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
Read about Osama Bin Laden in Michel Chossudovsky’s international best-seller
According to Chossudovsky, the “war on terrorism” is a complete fabrication based on the illusion that one man, Osama bin Laden, outwitted the $40 billion-a-year American intelligence apparatus. The “war on terrorism” is a war of conquest. Globalisation is the final march to the “New World Order”, dominated by Wall Street and the U.S. military-industrial complex.
Nous faisons face présentement à une problème technique.
Pour accéder à la version mobile de mondialisation.ca, cliquez sur le Menu principal de Globalresearch.ca (version mobile), (en haut à gauche) et ensuite cliquez sur Mondialisation.ca.
A partir de la semaine prochaine le problème technique devrait être résolu.
The world is globalizing and information has become more accessible to more people than ever before. We are, indeed, in unprecedented times, and we face unprecedented challenges.
The aims of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) and Global Research are to battle the tidal waves of misinformation and propaganda washing our minds on a daily basis. We have separated ourselves from the corporate controlled mainstream news, whose only objective is to serve their corporate masters. We take no assistance from the major foundations such as Rockefeller, Ford, and MacArthur, who act as patrons (and thus pacifiers) of the alternative and critical voices challenging the forces of globalization.
We do this in order to remain an independent voice, challenging all that needs to be challenged and exposing all that remains in the dark. Bringing light to a dimly lit world is no easy task, and though the aim and method is “independence,” we are, in fact, entirely dependent upon YOU, our readers. Without your support, we cannot continue our operations nor expand our horizons and opportunities. Global Research is indebted to our readers, and we are here for you and because of you. If you would like Global Research to continue and to grow, we need your support now more than ever.
By making a donation to Global Research, you assist journalists, researchers and contributors who have either lost their jobs with the mainstream media or who have been excluded from employment opportunities as professional journalists for their pledge to the truth. We send our thanks to all who have contributed so far by donating orbecoming a member!
The mainstream media is owned by bankers and corporate kingpins. Not only that, but it has been historically and presently infiltrated by covert government agencies, seeking to deceive and propagandize their agendas. The CIA has long had associations with major mainstream news publications. By far the most valuable of these associations, according to CIA officials, have been with the New York Times, CBS and Time Inc. The CIA even ran a training program “to teach its agents to be journalists,” who were “then placed in major news organizations with help from management.”
At Global Research, we seek to not only expose and criticize the larger picture, but to point the finger at the media, itself, and examine who is lying, why they lie, and how they get away with it.
To continue in our endeavours, we need our readers to continue in their support.
One important and helpful thing that all of our readers can do is to help spread our name and information by “sharing and “liking” our Facebook page here. We post articles daily that will appear in your news feed so that you don’t have to come to us, we can bring our information straight to you. “Like” our page and recommend us to your friends. Every bit helps! You can also subscribe to our RSS feed
You can also support us by continuing to send us your much needed donations which allow us to continue our day-to-day operations and help us expand our scope and content.
Supporting Global Research is supporting the cause of truth and the fight against media disinformation.
To send your donation by mail, kindly send your cheque or international money order, made out to CRG, to our postal address:
Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)
PO Box 55019
11, Notre-Dame Ouest,
Montreal, QC, H2Y 4A7
CANADA
FOR DONATIONS BY FAX
For payment by fax, please print the credit card fax authorization form and fax your order and credit card details to Global Research at 514 656 5294
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.
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.
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]
* * *
* * *
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 ofFull 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
[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).”
[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.
[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/.
[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.
[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?”
Welcome to the newly redesigned Global Research website!
We are very proud to launch an updated version of our website, featuring the same timely and analytical content as before, in a display that will be easier for our readers to navigate so that you can get the information you need as quickly and easily as possible.
On this website, you will be able to access an archive of more than 30,000 articles published by Global Research.
We thank all of our readers for the feedback you have sent us over the years and hope you will enjoy your browsing experience.
These changes would not be possible without your support, and for that we extend our sincere appreciation.
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).
To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.
Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
Under the 5th and 14th Amendments to the US Constitution the transformation of our financial property into collateral for secured creditors constitutes a taking. I don’t know whether the taking that exists in the regulations can be taken to court and ruled against prior to a taking actually occurring. Probably not.
The question therefore is how effective will a court ruling be in a situation of financial chaos. Clearly, those who devised the taking regulations either were ignorant of the taking clause or do not expect a Constitutional ruling to prevail.
If the legal profession were to take up this matter, perhaps the discrediting of the regulations would render them useless and force financial regulators and Congress to find other solutions to the problem. Clearly, the ability to create endless amounts of derivatives must be abolished.
*
Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
Paul Craig Roberts is a renowned author and academic, chairman of The Institute for Political Economy where this article was originally published. Dr. Roberts was previously associate editor and columnist for The Wall Street Journal. He was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy during the Reagan Administration. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
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).
To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.
Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
“Whether he wrote DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER, or whether he refrained from writing it, made no difference … The Thought Police would get him just the same … the arrests invariably happened at night … In the vast majority of cases there was no trial, no report of the arrest.
People simply disappeared, always during the night. Your name was removed from the registers, every record of everything you had ever done was wiped out, your one-time existence was denied and then forgotten.
—George Orwell, 1984
The government long ago sold us out to the highest bidder.
The highest bidder, by the way, has always been the Deep State.
Just as the USA Patriot was perverted from its stated intent to fight terrorism abroad and was instead used to covertly crack down on the American people (allowing government agencies to secretly track Americans’ financial activities, monitor their communications, and carry out wide-ranging surveillance on them), Section 702 has been used as an end-run around the Constitution to allow the government to collect the actual content of your conversations (phone calls, text messages, video chats, emails and other electronic communication) without a warrant.
Now intelligence officials are pushing to dramatically expand the government’s spying powers, effectively giving the government unbridled authority to force millions of Americans to spy on its behalf.
Basically, the Deep State wants to turn the American people into extensions of Big Brother.
After all, every office building in America has data cables running through it. The people are not just the engineers who install, maintain, and repair our communications infrastructure; there are countless others who could be forced to help the government spy, including those who clean offices and guard buildings. If this provision is enacted, the government can deputize any of these people against their will, and force them in effect to become what amounts to an agent for Big Brother—for example, by forcing an employee to insert a USB thumb drive into a server at an office they clean or guard at night.
This could all happen without any oversight whatsoever: The FISA Court won’t know about it, Congress won’t know about it. Americans who are handed these directives will be forbidden from talking about it. Unless they can afford high-priced lawyers with security clearances who know their way around the FISA Court, they will have no recourse at all.”
After all, the Police State doesn’t relinquish power easily, the Surveillance State doesn’t look favorably on anything that might weaken its control, and Big Brother doesn’t like to be restricted.
What most Americans don’t get is that even without Section 702 in play, the government will still target the populace for warrantless, suspicionless mass surveillance, because that’s how the police state maintains its stranglehold on power.
These maneuvers are just the tip of the iceberg.
For all intents and purposes, we now have a fourth branch of government.
This fourth branch came into being without any electoral mandate or constitutional referendum, and yet it possesses superpowers, above and beyond those of any other government agency save the military.
It is all-knowing, all-seeing and all-powerful.
It operates beyond the reach of the president, Congress and the courts, and it marches in lockstep with the corporate elite who really call the shots in Washington, DC.
The government’s “technotyranny” surveillance apparatus has become so entrenched and entangled with its police state apparatus that it’s hard to know anymore where law enforcement ends and surveillance begins. They have become one and the same entity.
The police state has passed the baton to the surveillance state.
Every second of every day, the American people are being spied on by the U.S. government’s vast network of digital Peeping Toms, electronic eavesdroppers and robotic snoops.
Beware of what you say, what you read, what you write, where you go, and with whom you communicate, because it will all be recorded, stored and used against you eventually, at a time and place of the government’s choosing.
Privacy, as we have known it, is dead.
Whether you’re walking through a store, driving your car, checking email, or talking to friends and family on the phone, you can be sure that some government agency is listening in and tracking you. This doesn’t even begin to touch on the complicity of the corporate sector, which buys and sells us from cradle to grave, until we have no more data left to mine. These corporate trackers monitor your purchases, web browsing, Facebook posts and other activities taking place in the cyber sphere and share the data with the government.
Just about every branch of the government—from the Postal Service to the Treasury Department and every agency in between—now has its own surveillance sector, authorized to collect data and spy on the American people. Then there are the fusion and counterterrorism centers that gather all of the data from the smaller government spies—the police, public health officials, transportation, etc.—and make it accessible for all those in power.
These government snoops are constantly combing through and harvesting vast quantities of our communications, then storing it in massive databases for years. Once this information—collected illegally and without any probable cause—is ingested into NSA servers, other government agencies can often search through the databases to make criminal cases against Americans that have nothing to do with terrorism or anything national security-related.
Empowered by advances in surveillance technology and emboldened by rapidly expanding public-private partnerships between law enforcement, the Intelligence Community, and the private sector, police have become particularly adept at sidestepping the Fourth Amendment.
Talk about a system rife for abuse.
Now, the government wants us to believe that we have nothing to fear from its mass spying program because they’re only looking to get the “bad” guys who are overseas.
Don’t believe it.
The government’s definition of a “bad” guy is extraordinarily broad, and it results in the warrantless surveillance of innocent, law-abiding Americans on a staggering scale.
Indeed, the government has become the biggest lawbreaker of all.
It’s telling that even after it was revealed that the FBI, one of the most power-hungry and corrupt agencies within the police state’s vast complex of power-hungry and corrupt agencies, misused a massive government surveillance database more than 300,000 times in order to target American citizens, we’re still debating whether they should be allowed to continue to sidestep the Fourth Amendment.
This is how the government operates, after all: our objections are routinely overruled and our rights trampled underfoot.
According to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the FBI repeatedly misused Section 702 in order to spy on the communications of two vastly disparate groups of Americans: those involved in the George Floyd protests and those who may have taken part in the Jan. 6, 2021, protests at the Capitol.
This abuse of its so-called national security powers is par for the course for the government.
The government has claimed that its spying on Americans is simply “incidental,” as though it were an accident, but it fully intends to collect this information.
Ask the government why it’s carrying out this far-reaching surveillance on American citizens, and you’ll get the same Orwellian answer the government has been trotting in response to every so-called crisis to justify its assaults on our civil liberties: to keep America safe.
What this is really all about, however, is control.
What we are dealing with is a government so power-hungry, paranoid and afraid of losing its stranglehold on power that it is conspiring to wage war on anyone who dares to challenge its authority.
When the FBI is asking banks and other financial institutions to carry out dragnet searches of customer transactions—warrantlessly and without probable cause—for “extremism” indicators broadly based on where you shop, what you read, and how you travel, we’re all in trouble.
You don’t have to do anything illegal.
For that matter, you don’t even have to challenge the government’s authority.
Frankly, you don’t even have to care about politics or know anything about your rights.
All you really need to do in order to be tagged as a suspicious character, flagged for surveillance, and eventually placed on a government watch list is live in the United States.
As long as the government is allowed to weaponize its 360 degree surveillance technologies to flag you as a threat to national security, whether or not you’ve done anything wrong, it’s just a matter of time before you find yourself wrongly accused, investigated and confronted by police based on a data-driven algorithm or risk assessment culled together by a computer program run by artificial intelligence.
Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version).
To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.
Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
As Earth Day approaches, prepare for the annual spectacle of U.S. lawmakers donning their environmentalist hats, waxing poetic about their love for the planet while disregarding the devastation their actions wreak. The harsh reality is that alongside their hollow pledges lies a trail of destruction fueled by military aggression and imperial ambitions, all under the guise of national security.
Take Gaza, for instance. Its once-fertile farmland now lies barren, its water sources poisoned by conflict and neglect. The grim statistics speak volumes: 97% of Gaza’s water is unfit for human consumption, leading to a staggering 26% of illnesses, particularly among vulnerable children.
Israel’s decades-long colonial settler project and ethnic cleansing of Palestine have caused irrefutable damage to the land, air, and water, consequently contributing to the climate crisis. In fact, in the first two months of the current genocide campaign in Gaza, Israel’s murderous bombardment, which has killed nearly 35,000 people, has also generated more planet-warming emissions than the annual carbon footprint of the world’s top 20 climate-vulnerable nations. Yet, despite these dire circumstances, U.S. lawmakers persist in funneling weapons to Israel, perpetuating a cycle of violence and environmental degradation.
The ripple effects of militarism extend far beyond Gaza’s borders. In Ukraine, the Russia-Ukraine War has left a staggering $56.4 billion environmental bill,with widespread contamination of air, water, and soil. Landmines and unexploded ordnance left litter 30% of the country, posing long-term risks to both the environment and human health. The United States’ answer to all this has been to reject diplomacy and fuel a long, protracted war with a seamingling endless supply of weapons and military support. A war that most experts will tell you is not a winnable war. The proxy war the United States is funding not only leaves Ukrainians at risk of never achieving peace but also significantly contributes to the ever-growing climate crisis.
Then, there is our government’s desire to go to war with China. The U.S. military’s heavy footprint already looms large in the Pacific, and with the war drums now beating harder for war than ever before , the footprint is growing. With over 200 bases dotting the region, the Pentagon’s voracious energy consumption fuels greenhouse gas emissions and environmental degradation, from polluted drinking water in Okinawa to severe contamination near military installations in Guam. Yet, our government insists that it is China that is our greatest enemy and not the looming threat of climate destruction. The U.S. military’s presence in the Pacific is destroying natural, indigenous ecosystems, favoring the idea of environmental destruction over attempting any form of diplomacy and cooperation with China.
All of this destruction to the environment and acceleration of the climate crisis happens silently under the veil of “national security,” while discussions on how the environmental toll of war is the most significant national security threat are absent in D.C. While the threat of nuclear annihilation and civilian casualties rightfully dominate headlines, the ecological fallout remains an underreported tragedy. The Pentagon is the planet’s largest institutional emitter of fossil fuels; its insatiable appetite for conflict exacerbates climate change and threatens ecosystems worldwide. To make matters worse, the U.S. government wants to fund this destruction to the tune of nearly a trillion dollars a year while poor and low-wealth communities worldwide bear the brunt of climate catastrophes with little to no resources to protect themselves.
At the heart of this destructive cycle lies a perverse economic incentive, where war becomes a lucrative business at the expense of both people and the planet. The narrative of GDP growth masks the actual cost of conflict, prioritizing financial profit over genuine progress in education, healthcare, and biodiversity. However, instead of war-economy metrics such as the GDP, we could embrace alternative metrics such as the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI) that reckon with the actual toll of war on our world. We can shift from endless growth towards genuine well-being by valuing air quality, food security, and environmental sustainability.
This Earth Day, let us reject the empty rhetoric of environmentalism without action. Let us demand accountability from our lawmakers and insist on an end to the cycle of violence and ecological devastation. By prioritizing peace and sustainability, we can protect our planet and safeguard future generations.
*
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.
Melissa Garriga is the communications and media relations manager for CODEPINK. She writes about the intersection of militarism and the human cost of war. She is a regular contributor to Global Research.
All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version).
To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.
Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
“2023 has been a challenge for Global Research, but we know 2024 will be no different. That’s why we need your support. Will you make a New Year donation to help us continue with our work?”
***
Introductory Note
Excess deaths — why is this not discussed in mainstream media? Why is this not top agenda in the Congress or Parliament?
The compilation of relevant Global Research articles focussing on several underlying causes of excess deaths was first published by Dr. Paul Craig Roberts.
Short Excerpts of these articles were then prepared by Global Research, followed by the video production of John Campbell.
Our thanks to Dr. Paul Craig Roberts and Dr. John Campbell.
Michel Chossudovsky. Global Research, January 2, 2024
***
1. 5G Danger: 13 Reasons 5G Wireless Technology Will Be a Catastrophe for Humanity, see this.
The 5G danger can’t be overstated.
5G (5th Generation) is now being actively rolled out in many cities around the world. Simultaneously, as awareness over its horrific health and privacy impacts is rising, many places are issuing moratoriums on it or banning it, such as the entire nation of Belgium, the canton of Vaud (Switzerland) and San Francisco (USA). Radiofrequency radiation (RF or RFR) and electromagnetic fields (EMF) are being increasingly recognized as new types of pollution – environmental pollution. Here are 13 reasons exposing the 5G danger, which could turn into an unmitigated health and privacy catastrophe if enough people don’t rise up to stop it.
2. Depopulation: The New York Times Predicts Massive Population Reduction, see this.
“Fewer babies’ cries.
More abandoned homes.
Toward the middle of this century, as deaths start to exceed births, changes will come that are hard to fathom.”
Screenshot of the NYT article
“All over the world, countries are confronting population stagnation and a fertility bust, a dizzying reversal unmatched in recorded history that will make first-birthday parties a rarer sight than funerals, and empty homes a common eyesore.”
And it continues,
“Maternity wards are already shutting down in Italy. Ghost cities are appearing in northeastern China. Universities in South Korea can’t find enough students, and in Germany, hundreds of thousands of properties have been razed, with the land turned into parks.”
Is it all true? It remains to be verified. Omission?
At no time does the article mention the eugenist nature of deliberate population reduction, in connection with the covid plandemic, the coerced and by many accounts poisonous – vaccination campaign, with a non-vaccine, but instead a novel, totally untested mRNA-type “gene therapy” which the US CDC has allowed to be applied as an “emergency measure” in these dire circumstances of a pandemic, that actually lacks all characteristics of a pandemic, but has to be pumped up to make it appear as a pandemic – with literally almost all deaths appearing from whatever causes – even car accidents – can be – and “must” be categorized as covid deaths.
3. Bill Gates Plans for New Catastrophic Contagion, see this.
“October 23, 2022, Gates, Johns Hopkins and the World Health Organization cohosted “a global challenge exercise” dubbed “Catastrophic Contagion,”3,4 involving a novel (and as of now fictional) pathogen called “severe epidemic enterovirus respiratory syndrome 2025” or SEERS-25 for short.
Enterovirus D685 is typically associated with cold and flu-like illness in infants, children and teens. In rare cases, it’s also been known to cause viral meningitis and acute flaccid myelitis, a neurological condition resulting in muscle weakness and loss of reflexes in one or more extremities.
Enteroviruses A71 and A6 are known to cause hand, foot and mouth disease,6 while poliovirus, the prototypical enterovirus, causes polio (poliomyelitis), a potentially life-threatening type of paralysis that primarily affects children under age 5. So, the virus they modeled in this simulation appears to be something similar to enterovirus D68, but worse.
Training African Leaders to Go Along With the Narrative
Tellingly, the Catastrophic Contagion exercise focused on getting leadership in African countries involved and trained in following the script. Participants included 10 current and former Health Ministers and senior public health officials from Senegal, Rwanda, Nigeria, Angola, Liberia, Singapore, India and Germany, as well as Gates himself.”
4. Israel’s Expertise in Pacifying the Palestinians Is in High Demand by Capitalist Elites as Populations Around the World Grow Restive, see this.
“As the world watches in horror Israel’s military assault on the people of Gaza, people are left to wonder why world leaders are not doing more to censure Israel and are allowing Israel to get away with mass killing.
Jeff Halper, an American-Israeli anthropologist who has written numerous books on Israeli history, has a clear answer.
He says that leaders of countries around the world are feeling more insecure as wealth is increasingly concentrated in the hands of a tiny capitalist elite and popular disaffection and the threat of rebellion grows.
Israel is revered precisely for its mastery of population-control techniques against the Palestinians, which many leaders want to emulate against dissident or minority groups within their own borders.
Part of Israel’s ace in the hole, according to Halper, is its development of a formidable weapons industry that allows it to supply high-tech weapons to countries around the world for the purpose of population control.
Israel is at the cutting edge in the development of surveillance satellites, weaponized and surveillance drones, Artificial Intelligence (AI) target identification systems, spyware gadgets and crowd control and cyberwarfare technologies, which it sells around the world.”
5. The WHO Plans to Have 10 Years of Pandemics (2020-2030), see this.
“THE PLAN shows the official agenda of the World Health Organization to have ten years of ongoing pandemics, from 2020 to 2030.
This is revealed by a WHO virologist, Marion Koopmans. You will also see shocking evidence that the first pandemic was planned and abundantly announced right before it happened.
“A group of almost one thousand medical doctors in Germany called ‘Doctors for Information’, which is supported by more than 7,000 professionals including attorneys, scientists, teachers etc., made a shocking statement during a national press conference: (1)
‘The Corona panic is a play. It’s a scam. A swindle. It’s high time we understood that we’re in the midst of a global crime.’
This large group of medical experts publishes a newspaper with circulation of 500,000 copies every week, to alert the public about the misinformation in the mainstream media about the coronavirus.”
6. Video: Excess Deaths. Analysis by John Campbell
*
Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
The 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
Israel and the Zionist lobby in the U.S. are NOT exerting undue influence AGAINST U.S. foreign policy as outlined by numerous analysts. Quite the opposite. The Zionist lobby is firmly aligned with U.S. foreign policy, and vice versa. It targets those who are opposed to war, who call for a ceasefire. It exerts influence in favour of the conduct of the U.S. military agenda in support of Israel.
The legal team representing high-powered insurers Lloyd’s and Arch says that since the Nord Stream explosions were “more likely than not to have been inflicted by… a government,” they have no responsibility to pay for damages to the pipelines. To succeed with that defense, the companies will presumably be compelled to prove, in court, who carried out those attacks.
One of the unintended and crucial consequences of the genocidal Israeli War on Gaza is that it has put the “Jewish” and “Zionist” questions once again at the center of international geopolitics.
The World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) released a daunting prediction of the global cancer burden. It estimates more than 35 million new cancer cases in 2050 — a 77% increase from the estimated 20 million cancer cases that occurred in 2022.
Not much has changed in regards to the hypotheses on how these turbo cancers may be arising in the COVID-19 vaccinated. There is more evidence of p53 playing a significant role. More work has been done on DNA contamination, SV40, and research is underway on integration of DNA contaminants into the genomes of the COVID-19 vaccinated.
The US Army deployed the elements of its latest land-based medium-range missile system overseas for the first time to take part in a military exercise in the island country. Apart from the aforementioned subsonic “Tomahawk” cruise missiles, “Typhon” also carries the supersonic SM-6 multi-purpose missiles.
The lockdowns went counter to what we knew about respiratory viruses, that it is impossible to lock them out, and they caused a lot of collateral damage, including an increase in deaths from other causes than Covid-19.
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).
To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.
Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
The legal team representing high-powered insurers Lloyd’s and Arch says that since the Nord Stream explosions were “more likely than not to have been inflicted by… a government,” they have no responsibility to pay for damages to the pipelines. To succeed with that defense, the companies will presumably be compelled to prove, in court, who carried out those attacks.
British insurers are arguing that they have no obligation to honor their coverage of the Nord Stream pipelines, which were blown up in September 2022, because the unprecedented act of industrial sabotage was likely carried out by a national government.
The insurers’ filing contradicts reports the Washington Post and other legacy media publications asserting that a private Ukrainian team was responsible for the massive act of industrial sabotage.
A legal brief filed on behalf of UK-based firms Lloyd’s Insurance Company and Arch Insurance states that the “defendants will rely on, inter alia, the fact that tiger explosion Damage could only have (or, at least, was more likely than not to have) been inflicted by or under the order of a government.”
As a result, they argue, “the Explosion Damage was “directly or indirectly occasioned by, happening through, or in consequence of” the conflict between Russia and Ukraine” and falls under an exclusion relating to military conflicts.
BREAKING: The "defense" of Nord Stream AG's insurance companies has been filed.
LLoyds and Arch argue that the damage was inflicted by, or under order of, a GOVERNMENT , and therefore they don't need pay. –> pic.twitter.com/Unyh6Dtqqa
The brief comes a month after Switzerland-based Nord Stream AG filed a lawsuit against the insurers for their refusal to compensate the company. Nord Stream, which estimated the cost incurred by the attack at between €1.2 billion and €1.35 billion, is seeking to recoup over €400 million in damages.
Swedish engineer Erik Andersson, who led the first private investigative expedition to the blast sites of the Nord Stream pipelines, describes the insurers’ legal strategy as a desperate attempt to find an excuse to avoid honoring their indemnity obligations.
“If it’s an act of war and ordered by a government, that’s the only way they can escape their responsibility to pay,” Andersson told The Grayzone.
Following a report by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh which alleged that the US government was responsible for the Nord Stream explosion, Western governments quickly spun out a narrative placing blame on a team of rogue Ukrainian operatives. Given the lack of conclusive evidence, however, proving that the explosions were “inflicted by or under the order of a government” would be a major challenge for defense lawyers.
Even if the plaintiffs in the case are able to wrest back the funds in court, they are likely to face other serious hurdles. Later in the brief, lawyers for Lloyd’s and Arch suggest that even if they were required to pay up, anti-Russian sanctions would leave their hands tied.
“In the event that the Defendants are found to be liable to pay an indemnity and/or damages to the Claimant,” the brief states, “the Defendants reserve their position as to whether any such payment would be prohibited by any applicable economic sanctions that may be in force at the time any such payment is required to be made.”
After they were threatened with sanctions by the US government, in 2021 Lloyd’s and Arch both withdrew from their agreement to cover damages to the second of the pipelines, Nord Stream 2. But though they remain on the hook for damages to the first line, the language used by the insurers’ lawyers seems to be alluding to a possible future sanctions package that would release them from their financial obligations.
“Nord Stream 1 was not affected by those sanctions, but apparently sanctions might work retroactively to the benefit of insurers,” observes Andersson.
The plaintiffs may face an uphill battle at the British High Court in London, the city where Lloyd’s has been headquartered since its creation in 1689. As former State Department cybersecurity official Mike Benzobserved,
“Lloyd’s of London is the prize of the London banking establishment,” and “London is the driving force behind the transatlantic side of the Blob’s “Seize Eurasia” designs on Russia.”
Incredible. Lloyd's of London is the prize of the London banking establishment. London is the driving force behind the transatlantic side of the Blob's "Seize Eurasia" designs on Russia. If anyone were in position to know the role of "a government" in Nordstream bombing… https://t.co/Tui4TwffGM
But if their arguments are enough to convince a court in London, a decision in favor of the insurers would likely be a double-edged sword. Following Lloyd’s submission to US sanctions and its refusal to insure ships carrying Iranian oil, Western insurance underwriters (like their colleagues in the banking sector) are increasingly in danger of losing their global reputation for relative independence from the state. Should the West ultimately lose its grip on the global insurance market — or its reputation as a safe haven for foreign assets — €400 million will be unlikely to buy it back.
*
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.
Wyatt Reed is the managing editor of The Grayzone. As an international correspondent, he’s covered stories in over a dozen countries. Follow him on Twitter at @wyattreed13.
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).
To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.
Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
After two years of draconian lockdowns, governments around the world suddenly dismantled their unprecedented campaigns against Covid-19 in silence. From one day to another, the whole thing was supposed to be forgotten.
Looking back, it seems appropriate to abbreviate the Covid-19 pandemic as the Covid-19 panic, or to call it the pandemic of censorship and poor science.
Science and free speech were among the earliest victims of Covid-19. Millions of papers came out, most of them of very poor quality, and authorities quickly forgot that they are obliged to base their decisions on the most reliable science. Torturing your data till they confess became acceptable. And if randomised trials did not confess to what the authorities wanted, they ignored them and based their decisions on flawed observational studies instead.
The lockdowns went counter to what we knew about respiratory viruses, that it is impossible to lock them out, and they caused a lot of collateral damage, including an increase in deaths from other causes than Covid-19.
Sweden did not lock down and did not mandate face masks, and it seems to be the only country where the politicians had the best possible advisors and respected their advice. Sweden ended up having one of the lowest excess mortalities in the Western world. This should ring alarm bells everywhere, but what we have seen so far are pathetic defenses of grossly failed policies.
The scientists who knew the most about the relevant science were harassed if they spoke out and argued why the policies were inappropriate and harmful. They quickly learned that it was best to keep quiet. One example is Jonas Ludvigsson, who published a ground-breaking Swedish study making it clear that it is safe to keep schools open during the pandemic, for children and teachers alike. This was taboo.
We gave up our democracies almost overnight without much thought when we needed democracy more than ever. Free debate became a thing of the past; social media removed impeccable science if it went against official announcements; and the media were complacent with this new world order and often participated uncritically in the public humiliation of those who spoke out.
George Orwell’s novel 1984 was a dire warning that humanity can lose its way and, in the end, become inhumane. A place where truth does not exist and where history and facts are changed according to the needs of those in power. In 1984, the Thought Police use fear, control, and constant surveillance to manipulate people and suppress “wrong thinking.” You end up loving those who destroyed you and your freedom.
In 2020, all it took to mount enough fear among people to make them give up their daily life was a health crisis.
We came close to the Orwellian “Ministry of Truth” and “Big Brother is Watching You” with WHO’s mantra “Test, test, test,” and if you could not provide a fresh and negative virus test, you were a pariah. We regressed to the Middle Ages where public humiliation was the norm for those who were not mainstream.
People are slowly waking up to the disaster of misinformation we have seen, ironically under the banner of fighting misinformation. For example, it is now possible to say the obvious about the origin of Covid-19, that it is extremely likely it was a lab leak in Wuhan of an artificial virus manufactured there as part of the dangerous gain-of-function experiments.
In September 2020, Michael Head from Southampton University sent an email to Susan Mitchie, a member of a group that advises the UK government about the pandemic, which she forwarded to other group members. Four days earlier, Carl Heneghan from the Centre for Evidence-based Medicine in Oxford and other scientists had briefed Prime Minister Boris Johnson and had argued for more targeted measures to protect the vulnerable rather than having a blanket lockdown.
Head’s email was condemned by former Supreme Court judge Lord Sumption who called it an example of scientists being hounded by those who could not counter their arguments. The people singled out in the email were Carl Heneghan and his co-worker Tom Jefferson, and Peter C Gøtzsche because they had all spoken out about the harms of lockdowns.
Maliciously, Head did not discuss the science but called Jefferson and Gøtzsche “anti-vaccine activists” and noted that, “There’s quite a lot to Heneghan, and I imagine I am only aware of a small amount of it.” Head opined that Heneghan’s work “is of great interest and use to the anti-vax community, which says a lot.” It doesn’t. And the issue was the harms of lockdowns.
Framing people by calling them ”anti-vaxxers” or ”controversial” is a dangerous path to take. It can be compared to the post-war McCarthyism in the US, where many people were falsely accused of being communists. During the pandemic governments actively used these methods to frame scientists who disagreed with them and the officials in charge. Labelling people stops all rational debate.
Head’s derogatory email was mentioned in a newspaper article where Heneghan said: “I have never been ‘anti’ anything. I have worked tirelessly during this pandemic and the previous pandemic to reduce uncertainties and ask questions that might help improve healthcare decision making. This matters a lot to me which is why we have just carried out a review on the impact of lockdown on vital childhood vaccines.” Jefferson added that their review showed the catastrophic effect the Covid restrictions have had on the mass implementation of important childhood vaccines like those for MMR (measles, mumps, and rubella).
Gøtzsche noted that to label him as an “anti-vaccine activist” took him back to medieval times:
“In science you need open debate to further scientific understanding. During the Covid-19 epidemic the debate has many times been the opposite, with only one truth, like a religious dogma…We acknowledge many of our vaccines have been of great benefit and saved millions of lives and I certainly hope the Covid-19 vaccine will save millions of lives as well. People in this pandemic have been furthering their own agenda in all ways, and this involves below the belt punches…they show that academically they have lost the argument.”
The anti-vaxxer label is so popular that it is sprinkled on everyone who dares to write critically about anything. Even psychiatrist Michael P. Hengartner was called an anti-vaxxer when he pointed out that the average treatment effect of depression pills is poor and of questionable clinical significance.
In April 2021, Twitter and Facebook representatives were brought before the UK parliament to explain their firms’ censorship of discussion around Covid. Two particularly pertinent cases were raised: A tweet by Martin Kulldorff and a statement on Facebook by Heneghan.
Someone wrote to Kulldorff on 16 March 2021 that it seems to be a religious mantra now that everyone MUST be vaccinated. Kulldorff replied,
“No. Thinking that everyone must be vaccinated is as scientifically flawed as thinking that nobody should. Covid vaccines are important for older high-risk people, and their caretakers. Those with prior natural infection do not need it. Nor children.”
Kulldorff’s tweet was measured, informative, and in accordance with good science, but it was labelled “misleading” by Twitter, and tweeters were rendered unable to interact with it and were instructed that “health officials recommend a vaccine for most people.” This was absurd to say, as Kulldorff had not contradicted it.
Some people called Heneghan “anti-science” for daring to convey the results of the randomised trials of face masks. He and Jefferson had noted that there was a troubling lack of robust evidence that they worked and that, despite being a subject of global importance, there had been a total lack of interest from governments in pursuing evidence-based medicine in this area. They also noted that the only studies that had shown face masks to be effective at stopping airborne diseases had been observational, which are prone to bias.
Heneghan posted a link on Facebook to an article he had written about the Danish trial of face masks for preventing Covid-19 that did not find an effect, and Facebook immediately labelled the article “False information. Checked by independent fact-checkers.” As Heneghan noted, there was nothing in his article that was “false.”
Kulldorff, Heneghan, and Jefferson are dissenting scientists who hold positions at esteemed institutions. So, on what basis could Twitter and Facebook declare their arguments void? The answers provided to the British parliamentarians were chilling. Someone put up a link to a video in a tweet with the appropriate handle @BigBrotherWatch:
Parliamentarian: “Who in your organisation would have been cited…and been qualified…that a professor of medicine was wrong?”
Head of UK Public Policy at #Twitter was asked about why the platform marked a Tweet by a Professor of medicine at @harvardmed as "misleading" and limited the users' ability to share the Tweet. pic.twitter.com/UIyBcQ9z0n
Katy Minshall, head of UK public policy at Twitter:
“Well, it is not Twitter saying he is wrong or misleading, it is the CDC [US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] and health authorities around the world, and with that tweet you are referring to, my understanding is that it said, if you have had Covid-19 before, you have natural immunity and you don’t need the vaccine. That’s different to what the CDC and other health authorities around the world have said, which is that vaccines are effective in most people. What we want to do is that, when people see that tweet, to really quickly direct them to authoritative sources of information like the CDC or the NHS [the UK’s National Health Service] or the Department of Health, so they can see what the official guidance is and make up their own mind.”
