at all times. Israeli military intelligence also certainly had a network of recruited informants inside Gaza who would report on any training or movements, easy enough to do when you can approach people who are starving and make them an offer they cannot refuse just for providing information on what they see and hear.

And then there was a warning from the Egyptian government to Israel ten days before the Hamas attack, with Egypt’s Intelligence Minister General Abbas Kamel personally calling Netanyahu and sharing intelligence suggesting that the Gazans were likely to do “something unusual, a terrible operation.” Other media accounts reveal how Hamas trained and practiced their maneuvers publicly. There were also assessments made by US intelligence, which were shared with Israel, suggesting that something was afoot. So, given all of the evidence, there likely was no intelligence failure to anticipate and counter the Hamas attack but rather a political decision made by the Israeli government that knew what might be coming and chose to let it proceed to provide a casus belli to destroy Gaza, vowing that “Every member of Hamas is a dead man,” and then go on from there. And “from there” might well include Lebanon, Syria and Iran, possibly with the assistance of the United States to do the heavy lifting. Iran in particular is already being blamed by the usual suspects as a party involved in the Hamas attack, so far without any evidence whatsoever, which is typical of how these stories evolve.

Image: Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir visits Al-Aqsa, 3 January (Social Media)

And Israel has moved far to the right politically to such an extent that it might appreciate a little ethnic cleansing to demonstrate its seriousness. Netanyahu and other senior government officials in his cabinet have recently been making passing references to a “developing security situation” in the country to justify the intensifying of the raids by the army against Palestinian towns and refugee camps. The new government in Israel has also placed police under the control of ultra-nationalist Jewish Power party head Itamar Ben-Gvir as National Security Minister. He has been exploiting his position to call in particular for a war to destroy Hamas in Gaza, which is precisely what is happening. Gaza might be of particular interest to Ben-Gvir and others as it uniquely shelters an armed and organized resistance in the form of Hamas, which, oddly, was founded with the support of Israel to split the Palestinian political resistance with Fatah controlling the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza.

There is another issue relating to the recent fighting that one would like to know the answer to, namely how did Hamas get its weapons in the first place?

Some were clearly manufactured from parts and scrap but others were sophisticated and, as Gaza is blockaded on all sides, smuggling them in becomes problematical. One argument is that they were supplied by Iran and others to be brought in by tunnels, but the tunnels on two sides would end up in Israel and on the third side in Egypt. The fourth side is the Mediterranean Sea. So how did they arrive? Is there a possible triple or even quadruple cross taking place with different parties lying to each other? And should there be concerns that after the American armada arrives off the coast of Gaza there just might be some kind of false flag incident engineered by Netanyahu that will involve Washington directly in the fighting?

And there is what amounts to a related issue that should be of concern to everyone in the US and generically speaking the “Western world” where human rights are at least nominally respected. The message from almost all Western governments is that Israel has a carte blanche to do whatever it likes even when it involves war crimes to include mass forced displacement or genocide. In this case, the coordinated government-media response which is intended to protect Israel from any criticism almost immediately began circulating fabricated tales of atrocities while also delivering a hit on freedom of speech and association. President Biden, who should be trying to defuse the crisis, is instead adding fuel to the flames, saying of Hamas that “Pure, unadulterated evil has been unleashed on the earth!”

In Florida the arch Zionist stooge Governor Ron Desantis met with Jewish leaders in a synagogue to announce draconian measures against Iran to include sanctions on companies that are in any way linked to that country. One might point out that those businesses have done nothing wrong and Desantis also called for “eradication of Hamas from the earth.” His intellectual depth was at the same time revealed when he said the US should not take in any Gazan refugees because they are “antisemites.”

And in South Carolina, America’s favorite he/she Senator Lindsey Graham is calling for a US attack on Iran as well as declaring the war against Hamas to be “a religious war” and urging the Israeli army to invade Gaza and do “Whatever the hell you have to do to” to “level the place.”

And the Europeans are equally spineless in their deference to Israel. The Israeli president declared the that there are no innocent civilians in Gaza, and not long after that top European Union representatives met with him to offer their unqualified support. Meanwhile in France, the spineless and feckless government of Emmanuel Macron has sought to outlaw any gathering that expresses support for Palestinian rights.

And in the UK, the Home Secretary Suella Braverman has proposed criminalizing any protest against Israeli actions or anything in support of Palestine to include banning any public display of the Palestinian national flag, which she regards as a “criminal offense toward the Jewish community in Britain.”

She has also said that “I would encourage police to consider whether chants such as: ‘From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free’ should be understood as an expression of a violent desire to see Israel erased from the world, and whether its use in certain contexts may amount to a racially aggravated section 5 public order offence.” Berlin’s Public Prosecutor’s Office has also classified the use of the expression as a “criminal offense.” The manner in which most Western political elites are lining up unquestionably and even enthusiastically behind Israel and its craven leaders’ desire for bloody vengeance is truly shocking but comes as no surprise.

Beyond the issue of Gaza itself, some in Israel are arguing that Netanyahu has personally benefitted from the unrest through the creation of the national unity government which has ended for the time being the huge demonstrations protesting his judicial reform proposals. If all of this comes together politically as it might in the next several weeks, we could be seeing the initial steps in what will develop into the complete ethnic cleansing of what was once Palestine, in line with Netanyahu’s assertion that “the Jewish people have an exclusive and inalienable right to all parts of the Land of Israel. The government will promote and develop the settlement of all parts of the Land of Israel.” So all of the former Palestine is now a land to be defined by its Jewishness where Jews are in full control and are free to do whatever they want without any objection, referred to by the Israeli government as “an exclusive right to self-determination.” And it has all possibly been brought to fruition by the enablement provided by the current developments in Gaza.

The original source of Dr. Giraldi’s October 16, 2023 article. 

Gaza Strikes Back. It’s Another 9/11 or Pearl Harbor but Who Actually Did What to Whom? “This Was More Likely a False Flag Operation”

By Philip Giraldi, October 16, 2023

***

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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Global Research Wants to Hear From You!

***

“About 60% of Israeli Jews oppose any humanitarian aid to Gaza…  As of January, when already it’s reaching the ICJ, the International Court of Justice, on charges of genocide, only 3.2 percent of Jewish Israelis believed the Israeli Defense Forces was using too much firepower in Gaza. So, when people want to lay the blame for the insanity on Netanyahu for the insanity …that is a misrepresentation of the facts…. The whole population agrees with what Netanyahu is doing.Norman Finkelstein [1]

LISTEN TO THE SHOW


Click to download the audio (MP3 format)

The late Madeleine Albright famously said, referring to the deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children from sanctions imposed following the 1991 War that, “the price, we think, the price is worth it.” [2]

This same sentiment would no doubt be expressed by the mentally and linguistically flexible allies of Israel – those who market themselves as the champions of the “rules-based international order” regarding the more than 35,000 Palestinians killed over the 7 month old Israeli rampage of Gaza. [3]

The even more distressing news is that the actions committed by Hamas appear to give the Israeli “self-defenders” a blank cheque to commit abuses of human rights against doctors, journalists, patients, aid workers and anyone else who could conceivably be using civilians as human shields. [4]

Beyond that, there exists even footage of Israelis cheering on the recent attack on Rafah!


And there were even Israeli’s caught ransacking aid packages to the civilians in Gaza.

 

Disregard for the fate of civilians, even children and babies, takes us beyond levels of what people frightened for their families should tolerate – if they are civilized. We have dug deep in the bowels of human experience of those aspects they have difficulty confronting, and have now struck on a foul emerging stream of filth that has a name – racism.

But we are also seeing many students and volunteers, a lot of them Jews, in the United States, Canada, and around the world determined that they can transcend the unbearable burden of our dreadful legacies, both for those of Jewish ancestry and others who attained certain advantages in European and North American (White) countries at the expense of Indigenous people, and Black people, and Asian people. They are planting tents in universities insisting their schools disclose and divest from companies and institutions tied in with Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land. They are actively lobbying governments and boycotting those speaking out in favour of Israel’s “Counter-Offensive.”

And some are even going to take what could be the ultimate risk in getting aid and supplies to Gaza as an act of basic human decency.

The clash of these two contradictory primal forces playing out on the world stage will be the focus of this spectacular episode of the Global Research News Hour.

In our first half hour, we will speak with return guest, journalist and documentary film-maker Robert Inlakesh about the pro-Palestine encampments across universities everywhere. He also will discuss Israel’s decision to end the ceasefire they offered after Hamas agreed to it!

In our second half hour we hear from lawyer, activist and journalist Dimitri Lascaris about the decision by him and others to try to staff the Freedom Flotilla in a few weeks to take aid and supplies to Gaza. This is followed by a conversation with geopolitical analyst Mike Whitney who will discuss the background of his article King Bibi’s Land Grab, discussing the blatant anti-Arab racism that pollutes the Israeli appraisal and fuels the ongoing war.

Robert Inlakesh is a political analyst, journalist and documentary filmmaker currently based in London, UK. He has reported from and lived in the occupied Palestinian territories and hosts the show ‘Palestine Files’. Director of ‘Steal of the Century: Trump’s Palestine-Israel Catastrophe’. Follow him on Twitter @falasteen47

Dimitri Lascaris is a lawyer, a journalist and an activist. From 2004 to 2016 he was a member of Canada’s leading class action law firm Siskinds LLP. He now works pro-bono legal cases. In 2020, he ran for the leadership of the Green Party of Canada and placed second with  45.5% of the membership.

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).

(Global Research News Hour episode 432)

LISTEN TO THE SHOW


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Notes:

  1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gu4OMmoo5mw&t=364s (Starting at 56:03)
  2. Jon Jackson (March 23, 2022), ‘Watch: Madeleine Albright Saying Iraqi Kids’ Deaths ‘Worth It’ Resurfaces’, Newsweek; https://www.newsweek.com/watch-madeleine-albright-saying-iraqi-kids-deaths-worth-it-resurfaces-1691193
  3. https://www.justsecurity.org/89960/enough-self-defense-and-proportionality-in-the-israel-hamas-conflict/
  4. https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/gaza-war-western-rules-based-order-sham-how

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Global Research Fundraising: Stop the Pentagon’s Ides of March

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This article was first published in December 2020, coinciding with the rollout of the Covid mRNA vaccine.

 

In the fall of 1976, dozens of Americans died within 48 hours of receiving the fast-tracked swine flu vaccine that had been promoted by the Gerald Ford administration. To allay the public fears that threatened to unravel the mass inoculation program, President Gerald Ford rolled up his shirtsleeve and received his shot (inexpertly injected into his left triceps muscle!) in front of the television cameras.

More than 40 million others followed the president’s lead. But two months later, the campaign was abruptly stopped: More deaths had followed and thousands more victims were reporting serious side effects, including the paralysis that accompanies Guillain-Barre Syndrome.

Today, ex-Presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and “Operation Warp-Speed” Donald Trump are “courageously” offering to take any or all of the coronavirus vaccines, on nation-wide television, to defuse the natural hesitancy that thinking people naturally have about Big Pharma’s still-experimental, fast-tracked Covid-19 vaccines. (No mention has been made if these uniformly vaccinology-illiterate ex-Presidents were also willing to go along with the mandates to force their own relatives, children or grandchildren to also get vaccinated with the potentially dangerous vaccines.)

Four decades ago, on March 24, 1976, President Gerald Ford (one of the “dimmest bulbs” ever to occupy the US White House) announced another fast-tracked (swine flu) immunization program in the White House Press Briefing Room.

President Ford being vaccinated (directly into his triceps muscle!!) with the fast-tracked Swine flu vaccine on October 14, 1976. The person with the toxic syringe was vaccinology-illiterate White House physician Dr William Lukash – who likely never actually vaccinated any patient in his entire professional life.

When Mike Wallace and CBS’s 60 Minutes (from 1979) Still Had Guts – and television journalists weren’t yet totally controlled by Big Pharma)

Here is the link to the important “60 Minutes” Mike Wallace program about the 1976 Swine Flu Shot Fiasco with one of the “last of the truly investigative journalists” who are no longer allowed to tell unvarnished truths on mainstream television.”

Remember Vaccine Rule # 1: NEVER allow any vaccinology-illiterate healthcare practitioner to inject into your muscles ANY vaccine (ESPECIALLY those with DNA or RNA in them) whose ingredients have not been thoroughly, independently tested. For the future health of each of us AND the planet, ALL vaccines need to be thoroughly tested for:

  1. Short-term AND long-term safety; and
  2. Short-term AND long-term efficacy

NO VACCINE that has been fast-tracked by any of the many corrupted pharmaceutical entities (like the Big Pharma-controlled government agencies like the NIH, the CDC, the NIAID, the FDA) or ANY of the hundreds of for-profit Big Pharma corporations that have achieved essentially total control over Big Media, Big Government and Big Medicine.

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In the fall of 1976, dozens of Americans died (and thousands became permanently disabled) within 48 hours of receiving the experimental swine flu vaccine. To allay the public fears that threatened to unravel the mass inoculation program, President Gerald Ford rolled up his shirtsleeve and received his shot in front of the television cameras.

More than 40 million naïve Americans followed his lead. But two months later, the campaign was abruptly stopped: More deaths had occurred and hundreds were reporting serious side effects, including permanent, incurable paralysis.

“We’re all reviewing the process that took place in 1976 to understand the lessons learned,” said Dr. Richard Besser, acting director of the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention). “We may, as a nation, be faced with a similar decision about how to address a flu pandemic.

If there was a single factor behind the debacle over four decades ago, it was the speed of the decision making, fueled by a political climate in which dissenters were chastised and punished, as government records show.

Mistakes Were Made

“They moved too quickly. Mistakes were made,” said Dr. Harvey Feinberg, director of the Institute of Medicine, who investigated the scandal for the federal government. “People had vivid memories of the 1918 flu epidemic, of young people (actually, young, experimentally-vaccinated mostly World War I military recruits – GGK) dropping dead. It colored everything.”