Parliamentarian:
“On these issues, some of these highly controversial, really, current issues around public health, you think there is a danger in having debate amongst acknowledged experts, and that it is far better that everybody just sees the official public health position, even though that of course in time may change.”
Minshall:
“I think that’s a good question…because you are right, on the one hand, the information environment and what’s accurate with regard to the pandemic is evolving with the government providing different and sometimes competing advice…”
Minshall essentially said that anything that contradicts official guidance from public health authorities is deemed misleading by Twitter. She made the mistake that philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer in his book The Art of Always Being Right called “Appeal to authority rather than reason,” which is the antithesis of science.
Censorship with appeal to authorities is poison for our democracies. Furthermore, official advice has often been proven wrong. One of the worst examples of this is the CDC whose information about influenza vaccinations is seriously misleading. For example, even though there is no valid evidence to support the hypothesis that vaccinating healthcare workers protects patients from influenza, a CDC review that included flawed observational studies in long-term care patients found that vaccination reduced mortality by 29% in the patients. However, influenza has been estimated to contribute to less than 10% of all winter deaths among persons aged 65 years and older. Thus, even if the vaccine had been 100% effective in preventing influenza deaths, the reduction in total deaths should have been less than 10%. The CDC seemed to have deliberately ignored the existing Cochrane review about influenza vaccination for healthcare workers, which reported a very poor effect of the vaccine.
It has never been shown in randomised trials that influenza vaccines reduce mortality, and the benefit is so poor that many doctors who know about the evidence do not get vaccinated. But if they shared their views to the public on social media, they would immediately be censored.
The randomised trials of face masks to prevent transmission of respiratory viruses including SARS-CoV-2 have not found any effect. A large trial in Bangladesh appeared to have shown a small effect, but the 1% difference in the number of people with reported Covid-like illnesses could easily have been caused by physical distancing, which was practiced by 5% more villagers in the face mask group than in the control group.
An argument for mandating face masks is that they cannot do harm. This is not correct. Facial expressions are important for social interactions. When kids can’t see each other’s smiles or learn critically important social and verbal skills, this can be harmful, especially for children who are experiencing trauma in their lives. And recently, an 11-month-old baby died after being forced to wear a mask at a Taiwan daycare. The baby’s mask became soaked with his tears and mucus from crying, inhibiting his ability to breathe.
Official inquiries about what happened during the pandemic are about saving face. As an example, the official UK Covid-19 inquiry is a Yes, Minister farce. The Inquiry’s starting position is that lockdowns and face masks were necessary and effective, and they are eager to dismiss the evidence that tells us otherwise.
In contrast, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak pointed to a peer-reviewed report about the first lockdown that found that “for every permutation of lives saved and GDP lost, the costs of lockdown exceed the benefits.”
The UK inquiry uncritically accepted substandard research and substandard advisors while bullying Heneghan using provocative language to suggest he didn’t have expertise in this area. Earlier, the UK’s Chief Scientific Adviser, Dame Angela McLean, called Heneghan a “fuckwit” on a WhatsApp chat during a government meeting for his dissenting views on lockdowns. This farce is slated to run until 2026 and is reported to be one of the largest public inquiries in UK history.
Even though the UK inquiry is deeply shocking, it is no different to the “head in the sand” attitude that prevails everywhere. The Minister is always right, just like in Orwell’s novel 1984. In Italy, for example, the inquiry will establish if the government’s policies agreed with the WHO’s advice.
All knowledgeable people need to speak up now. Why? Because those who hold power don’t seem to have learned anything from their mistakes and will likely make the same mistakes the next time a pandemic haunts the globe. They will again lock down and mandate whole populations to look like bank robbers, which is ridiculous.
History will judge those who were responsible. They knew what they were doing when they intentionally stopped the free debate in the scientific community, which even became a crime. In September 2020, Zoe Lee Buhler, a pregnant woman, was arrested in her home and handcuffed in front of her two small children while in pyjamas over a Facebook post. Her crime was that she had arranged and promoted an upcoming event about freedom and human rights as a protest against the lockdown in Victoria. When Buhler insisted that she wasn’t breaking any laws, the police told her that she was, and she was charged with incitement.
We must fight with everything we have against governments that behave in a dictatorial manner, against the evidence, using substandard experts, “for our own good,” as they say. The best way forward is to learn as much as possible about the methods governments used to suppress and distort the science. The Great Barrington Declaration, which has received almost a million signatures, was an important milestone. We need to establish an international cooperation of scientists at the highest level who will stand together and never again accept to be silenced when the next pandemic hits us.
*
Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
Dr. Peter Gøtzsche co-founded the Cochrane Collaboration, once considered the world’s preeminent independent medical research organization. In 2010 Gøtzsche was named Professor of Clinical Research Design and Analysis at the University of Copenhagen. Gøtzsche has published more than 97 papers in the “big five” medical journals (JAMA, Lancet, New England Journal of Medicine, British Medical Journal, and Annals of Internal Medicine). Gøtzsche has also authored books on medical issues including Deadly Medicines and Organized Crime. Following many years of being an outspoken critic of the corruption of science by pharmaceutical companies, Gøtzsche’s membership on the governing board of Cochrane was terminated by its Board of Trustees in September, 2018. Four board resigned in protest.
Featured image is from Shutterstock
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
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).
To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.
Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
“We are a people, one people (…) When we sink, we become a revolutionary proletariat, the subordinate officers of a revolutionary party; when we rise, there rises also our terrible power of the purse.” —Theodore Herzl[1]
An Enduring Conundrum: From the “Jewish” to the “Zionist” Question
One of the unintended and crucial consequences of the genocidal Israeli War on Gaza is that it has put the “Jewish” and “Zionist” questions once again at the center of international geopolitics.
Today, more than ever before, this state of affairs begs an urgent update of the overheated debate around the future of Zionism, and by extension, that on the fate of the “Jewish State” it has succeeded in creating, by means of brutal force, in the midst of the infamous Western colonial enterprise in the Arab world during the 20th century.
Assuredly, the “Jewish Problem” is anything but new throughout history. Indeed, as Brian Klug[2] observed “The first person who saw the Jews as a problem was Moses, who, time and again, complained to God about them; or maybe it was God who first saw the Jews as problematic”.
A similar complaint is made in a treatise written in 1543 by the German Reformation leader and pioneer of Protestantism Martin Luther, titled “The Jews and Their Lies”. This work was among the last of his writings, shortly before he died in 1546 at the age of 63.
When they issued its first English translation in the United States in May 1948, the Christian-American publishers emphasised that they did not do so for sectarian purposes, arguing that they were also publishing the edicts of more than 20 popes who dealt with the Jewish problem. Their edicts, they noted, are as strong – if not stronger – as anything contained in Martin Luther’s book, since “the ghettos were established by Papal edict, and the segregation of Christian communities from Jewish communities originated in edicts coming out of Rome”.
And because some of the language in the book was quite evidently expected to shock many readers, said publishers further stated to the attention of individuals doubting that these writings originated with the German priest that “the original language may be found in Martin Luther’s works in the Congressional Library, Washington, D.C., and in one of several accredited Lutheran seminaries. Numerous clergymen of all denominations are aware of the existence of this work”.
In its presentation of the treatise, the Virtual Jewish Library indicates that at the beginning of his career, Martin Luther was apparently sympathetic to Jewish resistance to the Catholic Church. Nevertheless, he expected the Jews to convert to his purified Christianity; when they did not, he turned violently against them.
The following excerpts from both the beginning and the end of the book say it all:
“I had decided not to write anymore, neither of the Jews, nor against the Jews. Because I have learned, however, that those miserable, wicked people do not cease trying to win over to themselves us, that is, the Christians also, I have permitted this booklet to go forth that I might be found among those who have resisted such poisonous undertaking of the Jews, and have warned the Christians to be on their guard against them. I would not have thought that a Christian would permit himself to be fooled by the Jews to share their exile and misery. But the Devil is the God of the world, and where God’s word is not, he has easy sailing, not only among the weak, but also among the strong. God help us. Amen.”
And
“In my opinion it will have to come to this: if we are to stay clean of the Jew’s blaspheming and not become partakers of it, we must separate, and they must leave our country. Thus they could no more cry and lie to God that we are holding them captive; and we could no more complain that they plague us with their blaspheming and usury. This is the nearest and best advice that makes it safe for both parties.”
In modern times, however, the “Jewish Question” – in the sense of being a problem that needs to be solved – has been set by Europe in the 19th century. It was “a question Europe asked itself about the Jews”, says Klug. European leaders thought the same about such questions as the “Oriental”, “Armenian”, and “Kurdish”, among others.
Likewise, in his 1896 pamphlet titled “The Jewish State”, the Budapest-born journalist and founder of political form of Zionism, Theodore Herzl confirmed that historical fact and further acknowledged that
“The Jewish Question still exists. It would be useless to deny it (…) The Jewish Question exists wherever Jews live in perceptible numbers. Where it does not exist, it is carried by Jews in the course of their migrations. We naturally move to those places where we are not persecuted, and there our presence produces persecution (…) The unfortunate Jews are now carrying anti-Semitism into England; they have already introduced it into America.”[3]
As it happens, the “Jewish Question” in the United States of America was thoroughly dealt with primarily in a series of articles appearing in “The Dearborn Independent” newspaper from May 22 to October 2, 1920. These were subsequently incorporated in Henry Ford’s book published in the same year under the title “The International Jew: The World’s Foremost Problem”[4]. It is no wonder that this book was, and still is to this day, considered by many as anti-Judaic and anti-Semitic.
And as anyone would do nowadays, Ford reported that the chief difficulty in writing about the Jewish Question during his time was the supersensitiveness of Jews and non-Jews concerning the whole matter. There is a vague feeling, he said, that even to openly use the word “Jew” or to expose it nakedly to print, is somehow improper. Hence, “polite evasions like ‘Hebrew’ and ‘Semite’ both of which are subject to the criticism of inaccuracy, are timidly essayed, and people pick their way gingerly as if the whole subject were forbidden, until some courageous Jewish thinker comes straight out with the good old word ‘Jew’ and then the constraint is relieved and the air cleared”. The word “Jew”, he rightly observed, is not an epithet, “it is a name, ancient and honorable, with significance for every period of human history, past, present and to come”.
According to the American industrialist, owing to this extreme sensitiveness about the public discussion of the Jewish Question on the part of Gentiles, “nothing is changed thereby.The Jew is not changed. The Gentile is not changed. The Jew still remains the enigma of the world (…) Poor in his masses, he yet controls the world’s finances. Scattered abroad without country or government, he yet presents a unity of race continuity which no other people has achieved. Living under legal disabilities in almost every land, he has become the power behind many a throne.”
The business magnate remarked that the emergence of the Jew in the financial, political and social spheres has been so complete and spectacular since the war [World War I], that his place, power and purpose in the world are being given a critical attention and a new scrutiny, much of it unfriendly. Such a scrutiny of his nature and super-nationality, he added, is essential to better define and understand the reasons for his power, his separateness, and his suffering.
To that effect, he was of the view that the “Jewish Question” in America cannot be concealed or silenced by threats against publications, nor by the propagandist publication of matter extremely and invariably favorable to everything Jewish. The Jews of the United States, he said, “can best serve themselves and their fellow-Jews all over the world by letting drop their far too ready cry of ‘anti-Semitism’, by adopting a franker tone than that which befits a helpless victim, and by seeing what the Jewish Question is and how it behooves every Jew who loves his people to help solve it”.
The reality on the ground, nonetheless, proved to be altogether different. And the series of articles in the “The Dearborn Independent” newspaper have been met by an organized barrage by mail, wire and voice, every single item of which carrying the wail of persecution. In reaction, Ford commented by saying:
“One would think that a heartless and horrible attack were being made on a most pitiable and helpless people – until one looks at the letterheads of the magnates who write, and at the financial ratings of those who protest, and at the membership of the organisations whose responsible heads hysterically demand retraction. And always in the background there is the threat of boycott, a threat which has practically sealed up the columns of every publication in America against even the mildest discussion of the Jewish Question”.
Malek Bennabi, the Algerian thinker who also wrote about the “Global Jew” in his 1951 book[5], had this to say about Henry Ford’s imbroglio due to his outstanding albeit most unwelcome publication:
“(…) In fact, the Jewish ‘boss’ has behind him all the banks that his ancestors created, and everywhere he has cousins established, some in Paris, some in London, some in Berlin and others in New York. Anyone who is unaware of the crucial importance of this international cousinship, of these economic kingdoms, is learning this the hard way. When, about 1920, Ford thought himself strong enough to denounce the occult power that was spreading over all of America, he proved both his ignorance of the real force he wanted to fight and his boastfulness. But the great Kahal, who had been disturbed by the insubordination of the Gentile, had made his arrangements. And six months later, the great, the powerful, the extremely wealthy Ford had to publicly apologise to the Jewish community. He had understood”.
With regard to the question of political Zionism, as wished for by Henry Ford, there are today not one “courageous Jewish thinker [who] comes straight out with the good old word Jew” but many, who do not shy away neither from addressing challenging issues regarding their fellow-Jews nor from calling a spade a spade.
One of those thinkers is Maj. Gen. (ret.) Gershon Hacohen whose very incisive critic we have previously referred to. In part three of his above-mentioned contribution[6], he asked: “What has Zionism achieved? And answered: “The imposition of doubt”. The sudden strike by Hamas, he explained, thrust the Zionist idea back to the dilemma of its earliest days. It prompted an echoing of the doubt cast during Herzl’s visit: “You might solve the Jews’ problem, but you won’t solve the problem of Judaism”. On October 7, he added, “we were forcefully confronted with the fundamental Zionist question: What do the Jews want in the Land of Israel?”
He was actually paraphrasing another “courageous Jew thinker” in the person of Dan Miron, a professor of 20th century Hebrew literature who, in a book[7] published in 2005, touched upon the Zionist dilemma and disputed its ultimate goal. To that effect, he said:
“…[T]he expectation of Zionism that the distancing of Jews from European societies and their concentration in their own country would lead to the disappearance of antisemitism did not materialise. Even the security of Zionism, which was supposed to be able to extricate the Jewish people from existential threats, leading to a new Jewish existential activism, did not come to fruition and may not reach the goal it set for itself”.
Miron argues that in the two main dimensions of the Zionist vision outlined in Theodore Herzl’s magnum opus – that is to say finding a solution to the problems of antisemitism and of the need to physically protect Jews from persecution around the world – expectations have yet to pan out notwithstanding over a hundred years since the beginning of the Jewish emigration to Palestine and over fifty years of the state of Israel’s existence.
Thus, in the first dimension, Miron believes that the Zionist vision has become caught in a deadlock given that antisemitism has emerged in a new form that is more sophisticated: it is ostensibly not hatred of Jews as Jews, but merely criticism of the state of Israel, and fierce antipathy is directed against Jews worldwide whenever they voice complaints about actions that threaten the state of Israel, actions they feel endanger them as well.
As for the second dimension, Miron is of the opinion that there exists a fear that despite Israel’s independence and military strength, the historical development of Zionism and its success in achieving Jewish statehood have only led to the replacement of one type of existential threat with another. The most recent tragic events occurring in the tormented Middle East region are convincing evidence of the pertinence of Miron’s views and projections.
Hacohen shares this perspective. In essence, he says, Zionism has merely swapped ailment A, like past pogroms – a Russian word meaning devastation – in Kishinev for ailment B, like the Iranian nuclear threat or the Simchat Torah massacre of the northwestern Negev. In other words, the movement that was supposed to solve antisemitism has instead generated, over the past two decades, a new and equally dangerous form of it, in the guise of anti-Zionism.
Reflecting on the October 7th Operation “Al-Aqsa Flood” conducted by several Palestinian Resistance groups and the entrance on the scene of the Iranian-led “Axis of Resistance” – which wiped out layers upon layers of Israelis’ conventional wisdom in terms of how they think about themselves and their path forward –the retired military officer considers that the state of Israel is now “in one of the most difficult crises it has ever known. It suffered an unprecedented blow and it is required to receive an unprecedented punishment”.
Such a punishment took a turn for the worse when – in retaliation for an April 1 Israeli attack on the Iranian consulate building in Damascus, Syria, that killed several Iranian military commanders and other local personnel – Iranian Revolutionary Guards launched “Operation True Promise” through a massive air attack, which is indeed unprecedented, on designated targets inside Israel, including two air bases in the Negev desert from which Israeli aircraft were used to strike said consulate. Over 300 drones and missiles navigated more than 1,700 kilometres above Iran’s neighbours, including Iraq and Jordan – both of which being home to US military bases – before penetrating Israel’s airspace. Even though Israel employed all of its extensive integrated anti-missile defense system comprised of the “Iron Dome”, the “Arrow” and “David’s Sling” missile interceptors, the US-made “Patriot” missile batteries, in addition to US, British, and Israeli aircraft, and US and French shipborne anti-missile defenses, several Iranian missiles succeeded in striking heavily-protected Israeli airfields and air defense installations.
In the aftermath of this Iranian attack, the leader of Israel’s opposition, Yair Lapid,as well as many analysts and former Israeli officers believe that key defensive policy of deterrence – which has long been an obsession of the country’s political and military circles and regarded as a vital pillar of its security – has been severely damaged once again since October 7, 2023. From now on, writes commentator Ben Caspit in Ma’ariv newspaper,
“The Iranians have lost their sense of fear. No more proxies, undercover agents and covert terror attacks. From now on, it is Iran against Israel, out in the open. Israeli deterrence, which got Iran to swallow its pride every time anew and not to attack Israel directly, has now been shattered.”[8]
For his part, Scott Ritter[9] recounted in a recent article[10] that back in 2007, during an address to the American Jewish Committee, he told the crowd that the last thing he wanted to see was a scenario where Iranian missiles were raining down on the soil of Israel. He therefore warned that “unless Israel changes course, this is the inevitable outcome of a policy driven more by arrogance than common sense.” On the night of 13-14 April, his concerns were effectively played out live before an anxious international audience. Commenting on that event, Ritter said:
“The ‘Missiles of April’ represent a sea-change moment in Middle Eastern geopolitics – the establishment of Iranian deterrence that impacts both Israel and the United States (…) Moreover, Iran has been able to accomplish this without either disrupting its strategic pivot to the east or undermining the cause of Palestinian statehood”.
He therefore concluded that
“Operation True Promise” will go down in history as “one of the most important military victories in the history of modern Iran, keeping in mind that war is but an extension of politics by other means.”
In the final analysis, more than ever before in its short history, the “Jewish state” is now in deep and multifaceted trouble. In the past, writes Jacques Baud in his brilliant recent book[11], “the term antisemitism meant a sickly hatred of the Jew. Today, it means protesting against the bombing of women and children! (…) Israel has always sought to impose itself by force, and this strategy is not a winning one. Today, the Palestinian David is defeating the Israeli Goliath”.
And neither Herzl’s vision of a soft solution to the “Jewish Question” through a successful creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine, nor Vladimir Ze’ev Jabotinsky’s security approach based on his hard “Iron Wall”[12] policy, which was equally advocated by David Ben-Gurion, have so far helped the Jews fulfil their dream of living in peace, away from an age-old, entrenched and pervasive antisemitism, in “their own normal state, where they could be accepted as a nation among nations, a state among nation-states”.
Furthermore, 76 years after its founding, Israel has yet to overcome the basic contradiction that has defined it from the very beginning: Can it be Jewish and democratic?[13]
*
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.
Amir Nour is an Algerian researcher in international relations, author of the books “L’Orient et l’Occident à l’heure d’un nouveau Sykes-Picot” (The Orient and the Occident in Time of a New Sykes-Picot) Editions Alem El Afkar, Algiers, 2014 and “L’Islam et l’ordre du monde” (Islam and the Order of the World),Editions Alem El Afkar, Algiers, 2021.
Notes
[1]Theodore Herzl, “The Jewish State”, Dover Publications, Inc., New York, 1946. The first English-language edition, translated by Sylvie d’Avigdor, was published by Nutt, London, England, 1896. As for the Herzl text, it was originally published under the German title “Der Judenstaat” in Vienna, 1896.
[2]Brian Klug, “Reflections on the Jewish Question, Postcolonial Critique, and Zionism”, University of Notre Dame, 29 August 2023.
[3]Theodore Herzl, “The Jewish State”.
[4]Henry Ford, “The International Jew: The World’s Foremost Problem”, The Dearborn Publishing Co., 1920 (downloadable from: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/25282/25282-h/25282-h.htm).
[5]Malek Bennabi, “Vocation de l’Islam, Deuxième partie” (French version), 5 December 1951.
[6]Maj. Gen. (ret.) Gershon Hacohen, ‘’A New Existential War – Part III: Forming a Clear Post-War National Vision Means Returning to the Roots of Zionism’’, BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 2,251, 8 January 8, 2023.
[7]Dan Meron, “Healing for Touching” (translated from Hebrew), 2005. See my related contribution, “The War on Gaza: Towards Palestine’s Independence Despite the Doom and Gloom”: https://www.globalresearch.ca/war-gaza-towards-palestine-independence-despite-doom-gloom/5848373
[8]Peter Beaumont, “Iran attack shows Israeli deterrence policy ‘shattered’, Netanyahu critics say”, The Guardian, 15 April 2024.
[9]Scott Ritter had spent the better part of a decade trying to protect Israel from Iraqi missiles, both during his service in Desert Storm, where he played a role in the counter-SCUD missile campaign, and as a United Nations weapons inspector, where he worked with Israeli intelligence to make sure Iraq’s SCUD missiles were eliminated. He has beenbeen writing about Iran for more than two decades and published two books on related subjects : “Target Iran, The Truth about the White House’s Plans for Regime Change” and “Dealbreaker, Donald Trump and the Unmaking of the Iran Nuclear Deal”. Since October 7th attacks, hehas been a staunch supporter of the Palestinian cause. He wrote a long article titled “Why I no longer stand with Israel, and never will again”, in which he explained why he does so. To read it, click on the following link: https://www.scottritterextra.com/p/why-i-no-longer-stand-with-israel
[10]Scott Ritter, “The Missiles of April”, Scott Ritter Extra, 14 April 2024.
[11]Jacques Baud, “Operation Al-Aqsa Flood: The Defeat of the Vanquisher”, Max Milo editions, March 2024.
[12]Jabotinsky stated that “Zionist colonisation must either stop, or else proceed regardless of the native population. Which means that it can proceed and develop only under the protection of a power that is independent of the native population – behind an iron wall, which the native population cannot breach.” To read the full document, click on the following link:https://en.jabotinsky.org/media/9747/the-iron-wall.pdf
[13]Eran Kaplan, “On its 75th birthday, Israel still can’t agree on what it means to be a Jewish state and a democracy”, The Conversation, 10 May 2023.
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).
To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.
Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
The World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer estimates more than 35 million new cancer cases in 2050
This represents a 77% increase from the estimated 20 million cancer cases that occurred in 2022
WHO blamed the rising cancer rates on an aging population, along with tobacco, alcohol, obesity and exposure to air pollution
WHO ignored the emergence of rapid-growing “turbo cancers” in people who have received one or more COVID-19 shots
Many of these cancers are showing up in young people, many under age 30, with no family history of cancer; treatment protocols are available to help recover from post-jab injuries
*
The World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) released a daunting prediction of the global cancer burden. It estimates more than 35 million new cancer cases in 2050 — a 77% increase from the estimated 20 million cancer cases that occurred in 2022.1
While WHO named an aging population as a key driver behind the increasing cancer burden, along with tobacco, alcohol, obesity and exposure to air pollution, what they’re ignoring is the concerning trend of turbo cancers that occur shortly after COVID-19 shots.
Cancer Cases Set to Increase Significantly by 2050
The IARC cancer burden estimates are based on the “best sources of data available in [185] countries in 2022.”2 That year, there were an estimated 20 million new cancer cases and 9.7 million deaths, with WHO reporting, “About 1 in 5 people develop cancer in their lifetime, approximately 1 in 9 men and 1 in 12 women die from the disease.”3
About two-thirds of the new cancer cases and deaths were caused by 10 types of cancer. Lung cancer was most common, followed by female breast cancer, colorectal cancer, prostate cancer and stomach cancer. When broken down by sex, breast cancer was the most commonly diagnosed — and the leading cause of cancer death — among women. For men, it was lung cancer.
Lung cancer and colorectal cancer accounted for the second and third most diagnosed types and cause of most deaths among women. However, for men, prostate and colorectal cancers were second and third most common, while liver and colorectal cancer caused the second and third most cancer deaths.4
There were also disparities revealed based on human development index (HDI), a statistical tool that assesses three dimensions of human development: a long and healthy life, access to knowledge (schooling) and a decent standard of living. According to WHO:5
“In terms of the absolute burden, high HDI countries are expected to experience the greatest absolute increase in incidence, with an additional 4.8 million new cases predicted in 2050 compared with 2022 estimates. Yet the proportional increase in incidence is most striking in low HDI countries (142% increase) and in medium HDI countries (99%). Likewise, cancer mortality in these countries is projected to almost double in 2050.”
What’s Driving Up Cancer Rates?
WHO blamed the projected cancer burden increase on a combination of age and environmental factors, stating:6
“The rapidly growing global cancer burden reflects both population ageing and growth, as well as changes to people’s exposure to risk factors, several of which are associated with socioeconomic development. Tobacco, alcohol and obesity are key factors behind the increasing incidence of cancer, with air pollution still a key driver of environmental risk factors.”
But it did not mention the emergence of rapid-growing cancers of the breast, colon, esophagus, kidney, liver, pancreas, bile duct, brain, lung and blood — including exceedingly rare types of cancer. As noted by Canadian oncologist and cancer researcher Dr. William Makis in the Highwire interview above,7 these cancers are showing up in young people, many under age 30, with no family history of cancer.
They’re showing up in pregnant women and young children. Equally odd is the fact that most are Stage 3 or 4 by the time they’re diagnosed, with symptoms arising only days or weeks before. The cancers grow and spread so rapidly, many of these patients die before treatment can even begin. Most of them are also resistant to conventional treatment.
The phenomenon has become common enough that the term “turbo cancers” was coined to describe these rapid-growing cancers in people who have received one or more COVID jabs.
Turbo Cancer Cases Reported Following COVID-19 Shots
In a case report described by board-certified internist and cardiologist Dr. Peter McCullough and colleagues, basaloid carcinoma, a type of aggressive cancer, developed in a 56-year-old man shortly after he received an mRNA COVID-19 shot.
Early symptoms, which began just four days after the jab, were similar to those caused by Bell’s palsy, and involved head pain — but soon a tumor developed on his ear and face. According to the study:8
“We place this within the context of multiple immune impairments potentially related to the mRNA injections that would be expected to potentiate more aggressive presentation and progression of cancer. The type of malignancy we describe suggests a population risk for occurrence of a large variety of relatively common basaloid phenotype cancer cells, which may have the potential for metastatic disease.
… Since facial paralysis/pain is one of the more common adverse neurological events following mRNA injection, careful inspection of cutaneous/soft tissue should be conducted to rule out malignancy.”
This is just one example. Another case report, published in Frontiers in Medicine,9 also found a “rapid progression” of angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma (AITL) — a rare type of non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) — following an mRNA COVID booster shot. AITL is a cancer that affects the lymph system, primarily involving T-cells, a type of white blood cell that plays a crucial role in the immune system.
“Since nucleoside-modified mRNA vaccines strongly activate T follicular helper cells, it is important to explore the possible impact of approved SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccines on neoplasms affecting this cell type,” the study notes.10
The cancer occurred in a 66-year-old man, mere days after he got his third Pfizer shot. Ironically, he got the shot to protect him during chemotherapy, and in eight days, the cancer just exploded and spread like wildfire.
According to Makis, that kind of progression would normally take a couple of years, or at least a few months. “Such a rapid evolution would be highly unexpected in the natural course in the disease,” according to the study.11
How Might COVID-19 Shots Trigger Cancer?
In May 2021, I interviewed Stephanie Seneff, Ph.D., a senior research scientist at MIT for over five decades, about the likely hazards of replacing the uracil in the RNA used in the COVID shots with synthetic methylpseudouridine.12 Uracil is one of the four nucleobases in the nucleic acid of RNA that are represented by the letters A, G, C and U.
This process of substituting letters in the genetic code is known as codon optimization, which is known to be problematic.
At the time, Seneff predicted the shots would cause a rise in prion diseases, autoimmune diseases, neurodegenerative diseases at younger ages, blood disorders and heart failure, and one of the primary reasons for this is because they genetically manipulated the RNA in the shots with synthetic methylpseudouridine, which enhances RNA stability by inhibiting its breakdown.
But when substituting parts of the code in this way, the resulting protein can easily get misfolded, and this has been linked to a variety of chronic diseases,13 including Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s disease and heart failure.14 As explained by Makis, the pseudouridine insertion can also suppress your innate immune surveillance by dampening the activity of toll-like receptors, and one downstream effect of that is reduced cancer surveillance.
“The more mRNA shots you take, the greater the immune system damage, the greater your risk of impaired cancer surveillance and hence, the greater your risk of turbo cancer,” Makis says.
DNA Contamination Discovered in COVID Shots
In a preprint study, microbiologist Kevin McKernan — a former researcher and team leader for the MIT Human Genome project15 — and colleagues assessed the nucleic acid composition of four expired vials of the Moderna and Pfizer mRNA shots. “DNA contamination that exceeds the European Medicines Agency (EMA) 330ng/mg requirement and the FDAs 10ng/dose requirements” was found.16
So, in addition to the spike protein and mRNA in COVID-19 shots, McKernan’s team discovered simian virus 40 (SV40) promoters that, for decades, have been suspected of causing cancer in humans, including mesotheliomas, lymphomas and cancers of the brain and bone.17
Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo, called for an end to the use of COVID-19 mRNA shots, citing concerns about DNA fragments in the products.18 In a December 6, 2023, letter sent to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Ladapo outlined findings showing the presence of lipid nanoparticle complexes and the SV40 promoter/enhancer DNA.
While there are limits on how much DNA can be in a vaccine due to concern over DNA integration, the guidelines don’t consider lipid nanoparticles and other factors in COVID-19 shots that could enhance how much DNA can enter a cell.
“Lipid nanoparticles are an efficient vehicle for delivery of the mRNA in the COVID-19 vaccines into human cells and may therefore be an equally efficient vehicle for delivering contaminant DNA into human cells.
The presence of SV40 promoter/enhancer DNA may also pose a unique and heightened risk of DNA integration into human cells,” according to a news release from the Florida Department of Health (DOH).19 Further, according to the Florida DOH, the FDA’s own 2007 guidance states:20
“DNA integration could theoretically impact a human’s oncogenes – the genes which can transform a healthy cell into a cancerous cell.
DNA integration may result in chromosomal instability.
The Guidance for Industry discusses biodistribution of DNA vaccines and how such integration could affect unintended parts of the body including blood, heart, brain, liver, kidney, bone marrow, ovaries/testes, lung, draining lymph nodes, spleen, the site of administration and subcutis at injection site.”
How to Recover From Post-Jab Injury
If you’ve had a COVID-19 shot, there are steps you can take to repair from the assault on your system. Remember, the more mRNA shots you take, the greater the immune system damage. So, the first step is to avoid getting anymore COVID jabs. Next, if you’ve developed any unusual symptoms, seek out help from an expert.
The Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC) also has a treatment protocol for post-jab injuries. It’s called I-RECOVER and can be downloaded from covid19criticalcare.com.21
Dr. Pierre Kory, who cofounded the FLCCC, has transitioned to treating the vaccine injured more or less exclusively. For more information, visit DrPierreKory.com. McCullough is also investigating post-jab treatments, which you can find on PeterMcCulloughMD.com.
The World Health Council has also published lists of remedies that can help inhibit, neutralize and eliminate spike protein, which most experts agree is a primary culprit. I covered these in my 2021 article, “World Council for Health Reveals Spike Protein Detox.”
*
Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
The 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
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).
To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.
Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
(2024 Apr, Zhang and El-Deiry) – SARS-CoV-2 spike S2 subunit inhibits p53 activation of p21(WAF1), TRAIL Death Receptor DR5 and MDM2 proteins in cancer cells
(2024 Apr, Rubio-Casillas et al) – Review: N1-methyl-pseudouridine (m1Ψ): Friend or foe of cancer?
(2024 Apr, Gibo et al) – Increased Age-Adjusted Cancer Mortality After the Third mRNA-Lipid Nanoparticle Vaccine Dose During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Japan
(2023 Dec, Angues et al) – SARS-CoV-2 Vaccination and the Multi-Hit Hypothesis of Oncogenesis
(2023 Nov, Patrick Chambers) – The CD147 Epitope on SARS CoV2 and the Spike in Cancer, Autoimmunity and Organ Fibrosis
(2023 Oct, Speicher et al) – DNA fragments detected in monovalent and bivalent Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna modRNA COVID-19 vaccines from Ontario, Canada: Exploratory dose response relationship with serious adverse events.
(2023 Sep, McKernan et al) – Sequencing of bivalent Moderna and Pfizer mRNA vaccines reveals nanogram to microgram quantities of expression vector dsDNA per dose
(2023 March, Guetzkow et al) – National Academies Committee on Review of Relevant Literature Regarding Adverse Events Associated with Vaccines
(2022 May, Jiang et al) – SARS–CoV–2 Spike Impairs DNA Damage Repair and Inhibits V(D)J Recombination In Vitro (Retracted)
(2022 Apr, Seneff et al) – Innate immune suppression by SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccinations: The role of G-quadruplexes, exosomes, and MicroRNAs
(2022 Feb, Alden et al) – Intracellular Reverse Transcription of Pfizer BioNTech COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine BNT162b2 In Vitro in Human Liver Cell Line
(2020 Oct, Singh) – S2 Subunit of SARS-nCoV-2 Interacts with Tumor Suppressor Protein p53 and BRCA: an In Silico Study
Turbo cancer cases (11 papers):
(2024 Apr, Abdurrahman et al) – Primary Cutaneous Adenoid Cystic Carcinoma in a Rare Location With an Immune Response to a BNT162b2 Vaccine
(2024 Apr, Ueda et al) – Fetal hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis with intravascular large B-cell lymphoma following coronavirus disease 2019 vaccination in a patient with systemic lupus erythematosus: an intertwined case
(2024 Apr, Gentilini et al) – A Case Report of Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia (ALL)/Lymphoblastic Lymphoma (LBL) Following the Second Dose of Comirnaty®: An Analysis of the Potential Pathogenic Mechanism Based on of the Existing Literature
(2023 Sep, Kyriakopoulos et al) – Bell’s palsy or an aggressive infiltrating basaloid carcinoma post-mRNA vaccination for COVID-19? A case report and review of the literature
(2023 Apr, Tachita et al) – Newly diagnosed extranodal NK/T-cell lymphoma, nasal type, at the injected left arm after BNT162b2 mRNA COVID-19 vaccination
(2023 Jan, Cavanna et al) – Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma Developed Shortly after mRNA COVID-19 Vaccination: Report of a Case and Review of the Literature
“I searched for “Turbo Cancer” in Google and found 0 papers in the medical literature!” – This is the nonsense I face from heavily brainwashed and propagandized individuals online.