Production and field-testing of the vaccine was rushed. Among other problems, the single-shot doses that were produced did not work on children. Vaccine production was shut down by the time the errors were caught, and it was too late to produce second doses.

“The first thing we learned is that this must be done in a step-by-step fashion. There are points along the way that you need to build in where people can say ‘yes’ or “no'” to allow for adjustments,” said Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the NIAID (National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases). “In 1976, it was like a choo-choo train.”

The Fast-Tracked Swine Flu Affair of 1976

Just weeks after health officials had identified the swine flu strain at Fort Dix, an Army training center in New Jersey. It was largely contained there, and within months — before the first shot was given — it was thought by most medical officials to no longer be a pandemic threat.

The production of the vaccine was also fast-tracked. And when hundreds of Americans began developing Guillain-Barre Syndrome, the neurological disorder that can cause paralysis, experts blamed the speedy development.

Dr. Robin Robinson, a director at the Department of HHS (Health and Human Services) who oversees pandemic responses, said that even as officials take steps to develop a swine flu vaccine with sufficient doses for every “man, woman and child”, those plans would be dialed back if the pandemic “fizzles out”.

But watchdog groups fear a repeat, particularly because laws passed after the anthrax attacks of 2001 allowed for accelerated production and field tests of a vaccine when an emergency is declared.

On October 24, 2009, the Obama administration declared the spread of swine flu was a public health emergency.

“We don’t want them unnecessarily speeding up field tests,” said Barbara Low Fisher, president of the non-profit National Vaccine Information Center, which frequently criticizes vaccine policy. “There are many reasons to be concerned if they take this path.”

Federal Drug Administration spokeswoman Mary Long said it was too early to say whether a vaccine would be developed on an accelerated timetable, “but there is flexibility” to do so, given the public emergency declaration.

Even if the production is not accelerated, Wenzel and others say decisions about vaccine production, distribution and risks need to be clearly spelled out to the public.

“Talk to Americans like you are sitting with them at the kitchen table,” he said. “Disclose the risks.”

The Importance of Informed Consent

Warren Cikins, a Fairfax County resident who believes his life was dramatically altered by the last swine flu scare, gives the same advice.

Just three weeks after receiving his flu shot decades ago, Cikins suffered his first in a series of autoimmune disorders, temporary blindness in his right eye, which lasted for a year. That was followed by permanent back problems, along with colitis, he said.

Cikins, a former county supervisor, is certain that his ailments were related to the shots, although he was never able to prove that.

This time around, Cikins said, the government should disclose the risks of getting vaccinated balanced against those of getting the flu.

“I am angry,” he said. “They knew a certain percentage of us would suffer serious repercussions, and they withheld this from us. They need to let people make an informed decision.”

The federal government ultimately reached court settlements with hundreds of victims who said the 1976 vaccine caused neurological problems. In its final reckoning, the government counted 25 deaths associated with the shots.

In the medical community, however, there is some disagreement about the rate of adverse reactions. Wenzel saidneurological disorders showed up at a rate seven times higher than with regular flu vaccines.

There is much more to be learned about the many dangers of vaccination campaigns, especially those promoted by entities that have ulterior motives and power and wealth to be earned. A word of warning to the wise should be sufficient.

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Dr Gary G. Kohls lives in the USA and writes a weekly column, entitled Duty to Warn, for the Duluth Reader, Duluth, Minnesota’s alternative newsweekly magazine. His columns deal with the dangers of American Friendly Fascism, corporatism, Oligarchy, militarism, racism, malnutrition, and Big Pharma’s over-drugging and over-vaccinating agendas as well as other movements that threaten the environment, democracy, civility, health and the sustainability and livability of the planet and the future of the children.

Dr. Kohls is a past member of Mind Freedom International, the International Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology and the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies and is a signatory to and/or an advocate of the principles of the Great Barrington Declaration, the World Doctors Alliance and Americas Front Line Doctors. His practice of holistic medicine mainly involved helping the survivors of psychiatry that had often been mis-diagnosed, over-diagnosed and always over-medicated with un-approved and un-tested-for-safety cocktails of neurotoxic psychiatric drugs that not only had sickened them but to which they had also become addicted.

His Duty to Warn columns have been re-published around the world for the last decade. They deal frequently also deal with Big Vaccine’s over-vaccinating, Big Medicine’s over-screening, over-diagnosing and over-treating agendas.

Many of Dr Kohls’ columns have been archived at a number of websites, including:

http://duluthreader.com/search?search_term=Duty+to+Warn&p=2;

http://www.globalresearch.ca/author/gary-g-kohls;

http://freepress.org/geographic-scope/national;

https://www.lewrockwell.com/author/gary-g-kohls/?ptype=article; and

https://www.transcend.org/tms/author/?a=Gary%20G.%20Kohls,%20MD 

All images in this article are from the author

O primeiro-ministro da Eslováquia, Robert Fico, sofreu uma tentativa de assassinato em 15 de maio. O político foi baleado durante uma visita à cidade de Handlova, ficando internado em estado grave. De acordo com as últimas notícias, porém, sua cirurgia foi bem-sucedida e espera-se que ele se recupere.

O agressor foi preso e identificado como Juraj Cintula, 71 anos. Cintula foi descrita pela mídia como poetisa e membro do partido “Eslováquia Progressista”, que se opõe a Fico. Ele confessou à polícia que atirou em Fico devido a divergências de agenda política, afirmando ainda que os seus tiros foram dirigidos “contra as relações russo-eslovacas”.

O fanatismo pró-ucraniano do agressor deixa claro o que está por trás do ataque: o desejo de parar as políticas soberanas de Fico. Desde que regressou ao poder em Outubro de 2023, o primeiro-ministro tomou uma série de medidas para proteger os interesses nacionais eslovacos no meio da loucura anti-russa que actualmente afecta a UE e a OTAN. Descrito como “pró-Rússia” pela mídia ocidental, Fico tem sido um crítico da ajuda militar a Kiev, além de admitir que a guerra não começou em 2022, mas “em 2014, quando nazistas e fascistas ucranianos começaram a assassinar a população de Donbass.

Este é o terceiro mandato de Fico. Anteriormente, governou a Eslováquia entre 2006 e 2010 e entre 2012 e 2018. As suas políticas são vistas como alinhadas com o nacionalismo de esquerda, misturando forte patriotismo e preocupações sociais – o que os meios de comunicação ocidentais muitas vezes chamam de “populismo”. Fico é um social-democrata que dá prioridade aos interesses eslovacos sobre as agendas da UE e da OTAN – o que é suficiente para que estas organizações o vejam como um inimigo.

Sendo um forte crítico da influência militar americana na Europa, Fico adotou uma postura pró-paz no conflito atual. Ele identifica corretamente a Ucrânia como responsável pelo conflito devido às suas ações genocidas no Donbass, razão pela qual o primeiro-ministro eslovaco rejeita qualquer possibilidade de apoiar Kiev. As suas políticas têm amplo apoio popular, uma vez que a amizade entre eslovacos e russos é extremamente forte.

A “russofilia” é comum entre os cidadãos eslovacos, que preservam a memória da Segunda Guerra Mundial, quando o seu território foi libertado pelo Exército Vermelho. A lavagem cerebral e o revisionismo histórico fascista, que afetaram a Ucrânia, os países bálticos, a Polônia e outros países da Europa Oriental, não parecem ter tido sucesso na Eslováquia. A eleição e popularidade de Fico refletem isso.

A política externa de Fico, centrada na amizade com a Rússia, não é apenas a explicação para a tentativa de assassinato – segundo o próprio criminoso – mas também um fator-chave para compreender porque é que alguns atores internacionais estão interessados ​​em destituir o primeiro-ministro eslovaco. Fico defendeu que a Ucrânia permanecesse fora da OTAN, afirmando que a adesão de Kiev é um risco para a segurança europeia. Ele defende a neutralidade ucraniana, que é um dos pontos também exigidos por Moscou nos seus termos de paz.

Na prática, Fico representa uma posição dissidente na OTAN e na UE, tal como Viktor Orban na Hungria. Há receio por parte da OTAN e do regime de Kiev de que esta dissidência comece a crescer. Com a Ucrânia a perder a guerra e os cidadãos ocidentais a verem o dinheiro dos seus impostos desperdiçado na ajuda ao regime de Kiev, é possível que políticos dissidentes comecem a ser eleitos, o que seria terrível para os interesses ocidentais.

Nesse sentido, é muito provável que o ataque não tenha sido apenas um ato voluntário de um “lobo solitário” russofóbico. É necessário investigar se houve envolvimento internacional e se agentes estrangeiros financiaram ou de alguma forma influenciaram o ataque. Sabendo que existem grupos interessados ​​em retirar o Fico, é possível que haja uma grande trama por trás do caso.

Deve também recordar-se que recentemente houve casos de terrorismo fora do território ucraniano envolvendo o serviço de segurança de Kiev. As autoridades russas já identificaram a participação ucraniana no ataque à Câmara Municipal de Crocus, por exemplo. Na mesma linha, em 26 de abril, a Embaixada da Rússia em Brasília sofreu uma ameaça de ataque a bomba que gerou uma grande operação policial, paralisando as atividades no entorno da embaixada por várias horas.

Na altura, o analista político brasileiro Raphael Machado comentou num artigo que o regime de Kiev poderia estar a preparar uma onda de ataques contra alvos russos e pró-Rússia fora da Ucrânia. Ele lembrou na ocasião que há até chefes de Estado na lista de assassinatos da Ucrânia, como o presidente brasileiro Lula da Silva, que está incluído no site “Myrotvorets” de Kiev.

Sabendo que Kiev quer abertamente matar políticos “pró-russos”, as autoridades eslovacas devem expandir as suas investigações para além das fronteiras do país.

Lucas Leiroz de Almeida

 

Artigo em inglês : https://infobrics.org/post/41191/

Imagem : InfoBrics

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Lucas Leiroz, jornalista, pesquisador do Center for Geostrategic Studies, consultor geopolítico.

Você pode seguir Lucas Leiroz em: https://t.me/lucasleiroz e https://twitter.com/leiroz_lucas

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Global Research Wants to Hear From You!

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We learn about other cultures mostly through the media and through books, films, travels and personal encounters. All news reports are micro glimpses of a time and place.

This challenges us in at least two ways: how do we get a more accurate and holistic perspective of the world, and how can we learn to understand each other across cultural diversity.

One way to understand societies is to look for similarities and differences in the ways people think. Or, what is in their general attitude to “others” — are they perceived as a danger, potential friends, “barbaric”, or as someone to be curious about, explore and learn from?

Next, do the citizens think in terms of either/or, or both/and? Exclusivity or inclusivity?

Different behaviors come from who we are and what ways of thinking we were brought up to think of as being the most “natural”.

The Western way of thinking is very different from that of the Eastern way, but I would argue they are also, in principle, complementary.

Regrettably, the present Western Cold War-like policy against China is rooted in at least two things:

  1. The denial of its own decline; 
  2. The coming fall and in its cosmology, which tends to prevent it from learning and integrating elements of other cultures.

The Western system is based on the tradition of teaching others, not learning from others. Thus, the Westerners have the idea of a civilizational mission and making others look and behave like themselves.

In contrast, China has learned and eclectically integrated Western cosmological elements. It’s learned negatively from Western interference, occupation and colonialism, which has caused it to emphasize defense in a wide sense and “doing it my way” (maximizing self-reliance), the hard way without shortcuts.

So, while modernizing impressively, China has kept dear its traditional thinking of collectivism/the group/family, Confucianism, Taoism, harmony, Yin and Yang, meritocracy and maintaining face.

Simultaneously — and positively — China has imported and adapted elements of Western ideas: Marxism, the idea of political parties, capitalism, science and technology and so on.

Furthermore, China today knows the West better than the other way around.

Chinese media focus much more on the West and not only negatively, while Western mainstream media focus very little and always negatively on China. And many more Chinese speak English than people in the West speak Chinese.

Inclusivity, adaptation, openness to others and a steadfast sense of one’s own cultural rootedness seem to me to be one important “deep” key to understanding China’s recent — and amazing — development. It’s also the key to the Belt and Road Initiative’s future. Indeed, the BRI could add more intercultural dialogue and serve as a peace accelerator.

In recent years, with China’s ever-larger global reach, it has produced a series of valuable and visionary documents and initiatives, such as

  1. “A Global Community of Shared Future: China’s Proposals and Actions” issued in September 2023,
  2. the Global Development Initiative,
  3. the Global Security Initiative and
  4. the Global Civilization Initiative.

They all refer back to the brilliant philosophy in the 1955 Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence that are embedded in China’s Constitution.

These trend-setting initiatives should be studied in all corners of the world. We need to discuss concepts and principles before we make action plans, and think long term. They are constructive but also contain diplomatic criticism of the dominating, confrontational West.

All other countries should present their matching documents and promote constructive dialogue. But sadly, what was once called future studies in the West — reports such as Limits to Growth and What Now? — seem to have been outmaneuvered by almost daily reports about impending doom and gloom.

The United Nations system is built on Article 1 of the UN Charter that peace shall be established by peaceful means.

That fits well with the concept, which China has also integrated, namely “common security” advocated by the Swedish Olof Palme Commission Report in 1982 as the foundation for all security policies.

One could easily add the thinking of Sun Tzu — and then features of the present-world community — offensive weapons including nuclear weapons and offensive deterrence — would have to be abolished. Security has to be aligned with rational analyses of civil and military threats, and all military-industrial-media-academic complexes have to be dismantled because they produce only war and profits to their elites, never peace and security.

Instead, the global community would share a future with a huge reduction in all kinds of violence and invest in intelligent civilian conflict resolution, mediation, violence prevention and peace-building. Non-violence would be a basic, cherished norm replacing armament and militarism.