Let’s look at one of the key Big Pharma Propagandists on Twitter, Dr.David Gorski, whose opinion piece on Turbo Cancer is routinely used by “Community Notes” as an official source. He writes:
“There is no such thing as “turbo cancer”
Unsurprisingly, “turbo cancer” isn’t a thing. Oncologists don’t recognize it as a phenomenon, nor do cancer biologists, and if you search for it on PubMed, you won’t find a reference to it. Basically, it’s a clever term coined by antivaxxers to scare you into thinking that COVID-19 vaccines will give you cancer, or at least greatly increase your risk of developing cancer. The “evidence” marshaled to support the concept consists of the usual misinformation techniques used by antivaxxers: citing anecdotes, wild speculation about biological mechanisms without a firm basis in biology, and conflating correlation with causation, no matter how much one must squint to see it.
Unfortunately, “turbo cancer” is also too frightening and pithy of a term to go away any time soon. I expect antivaxxers to be using it for years to come, perhaps for the rest of my life.”
“Turbo cancer is an anti-vaccination myth centred on the idea that people vaccinated against COVID-19, especially with mRNA vaccines, are suffering from a high incidence of fast-developing cancers. The myth, spread by a number of vaccine opponents and related influencers including doctors, has no factual basis.
In late 2020, as COVID-19 vaccines were emerging, antivaccine doctors and social media personalities began circulating the unfounded idea that people vaccinated against COVID-19 were developing rapidly-spreading cancers. These claims have tended to misrepresent single case reports or speculate based on anecdotes. David Gorski summarized the “turbo cancer” phenomenon as “the usual misinformation techniques used by antivaxxers: Citing anecdotes, wild speculation about biological mechanisms without a firm basis in biology, and conflating correlation with causation.”
According to the US National Cancer Institute, “there is no evidence that COVID-19 vaccines cause cancer, lead to recurrence, or lead to disease progression. Furthermore, COVID-19 vaccines do not change your DNA”.
My comment: this Wikipedia entry is very weak, it only references 2 of the 26 papers that I have listed. “COVID-19 Vaccines do not change your DNA” is also a false statement because this is currently an unknown. This entry also cites a non-expert, David Gorski, which brings its own set of problems.
The Big Pharma cover-up is extremely weak:
David Gorski’s opinion piece is full of false assumptions and bogus, fabricated statements. He goes over three papers (Goldman, Zamfir, Singh), and ignores the rest of the “Turbo Cancer” literature.
Here is an example of the type of faulty logic he uses:
“the claims (by lawyer Thomas Renz who claimed an increase in cancer in the database tracking the health of military personnel) were incredible on their face just from a scientific plausibility standpoint given that we know from the nuclear bombings at Hiroshima and Nagasaki that the cancers due to the most powerful carcinogen of all, large doses of ionizing radiation, take at least two years to begin showing up (leukemias) while most solid cancers don’t show up for around 10 years. Given that the vaccines were only introduced to the general population two years ago, even if the vaccines were as powerful a carcinogen as an ionizing radiation dose from being exposed when a nuclear bomb goes off, it would be only now that we might be beginning to see a glimmer of a cancer signal for leukemias, and even then most people didn’t receive the vaccine until months or even a year later, making too soon.”
This statement is full of bogus, false assumptions:
ionizing radiation is not the “most powerful carcinogen of all”and it’s clear that Gorski has zero understanding of ionizing radiation, which is not surprising as he has no training in it as a breast cancer surgeon.
“even if the vaccines were as powerful a carcinogen as an ionizing radiation dose from being exposed when a nuclear bomb goes off”
he is comparing lipid nanoparticles filled with artificially modified mRNA and DNA plasmid molecules that circulate in the blood throughout the entire body for weeks and are readily taken up by cells all over the body, with external radiation exposure from a “nuclear bomb”
the two processes cannot be compared biologically
Wikipedia: “Carcinogenicity of radiation depends on the type of radiation, type of exposure, and penetration. For example, alpha radiation has low penetration and is not a hazard outside the body, but emitters are carcinogenic when inhaled or ingested.”
he completely ignores the immune system in these deliberations and the effect of artificially modified mRNA on the immune system vs the effect of ionizing radiation on the immune system.
“Oncologists don’t recognize it as a phenomenon, nor do cancer biologists, and if you search for it on PubMed, you won’t find a reference to it”
Here Gorski commits the “appeal to authority fallacy”, as well as showing us his inability to search the medical literature properly.
He also ignores the fact that these experimental pharmaceutical products were never tested for genotoxicity or carcinogenicity. Why would oncologists or cancer biologists recognize a phenomenon caused by an experimental pharmaceutical product, if the manufacturers themselves didn’t test it for either genotoxicity or carcinogenicity?
“Basically, it’s a clever term coined by antivaxxers to scare you into thinking that COVID-19 vaccines will give you cancer, or at least greatly increase your risk of developing cancer. The “evidence” marshaled to support the concept consists of the usual misinformation techniques used by antivaxxers: citing anecdotes, wild speculation about biological mechanisms without a firm basis in biology, and conflating correlation with causation, no matter how much one must squint to see it.”
Here, Gorski is reduced to ad hominem attacks, smears and false generalizations
He also engages in a strawman fallacy (he fabricates a caricature of “antivaxxers” that cite anecdotes and make wild speculations – but does not give a single specific example of such an individual in real life, who might engage in such activities – he then attacks this caricature that he fabricated and “defeats it”)
furthermore, Gorski himself has no expertise in biology, immunology, vaccines, or clinical trials. How would he know which speculations have a “firm basis in biology” if he has no such expertise?
Gorski also conveniently ignores the fact that doctors are being censored and suppressed from conducting COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine Injury research in a way that has never been seen in medicine before. They are being stripped of their licenses, jobs and hospital privileges.
The playing field is not even but Gorski is acting like it is. One side has the backing of a well politically connected pharmaceutical mafia (routinely convicted of medical fraud) and $200+ billion in financial incentives, the other side has threats, smears, destruction of medical careers, reputations, jobs, licenses, academic careers, research careers, ability to earn an income, and sometimes even threats to families.
If it was a David vs Goliath battle, David would have no slingshot, no rocks, and he would be blindfolded with his hands tied behind his back, and his legs broken, thrown in front of Goliath (the well fed and well funded David Gorskis of this world).
My Contribution to an Epoch Times Article
Not much has changed in regards to the hypotheses on how these Turbo Cancers may be arising in the COVID-19 Vaccinated.
There is more evidence of p53 playing a significant role.
More work has been done on DNA contamination, SV40, and research is underway on integration of DNA contaminants into the genomes of the COVID-19 Vaccinated.
We still don’t have answers.
However, I see April 2024 as a watershed moment – the Turbo Cancer papers are starting to come in now fast and furiously. More case reports, more hypotheses, more evidence of mRNA Induced Turbo Cancer in the population.
Despite the best efforts of big pharma and their corrupt allies in politics, media and medical associations, the truth about mRNA Induced Turbo Cancer cannot be suppressed, or hidden. It’s coming out and there is no turning back.
The dam is breaking and it will take Pfizer and Moderna with it.
When you look at Pfizer’s stock chart, you see a stock in freefall, going opposite compared to the rest of the market. That means bad news is being “priced in” over time as insiders sell and run for the hills. I believe that bad news is the truth about Pfizer’s COVID-19 mRNA Vaccines causing CANCER.
Meanwhile, cancer deaths in the United States are at an all time high and rising.
*
Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
Dr. William Makis is a Canadian physician with expertise in Radiology, Oncology and Immunology. Governor General’s Medal, University of Toronto Scholar. Author of 100+ peer-reviewed medical publications.
Featured image is from 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
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).
To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.
Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
At the time, General Charles A. Flynn, a four-star commanding officer of the US Army Pacific (USARPAC), stated that the deployment was officially slated for 2024 and that their purpose was to “deter China from invading Taiwan”.
More importantly, Flynn revealed that the US Army would deploy a missile launcher that will be able to fire the land-based version of the medium-range “Tomahawk” missile. Still, he refused to disclose where exactly the systems would be deployed, leaving many analysts to speculate about the possible location. There was even speculation that such missiles would be stationed directly in Taiwan. However, it seems that the United States chose not to go that far (at least not yet), although the latest deployment isn’t much better in terms of strategic impact on China’s security.
The US Army deployed the elements of its latest land-based medium-range missile system overseas for the first time to take part in a military exercise in the island country. Apart from the aforementioned subsonic “Tomahawk” cruise missiles, “Typhon” also carries the supersonic SM-6 multi-purpose missiles. The latter is used by the US Navy as part of its shipborne “Aegis”, a combined SAM (surface-to-air missile) and ABM (anti-ballistic missile) system that can also be used in a secondary anti-ship role. Precisely the SM-6 gives it such a capability, meaning that it can hit both airborne and surface targets. Because of such multirole capabilities, “Typhon” can use the missile for land attack missions. Various American military sources suggest that such systems will be “permanently based in China’s backyard”, a clear indicator that the US plans to escalate its aggression.
On April 15, US Army Pacific (USARPAC) announced the arrival of one battery (or at least a part of it) to the Philippines where it participated in the Salaknib 24 military exercise. This specific “Typhon” system was sent on April 7 and it belongs to Battery C, 5th Battalion, 3rd Field Artillery Regiment, which is part of the Long Range Fires Battalion assigned to the 1st Multi-Domain Task Force (MDTF) at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington State. Footage shows a single trailer-based containerized launcher towed by a HEMTT (Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Truck) being loaded on a USAF C-17A Globemaster III transport aircraft from the 62nd Airlift Wing at Joint Base Lewis-McChord and then being unloaded in the Philippines. A “Typhon” battery consists of up to four launchers, a mobile command post and other auxiliary vehicles and equipment. The system also uses the Mk 70 Mod 1 launchers derived from the highly controversial Mk 41 VLS.
The Mk 41 can fire a plethora of weapons, be it for SAM, ABM or any other system. It’s also part of the “Aegis” air and missile defenses, including its land-based “Aegis Ashore” variant. It can be argued that its most disturbing feature is that it can also fire purely offensive missiles such as the infamous “Tomahawk”. The problem is that there’s no viable way to know what sort of missile is in the VLS and the US has repeatedly refused to allow on-site inspections of its alleged “missile shield” in Eastern Europe. This effectively forced Russia to create countermeasures, particularly in the form of its unrivaled hypersonic missiles. China has a similar problem with such VLS, particularly now that the missiles have been deployed on land.
The US military openly describes the “Typhon” as a “strategic weapon system that would be used against higher-value targets like air defense assets and command and control nodes”. If based on Luzon, the largest and most important island in the Philippines, the system would have more than enough range to reach southern and southeastern China, including the island of Hainan which is crucial for extending control over the strategically important South China Sea. However, American military sources are complaining that too many countries have outright refused to allow the deployment of the “Typhon” on their territory. Still, this doesn’t seem to serve as a clear deterrent to the aggressive Pentagon planners, as they’re also deploying similar weapons with other service branches, including the US Marine Corps (USMC), which also has land-based “Tomahawk” launchers, albeit on a completely different platform, the 4×4 Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV).
Worse yet, back in 2021, meaning before the SMO (special military operation), the US Army reactivated its 56th Artillery Command in Germany to oversee forward-deployed units equipped with “Typhon” and similar strike platforms such as the “Dark Eagle” hypersonic missile, which is yet to be delivered, as it’s still going through a rather rocky development. Interestingly, the 56th Artillery Command had battalions equipped with “Pershing” and “Pershing II” nuclear-armed ballistic missiles during the (First) Cold War. In other words, the US-led political West is antagonizing both multipolar superpowers, openly taking pride in the fact that it can get into their “geopolitical backyards”. However, both Russia and China have superior missile technologies, particularly in terms of the development and deployment of hypersonic weapons. Worse yet for the Pentagon, even North Korea managed to overtake the US in this regard and continues to strengthen its forces.
*
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 InfoBrics.
Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version).
To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.
Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
Iran’s attack on Israel over the weekend was the grimmest proof yet that French President Emmanuel Macron’s diagnosis of the security challenges facing the European Union is correct, Bloomberg reported on April 16 in an article titled “Macron’s Push to Arm Europe Is Getting More Urgent — and More Dangerous.” The French leader’s problem, however, is that he has not yet achieved the support of French voters in the face of his hardline position to escalate a conflict with Russia by sending French troops to Ukraine. On the contrary, he has attracted the antipathy of some allies, both at home and abroad.
Oscillating between peacemaker and provocateur, Macron has shown that he wants to lead the bloc in the Ukraine issue. Only last week, his administration resumed telephone contact with Russia, which, according to Bloomberg, “because the detailed contents of the exchange weren’t made public, turned the overture into an awkward public-relations mess as both sides traded different accounts of the call.”
While Macron claims to want an end to the Ukrainian conflict, after meeting European leaders at the Palace of Versailles earlier this year, he famously refused to rule out the possibility of sending troops to the ground in Ukraine. However, instead of garnering support and dissuading Moscow from conducting any offensives, German and other European allies publicly discarded the idea and thus undermined any ambiguity that had been sown.
According to Bloomberg, low recruitment in the military restricts France’s aspirations for greatness. Comparatively, while Russia has around 1.15 million soldiers — which represents almost the entire population of neighbouring Estonia — France has just 200,000. Last year, its infantry recruited 3,000 less than the target of 16,000 new personnel.
In March, the French defence minister urged the country’s arms industry to speed up the production of equipment for Ukraine, threatening to requisition companies that failed to meet the desired pace. Some industry members were surprised by the public rebuke as they consider their factories to be running at full steam already.
The new French budget figures could also undermine Macron’s war effort. Last week, the government said that its deficit would be greater than expected this year, requiring an additional €10 billion in savings in addition to the number already announced.
Just as alarming as the budget struggles, French public opinion is turning against the continuation of the Ukrainian conflict — falling from 82% to 58% according to IFOP data — something that Macron put at the forefront of his campaign against Marine Le Pen. Polls also showed that the majority of the French people opposed the deployment of troops as proposed by the president.
Despite Macron wanting to escalate the war by sending troops, he confusingly also demands global peace for the duration of the Paris Summer Olympics from July 26 to August 11. The French leader said in a recent interview with RMC and BFMTV that he would do all he could to achieve an “Olympic ceasefire,” specifically referring to the Israel-Hamas War, the Ukraine War, and the war in Sudan, and added that he is counting on the assistance of Chinese President Xi Jinping to achieve this.
“The leader of China is coming to Paris in a few weeks. I asked him to help me. In 2022, he also faced such a task during the Winter Olympics, which China hosted,” Macron said.
On the one hand, Macron actively seeks to escalate the conflict in Ukraine, but on the other, he wants Beijing to convince Moscow to hold off on its expected summer offensive, not for the sake of achieving lasting peace but instead to avoid inconvenience and distracting Paris with further bad news from the Ukrainian front when it is hosting one of the world’s largest sporting events.
Regardless, even if China wanted to deter Russia from the summer offensive, the Kremlin would not be compelled to do Macron any favours.
Macron’s delusions of grandeur have only deterred many voters from supporting him. Just as importantly, he has isolated himself from the general Western consensus, with the USA, Germany, and other major NATO members distancing themselves from his idea to send troops to Ukraine.
Although Macron’s idea has been shunned domestically and by foreign partners, it is a demonstration of how his push to arm Europe is certainly getting more urgent and more dangerous, as Bloomberg warned. Deepening confusion is that Macron is permitting hidden communications with Russia in a bid to establish peace for the Olympics period, but his public statements show an intention to escalate the war in Ukraine once the Games are over. This means that Macron is not only becoming more dangerous in his actions, but also desperate.
*
Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version).
To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.
Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
This article originally published on November 11, 2023 was revised on January 14th, 2024 with a focus on the dangers of escalation and the role of “False Flags”.
In recent developments, in response to Israel’s bombing of Iran’s Consulate in Damascus, according to media reports:
Iran has launched more than 300 cruise and ballistic missiles and drones at Israel, IDF officials said, a retaliatory attack weeks after an Israeli strike on the Iranian consular building in Syria killed two of Tehran’s top commanders.
“There were explosions visible in the air over Jerusalem as air sirens rang throughout the country.”
“Iran said that after tonight’s attack, the “matter can be deemed concluded” unless there is more violence.”
The fundamental question is whether this retaliatory attack will lead to escalation, including an Israeli counter-attack on Iran.
Video Interview
M. C, April 14, 2024
Expanding Middle East War.
Planned US-Israeli Attack on Iran,
The War on Energy, Strategic Waterways
by
Michel Chossudovsky
1. In Solidarity with Palestine
.
We stand in Solidarity with Palestine. But we must recognize that the United States Military and Intelligence apparatus is firmly behind Israel’s genocide directed against the People of Palestine.
.
And this must be part of the solidarity campaign, namely to Reveal the Truth regarding Washington’s insidious role, which is part of a carefully planned military agenda directed against Palestine and the broader Middle East. Netanyahu is a proxy, with a criminal record. He has the unbending support of Western Europe’s “Classe politique”.
The U.S. led War on the People of Palestine and the Middle East is a Criminal Undertaking
Israel and the Zionist lobby in the U.S. are NOT exerting undue influence AGAINST U.S. Foreign Policy as outlined by numerous analysts.
Quite the opposite. The Zionist lobby is firmly aligned with U.S. foreign policy, and Vice Versa. It targets those who are opposed to war, who call for a cease fire. It exerts influence in favour of the conduct of the U.S. military agenda in support of Israel.
The US military-intelligence establishment in coordination with powerful financial interests is calling the shots in regards to Israel’s genocidal intent to “Wipe Palestine off the Map”.
.
2. Triggering “False Flags”
Inciting Escalation in The Red Sea and the Eastern Mediterranean
Let us be under no illusions. Remember Pearl Harbor, The Gulf of Tonkin, 9/11. “False Flags” are part of the history of modern warfare. They are sophisticated intelligence operations often requiring infiltration into enemy ranks.
Starting in the immediate wake of the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack, US-NATO war ships –including aircraft carriers, combat planes, naval vessels have been deployed in both the Eastern Mediterranean and the Red Sea.
These deployments have been described in chorus by the mainstream media as a response to “Palestine’s [alleged] Aggression against the Jewish State”.
They are tagged as humanitarian undertakings: Coming to the rescue of Israel. Responsibility to Protect (R2P).
The False Flag concept requires inciting your enemy or an armed jihadist group to confront or “attack America” thereby providing a justification to strike back in self defense: The Houthis in the Red Sea and Hezbollah in the Eastern Mediterranean both of which are allies of Iran.
Trigger one or more incidents with a view to justifying a process of military escalation.
In recent developments, the “False Flag agenda” has evolved towards US-NATO air and naval attacks against Yemen.
“Sadeh, Zubaydah, Abs, Bani, Sana, Hudaydah, and Taiz have been attacked by American forces, initiating yet another war without Congressional approval, a branch of the US government emptied of power.
The New York Times, of course, blames the expansion of the conflict on the Houthis for interfering with shipping to Israel.” (Paul Craig Roberts)
The endgame is to incite Iran through various means to enter the Middle East battlefield, which would lead eventually to a process of escalation. The media is now using the term: “Iranian Proxies” in an ambivalent report by the NYT:
There is no direct evidence to show senior Iranian commanders ordered Yemen’s Houthi rebels to launch attacks on ships in the Red Sea, according to a New York Times report citing US intelligence officials.The unnamed sources said they continue to assess that Iran isn’t interested in a wider war, even though it encouraged Houthi operations in the Red Sea.
“The whole purpose of the Iranian proxies, they argue, is to find a way to punch at Israel and the United States without setting off the kind of war that Iran wants to avoid,” the news report said.
“There is no direct evidence that senior Iranian leaders, either the commander of the elite Quds Force or the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, ordered the recent Houthi attacks on ships in the Red Sea.” (Quoted by Al Jazeera)
.
.
3. America’s Military Doctrine: Targeting and Killing Civilians
.
The targeting of civilians and the killing of children in Gaza is modelled on numerous US sponsored massacres of civilians (1945-2023) including the 2004 attack on Fallujah. (More than 30 Million mainly civilian deaths in US-led wars in what is euphemistically called the “post War Era”).
.
Veteran War correspondent Felicity Arbuthnot reflected on the indescribable barbarity of the 2004 Fallujah massacre, which resulted in countless deaths and destruction. It was a genocide conducted by the U.S military:
.
“The Americans invaded, chillingly: “house to house, room to room”, raining death and destruction on the proud, ancient “City of Mosques.”
Marines killed so many civilians that the municipal soccer stadium had to be turned into a graveyard …
One correspondent wrote: “There has been nothing like the attack on Fallujah since the Nazi invasion and occupation of much of the European continent – the shelling and bombing of Warsaw in September 1939, the terror bombing of Rotterdam in May 1940.”
Fallujah, 2004
.
The U.S. is supportive of the Israeli genocide directed against the people of Palestine. Prime Minister Netanyahu is a criminal. He is Washington’s proxy, unreservedly endorsed and supported by the Biden Administration as well as the U.S. Congress.
.
Zionism constitutes the ideological underpinnings of contemporary U.S. imperialism and its unending war against the people of the Middle East.
.
The Zionist “Greater Israel” dogma –as in all wars of religion since the dawn of mankind– is there to mislead people Worldwide as to “who is really pulling the strings”.
.
Zionism has become a useful instrument which is embodied in U.S. military doctrine. The “Promised Land” broadly coincides with America’s hegemonic agenda in the Middle East, namely what the U.S. military has designated as the “New Middle East”.
Cui Bono: “To Whom Does it Benefit”
There are strategic, geopolitical and economic objectives behind Israel’s genocide directed against the People of Palestine. “Crimes are often committed to benefit their perpetrators”:
Who are the Perpetrators?
Israel’s War against the People of Palestine serves the interests of Big Money, the Military Industrial Complex, Corrupt Politicians… The Genocide is implemented by Netanyahu on behalf of the United States.
The US military and intelligence apparatus are behind Israel’s criminal bombing and invasion of Gaza. The unfolding Middle East War is largely directed against Iran.
.
Video Interview: Michel Chossudovsky and Caroline Mailloux
Historical Antecedents. Using Israel As a Means to Attacking Iran
In 2003, the war on Iran project (Operation Theatre Iran Near Term, TIRANNT)) was already Déjà Vu. It had been on the drawing board of the Pentagon for more than 15 years.
Let us recall that at the outset of Bush’s Second Term, Vice President Dick Cheney dropped a bombshell, hinting, in no uncertain terms, that Iran was “right at the top of the list” of the rogue enemies of America. And that Israel would, so to speak,
“be doing the bombing for us” [paraphrase] , without US military involvement and without us putting pressure on them “to do it”. For further details see my article below was first published by Global Research in May 2005, as well as PBS Interview with Z. Brzezinski
This Dick Cheney-style option is currently (November 2023) once more on the drawing board of the Pentagon, namely the possibility that Israel which is already bombing Lebanon and Syria, would be incited to wage an attack on Iran (acting on behalf of the United States).
US Congress Resolution (H. RES. 559) Accuses Iran of Possessing Nuclear Weapons
Careful timing: In June 2023, the US House of Representatives adopted Resolution (H. RES. 559) which provides a “Green Light” to wage war on Iran.
The US House passed a resolution that allows the use of force against Iran, intimating without a shred of evidence that Iran has Nuclear Weapons:
Resolved, That the House of Representatives declares it is the policy of the United States—
(1) that a nuclear Islamic Republic of Iran is not acceptable;
(2) that Iran must not be able to obtain a nuclear weapon under any circumstances or conditions;
(3) to use all means necessary to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon; and
(4) to recognize and support the freedom of action of partners and allies, including Israel, to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
Whereas Iran is tagged (without evidence) as a Nuclear Power by the U.S. House of Representatives, Washington fails to acknowledge that Israel is an undeclared nuclear power.
The Times of Israel reported that: “Amichai Eliyahu said Sunday [November 5, 2023] that one of Israel’s options in the war against Hamas was to drop a nuclear bomb on the Gaza Strip”
Video on Israel’s Nuclear Weapons Facility
English subtitles
.
5. The War on Energy
.
Unspoken Objective of a US-NATO-Israel War against Iran: Natural Gas
Reserves of Natural Gas: Iran ranks Second after Russia. Russia, Iran and Qatar possess 54.1 percent of the World’s reserves of natural gas.
-Russia 24.3%,
-Iran 17.3%,
-Qatar, 12.5 % (in partnership with Iran)
versus
-5.3 % for the US
President Joe Biden ordered to “blow up” (September 2022) the Nordstream Pipeline, which constitutes a U.S. Act of War against the European Union.
America’s strategic objective is, despite its meagre reserves of natural gas:
To Force the European Union to buy LNG “Made in America”.
What this implies is that America’s military agenda against Russia and Iran constitutes a means to hike up EU energy prices, which is an Act of Economic Warfare against the People of Europe.
The Iran-Qatar Natural Gas Partnership
The maritime gas reserves of the Persian Gulf are under a (joint ownership) partnership between Qatar and Iran (See diagram below).
The Biden Administration is Intent upon Destabilizing the Iran-Qatar Partnership
This partnership is supportive of the People of Palestine.
In March 2022, “President Joe Biden following a meeting with Qatar’s Emir Sheik Tamim “designated Qatar as a major non-NATO ally of the United States, fulfilling the promise that he had made to Qatar earlier this year [2022], the White House said” ( Reuters, March 10, 2022 )
“The designation is granted by the United States to close, non-NATO allies that have strategic working relationships with the U.S. military.
Biden promised Qatar’s emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, in January [2022] during a meeting at the White House that he would grant Qatar the special status.” Reuters See also Reuters (January 31, 2022)
What is at stake are cross-cutting coalitions. Qatar is a “Partner” of Iran in relation to the strategic reserves of maritime gas in the Persian Gulf. There is no formaI military cooperation between the two countries.
Washington’s unspoken agenda is to break and/or destabilize Qatar’s Partnership with Iran, by integrating Qatar into the US-NATO military orbit.
“the Emir of Qatar said the groundbreaking for the Northern Dome expansion project was laid today, which is in line with Qatar’s strategy to strengthen its position as a global LNG producer …
This joint gas field, known as “South Pars” in Iran, is the largest natural gas field in the world and contains 50.97 trillion cubic meters of gas and about 7.9 billion cubic meters of natural gas condensate.
At the time of writing, the implications of Sheik Tamin’s October 2023 expansion project in South Pars Fields (which is in Iranian territorial Waters) as well as Qatar’s “Special Status” Military Alliance with the U.S. remain unclear.
America’s Al-Udeid military base in Qatar (left) is the largest US base in the Middle East.
Have the status and functions of Al Udeid changed since the signing of the March 2022 agreement designating Qatar as a “Major Non NATO Ally of the US”
The U.S. foreign policy objective is to ultimately destroy and undermine that “friendship” with Iran which is highly valued and supported by Qatari citizens.
The export of gas from South Pars North Dome transits through Iran, Turkey and Russia.
Qatar, Russia and Iran (the 3 largest holders Worldwide of natural gas reserves) reached an agreement in 2009 to create a ‘Gas Troika’, a trilateral gas cooperation entity including the development of joint projects.
A large number of countries including South Korea, India, Japan, China are importing LNG from Qatar.
Last year (November 2022), “QatarEnergy signed a 27-year deal to supply China’s Sinopec with liquefied natural gas”. Qatar has also a strategic alliance with China.
Exert US Control over the Maritime Gas Field in the Persian Gulf
Weaken and Disable the “Gas Troika” (Russia, Iran, Qatar)
Create Chaos in the Global Energy Market,
Undermine the Trade in Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) to Numerous Countries
.
Iran. Third Largest Reserves of Oil Worldwide
Iran is not only second in terms of its gas reserves after Russia, it ranks third Worldwide in relation to its oil reserves (12% of Worldwide oil reserves) versus a meagre 4% for the U.S.
6. Strategic Waterways: The Ben Gurion Canal Project
.
U.S. Seeks Dominance over Strategic International Waterways
The Ben Gurion Canal Projectwas initially a “secret” (classified) U.S. project formulated in 1963 by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory LLNG, a strategic think tank (focussing on nuclear radiation) on contract with the U.S Department of Energy. The LLNG project was formulated in response to the nationalization of the Suez Canal in July 1956 by President Gamal Abdel Nasser (1956-1970). Its intent was to bypass the Suez Canal.
The Ben Gurion Canal project is currently contemplated as means control the channels of international maritime trade to the detriment of the people of the Middle East. It also seeks to destabilize China’s maritime commodity trade.
In the context of the broader US-led Middle East War, the Ben Gurion Canal Project is part of America’s hegemonic military agenda. It is consistent with Netanyahu’s “Plan to Wipe Palestine Off the Map”.
According to Yvonne Ridley:
“The only thing stopping the newly-revised [Ben Gurion Canal] project from being revived and rubber-stamped is the presence of the Palestinians in Gaza. As far as Netanyahu is concerned they are standing in the way of the project” (Yvonne Ridley, November 10, 2023, emphasis added)
The U.S led war is intent upon confiscating all Palestinian territories, which would be appropriated by the State of Israel, acting as a strategic “Anglo-American Hub” in the Middle East:
The Ben Gurion Canal will give Israel in particular and other friendly nations the freedom from blackmail arising out of access to the Suez Canal.
Arab states have been leveraging the Red Sea to pressure Israel and in response, Israel has decided to gain more control of the Red Sea. These African countries have cultural and economic affinities with the Arab states. One of the main military benefits for Israel is that it gives Israel the strategic options as the Ben Gurion Canal will totally take away the importance of Suez for the US military if needed in the aid for Israel.
Israel aims to push Egypt further into a corner by eliminating Suez in the global trade and energy corridor and becoming a global trade and energy logistics center.
Experts are of the opinion that this situation will shake the strategic-energy balance of China’s Belt and Road Project initiative in the Mediterranean, along with the Strait of Hormuz, which is the transfer point of 30 percent of the world’s energy. The Ben Gurion Canal would have the solid backing of the West. (Eurasia Review, November 7, 2023, emphasis added)
The Promised Land of Greater Israel coincides with America’s Colonial Design in the Middle East
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
.
8. “America’s Promised Land”. Global Warfare
When viewed in the current context, including the siege on Gaza, the Zionist Plan for the Middle East coincides with America’s long war against the Middle East. As we mentioned earlier the Zionist agenda provides an ideological and religious justification of America’s long war against the Middle East.
The 1979-80. the so-called Soviet Afghan War, engineered by the CIA
The 1980-88 Iraq-Iran War engineered by the U.S.
The 1991 Gulf War against Iraq,
The 2001 The US-NATO Invasion of Afghanistan,
The 2003 Invasion of Iraq
The 2006 War on Lebanon,
The Arab Spring,
The 2011 war on Libya,
The 2015 war on Yemen
Obama’s 2014-2017 “Counter-Terrorism” Operation against Iraq and Syria
The ongoing wars against Syria, Iraq and Yemen
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.
Needless to day, the ideological and religious underpinnings of the “Greater Israel” project are consistent with America’s imperial design.
While the Zionist agenda is not the driving force, it serves the useful purpose of misleading public opinion concerning America’s long war against the people of the Middle East.
The Historical Context: A Sequence of Military Plans and Scenarios to Wage War on Iran
Since the launching of the Theater Iran Near Term (TIRANNT)war games scenario in May 2003 (leaked classified doc), an escalation scenario involving military action directed against Iran and Syria had been envisaged, of which Syria was the first stage.
TIRANNT was followed by a series of military plans pertaining to Iran. Numerous post 9/11 official statements and US military documents had pointed to an expanded Middle East war, involving the active participation of Israel.
Israel is America’s ally. Military operations are closely coordinated. Israel does not act without Washington’s approval.
U.S.-Israeli Air Defense
Barely acknowledged by the media, the US and Israel have an integrated air defense system, which was set up in early 2009, shortly after the Israel invasion of Gaza under “Operation Cast Led”.
The X-band radar air defense system set up by the US in Israel in 2009 would
“integrate Israel’s missile defenses with the U.S. global missile detection network, which includes satellites, Aegis ships on the Mediterranean, Persian Gulf and Red Sea, and land-based Patriot radars and interceptors.” (Sen. Joseph Azzolina, Protecting Israel from Iran’s missiles, Bayshore News, December 26, 2008). )
What this means is that Washington calls the shots. Confirmed by the Pentagon, the US military controls Israel’s Air Defense:
”This is and will remain a U.S. radar system,’ Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said.
‘So this is not something we are giving or selling to the Israelis and it is something that will likely require U.S. personnel on-site to operate.’” (Quoted in Israel National News, January 9, 2009, emphasis added).
At the outset of Obama’s Second Term, the US and Israel initiated discussions pertaining to a “US personnel on site” presence in Israel, namely the establishment of a “permanent” and “official” military base inside Israel.
And on September 17, 2017, a US Air Defense base located in the Negev desert was inaugurated.
According to the Israeli IDF spokesperson, the objective is to send a “message to the region, ” including Iran, Lebanon, Syria and Palestine.
Of utmost relevance:
Israel would not be able to act unilaterally against Iran, without a green light from the Pentagon which controls key components of Israel’s air defense system.
In practice, a war on Iran, would be a joint US-NATO-Israeli endeavor, coordinated by US Strategic Command (STRATCOM) with America’s allies playing a key (subordinate) role.
Michel Chossudovsky, November 11, 2023, Updated January 14, 2024
Below is my May 2005 Global Research article which provides a detailed historical perspective on US war plans to attack Iran.