This not idealism; it is realism.

A global community and unity in respect for diversity should guide us in the struggles for a shared future of peaceful coexistence. In contrast, confrontation, militarist offensive thinking, nuclear weapons and mass-destructive warfare will lead, sooner or later, to a dead end for humanity.

Interestingly, the recent meeting between President Xi Jinping and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken illustrated what we have discussed here.

President Xi emphasized global norms, non-interference in the affairs of another country, unity in diversity and humanity’s overarching common interests.

Blinken presented a series of complaints and accusations, without any global future ideas, based on a mission to change China and promote unity in conformity to the US.

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Jan Oberg is director of the Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research, TFF, Sweden.

Featured image is from WANG XIAOYING/CHINA DAILY

Western Liars Aggressively Promote WWIII in Europe

By Joachim Hagopian, May 17, 2024

Now facing the worst economic collapse ever, unable to heat their homes and factories during the winter, the West is undergoing the elites’ controlled demolition, gutting out all Western economies assured to bring the intended outcome, the plotted diabolical death of Western civilization itself.

Fatal Post COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine-Associated Cerebral Ischemia

By Dr. Peter McCullough, May 17, 2024

We are becoming accustomed to unexpected death after COVID-19 among young persons who have taken one or more injections of the COVID-19 vaccine. It is important to realize that not all deaths after vaccination are cardiac.

COVID-19 Pandemic Response: A Military-Pharmaceutical Apparatus

By Democracy Manifest, May 17, 2024

In mid 2023, Australian Senator, Malcolm Roberts, asked this rhetorical question about the four-nation consortium for Medical Countermeasures (or “MCMs” – namely ‘vaccines’) under the American-led “CBR Defense Cooperative Program”.

In Slovakia, the Lone Gunman Strikes Again

By Stephen Karganovic, May 17, 2024

Over the last several months, as Project Ukraine was turning into a shipwreck, Fico defiantly refused to allow military aid for the Kiev regime, called for cancelling anti-Russia sanctions, and repeatedly expressed the prohibited notion that Ukraine will be defeated.

Why China Has Little Reason to Trust the U.S.

By Paul Atwood, May 17, 2024

In the last decade xenophobic tropes intended to stoke fear and loathing of Chinese have accelerated ominously in the American mainstream media as many public officials of both parties label China as our “adversary” or even our “enemy.”

Australia: The Heroism of David McBride. John Kiriakou

By John Kiriakou, May 17, 2024

By 2014 McBride had compiled a dossier into profound command failings that saw examples of potential war crimes in Afghanistan overlooked and other soldiers wrongly accused. On Tuesday he was sentenced to nearly six years in jail.

Gaza Genocide 2.0

By Dr. Paul Larudee, May 17, 2024

If the list of casualties grows more slowly while a vastly larger number of Palestinians die uncounted, this will further the goal of killing and/or expelling the population of Gaza, and advances the day when an empty Gaza can be annexed to Israel, for developers to build beach condos for Zionist settlers, with subsidies and low-cost loans from the US and Germany.

Western Liars Aggressively Promote WWIII in Europe

May 17th, 2024 by Joachim Hagopian

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Things appear no better this week on WWIII’s European front. That unelected worm, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak at a Monday May 13th meeting of the Policy Exchange think tank, actually stated:

[If Russia succeeds in Ukraine, UK] might be next, [adding that Moscow’s] recklessness has taken us closer to a dangerous nuclear escalation than at any point since the Cuban Missile Crisis.

All these Western puppets read from the same central banking cartel mono-script.

This City of London weasel actually accused Russia of cutting off the West’s gas/oil supply when it was Western puppets following orders of their moneychanging masters to destroy Russia with unending economic sanctions that is chiefly the cause of the West’s mess today.

Now facing the worst economic collapse ever, unable to heat their homes and factories during the winter, the West is undergoing the elites’ controlled demolition, gutting out all Western economies assured to bring the intended outcome, the plotted diabolical death of Western civilization itself.

Yet another of Rishi’s false projections blames Russia for weaponizing the immigration crises to achieve its goals.

These little mindless maggots in the West are always ordered to falsely blame globalist invented enemies Russia, China and Iran for all their own malevolent crimes against humanity. It’s a never-ending broken record of nonstop lies that never stop flowing from these mealy-mouthed demons.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova responded to this litany of bogus allegations:

Sunak’s lies are so desperate that one could even feel sorry for him. Russia did not stop gas supplies even for a second.

Maria reminded Sunak that it is the wars led by the US-UK in Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria that led directly to the thousands of displaced war refugees pouring into Europe and has nothing to do with Russia. Of course, we know that today’s unprecedented worst migration crisis on earth is the sole doing of the globalist masters creating every conflict and warzone that are responsible for this deliberately engineered global crisis. Be it the wide-open borders in both Europe and America, neither are Russia’s doing.

Regarding Rishi Sunak blaming Russia for “nuclear escalation,” again Maria reminded simpleton it was the West greenlighting Zelensky’s repeated shelling of Europe’s biggest nuclear power plant at Zaporozhye NPP that endangered the entire European continent, not Russia.

And that it again was the US/NATO members that banned Russian energy imports, not Moscow.

Maria confronted that Russia stopped its energy deliveries to Europe, correcting him that it was not Russia but US-UK criminal collaborative betrayal that destroyed supposed ally Germany’s energy lifeline with Russia, the sabotaged the Nord Stream pipelines.

Always these robotic, order-following globalist tools in Europe/US constantly try passing themselves off as “good guys,” the false saviors of Western democracy and freedom, vainly attempting to cover up their suicidally following their masters’ deadly policies clearly intent on destroying the entire West. These puppets cannot hide this dark truth no matter how much they lie.

FACT: they are all betraying their own people, their own cultures and their own countries. And more and more of the world is realizing this blatant black and white fact. Their what’s good is bad and bad is good deception is no longer working.

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The United States, UK, France, Poland and Baltic states are clearly the most aggressive NATO members “playing” with the suicidal notion that rather than permit Ukraine to fall, sending NATO troops to Ukraine is a viable, if not necessary option. Recently US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Minority House Leader Hakeem Jeffries have both verbalized probability of US boots on the ground. France’s Macron is most persistently floating the idea. These NATO puppets publicly encourage Kiev to fire off the US-UK-French longer-range missiles at key targets inside Russia. But the most fanatical of the three NATO “big boys” is by far the United Kingdom, after all, the City of London power yoke can most easily squeezed puppets inside the nearby British government, like its Minister of Defense Grant Shapps, who on Tuesday May 14th emphatically stated:

I do not think it is plausible at all for Putin to win this war. It is very, very important that the US follows the UK lead. Remember: we’ve just increased our money to Ukraine this year to £3 billion ($3.78 billion), our biggest-ever package. [Referring to Russia as today’s Nazi Germany,] we have been in this position before in Europe and we will simply not allow that to happen again. If you give a bully like Putin an inch, he will take a mile. In this case, he will probably take quite a lot, not just Ukraine. I’m not sure he will stop there either.

Their globalist script demands all warring maniacs in the West must say Putin will not stop in Ukraine. But fortunately, the vast majority of EU/NATO countries have strongly stated they will not deploy troops in Ukraine. With no consensus among NATO nations, on Tuesday May 14th, Swedish Defense Minister Pal Jonson told the press:

There’s no concrete proposal for it here and now. If it comes up, a concrete proposal, we can take it into review.

As the newest NATO member after breaking its longtime policy of neutrality in 2022, Sweden has agreed to allocate€28 million ($30 million) to increase Kiev’s military capabilities. Last week Jonson said Sweden aims to:

Strengthen Ukraine’s defense in terms of drones, mine clearance, and by strengthening the capabilities of the Ukrainian navy.

Earlier this week Canadian Defense Minister Bill Blair said:

Just to make it very clear, the conditions, in my opinion, are not yet appropriate to deploy Canadian troops in any capacity into Ukraine, as it pertains to their combat zone.

With a minority of NATO members explicitly open to boots on the ground in Ukraine, from the stronger members, and other stated positions leaving the door open if NATO so chooses at a later date, and NATO exercises still actively scheduled till the end of this month, the prospect of NATO facing off against Russia over Ukraine is very much still on the table.

Meanwhile, a partisan coalition amongst German MPs has been foolishly talking up a hairbrained idea of Poland and Romania voluntarily using their air defense systems to shoot down Russian missiles over Ukraine airspace. But this direct escalation appears to be gaining some traction. Former NATO secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen is now on board using Polish and Romanian missile defenses to intercept Russian missiles flying over Ukraine.

At least wiser heads may prevail in the Bundestag as Social Democratic Party (SPD) chair Rolf Mutzenich has come out in vehement opposition to such an aggressive move, warning it would be “playing with fire” as a direct warring party against Moscow. However, as Russia dominates on the battlefield as Ukraine approaches defeat, the US/NATO/West are growing more desperate and taking this war to the European theater level of World War III.

As part of this same trend toward Western provocation, on Sunday May 12th, Ukraine fired Soviet era Tochka ballistic missiles and Adler and RM-70 Vampire (MLRS) multiple launch rocket systems partially destroying an apartment building inside Russia in the border city of Belgorod, killing 15 Russian civilians and injuring 20. Since Ukraine is so overmatched fighting Russian soldiers, with the greenlight from US/NATO, the Kiev government has resorted to increasingly launching longer-range missile attacks, sent from the US, UK and France, directly into Russia. Ukraine is now using the West’s longer-range missiles like the US ATCAMs to launch increasing number of terrorist strikes targeting Russian civilians deeper inside Russia and Crimea, and fully supported by US/NATO. This essentially makes US/NATO violators of both international law of war as well as violating another Putin red line as direct party to the conflict. This constitutes nothing less than clear intent to accelerate the war to a far larger direct conflict between US/NATO and Russia.

To create a necessary buffer zone to clear out Ukraine’s Kharkov region so that Kiev’s missiles and drones can no longer reach the vulnerable Russian border region Belgorod, Russia has launched a border invasion into Ukraine during the early morning hours of Friday May 10th. The one Kiev offensive that successfully took back a sizeable chunk of the Russian controlled territory around Kharkov over a year and a half ago, is now abruptly in jeopardy. Despite plenty of time to reinforce that northeastern region, based on the recent Moscow army’s invasion taking advantage of both the spring dried terrain and the element of surprise, Russian forces seized up to a dozen towns not far from Ukraine’s second largest city Kharkov. Ukraine claims that Russia has deployed 30,000 of its 50,000 troops amassed along that border.

During the early morning hours of Friday May 10th, Russia launched as major offensive towards Kharkov in northeastern Ukraine near the Russian border. The Russian army has broken through Ukraine’s first line of defense. For all intents and purposes, even CNN is finally admitting Ukraine’s imminent defeat with its Monday May 13th headline:

Russia is surging across the frontlines, and Ukraine seems unable to stop it. [Its leadoff sentence] the changing language used by the Ukrainian military in 72 hours of daily updates tells the story: ‘Ongoing defensive fighting.’ ‘Significantly worsened.’ Russian ‘tactical success.’

So, this pessimistic turn in war coverage has finally come home to roost for both Ukraine and lame mainstreamCNN, recoiling from lost revenue and forced downsizing due to losing so much of its viewership as Americans reject its flagrant propaganda lies. Yet even with this gloomy headline, CNN opted for its own “changing language” apparently, thinking twice about running such a downtrodden, defeatist headline, changing its headline:

The rest of the world wants the Ukraine war to go away. Putin has other ideas

All those rosy, grand delusional Western media lies about Ukraine’s victory are now ancient history. Those of us that saw the longer history dating back to Victoria Nuland’s illegal 2014 Kiev coup, knew full well that Ukraine’s defeat would be inevitable, though admittedly, I expected this war to be over some time ago.

After City of London lapdog Boris Johnson was dispatched to Kiev to sabotage the nearly negotiated ceasefire only a month into the conflict in late March 2022, Putin has chosen a more gradual course of war fighting, delivering Russia’s meatgrinder war of attrition, accurately banking on US and West war fatigue setting in, still open to talks with the West, but now on its terms. Ukraine must never join NATO as a neutral buffer zone nation and neighbor to Russia.

Ukraine’s military intelligence chief Kirill Budanov in a New York Times interview this week described:

The situation is on the edge. Every hour this situation is critical.

Budanov stated the Russian military offensive is pressuring Kiev to move reserves in to slow down its move to Kharkov, warning that within days Russia plans to launch a second campaign pushing towards the Sumy region 150 km (93 miles) northwest of Kharkov. Criticism that Kiev failed to adequately fortify this border region was alluded to by Ukrainian commander Denis Yaroslavsky writing on social media:

The first line of fortifications and mines just didn’t exist. We came to the conclusion that this was either deliberate theft or deliberate sabotage.

The timing of this Russian spring offensive is obviously taking advantage of that $61 billion US aid package not yet showing up on the battlefield, including the F-16s Denmark has set for delivery to for Ukraine within several weeks.

Antony Blinken’s pure fantasy expressed during his unannounced Tuesday May 14th Kiev visit assured Zelensky that the US weapons “on the way” will “make a real difference.”

Later that night, Blinken brought along the CSPAN crew to a local Kiev bar. A video of this pretentious fool shows Blinken playing guitar, singing “Rocking in the Free World,” drawing instant comparisons of Nero playing violin while Rome burns. This pompous grandstander is a disgrace, knowing that taxpayers’ $61 billion will be wasted down the drain as yet another shameful boondoggle that Blinken knows will never change the war’s outcome. Anyone with half a brain knows that at this point.

But per globalist dictates, all these DC losers must double down right to their bitter end.

The West’s unwillingness to face this cold hard reality just shows how much these war demons could care less about Ukraine’s fate as a nation or its people, and that thousands more Ukrainians will needlessly die for no good reason.

Ukraine’s fate was sealed from the very get-go of the 2014 US illegal coup with its pre-agenda to arm and train neo-Nazis as Europe’s biggest army on the false promise of joining NATO. And Kiev’s fate was doubly sealed once the February 2022 Russian Special Military Operation to de-Nazify and demilitarize Ukraine was launched.

In other symbolically important frontline action this week, Russian Defense Ministry announced on Wednesday May 15th that the only territory Kiev forces gained during its long-hyped, failed spring counteroffensive last year was just lost. The village of Rabotino in the Zaporozhye Region was retaken on Wednesday by the Russian army. The region’s capital, Melitopol, is 75 km (46 miles) northeast of Rabotino. Along with Kherson, Lugansk and Donetsk, Zaporozhye is one of four regions that voted in a referendum to be annexed by Russia in the fall of 2022. Moscow’s forces are making solid gains to completely remove the last of the once heavily entrenched Ukrainian forces out of what is Russia now.

In other major news, with Putin beginning his fifth term as Russian Federation president, Putin promoted his now outgoing Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu after 12 years in his post to Secretary of National Security. Of course, the West classified this change as either a demotion or a sideways move rather than Shoigu’s reward for an excellent performance modernizing and strengthening Russia’s armed forces as perhaps the best in the world.

Shoigu’s replacement is a longtime Putin close advisor and major Russian economist who orchestrated Moscow’s ascendancy overcoming the West’s economic sanctions that turned out to be a boom for Russian independence and prosperity, while the beginning of the suicidal end for US and Western civilization, resulting in the death of the US unipolar hegemon and the spawning of an emboldened multipolar world. It would have happened anyway but the elites forcibly expedited it in order to deliberately destroy Western prominence, and specifically its large white Christian middle class as the elites’ perceived biggest obstacle to one world totalitarian government tyranny and CBDC smart cities neo-feudal enslavement. How much Russia and China as the multipolar leaders are elites’ controlled opposition players still remain to be seen.

On the eve of his trip to his strategic ally China on Thursday and Friday, Putin had this to say:

Earth is the cradle of humanity, our common home, and we are all equal as its inhabitants. I am convinced that this view is shared by most people on the planet. US‑led Western elites refuse to respect civilizational and cultural diversity and reject centuries-old traditional values, [and] have usurped the right to tell other nations whom they may – or must not – make friends and cooperate with. They seek to ensure their well‑being at the expense of other states, just like in the old days, and resort to neo-colonial methods to that end.

The West can hardly tolerate the close military, political and economic alliance between Russia and China, with Beijing offering last year to broker a negotiated peace between Russia and Ukraine, but was soundly rejected by the US. Putin says neither Ukraine nor its Western backers [and their puppet masters] are ready for:

An equal, honest and open dialogue based on mutual respect and consideration of each other’s interests. Given global turbulence and economic issues in the West, such results prove yet again the strategic wisdom of our sovereign course and pursuit of national interests.

Either Vladimir Putin is the smoothest, shrewdest operator on the chessboard planet, or he really does offer a more prudent, better way for the world community of nations to amicably proceed, rather than how the plundering, destructive US/West as globalist pawns have mucked everything up so badly.

Meanwhile, on Wednesday May 15th, Slovakia’s Prime Minister Robert Fico apparently survived an attempted assassination, forcing him to undergo emergency surgery. He is only one of two EU leaders not against Putin. As a populist leader, he is an anti-globalist, is against funding Ukraine, against the WHO’s Pandemic Agreement and against EU’s new migration policy. In other words, one of the important leaders for sanity was nearly murdered. Hopefully, Robert Fico will fully recover from his injury and help sanity overcome the prevailing insanity taking over this troubled world.

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Joachim Hagopian is a West Point graduate, former Army officer and author of “Don’t Let the Bastards Getcha Down” exposing a faulty US military leadership system based on ticket punching up the seniority ladder, invariably weeding out the best and brightest, leaving mediocrity and order followers rising to the top as politician-bureaucrat generals designated to lose every modern US war by elite design. After the military, Joachim earned a master’s degree in Clinical Psychology and worked as a licensed therapist in the mental health field with abused youth and adolescents for more than a quarter century. In Los Angeles he found himself battling the largest county child protective services in the nation within America’s thoroughly broken and corrupt child welfare system.

The experience in both the military and child welfare system prepared him well as a researcher and independent journalist, exposing the evils of Big Pharma and how the Rockefeller controlled medical and psychiatric system inflict more harm than good, case in point, the pandemic hoax and kill shot genocide. As an independent journalist for the last decade, Joachim has written hundreds of articles for many news sites, including Global Research, lewrockwell.com and currently https//jameshfetzer.org, Inteldrop.org and  https://thegovernmentrag.com. As a published author of a 5-book volume series entitled Pedophilia & Empire: Satan, Sodomy & the Deep State, Joachim’s books and chapters are Amazon bestsellers in child advocacy and human rights categories. His A-Z sourcebook series fully document and expose the global pedophilia scourge and remain available free at https://pedoempire.org/content s/. Joachim also hosts the weekly Revolution Radio broadcast “Cabal Empire Exposed” on Friday morning at 7AM EST (ID: revradio, password: rocks!).

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US universities have been in the news recently for three reasons, all of which are worrying and are also related to each other.

Firstly, recent protests in the context of the Israeli assault on Gaza have drawn attention also to the endowments of prestigious US universities having close links to weapons and wars related industrial and financial interests. 

Secondly, university administrations have been not at all sympathetic to students and faculty members getting mobilized to raise issues of larger social concerns, even though these issues are related to protecting and saving precious human life, and have acted with undue haste to bring in police and make too many arrests, apart from victimizing student protesters in many other unjust ways. 

Thirdly, and this concerns a very persistent woe, student debts have generally continued to remain at very high levels, despite sporadic efforts to provide relief. These have become a huge burden for young people starting their professional and family life. In fact debt burden saddles even those who are unable to complete their graduation. 

As this writer had argued earlier, this is not just a matter of rising university costs and other such factors. A country as well-endowed as the USA with all sorts of riches is perfectly capable of educating its youth without getting them entangled in such difficult debts. Instead these heavy debts are a reflection of the increasing tendency of capitalism to try to tie up younger people in such a way with debts that they feel more and more compelled to follow the establishment path and their chances of instead following their ideals (related for example to creating a safe and justice-based world) are minimized by the compulsion of paying back loans (apart from high and increasing costs of living). 

Hence the capitalist system, despite making occasional concessions in the form of some debt-relief for mobilizing political support, particularly during election years, is in system terms more committed to perpetuation of student debt. 

The university system under these circumstances keeps getting closer to academic factories whose main purpose (output) is to turn out suitably trained higher level managers and officials of the capitalist-imperialist system (although despite such efforts due to the human spirit idealism still survives and occasionally asserts itself).

While the university system has thus been in news, the prevailing conditions in high schools also deserve attention. 

According to the data of the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance Data Survey and Trends Report released by the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, USA for years 2011-21 (an earlier version of this report was also quoted by the USA Surgeon General in the advisory issued by him in 2021), in 2021 42% of all high school students and 57% of female students reported experiencing “persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness.” What is more, within a decade (2011-2021), this had increased in a big way, rising from 28% to 42%, a very fast rate of increase. Why is sadness and hopelessness so widely pervasive in one of the richest countries with relatively very high educational and health spending?

At the same time, this data base has revealed that in 2021 22% of high school students “seriously considered” attempting suicide. This was as high as 30% for female students.

Most tragically, in 2021 10 per cent of all high school students (13% of girls students) actually attempted suicide. 

Such alarming official data raises a very serious question–in such a rich country with such a high exposure to an immense diversity of entertainment and sports, why should such high levels of distress and stress prevail among high-school students? 

According to the Advisory on Mental Health issued by the USA Surgeon General in 2021, there was an even higher rise in the suicide rate in the age-group 10-24 in the USA from 2007 to 2018—57%. In 2018, suicide became the second leading cause of death in this age-group.

According to the Surgeon General Advisory as well as several other reports, on top of the very serious situation existing already by 2019 there was a further very rapid deterioration during the COVID period. To give an indication, according to the USA Surgeon General advisory, in early 2021 there was a further 51% rise in emergency department visits by adolescent girls in the USA relating to suicide attempts, compared to the similar period in 2019.

In the fall of the same year 2021, a coalition of the USA’s leading experts in pediatric health, asked foe declaring a national emergency in child and adolescent mental health.

All these are alarming facts and figures. The surgeon general has also used the word ‘alarming’ for this. He has stated, “Even before the pandemic, an alarming number of young people struggled with feelings of helplessness, depression and thoughts of suicide—and rates have increased over the past decade.”

However while the data is there, no comprehensive, credible explanation appears to have emerged yet at a wide level of why, in one of the richest countries enjoying very special privileges,  children and adolescents are in such an extreme stage of sadness, hopelessness and desperation, and why is there such rapid recent increase in this. Of course in a country with so many capable, resourceful researchers and research institutions, several explanations have been offered. Several of these draw attention to important aspects and offer helpful insights (the Surgeon General’s Advisory has also contributed much to this), but not an understanding that is comprehensive and deep enough to provide a very effective, hope-giving base for remedial action.

One explanation that has emerged is that the social media and accompanying gadgets contributed much of this increase in the decade preceding the pandemic, but this is more of a manifestation of the basic problems rather than being the root cause itself. One aspect of the worrying situation is the negative perception by students of school life. A nationwide survey of 21,678 US high school students by the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence and the Yale Child Study Center found that nearly 75% of the students’ self-reported feelings related to schools were negative. Stressed, bored, tired–these were the most frequent expressions used by students. 

A Pew Research Center survey of teens in 13-17 age group (year 2018) found that 57% of them (64% of girls) were very worried or somewhat worried that a shooting could happen in their school.

Many studies of problems of high schools are more concerned about achievement levels. The Program of International Student Assessment, in a ranking of 35 OECD or rich countries, ranked USA at 30 in terms of Math learning of 15 year olds. Other studies have noted that those high school students who make it to college very frequently need remedial education, particularly in the context of Math and English. In recent years about 60% of all community college students and 40% of undergraduates in four-year colleges have needed remedial education, which has been used as an indicator of inadequate learning at high school. This is despite the fact that several educationists have also criticized the high school education system for becoming increasingly obsessed with preparing students for college instead of trying to provide holistic school education that prepares students for many-sided challenges of life. Other studies have lamented that despite spending more per student compared to other OECD countries, the USA school system is recording lower performance, and that performance, in reading proficiency for example, did not improve despite the doubling of expenditure during 1970-2004.

While these studies no doubt have their own importance, in our humble opinion what is more important is the persistent feeling of sadness and hopelessness among about 42% of all students (57% of girls) and this should get more importance in terms of remedial steps. This in turn should be done in terms of not isolated understanding but in terms of questioning the distortions in the entire society. This sad situation should not be examined in terms of any mistakes of kids but rather in terms of the highly flawed system the adults have created with too many distortions, above all a society which lacks clear ideals, a society in which huge numbers of entirely innocent people are killed in wars and then lies are routinely pushed at very high levels regarding this. Such deceit and injustice causes a dark shadow over the entire society and kids are harmed by this. Such wider relationships are ignored in most studies, and hence deeper understanding of such tragic aspects is also missed. Any true seeker of truth would certainly find that creating a society based on truth, justice and peace is the real solution to this and other serious social problems.

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Bharat Dogra is Honorary Convener, Campaign to Save Earth Now. His recent books include Protecting Earth for Children, Planet in Peril, Man over Machine and A Day in 2071. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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Fatal Post COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine-Associated Cerebral Ischemia

May 17th, 2024 by Dr. Peter McCullough

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We are becoming accustomed to unexpected death after COVID-19 among young persons who have taken one or more injections of the COVID-19 vaccine. It is important to realize that not all deaths after vaccination are cardiac.

A report from McMillan et al from the Department of Neurology, Harvard Medical School, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, MA, USA, raised awareness to fatal neurological events that are possible after vaccination.

McMillan N, Rosenberg HJ, Anderson MP, Pal P, Stephenson K, Fehnel CR. Fatal Post COVID mRNA-Vaccine Associated Cerebral Ischemia. Neurohospitalist. 2023 Apr;13(2):156-158. doi: 10.1177/19418744221136898. Epub 2022 Dec 5. PMID: 37064937; PMCID: PMC10091442.

“24 hrs after receiving her first dose of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine, a 30-year-old female developed severe headache. Three weeks later she was admitted with subacute headache and confusion. Imaging initially showed scattered cortical thrombosis with an elevated opening pressure on lumbar puncture. An external ventricular drain was placed, but she continued to have elevated intracranial pressure. Ultimately, she required a hemicraniectomy, but intractable cerebral edema resulted in her death. Pathology was consistent with thrombosis and associated inflammatory response.”

In a clinical trial, one Suspected Unexpected Serious Adverse Reaction (SUSAR) such as this would have put a pause on the entire study and an investigation into why this happened and a call for risk mitigation measures to prevent the same complication from happening to more subjects. Ironically, this case reported at a Harvard hospital had no impact on Harvard University mandating vaccination from May 5, 2021, to March 5, 2024. The FAQ/consent form signed by some of the nations brightest students made no mention of fatal cerebral ischemia and thrombosis as a direct complication of COVID-19 vaccination. I wonder if the editors of Britannica will fairly record this paradoxical and dangerous time in university history.

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The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity

by Michel Chossudovsky

Michel Chossudovsky reviews in detail how this insidious project “destroys people’s lives”. He provides a comprehensive analysis of everything you need to know about the “pandemic” — from the medical dimensions to the economic and social repercussions, political underpinnings, and mental and psychological impacts.