At the outset of Bush’s second term, Vice President Dick Cheney dropped a bombshell. He hinted, in no uncertain terms, that Iran was “right at the top of the list” of the rogue enemies of America, and that Israel would, so to speak, “be doing the bombing for us”, without US military involvement and without us putting pressure on them “to do it”:
“One of the concerns people have is that Israel might do it without being asked… Given the fact that Iran has a stated policy that their objective is the destruction of Israel, the Israelis might well decide to act first, and let the rest of the world worry about cleaning up the diplomatic mess afterwards,” (quoted from an MSNBC Interview Jan 2005)
“Iran I think is more ambiguous. And there the issue is certainly not tyranny; it’s nuclear weapons. And the vice president today in a kind of a strange parallel statement to this declaration of freedom hinted that the Israelis may do it and in fact used language which sounds like a justification or even an encouragement for the Israelis to do it.”
The foregoing statements are misleading. The US is not “encouraging Israel”. What we are dealing with is a joint US-Israeli military operation to bomb Iran, which has been in the active planning stage for more than a year. The Neocons in the Defense Department, under Douglas Feith, have been working assiduously with their Israeli military and intelligence counterparts, carefully identifying targets inside Iran (see Seymour Hersh)
Under this working arrangement, Israel will not act unilaterally, without a green light from Washington. In other words, Israel will not implement an attack without the participation of the US.
Covert Intelligence Operations: Stirring Ethnic Tensions in Iran
Meanwhile, for the last two years, Washington has been involved in covert intelligence operations inside Iran. American and British intelligence and special forces (working with their Israeli counterparts) are involved in this operation.
“A British intelligence official said that any campaign against Iran would not be a ground war like the one in Iraq. The Americans will use different tactics, said the intelligence officer. ‘It is getting quite scary.'” (Evening Standard, 17 June 2003)
The expectation is that a US-Israeli bombing raid of Iran’s nuclear facilities will stir up ethnic tensions and trigger “regime change” in favor of the US. (See Arab Monitor).
Bush advisers believe that the “Iranian opposition movement” will unseat the Mullahs. This assessment constitutes a gross misjudgment of social forces inside Iran. What is more likely to occur is that Iranians will consistently rally behind a wartime government against foreign aggression. In fact, the entire Middle East and beyond would rise up against US interventionism.
Retaliation in the Case of a US-Israeli Aerial Attack
Tehran has confirmed that it will retaliate if attacked, in the form of ballistic missile strikes directed against Israel (CNN, 8 Feb 2005). These attacks, could also target US military facilities in the Persian Gulf, which would immediately lead us into a scenario of military escalation and all out war.
In other words, the air strikes against Iran could contribute to unleashing a war in the broader Middle East Central Asian region.
Moreover, the planned attack on Iran should also be understood in relation to the timely withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon, which has opened up a new space, for the deployment of Israeli forces. The participation of Turkey in the US-Israeli military operation is also a factor, following an agreement reached between Ankara and Tel Aviv.
In other words, US and Israeli military planners must carefully weigh the far-reaching implications of their actions.
Israel Builds up its Stockpile of Deadly Military Hardware
A massive buildup in military hardware has occurred in preparation for a possible attack on Iran.
Israel has recently taken delivery from the US of some 5,000 “smart air launched weapons” including some 500 BLU 109 ‘bunker-buster bombs. The (uranium coated) munitions are said to be more than “adequate to address the full range of Iranian targets, with the possible exception of the buried facility at Natanz, which may require the [more powerful] BLU-113 bunker buster“:
“Given Israel’s already substantial holdings of such weapons, this increase in its inventory would allow a sustained assault with or without further US involvement.” (See Richard Bennett)
Gbu 28 Guided Bomb Unit-28 (GBU-28)
The Israeli Air Force would attack Iran’s nuclear facility at Bushehr using US as well Israeli produced bunker buster bombs. The attack would be carried out in three separate waves “with the radar and communications jamming protection being provided by U.S. Air Force AWACS and other U.S. aircraft in the area”. (See W Madsen)
Bear in mind that the bunker buster bombs can also be used to deliver tactical nuclear bombs. The B61-11 is the “nuclear version” of the “conventional” BLU 113. It can be delivered in much same way as the conventional bunker buster bomb. (See Michel Chossudovsky, see also this)
According to the Pentagon, tactical nuclear weapons are “safe for civilians”. Their use has been authorized by the US Senate. (See Michel Chossudovsky)
Even if tactical nuclear weapons are not used by Israel, an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities not only raises the specter of a broader war, but also of nuclear radiation over a wide area:
“To attack Iran’s nuclear facilities will not only provoke war, but it could also unleash clouds of radiation far beyond the targets and the borders of Iran.” (Statement of Prof Elias Tuma, Arab Internet Network, Federal News Service, 1 March 2005)
Moreover, while most reports have centered on the issue of punitive air strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, the strikes would most probably extend to other targets.
While a ground war is contemplated as a possible “scenario” at the level of military planning, the US military would not be able to wage a an effective ground war, given the situation in Iraq. In the words of former National Security Adviser Lawrence Eagelberger:
“We are not going to get in a ground war in Iran, I hope. If we get into that, we are in serious trouble. I don’t think anyone in Washington is seriously considering that.” ( quoted in the National Journal, 4 December 2004).
Iran’s Military Capabilities
Despite its overall weaknesses in relation to Israel and the US, Iran has an advanced air defense system, deployed to protect its nuclear sites; “they are dispersed and underground making potential air strikes difficult and without any guarantees of success.” (Jerusalem Post, 20 April 2005).
It has upgraded its Shahab-3 missile, which can reach targets in Israel. Iran’s armed forces have recently conducted high-profile military exercises in anticipation of a US led attack. Iran also possesses some 12 X-55 strategic cruise missiles, produced by Ukraine. Iran’s air defense systems is said to feature Russian SA-2, SA-5, SA-6 as well as shoulder-launched SA-7 missiles (Jaffa Center for Strategic Studies).
The US “Military Road Map”
The Bush administration has officially identified Iran and Syria as the next stage of “the road map to war”.
Targeting Iran is a bipartisan project, which broadly serves the interests of the Anglo-American oil conglomerates, the Wall Street financial establishment and the military-industrial complex.
The broader Middle East-Central Asian region encompasses more than 70% of the World’s reserves of oil and natural gas. Iran possesses 10% of the world’s oil and ranks third after Saudi Arabia (25 %) and Iraq (11 %) in the size of its reserves. In comparison, the US possesses less than 2.8 % of global oil reserves. (See Eric Waddell, The Battle for Oil)
The announcement to target Iran should come as no surprise. It is part of the battle for oil. Already during the Clinton administration, US Central Command (USCENTCOM) had formulated “in war theater plans” to invade both Iraq and Iran:
“The broad national security interests and objectives expressed in the President’s National Security Strategy (NSS) and the Chairman’s National Military Strategy (NMS) form the foundation of the United States Central Command’s theater strategy. The NSS directs implementation of a strategy of dual containment of the rogue states of Iraq and Iran as long as those states pose a threat to U.S. interests, to other states in the region, and to their own citizens. Dual containment is designed to maintain the balance of power in the region without depending on either Iraq or Iran. USCENTCOM’s theater strategy is interest-based and threat-focused. The purpose of U.S. engagement, as espoused in the NSS, is to protect the United States’ vital interest in the region – uninterrupted, secure U.S./Allied access to Gulf oil. (USCENTCOM, USPolicy , emphasis added)
Main Military Actors
While the US, Israel, as well as Turkey (with borders with both Iran and Syria) are the main actors in this process, a number of other countries, in the region, allies of the US, including several Central Asian former Soviet republics have been enlisted. Britain is closely involved despite its official denials at the diplomatic level. Turkey occupies a central role in the Iran operation. It has an extensive military cooperation agreement with Israel. There are indications that NATO is also formally involved in the context of an Israel-NATO agreement reached in November 2004.
Planning The Aerial Attack on Iran
According to former weapons inspector Scott Ritter, George W. Bush has already signed off on orders for an aerial attack on Iran, scheduled for June.(See this)
The June cut-off date should be understood. It does not signify that the attack will occur in June. What it suggests is that the US and Israel are “in a state of readiness” and are prepared to launch an attack by June or at a later date. In other words, the decision to launch the attack has not been made.
Ritter’s observation concerning an impending military operation should nonetheless be taken seriously. In recent months, there is ample evidence that a major military operation is in preparation:
1) several high profile military exercises have been conducted in recent months, involving military deployment and the testing of weapons systems.
2) military planning meetings have been held between the various parties involved. There has been a shuttle of military and government officials between Washington, Tel Aviv and Ankara.
3) A significant change in the military command structure in Israel has occurred, with the appointment of a new Chief of Staff.
4) Intense diplomatic exchanges have been carried out at the international level with a view to securing areas of military cooperation and/or support for a US-Israeli led military operation directed against Iran.
5) Ongoing intelligence operations inside Iran have been stepped up.
6) Consensus Building: Media propaganda on the need to intervene in Iran has been stepped up, with daily reports on how Iran constitutes a threat to peace and global security.
Timeline of Key Initiatives
In the last few months, various key initiatives have been taken, which are broadly indicative that an aerial bombing of Iran is in the military pipeline:
November 2004 in Brussels: NATO-Israel protocol: Israel’s IDF delegation to the NATO conference to met with military brass of six members of the Mediterranean basin nations, including Egypt, Jordan, Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria and Mauritania. NATO seeks to revive the framework, known as the Mediterranean Dialogue program, which would include Israel. The Israeli delegation accepted to participate in military exercises and “anti-terror maneuvers” together with several Arab countries.
January 2005: the US, Israel and Turkey held military exercises in the Eastern Mediterranean, off the coast of Syria. These exercises, which have been held in previous years were described as routine.
February 2005. Following the decision reached in Brussels in November 2004, Israel was involved for the first time in military exercises with NATO, which also included several Arab countries.
February 2005: Assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. The assassination, which was blamed on Syria, serves Israeli and US interests and was used as a pretext to demand the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon.
February 2005: Sharon fires his Chief-of-Staff, Moshe Ya’alon and appoints Air Force General Dan Halutz. This is the first time in Israeli history that an Air Force General is appointed Chief of Staff (See Uri Avnery)
The appointment of Major General Dan Halutz as IDF Chief of Staff is considered in Israeli political circles as “the appointment of the right man at the right time.” The central issue is that a major aerial operation against Iran is in the planning stage, and Maj General Halutz is slated to coordinate the aerial bombing raids on Iran. Halutz’s appointment was specifically linked to Israel’s Iran agenda: “As chief of staff, he will in the best position to prepare the military for such a scenario.”
March 2005: NATO’s Secretary General was in Jerusalem for follow-up talks with Ariel Sharon and Israel’s military brass, following the joint NATO-Israel military exercise in February. These military cooperation ties are viewed by the Israeli military as a means to “enhance Israel’s deterrence capability regarding potential enemies threatening it, mainly Iran and Syria.” The premise underlying NATO-Israel military cooperation is that Israel is under attack:
“The more Israel’s image is strengthened as a country facing enemies who attempt to attack it for no justified reason, the greater will be the possibility that aid will be extended to Israel by NATO. Furthermore, Iran and Syria will have to take into account the possibility that the increasing cooperation between Israel and NATO will strengthen Israel’s links with Turkey, also a member of NATO. Given Turkey’s impressive military potential and its geographic proximity to both Iran and Syria, Israel’s operational options against them, if and when it sees the need, could gain considerable strength. ” (Jaffa Center for Strategic Studies, http://www.tau.ac.il/jcss/sa/v7n4p4Shalom.html )
The Israel-NATO protocol is all the more important because it obligates NATO to align itself with the US-Israeli plan to bomb Iran, as an act of self defense on the part of Israel. It also means that NATO is also involved in the process of military consultations relating to the planned aerial bombing of Iran. It is of course related to the bilateral military cooperation agreement between Israel and Turkey and the likelihood that part of the military operation will be launched from Turkey, which is a member of NATO.
Late March 2005: News leaks in Israel indicated an “initial authorization” by Prime Minster Ariel Sharon of an Israeli attack on Iran’s Natanz uranium enrichment plant “if diplomacy failed to stop Iran’s nuclear program”. (The Hindu, 28 March 2005)
March-April 2005: The Holding in Israel of Joint US-Israeli military exercises specifically pertaining to the launching of Patriot missiles.
US Patriot missile crews stationed in Germany were sent to Israel to participate in the joint Juniper Cobra exercise with the Israeli military. The exercise was described as routine and “unconnected to events in the Middle East”: “As always, we are interested in implementing lessons learned from training exercises.” (UPI, 9 March 2005).
April 2005: Donald Rumsfeld (right) was on an official visits to Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kyrgyzstan and Azerbaijan. His diplomatic endeavors were described by the Russian media as “literally circling Iran in an attempt to find the best bridgehead for a possible military operation against that country.”
In Baku, Azerbaijan Rumsfeld was busy discussing the date for deployment of US troops in Azerbaijan on Iran’s North-Western border. US military bases described as “mobile groups” in Azerbaijan are slated to play a role in a military operation directed against Iran.
Azerbaijan is a member of GUUAM, a military cooperation agreement with the US and NATO, which allows for the stationing of US troops in several of the member countries, including Georgia, Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan. The stated short term objective is to “neutralize Iran”. The longer term objective under the Pentagon’s “Caspian Plan” is to exert military and economic control over the entire Caspian sea basin, with a view to ensuring US authority over oil reserves and pipeline corridors.
During his visit in April, Rumsfeld was pushing the US initiative of establishing “American special task forces and military bases to secure US influence in the Caspian region:
“Called Caspian Watch, the project stipulates a network of special task forces and police units in the countries of the regions to be used in emergencies including threats to objects of the oil complex and pipelines. Project Caspian Watch will be financed by the United States ($100 million). It will become an advance guard of the US European Command whose zone of responsibility includes the Caspian region. Command center of the project with a powerful radar is to be located in Baku.” ( Defense and Security Russia, April 27, 2005)
Rumsfeld’s visit followed shortly after that of Iranian President Mohammad Khatami’s to Baku.
April 2005: Iran signs a military cooperation with Tajikistan, which occupies a strategic position bordering Afghanistan’s Northern frontier. Tajikistan is a member of “The Shanghai Five” military cooperation group, which also includes Kazakhstan, China, Kyrgyzstan, and Russia. Iran also has economic cooperation agreements with Turkmenistan.
Mid April 2005: Israel Prime Minister Ariel Sharon meets George W Bush at his Texas Ranch. Iran is on the agenda of bilateral talks. More significantly, the visit of Ariel Sharon was used to carry out high level talks between US and Israeli military planners pertaining to Iran.
Late April 2005. President Vladmir Putin is in Israel on an official visit. He announces Russia’s decision to sell short-range anti-aircraft missiles to Syria and to continue supporting Iran’s nuclear industry. Beneath the gilded surface of international diplomacy, Putin’s timely visit to Israel must be interpreted as “a signal to Israel” regarding its planned aerial attack on Iran.
Late April 2005: US pressure in the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has been exerted with a view to blocking the re-appointment of Mohammed Al Baradei, who according to US officials “is not being tough enough on Iran…” Following US pressures, the vote on the appointment of a new IAEA chief was put off until June. These developments suggest that Washington wants to put forth their own hand-picked nominee prior to launching US-Israeli aerial attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities. (See VOA). (In February 2003, Al Baradei along with UN chief weapons inspector Hans Blix challenged the (phony) intelligence on WMD presented by the US to the UN Security Council, with a view to justifying the war on Iraq.)
Late April 2005. Sale of deadly military hardware to Israel. GBU-28 Buster Bunker Bombs: Coinciding with Putin’s visit to Israel, the US Defence Security Cooperation Agency (Department of Defense) announced the sale of an additional 100 bunker-buster bombs produced by Lockheed Martin to Israel. This decision was viewed by the US media as “a warning to Iran about its nuclear ambitions.”
The sale pertains to the larger and more sophisticated “Guided Bomb Unit-28 (GBU-28) BLU-113 Penetrator” (including the WGU-36A/B guidance control unit and support equipment). The GBU-28 is described as “a special weapon for penetrating hardened command centers located deep underground. The fact of the matter is that the GBU-28 is among the World’s most deadly “conventional” weapons used in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, capable of causing thousands of civilian deaths through massive explosions.
The Israeli Air Force are slated to use the GBU-28s on their F-15 aircraft. (See text of DSCA news release)
Late April 2005- early May: Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan (right) in Israel for follow-up talks with Ariel Sharon. He was accompanied by his Defense Minister Vecdi Gonul, who met with senior Israeli military officials. On the official agenda of these talks: joint defense projects, including the joint production of Arrow II Theater Missile Defense and Popeye II missiles. The latter also known as the Have Lite, are advanced small missiles, designed for deployment on fighter planes. Tel Aviv and Ankara decide to establish a hotline to share intelligence.
May 2005: Syrian troops scheduled to withdraw from Lebanon, leading to a major shift in the Middle East security situation, in favor of Israel and the US.
Iran Surrounded?
The US has troops and military bases in Turkey, Pakistan, Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, and of course Iraq.
In other words, Iran is virtually surrounded by US military bases. (see Map below). These countries as well as Turkmenistan, are members of NATO`s partnership for Peace Program and have military cooperation agreements with NATO.
Copyright Eric Waddell, Global Research, 2003
In other words, we are dealing with a potentially explosive scenario in which a number of countries, including several former Soviet republics, could be brought into a US led war with Iran. IranAtom.ru, a Russian based news and military analysis group has suggested, in this regard:
“since Iranian nuclear objects are scattered all over the country, Israel will need a mass strike with different fly-in and fly-out approaches – Jordan, Iraq, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and other countries… Azerbaijan seriously fears Tehran’s reaction should Baku issue a permit to Israeli aircraft to overfly its territory.” (Defense and Security Russia, 12 April 2005).
Concluding remarks
The World is at an important crossroads.
The Bush Administration has embarked upon a military adventure which threatens the future of humanity.
Iran is the next military target. The planned military operation, which is by no means limited to punitive strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities, is part of a project of World domination, a military roadmap, launched at the end of the Cold War.
Military action against Iran would directly involve Israel’s participation, which in turn is likely to trigger a broader war throughout the Middle East, not to mention an implosion in the Palestinian occupied territories. Turkey is closely associated with the proposed aerial attacks.
Israel is a nuclear power with a sophisticated nuclear arsenal. (See text box below). The use of nuclear weapons by Israel or the US cannot be excluded, particularly in view of the fact that tactical nuclear weapons have now been reclassified as a variant of the conventional bunker buster bombs and are authorized by the US Senate for use in conventional war theaters. (“they are harmless to civilians because the explosion is underground”)
In this regard, Israel and the US rather than Iran constitute a nuclear threat.
The planned attack on Iran must be understood in relation to the existing active war theaters in the Middle East, namely Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine.
The conflict could easily spread from the Middle East to the Caspian sea basin. It could also involve the participation of Azerbaijan and Georgia, where US troops are stationed.
An attack on Iran would have a direct impact on the resistance movement inside Iraq. It would also put pressure on America’s overstretched military capabilities and resources in both the Iraqi and Afghan war theaters. (The 150,000 US troops in Iraq are already fully engaged and could not be redeployed in the case of a war with Iran.)
In other words, the shaky geopolitics of the Central Asia- Middle East region, the three existing war theaters in which America is currently, involved, the direct participation of Israel and Turkey, the structure of US sponsored military alliances, etc. raises the specter of a broader conflict.
Moreover, US military action on Iran not only threatens Russian and Chinese interests, which have geopolitical interests in the Caspian sea basin and which have bilateral agreements with Iran. It also backlashes on European oil interests in Iran and is likely to produce major divisions between Western allies, between the US and its European partners as well as within the European Union.
Through its participation in NATO, Europe, despite its reluctance, would be brought into the Iran operation. The participation of NATO largely hinges on a military cooperation agreement reached between NATO and Israel. This agreement would bind NATO to defend Israel against Syria and Iran. NATO would therefore support a preemptive attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, and could take on a more active role if Iran were to retaliate following US-Israeli air strikes.
Needless to say, the war against Iran is part of a longer term US military agenda which seeks to militarize the entire Caspian sea basin, eventually leading to the destabilization and conquest of the Russian Federation.
The Antiwar Movement
The antiwar movement must act, consistently, to prevent the next phase of this war from happening.
This is no easy matter. The holding of large antiwar rallies will not in itself reverse the tide of war.
High ranking officials of the Bush administration, members of the military and the US Congress have been granted the authority to uphold an illegal war agenda.
What is required is a grass roots network, a mass movement at national and international levels, which challenges the legitimacy of the military and political actors, and which is ultimately instrumental in unseating those who rule in our name.
War criminals occupy positions of authority. The citizenry is galvanized into supporting the rulers, who are “committed to their safety and well-being”. Through media disinformation, war is given a humanitarian mandate.
To reverse the tide of war, military bases must be closed down, the war machine (namely the production of advanced weapons systems) must be stopped and the burgeoning police state must be dismantled.
The corporate backers and sponsors of war and war crimes must also be targeted including the oil companies, the defense contractors, the financial institutions and the corporate media, which has become an integral part of the war propaganda machine.
Antiwar sentiment does not dismantle a war agenda. The war criminals in the US, Israel and Britain must be removed from high office.
What is needed is to reveal the true face of the American Empire and the underlying criminalization of US foreign policy, which uses the “war on terrorism” and the threat of Al Qaeda to galvanize public opinion in support of a global war agenda.
Israel’s Nuclear Capabilities
John Steinbach,
March 2002
( This article describes Israel’s Nuclear Arsenal. Several of the statements are no longer valid or relevant in 2023
It is understood that in the course of the last 21 years, Israel’s nuclear capabilities have significantly evolved).
With between 200 and 500 thermonuclear weapons and a sophisticated delivery system, Israel has quietly supplanted Britain as the World’s 5th Largest nuclear power, and may currently rival France and China in the size and sophistication of its nuclear arsenal. Although dwarfed by the nuclear arsenals of the U.S. and Russia, each possessing over 10,000 nuclear weapons, Israel nonetheless is a major nuclear power, and should be publicly recognized as such.
Today, estimates of the Israeli nuclear arsenal range from a minimum of 200 to a maximum of about 500. Whatever the number, there is little doubt that Israeli nukes are among the world’s most sophisticated, largely designed for “war fighting” in the Middle East. A staple of the Israeli nuclear arsenal are “neutron bombs,” miniaturized thermonuclear bombs designed to maximize deadly gamma radiation while minimizing blast effects and long term radiation- in essence designed to kill people while leaving property intact.(16) Weapons include ballistic missiles and bombers capable of reaching Moscow…
The bombs themselves range in size from “city busters” larger than the Hiroshima Bomb to tactical mini nukes.
The Israeli arsenal of weapons of mass destruction clearly dwarfs the actual or potential arsenals of all other Middle Eastern states combined, and is vastly greater than any conceivable need for “deterrence.”
Many Middle East Peace activists have been reluctant to discuss, let alone challenge, the Israeli monopoly on nuclear weapons in the region, often leading to incomplete and uninformed analyses and flawed action strategies.
Placing the issue of Israeli weapons of mass destruction directly and honestly on the table and action agenda would have several salutary effects.
First, it would expose a primary destabilizing dynamic driving the Middle East arms race and compelling the region’s states to each seek their own “deterrent.”
Second, it would expose the grotesque double standard which sees the U.S. and Europe on the one hand condemning Iraq, Iran and Syria for developing weapons of mass destruction, while simultaneously protecting and enabling the principal culprit.
Third, exposing Israel’s nuclear strategy would focus international public attention, resulting in increased pressure to dismantle its weapons of mass destruction and negotiate a just peace in good faith.
Finally, a nuclear free Israel would make a Nuclear Free Middle East and a comprehensive regional peace agreement much more likely. Unless and until the world community confronts Israel over its covert nuclear program it is unlikely that there will be any meaningful resolution of the Israeli/Arab conflict, a fact that Israel may be counting on as the Sharon era dawns.
From John Steinbach, Israel’s Nuclear Arsenal, Global Research
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).
To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.
Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
The Kiev regime is absolutely unable to maintain control over what happens in the country. In a recent statement, the Ministry of the Interior announced that it does not have information on the location of all the weapons that had been distributed to the Ukrainian population since the establishment of the martial law – immediately after the launch of Russia’s special military operation. This means that millions of weapons are circulating freely across the country – or even abroad – and could end up in the hands of criminals and terrorists. However, more than that, the real concern seems to be with the possibility of the Ukrainian people starting an uprising against the government.
Igor Klimenko, Ukraine’s Interior Minister, stated on April 12 that many of the weapons distributed to citizens are simply no longer under government control. There is no data to prove the location of the weapons, thus preventing any type of control over the circulation of these equipment. This has caused concern for the government, which is trying to create mechanisms to recover the weapons – or at least locate and monitor them.
“How many weapons do our citizens have in their hands? Between 1 and 5 million (…) How many grenades? Quite enough as well (…) We (…) understand that they should have it because there is a war going on”, the Minister said.
Ukrainian lawmakers are currently working on a bill to establish an official procedure obliging citizens to surrender or register their weapons. At the beginning of hostilities with Russia, the Ministry of the Interior distributed millions of weapons to civilians. The alleged objective was to strengthen the population and create popular militias to protect Ukrainian cities from Russian “invaders”.
In addition to firearms, grenades were also given to ordinary people, which shows the high level of irresponsibility on the part of the Ukrainian government. To make matters worse, many veterans return from the front lines with captured weapons that they keep as “trophies”, which makes it even more difficult for authorities to have control over the military equipment circulating in the country.
Obviously, the irresponsible distribution of weapons to ordinary people can have catastrophic consequences. The government claims that it is particularly concerned about the fact that many soldiers return home having mental problems due to stress on the battlefield. People in these health conditions should not have weapons as they could pose a risk to society. Although valid, the argument does not seem sufficient to explain the regime’s concerns.
The Ukrainian government has never shown any real concern for the mental health of its troops. People with mental problems are even being sent to the front, in addition to the fact that soldiers are being forced to remain on the battlefield for an extended period, ignoring any health protocols. The neo-Nazi regime is well known for its disregard for the lives of ordinary citizens and its indifference for the health of soldiers, which is why such concern does not seem to be the real reason why Ukraine wants to regain control over weapons.
Furthermore, it is necessary to remember that since 2022, Russian authorities have been reporting the presence of Western-supplied Ukrainian weapons with terrorist groups around the world, even in Africa. Kiev has always ignored the evident fact that its weapons were on the black market, which is why this does not seem to be the actual explanation behind the regime’s desperation in controlling the circulation of weapons from now on.
Certainly, Zelensky and his team are particularly concerned about growing popular dissatisfaction and the possibility of a mass uprising. Despite being a dangerous and irresponsible measure, arming civilians inevitably guarantees greater power of rebellion for ordinary citizens. With weapons in their hands, Ukrainian civilians could create popular self-defense militias, not against the Russians (as Kiev planned), but also against the neo-Nazi regime itself and its dictatorial policies.
With armed people willing to protect themselves and resist the measures of the regime, it may become impossible for Kiev to continue maintaining the forced conscription system in the long term, for example. Being the Ukrainian people increasingly dissatisfied with the war, it appears that Kiev fears that there will be popular uprisings against the authorities – which, considering the people’s possession of weapons, could lead to a civil war and the immediate collapse of the regime.
In fact, Ukraine is in an increasingly complicated situation. It will be difficult to regain control over distributed weapons, since ordinary citizens will certainly not accept obeying the new law – and will be able to defend themselves from reprisals precisely because they are armed. Without the trust and support of its own people, the regime does not seem to have any good expectations, being defeat a mere matter of time.
*
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 InfoBrics.
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.
By defeating the US-Israeli missile defense shield, Iran exposed the notion of US missile defense supremacy that serves as the heart of US force protection models used when projecting military power on a global scale.
Carlos Argüello, who led the case last week and many of its previous cases, said that Nicaragua offered its expertise to Palestine and it had already joined in with South Africa’s action. It had decided to target Germany, the second biggest supplier of arms to Israel, because the US, the biggest supplier, is outside the court’s jurisdiction on this issue.
In Part 3, I explain David Rogers Webb’s conclusion that a massive financial crisis is pending in which our financial assets are the collateral underwriting the derivative and financial bubble and will result in the loss of our assets but leave us with our debts as happened to those whose banks failed in the 1930s.
Nicaragua’s accusation before the International Court of Justice is that Germany is actively participating in the genocide committed by the Israeli armed forces in the Gaza Strip. And I as a German learned in school that I have to resist when genocide is happening in front of my eyes.
The Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA), an entity on contract to the US Department of Defense released a previously classified military document which confirms Israel’s nuclear weapons program. This is considered to be a landmark decision, widely interpreted as constituting a semi-official recognition by the US Department of Defense that Israel is a bona fide nuclear power.
The Israeli online magazine +972 has published a detailed report on Israel’s use of an artificial intelligence (AI) system called “Lavender” to target thousands of Palestinian men in its bombing campaign in Gaza. When Israel attacked Gaza after October 7, the Lavender system had a database of 37,000 Palestinian men with suspected links to Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ).
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).
To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.
Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
It might be wrong to assume China has “peaked”. Nicholas R. Lardy, a Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, writing for Foreign Affairs, argues it is still rising and should not be underestimated as a superpower. Parts of the American establishment, however, still cannot conceive of pacific coexistence/competition with Beijing. Matt Pottinger (former Deputy National Security Adviser) and Mike Gallagher (former chair of the “House Select Committee on the CCP”) amazingly call for regime change in China, and argue that Washington should ensure the whole of Asia is under US military primacy.
Pottinger and Gallagher in fact wrote that “the United States shouldn’t manage the competition with China; it should win it”. They call for “greater friction” in Chinese-US relations, by adopting “rhetoric and policies that feel uncomfortably confrontational.”
The authors add that “Washington should not fear the end state desired by a growing number of Chinese”, namely a China “free from communist dictatorship.”
Other goals Washington should pursue, according to the same piece, are “severing China’s access to Western technology” (by placing export bans on areas such as “quantum computing and biotechnology”), and also multiplying “U.S. military installations across the region and pre-position critical supplies such as fuel, ammunition, and equipment throughout the Pacific.”
Desirability aside (even from an American perspective), it is debatable whether such goals are even achievable. I’ve written before on how impossible it is to really “decouple” from China, considering the fact that any such attempts pertaining to sanctions and export bans, for example, can only aggravate the new supply chain crisis, ultimately hurting the United States itself and its allies, as is, in a different way, already the case with the ongoing “chip war” – not to mention the fact that supply chains are remarkably hard to trace. The authors understanding is that “Xi is preparing his country for a war over Taiwan” and thus Washington should not fail to deter such war, for it could “kill tens of thousands of U.S. service members, inflict trillions of dollars in economic damage, and bring about the end of the global order as we know it.”
The irony here lies of course in the fact that in mid-2022 Washington decided to change its stance on Taiwan. Previously, it had always pragmatically recognized Beijing’s “One China Policy”. It has been building, as I wrote before, a major precision-strike missile network along the so-called first island chain, which is a chain of islands near China’s coast – this being part of a $27.4 billion operation. In addition, it has been trying to advance the QUAD as a “new NATO” to contain Beijing – its engagement with Nepal being an example of that. New Zealand has also been under pressure to align with AUKUS (an ongoing discussion). Everywhere, American anti-Chinese initiatives abound: there is even a “new QUAD” , the so-called “Afghanistan – Uzbekistan – Pakistan Quad Regional Support for Afghanistan-Peace Process and Post Settlement”. Nancy Pelosi’s July 2022 visit to Taiwan can hardly be described as anything else than a provocation. It is no exaggeration to say the American-Chinese escalation of tensions brings the world closer to a new global war, and much of that escalation has been Washington’s own doing.
It is no wonder then that Peter T. C. Chang, a research associate at the Institute of China Studies (University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia), has described the current American stance on Beijing as a “sick obsession with China” which could lead to “profound uncertainties” globally and “ruin” the US “and the world.” With both the Gaza and Ukraine crises persisting, with no foreseeable resolution (especially with regards to the former), the Sinophobic obsession, as Chang describes it, holds the US and much of the world back from addressing critical issues, such as AI, climate change, and so on. Such Sinophobia is much fueled by a propaganda war, involving unsubstantiated rumors about spy balloons, Tik Tok’s communist plots and things like that. The aforementioned Pottinger and Gallagher’s piece, for instance (on “winning” the competition with China) also makes a lot of points regarding TikTok (supposedly run by the Chinese Communist Party as part of a “smokeless battlefield” approach) and so on that are not really worth mentioning and can hardly be described as anything else as propaganda.
The bellicose spirit that permeates much of the American Establishment in turn is based on certain misconceptions about China,which is seen as having reached its peak. However, as Lardy points out, in his aforementioned article, despite its “headwinds” (such as “a housing market slump” and the US-imposed restrictions), there is no reason to believe Beijing could not overcome all of those, as it overcame “even greater challenges when it started on the path of economic reform in the late 1970s.” As he concludes:
“China will likely continue to contribute about a third of the world’s economic growth while increasing its economic footprint, particularly in Asia. If U.S. policymakers underappreciate this, they are likely to overestimate their own ability to sustain the deepening of economic and security ties with Asian partners.”
Pottinger and Gallagher in turn acknowledge that the incumbent Biden administration has had its fair share of “failures of deterrence” (“in Afghanistan, Ukraine, and the Middle East”), but its China policy, nonetheless, they argue, “has stood out as a relative bright spot.” Biden’s foreign policy, one may recall, has been characterized for its “dual containment” approach – referring to simultaneously “encircling” Moscow and “containing” Beijing.
The Atlantic superpower is currently overextended, and overburdened. In addition, it is undergoing a military crisis, and its naval hegemony is under threat. It is therefore a superpower in decline, basically. Its enabling of Israel’s wild undertakings in the Levant has brought about the current crisis in the Red Sea. (now risking escalating into a full-blown Israeli-Iranian war). Even so, well-positioned actors within the American Establishment think it would be both feasible and desirable to pursue direct warfare with the Chinese superpower – even aiming at regime change. Those are quite dangerous ideas, to say the least.
*
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 InfoBrics.
Uriel Araujo is a researcher with a focus on international and ethnic conflicts. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version).
To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.
Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
Israel’s divisions are now at full display – even in the government.
Six months into the conflict against Hamas, the Israeli public is deeply divided about how to win the war in the Gaza Strip. So, too, are the three top officials in the war cabinet meant to foster unity in that effort. (Rory Jones, The Wall Street Journal, April 16, 2024)
The split between Israel and its once “eternal” ally the USA is also increasing – no doubt, heated discussions are happening between the USA and Israel right now.
US sees its global empire crumbling in the Middle East and the US cannot rein in a religiously extremist Israel which wants to drag the US into the creation of its own regional empire and doesn’t care that Israel even with US help stands to chance of getting out on top of a wider war.
All this proves that Iran really knows a thing or two about strategy.
This is going BAD for Israel in all possible ways.
Israel has morally become a global genocide pariah. Nobody fears Israel, deterrence is gone – instead Israel is hated by more and more – even in Germany, one of Israel’s closest “friends”, 70% of the population is appalled by Israel and in the US, more and more Americans including Jews feel disgust at Israel’s crimes.
Hamas can after six months not be defeated militarily. Hamas is even still in political power.
The hostages are not freed.
The empty towns along Israel’s northern border are poised to stay empty forever.
Iran sent an overwhelming number of 330 drones and missiles, and Iran already promises to send “10 times more” if Israel dares retaliate against Iran – suddenly Israel’s stockpiles of air defense missiles small and frighteningly, soon will be out of air defense, and we can look to Ukraine to see what the means (no electricity, no work, everything breaks down, no nothing).
Iran has shown an upper hand, taken escalatory charge and destroyed Israel’s criminal Dahiya doctrine of endless civilian deaths, even without Iran itself causing civilian harm.
Everybody in the West fears what Israel will do to escalate an already big war in the world – stocks are already tumbling at the prospect of an uncontainable and endless Middle East war involving Iran (backed by Russia and China).
Several Middle East régimes including Israel’s important security partner Jordan are at risk of falling, as Israel continues its genocide and other Muslim régimes stand passively at the sidelines while Iran successfully engages Israel-USA.
Israel’s indispensable partner the USA openly calls for Israel’s prime minister Netanyahu to resign – calls Netanyahu a “risk” for Israel (and USA).
Israel’s population is completely scared – and deeply divided.
Nobody in Israel or the US has got any idea whatsoever how to conclude this, or what an outcome they could ever achieve might look like.
Did I forget a point or two? Probably, but the 12 points above are already devastating for Israel – and the USA with G7.
Neither Israel nor the USA has even got a plan A.
Instead of taking a pause, rethink, and start a dialogue – Israel drags the US into a flight forward from defeat to complete self-destruction. Israel cannot be dissuaded from retaliating, which is what the US fears. What probably happen these hours is that the US as a “compromise” presses Israel to a diminished “retaliation” – which from the perspective of Iran will not look at all “diminished” or negligible.
By giving warning to the US in advance, and by not killing anybody with its retaliation on Israel, Iran offered a path without a big Regional escalation involving the US and all US allies, potentially up to the nuclear level. But Israel’s divided government unite on one thing, and that is to make sure that such an escalation with dire global effects happens.
*
Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
Karsten Riise is a Master of Science (Econ) from Copenhagen Business School and has a university degree in Spanish Culture and Languages from Copenhagen University. He is the former Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Mercedes-Benz in Denmark and Sweden.
He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
Featured image: Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. (Photo: Valeriano Di Domenico / WEF)
Alle Artikel von Global Research können in 51 Sprachen gelesen werden, indem Sie die Schaltfläche „Website übersetzen“ unter dem Namen des Autors aktivieren (nur in der Desktop-Version verfügbar).
Um den täglichen Newsletter von Global Research (ausgewählte Artikel) zu erhalten, klicken Sie hier.
Klicken Sie oben auf die Schaltfläche „Teilen“, um diesen Artikel per E-Mail an Ihre Freunde und Kollegen weiterzuleiten. Folgen Sie uns auf Instagram und Twitter und abonnieren Sie unseren Telegram-Kanal. Fühlen Sie sich frei, Artikel von Global Research erneut zu veröffentlichen und mit anderen zu teilen.
Deutschland beteiligt sich aktiv am Völkermord der israelischen Streitkräfte im Gaza-Streifen, so lautet die Anklage Nicaraguas vor dem Internationalen Gerichtshof. Und ich habe in der Schule gelernt, dass ich Widerstand leisten muss, wenn sich vor meinen Augen ein Völkermord ereignet.
Ich erkenne mein Deutschland nicht wieder.
Jetzt wird doch erneut von „Kriegstauglichkeit“ schwadroniert. Da soll schon wieder gegen Osten marschiert werden.
Und das sollen wir doch bitte keine Feigheit vor dem Feind zeigen.
Wir müssen noch mehr Opfer bringen für die deutschen Rüstungsanstrengungen. Härte! Unerbittliche Härte!
Die Leute, die so daher schmettern, haben keine Bürstenfrisur und tragen keine Knobelbecher. Es sind die selben Leute, die eben noch von Verständigung, Toleranz und Frieden gesungen haben. Es sind Leute, die sich vor geraumer Zeit noch für einen respektvollen Umgang mit anderen Völkern und Ethnien ausgesprochen haben.
Und jetzt haben wir diese unreife Göre als Chefin des altehrwürdigen Auswärtigen Amtes, die sich imperialistischer, rassistischer und kolonialistischer aufführt als alle deutschen Außenminister vor ihr. Was ja auch unweigerliche zur Folge hat, dass Länder der Südhalbkugel Frau Baerbock das eigentlich unerlässliche diplomatische Protokoll verweigern. Aber ich will mich nicht weiter mit jener Verkörperung aller Peinlichkeit abgeben. Man kann ja grüne Politiker beschimpfen so viel man will. Man trifft hier jedoch immer nur die Schießbudenfiguren, auf die der Volkszorn losrennt, während sich die tatsächlichen Drahtzieher dieser Misere entspannt zurücklehnen können.
Immerhin haben über sechshundert Ministerialbeamte eine öffentliche Erklärung abgegeben, in der sie gegen die Unterstützung des Völkermords im Gazastreifen protestieren.
Die Unterzeichner dieser Erklärung haben sich nicht mit Klarnamen vorgestellt. Kann man denn auch im Ernst noch erwarten, dass diese Leute sich outen? Nach all den Akten der feudalistischen Willkür, die wir in der schweren Corona-Zeit erlebt haben? Wo Richter strafrechtlich verfolgt und zu Hause einer Durchsuchung unterzogen wurden, nur weil sie ein unpassendes Gerichtsurteil gefällt haben? Wo der Leiter eines Gesundheitsamtes strafversetzt wurde, weil er dem offiziellen Narrativ über eine Pandemie widersprochen hat? Nein, die sechshundert Ministerialbeamten haben es vollkommen richtig gemacht. Der zweckentfremdete Staatsapparat weiß, dass in seinen Reihen noch mutige Selbstdenker sitzen. Und dass die Usurpatoren unseres Staatsapparates sich vorsehen müssen. Solange die Dissidenten im Staatsapparat anonym bleiben, können sie im entscheidenden Augenblick im Sinne des Grundgesetzes intervenieren. Und zwar zugunsten des Gemeinwohls, wie sie es dereinst geschworen haben. Es gibt diese anständigen Volksdiener mit Rückgrat, und zwar im Militär, bei der Polizei, in der Justitz und im Regierungsapparat. Und, wie wir wissen, mittlerweile auch bei den Öffentlich-Rechtlichen Medien.
Und die sechshundert Aufrechten im Öffentlichen Dienst adressieren ihren Offenen Brief an die wichtigsten Mitglieder der Bundesregierung und sagen ihnen:
„… wir richten uns an Sie, weil wir als Bundesbeamtinnen und Angestellte im öffentlichen Dienst den Fundamentalprinzipien des Grundgesetzes verpflichtet sind. Artikel 25 Satz 1 Grundgesetz erteilt einen generellen Rechtsanwendungsbefehl in Bezug auf das Völkerrecht. Diese Vorschrift bewirkt nach Aussage des Bundesverfassungsgerichts, dass ‚die allgemeinen Regeln des Völkerrechts ohne ein Transformationsgesetz, also unmittelbar, Eingang in die deutsche Rechtsordnung finden und dem deutschen innerstaatlichen Recht im Range vorgehen.‘ Israel begeht in Gaza Verbrechen, die im evidenten Widerspruch zum Völkerrecht und damit zum Grundgesetz stehen, dem wir als Bundesbeamtinnen und Angestellte im öffentlichen Dienst verpflichtet sind. Die Bundesrepublik Deutschland unterstützt politisch, wirtschaftlich und militärisch die völkerrechtswidrige Politik Israels in Gaza und den weiteren völkerrechtswidrig besetzten palästinensischen Gebieten. Es ist daher unsere Pflicht als Beschäftigte des Bundes, diese Politik der Bundesregierung zu kritisieren und daran zu erinnern, dass die Bundesregierung strikt die Verfassung und das Völkerrecht zu beachten hat.“[1]
Nochmal im Klartext: die Bundesregierung kann sich so viele Gesetze und Verordnungen aus den Fingern saugen wie sie will. Sie alle sind nichtig, wenn sie nicht mit übergeordnetem Völkerrecht vereinbar sind. Schlimm, wenn man die Bundesregierung von außen her dersrt deutlich daran erinnern muss. Der Offene Brief verweist darauf, dass der Gaza-Streifen mit seinen etwa zwei Millionen Bewohnern seit dem 7. Oktober letzten Jahres von den israelischen Streitkräften so sehr in Schutt und Asche gebombt worden ist, dass ein Leben dort de facto nicht mehr möglich ist. Das hat den Internationalen Gerichtshof am 26. Januar dieses Jahres dazu veranlasst, die Handlungen der israelischen Streitkräfte im Gaza-Streifen als „plausible Akte des Völkermords“ zu verurteilen.
Wir müssen uns mal klar machen, dass es sich beim Krieg im Gaza-Streifen nicht um einen so genannten „symmetrischen Krieg“ handelt – also einem Krieg, in dem zwei in etwa gleich stark ausgerüstete Streitkräfte auf dem Schlachtfeld gegeneinander kämpfen. Nein, beim Gaza-Krieg handelt es sich um einen „asymmetrischen Krieg“: eine voll ausgerüstete und armierte Armee bekämpft eine wehrlose Zivilbevölkerung – bis diese Zivilbevölkerung entweder flüchtet oder vollständig vernichtet ist. Das Argument des Netanyahu-Regimes, man bekämpfe auf symmetrische Art eine Hamas-Armee, überzeugt nicht. Zwar hat die Hamas in den unterirdischen Tunneln eine Art von Rest-Vegetieren behaupten können. Militärisch spielt die Hamas – abgesehen von ein paar Heckenschützen-Angriffen auf vereinzelte israelische Soldaten – überhaupt keine Rolle. Potentiell und verbal verbündete Streitkräfte der Hisbollah oder des Irans halten sich bislang aus Angst vor den israelischen Atombomben weitgehend bedeckt.
Die Unterstützung der ukrainischen Streitkräfte durch Deutschland nimmt wenigstens noch Bezug auf die symmetrische Konstellation zweier angeblich gleich starker Streitkräfte, die einen Abnutzungskrieg führen. Demgegenüber ist bei der Unterstützung des israelischen asymmetrischen Krieges gegen palästinensische Zivilisten durch Deutschland die Rote Linie des Völkerrechts eindeutig überschritten. Eine Klage des Staates Nicaragua gegen Deutschland aus genau diesem Grund wird von den deutschen Anwälten beim Internationalen Gerichtshof rotzfrech als „haltlos“ zurückgewiesen. Die Mitarbeiter der öffentlich-rechtlichen Tagesschau können dieser Tatsache in ihrer Berichterstattung im Kern auch nicht widersprechen. Sie verlegen sich auf die beliebte Methode des Framings: wenn Nicaragua in der Sache unzweifelhaft Recht hat, dann muss diese Klage zumindest diskreditiert werden, indem man die Regierung Nicaraguas als „autoritär“ brandmarkt[2]. Dazu sei angemerkt, dass die Regierung Ortega durch freie und korrekte Wahlen in die Verantwortung gelangt ist.
Das Framing hilft aber rein gar nichts. Denn das angesehene schwedische Institut SIPRI hat festgestellt, dass fast allen Regierungen der Welt das Gebaren der israelischen Streitkräfte seit vielen Jahren so anrüchig vorgekommen ist, dass sie sich dezent aus dem Waffengeschäft mit Israel verabschiedet haben[3]. Es sind nur zwei bedingungslose Unterstützer der israelischen Aufrüstung übrig geblieben. Raten Sie doch mal bitte, wer die beiden sein könnten. Richtig: die USA war im Jahre 2023 mit 53 Prozent der größte Waffenlieferant der israelischen Streitkräfte. Ganz dicht gefolgt von der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, mit zuletzt 47 Prozent der Waffenimporte Israels. Und weil sich andere Länder weigern, Waffen an Israel zu liefern, hat sich der Anteil deutscher Ausrüstungslieferungen an Israel vom Jahre 2022 auf 2023 sage und schreibe verzehnfacht!
Dazu kommt, dass die Bundesregierung die Zahlungen an die Flüchtligsorganisation UNRWA einstweilen eingefroren hat[4]. Nicht für die 2,4 Millionen heimatvertriebenen Palästinenser in Jordanien, die teilweise in elenden Lagern seit Generationen vor sich hin vegetieren. Und auch nicht für deren 600.000 Leidensgenossen in Syrien, oder die halbe Million Leidensgenossen im Libanon[5]. Nein. Sondern ausdrücklich das Hilfsgeld für die zwei Millionen Palästinenser, die im Gaza-Streifen zusammengedrängt sind und jeden Augenblick mit ihrer Auslöschung rechnen müssen. Die keine Nahrung, keine Medizin, keine Krankenhäuser, keine Schulen und keine Universitäten haben. Und kein Dach über den Kopf. Selbst Trinkwasser ist nicht mehr ausreichend vorhanden. Das Hilfsgeld für diese unsere Mitmenschen im Gaza-Streifen hält die gloriose deutsche Bundesregierung konsequent zurück. Anders wie die Europäische Union, Spanien, Kanada, Schweden, Irland, Dänemark oder Australien, die ihre Hilfsgelder zwar kurzfristig eingefroren haben, jetzt aber ihre Hilfszahlungen sogar erhöht haben. Nur Deutschland hält treu an der weiteren Aushungerung der Palästinenser fest. Ich befinde mich gerade in Spanien. Die deutsche Haltung ist niemandem hier zu vermitteln.
Selbst der Tagesschau-Korrespondent Thilo Spanhel in Kairo versucht tapfer, der deutschen Filterblase ein bisschen abzuhelfen, indem er berichtet, dass das deutsche Ansehen durch die letzten Alleingänge in der Gaza-Frage massiv und nachhaltig ruiniert ist[6]. Hier ist, wie ich schon sagte, eine rote Linie überschritten worden von der aktuellen Bundesregierung. Und keiner soll hier bitte den Eindruck erwecken, eine mögliche neue Regierungskoalition als Nachfolgerin der Ampel würde in der Gaza-Frage anders handeln. Man möge sich doch bitte nur mal die X-Twitter-Verlautbarungen von prominenten Politikern der Opposition anschauen, um in dieser Frage von allen Illusionen geheilt zu sein.
Dagegen haben sich alle früheren deutschen Politiker durch Augenmaß und Bescheidenheit in der Nahost-Problematik ausgezeichnet. Da war zum Beispiel der legendäre SPD-Politiker Hans-Jürgen Wischnewski, der immer wieder erfolgreich zwischen Arabern und Israelis vermittelt hat und deswegen den zärtlichen Spitznamen „Ben Wisch“ zuerkannt bekam. Oder der ehemalige FDP-Außenminister Guido Westerwelle, der sich in der entscheidenden Sitzung des UNO-Weltsicherheitsrates zwar nicht gegen einen völkerrechtswidrigen Überfall auf den libyschen Staatschef Gaddhafi aussprechen konnte, aber mit seiner Stimmenenthaltung gerade der arabischen Welt signalisierte, dass Deutschland den Überfall missbilligt, dass er als Außenminister einer amerikanischen Kolonie aber nur mit einer Enthaltung antworten kann[7]. Das kam an. Auch die Araber wussten, dass Deutschland aufgrund seiner besonderen Vorgeschichte einen Tanz auf rohen Eiern aufführen musste. Die besondere deutsche Vorgeschichte beinhaltet aber auch, dass Deutschland seit dem Ende des Ersten Weltkriegs über keine Kolonien verfügt. Und während die Wut in der Dritten Welt über die Kolonialmächte Frankreich und Großbritannien bis heute überall zu spüren ist, haben die Deutschen sich durch ihr gleichermaßen bescheidenes, kompetentes und menschliches Auftreten in diesen Ländern über die Jahrzehnte ein hohes Ansehen erworben. Die Deutschen können ohne viel Gelaber viele Dinge gut organisieren. Das hört man überall. Das kann auch durch noch so viel transatlantische Umerziehungspropaganda nicht verleugnet werden. Die Deutschen als respektvolle Partner und als Menschen, die gut zuhören können. Das hat uns unter anderem gute Geschäftsbeziehungen eingebracht auf Zukunftsmärkten. All das ist jetzt durch die Unterstützung des Völkermordes in Palästina in wenigen Monaten zertrümmert worden.
Es soll hier nicht der Eindruck entstehen, als ginge es nur um gute Geschäfte. Das unbeschreibliche Elend unschuldiger Menschen ist unerträglich! Und dass wir mit unseren immerhin nicht gerade geringen Steuergeldern dieses Leiden noch verstärken müssen, geht gar nicht. Wir müssen unsere Stimme deutlich erheben: diese Verbrechen gegen das Völkerrecht geschehen nicht in unserem Namen! Und was wir tun, hat nichts mit „Antisemitismus“ zu tun. Die überwältigende Mehrheit aller Juden weltweit verurteilt die Verbrechen der Netanyahu-Regierung auf das Schärfste und diese mutigen Menschen artikulieren ihren Protest auf der Straße. Lassen wir diese Mitmenschen jetzt nicht im Stich. Ausgerechnet in der Gaza-Frage müssen wir nun wirklich keinen deutschen Sonderweg gehen. Erinnern wir uns doch noch mal, was wir in der Schule dereinst gelernt haben: wenn sich vor unseren Augen noch einmal ein Völkermord ereignet, dann ist es erste Bürgerpflicht, uns diesem Verbrechen zu widersetzen.
*
Hinweis für Leser: Bitte klicken Sie oben auf die Schaltfläche „Teilen“. Folgen Sie uns auf Instagram und Twitter und abonnieren Sie unseren Telegram-Kanal. Fühlen Sie sich frei, Artikel von Global Research erneut zu veröffentlichen und mit anderen zu teilen.
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).
To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.
Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
Last Thursday, Dr Ghassan Abu-Sittah, the British-Palestinian war surgeon, gave his first address as the newly-appointed rector of Glasgow University, chosen in recognition of his work at al-Shifa hospital in Gaza.
The following day he flew to Berlin, where he had been invited to address a major conference about Palestine.
On arrival he was taken away by police, interrogated for several hours and eventually told he had to leave Germany and wouldn’t be allowed to return until at least the end of April.
Any attempt to speak to the conference via Zoom could result in a fine or even a year’s prison sentence.
By the time he was released he couldn’t have taken part in the conference anyway, since it had been already invaded by at least 900 police and closed down. Berlin’s mayor said that it was ‘intolerable’ that the conference was taking place at all.
Speaking about his experience afterwards, Dr Abu-Sittah referred to the fact that Germany had – also last week – been defending itself at the International Court of Justice against charges by Nicaragua that it is an accomplice to genocidal war.
‘This is exactly what accomplices to a crime do’ he said. ‘They bury the evidence and they silence or harass or intimidate the witnesses’.
Watching the live feed of Germany’s lawyers at the Hague a few days earlier had been an odd experience.
They gave the impression of being affronted that Germany had been accused of such crimes, especially by a small country which, they argued, had no stake in the case. Also, Israel could not yet be said to be committing genocide, because the ICJ has not yet determined the case brought against it by South Africa, which Germany had supported Israel in contesting. Because Israel was not party to the new case, it should simply be thrown out.
Some research might have given them a better appreciation of Nicaragua’s credentials to bring the case. Its mutual solidarity with Palestine goes back a long way.
It also has more experience at the Hague than Germany, including its pioneer action against the US in 1984, when it won compensation of £17 billion (that was never paid) for the damage done to Nicaragua by the US-funded Contra war and the mining of its ports.
Carlos Argüello, who led the case last week and many of its previous cases, said that Nicaragua offered its expertise to Palestine and it had already joined in with South Africa’s action. It had decided to target Germany, the second biggest supplier of arms to Israel, because the US, the biggest supplier, is outside the court’s jurisdiction on this issue.
Argüello explains that the object is to create a precedent with wider application – that countries must take responsibility for the consequences of their arms sales to avoid them being used in breach of international law. Germany’s argument that legal action cannot proceed before South Africa’s earlier case is resolved is nonsense, since countries have an obligation to prevent genocide, not merely wait until it is proven to be happening. In any case, Germany must have been aware of the numerous warnings from senior UN officials of the imminence of genocide in Gaza, which began as early as October 9th.
Germany claimed that it has a “robust legal framework” in place to ensure its arms exports are not misused, and that sales to Israel are now restricted to non-lethal equipment. But any supplies being sent to a genocidal army are helping to sustain its criminal actions, Nicaragua replied.
Much was made of Germany’s historic obligations due to its Nazi history, but Argüello argues that these should relate to the Jewish people, not the Israeli state. He adds that Germany’s past might also oblige it to help prevent genocide wherever it might occur. Its government spokesman on the South Africa case had claimed that Germany is ‘particularly committed to the Genocide Convention’.
The economist Yanis Varoufakis was also banned from speaking in Berlin. He planned to conclude his speech by telling German politicians that ‘they have covered themselves in shame’ through their unflinching support for Israel’s atrocities. Carlos Argüello echoes this point when asked whether a decision by the ICJ can actually be enforced: we have to mobilise shame, he says, ‘…that’s the hope with this. Perhaps being too idealistic, but it’s the only weapon we have’.
*
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.
John Perry is based in Masaya, Nicaragua and writes for the London Review of Books, Covert Action, Global Research, The Council on Hemispheric Affairs, Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting, Counterpunch, The Grayzone and other publications.
Featured image: Israeli airstrike on an apartment building in Rafah, the last refuge in southern Gaza. Photo credit: MENAFN
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).
To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.
Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
On April 12, 2024, the Russian Strategic Missile Forces (RVSN) test-fired an ICBM (intercontinental ballistic missile) from the Kapustin Yar test site in the Astrakhan region (oblast). The missile hit the Sary Shagan testing ground in Kazakhstan, located approximately 1,600 km to the east. Other than stating it’s an ICBM, RVSN didn’t reveal the exact type of the missile it launched. The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) said only that the launch was conducted to test a “perspective missile system”, as well as to confirm “the stability of missiles in service”. The test has been deemed a success by both domestic and foreign military observers and analysts. However, combined with the rather unconventional wobbling and maneuvering of the missile, this level of secrecy by the Russian MoD, unseen since the (First) Cold War, left many questions unanswered.
Some sources, particularly those in the political West, reported that the missile in question was the 15Zh55ME “Topol-ME/Yars-E”. However, apart from speculation, we cannot know for sure what sort of ICBM it was. In fact, the range at which the test-launch was conducted could indicate that the missile in question was an ICBM in name only, as those are usually fired at the Kura test site in Kamchatka, which is much further to the east and, thus, far more suitable to test actual ICBMs. As previously mentioned, the missile demonstrated some rather unusual wobbling and maneuvering. Such vectoring is indeed unique, as no country other than Russia has developed such technologies for advanced ballistic missiles. Starting with the legendary “Topol”, particularly the “Topol-M” variant, most Russian ICBMs have this capability.
The newer and more advanced RS-24 “Yars”, which now forms the bulk of Russia’s strategic arsenal, the most powerful in the world, also inherited this capability. There have been several iterations of this ICBM, one of which is essentially a “shortened” version of “Yars”(with one stage removed) known as the RS-26 “Rubezh”. The deployment of this missile was officially put on hold back in March 2018 as the RVSN prioritized the adoption of the “Avangard” strategic HGV (hypersonic glide vehicle). Reportedly, the RS-26 was supposed to be relaunched in 2027. However, since the United States unilaterally left the INF (Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces) Treaty back in 2019, the Russian military seems to have adjusted its plans accordingly. The special military operation (SMO) certainly accelerated this change.
Since 2018, “Rubezh” has effectively become a “black project”, with little to no information about its development or deployment. However, more recent reports suggest that the activity surrounding this missile has been anything but dormant. The crawling NATO aggression in Europe, as well as the deeply destabilizing moves of the United States and its vassals and satellite states all around Russia’s borders, including in the Middle East, suggest that Moscow certainly needs a missile like this. The fact that it can also carry a MIRV (multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles) payload gives RVSN unprecedented strike capabilities at intermediate ranges. No power in NATO, including the US itself, has anything remotely similar, particularly when it comes to the RS-26’s maneuverability, giving it virtual immunity from ABM systems.
Namely, standard ABM (anti-ballistic missile) defense is already an extremely difficult task due to the sheer speed of such weapons. As ballistic computers need to calculate the trajectories of any ICBM or IRBM fired at their position (or any position they’re supposed to be defending) to enable interception, designing such missiles to be maneuverable makes that task effectively impossible. The RS-24 “Yars” that “Rubezh” was based on has already demonstrated the capability to constantly wobble and even change its vector. It can only be expected that the RS-26 has the exact same capability. This Russian technology is entirely unique, as regular ballistic missiles are unable to make such complex maneuvers. In fact, wobbling nearly always suggests there’s something wrong with the missile and it usually ends with its crashing or missing its target.
Moscow certainly knew about Tehran’s retaliatory strikes on Israel, meaning that the latest test-launch was another warning sign to the political West that Russia won’t tolerate any large-scale attacks on Iran, as those would destabilize the situation on its southern borders. It’s also a message that “Rubezh” effectively nullifies all NATO ABM systems in Europe, while also cooling down the increasingly hawkish behavior of some of its European members such as France and the United Kingdom.
*
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 InfoBrics.
Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version).
To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.
Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
The world’s attention has, rightfully so, been focused on the fallout from Iran’s retaliatory strike against Israel on April 13-14, 2024. Iran’s purpose in launching the attack was to establish a deterrence posture designed to put Israel and the United States on notice that any attack against Iran, whether on Iranian soil or on the territory of other nations, would trigger a retaliation which would inflict more damage on the attacker than the attacker could hope to inflict on Iran.
To achieve this result, Iran had to prove itself capable of overcoming the ballistic missile defense systems of both Israel and the United States which were deployed in and around Israel at the time of the attack.
This Iran was able to accomplish, with at least nine missiles striking two Israeli air bases that fell under the protective umbrella of the Israeli-US missile defense shield.
The Iranian deterrence posture has implications that reach far beyond the environs of Israel or the Middle East.
By defeating the US-Israeli missile defense shield, Iran exposed the notion of US missile defense supremacy that serves as the heart of US force protection models used when projecting military power on a global scale.
The US defensive posture vis-à-vis Russia, China, and North Korea hinges on assumptions made regarding the efficacy of US ballistic missile defense capabilities. By successfully attacking Israeli air bases which had the benefit of the full range of US anti-ballistic missile technology, Iran exposed the vulnerability of the US missile defense shield to modern missile technologies involving maneuverable warheads, decoys, and hypersonic speed. US bases in Europe, the Pacific and the Middle East once thought to be well-protected, have suddenly been revealed to be vulnerable to hostile attack. So, too, are US Navy ships operating at sea.
Israel’s ballistic missile defenses were given a supercharged boost by the deployment of an advanced AN/TPY-2 X band radar on Israeli soil. The radar, operated by the US Army’s 13th Missile Defense Battery, is located on Har Qeren, a height which rises out of the Negev Desert near the city of Be’er Sheva. The AN/TPY-2 is a missile defense radar that can detect, track and discriminate ballistic missiles, discriminating between threats and non-threats (i.e., incoming missiles and space debris).
The AN/TPY-2 operates in two different modes. The first, known as the “forward-based mode,” detects and tracks ballistic missiles as they are launched. The second—“terminal mode”—is used to guide interceptors toward a descending missile. The AN/TPY-2 is optimized to work with the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) ballistic missile defense system by guiding the THAAD missile to its target.
The US had deployed at least one, and possibly two, THAAD missile batteries to Israel at the time of the Iranian missile attack. In addition to assisting the THAAD missiles in shooting down incoming threats, the AN/TPY-2 radar data was integrated with Israeli radar data and other technical intelligence collected by the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization’s (BMDO) network of early warning satellites deployed for the sole purpose of monitoring and reporting Iranian ballistic missile launches. This integrated early warning/surveillance/tracking system was tied into a multi-layered missile defense architecture which included the US THAAD and Israeli Arrow 2, Arrow 3, advanced Patriot, and David’s Sling anti-ballistic missile interceptor systems.
Adding to the capability and lethality of the US-Israeli ballistic missile defense architecture was the presence of at least two US Navy ballistic missile defense (BMD) system-capable Aegis-class destroyers equipped with the SPY-1 S band radar and SM-3/SM-6 interceptor missiles.
The Navy BMD-capable ships are configured to tie into the ground-based AN/TPY-2 X band radar as well as the broader BMD system through the Command and Control, Battle management, and Communications (C2BMC) system. The combination of ground-based radars and interceptors with the US Navy BMD system provides US military commanders with theater-wide protection from hostile ballistic missile threats. This integrated system is designed to detect, acquire, and track incoming threats and, using complex computer-drive algorithms, discriminate targets and destroy them using hit-to-kill kinetic warheads (i.e., a “bullet hitting a bullet”).
On April 13-14, 2023, this system failed. In short, the combination of US and Israeli anti-ballistic missile defense capabilities deployed in and around the Negev desert made the Israeli air bases located there the most protected locations in the world from threats posed by ballistic missiles.
And yet Iran successfully struck both locations with multiple missiles.
The global strategic implications of this stunning Iranian accomplishment are game-changing—the US has long struggled conceptually with the notion of what is referred to as “A2/AD” (anti-access/area denial) threats posed by hostile ballistic missiles.
However, the US had sought to mitigate against this AA/A2 threat by overlaying theater ballistic missile defense architecture like that that had been employed in Israel. The failure of the combined US-Israeli defense systems in the face of a concerted Iranian missile attack exposed the short-comings of the US ballistic missile defense capabilities world-wide.
In short, this means that the US and NATO forces in Europe are vulnerable to attack from advanced Russian missile technologies which match or exceed those used by Iran to attack Israel. It also means that China would most likely be able to strike and sink US navy ships in the Pacific Ocean in the event of a conflict over Taiwan. And that North Korea could do the same to US ships and forces ashore in the vicinity of Japan and South Korea.
Until which time the US can develop, produce and deploy missile defense systems capable of defeating the new missile technology being deployed by nations like Iran, Russia, China, and North Korea, US military power projection capabilities are in a state of checkmate by America’s potential adversaries.
*
Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
Featured image: North Korea conducts a mass launch of ballistic missiles (Source: Scott Ritter Extra)
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).
To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.
Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
Only this month, the near comatose US President, Joe Biden, made a casual, castaway remark that his administration was “considering” the request by Australia that the case against Julian Assange be concluded.
The WikiLeaks founder has already spent five gruelling years in London’s Belmarsh prison, where he continues a remarkable, if draining campaign against the US extradition request on 18 charges, 17 incongruously and outrageously based on the US Espionage Act of 1917.
Like readings of coffee grinds, his defenders took the remark as a sign of progress. Jennifer Robinson, a longtime member of Assange’s legal team, told Sky News Australia that Biden’s “response, this is what we have been asking for over five years. Since 2010 we’ve been saying this is a dangerous precedent that’s being set. So, we certainly hope it was a serious remark and the US will act on it.” WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Kristinn Hrafnsson found the mumbled comment from the president “extraordinary”, hoping “to see in the coming days” whether “clarification of what this means” would be offered by the powerful.
"This is a case that should have never been brought in the first place."
On April 14, the Wall Street Journalreported that Canberra had asked their US counterparts whether a felony plea deal could be reached, enabling the publisher to return to Australia. “Prosecutors and a lawyer for Assange have discussed a range of potential deals, including those that include pleading guilty to a felony under the espionage law under which he was indicted, and those of conspiring to mishandle classified information, which would be a misdemeanor, people familiar with the matter have said.”
Last month, the UK High Court gave what can only be regarded as an absurd prescription to the prosecution should they wish to succeed. Extradition would be unlikely to be refused if Assange was availed of protections offered by the First Amendment (though rejecting claims that he was a legitimate journalist), was guaranteed not to be prejudiced, both during the trial and in sentence on account of his nationality, and not be subject to the death penalty. That such directions were even countenanced shows the somewhat delusionary nature of British justices towards their US counterparts.
On April 16, Assange’s supporters received confirmation that the extradition battle, far from ending, would continue in its tormenting grind. Not wishing to see the prospect of a full hearing of Assange’s already hobbled arguments, the US State Department, almost to the hour, filed the assurances in a diplomatic note to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). “Assange,” the US Embassy in London claimed with aping fidelity to the formula proposed by the High Court, “will not be prejudiced by reason of nationality with respect to which defenses he may seek to raise at trial and at sentencing.”
Were he to be extradited, “Assange will have the ability to raise and seek to rely upon at trial (which includes any sentencing hearing) the rights and protections given under the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States.” An obvious caveat, and one that should be observed with wary consideration by the High Court judges, followed. “A decision as to the applicability of the First Amendment is exclusively within the purview of the US Courts.”
The US embassy also promised that,
“A sentence of death will neither be sought nor imposed on Assange. The United States is able to provide such assurance as Assange is not charged with a death-penalty eligible offense, and the United States assures that he will not be tried for a death-eligible offense.”
This undertaking does not dispel the threat of Assange being charged with additional offences such as traditional espionage, let alone aiding or abetting treason, which would carry the death penalty.