“My objective as an author is to inform people worldwide and refute the official narrative which has been used as a justification to destabilize the economic and social fabric of entire countries, followed by the imposition of the “deadly” COVID-19 “vaccine”. This crisis affects humanity in its entirety: almost 8 billion people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings and our children worldwide. Truth is a powerful instrument.”

Reviews

This is an in-depth resource of great interest if it is the wider perspective you are motivated to understand a little better, the author is very knowledgeable about geopolitics and this comes out in the way Covid is contextualized. —Dr. Mike Yeadon

In this war against humanity in which we find ourselves, in this singular, irregular and massive assault against liberty and the goodness of people, Chossudovsky’s book is a rock upon which to sustain our fight. –Dr. Emanuel Garcia

In fifteen concise science-based chapters, Michel traces the false covid pandemic, explaining how a PCR test, producing up to 97% proven false positives, combined with a relentless 24/7 fear campaign, was able to create a worldwide panic-laden “plandemic”; that this plandemic would never have been possible without the infamous DNA-modifying Polymerase Chain Reaction test – which to this day is being pushed on a majority of innocent people who have no clue. His conclusions are evidenced by renown scientists. —Peter Koenig 

Professor Chossudovsky exposes the truth that “there is no causal relationship between the virus and economic variables.” In other words, it was not COVID-19 but, rather, the deliberate implementation of the illogical, scientifically baseless lockdowns that caused the shutdown of the global economy. –David Skripac

A reading of  Chossudovsky’s book provides a comprehensive lesson in how there is a global coup d’état under way called “The Great Reset” that if not resisted and defeated by freedom loving people everywhere will result in a dystopian future not yet imagined. Pass on this free gift from Professor Chossudovsky before it’s too late.  You will not find so much valuable information and analysis in one place. –Edward Curtin

ISBN: 978-0-9879389-3-0,  Year: 2022,  PDF Ebook,  Pages: 164, 15 Chapters

Price: $11.50 FREE COPY! Click here (docsend) and download.

You may also access the online version of the e-Book by clicking here.

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“Who knew we had a military pharmaceutical apparatus linking the United States, Australia, Canada and the UK…?”

In mid 2023 Australian Senator, Malcolm Roberts, asked this rhetorical question about the four-nation consortium for Medical Countermeasures (or “MCMs” – namely ‘vaccines’) under the American-led “CBR Defense Cooperative Program”.

Malcolm Roberts also demanded to know: “Did anyone in this country [Australia] accept orders from the United States military to do or not do a thing that may have interfered with this military pharmaceutical plan?”

This speech remains the single most important overview to date by any parliamentarian in the world regarding the Covid Response, with more questions than answers.

The address by Senator Roberts delivered on 9 August 2023 was linked to in our initial post – “The Great Preset and the Biodefense Boondoggle” – which covered details of the U.S.-led four-nation defense-and-health partnership and its “MCM Consortium”.

Note: We are interested to know what American (former) Senator Joe Lieberman – Co-chair of the U.S. “Bipartisan Commission on Biodefense”- thinks about the speech by Senator Malcolm Roberts!

The video and transcript of the Senator’s speech are below.

Did the Medical Countermeasures Consortium Run COVID?

Transcript and video of Senator Roberts, 9 August 2023:

“Quote – ‘The consortium seeks to develop medical countermeasures to assist with… chemical and biological threats affecting civilian and military populations and on emerging infectious diseases and pandemics’ – end of quote” 

As a servant to the many different people who make up our one Queensland community, tonight I speak to an aspect of COVID-19 I’ve not raised before. Information now in the public domain indicates the COVID response was not initiated through commercial interests but, rather, through an organisation called the Medical Countermeasures Consortium that Australia joined in 2012. According to Australia’s defence.gov.au website, the Medical Countermeasures Consortium is a four-nation partnership involving the defence and health departments of Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States. ‘The consortium seeks to develop medical countermeasures to assist with… chemical and biological threats affecting civilian and military populations and on emerging infectious diseases and pandemics. Medical countermeasures include drugs, vaccines and diagnostics.’ Who knew we had a military pharmaceutical apparatus linking the United States, Australia, Canada and the UK, in place since the Gillard Labor government—an AUKUS for pandemics?

“The medical countermeasures unit within the United States Department of Defense has been in the vaccine business for many years and has been injuring people for many years—and getting away with it.”

The consortium maintains a compensation scheme for people injured as a result of taking a countermeasure. Compensation claims were accepted for the 2009 H1N1 vaccine, the anthrax vaccine and flu vaccines. The medical countermeasures unit within the United States Department of Defense has been in the vaccine business for many years and has been injuring people for many years—and getting away with it. So it should come as no surprise that the American Department of Defense signed the first contract between the United States government and Pfizer for the purchase of $11 billion worth of vaccines. President Trump gave the order to the Department of Defense to commence vaccine development and even gave it a cool name: Operation Warp Speed.

“There are doors to be kicked down, and this time it will not be the doors of everyday Australians, guilty of no crime…” 

President Trump reacted, as we in this place reacted, with the best of intentions and the worst of data. Intelligence was used that our security apparatus knew or should have known was wrong. Videos from China of people dropping dead have proven to be fakes produced with the assistance of Chinese intelligence, and they may not have acted alone. These videos should not have made it to the decision-making process in the West. How that happened—how so much fraudulent information was offered to elected members—is a matter for a royal commission. The United States has already started multiple congressional hearings and court cases that will eventually yield the truth. Australia must play its part in this process—our part, for we are truly all in this together to the very end. There are doors to be kicked down, and this time it will not be the doors of everyday Australians, guilty of no crime, who merely spoke the truth on social media.

“The United States response to COVID brought the Medical Countermeasures Consortium into the process at a very, very early stage.”

The United States response to COVID brought the Medical Countermeasures Consortium into the process at a very, very early stage. Australia’s military were involved early, providing assistance including crowd control, border quarantine, contact tracing and medical personnel—things one would expect the military to help with.

Former Prime Minister and profligate officeholder Scott Morrison shuttered the COAG system because it was open and transparent—COAG being the Council of Australian Governments. COAG was not just a single meeting; COAG was a secretariat with committees, including a health committee, liaising across local councils, state and federal government. Although not a constitutional instrument, this COAG structure was very well positioned to administer our COVID response. Why was it abolished and replaced with a military pharmaceutical apparatus? I hope the royal commission asks that question. In place of COAG, Mr Morrison created a secretive so-called National Cabinet, consisting of only the state premiers and territory chief ministers. What was the secret so important that a well-functioning apparatus like COAG had to be demolished and the truth gagged for 30 years?

Mr Morrison then appointed a serving military officer, Lieutenant General Frewen, to run Australia’s vaccine rollout, rebranded as—wait for it—Operation COVID Shield. The United Kingdom responded to COVID in March 2020 with a massive military operation called Operation Rescript. This moved 23,000 military personnel into a new unit called the COVID support operation, under British powers known as military aid to civilian authorities, MACA. Command of this large military force remained with the military. And Canada—what of Canada? Canada called in the Canadian Armed Forces with ‘unprecedented measures’—their words, not mine—under Operations LASER and VECTOR.

“It’s clear the Medical Countermeasures Consortium agreement… was designed to make pandemic response a military operation, not a civilian health operation.[…] Australia saw military in their hardware on the streets… locking people in their homes. All of this created a climate of fear and intimidation that facilitated acceptance of the COVID injection.” 

It’s clear the Medical Countermeasures Consortium agreement, which the Gillard Labor government signed in 2012, was designed to make pandemic response a military operation, not a civilian health operation. This should have been clear in July 2021, when General Frewen took to the microphone in full military uniform. Australia saw military checkpoints at borders, military guarding medical facilities, military in their hardware on the streets of Sydney and Melbourne locking people in their homes. All of this created a climate of fear and intimidation that facilitated acceptance of the COVID injection. Was this the plan? Has the pharmaceutical industry now donned fatigues?

Did our civilian health authorities stand up for established medical principles, based on the Hippocratic oath to prescribe only beneficial treatment? No, they did not. We know our Therapeutic Goods Administration, the TGA, did not review the Pfizer stage II and III clinical trial data and instead relied on the American FDA’s paperwork. We know the FDA didn’t review the data and instead took Pfizer’s word for how the trials went. Surely the TGA knew this. If it did, the TGA’s complicit. If it didn’t know, the TGA is hopelessly or wilfully negligent. It’s misfeasance.

“… Pfizer gave the US government the vaccine the government asked for and so claimed Pfizer is not liable for the adverse events.”

Pfizer committed systemic fraud during their clinical trials, with whistleblowers revealing only healthy adult participants were recruited for a stage II/III clinical trial of a vaccine that was intended for the sick and elderly; trial duration was grossly insufficient to capture medium-term and long-term side effects like myocarditis; to drown out the number of adverse events being recorded among real participants, fake participants were created who recorded zero side effects; patients who suffered serious side effects were removed from the study and never existed in the paperwork; and the COVID injection was not tested on pregnant women, and women who fell pregnant were removed from the study before childbirth. The COVID injection was then recommended for pregnant women. How could any human do this? This is inhuman, and it’s monsters that did it. Why did Pfizer think they could get away with the most crooked clinical trial in history? Could an answer to this question be found in testimony of a Pfizer executive to US Congress? They made a comment that Pfizer gave the US government the vaccine the government asked for and so claimed Pfizer is not liable for the adverse events.

“… vaccines can be deployed, at a price, of course, because after all this is the corporate United States, wracked with parasitic globalist predators.” 

The military appears to have been involved in the cover-up of COVID’s origins[1]. It’s now clear that COVID was developed during gain-of-function research in China’s Wuhan Institute for Virology, connected with the Chinese military. Who funded this research in China? The United States National Institutes of Health, under Anthony Fauci. Canada and Australia were involved in this research. In 2020, the CSIRO put out a press release not only admitting their gain-of-function research but defending it. I’ve spoken on that previously. After a series of lab escapes involving pathogens at the headquarters of America’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention—the CDC—in Georgia, President Obama in 2014 suspended gain-of-function research. Anthony Fauci ignored the president’s order and moved the research offshore to Wuhan, China.

Gain-of-function research is countermeasure research. It’s the same process of finding and manipulating pathogens to produce a new virus—a Frankenstein virus. Once the virus is deadly enough, a vaccine is prepared, and then the whole thing is put on shelf in case an enemy or nature deploys that virus. Once the virus appears in the population, vaccines can be deployed, at a price, of course, because after all this is the corporate United States, wracked with parasitic globalist predators.

“Did anyone in this country accept orders from the United States military to do or not do a thing that may have interfered with this military pharmaceutical plan? […] What we saw was forced injection of people… Fear, intimidation, blackmail and threats —inhuman force.” 

In the early stages of COVID development and escape, did our medical countermeasure apparatus act independently of government? This is a question for a royal commission. Did anyone in this country accept orders from the United States military to do or not do a thing that may have interfered with this military pharmaceutical plan? That’s another question for a royal commission. Let me be clear: Australia has a long and enviable history of using our military to assist in civilian disasters to the benefit of all. If the need arises again, we should not hesitate to allow our military to help out again. The military should not be used against law-abiding civilians or against healthy civilians for the purposes of forced injections to transfer wealth to big pharma. What we saw was forced injection of people after succumbing to the threat of deprivation of their family’s livelihood and their ability to feed children. Fear, intimidation, blackmail and threats of loss of income and home are elements of force—inhuman force.

“[Covid] was about control of people and wealth transfer using deceit— deceit that’s inhuman, monstrously inhuman. […] Was this a military pharmaceutical operation or a civilian health operation?” 

I have repeatedly said that COVID-19 was severely mismanaged, because it was never about health. It was about control of people and wealth transfer using deceit—deceit that’s inhuman, monstrously inhuman. We must know whether our TGA, in waving through a vaccine countermeasure that would not have been approved under normal circumstances, bowed to higher powers. Was this a military pharmaceutical operation or a civilian health operation? These are matters ordinarily dealt with in a royal commission. The Albanese Labor government broke its pre-election promise to have a royal commission. If it continues to break its promise, it will be complicit in hiding truth from the people, truth that is slowly yet relentlessly and inevitably coming out. Call the bloody royal commission now.

Links for videos and transcript for speech by Senator Malcolm Roberts – 9 August 2023

Australians – among the “citizens of the world” referred to by the Pentagon on 5 March 2020 – want answers to these important matters regarding the Covid Response raised by Senator Malcolm Roberts, particularly with reference to the “emergency” rollout of liability-immune mandatory medical countermeasures (MCMs) – the so-called ‘vaccines’.

Note the pre-Covid list ofInternational MCM Stakeholders” represented on the Australian DMTC Defence website – ie. US Defense and Health agencies, together with the WHO:

International MCM stakeholders (2018): USG Defense and Health agencies, and the WHO. Source: Australia’s ‘Defence Materials Technology Centre’ – https://dmtc.com.au/ – 2018

And note the pre-Covid plan for a U.S. military-led (and ‘health-led’) “medical rapid response” with fast-tracked MCMs (ie. tests and ‘vaccines’)…

“Rapid Response Partnerships” for accelerated MCMs overseen by US DoD and HHS (2019). Source: JPEO-CBRN Defense youtube – “Medical Rapid Response” – screen shots – June 2019

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Note

[1] Addendum: please see below – (8)

… After a deep dive on this aspect of the counter-narrative, we respectfully differ with the Senator on the relevance of “the origins of Covid-19”…

All images in this article are from Democracy Manifest

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May 17th, 2024 by Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East

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Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME) welcomes Canada’s belated imposition of sanctions on four extremist Israeli settlers, but warns that this narrow approach to state-settler violence fails to address the enabling role of the Israeli government. For months, Canada has warned that settler terrorism has the support of Israeli leaders and is often carried out with the protection or even participation of Israeli soldiers. CJPME continues to urge Canada to widen its list of targeted individuals to include Israeli officials responsible for settler violence, including far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, and to recognize the Israeli government as a state sponsor of terror under the State Immunity Act.