In 2020, Gordon Kromberg, the chief Department of Justice prosecutor behind the case, told the Central Criminal Court of England and Wales that the US “could argue that foreign nationals are not entitled to protections under the First Amendment, at least as it concerns national defense information.” There was also the likelihood that Assange, in allegedly revealing the names of US intelligence sources thereby putting them at risk of harm, would also preclude the possibility of him relying on such protections.
That the zealous Kromberg will be fronting matters should Assange reach US shores is more than troubling. Lawyers and civil rights activists have accused him of using the Eastern District Court of Virginia for selective and malicious prosecutions. As Murtaza Hussain of The Interceptobserved with bleak accuracy in July 2021, “[r]ather than being pushed into obscurity by these efforts, today he is serving as a key figure in one of the most important civil liberties cases in the world.”
The High Court also acknowledged Kromberg’s views at trial regarding the possibility that the First Amendment did not cover foreign nationals.
“It can fairly be assumed that [Kromberg] would not have said that the prosecution ‘could argue that foreign nationals are not entitled to protections under the First Amendment’ unless that was a tenable argument that the prosecution was entitled to deploy with real prospect of success.”
These latest assurances do nothing to change that fact.
A post from Assange’s wife, Stella, provided a neat and damning summary of the embassy note.
“The United States has issued a non-assurance in relation to the First Amendment, and a standard assurance in relation to the death penalty. It makes no undertaking to withdraw the prosecution’s previous assertion that Julian has no First Amendment rights because he is not a US citizen. Instead, the US has limited itself to blatant weasel words claiming that Julian can ‘seek to raise’ the First Amendment if extradited.”
BREAKING:
“The United States has issued a non-assurance in relation to the First Amendment, and a standard assurance in relation to the death penalty. It makes no undertaking to withdraw the prosecution's previous assertion that Julian has no First Amendment rights because he… pic.twitter.com/lu7bkw0M5u
— Stella Assange #FreeAssangeNOW (@Stella_Assange) April 16, 2024
Whether the justices are duly satisfied by the latest diplomatic manoeuvre, one non-binding in any tangible or true sense on prosecutors and judges in the US, awaits testing in the hearing on May 20. For Assange, the wheels of judicial torture have been prolonged.
*
Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He currently lectures at RMIT University. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). Email: [email protected]
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).
To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.
Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
In Part 1, I explained that the next financial crisis will be bailed out not with central bank money creation but with our stocks, bonds and bank balances.
In Part 2, I explained the multi-year quiet regulatory changes that dispossessed us of our property.
In Part 3, I explain David Rogers Webb’s conclusion that a massive financial crisis is pending in which our financial assets are the collateral underwriting the derivative and financial bubble and will result in the loss of our assets but leave us with our debts as happened to those whose banks failed in the 1930s.
Webb begins with the economic formula that the velocity of circulation of money times the money supply equals nominal Gross Domestic Product. V x MS = GDP.
The velocity of circulation is a measure of how many times a dollar is spent during a given period of time, e.g., quarterly, annually. A high velocity means people quickly spend the money that comes into their hands. A low velocity means people tend to hold on to money.
Velocity impacts the Federal Reserve’s ability to manage economic growth with money supply changes. If the velocity of money is falling, an expansionist monetary policy will not result in rising GDP. In such a situation, the Federal Reserve is said to be “pushing on a string.” Instead of pushing up GDP, money supply increases push up the values of financial assets and real estate resulting in financial and real estate bubbles.
Webb notes that falls in velocity are precursors of financial crises. A multi-year sharp fall in velocity preceded the stock market crash in 1929 and the Great Depression that gave birth to regulatory agencies. The 21st century is characterized by a long-term fall in velocity that has reached the lowest level on record, while stocks and real estate have been driven to unprecedented levels by years of zero interest rates. When this bubble pops, we will be dispossessed.
Will the bubble pop?
Yes. The Fed suddenly and rapidly moved from zero to 5% interest rates, a reversal of the policy that drove up prices of stocks and bonds. The Fed raises rates by reducing money supply growth, thus removing the factor supporting high stock prices and collapsing the value of bonds. This results in a lowering of the value of stocks and bonds serving as collateral for loans, which, of course, means the loans and the financial institution behind them are in trouble. Bonds have already taken a hit. The stock market is holding because participants believe the Fed is about to reverse its interest rate policy and lower rates.
Webb notes that the official data show that the velocity of money collapsed in the 21st century while the Fed introduced “quantatative easing.” He makes the correct point that when the velocity of money collapses, the Fed is pushing on a string. Instead of money creation fueling economic growth, it produces asset bubbles in real estate and financial instruments, which is what we have at the present time.
When after more than a decade of near zero interest rates, the Fed raises interest rates it collapses the values of financial portfolios and real estate and produces a financial crisis.
As the authorities have set in place a system that bails out secured creditors with our bank deposits, stocks, and bonds, we will have no money and no financial assets to sell for money. People with mortgaged homes and businesses will lose them, as they did in the 1930s, when they lost their money due to bank failures. People with car payments will lose their transportation. The way the system works is you lose your money but not your debts.
The secured creditors are the creditors of the troubled institutions. Ultimately, the secured creditors are the mega-banks defined as “privileged creditors.”
The collapse of financial asset values in 1929 resulted in the failure of 9,000 banks (see this). Bank failure meant that you lost the money you had in the bank. It means the same thing today regardless of deposit insurance, because your deposits have been turned into collateral for creditors. Moreover, FDIC deposit insurance is a joke. The FDIC’s assets are in the billions. Bank deposits are in the trillions. The Dodd-Frank Act prioritized derivatives over bank depositors, so a bank account holder is in line behind derivative claims. Apparently, FDIC insurance claims will be issued in the form of issuance of stock in a failed bank.
It has all happened before, but not on the scale of what is pending.
Under the regulatory regime in place, financial collapse today means that money will be drained from the economy and be concentrated along with all wealth in a few hands. A modern-day economy cannot function without money and without companies that serve as distributors of food, goods, and services. Webb notes that it is a perfect opportunity for central banks to introduce Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) with which they have been experimenting.
The provision of CBDC to the population would provide a money supply and income to a population in total chaos and restore order to a grateful population. But it would also give total control to rulers. Webb quotes Augustin Carstens, general manager of the Bank for International Settlements who says that the key difference between present day currency and Central Bank Digital Currency is that with CBDC the central bank will know how each person uses their allotment of digital currency which gives the central bank absolute control over you via the capability to regulate your purchases, to turn off disapproved purchases, to discipline dissenters. You will be supplied with the means of life as long as you have a good social credit score, which means that you are a non-dissenter of official narratives.
Webb believes that this result is the intent of the regulatory changes and corresponds to the World Economic Forum’s agenda: “you will own nothing.” There is much in the regulatory documents that support Webb’s belief. For example, the Single Resolution Board’s 2022 Guidance for Banks to prepare for “solvent wind-down,” is an indication that an event is in the works. The Single Resolution Board’s Work Program 2023 states: “The year 2023 will be the last of a transitional period for the establishment of the main elements of the resolution framework in the Banking Union.” In other words, everything is in place.
Whether Webb is correct that the regulatory regime that has been put in place amounts to a deliberate restoration of feudalism under high tech management or whether the new rules are the unintended consequence of the rulers’ drive for security is not important. The relevant point is that the next financial crisis will dispossess us not only of our pensions and financial assets but also of our freedom and independence. If the past is a guide, the next financial crisis is close at hand.
If the mega-rich and the large financial intermediaries can be made aware of the situation, it is in their own self-interest to convince Congress to use its law-making power to unwind the regulatory system of dispossession that has been created. But the hour grows late.
Ordinary people are dismissive of the World Economic Forum and its agenda of “you will own nothing and be happy,” but this is a mistake.
The WEF was founded 53 years ago and has over the half century recruited many of the important people in business, finance, and politics. If you are not a WEF member and attendee at Davos, you are lower down on the totem pole. Social, political, and intellectual standing depends on membership. It is important to understand that The Great Reset means the re-institutionalization of feudalism.
Note that we are also being dispossessed of our food and farmers of the use of their land:
“No Farmers No Food: Will You Eat The Bugs?” is an Epoch Original documentary exposing the hidden agenda behind global “Green Policies,” the untold stories of farmers forced out of business, the disruption this will have on our food supply, and why edible bugs are suddenly being pushed to the fore as a “Global Green Solution.”
EpochTV program “Facts Matter” host Roman Balmakov investigates the rapidly changing landscape of our global food source—the farming industry—through interviews with farmers in The Netherlands, Sri Lanka, and the United States. This is the next global crisis that is being ignored by the world’s media.
*
Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
Paul Craig Roberts is a renowned author and academic, chairman of The Institute for Political Economy where this article was originally published. Dr. Roberts was previously associate editor and columnist for The Wall Street Journal. He was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy during the Reagan Administration. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
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).
To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.
Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
Lebanon has a deep cultural connection to its trees. Its ancient cedar tree, which dominates the forests of its northern highlands, holds great symbolic importance as a national emblem and is featured front and center on the country’s flag.
As with other countries around the world, the iconic, resilient cedar faces the growing threat of climate change.
But Lebanon’s woodland has come under an even more insidious threat in the past few months. Hundreds of acres of southern Lebanon’s lush greenery and vegetation – distinct from the northern cedar forests – have come under heavy, incendiary Israeli attacks, causing severe environmental and agricultural devastation to the region.
The occupation state’s use of white phosphorus bombs has dramatically impacted the lives of Lebanese residents, agricultural workers, and the south’s vital agricultural sector, which produces a significant portion of the country’s fruit, citrus, olives, and tobacco.
“An increase in cross-border shelling and rocket fire since 7 October has triggered blazes in a key agricultural area of Lebanon that have run wild through olive groves and nearby farming communities.”
In February, the charity noted that tens of thousands of families in southern Lebanon have lost their livelihood, with Israeli military fire destroying over 47,000 olive trees – as well as other crops during their harvest.
On 4 April, outgoing Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikatiwarned that southern Lebanon could be designated as an “agricultural disaster zone.” Lebanon’s National News Agency quoted Mikati as saying:
Eight hundred hectares have been completely damaged, 340,000 heads of livestock have died, and about 75 percent of farmers have lost their final source of income.
Hezbollah’s Green Fingers
In 2013, the non-profit association Green Without Borders (GWB) was established to rejuvenate various southern areas through widespread tree-planting initiatives, causing deep distress for Israel’s military brass. In 2017, the occupation army’s Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi accused the Lebanese resistance, Hezbollah, of utilizing the environmental organization as a cover for its border activities.
But the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) refuted Tel Aviv’s claims. It confirmed that GWB was indeed engaged in legitimate tree-planting activity, further noting that the UN force “has not observed any unauthorized armed persons at the locations or found any basis to report a violation of resolution 1701.”
Then, the Americans got involved with the issue of Lebanon’s southern foliage. In 2023, the US Department of the Treasury imposed sanctions on GWB and its president under the pretext that the association “serves as cover for Hezbollah’s underground warehouses and munitions storage tunnels.”
Israel’s Scorched Earth Policy
Ongoing Israeli paranoia over Lebanon’s trees may explain why Tel Aviv has rained down white phosphorus over the south. These incendiary munitions burn everything in their path, including humans, vehicles, and vegetation, and are illegal to use in civilian areas under international law.
Within a month of the northern battle’s inception, reports emerged that Israeli airstrikes had destroyed several hundred hectares of woodland, including pines, oaks, and centuries-old olive groves.
Lebanese outrage has only grown since then. On 20 March, Minister of Agriculture Abbas Hajj Hassandeclared:
The Zionist entity’s attacks are not limited to the human losses that are absolutely irreplaceable. The Israeli bombing has caused severe damage to the agricultural sector, through which at least 6,000 hectares of agricultural land have been severely damaged, directly and 2,000 completely. It also destroyed 60,000 olive trees, some of which were 300 years old, as well as citrus, banana, and almond trees, as well as fruitful and non-fruitful trees, and vast areas were completely destroyed.
Hajj Hassan believes that Tel Aviv’s scorched earth policy serves two purposes: “The first is to break the will of the southerners,” forcing them to leave their lands, which will “shake the front,” and the second is to raze everything in sight “to abolish vegetation cover,” so the resistance and the Lebanese army will be exposed to Israel’s air force.
A source at Lebanon’s Southern Green Association tells The Cradle that Israel has destroyed large swathes of the south for this purpose:
It has targeted the entire territory adjacent to the border with Palestine – an area exceeding 100 kilometers long from Naqoura to Mount Hermon and the hills of Kfar Shuba, and to a depth exceeding an average of 6–7 kilometers – in several attacks.
He adds that the military operations “aim to make the area uninhabitable for Israel to implement a buffer zone inside Lebanon’s border.”
There is a clear, deliberate burning of the forest cover, destruction of olive vines and fruit trees, and contamination of the soil, which explains the intensive use of white phosphorus.
GWB President Zuhair Nahle, who has been personally sanctioned by the US Department of Treasury, makes clear to The Cradle that his organization is authorized by the Lebanese Ministry of Interior.
Among our goals is to establish nurseries to produce forest and fruitful seedlings for afforestation and to care for what we have planted. We are an environmental organization that operates throughout all Lebanese territories, not just in Lebanon’s south.
Nahle also points out that Israel has a problem with Lebanese forestry in general because it obscures their illegal reconnaissance activities. Tel Aviv, it should be noted, violates Lebanese airspace hundreds of times per year to carry out recon operations, in blatant violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701:
Israelis generally hate [Lebanese] tree-planting and forestry because the forest tree and its leaves don’t help them see what is under its dense branches. Also, it doesn’t allow radar and heat waves to penetrate. Thus, Israel feels uncomfortable regarding planting trees or protecting them … We have 18 sites in South Lebanon.
GWB’s Connection to the Resistance
Speaking to The Cradle, retired General of the Lebanese Armed Forces Naji Malaeb says that GWB indeed “bothered Israel.”
The fact that Hezbollah is deployed in an area where the UNIFIL and the Lebanese army are deployed too, without having a military barracks, a headquarters, or a visible weapons store, means that it has already been smeared behind other names, including Green Without Borders.
Malaeb emphasizes that Hezbollah retains its military capabilities, regardless of Israel’s many, varied efforts to counter them, including burning down all the greenery in sight:
“After the assassination of Hamas leader Saleh al-Arouri (on 2 January 2024), Hezbollah was able to launch 62 rockets at once from southern Lebanon.”
“Where were these missiles fired from while the area is being monitored by the Israelis, from the air?” he asks.
Nicholas Blanford, a Beirut-based American researcher and journalist who has covered Hezbollah for years, shares with The Cradle that “GWB’s motto is ‘The Shade of the Resistance,’ which certainly indicates a connection to Hezbollah. But I don’t believe Hezbollah denies this association.”
The main purpose of GWB in the south was to establish observation posts along the Blue Line. These posts were not hidden; some were towering structures reaching 15 meters or more. By now, all of the observation posts have probably been destroyed.
Blanford claims those “posts served for observation, keeping an eye on Israeli movements. There was probably a psychological element to it as well because the Israelis were always complaining about the GWB posts but couldn’t do anything about them.”
Environmental and Strategic Considerations
Yet Blanford also emphasizes that Hezbollah likely didn’t utilize GWB for concealment purposes:
Hezbollah often utilizes existing forests and woods to shield their activities from the overhead view, such as from Israeli jets and drones. There were several positions in Wadi Salouqi, and they were not kept secret. The entrances to these positions were visible from the main road running through the Wadi.
He further explains that Hezbollah’s military preference is for low-signature tactics, such as the use of underground bunker and tunnel networks, exemplified by the famous Mleeta tunnel network dating back to the 1980s.
Blanford notes that Hezbollah does use vegetation cover, like bushes and trees, to launch attacks on Israeli positions, highlighting their strategic use of natural terrain for operational advantage – as do all armies.
There are parallels between the US’s use of Agent Orange in the Vietnam War and Israel’s similar deforestation efforts in southern Lebanon during the 1990s.
Blanford recalls witnessing Israel’s firing of phosphorous shells into dry undergrowth near Arab Salim, illustrating a longstanding military tactic aimed at destroying potential cover utilized by adversaries.
Clearly, Hezbollah recognizes the strategic importance of trees in providing cover to its fighters, just as the occupation military’s actions reveal Israel’s readiness to destroy Lebanon’s entire tree population as a war tactic in full-spectrum warfare, akin to Tel Aviv’s total-destruction approach in Gaza.
Nevertheless, history – and indeed Gaza – proves that this strategy will ultimately be futile, offering only short-term tactical advantages. Lebanon’s trees are deeply rooted in the land, as is its resistance.
*
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.
First published on January 2, 2018, this article addresses the history of the U.S War on Iran project focussing on the insidious role of Israel, essentially acting on behalf of Washington. The original title was:
“US Winks, Israel Bites? Shifting Middle East Alliances. The War on Iran is “On Hold”?
Author’s Update
In recent developments, in response to Israel’s bombing of Iran’s Consulate in Damascus, according to media reports:
Iran has launched more than 300 cruise and ballistic missiles and drones at Israel, IDF officials said, a retaliatory attack weeks after an Israeli strike on the Iranian consular building in Syria killed two of Tehran’s top commanders.
“There were explosions visible in the air over Jerusalem as air sirens rang throughout the country.”
“Iran said that after tonight’s attack, the “matter can be deemed concluded” unless there is more violence.”
“Doing the Dirty Work For Us”
The fundamental question is whether this retaliatory attack will lead to escalation, including an Israeli counter-attack on Iran.
In this regard, Israel is largely serving the strategic interests of the U.S. acting on behalf of Washington.
Déjà Vu
It is worth noting that at the outset of Bush’s Second Term, Vice President Dick Cheney dropped a bombshell, hinting, that Israel would, so to speak: be doing the dirty work for us (paraphrase) without US military involvement and without us putting pressure on them “to do it”.
“The Israelis might well decide to act first, and let the rest of the world worry about cleaning up the diplomatic mess afterwards,”
“Israel would not be able to act unilaterally against Iran, without a green light from the Pentagon which controls key components of Israel’s air defense system.
In practice, a war on Iran, were it to occur would be a joint US-Israeli endeavor, coordinated by US Strategic Command (STRATCOM) with America’s allies playing a key (subordinate) role.” (quoted from 2018 article)
Source: Council on Foreign Relations
Israel and the US-NATO Alliance
It is a complex military-intelligence undertaking, carefully planned over several years, in liaison and coordination with US intelligence, the Pentagon, US Strategic Command and NATO. (See article below).
Israel’s War ongoing against Palestine is currently conducive to a process of military escalation which potentially could engulf a large part of Middle East.
Israeli Military Cooperation with the Pentagon and NATO
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.”
Israel is a de facto member of NATO (with a special status) since 2004, involving active military and intelligence coordination as well as consultations pertaining to the occupied territories.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg confirmed (Press Conference, Brussels, October 12, 2023) that Israel is under attack and that U.S. military deployments in the Middle East are ongoing allegedly to avoid escalation:
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)
Barely three days following the commencement of IDF’s bombing of the Gaza Strip, America’s largest Aircraft Carrier The USS Gerald R. Ford has come to the rescue of Israel, positioned itself in Israel’s territorial waters.
According is the CBS Report, The USS Gerald Ford is presented as a “show of force and a warning to bad actors”. It also points to escalation. The hideous crimes committed by the IDF against 2.3 million Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip are not mentioned.
According to media report:
“[this] is part of the United States’ show of support after Hamas launched an unprecedented attack on the Jewish state”.
“CBS News national security correspondent David Martin says the aircraft’s presence is meant to signal a warning to bad actors in the region.”
The War on Iran is no longer on Hold?
Below is the text of my January 2018 article focussing initially on the 2003 “Iran Theatre Near Term” (TIRANNT) project and the history of military alliances.
An earlier version of this text was published on August 22, 2010
Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, October 14, 2023, April 14, 2024
US Winks, Israel Bites?
Shifting Middle East Alliances.
The War on Iran is “On Hold”?
By Michel Chossudovsky
January 2, 2018
In 2003, the war on Iran project was already Déjà Vu. It had been on the drawing board of the Pentagon since the mid-nineties.
Since the launching of the Theater Iran Near Term (TIRANNT)war games scenario in May 2003 (leaked classified document), an escalation scenario involving military action directed against Iran and Syria had been envisaged, of which Syria was the first stage in 2011.
The initial invasion of Iraq under “Operation Iraqi Freedom” was launched on March 20, 2003, April 9 marks the Fall of Baghdad; officially the invasion was completed on May 1st, 2003.
In May 2003, immediately following the invasion and occupation of Iraq, the TIRANNT (Theater Iran Near Term) war games scenario were carried out as revealed by William Arkin, a former US intelligence analyst:
“In early 2003, even as U.S. forces were on the brink of war with Iraq, the Army had already begun conducting an analysis for a full-scale war with Iran. The analysis, called TIRANNT, for “theater Iran near term,” was coupled with a mock scenario for a Marine Corps invasion and a simulation of the Iranian missile force. U.S. and British planners conducted a Caspian Sea war game around the same time. And Bush directed the U.S. Strategic Command to draw up a global strike war plan for an attack against Iranian weapons of mass destruction. All of this will ultimately feed into a new war plan for “major combat operations” against Iran that military sources confirm now exists in draft form. [This contingency plan entitled CONPLAN 8022 would be activated in the eventuality of a Second 9/11, on the presumption that Iran would be behind it] (William Arkin, Washington Post, 16 April 2006)
Screenshot of WPo article, opinion section
“Theater Iran Near Term”, a scenario of waging a war against Iran following the defeat of Iraq was the unspoken concept. Under the auspices of US Central Command, TIRANNT focussed on both “Near Term” (i.e. following the Iraq war) as well “Out-Year” (signifying the subsequent year) scenarios for war with Iran ” …including all aspects of a major combat operation, from mobilization and deployment of forces through postwar stability operations after regime change.” (Ibid)
The core TIRANNT effort began in May 2003, when modelers and intelligence specialists pulled together the data needed for theater-level (meaning large-scale) scenario analysis for Iran. TIRANNT has since been updated using post-Iraq war information on the performance of U.S. forces. Meanwhile, Air Force planners have modeled attacks against existing Iranian air defenses and targets, while Navy planners have evaluated coastal defenses and drawn up scenarios for keeping control of the Strait of Hormuz at the base of the Persian Gulf.
A follow-on TIRANNT Campaign Analysis, which began in October 2003, calculated the results of different scenarios for action against Iran to provide options for analyzing courses of action in an updated Iran war plan. (Ibid)
Needless to say, the “Near Term” plans formulated in 2003 had been postponed.
USCENTCOM’s “Dual Containment”. First Iraq, then Iran
The 2003 decision to target Iran under TIRANNT as well as all subsequent endeavors and “secret plans” were part of the broader Middle East military roadmap. Already during the Clinton administration, US Central Command (USCENTCOM) had formulated in 1995 under the doctrine of “Dual Containment” “in war theater plans” to invade first Iraq and then Iran:
“The broad national security interests and objectives expressed in the President’s National Security Strategy (NSS) and the Chairman’s National Military Strategy (NMS) form the foundation of the United States Central Command’s theater strategy. The NSS directs implementation of a strategy of dual containment of the rogue states of Iraq and Iran as long as those states pose a threat to U.S. interests, to other states in the region, and to their own citizens. Dual containment is designed to maintain the balance of power in the region without depending on either Iraq or Iran. USCENTCOM’s theater strategy is interest-based and threat-focused. The purpose of U.S. engagement, as espoused in the NSS, is to protect the United States’ vital interest in the region – uninterrupted, secure U.S./Allied access to Gulf oil.”
emphasis added, the original document of USCENTCOM is no longer available)
The Role of Israel. Doing the Bombing For Us?
The TIRANNT (2003) scenario was followed by a series of military plans pertaining to Iran. Numerous post 9/11 official statements and US military documents had pointed to an expanded Middle East war, involving the active participation of Israel.
Broadly, what characterizes U.S. foreign policy is to encourage America’s allies “to do the dirty work on our behalf”.
At the outset of Bush’s Second Term, Vice President Dick Cheney dropped a bombshell, hinting, in no uncertain terms, that Iran was “right at the top of the list” of the rogue enemies of America, and that Israel would, so to speak, “be doing the bombing for us” (paraphrase), without US military involvement and without us putting pressure on them “to do it”.
In contrast, under the Trump administration, according to Professor James Petras, Israel and the Zionist Lobby are playing an active role, pressuring President Trump to take the first step:
“Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Presidents of the 52 Major Jewish American Organizations are leading President Trump, like a puppy on a leash, into a major war with Iran. The hysterical ’52 Presidents’ and ‘Bibi’ Netanyahu are busy manufacturing Holocaust-level predictions that a non-nuclear Iran is preparing to ‘vaporize’ Israel, , The buffoonish US President Trump has swallowed this fantasy wholesale and is pushing our nation toward war for the sake of Israel and its US-based supporters and agents. (James Petras, Global Research, October 27, 2017)
Who are the Main Actors?
Political rhetoric is often misleading. Israel is America’s ally. Military operations are closely coordinated. Tel Aviv is however subordinate to Washington. In major military operations, Israel does not act without the Pentagon’s approval.
Barely acknowledged by the media, the US and Israel have an integrated air defense system, which was set up in early 2009, shortly after the Israel invasion of Gaza under “Operation Cast Led”.
The X-band radar air defense system set up by the US in Israel in 2009 would “integrate Israel’s missile defenses with the U.S. global missile detection network, which includes satellites, Aegis ships on the Mediterranean, Persian Gulf and Red Sea, and land-based Patriot radars and interceptors.” (Sen. Joseph Azzolina, Protecting Israel from Iran’s missiles, Bayshore News, December 26, 2008). )
What this means is that Washington calls the shots. Confirmed by the Pentagon, the US military controls Israel’s Air Defense:
”This is and will remain a U.S. radar system,’ Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said. ‘So this is not something we are giving or selling to the Israelis and it is something that will likely require U.S. personnel on-site to operate.’” (Quoted in Israel National News, January 9, 2009, emphasis added).
At the outset of Obama’s Second Term, the US and Israel initiated discussions pertaining to a “US personnel on site” presence in Israel, namely the establishment of a “permanent” and “official” military base inside Israel. And on September 17, 2017, a US Air Defense base located in the Negev desert was inaugurated. According to the Israeli IDF spokesperson, the objective is to send a “message to the region, ” including Iran, Lebanon, Syria and Palestine.
Israel would not be able to act unilaterally against Iran, without a green light from the Pentagon which controls key components of Israel’s air defense system.
In practice, a war on Iran, were it to occur would be a joint US-Israeli endeavor, coordinated by US Strategic Command (STRATCOM) with America’s allies playing a key (subordinate) role.
The Evolving Structure of Military Alliances
Since the formulation of USCENTCOM’s “in war theater” plans in the mid-nineties, and more specifically since the onslaught of the war on Syria in 2011, the geopolitics of the broader Middle East Central Asian region has evolved dramatically with Russia and China taking on a major role.
In this regard, the shift in the structure of military alliances has served to weaken US influence. Iran is now supported by a powerful China-Russia block. In turn, Pakistan and India have joined the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which has contributed to undermining US-Pakistani relations.
In turn, Iran’s bilateral relations with China including strategic oil, gas and pipeline deals (as well as military cooperation) have developed since President Xi Jinping took office in 2012.
Moreover, while Tehran has reached a “pact of convenience” with Ankara, the unity of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States is now in jeopardy, with Qatar, Oman and Kuwait building an alliance with Iran, to the detriment of Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
Since the war on Syria, Iran has not only established a strong bilateral relationship with Syria, it has also reinforced its ties with Lebanon and Yemen.
In other words, US hegemony is threatened in the broader Middle East Central Asian region. The structure of alliances and “cross-cutting coalitions” in 2018 does not favor a US-led military operation against Iran.
The Atlantic Alliance is in crisis and so is the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).
The US and Turkey are clashing in Northern Syria, where Turkey is fighting US sponsored Kurdish rebels.
Turkey, which constitutes NATO’s heavyweight (in terms of conventional forces) has acquired Russia’s S400 air defense system. Does this signify that Turkey (as a member state of the Atlantic Alliance) no longer fully shares the US-NATO-Israel defense system?
Another consideration is Turkey’s rapprochement with both Russia and Iran.
presidents Putin and Erdogan (right)
Demise of the “Triple Alliance”: US, Israel, Turkey
How does Turkey’s “pact of convenience” with Iran affect the Israel-Turkey Security and Secrecy Agreement (SSA) launched by the Tansu Çiller government in 1994?
The SSA agreement was a carefully designed instrument of US foreign policy (sponsored by the Clinton administration) which set the stage for a firm and close Israel-Turkey relationship in military and intelligence cooperation, joint military exercises, weapons production and training.
The SSA largely served US strategic interests in the Middle East. The intent of the SSA Israel-Turkey bilateral military-intelligence agreement was to create a triangular relationship between the US, Israel and Turkey. This de facto (rather than de jure) “triple alliance”, under the helm of the Pentagon, was intended to integrate and coordinate military command decisions (as well as intelligence) between the three countries pertaining to the broader Middle East.
From a strategic standpoint, the Pentagon was intent upon “using” both Israel and Turkey in Middle East military operations (i.e to act on our behalf).
The “Triple alliance” was based on close (bilateral) military ties respectively between Israel and Turkey with the US, coupled with a strong bilateral military relationship between Tel Aviv and Ankara.
In turn, Israel signed a far-reaching military cooperation protocol with NATO in March 2005 in Jerusalem. Under this agreement, Israel had become a de facto member of NATO. The 2005 Israel-NATO bilateral military cooperation agreement was viewed by the Israeli military as a means to “enhance Israel’s deterrence capability” against Iran, which has recently entered into an alliance of convenience with Turkey, a NATO member state. Sounds contradictory?
It is also worth noting Israel’s longstanding membership in NATO’s Mediterranean Dialogue together with six other non-NATO member states: Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia. Recently, these six countries have taken a stance against Israel in the wake of Trump’s decision to move the US embassy to Jerusalem.
It was no coincidence that the Mediterranean Dialogue (MD) was launched in the same year as the Israel-Turkey SSA agreement (1994).
Is the Israel-Turkey SSA agreement currently in jeopardy?
Following Trump’s Jerusalem Statement, the Mediterranean Dialogue is also in crisis, to the detriment of Washington.
How can joint military and intelligence operations directed against Iran be carried out when Turkey (a NATO member state and an ally of Israel) is “in bed with the enemy”?
Another consideration is the de facto demise of GUUAM (Georgia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan and Moldova), a loose US-NATO sponsored military alliance of five former Soviet republics created in 1999, slated to be used against Russia and Iran.
For the above reasons, the Pentagon’s TIRANNT “Near Term” scenario of a conventional war against Iran at this juncture is unlikely.
While a conventional war on Iran is currently on hold, the US has indelibly opted for nonconventional warfare including destabilization, economic sanctions, infiltration, cooptation and regime change.
The Pentagon, nonetheless retains its longtime strategic option of inducing its closest allies including Saudi Arabia and Israel to “wage war on its behalf”.
We are nonetheless at a dangerous crossroads in our history. While Pentagon analysts are fully aware that the US cannot win a conventional war against Iran, a first strike tactical nuclear weapons attack is still “on the table”. So are intelligence ops, the recruitment of hired “jihadist” terrorists, the funding of insurgencies, etc. (not to mention the use of a panoply of nonconventional weapons systems including electromagnetic, chemical and biological weapons).
***
War is a criminal undertaking which is supported by the US media.
Global Research is committed to revealing the nature of this military agenda as well as fostering a broad counter-propaganda campaign which serves to undermine the fake legitimacy of Washington’s “humanitarian” wars.
The US has embarked on a military adventure, “a long war”, which threatens the future of humanity. US-NATO weapons of mass destruction are portrayed as instruments of peace. Mini-nukes are said to be “harmless to the surrounding civilian population”. Pre-emptive nuclear war is portrayed as a “humanitarian undertaking”.
While one can conceptualize the loss of life and destruction resulting from present-day wars including Iraq and Afghanistan, it is impossible to fully comprehend the devastation which might result from a Third World War, using “new technologies” and advanced weapons, until it occurs and becomes a reality. The international community has endorsed nuclear war in the name of world peace. “Making the world safer” is the justification for launching a military operation which could potentially result in a nuclear holocaust.
America’s hegemonic project in the post 9/11 era is the “Globalization of War” whereby the U.S.-NATO military machine —coupled with covert intelligence operations, economic sanctions and the thrust of “regime change”— is deployed in all major regions of the world. The threat of pre-emptive nuclear war is also used to black-mail countries into submission.
This “Long War against Humanity” is carried out at the height of the most serious economic crisis in modern history.
It is intimately related to a process of global financial restructuring, which has resulted in the collapse of national economies and the impoverishment of large sectors of the World population.
The ultimate objective is World conquest under the cloak of “human rights” and “Western democracy”.
Please Note: These Titles are currently available in pdf format.
Comments Off on Towards Military Escalation? Will Israel “Do the Dirty Work for Us”? “Theater Iran Near Term (TIRANNT)”? The War on Iran is No Longer On Hold?
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).
To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.
Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
Nicaragua’s accusation before the International Court of Justice is that Germany is actively participating in the genocide committed by the Israeli armed forces in the Gaza Strip. And I as a German learned in school that I have to resist when genocide is happening in front of my eyes.
I can hardly recognize my homeland Germany. Now people are talking about “fitness for war” again.
We’re supposed to march East again.
And please don’t show cowardice in front of the enemy!
We must make even more sacrifices for the German armament efforts. Hardness! Relentless harshness!
The people who are trumpeting like that don’t have a brushed hairstyle and they don’t wear military boots at all.
These are the same people who were just singing about understanding, tolerance and peace.
These are the people who, a quite short time ago, spoke out in favor of treating other peoples and ethnic groups with respect. And now we have this immature eternal teenage girl as head of the venerable Foreign Office, who behaves more imperialist, racist and colonialist than all German foreign ministers before her.
Which inevitably means that countries in the southern hemisphere deny Ms. Baerbock the essential diplomatic protocol. But I don’t want to deal with that embodiment of all embarrassment any further. You can insult green politicians as much as you want. However, here you only ever meet the shooting gallery figures on whom the people’s anger is unleashed, while the actual masterminds of this misery can sit back and relax.
After all, over 600 ministry officials have issued a public statement protesting support for the genocide in the Gaza Strip.