“While today’s sanctions set an important precedent that Canada can use economic measures to address Israeli violence against Palestinians, it totally fails to address the core of the problem. By narrowly focusing on a few individuals and failing to include any Israeli leaders in its list, Canada entirely sidesteps the complicity of Israeli leaders and the Israeli government,” said Michael Bueckert, Vice President of CJPME. “Years of evidence demonstrate that Israeli settler violence is a form of state-sponsored terrorism. Canada must sanction all Israeli officials responsible for supporting and enabling these crimes, starting with National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir,” added Bueckert.

Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly announced today that Canada was imposing sanctions against four extremist Israeli settlers under the Special Economic Measures Act, which prohibits Canadians from dealing in property with them and bans them from Canada. Minister Joly first announced that she was “looking into” the possibility of sanctions nearly four months ago. CJPME wrote to Minister Joly in December urging her to hold settler individuals and Israeli officials equally responsible. For years, Canadian human rights groups like CJPME have entreated the Canadian government to pressure Israel to cease and reverse illegal settlement activity with concrete political, diplomatic, and economic measures.

Just earlier today, CJPME released a comprehensive policy brief urging the Trudeau government to take a ‘whole-of-government’ approach to combatting Canada’s complicity in Israel’s settlement enterprise, which includes but is not limited to the issue of settler violence. Among its 19 policy recommendations, which fall under seven different ministerial portfolios, CJPME is urging Canada to

1) Impose economic sanctions on the Israeli settlement economy, including any individuals and entities involved in Israel’s illegal occupation and attempted annexation of East Jerusalem, Gaza and the West Bank;

2) Recognize the Israeli government as a state sponsor of terror under the State Immunity Act; and

3) Impose individual sanctions on all Israeli government officials involved in and supporting settlements and settler social movements, including targeted sanctions on Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.

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When Israel Bombed AP’s Gaza Office

May 17th, 2024 by Matt Orfalea

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Wednesday was Nakba Day—the day commemorating the expulsion of 750,000 Palestinians with the creation of Israel, in 1948—but there was another anniversary worth remembering. The day a foreign country bombed the offices of a major U.S. press outlet, accusing it, without evidence, of harboring terrorists. And a significant portion of the US media spun the story to support the foreign country.

On May 15, 2021, as part of its “Operation Guardian of the Walls” military campaign in Gaza, Israel bombed the Associated Press offices’ building, based on the still evidence-free claim that the AP headquarters “housed Hamas”. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, the week prior, IDF bombed two other office buildings that “housed more than a dozen international and local media outlets.”

Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) gave the tenants of the al-Jalaa Building in Gaza—which included AP, other news agencies including Al-Jazeera, and residential homes—a stern warning. IDF informed them they had one hour to evacuate their homes before the building would be bombed by Israeli missiles. Sixty minutes and three Israeli missiles later, the 12-story building was leveled to the ground.

The IDF posted a short vague statement that provided no evidence for their claim the building was being used by terrorists but made sure to repeat the term “Hamas terror organization” four times, in just four sentences—five times if you count “Hamas military intelligence” in the headline.

The AP’s CEO at the time, Gary Pruitt, said the news agency had been in the building for 15 years and “we have had no indication Hamas was in the building or active in the building.”

So could Israel have been lying? Well, retired US Army colonel and former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, Lawrence Wilkerson seems to think so.

Let me let me preface these remarks with I never, never, ever believe Israeli figures. I’ve been in the government too long to know that the Israelis are patent liars in their intelligence community, in their propaganda community, certainly, and in their leadership. They are inveterate liars. Let me say that again. They are liars. So you can’t believe anything that comes out of Jerusalem. It’s all propaganda.

The fact that Israel lied to the international press just one week prior about a fake ground invasion, to trick Hamas into giving up their positions, doesn’t help Israel’s case. On the contrary, it clearly shows that Israel puts military victory over truth, and has no respect for the press.

Israeli military spokesman Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus claimed that “Hamas used the building for a military intelligence office and weapons development” but “could not provide evidence” to back up the claims without “compromising” intelligence efforts.

This “trust me I have the evidence” bullshit is reminiscent of the false narrative that fueled the 2003 Iraq War and the more recent Trump/Russia hoax. Such a pathetic cover story is enough to make most conservatives cringe but ultimately, many conservatives were tricked into celebrating anti-American terrorism—the bombing of civilian infrastructure that housed an American news outlet.

A pro-Israel disinformation campaign, attempting to justify the bombing, began at the Washington Free Beacon before spreading across conservative media. The Republican-aligned Beacon has a history of lying and smear campaigns. It was founded by Bil Kristol, famous for helping the Bush admin lie America into the disastrous Iraq War. It went on to fund the Fusion GPS anti-Trump research that would later, under Democrat tutelage, hire Christopher Steele, a crucial source of the Trump/Russia investigation hoax, and more recently, the Beacon reported the Jewish girl “Stabbed in the Eye” hoax as fact.

On the same day of the AP building bombing, the Beacon published an “exclusive” to defend IDF’s missile attack on the American press in Gaza. It cited two sources: (1) a Twitter post of Beacon contributor Noah Pollak, and (2) an old article published seven years prior in 2014 by Matti Friedman, a former AP reporter, and former IDF soldier.

Pollack’s Twitter post cited an anonymous source he described as, “a well-placed friend in the IDF,” claiming that the AP office building “contained multiple Hamas operations & offices including weapons manufacturing and military intelligence,” adding that, “The building also housed an Islamic Jihad office. And AP’s local reporters knew about it.”

This info will come out soon,” he said.

Yes, that’s right. He said, “This info will come out soon.” Over three years later now, “this info” supporting his claims still hasn’t come out.

That alone is enough to completely discredit Pollak. But he’d already proven himself uncredible. He ran the Emergency Committee for Israel (ECI) (another “clown show” created by Kristol) which even the President of the Anti-Defanation League—not exactly an anti-Israel organization—called “misleading, distorted, inaccurate”. He was also caught leading an astroturfed pro-Israel counterprotest on a college campus. (Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?)

Nevertheless, Pollak’s completely unsubstantiated claims were published immediately by the usual suspects—Fox News, Newsmax, New York Post, etc. The Republican party-aligned outlets also followed the Beacon’s lead, citing its second source, Friedman’s 2014 article.

Like Pollak, Friedman also had a “well-placed friend” who “suggests there were indeed Hamas offices” in the AP building.

Oh boy, another anonymous “friend”! Despite sounding so sure of his “intimately familiar with military decision-making” friend’s secret information, Friedman also wrote on Twitter that “Contrary to what I’ve seen attributed to me today, I didn’t write [in 2014] that Hamas operated out of the same building, and don’t know if that’s true”.

The media citing Friedman typically omitted this. And I couldn’t help but notice that the media sharing his 2014 piece in The Atlantic accusing the AP of bias, and the piece itself failed to mention his own bias—his years of service in the IDF, and his “slightly rosier view of the IDF”, according to The Times of Israel.

Now pause for just a moment to ponder how insane it is—even if all of Friedman’s disputed 2014 claims were true—to rely on an article written in 2014 by an IDF vet, who worked at AP in 2006-2011, to justify the IDF bombing Associated Press in 2021, for which the IDF itself provided no evidence to justify.

This is the following 2014 excerpt that made the media rounds after the 2021 bombing:

“The AP staff in Gaza City would witness a rocket launch right beside their office, endangering reporters and other civilians nearby—and the AP wouldn’t report it, not even in AP articles about Israeli claims that Hamas was launching rockets from residential areas. (This happened.) Hamas fighters would burst into the AP’s Gaza bureau and threaten the staff—and the AP wouldn’t report it. (This also happened.) Cameramen waiting outside Shifa Hospital in Gaza City would film the arrival of civilian casualties and then, at a signal from an official, turn off their cameras when wounded and dead fighters came in, helping Hamas maintain the illusion that only civilians were dying. (This too happened; the information comes from multiple sources with firsthand knowledge of these incidents.)”

AP’s Director of Media Relations Paul Colford said Friedman’s story was “filled with distortions, half-truths and inaccuracies”, arguing that Israel challenged the AP with as many dangerous obstacles as Hamas and that AP covered both sides of the conflict.

[Friedman’s] arguments have been filled with distortions, half-truths and inaccuracies…

Like other media covering this story, we dealt with numerous obstacles, including Hamas intimidation, Israeli military censorship, anti-media incitement on both sides of the border, Hamas rocket fire and intense Israeli airstrikes that made it dangerous and difficult to get around Gaza during the fighting.

Courageous AP staffers worked around the clock in Gaza, often at the risk of great personal harm. Intense Israeli airstrikes literally shook the high-rise building housing the AP’s office. Two AP employees were ultimately killed in Gaza, and a third critically wounded and maimed. Our body of work included images and stories about Hamas rocket fire from civilian areas, the suffering of the residents of southern Israel living under the threat of rocket, mortar and tunnel-based attacks, Hamas’ summary executions of suspected collaborators, the fears of Gazans to criticize the group, Hamas’ use of civilian areas for cover and the devastation wreaked on Gazan civilians by Israeli airstrikes and artillery attacks.

Colford confirmed that armed militants entered AP’s offices in the early days of the 2008-2009 Gaza War to intimidate AP but said that AP did not give in to the intimidation.

Regarding a few specific issues that Mr. Friedman has raised most recently:

The AP published numerous photos and TV footage of rockets being launched from Gaza City. AP’s Josef Federman and Hamza Hendawi collaborated on an investigation into Hamas’ use of civilian areas for rocket launches, comparing maps obtained from Israeli military intelligence to facts on the ground.

In the early days of the war, armed militants entered the AP’s offices in Gaza to complain about a photo showing the location of a specific rocket launch. The AP immediately contacted Hamas, which insisted the men did not represent the group. The photo was not withdrawn and the men were never heard from again. Subsequent videos similarly showed rocket launches from within the urban area.  Such intimidation is common in trouble spots. The AP does not report many interactions with militias, armies, thugs or governments. These incidents are part of the challenge of getting out the news — and generally not themselves news.

The Beacon’s “exclusive” was just the beginning. The “trust us we have secret evidence” disinformation campaign continued as the pro-Israel media eagerly forwarded another empty Israeli government claim, from a nameless “senior diplomatic source”, who told the Jerusalem Post of “smoking gun” evidence that Hamas was using the same Gaza building as AP.

“We showed [the US] the smoking gun proving Hamas worked out of that building,” a senior diplomatic source said. “I understand they found the explanation satisfactory.”

What evidence? Who exactly did they “show”? I guess we’ll never know!

If there’s a satisfactory explanation for why IDF bombed an American news agency, you’d think Israel and the US might want to make that known. But they haven’t.

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu repeated the claim of secret “smoking gun” evidence on CBS’s Face the Nation, saying, “We share with our American friends all that intelligence”.

Hmmm. Netanyahu and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken appear friendly…

But no, Blinken said he “had not seen any evidence”.

When asked the next day if he’d received any evidence, Blinken didn’t quite confirm receiving anything. He said, “Um…uh…it’s my understanding that uh, we’ve uh, uh received uh, some further information through, uh, uh intelligence channels.” The only thing he actually confirmed was that it’s “not something that [he] can comment on.”

WAPO: Yesterday you said the US requested an explanation from Israel about its bombing of a high rise building containing U.S. and foreign media offices. Have you received anything? And what’s your assessment of that?

BLINKEN: Um. We uh. Did uh. Seek uh. Further information from, uh, Israel on this question. Uh, it’s my understanding that uh, we’ve uh, uh received uh, some further information through, uh, uh intelligence channels. And that’s not something that, that I can comment on.

Click here to watch the video

The following month, in June 2021, Israel’s Channel 12 news reported that IDF Lieutenant-General Aviv Kohavi said that the AP’s journalists drank coffee with Hamas each morning in the building’s cafeteria, whether they knew it or not. The AP called the comments “patently false”, noting “there was not even a cafeteria in the building”. Israel’s Defense Minister Benny Gantz told AP that the IDF General was speaking figuratively. However, Gantz, like all the Israeli officials before him, offered AP no evidence to support IDF’s bombing of the news agencies.

Gantz said Israel has shared its intelligence with the U.S. government. But he indicated that Israel has no intention of making the information public, saying it did not want to divulge its sources.

As usual, the propaganda was not limited to conservative media. The Democrat Party-aligned television network CNN platformed IDF Spokesperson, Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus. Asked, “Can you show us the evidence?” Cornicus replied, “That’s in process, and I’m sure that, in due time, that information will be presented.”

It’s due time to come to grips with the reality that there is no evidence to justify the attack. Israel bombed an American news agency (with an American bomb), and the American government continues to cover for Israel and continues to fund continued death and destruction in Gaza.

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The International Movement for a Just World (JUST) is delighted to inform all of you of our upcoming webinar this coming Saturday at 12pm New York time.

Two extraordinary individuals will be our speakers: Max Blumenthal and Prof. Ilan Pappe. 

Below is an account of the ridiculous ordeal that Prof. Pappe endured when coming to the US. He will speak about what happened and its larger meaning.

Kindly register here.

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Featured image: A leaflet created by the United States Department of Defense to be dropped over Syria is shown after being released to Reuters by the Pentagon in Washington March 26, 2015 (Reuters / U.S. Department of Defense)

In Slovakia, the Lone Gunman Strikes Again

May 17th, 2024 by Stephen Karganovic

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The “lone gunman,” that cartoonish figure that for the last several decades – at least since November 1963 – has regularly framed most high-profile assassinations, has struck again, this time in disobedient Slovakia. He always pops up whenever his presence is required to warn misfits and discipline even team players who are inattentive to their tasks.