The signatories of this declaration did not introduce themselves with their real names. Can we seriously still expect these people to come out? After all the acts of feudalistic despotism that we experienced during the difficult Corona period? Where judges were prosecuted and subjected to home searches simply because they made a supposedly improper court ruling? Where the head of a health authority was reprimanded because he contradicted the official narrative about a pandemic?
No, the 600 ministry officials did it completely right. The misused state apparatus knows that there are still courageous self-thinkers in its ranks. And that the usurpers of our state apparatus must be careful. As long as the dissidents remain anonymous in the state apparatus, they can intervene at the crucial moment in accordance with the German constitution, the Grundgesetz. And for the benefit of the common good, as they once swore. There are these decent servants of the people with backbone, namely in the military, in the police, in the judiciary and in the government apparatus. And, as we know, now also in the German mainstream media.
And the 600 upright people in the public service address their open letter to the most important members of the federal government and tell them:
“… we are addressing you because, as federal civil servants and public servants, we are committed to the fundamental principles of the Grundgesetz. Article 25 sentence 1 of the Grundgesetz gives a general order to apply the law with regard to international law. According to the Federal Constitutional Court, this provision means that ‘the general rules of international law find their way into the German legal system without a transformation law, i.e. directly, and take precedence over German domestic law.’ Israel is committing crimes in Gaza that are in obvious contradiction to international law and thus stand by the Basic Law, to which we as federal civil servants and public servants are obliged. The Federal Republic of Germany supports politically, economically and militarily Israel’s policy in Gaza and the other Palestinian territories occupied in violation of international law. It is therefore our duty as federal employees to criticize this federal government policy and to remind us that the federal government must strictly observe the constitution and international law.”[1]
To put it bluntly again: the federal government can suck up as many laws and regulations as it wants.
They are all void if they are not compatible with higher international law.
It’s bad when the federal government has to be reminded of this so clearly from outside. The open letter points out that the Gaza Strip, with its approximately two million residents, has been bombed into rubble and ash by the Israeli armed forces since October 7th last year, so much so that life there is de facto no longer possible.
This led the International Court of Justice on January 26 this year to condemn the actions of the Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip as “plausible acts of genocide.”
We have to be clear that the war in the Gaza Strip is not a so-called “symmetrical war” – that is, a war in which two armed forces with approximately the same strength fight against each other on the battlefield.
No, the Gaza war is an “asymmetric war”: a fully equipped and armed army fights a defenseless civilian population – until this civilian population either flees or is completely annihilated. The Netanyahu regime’s argument that it is fighting a Hamas army in a symmetrical way is not convincing. Hamas was able to claim some kind of residual vegetation in the underground tunnels. Militarily, Hamas plays no role at all – apart from a few sniper attacks on isolated Israeli soldiers. Potentially and verbally allied forces of Hezbollah and Iran have so far largely kept a low profile out of fear of Israeli nuclear bombs. The last attacks of Iran against Israel demonstrate this military weakness of the opponents of Israel in a clear manner.
Germany’s support for the Ukrainian armed forces at least refers to the symmetrical constellation of two supposedly equally strong armed forces waging a war of attrition. In contrast, Germany’s support of Israel’s asymmetric war against Palestinian civilians has clearly crossed the red line of international law. A lawsuit brought by the state of Nicaragua against Germany for precisely this reason is cheekily rejected by German lawyers at the International Court of Justice as “baseless”. The employees of the public broadcaster Tagesschau cannot essentially contradict this fact in their reporting. They resort to the popular method of framing: if Nicaragua is undoubtedly right on this issue, then this complaint must at least be discredited by branding the Nicaraguan government as “authoritarian”[2]. It should be noted that the Ortega government assumed responsibility through free and correct elections.
But the framing doesn’t help at all. The respected Swedish institute SIPRI has found that almost all governments in the world have found the conduct of the Israeli armed forces so disreputable for many years that they have discreetly withdrawn from the arms deal with Israel[3]. Only two unconditional supporters of Israel’s rearmament remain. Please guess who these two could be. That’s right: the USA was the largest arms supplier to the Israeli armed forces in 2023 with 53 percent. This is closely followed by the Federal Republic of Germany, with 47 percent of Israel’s arms imports. And because other countries refuse to deliver weapons to Israel, the share of German equipment deliveries to Israel has increased tenfold from 2022 to 2023!
In addition, the federal government of Germany has temporarily frozen payments to the refugee organization UNRWA[4].
Not for the 2.4 million displaced Palestinians in Jordan, some of whom have been languishing in miserable camps for generations. And also not for their 600,000 fellow sufferers in Syria, or the half a million fellow sufferers in Lebanon[5]. No. But specifically the aid money for the two million Palestinians who are crowded together in the Gaza Strip and who face extinction at any moment. Who have no food, no medicine, no hospitals, no schools and no universities.
And no roof over their head. Even drinking water is no longer available in sufficient quantities.
The glorious German federal government is consistently withholding aid money for our fellow human beings in the Gaza Strip. Unlike the European Union, Spain, Canada, Sweden, Ireland, Denmark and Australia, which froze their aid funds for a short time, but have now even increased their aid payments. Only Germany remains loyal to the continued starvation of the Palestinians. I am in Spain right now. The German attitude cannot be conveyed to anyone here.
Even the Tagesschau correspondent Thilo Spanhel in Cairo is bravely trying to remedy the German filter bubble a bit by reporting that Germany’s reputation has been massively and permanently ruined by the recent solo attempts on the Gaza issue[6]. As I already said, a red line has been crossed here by the current federal government. And please don’t give anyone the impression that a possible new government coalition as the successor to the so called “Ampel-Koalition” (i.e. the Social Democrat SPD, the ecologist Green Party, and the liberal FDP) would act differently on the Gaza issue. Please just take a look at the X-Twitter statements from prominent opposition politicians to be cured of all illusions on this issue.
In contrast, all previous German politicians have distinguished themselves through their sense of proportion and modesty when it comes to the Middle East problem.
For example, there was the legendary SPD politician Hans-Jürgen Wischnewski, who repeatedly successfully mediated between Arabs and Israelis and was therefore given the affectionate nickname “Ben Wisch”.
Or the former FDP Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle, who was unable to speak out against an attack on Libyan leader Gaddafi that violated international law at the crucial meeting of the UN Security Council, but with his abstention from the vote signaled to the Arab world that Germany disapproved of the attack. As foreign minister of an American colony, he can only answer with one abstention[7]. That was received.
The Arabs also knew that Germany had to perform a dance on raw eggs due to its special history. The special German history also means that Germany has not had any colonies since the end of the First World War. And while the anger in the Third World against the colonial powers France and Great Britain can still be felt everywhere today, the Germans have earned a high reputation in these countries over the decades through their equally humble, competent and humane demeanor.
The Germans can organize many things well without much nonsensical chatter. You hear that everywhere. No amount of transatlantic re-education propaganda can deny this. The Germans as respectful partners and as people who can listen well. This has given us, among other things, good business relationships in future markets. All of that has now been shattered by supporting the genocide in Palestine in just a few months.
I don’t want to give the impression that it’s just about good business.
The indescribable misery of innocent people is unbearable!
And the fact that we have to increase this suffering with our tax money, which is not exactly small, is simply unacceptable.
We must raise our voice clearly: these crimes against international law are not happening in our name!
And what we do has nothing to do with “anti-Semitism”.
The overwhelming majority of Jews worldwide strongly condemn the crimes of the Netanyahu government, and these courageous people are expressing their protest in the streets.
Let’s not let these friends of ours alone with their courage.
When it comes to the Gaza issue, of all things, we really don’t have to take a special German Sonderweg. [a concept lined to rise of Nazism]
Let’s remember what we once learned in school: if another genocide occurs before our eyes, then our first civic duty is to resist this crime.
*
AI Translation from German.
Minor Revisions by Global Research
Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
The Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA), an entity on contract to the US Department of Defense has released a previously classified military document which confirms Israel’s nuclear weapons program.
This is considered to be a landmark decision, widely interpreted as constituting a semi-official recognition by the US Department of Defense that Israel is a bona fide nuclear power. While the document confirms what is already known regarding Israel’s nuclear arsenal, the political implications are potentially far-reaching, particularly in relation to the ongoing negotiations pertaining to Iran’s alleged nuclear program.”
Who Threatens Whom in the Middle East:
A de facto acknowledgement by the US that Israel is a nuclear power threatening the Middle East in contrast to Iran’s non-existant nuclear weapons program
Moreover, as detailed below, the IDA report tacitly portrays Israel’s nuclear weapons program as an extension of that of the United States.
This 386-page 1987 report entitled “Critical Technological Assessment in Israel and NATO Nations” provides details regarding Israel’s weapons systems including the development of the hydrogen bomb.
While the report was written 28 years ago, it confirms Israel’s capabilities to develop nuclear weapons, with an explosive capacity equivalent to 1000 times a (Hiroshima) atomic bomb:
that in the 1980s Israelis were reaching the ability to create bombs considered a thousand times more powerful than atom bombs.
The report also states that:
“[Israel is] developing the kind of codes which will enable them to make hydrogen bombs. [1980s] That is, codes which detail fission and fusion processes on a microscopic and macroscopic level,”.
The report also notes that research laboratories in Israel “are equivalent to our Los Alamos, Lawrence Livermore and Oak Ridge National Laboratories,” the key labs in developing America’s nuclear arsenal. (quoted in Israel National News, March 25, 2015)
Israel’s nuclear infrastructure is “an almost exact parallel of the capability currently existing at our National Laboratories,”
The report intimates that Israel’s weapons industry including its nuclear program is essentially an extension of that of the US, developed with the active support and collaboration of US military research labs and US “defense contractors”.
In this regard it also dispels the notion that the US was not made privy to Israeli classified information concerning its nuclear program, which in the earlier period was developed with the support of France.
The report also reveals that the Pentagon was fully informed regarding the intimate details of the Israeli program, which also suggests that it was developed in active collaboration with the US
The complete report can be consulted at http://cryptome.org/2015/03/ida-ctaiiann.pdf
All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.
To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.
Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
***
There truly seems to be an epidemic of sudden deaths in schools across USA and Canada recently. Here are the most recent tragic cases.
Jena, LA – 15 year old Jena High School student Kameron Shelton died in class at 11am on April 18, 2023 (click here)
Milwaukee, WI – 19 year old Marquette University Student Kamrin Ray was found dead in residence on April 17, 2023
A Marquette University student died at a residence hall Monday night. First responders found him unresponsive on the bed by his roommate and pronounced him deceased. (click here)
Charlotte, NC – 18 year old Myers Park High School Senior Barron Alexander Harris died early morning of April 16, 2023 (click here)
Barron Alexander Harris was known by friends for “his loyalty, engaging personality, and loving spirit.” It’s not known how Harris died.
Montague, PEI – 16 year old high school (Ecole Francois-Buote) student Samuel Russell Campbell, died suddenly in school on April 14, 2023. (click here)
The École François-Buote community continued to mourn Saturday after a student at the Charlottetown school suffered a “sudden and unexpected death” on Friday.
Tipp City, OH – 17 year old Tippecanoe High School student Carson Robbins died on April 14, 2023 after a “brief illness” (click here)
Ithaca, NY – 19 year old Cornell University Student Matthew Friedman was found unresponsive in residence and died on April 12, 2023 (click here)
Bethesda, MD – Unnamed student at Walter Johnson High School passed away “very suddenly and unexpectedly” on April 12, 2023 (click here)
Boise, ID – 17 year old Timberline High School tennis player Justin Smith collapsed unexpectedly during tennis practice on April 10, 2023 and died in ER at 6:20pm. (click here)
Dallas, TX – Episcopal School of Dallas Student died overnight on April 5, 2023 (click here)
Berkeley, CA – 16 year old Berkeley High School student Lillia Bartlow went home from school on March 24, 2023 after suffering a migraine and died unexpectedly at home
Mukilteo, WA – 18 year old high school student Chloe Nuttbrock died suddenly of aneurysm in early March 16, 2023 (click here)
Rice Lake, WI – 6 high school student deaths (posted on April 21, 2023)
My Take…
Found dead in dorm or residence. Cardiac arrest and died while at school.
Died after having migraine at school.
Died in early morning hours.
Died after “brief illness”.
Died during tennis practice at school.
None of this is normal. All these deaths must be investigated for the possibility of post COVID-19 mRNA vaccine sudden cardiac death or any role that the jabs may have played in these deaths.
*
Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
Dr. William Makis is a Canadian physician with expertise in Radiology, Oncology and Immunology. Governor General’s Medal, University of Toronto Scholar. Author of 100+ peer-reviewed medical publications.
Featured image is from SHTFplan.com
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
Nas Novas Regiões da Rússia, o terror ucraniano continua a ameaçar as vidas de civis inocentes, mesmo em áreas distantes das linhas da frente. Em 13 de Abril, o regime de Kiev lançou um ataque brutal contra a capital da República Popular de Lugansk (LPR), destruindo instalações civis. A incursão ocorre no meio da atual onda de ataques terroristas ucranianos que visam impedir que a vida civil volte ao normal nas fronteiras.
O ataque do dia 13 foi o primeiro bombardeio ucraniano bem-sucedido na capital Lugansk desde maio de 2023, quando mísseis atingiram uma fábrica de alimentos na cidade, ferindo dezenas de pessoas. Desta vez, o alvo do ataque foi uma fábrica de máquinas que estava prestes a ser inaugurada. Previa-se que a nova empresa empregasse dezenas de trabalhadores, o que certamente contribuiria significativamente para o avanço da recuperação econômica nas regiões libertadas. É evidente que o regime de Kiev quer impedir que a vida das pessoas comuns volte ao normal.
Apesar de estar numa zona de conflito, a cidade de Lugansk foi poupada de grandes bombardeamentos devido à distância entre a capital da LPR e as linhas da frente. As regiões ao redor da capital são totalmente controladas pelos russos, o que impede que os ucranianos possam realizar ataques de curto alcance. Isto permitiu um processo gradual de recuperação econômica, com o trabalho e as atividades comerciais a regressarem rapidamente à normalidade. Em Dezembro, estive na LPR como correspondente numa expedição jornalística e relatei a situação no terreno, sublinhando como a vida melhorou na região após a libertação militar.
Para que os ataques ucranianos contra a cidade de Lugansk sejam bem-sucedidos, é necessário utilizar armas de longo alcance, tendo em conta a grande distância entre a capital e as posições de artilharia de Kiev. Tanto no ataque de 13 de Abril como no bombardeamento de Maio de 2023, as forças neonazistas conseguiram atingir alvos em Lugansk porque usaram armas ocidentais de longo alcance – os mísseis britânicos Storm Shadow.
Alcançando 250 km, os mísseis Storm Shadow foram um ponto de escalada perigosa no conflito. O Reino Unido tornou-se o primeiro país a fornecer mísseis de longo alcance ao regime neonazista, o que permitiu a Kiev realizar operações contra áreas civis nas fronteiras, alcançando cidades libertadas na zona de operações militares especiais e até mesmo regiões totalmente desmilitarizadas no indiscutível território da Federação. Russo. Por outras palavras, sob a desculpa de aumentar as capacidades defensivas da Ucrânia, o Reino Unido deu a Kiev o que o regime precisava para atingir civis fora do campo de batalha.
O Ocidente está absolutamente consciente de que as suas armas estão a ser utilizadas contra alvos civis. As autoridades russas publicam regularmente dados que provam que as armas fornecidas pela OTAN estão por detrás de incursões terroristas em regiões fronteiriças. No ataque do dia 13, destroços de pelo menos dois mísseis Storm Shadow foram recolhidos e expostos pelas forças russas, não deixando dúvidas sobre as armas utilizadas para realizar o ataque. Como esperado, o Reino Unido permaneceu em silêncio, recusando-se a condenar o uso indevido da sua ajuda militar – o que é suficiente para considerar conivência e até co-participação por parte de Londres em crimes ucranianos.
Nos últimos meses, as tropas ucranianas sofreram pesadas perdas no campo de batalha, razão pela qual cada vez mais analistas militares apontam que o colapso do regime é iminente. Além do enorme número de vítimas, a Ucrânia também sofreu perdas territoriais graduais, com as tropas russas a conseguirem libertar várias aldeias em Donbass. Sem força suficiente para reagir nas linhas da frente, o regime utiliza o terror como distracção e ferramenta de propaganda. Ao atingir áreas civis na Rússia, Kiev faz parecer aos seus patrocinadores que ainda é capaz de causar danos no “território profundo” da Rússia, justificando assim o envio de mais armas pela OTAN.
Outro objectivo ucraniano com tais incursões é tentar provocar uma reação russa desproporcional. Se Moscou atacar com extrema violência e atingir alvos civis ucranianos, Kiev terá argumentos para solicitar mais ajuda ocidental e, assim, provocar uma grave escalada no conflito. Moscou, porém, não parece interessada nesse tipo de atitude. Os russos já provaram diversas vezes que os seus alvos continuarão a ser instalações militares e de infra-estruturas críticas, conforme permitido pelas regras do direito internacional.
Apesar do terror em algumas áreas civis, os russos ainda controlam a situação militar no conflito. Moscou está a seguir uma estratégia que conduzirá inevitavelmente ao colapso do inimigo num futuro próximo, razão pela qual não é necessária pressa em retaliar os ataques terroristas. Ao destruir a infra-estrutura ucraniana, a Rússia tornará em breve impossível a Kiev continuar a realizar incursões terroristas.
Dois documentários recentes e inovadores — “Agora somos todos pessoas de plástico” e “ Pessoas de plástico: a crise oculta dos microplásticos” — expõem a presença generalizada da poluição plástica no ambiente e como esta pode afetar a saúde humana.
Rory Fielding, diretor do filme vencedor do Emmy “We’re All Plastic People Now”, testou quatro gerações do sangue de sua própria família em busca de produtos químicos derivados de plástico.
O codiretor de “Plastic People”, Ziya Tong, investigou o mundo oculto dos microplásticos e seus efeitos no corpo humano.
A Variety chamou “Plastic People” de “um daqueles documentários essenciais sobre o estado do nosso mundo” que oferece “uma história fascinante do plástico, mostrando-nos como o material gradualmente assumiu o controle” – mas também o descreveu como um “filme de terror [que] poderia ter sido chamado de ‘Ataque dos Polímeros Assassinos’”.
‘O plástico é o fim do futuro’
A poluição plástica tornou-se onipresente, com partículas de plástico encontradas em todos os cantos do globo.
“Está no ar. Está na água. Está na comida. Está em todos os nossos corpos”, de acordo com Rolf Halden, Ph.D., engenheiro ambiental da Universidade Estadual do Arizona, que aparece em “Somos todos pessoas de plástico agora”.
Da mesma forma, “Plastic People” explora o mundo oculto dos microplásticos, pequenas partículas que os investigadores encontraram em órgãos humanos, sangue e tecido cerebral.
A sinopse do filme observa que “quase todo pedaço de plástico já produzido se decompõe em ‘microplásticos’”, que se tornam “uma parte permanente do meio ambiente”.
Um especialista destacado no filme, Rick Smith, Ph.D., coautor de “Morte lenta por pato de borracha: o perigo secreto das coisas cotidianas”, disse: “Acontece que o plástico está realmente dentro de nós. Está em nossos filhos.”
Tong, uma jornalista científica, testou a neve no seu quintal e encontrou fragmentos de plástico, o que a levou a dizer aos seus filhos para não apanharem flocos de neve.
De acordo com “Plastic People”, o plástico é como “a personificação do capitalismo. Tornou possível o mundo material em que vivemos agora. São os ossos, a pele, o tecido conjuntivo.”
Produtos químicos derivados de plásticos podem “fazer as coisas darem errado no corpo humano”
Ambos os documentários investigam os riscos à saúde associados à exposição a produtos químicos derivados de plástico.
Em “Somos todos pessoas de plástico agora”, o Dr. Leonardo Trasande, pediatra e diretor da Divisão de Pediatria Ambiental da Universidade de Nova York, discutiu o impacto dos produtos químicos desreguladores endócrinos encontrados nos plásticos, que “hackeiam esses sinais moleculares e fazem as coisas dão errado no corpo humano.
O filme também conta a história de Jess Helsley, diretora de Watershed Restoration do Wild Salmon Center, que foi diagnosticada com câncer de cólon de início precoce aos trinta anos. Helsley participou de um estudo que encontrou microplásticos no cólon de jovens pacientes com câncer.
“Plastic People” explora a ligação entre os plastificantes e vários problemas de saúde, incluindo doenças cardíacas, diabetes, obesidade, câncer e problemas de fertilidade. O filme destaca o trabalho dos principais cientistas “encontrando essas partículas em nossos corpos: órgãos, sangue, tecido cerebral e até mesmo nas placentas de novas mães”.
O documentário apresenta uma entrevista com o Dr. Pete Myers, cientista-chefe, fundador e presidente do conselho da Environmental Health Sciences, que alerta: “Os plásticos podem contribuir para a saúde de algumas maneiras milagrosas, mas os plásticos também podem causar problemas de saúde, problemas de saúde bastante graves, como morte.”
Infertilidade, níveis mais baixos de testosterona e riscos para os bebês
“Agora somos todos pessoas de plástico” explora o impacto dos produtos químicos derivados do plástico na fertilidade e nos níveis de testosterona.
Shanna Swan, Ph.D., professor do Departamento de Medicina Ambiental e Saúde Pública do Hospital Mount Sinai, discutiu a “síndrome do ftalato”, que descreve como os órgãos genitais masculinos são alterados pela exposição materna aos ftalatos, uma classe comum de plastificantes.
Swan explicou que os ftalatos reduzem os níveis de testosterona, levando a homens “incompletamente masculinizados” com “testículos menos descidos, um pênis menor [e] distância anogenital mais curta”.
Os efeitos dos ftalatos não se limitam aos homens. Swan disse que nas mulheres, “se a testosterona entra… quando não deveria, ou mais do que deveria, então a mulher começa a produzir órgãos genitais mais masculinos”.
Isto leva a uma “diminuição das diferenças sexuais”, onde “o homem se torna menos completamente um homem, a mulher é menos completamente uma mulher”, disse Swan.
“Agora somos todos pessoas de plástico” também revela a presença de microplásticos no leite materno humano, sendo o estudo de Ragusa o primeiro a demonstrar este fenômeno.
Stacey Colino, coautora de “Contagem regressiva: como nosso mundo moderno está ameaçando a contagem de espermatozoides, alterando o desenvolvimento reprodutivo masculino e feminino e colocando em perigo o futuro da raça humana”, compartilhou sua experiência pessoal no uso de acessórios e mamadeiras plásticas para bombas tira-leite, tudo isso provavelmente expôs seus filhos a produtos químicos derivados de plástico.
John Hocevar, diretor da campanha dos oceanos do Greenpeace, alertou que o plástico está se tornando parte de nós “desde o início de nossas vidas”.
“Quando você aquece o leite em uma mamadeira de plástico, alguns pedaços de plástico dessa mamadeira vão para o leite que o bebê está bebendo”, disse ele.
Empresas de petróleo e gás motivadas a ‘aumentar a plastificação da vida humana’
Ambos os documentários lançam luz sobre o papel das grandes corporações, particularmente na indústria do petróleo e do gás, na perpetuação da crise da poluição plástica.
“Plastic People” fornece uma visão histórica da revolução dos plásticos que aumentou significativamente após a Segunda Guerra Mundial com sapatos, tecidos, eletrodomésticos, móveis e carros, antes de levar à atual era de uso único de garrafas de água descartáveis, copos, isqueiros e sacos plásticos.
Hocevar, em “We’re All Plastic People Now”, explicou que “99% do plástico é feito de combustíveis fósseis, petróleo e gás. É um perigo para a saúde humana em cada etapa do seu ciclo de vida.”
O documentário também traz a história de Sharon Lavigne, fundadora da RISE St. James em Louisiana, que lutou com sucesso contra a construção da maior fábrica de plásticos do mundo em sua comunidade, parte de uma área conhecida como “Beco do Câncer” devido à alta concentração de indústrias e instalações químicas.
Christy Leavitt, diretora da Campanha de Plásticos dos EUA da Oceana, destacou os planos da indústria para expandir a produção de plástico. “Eles querem… triplicar a quantidade” de plásticos até 2060, disse ela.
Ragusa chamou a atenção de empresas específicas, incluindo Coca-Cola, PepsiCo e Nestlé, pelo uso de plásticos há muito tempo.
Smith, em “Plastic People”, disse que face a um mundo que utiliza menos combustíveis fósseis, as empresas petrolíferas procuram formas de sustentar os seus lucros e, portanto, têm toda a motivação para “aumentar a plastificação da vida humana”.
‘Cada garrafa de água é uma bomba-relógio’
Ambos os documentários destacam as deficiências dos atuais esforços de reciclagem na abordagem à crise da poluição plástica.
Halden explicou que a reciclagem não é uma solução viável devido às baixas taxas de reciclagem e aos desafios da reciclagem de plásticos.
“Cada garrafa de água é uma bomba-relógio”, disse Halden, observando que apenas uma pequena fração dos plásticos chega realmente aos centros de reciclagem e, mesmo assim, o processo de reciclagem é muitas vezes ineficaz.
“[A reciclagem] não faz sentido comercial neste momento, da mesma forma que incentivamos o uso de combustíveis fósseis para produzir plásticos baratos”, disse ele.
Leavitt enfatizou a necessidade de uma mudança em direção a sistemas recarregáveis e reutilizáveis. “A reciclagem não será suficiente, por isso algumas pessoas estão recorrendo a isso como uma solução, mas não será suficiente para resolver os plásticos.”
‘Precisamos aumentar o nível de urgência’
Ambos os documentários sublinham a importância das ações individuais, das políticas governamentais e da responsabilização empresarial para enfrentar a crise da poluição plástica.
Em “Plastic People”, Smith disse: “Para resolver o problema [dos plásticos], precisamos aumentar o nível de urgência nesta questão”.
O filme apresentava um residente de Bayfield, em Ontário, Canadá, que afirmava ser a primeira “comunidade livre de plástico” na América do Norte.
Especialistas e ativistas em “Agora somos todos pessoas de plástico” enfatizaram a importância de reduzir o consumo de plástico a nível individual.
Ruth Fielding, a mãe de 93 anos do produtor do filme, disse: “Cada pedacinho ajuda. Se eu não levar sacola plástica quando vou ao supermercado, ajuda um pouco. [Mas] sou apenas uma pessoa… não posso salvar o mundo sozinho.”
Leavitt destacou a necessidade de uma mudança nas políticas governamentais. Ela disse que precisamos que os governos nacionais, estaduais e locais “exijam que as empresas mudem a forma como os plásticos descartáveis são produzidos e usados”.
Ragusa também apelou à ação política. “Para mudar isso, precisamos de políticos que sejam capazes de mudar.”
“Plastic People” também apela a uma abordagem multifacetada para enfrentar o problema da poluição plástica, com uma campanha de impacto que visa “executar um programa baseado em soluções que incluirá uma série de eventos, materiais educativos, bem como apelos à ação.”
O site do filme apresenta uma página “Take Action” que inclui diversas petições e outros recursos para ajudar as pessoas a se conscientizarem, envolver-se e fazer a diferença em suas comunidades.
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).
To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.
Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
17-year-old Aubrynn Grundy contracted COVID-19 a few weeks after her second dose of Pfizer, went into cardiac arrest, was hospitalized, given a cocktail of drugs, went into multi-organ failure, and tragically passed away.
Aubrynn Grundy lived in Livonia, Michigan. She was a perfectly healthy 17-year-old, and her story is sad and tragic, leaving her mother, Shanna Carroll, and stepfather, Adam Carroll, with many unanswered questions.
How did a perfectly healthy 17-year-old, who was recently double vaccinated for COVID-19, go into cardiac arrest three times, require life support and ventilation, develop multi-organ failure, and ultimately pass away?
In January 2022, Aubrynn received exciting news from the Odd Fellows Organization of Michigan that she would be one of only a few students chosen from her school to go on a youth pilgrimage trip to Philadelphia, New York, Boston, Ottawa, Niagara Falls, and Pennsylvania that summer.
Before leaving for the trip, Aubrynn was required to get two doses of the COVID-19 vaccine. She received her first Pfizer dose on June 7, 2022, and her second Pfizer dose on June 28, 2022.
Aubrynn left for her trip on July 9, 2022, and a little over a week later, on July 18, 2022, she texted her mom from Canada, saying she wasn’t feeling well and had tested positive for COVID-19. Aubrynn’s mom and stepfather were unable to drive into Canada to get their daughter because they were not vaccinated, so they had to wait until the following day, July 19, 2022, when Aubrynn would be coming back across the border on the American side, to pick up their daughter.
On July 20, 2022, Aubrynn was back home in Michigan, still feeling unwell, so her mother took her to urgent care at St. Mary Mercy Livonia Hospital. After being dropped off by her mother, Aubrynn’s biological father showed up to wait with her, and shortly after that, Aubrynn went into cardiac arrest in the emergency department waiting room.
Life-saving measures were taken to keep Aubrynn alive. She was placed on ECMO, a form of life support for people with life-threatening illnesses or injuries affecting the heart or lungs. She was ventilated and administered various drugs, including fentanyl, dexamethasone, ketamine, propofol, hydromorphone, lidocaine, and others.
According to her medical records, she received such high doses of narcotics that Narcan had to be administered to bring her back. All of this happened within an hour and a half.
A request was then made for Aubrynn to be transported to a children’s specialty hospital, and an ambulance was dispatched. However, the ambulance was called off on the way due to insufficient beds. The Children’s Hospital of Michigan stepped in and said they would take Aubrynn and sent a helicopter to pick her up.
Shanna and Adam say that when the helicopter transport arrived at St. Mary Mercy Livonia Hospital to pick up Aubrynn, the healthcare team onboard the helicopter had to unhook all the machines Aubrynn was connected to because the healthcare staff at St. Mary’s had not done it properly, potentially compromising their daughter’s health.
By the time Aubrynn arrived at the Children’s Hospital of Michigan, she had gone into cardiac arrest twice more and was moved to the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU), where she remained for 17 days as her health continued to deteriorate. She was suspected of suffering from myocarditis, her fingers, hands, toes, feet, legs, and arms began to turn black, gangrene was setting in, her organs were failing, and she would have required multiple amputations.
By August 6, 2022, Aubrynn’s condition had not shown signs of improvement. Her body was becoming increasingly resistant to pain medication, and the discoloration in her extremities continued to worsen. Ultimately, the decision was made to remove Aubrynn from life support, and she tragically passed away approximately 20 minutes later.
Shanna and Adam say that they had hired a lawyer to pursue legal action against St. Mary Mercy Livonia Hospital for malpractice. However, a year later, they received a letter from the law firm stating that they were dropping the case.
Aubrynn’s parents express their desire for answers; they want to understand why their vaccinated daughter passed away and hold the initial hospital accountable for what they consider multiple mistakes.
They mentioned that they are planning to seek legal representation again and have set up a GiveSendGo fundraiser to raise funds for this purpose. Here is a link to the fundraiser.
*
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.
Our thanks to Dr. William Makis for bringing this to our attention.
Featured image is from TCI
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
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).
To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.
Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
The Israeli online magazine +972 has published a detailed report on Israel’s use of an artificial intelligence (AI) system called “Lavender” to target thousands of Palestinian men in its bombing campaign in Gaza. When Israel attacked Gaza after October 7, the Lavender system had a database of 37,000 Palestinian men with suspected links to Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ).
Lavender assigns a numerical score, from one to a hundred, to every man in Gaza, based mainly on cellphone and social media data, and automatically adds those with high scores to its kill list of suspected militants. Israel uses another automated system, known as “Where’s Daddy?”, to call in airstrikes to kill these men and their families in their homes.
The bodies of Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes are buried in a mass grave in Khan Younis. Photo credit: Al-Jazeera
The report is based on interviews with six Israeli intelligence officers who have worked with these systems. As one of the officers explained to +972, by adding a name from a Lavender-generated list to the Where’s Daddy home tracking system, he can place the man’s home under constant drone surveillance, and an airstrike will be launched once he comes home.
The officers said the “collateral” killing of the men’s extended families was of little consequence to Israel.
“Let’s say you calculate [that there is one] Hamas [operative] plus 10 [civilians in the house],” the officer said. “Usually, these 10 will be women and children. So absurdly, it turns out that most of the people you killed were women and children.”
The officers explained that the decision to target thousands of these men in their homes is just a question of expediency. It is simply easier to wait for them to come home to the address on file in the system, and then bomb that house or apartment building, than to search for them in the chaos of the war-torn Gaza Strip.
The officers who spoke to 972+ explained that in previous Israeli massacres in Gaza, they could not generate targets quickly enough to satisfy their political and military bosses, and so these AI systems were designed to solve that problem for them. The speed with which Lavender can generate new targets only gives its human minders an average of 20 seconds to review and rubber-stamp each name, even though they know from tests of the Lavender system that at least 10% of the men chosen for assassination and familicide have only an insignificant or a mistaken connection with Hamas or PIJ.
The Lavender AI system is a new weapon, developed by Israel. But the kind of kill lists that it generates have a long pedigree in U.S. wars, occupations and CIA regime change operations. Since the birth of the CIA after the Second World War, the technology used to create kill lists has evolved from the CIA’s earliest coups in Iran and Guatemala, to Indonesia and the Phoenix program in Vietnam in the 1960s, to Latin America in the 1970s and 1980s and to the U.S. occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.
Image: Patch worn by Phoenix Program operatives. (Photo Credit: Tuxxmeister / Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SA 3.0)
Just as U.S. weapons development aims to be at the cutting edge, or the killing edge, of new technology, the CIA and U.S. military intelligence have always tried to use the latest data processing technology to identify and kill their enemies.
The CIA learned some of these methods from German intelligence officers captured at the end of the Second World War. Many of the names on Nazi kill lists were generated by an intelligence unit called Fremde Heere Ost (Foreign Armies East), under the command of Major General Reinhard Gehlen, Germany’s spy chief on the eastern front (see David Talbot, The Devil’s Chessboard, p. 268).
Gehlen and the FHO had no computers, but they did have access to four million Soviet POWs from all over the USSR, and no compunction about torturing them to learn the names of Jews and communist officials in their hometowns to compile kill lists for the Gestapo and Einsatzgruppen.