The assassination attempt on the Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico fits that pattern. Fico’s political record going back for decades may have provoked a measure of distrust in globalist circles. However, his electoral victory and return to power in the fall of last year probably would have been treated as a manageable challenge had Fico been rotten enough to act as his colleagues routinely do, saying one thing before elections and doing the opposite afterwards.

He has, instead, turned out to be a man true to his word, certainly quashing any rumours that he had ever been recruited as one of WEF’s Young Leaders. At a critical juncture for the globalist string-pullers, when being a cooperative team player is considered de rigeuer, he chose to go off the beaten path with other outcasts like Victor Orban and to champion old fashioned values, such as Slovakia’s national sovereignty.

Fico however did not just insist on Slovakia’s sovereignty, which would have been bad enough, but also on other despised notions, equally discredited in present-day Europe: Statehood, Nationhood, Religion, and Family. It is his adherence to those values, once the cornerstone of the European civilisation before its cultural implosion, that made Fico a lone gunman target.

But to these shortcomings several other, no less bothersome and also potentially life threatening faults, should be added. Over the last several months, as Project Ukraine was turning into a shipwreck, Fico defiantly refused to allow military aid for the Kiev regime, called for cancelling anti-Russia sanctions, and repeatedly expressed the prohibited notion that Ukraine will be defeated.

As if that were not enough, there is more. In a long-forgotten tragedy in 2006, a Slovak aeroplane mysteriously crashed whilst flying back from Kosovo. On board, in addition to Slovak peacekeepers, there was most interesting cargo. Slovakian specialists and forensic experts were involved in the exhumation of several mass graves in Kosovo where Serbian victims had been buried and they were bringing the evidence back home. It turned out that many of those victims exhibited thorax incisions which strongly suggested that they had been used as unwilling organ donors by Albanian traffickers. Readers  whose memory is still unimpaired will recall the controversy about human organ extraction and trafficking in Kosovo that raged at the time, culminating in the incriminating 2010 report on this topic submitted to the EU by Swiss investigator Dick Marty.

The Slovak team handed a set of the evidence it had unearthed to NATO, of which Slovakia had by then become a member. But just to make sure that their findings would not disappear in some NATO black hole, they took the precaution of carrying an extra set home with them. That evidence was on board the aeroplane that inexplicably crashed and it perished along with about 40 Slovak personnel whose mouths concerning their gruesome findings in Kosovo were thus forever sealed.

As custom ordains in such situations, a hasty and superficial investigation was conducted by Slovak authorities, its conclusions were declared a state secret, and then sealed.

Five years ago, the 2006 plane crash again was in the limelight as new evidence emerged that the event may not have been an accident after all because of an explosive device that was placed on board. The Slovak parliament opened an inquiry into the matter which Robert Fico wholeheartedly and publicly supported.

In addition to his more recent gaffes, that also must have been a huge strike against him.

Predictably, responsibility for the shooting was instantly attributed to a lone individual who allegedly bore Fico a political grudge and decided to kill him. How that risible, Jack Ruby-type explanation will pan out, we may soon see as Slovakian authorities press their inquiry.

But irrespective of what Slovakian investigators uncover and how much of it their NATO overlords allow them to publish, certain preliminary conclusions about this ghastly attempted murder may still be drawn. Based on the totality of past experience, these conclusions are bound to be ultimately corroborated and will most certainly withstand the test of time.

The gangster hit on the Slovakian Prime Minister will have had its intended effect whether he survives or not. It was an intimidatory message sent loud and clear to all concerned not even to think of challenging the rules based order. The nature and reach of the “rules” as pertaining to them was made starkly clear the other day in Slovakia. As the position of the collective West crumbles, all European leaders who might be thinking of flip-flopping or asserting their nations’ interests in preference to obediently following orders have been put on notice. If Robert Fico was vulnerable, so are they. And this applies not just to pathetic excuses for national leaders who are presently in office, but also to those aspiring to replace them. More widely, the attempted murder of Robert Fico sends a message to outstanding non-political public figures of diverse profiles, such as Archbishop Vigano, whose bold statements, coherent analyses, and compelling appeals to the public threaten to collapse the manufactured consensus.

*

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Stephen Karganovic is president of “Srebrenica Historical Project,” an NGO registered in the Netherlands to investigate the factual matrix and background of events that took place in Srebrenica in July of 1995. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.  


Rethinking Srebrenica eBook : Karganovic, Stephen, Simic, Ljubisa: Amazon.co.uk: BooksRethinking Srebrenica

By Stephen Karganovic

Rethinking Srebrenica examines the forensic evidence of the alleged Srebrenica “massacre” possessed by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague. Even though the ICTY created more than 3,500 autopsy reports, many of these autopsy reports were based on bone fragments, which do not represent complete bodies. An examination of the matching femur bones found reveals that there were only about 1,900 complete bodies that were exhumed. Of these, some 1,500 autopsy reports indicated a cause of death consistent with battlefield casualties. Only about 400 autopsy reports indicated execution as a cause of death, as revealed by ligatures and blindfolds. This forensic evidence does not warrant the conclusion of a genocide having taken place.

Karganovic examines the events that took place in Srebrenica in July 1995 in a wholistic manner instead of restricting it to a three-day event. The ten chapters cover:

1) Srebrenica: A Critical Overview;

2) Demilitarization of the UN Safe Zone of Srebrenica;

3) Genocide or Blowback?;

4) General Presentation and Interpretation of Srebrenica Forensic Data (Pattern of Injury Breakdown);

5) An Analysis of the Srebrenica Forensic Reports Prepared by the ICTY Prosecution Experts;

6) An Analysis of Muslim Column Losses Attributable to Minefields, Combat Activity, and Other Causes;

7) The Genocide Issue: Was there a Demonstrable Intent to Exterminate All Muslims?;

8) ICTY Radio Intercept Evidence;

9) The Balance Sheet; and

10) Srebrenica: Uses of the Narrative.

  • ASIN:‎ B0992RRJRK
  • Publisher: ‎Unwritten History, Inc.; 2 edition (July 8 2021)
  • Language: ‎English

Click here to purchase

Why China Has Little Reason to Trust the U.S.

May 17th, 2024 by Paul Atwood

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In the last decade xenophobic tropes intended to stoke fear and loathing of Chinese have accelerated ominously in the American mainstream media as many public officials of both parties label China as our “adversary” or even our “enemy.”

This last formulation is deep cause for growing alarm, especially because many decisions have been made to agitate Beijing and its unambiguous position on the “red line” over the issue of Taiwan. One American general asserts that war between the two nations will begin in 2025.[1] The Pentagon’s official budget approaches one trillion dollars and research is under way to “modernize” the nation’s nuclear arsenal.

According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, “xenophobia” is defined simply as “fear and hatred of strangers or foreigners.” When reports circulated that the Covid virus emerged from a laboratory in Wuhan, China (a cooperative effort between Beijing and the U.S.), anti-Chinese/Asian violence itself became epidemic overnight. Ever-increasing bulletins about the menace of “communist” China and its threat to the American economy have proliferated. The messages of mainstream media are controlled by policy makers in and outside the American government who abrogate the hypocritically vaunted principle of press freedom and thereby “manufacture” the consent of the public.

In 2021 the U.S. Department of State unequivocally stated that:

“The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) poses the central threat of our times, undermining the stability of the world to serve its own hegemonic ambitions. Despite efforts to defend its malign actions, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) under the control of the CCP is not a model world citizen.”[2]

The State Department then goes on to cite China’s “predatory economic practices, military aggression, disregard for human rights, [and] environmental abuses,” as if the U.S. is not seen by many nations across the world as the worst offender on these matters.

It is true that Beijing has increased its nuclear warheads, launched another ultra-modern aircraft carrier armed with hypersonic missiles, and is steadily modernizing its military overall.

But the obvious response to this is that, certainly since the Korean War when General Douglas MacArthur openly advised using atomic weapons to create a “radioactive belt” across China and President Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower then publicly threatened their use, China has every reason to fear and mistrust the U.S. A decade later the Chinese acquired their own nuclear weapons.

Exactly how does the PRC threaten the U.S., much less the world? Are Chinese naval and air bases parked off American shores as the U.S. has established only miles off China’s coast? Are thousands of Chinese troops stationed in nearby countries only miles from U.S. borders? Have Chinese forces invaded, much less totally desolated, other nations thousands of miles distant, as assuredly the U.S. has done since it rose to the top of the international dog-fight for control of the world in 1945?

Source: twitter.com

Despite formal agreements made decades ago by the Nixon and then Carter administrations that the United States recognized a “One China Policy,” American policies today manifestly encourage Taiwan’s independence, or at least its full autonomy with staunch political, economic and military links, and reliance upon the U.S. full independence, China asserts, shall not pass. Just as China has taken control of the former British colony of Hong Kong, so the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) asserts that Taiwan will be ruled from Beijing.

The current crises in Gaza-Israel and Ukraine dominate public attention and befogging awareness of the other critical geo-political inflection point between the United States and China. General Secretary Xi Jinping has stated categorically that Taiwan will not become the independent nation it obviously desires to be because it believes it has American support to succeed at this goal.

If the U.S. acts militarily to defend Taiwan from a Chinese armed incursion into what it avows is its own national territory, as President Biden has flatly declared he would do,[3] the result would rapidly progress into catastrophic war and all but inevitably then to nuclear exchanges.

In a phone call with Biden in July 2022, Xi warned against “playing with fire” over Taiwan, saying “those who play with fire will perish by it.”[4] American naval penetrations of territorial waters claimed by China, U.S. Navy and Air Force flyovers extremely close to Mainland China, and near misses between American and Chinese aircraft, are on-going.

Emphasis on the term “communist” to describe China today is a clear ploy to resurrect the “specter of evil” propaganda that suffused the American post-World War II geo-political atmosphere, thereby enabling the U.S. itself to conduct utterly malign wars in Korea and Vietnam and more.

The designation of communism long ago ceased relevance. The reality is that China practices its own form of capitalism that deeply competes with American aims and will not submit to the fantasy of a “rules-based international order” imagined and enforced from Washington in which China plays the role of junior partner, or “model citizen.” That is the crux of the problem. The issue of how to make a world profitable for American commercial and financial interests, and to contain or crush any serious competition, is and has always been the sine qua non of U.S. foreign policy, with deep roots extending back to the nascent country’s earliest relations with China.

Since the establishment of the republic, American elites have often and successfully unleashed floods of xenophobic propaganda against those whom they wish the public to abominate, beginning with native peoples, then Africans and even white Irish. Then came the immigrant Chinese: first, when they were recruited as peon labor during the Gold Rush, then when thousands of laborers were critical to build half the Transcontinental Railway.

Thence, Chinese lived in segregated ghettos chiefly on the West Coast and were soon vilified as gangsters, opium dealers and prostitutes. Unhappy that Chinese born in the U.S. received constitutionally guaranteed citizenship, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882 to limit their further rise in population. By the late 19th century, the phrase “yellow peril” became commonplace when referring to Chinese and any Asians.

A person kicking a person Description automatically generated

Late 19th century yellow peril cartoon. [Source: mediad.publicbroadcasting.net]

The roots of Chinese distrust of the U.S. and the West date back longer than most Americans realize. Western exploitation and attempted colonization of Chinese territory extends back more than two centuries. Racist anti-Chinese attitudes were much in evidence in the “China Trade” during the early years of American independence, when merchant vessels undertook long voyages to Guangzhou, the port they labeled “Can Ton.” Canton, a town in Massachusetts near Boston, is thought to have been named because many China Trade merchants settled there.

Few of them regarded China’s 5,000-year-old civilization as worthy of note, seeing it as backward and primitive compared to their own self-importance. In turn Chinese traders saw Westerners as “barbarians” with little to offer them. They would happily sell spices and porcelain desired by American elites but found little of interest to purchase from Westerners.

Matters changed radically in the early 1820s. The British East India Company had learned that production of opium in its Indian colonies was highly profitable when sold throughout Asia. Having seized its first Chinese colony of Hong Kong the Brits saw a vast market for the substance in China and elsewhere. Traffic in opium soon also opened possibilities for American merchant enrichment, and in Massachusetts especially. The Chinese rulers soon realized how destructive opium addiction was to their society and how rapidly it was spreading.

The Qing dynasty’s attempt to limit the opium traffic was met with violence, initiating two major wars in the mid-19th century, after which Britain imposed harsh terms on the declining imperial system and began a series of encroachments on Chinese territory and independence. The weakness of the Qing emperor was duly noted by many Western nations, including the United States.

Picture

Depiction of Commissioner Lin Zexu presiding over ceremony dumping British-trafficked opium at sea. [Source: opiumqingwar.weebly.com]

Though Boston merchants came to control only ten percent of the opium trade in China, they were vastly enriched and some of the profits financed the early industrial revolution in America, as well as the physical development of Boston itself and institutions like Harvard University. Many aristocratic figures known as “Boston Brahmins” owed their fortunes to opium, among them the grandfather of President Franklin Roosevelt, Warren Delano.

Opium merchants were well aware of the addictive qualities of the substance, that drove the demand, and their desire for ever-increasing profits overrode any concern. Before long opium addiction also began to spread in the U.S. itself, evolving then to morphine addiction among Civil War veterans, and on to the heroin plague of the 20th century. Today, trade in addictive drugs accounts for an enormous slice of legal and illegal global “trade.”

As immigration from Europe in the 19th century swelled the U.S. population exponentially, American annexation of other people’s land also escalated. The religious doctrine of “Manifest Destiny” claiming that “Divine Providence” intended the U.S. to civilize the New World was in full flower.

After deliberately and dishonestly provoking war with Mexico and taking another quarter of today’s territory by force, the United States had reached the end of continental expansion and its Pacific boundary. The rapidly intensifying industrial revolution that took root at the end of the Civil War created a “crisis of overproduction” leading to mass unemployment and domestic labor strife.

Two major depressions occurred back-to-back, leading most financial, political and military elites to conclude that overproduction compelled a quest for “ultimate supremacy” in the world markets.[5] With the four-centuries-old Qing dynasty in clear decline, the “Great China Market” became the object of international contention. Britain, France, Germany, Russia, Japan and others began to carve out separate colonies along coastal China for their individual economic benefit.

In 1904, The Judge magazine ran this cartoon titled The New Square-Deal Deck, with Theodore Roosevelt saying, "Come, now, gentlemen; it is time to throw aside that worn-out deck and try one which will give both of you a square deal." The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was repeatedly extended, sparking anger from the Chinese government and overseas Chinese. In the picture, a Chinese and Uncle Sam take turns to play their political cards, neither side willing to give in.

In 1904, Judge, a weekly satirical magazine, ran this cartoon titled “The New Square-Deal Deck,” with Theodore Roosevelt saying, “Come, now, gentlemen; it is time to throw aside that worn-out deck and try one which will give both of you a square deal.” The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was repeatedly extended, sparking anger from the Chinese government and overseas Chinese. In the picture, a Chinese and Uncle Sam take turns to play their political cards, neither side willing to give in. [Source: thinkchina.sg]

The U.S. insisted, however, on the “Open Door” to all of China’s resources, including cheap labor, by all contestants in unbridled competition, also introducing the phrase “laissez-faire” to claim that all would have equal access in a “free market.” In reality, Europeans knew that America’s economy was rising rapidly and would soon outstrip and outcompete their own. We rarely hear of the “Open Door Policy” today, yet it remains the bedrock doctrine of American economic, political and military strategy planet-wide, or what has become termed the “rules-based international order”—the rules to be established and enforced by Washington.

A cartoon of a person pulling a person's back Description automatically generated

Source: britannica.com

There was domestic resistance to the Western, and Japanese, overrun of coastal China and annexations of territories. The ever-weakening Qing dynasty allowed foreign powers to occupy and administer Chinese areas to their own advantage, much to the grievance of the Chinese population.

In 1900 a people’s uprising against this foreign exploitation erupted, known as the Boxer Rebellion, deriving its name from a secret martial arts society. Thousands of young Chinese attacked the outposts of foreign occupiers and demanded their expulsion from all Chinese territory.

The U.S., European powers and Japan all committed troops against the rebellion and shortly crushed it, setting in motion critical events throughout the 20th century that advanced the evolution of modern China. We can be sure that the Chinese people have not forgotten this history. Most Americans are clueless.

American Troops in China (Boxer Rebellion)

U.S. troops in China during the Boxer Rebellion. [Source: historylink101.com]

The escalating rivalry of Europeans in Europe itself led to all-out war in 1914 and this induced all powers except Japan to withdraw from China. The U.S. financed the Allies and avoided entry into World War I until the last year when it became clear that the debts owed by Britain, France and Russia would never be paid unless American military forces tipped the balance on the battlefield.

At the same time Washington understood that it had become the dominant economic power on Earth. President Wilson attempted to foster an international League of Nations that would be financially indebted to the U.S. but Britain held on to its shrinking power and began to stir the next round of war. The so-called “Peace of Versailles,” by which Germany was held entirely to blame for the war and forced to accept military occupation and pay enormous reparations to the Allies, all but ensured the rise of the Nazis.

In China the suppression of the Boxer Rebellion by foreigners set in motion the collapse of the Qing dynasty that was overthrown by a combination of Nationalists, known as the Kuomintang, who sought to form a Western-style republic, and early socialists influenced by European ideas and the revolution in Russia. Initially, the two movements attempted co-operation but soon split violently. Chiang Kai-shek had become leader and virtual dictator of the Kuomintang and, in 1927, conducted mass executions of communists leading immediately, and for more than 20 years, to bloody civil war. At roughly the same time Japan invaded Manchuria and began its takeover of China and southeast Asia.

The attack by Japan on Pearl Harbor was not the “cause” of war between Tokyo and Washington. Japan had burst upon the international scene as a result of conflict with the U.S. in the 1850s when American naval forces had “opened” Japan with the threat of force to American and Western commerce.

Until that time Japan was a deeply insular civilization, but its leaders looked around Asia and saw that “the West” was subordinating and colonizing many peoples. Japan deduced that it could soon be next so, virtually overnight, it modernized entirely and began to do what the Europeans and Americans had been doing.

First, Japan waged war against China and occupied a large province, moving from there to the conquest and occupation of Korea and then, during World War I, seized Germany’s Pacific island colonies. In 1931 Japan invaded Manchuria in northern China and, by the end of the decade, occupied much of French Indo-China and the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia today).

Japan was closing the Open Door.

At the same time Nazi Germany was closing much of Eastern Europe and the Soviets had already closed out most American commerce in their vast area. As the Great Depression deepened, the U.S. was shut out of markets. Tokyo was able to attack the U.S fleet in the mid-Pacific because Washington had deliberately left it vulnerable, knowing that the attack would inflame public opinion that previously had been adamantly against entering the war.

By no means did Tokyo have the military potency to invade the U.S. and force it to Japan’s will, nor did it have the remotest desire to do so. Japan’s strategy was to knock out any American capacity to jeopardize Japan’s imperial desire to dominate Eastern Asia and have time to build itself a powerful empire in opposition to the Americans, British, French and Dutch. As for Germany, the Third Reich proved unable to cross the English Channel. How could it cross the Atlantic to attack the U.S.?

Neither Germany nor Japan wanted war with the U.S. The Roosevelt administration entered World War II deliberately, not because it was threatened militarily but because it knew it had the industrial capacity to produce a war machine more than capable of victory, and saw opportunity finally to open China on terms long desired by key American economic, political and military elites.

During the 1930s, in the lead-up to war, the U.S. State Department, and elements of the soon-to-be Central Intelligence Agency, crafted a secret alliance with the Kuomintang. At least a year before Pearl Harbor, American pilots were released from duty in the U.S. Army Air Force, in clear violation of Congress’s Neutrality Laws, and were soon flying Kuomintang aircraft provided by the U.S. against Japanese troops in China.[6] That was only one major provocation leading Tokyo to prepare for war with the United States. (See Jeremy Kuzmarov, “Eighty Years of Lies,” CovertAction Magazine, December 7, 2023).

In the month before Japan’s fiery atomic collapse Soviet entry had quickly overrun China and Korea and virtually guaranteed the ascendancy of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the escape of the Kuomintang to the island of Taiwan in 1949. Washington immediately condemned the communist government as illicit, recognizing instead Chiang Kai-shek’s regime on the island, the Republic of China (ROC), as the only valid government of China.

Dwight Eisenhower rides in a motorcade with Chiang Kai-Shek in Taiwan in the early 1950s. [Source: new-life-movement.fandom.com]

The United States had lost China to the Chinese—the wrong Chinese. The U.S. then threatened the use of nuclear weapons against China.

It is important to note that the Soviet Union could probably have guaranteed the entire takeover of Korea by communists. However, contradicting the standard portrait of communists. the USSR made a deal with Washington. American troops had played no role on the ground in Asia.

After crushing Japanese resistance Stalin essentially invited American forces into southern Korea, temporarily dividing it until such time that the nation could hold elections. American strategists, seeking a foothold on the ground in Asia, consented to the deal but knew that such an election would be won by the “commies” who had earned much popular support.

Just as Chinese communists had won loyalty from masses of peasants because of their opposition to Japanese and Kuomintang corruption, so had the Korean communists in their military campaigns against the hated Japanese occupiers. Therefore, the U.S. allowed rigged elections only in the south.

In 1949-1950 numerous cross-border military incidents on both sides raised tensions. When the northern communists suddenly “invaded” their own country, the Korean War broke out. President Truman ordered hundreds of thousands of troops to the south, calling it a “peace action” under authority of the Security Council of the United Nations. Truman claimed in October 1952 that “we are fighting in Korea so we won’t have to fight in Wichita, or in Chicago, or in New Orleans, or on San Francisco Bay.”[7]

Early in the war the commander of American forces, General Douglas MacArthur, pushed north, driving communist forces back. Realizing that American troops would soon be on their borders, the Chinese Army crossed into Korea and drove “allied” forces back into the south with heavy losses, creating a real possibility of a devastating American rout. Secretary of State Dean Acheson frankly stated that “the defeat of U.S. forces in Korea in December (1950) was an incalculable defeat to U.S. foreign policy.”

A group of soldiers walking next to a tank Description automatically generated

U.S. forces in North Korea during the Korean War. [Source: commons.wikimedia.org]

At that moment MacArthur issued his open threat to use atomic weapons to create a “radioactive belt” along China’s southern border. He was forced to resign his command. Yet, shortly thereafter, President Truman stated publicly that the use of atomic weapons was under “active consideration.”

As the war ground on to stalemate, the failure of negotiations in 1953 led recently elected President Dwight Eisenhower also to threaten use of nukes, which resulted in the current Armistice, a cease-fire, not a peace treaty. Today Korea is still divided and technically in a state of war. The U.S still has approximately 30,000 troops stationed on North Korea’s borders, close to China and Russia, and nuclear weapons aboard the American submarine fleet.

In the decade following the Korean War, China achieved its own nuclear force. According to the Pentagon Beijing has 500 nuclear weapons. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists states that at least 100 of these are capable of reaching American cities.

In 1972 the Nixon administration and the PRC issued the joint “Shanghai Communique” in which Washington “acknowledges that all Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China and Taiwan is part of China,” adding that the U.S. “does not challenge that position” and affirmed the “ultimate objective of the withdrawal of U.S. forces and military installations from Taiwan.”

On January 1, 1979, President Jimmy Carter, following Nixon’s “opening” to China, issued another communique stating that the United States would henceforth diplomatically recognize the communist People’s Republic of China (PRC) and renounce recognition of the “Republic of China” (ROC), the Kuomintang regime that had ruled Taiwan as a U.S. client for 30 years.

Carter’s televised communique stated that “The government of the United States of America acknowledges the Chinese position that there is but one China and Taiwan is part of China.” In a separate statement Carter announced that his administration would terminate the U.S.-ROC defense treaty and withdraw military personnel from Taiwan within four months.

Carter’s position was immediately attacked by opponents of the measure in Congress, arguing that the statement did not unambiguously stipulate that the U.S. agrees that “Taiwan is part of China,” only that it recognized that China believed so. Whether this was a deliberate loophole, or a flaw in diplomatic language, the result was that Congress soon passed the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act that all but negated Carter’s stated desires.

The TRA clearly enables the U.S. to continue the supply of weapons and “defensive service” (i.e., American military advisers) to enable the island sufficient self-defense capability and to resist “any coercion that would jeopardize the security, or the social or economic system” of Taiwan. In 1982 President Ronald Reagan authorized officials to convey to the PRC that the U.S. did not agree to a date for ending arms sales to Taiwan. Those sales continue.[8]

Thus, the current environment between the two superpowers is designated as “strategic ambiguity” that, according to the RAND Corporation, is designed “to keep all parties guessing” and foster “dual deterrence” i.e., Taiwan won’t initiate war by declaring independence while China is restrained by the possibility of American defense of Taiwan if it does. More than a few strategists in both parties think that the U.S. should provide Taiwan with a NATO-style security guarantee. That anyone in a position to influence American policy thinks this way is a measure of how fundamentally irrational and uncoupled from reality Washington is becoming. The threat of NATO on Russia’s borders has led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands, and led Russia to promise nuclear retaliation should the U.S./NATO directly intervene.

The PRC’s military analysts have noted that Beijing will be ready to launch a full-scale invasion of its own territory in a few years.

Consider the following imaginary scenario: The United States is rapidly coming apart ideologically. Some states like Texas are in open defiance of Washington on the crisis at the Mexican border. From 1836 to 1845 Texas was an independent “nation” before being annexed by the U.S.

In June 2022, the Texas Republican Convention adopted a platform urging the legislature to put a referendum before the people of Texas in November 2023 “to determine whether or not the State of Texas should reassert its status as an independent nation.” Does anyone believe that the U.S. government would allow such an eventuality? Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia asserted that the Civil War solved the constitutional issue of secession once and for all. Any attempt by Texas actually to secede would be sanguinary indeed since that state has more armed citizens than any other.

The imperial Qing dynasty occupied Taiwan in 1683 and China has claimed it for four centuries. Any attempt by Taiwan to “secede” from China will be far worse than bloody.

It is absolutely clear that the twin threats of extinction by human-caused climate change or nuclear war are truly the existential Catch-22s facing the human species. Can we finally learn that the identically insane international competition operational today that engendered both world wars in all probability is leading to the third and final one? What the world needs now is serious and committed international cooperation with an honest commitment to global disarmament… or else! Can geo-political intelligence on the part of masses of people overtake the psychopathy into which the human species is descending?

*

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Paul Atwood, Ph.D. is retired but still teaches courses deeply critical of U.S. foreign policy at the University of Massachusetts Boston. After serving in the Marine Corps, he became active in antiwar efforts and veterans issues after discharge.

Notes

  1. Air Force General Mike Minihan, “My gut tells me we will fight in 2025,” Reuters, January 28, 2023. 

  2. U.S. Department of State, “Chinese Communist Party: Threatening Global Peace and Security,” January 2021. 
  3. Associated Press, 2023. 
  4. The Guardian, July 28, 2022. 
  5. Thomas J. McCormick, China Market: America’s Quest for Informal Empire, 1893-1901 (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1967). 
  6. James Doubek, “The Flying Tigers: How a group of Americans ended up fighting for China in WWII,” National Public Radio, December 19, 2021.
  7. Paul L. Atwood, War and Empire: The American Way of Life (London: Pluto Press, 2010). 
  8. Congressional Research Service, “Taiwan: The Origins of the U.S. One-China Policy,” September 27, 2023. 

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