After the war, like the 1,600 German scientists spirited out of Germany in Operation Paperclip, the United States flew Gehlen and his senior staff to Fort Hunt in Virginia. They were welcomed by Allen Dulles, soon to be the first and still the longest-serving director of the CIA. Dulles sent them back to Pullach in occupied Germany to resume their anti-Soviet operations as CIA agents. The Gehlen Organization formed the nucleus of what became the BND, the new West German intelligence service, with Reinhard Gehlen as its director until he retired in 1968.
After a CIA coup removed Iran’s popular, democratically elected prime minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in 1953, a CIA team led by U.S. Major General Norman Schwarzkopf trained a new intelligence service, known as SAVAK, in the use of kill lists and torture. SAVAK used these skills to purge Iran’s government and military of suspected communists and later to hunt down anyone who dared to oppose the Shah.
By 1975, Amnesty International estimated that Iran was holding between 25,000 and 100,000 political prisoners, and had “the highest rate of death penalties in the world, no valid system of civilian courts and a history of torture that is beyond belief.”
In Guatemala, a CIA coup in 1954 replaced the democratic government of Jacobo Arbenz Guzman with a brutal dictatorship. As resistance grew in the 1960s, U.S. special forces joined the Guatemalan army in a scorched earth campaign in Zacapa, which killed 15,000 people to defeat a few hundred armed rebels. Meanwhile, CIA-trained urban death squads abducted, tortured and killed PGT (Guatemalan Labor Party) members in Guatemala City, notably 28 prominent labor leaders who were abducted and disappeared in March 1966.
Once this first wave of resistance was suppressed, the CIA set up a new telecommunications center and intelligence agency, based in the presidential palace. It compiled a database of “subversives” across the country that included leaders of farming co-ops and labor, student and indigenous activists, to provide ever-growing lists for the death squads. The resulting civil war became a genocide against indigenous people in Ixil and the western highlands that killed or disappeared at least 200,000 people.
This pattern was repeated across the world, wherever popular, progressive leaders offered hope to their people in ways that challenged U.S. interests. As historian Gabriel Kolko wrote in 1988,
“The irony of U.S. policy in the Third World is that, while it has always justified its larger objectives and efforts in the name of anticommunism, its own goals have made it unable to tolerate change from any quarter that impinged significantly on its own interests.”
When General Suharto seized power in Indonesia in 1965, the U.S. Embassy compiled a list of 5,000 communists for his death squads to hunt down and kill. The CIA estimated that they eventually killed 250,000 people, while other estimates run as high as a million.
Twenty-five years later, journalist Kathy Kadane investigated the U.S. role in the massacre in Indonesia, and spoke to Robert Martens, the political officer who led the State-CIA team that compiled the kill list.
“It really was a big help to the army,” Martens told Kadane. “They probably killed a lot of people, and I probably have a lot of blood on my hands. But that’s not all bad – there’s a time when you have to strike hard at a decisive moment.”
Kathy Kadane also spoke to former CIA director William Colby, who was the head of the CIA’s Far East division in the 1960s. Colby compared the U.S. role in Indonesia to the Phoenix Program in Vietnam, which was launched two years later, claiming that they were both successful programs to identify and eliminate the organizational structure of America’s communist enemies.
The Phoenix program was designed to uncover and dismantle the National Liberation Front’s (NLF) shadow government across South Vietnam. Phoenix’s Combined Intelligence Center in Saigon fed thousands of names into an IBM 1401 computer, along with their locations and their alleged roles in the NLF. The CIA credited the Phoenix program with killing 26,369 NLF officials, while another 55,000 were imprisoned or persuaded to defect. Seymour Hersh reviewed South Vietnamese government documents that put the death toll at 41,000.
How many of the dead were correctly identified as NLF officials may be impossible to know, but Americans who took part in Phoenix operations reported killing the wrong people in many cases. Navy SEAL Elton Manzione told author Douglas Valentine (The Phoenix Program) how he killed two young girls in a night raid on a village, and then sat down on a stack of ammunition crates with a hand grenade and an M-16, threatening to blow himself up, until he got a ticket home.
“The whole aura of the Vietnam War was influenced by what went on in the “hunter-killer” teams of Phoenix, Delta, etc,” Manzione told Valentine. “That was the point at which many of us realized we were no longer the good guys in the white hats defending freedom – that we were assassins, pure and simple. That disillusionment carried over to all other aspects of the war and was eventually responsible for it becoming America’s most unpopular war.”
Even as the U.S. defeat in Vietnam and the “war fatigue” in the United States led to a more peaceful next decade, the CIA continued to engineer and support coups around the world, and to provide post-coup governments with increasingly computerized kill lists to consolidate their rule.
After supporting General Pinochet’s coup in Chile in 1973, the CIA played a central role in Operation Condor, an alliance between right-wing military governments in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay and Bolivia, to hunt down tens of thousands of their and each other’s political opponents and dissidents, killing and disappearing at least 60,000 people.
The CIA’s role in Operation Condor is still shrouded in secrecy, but Patrice McSherry, a political scientist at Long Island University, has investigated the U.S. role and concluded,
“Operation Condor also had the covert support of the US government. Washington provided Condor with military intelligence and training, financial assistance, advanced computers, sophisticated tracking technology, and access to the continental telecommunications system housed in the Panama Canal Zone.”
McSherry’s research revealed how the CIA supported the intelligence services of the Condor states with computerized links, a telex system, and purpose-built encoding and decoding machines made by the CIA Logistics Department. As she wrote in her book, Predatory States: Operation Condor and Covert War in Latin America:
“The Condor system’s secure communications system, Condortel,… allowed Condor operations centers in member countries to communicate with one another and with the parent station in a U.S. facility in the Panama Canal Zone. This link to the U.S. military-intelligence complex in Panama is a key piece of evidence regarding secret U.S. sponsorship of Condor…”
Operation Condor ultimately failed, but the U.S. provided similar support and training to right-wing governments in Colombia and Central America throughout the 1980s in what senior military officers have called a “quiet, disguised, media-free approach” to repression and kill lists.
The U.S. School of the Americas (SOA) trained thousands of Latin American officers in the use of torture and death squads, as Major Joseph Blair, the SOA’s former chief of instruction described to John Pilger for his film, The War You Don’t See:
“The doctrine that was taught was that, if you want information, you use physical abuse, false imprisonment, threats to family members, and killing. If you can’t get the information you want, if you can’t get the person to shut up or stop what they’re doing, you assassinate them – and you assassinate them with one of your death squads.”
When the same methods were transferred to the U.S. hostile military occupation of Iraq after 2003, Newsweek headlined it “The Salvador Option.” A U.S. officer explained to Newsweek that U.S. and Iraqi death squads were targeting Iraqi civilians as well as resistance fighters.
“The Sunni population is paying no price for the support it is giving to the terrorists,” he said. “From their point of view, it is cost-free. We have to change that equation.”
The United States sent two veterans of its dirty wars in Latin America to Iraq to play key roles in that campaign. Colonel James Steele led the U.S. Military Advisor Group in El Salvador from 1984 to 1986, training and supervising Salvadoran forces who killed tens of thousands of civilians. He was also deeply involved in the Iran-Contra scandal, narrowly escaping a prison sentence for his role supervising shipments from Ilopango air base in El Salvador to the U.S.-backed Contras in Honduras and Nicaragua.
In Iraq, Steele oversaw the training of the Interior Ministry’s Special Police Commandos – rebranded as “National” and later “Federal” Police after the discovery of their al-Jadiriyah torture center and other atrocities.
Bayan al-Jabr, a commander in the Iranian-trained Badr Brigade militia, was appointed Interior Minister in 2005, and Badr militiamen were integrated into the Wolf Brigade death squad and other Special Police units. Jabr’s chief adviser was Steven Casteel, the former intelligence chief for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) in Latin America.
The Interior Ministry death squads waged a dirty war in Baghdad and other cities, filling the Baghdad morgue with up to 1,800 corpses per month, while Casteel fed the western media absurd cover stories, such as that the death squads were all “insurgents” in stolen police uniforms.
Meanwhile U.S. special operations forces conducted “kill-or-capture” night raids in search of Resistance leaders. General Stanley McChrystal, the commander of Joint Special Operations Command from 2003-2008, oversaw the development of a database system, used in Iraq and Afghanistan, that compiled cellphone numbers mined from captured cellphones to generate an ever-expanding target list for night raids and air strikes.
The targeting of cellphones instead of actual people enabled the automation of the targeting system, and explicitly excluded using human intelligence to confirm identities. Two senior U.S. commanders told the Washington Post that only half the night raids attacked the right house or person.
In Afghanistan, President Obama put McChrystal in charge of U.S. and NATO forces in 2009, and his cellphone-based “social network analysis” enabled an exponential increase in night raids, from 20 raids per month in May 2009 to up to 40 per night by April 2011.
As with the Lavender system in Gaza, this huge increase in targets was achieved by taking a system originally designed to identify and track a small number of senior enemy commanders and applying it to anyone suspected of having links with the Taliban, based on their cellphone data.
This led to the capture of an endless flood of innocent civilians, so that most civilian detainees had to be quickly released to make room for new ones. The increased killing of innocent civilians in night raids and airstrikes fueled already fierce resistance to the U.S. and NATO occupation and ultimately led to its defeat.
President Obama’s drone campaign to kill suspected enemies in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia was just as indiscriminate, with reports suggesting that 90% of the people it killed in Pakistan were innocent civilians.
And yet Obama and his national security team kept meeting in the White House every “Terror Tuesday” to select who the drones would target that week, using an Orwellian, computerized “disposition matrix” to provide technological cover for their life and death decisions.
Looking at this evolution of ever-more automated systems for killing and capturing enemies, we can see how, as the information technology used has advanced from telexes to cellphones and from early IBM computers to artificial intelligence, the human intelligence and sensibility that could spot mistakes, prioritize human life and prevent the killing of innocent civilians has been progressively marginalized and excluded, making these operations more brutal and horrifying than ever.
Nicolas has at least two good friends who survived the dirty wars in Latin America because someone who worked in the police or military got word to them that their names were on a death list, one in Argentina, the other in Guatemala. If their fates had been decided by an AI machine like Lavender, they would both be long dead.
As with supposed advances in other types of weapons technology, like drones and “precision” bombs and missiles, innovations that claim to make targeting more precise and eliminate human error have instead led to the automated mass murder of innocent people, especially women and children, bringing us full circle from one holocaust to the next.
*
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.
Billionaires’ campaign donations elect the politicians, and what the regulatory changes do to billionaires is to reduce them to the same poverty as a homeless person. What the changes mean for large financial institutions such as Merrill Lynch, Schwab, etc., is their existence ceases.
18 year old Janey Thompson was a fit, high level athlete who played varsity basketball and softball. In the fall of 2022, she was accepted to Wake Forest University (biophysics major) and was required to produce proof of COVID-19 vaccination status to attend university.
According to former Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov’s publication, recruitment centres began attracting former prisoners to “capture” as much of the population as possible because the mobilisation resource was exhausted, and many people fled the country in any way possible.
The tally of Iran weapons launched against Israel included about 170 drones, over 30 cruise missiles and more than 120 ballistic missiles. Israel’s estimated cost was over $1 billion defending itself from the Iran missile and drone attack.
I am aware of the preeminent role the Department of Defense has played in the criminal pandemic response. Nevertheless, I do not draw a sharp distinction between the DoD and companies like Pfizer and Moderna. I view the officers and directors of these corporations as having a symbiotic relationship with ranking officers of U.S. government agencies.
A three-day Palestine conference in Berlin was forcibly shut down after three hours on Friday. Electricity was abruptly terminated in the midst of the presentation by Salman Abu Sitta, the 87 year old author of the authoritative “Atlas of Palestine”.
The constant attacks of Israel on Iran have drawn the first of what could be numerous attacks by Iran on Israel. Those attacks will be used to justify greater attacks by Israel on Iran, and then attacks on other countries. Those attacks will eventually force the United States into the conflict, and that conflict may merge with the conflict Ukraine, thus bringing in Russia, and perhaps Germany, France, Great Britain, and Turkey.
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).
To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.
Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
In Part 1, I reported that we already do not own anything.
The immediate response from readers is: what can we do to avoid dispossession? Offhand, the answer might appear to be debt-free property and gold and silver in personal possession.
However, if the goal is that we own nothing and are controlled under a digital currency regime, these assets will be taken as well.
Webb says if the billionaires and large financial institutions can be made aware of the situation, they could make Congress aware of the regulatory changes and force Congress to use its law-making power to undo the regulatory changes.
After all, if there is no private financial property, there is no one to contribute to Congressional elections.
Billionaires’ campaign donations elect the politicians, and what the regulatory changes do to billionaires is to reduce them to the same poverty as a homeless person. What the changes mean for large financial institutions such as Merrill Lynch, Schwab, etc., is their existence ceases. Webb’s hope is the combined influence can undo the regulatory changes. The question is whether awareness can be generated. The fate of Congress is also at stake. In the Great Reset there is no input from the people and no function for Congress.
As in all of my writings, I am trying to bring awareness. Little doubt the messenger will be shot.
The purpose of Part 2 is to outline the regulatory changes that have been made that have turned our property in financial assets into the property of “secured creditors.”
Webb terms them legal changes, which they are, but as I read it from regulatory, not legislative, action.
Webb says the changes are global, but he only describes how the US and EU effected the changes for themselves. I am unable to imagine that Russia, China, Iran and any parts of the world not captured in the Western financial system are parties to the dispossession, especially under the regime of sanctions. As I read it, the dispossession that awaits is limited to the Western world and its captive countries. By global, perhaps Webb means the global operations of Western world financial organizations.
First some definitions: an “account holder” is you, your IRA, your pension plan, your stock and bond investments held at an “account provider” or “intermediary” or “depository institution” such as Merrill Lynch, Schwab, Wells Fargo. An “entitlement holder” is the definition of you whose ownership claim to your financial assets has been subordinated to the claims of “secured creditors” of the institution where you have your accounts. Please do understand that the dispossession of which I write is your dispossession.
As reported in Part 1, a country’s securities are pooled in a Central Security Depository (CSD). Each national CSD is linked to the International Security Depository (ICSD), which in the words of a 2013 report by the Bank for International Settlements Committee on the Global Financial System, makes available to “secured creditors” all available collateral (all of our stocks and bonds) and provides cross-border mobility of collateral from the “collateral giver” to the “collateral taker.” Yes, these terms are explicitly used, indicating recognition that theft is taking place.
Webb writes that these arrangements were “designed and deliberately executed to move control of collateral to the largest secured creditors behind the derivatives complex. This is the subterfuge, the endgame of it all.”
To achieve these arrangements took many years and many regulatory changes that did not involve financial market participants (you) in the decisions. The differences between financial property rights in the US and in some European countries were a special obstacle which required “harmonization” of Europe with the US. The first effort was signed only by the US, Switzerland, and Mauritius. The EU did not sign, because in some EU member countries (Sweden, Finland, for example) the purchasers of securities had inviolable property rights based on the ancient legal principle of lex rei sitae.
Webb describes, citing the documents, the 10-year work-around of this blockage.
The creation of cross-border collateral mobility began with the Depository Trust Corporation moving from physical stock certificates held in the owners name to book-entries. A “paperwork crisis” was claimed from having to process transactions of individually owned shares of securities.
Then the US Uniform Commercial Code was quietly amended over many years without requiring an act of Congress. Here are the changes:
Ownership of securities as property has been replaced with a new legal concept of a “security entitlement”, which is a contractual claim assuring a very weak position if the account provider becomes insolvent.
All securities are held in un-segregated pooled form. Securities used as collateral, and those restricted from such use, are held in the same pool.
All account holders, including those who have prohibited use of their securities as collateral, must, by law, receive only a pro-rata share of residual assets.
“Re-vindication,” which is the taking back of one’s own securities in the event of insolvency, is absolutely prohibited. Account providers may legally borrow pooled securities to collateralize proprietary trading and financing.
“Safe Harbor” assures secured creditors priority claim to pooled securities ahead of account holders.
Webb reports that “the absolute priority claim of secured creditors to pooled client securities has been upheld by the courts.”
Webb reproduces the New York Federal Reserve Bank’s reply to questions from the European Community’s Legal Certainty Group about the new system Washington was developing. The Fed was asked if investors have rights attaching to particular securities in pooled securities. The NY Fed responded “No.”
The Fed was asked if investors are protected against the insolvency of an intermediary or depository or account provider. The NY Fed answered “creditors have priority over the claims of entitlement holders.”
The Fed was asked if creditors still had priority if failure involved fault, negligence or similar breach of duty of the intermediary. The NY Fed answered: “In terms of the interest that the entitlement holder has in the financial assets credited to his securities account: regardless of fault, fraud, or negligence of the securities intermediary, under Article 8, the entitlement holder has only a pro rata share in the securities intermediary’s interest in the financial asset in question.”
In short, omnibus accounts pool assets so that individual securities cannot be identified with specific investors. When bankruptcy occurs causing default of the account provider, clients are left with a mere contractual claim and have to line up with all other unsecured creditors.
The objective of using all securities as collateral has been obtained. “Comprehensive ‘collateral management’ systems have been implemented which assure the transport of all securities cross-border through the mandated linkage of CSDs to ICSDs to the CCPs (where the risk of the derivatives complex is concentrated), and on to the anointed secured creditors which will take the collateral when the CCPs fail, having assured for themselves that their taking of assets cannot be legally challenged.”
Nevertheless, two problems remain. What happens if the pools of collateral are insufficient to cover the claims of secured creditors and what is the risk that a CCP (Central Clearing Party) could fail?
The 2013 Bank for International Settlements Global Financial Committee report says that if there is insufficient pooled collateral (our stocks and bonds) to prevent the collapse of the financial system (by which is meant apparently the mega-banks), then non-collateral has to be transformed into collateral. What non-collateral is and how it is transformed is not clear. The BIS Global Capital Committee’s report says: “some market participants may need to exchange available, but ineligible [as collateral], securities for other securities that meet eligibility criteria [as collateral] in order to fulfill their collateral obligations. Undertaking transactions to achieve this outcome has been defined as ‘collateral transformation.’”
Webb writes: “Collateral transformation is simply the encumbrance of any and all types of client assets under swap contracts, which end up in the derivatives complex. This is done without the knowledge of the clients, who were led to believe that they safely owned these securities, and serves no beneficial purpose whatsoever for these clients.”
As Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, my bailiwick was the management of the domestic economy, and my task was to replace the Keynesian demand-management policy that had resulted in “stagflation” with a supply-side policy. Moreover it was 40 years ago prior to the era of derivatives that exceed many times the size of world GDP and, as I understand, the combined value of all stocks and bonds in the Western world. Therefore, I cannot provide the answer. Webb does not explain, nor does the BIS committee, how more collateral is created when the pooled accumulations of all stocks and bonds are insufficient to meet secured creditors’ claims. But it is not from money creation by the central bank.
Under the new Dispossession, a Central Clearing Party (CCP) has the counterparty risk between parties in a transaction and provides clearing and settlement. The CCP has “the obligations of the failed clearing participant.” So what happens if a CCP itself fails? The answer seems to be financial Armageddon. “If a large CCP is in trouble because of its members’ default, then we will be having a banking crisis” says Benoît Gourisse, Senior Director, European Public Policy at ISDA.
The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation states that it has no solution to the undercapitalization of CCPs.
Webb concludes that the CCPs are deliberately under-capitalized and designed to fail.
In Part 3 we will consider the likely result of the pending financial crisis.
Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
Paul Craig Roberts is a renowned author and academic, chairman of The Institute for Political Economy where this article was originally published. Dr. Roberts was previously associate editor and columnist for The Wall Street Journal. He was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy during the Reagan Administration. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
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).
To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.
Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (WBTV) – Janey Thompson, the daughter of WBT Morning Show Radio Host Bo Thompson, has passed away after suffering complications from a blood clot, according to the radio station.
Janey died on Tuesday, April 9. She was a sophomore at Wake Forest University and was a biophysics major.
While at Wake Forest, she was a member of the National Society of Physics Students, Sigma Pi Sigma, and Delta Delta Delta sorority.
She was a 2022 graduate of Myers Park High School where she played varsity basketball and softball.
The radio station released the following statement regarding the passing of Janey:
The WBT and Radio One family is deeply saddened by the tragic passing of Bo Thompson’s daughter, Janey. There are no words to provide adequate comfort under these circumstances, but we are committed to supporting Bo and his family in any way possible during this difficult time. We know that the WBT Community of listeners joins us in prayers for the Thompson family.
18 year old Janey Thompson was a fit, high level athlete who played varsity basketball and softball. In the fall of 2022, she was accepted to Wake Forest University (biophysics major) and was required to produce proof of COVID-19 Vaccination Status to attend University.
The COVID-19 Vaccine Mandate was dropped as of May 12, 2023.
Janey, a high level athlete, died less than a year after the mandate was dropped, from a blood clot that “traveled from her leg to her heart”, blood clots being one of the more common side effects of COVID-19 Vaccines.
This is a high likelihood case of a 20 year old girl being murdered by an illegal COVID-19 Vaccine Mandate.
*
Case 02: 21 year old Bryce Stanfield, football player and health sciences student collapsed at Furman University in SC during a football workout on Feb. 7, was on life support & died on Feb. 9, 2024. Autopsy: pulmonary embolism
Bryce had to abide by a COVID-19 Vaccine mandate to attend Furman University in the fall of 2022 and again in the fall of 2023
Case 03 – University of Colorado Colorado Springs (UCCS) nursing student 21 year old Mia Brown had a medical emergency at the Recreation Center, collapsed and died suddenly on Feb. 12, 2024.
Mia Brown had to abide by a COVID-19 Vaccine mandate to attend UCCS in the fall of 2022
Case 04 – Michigan State University student and political science major, 19 year old Angela Christy died in her sleep on Dec. 30, 2023.
Mar. 31, 2022: “Our daughter Angela will be attending MSU in the fall. We are beyond proud of her and all of her accomplishments”
(Fall 2022 – Angela had to abide by COVID-19 Vaccine and booster mandate to be able to attend Michigan State University)
Feb. 28, 2023: “Michigan State University is dropping a COVID-19 vaccine and booster mandate for students and staff a little more than a year after introducing the requirement”
Dec. 31, 2023: “We are heartbroken and devastated as our precious daughter Angela Grace suddenly and unexpectedly passed away yesterday in her sleep at 19 years old”
Case 05 – Fayetteville, NY – 21 year old Salvatore Angotti, basketball and lacrosse player and senior at University at Buffalo died unexpectedly on Oct. 4, 2023.
Fall 2021 & Fall 2022 – Salvatore had to abide by COVID-19 Vaccine and booster mandate to be able to attend University at Buffalo
Case 06 – 21 year old Megha Thakur, 21 year old Western University (Canada) student, had a heart attack and died 4 months later on Nov. 24, 2022. Five days after her death, Western University revoked their COVID-19 Vaccination Policy.
April 12, 2024 – Most Canadian Universities continue deadly COVID-19 Vaccine Mandates:
More than 5000 US Colleges and Universities mandated COVID-19 Vaccines
I don’t understand why parents didn’t push back harder against University and College COVID-19 Vaccine mandates, all of which were illegal.
I have reported over 100 sudden deaths of University or College students. That means there are thousands such deaths.
Even 1 or 2 deaths at each of the 5000 Universities & Colleges that mandated the jabs, would mean thousands of needless deaths.
Certain Universities have had numerous sudden & unexplained student deaths since the jabs were mandated in the fall of 2021 (Cornell, Princeton, Penn State).
So far, not a single University or College leader has been prosecuted for the student deaths their mandates caused. That must change, because the injuries & deaths will continue for a very long time.
*
Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
Dr. William Makis is a Canadian physician with expertise in Radiology, Oncology and Immunology. Governor General’s Medal, University of Toronto Scholar. Author of 100+ peer-reviewed medical publications.
Featured image is from 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
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).
To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.
Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
Mobilisation reserves in Ukraine have been emptied while the military calls for troop rotation at the front, which cannot be done, former Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov said on his Telegram channel on October 23. This is unsurprising as Ukraine has been illegally mobilising men since at least January, demonstrating the alarming lack of manpower the country has, an issue even well before the failed so-called “Spring Offensive,” which actually began in early June.
“The mobilisation in Ukraine has turned into a real nightmare for the Ukrainians […] Ukraine’s reserves have been emptied, while at the front, the military is asking for a rotation [of troops], which cannot be done due to lack of personnel in the Ukrainian Armed Forces,” said the former Ukrainian Prime Minister.
According to Azarov’s publication, recruitment centres began attracting former prisoners to “capture” as much of the population as possible because the mobilisation resource was exhausted, and many people fled the country in any way possible.
“Thus, as long as the Ukrainian authorities use force against their own people, there will be fewer and fewer supporters in the country, and fewer volunteers will appear in the ranks of the Ukrainian forces,” the former Ukrainian prime minister added.
“This means that with such sentiments in society, Ukraine has a catastrophically low chance of holding its own,” Azarov concluded.
Earlier, a spokesperson of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said that the mobilisation potential of Ukraine still allows additional recruitment of men of military age without changing the legislation. Ukraine has been under martial law since February 24, 2022, and the next day, Volodymyr Zelensky signed a decree on general mobilisation, and thus, male citizens aged 18 to 60 are prohibited from leaving Ukraine’s borders.In fact, the legislation is so draconian that Ukrainian men face prison sentences of up to five years for evading military service during mobilisation.
However, even the few provisions within the draconian legislation are being violated, such as the procedure for delivering summonses – a written document issued in the name of a specific person – for conscription. The summons must be prepared in advance, and if issued correctly, the conscript must appear before the relevant state body responsible for mobilisation. According to the law, summonses cannot be delivered by messenger, text, phone, or e-mail, and they cannot be filled out in front of the person to whom it is handed. If the summons is issued incorrectly, the conscript does not have to appear for mobilisation.
Yet, in Ukraine, these few provisions in the legislation are being violated on a mass scale.
One such case occurred in January 2023 in Odessa, when military recruiters hid inside an ambulance, and when they saw men of military age, they jumped out onto the street, handed out summons and forcibly dragged those who resisted into the ambulance. A month later, in Ternopil, military recruiters grabbed men at a bus station and forced them into the bus. Then, on March 20, a video appeared in which a taxi driver in Odessa expressed “insufficiently patriotic thoughts”, but two days later, he was reportedly “found and drafted into the army.”
These are just three examples of countless Ukrainians being literally dragged off the streets to fight in a war they have no interest in being involved in. This is also a major contributing reason to the utter failure of the so-called “spring offensive.” These forcibly conscripted men became the “cannon fodder” we heard about over the summer because they naturally had low morale and lacked military training.
In addition, many men are motivated to join the Ukrainian military just because it is one of the few secure sources of income, no matter how meagre it is, due to the destroyed economy. However, many of these men end up dead, become incapacitated due to injury, or do their best to avoid conflict to preserve their lives.
It is recalled that Ukrainian investigators detained Yevhen Borisov on charges of illegal enrichment, dereliction of duty, and evading military service in July. Borisov was fired as the military commissioner of the Odessa region in June after investigative reports found he and family members had bought property in Spain along with luxury automobiles worth $4 million, money he attained from taking bribes for exemptions, among other reasons.
In this way, Ukraine does not only have the problem of empty reserves, as highlighted by Azarov, but deep corruption that means many military-age men can avoid conscription, so long as they can pay the bribe, whilst poor Ukrainian men, which today forms most of the male population, are literally dragged off the streets to participate in a futile war against Russia, which they know they cannot win.
*
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 InfoBrics.
Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version).
To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.
Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
On April 1st when as Israeli airstrike took out half the Iran embassy compound in Damascus, Syria along with Iran’s top ranking generals and 5 other officers, Israel clearly violated international law (both UN Charter Article 51 and 1961’s Vienna Convention) that protects foreign nations’ embassies, consulates and staff around the world. The targeted slain victims were all invited military advisors stationed in Syria, unlike the illegal US military occupiers refusing to leave both Syria and Iraq.
Iranian Supreme Leader Khamenei responded by informing Israel and the world that it will deliver a payback “slap in the face” to Israel for its escalated aggression that is clearly a Netanyahu provocation, deliberately attempting to ignite the larger war in the Middle East in order to drag the US into World War III. Though Biden made the usual claim that US support for Israel is “ironclad,” sending US aircraft and destroyers into the area with missile ballistic defense systems to protect Israel, he also made an agreement with Iran not to intervene against Iran’s response after Iran warned the US to stay out of Tehran’s retribution in answer to Israel’s latest aggression.
The stage was already set when on April 13th last Saturday around noon local time Iranian special forces seized an Israeli operated container ship in the Strait of Hormuz, forcing it into Iran port. Then late Saturday night began Iran’s intense barrage reportedly launching over 300 Kamikaze drones, rockets and cruise and ballistic missiles, simultaneously fired directly into Israel from not only directly from Iran, but Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, Houthis in Yemen, and Iran proxy groups in both Iraq and Syria. With Iran launching the world’s largest drone strike in history and Iran’s biggest missile launch in its history, the world stands at the abyss of global disaster.
The next day on Sunday April 14th Israel and Netanyahu were boasting that 99% of the incoming drones and missiles were effectively intercepted. IDF spokesman Admiral Daniel Hagari said that most of the drones and missiles were destroyed even prior to entering Israeli airspace, neutralized by Israel’s Iron Dome defense system, with assistance from the US and allied coalition member UK, France and even Muslim monarchies Jordan and Saudi Arabia apparently shot down Iran drones. Apparently historical oil-rich Gulf States are still siding with the US/West and Islamic world isn’t so unified as recent appearances indicated. An anonymous source for the Saud family just told the Israeli public broadcaster Kan that the Saudi government blames Iran for financing terrorism responsible for the Hamas October 7th assault on Israel, sabotaging the burgeoning normalized relations between Riyadh and West Jerusalem.
The tally of Iran weapons launched against Israel included about 170 drones, over 30 cruise missiles and more than 120 ballistic missiles. Israel’s estimated cost was over $1 billion defending itself from the Iran missile and drone attack. Iran stated that its limited objective was to hit an Israeli intelligence base apparently located in the occupied Golan Heights, according to former intelligence operative Hal Turner. That secret base played a key role in the IDF airstrike attack that killed the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) officers in Damascus on April 1st. Also, two IDF airbases were targeted by Iran in Israel’s Negev Desert. Iran announced its limited campaign hitting only military targets as an appropriate, proportionally measured response was successful exercising Iran’s right to self-defense and that it will suffice for now. Israel admitted only minor damage sustained at one airbase and that a 10-year old Bedouin Israeli girl was slightly injured from falling shrapnel with no deaths or other injuries reported in Israel.
According to an unnamed US defense official, Biden told Netanyahu late Saturday night that the US will not support Israel if it retaliates further against Iran, reportedly telling Bibi:
The official said that when Biden told Netanyahu that the U.S. will not participate in any offensive operations against Iran and will not support such operations, Netanyahu said he understood.
According to a White House statement, Biden revealed:
I told Prime Minister Netanyahu that Israel demonstrated a remarkable capacity to defend against and defeat even unprecedented attacks — sending a clear message to its foes that they cannot effectively threaten the security of Israel.
This drone and missile attack was Iran’s first military intervention launched from Iran soil against Israel ever. It’s limited strategic objective purposely spared the Israeli population and primarily was intended to send a message of deterrence to Israel, warning that if Israel retaliates, Iran’s response will be much “more extensive” and devastating. Days in advance of Iran’s weekend drone/missile launch, many Islamic nations in the Middle East warned the US of their refusal to allow US to use their land, sea and airspace to help Israel. An early Sunday April 14thCNN article claimed:
American forces intercepted 70 drones and at least three ballistic missiles.
The Biden team held a conference call on Sunday with its G7 counterparts “to coordinate a united diplomatic response to Iran’s brazen attack,” collectively condemning Iran and demanding restraint.
My impression is that last weekend’s events were all pure theater, carefully plotted and choreographed to make Biden appear more presidential as commander-in-chief during his election year, showing he isn’t so weak and feeble after all, stepping up to save humanity from end of the world Armageddon with his decisive intervention warning Bibi the Butcher no help from US if he retaliates.
It’s a staged shitshow to project the optics that Biden is capable of finally putting his foot down and setting limits with the defiant Israeli dictator who previously has gone out of his way to humiliate Biden by flagrantly refusing all his requests and pressure. It seems to be a high profile image enhancement exercise, an impression management charade spectacle serving as humanity’s projected temporary reprieve from World War III gone kinetic, for the time being at least until the November election.
Incisive geopolitical journalist Brian Berletic wrote a very recent article just ahead of this weekend’s Iranian drone/missile attack on Israel tracing today’s events back to a think tank policy paper from 15 years ago. It crystalizes my own impression and conclusion that this last weeks’ events were all scripted years in advance, as is so often the case. Brian’s New Eastern Outlook piece dated April 15th entitled “2009 US Policy Paper Planned Current Israeli0Iranian Tensions opens with the following sentence:
In reality, almost verbatim, US-Israeli diplomacy (or lack thereof) and military operations are following a carefully laid out policy described in the pages of the Brooking Institution’s 2009 paper, “Which Path to Persia? Options for a new American Strategy Toward Iran.”
It immediately becomes apparent that this government-military-corporate funded behemoth think tank institution’s policy paper has literally been the US-Israel Middle East policy playbook for unfolding regional developments covertly manipulating tensions and hostilities against Iran by hegemonic power interests for the last decade and a half.
The Brooking paper constantly calls for using the press to project Iran the initiator of destabilizing tensions and conflict. Thus, in the immediate aftermath of Iran defending its own sovereignty, controlled puppet politicians in US and Israel in conjunction with the controlled corporate media predictably spin the narrative framing Iran as the belligerent aggressor and Israel the victim. Right on cue, on Sunday April 14th Israel’s Foreign Minister Israel Katzwent on the warpath against Iran, accusing:
Iran launched a large-scale and unprecedented attack against the state of Israel, which included hundreds of drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles. This attack once again proves what Israel has been saying for years: Iran is behind terrorist attacks in the region and is also the greatest threat to regional stability and world order, which is why Iran should never acquire nuclear weapons. Iran must pay the price for its aggression, and the first step in this direction must be immediate recognition of the Iranian IRGC – which carried out this large-scale terrorist attack against Israel – as a terrorist organization. The entire free world must stand with Israel against the axis of Iranian evil.
This is all too obvious that if Braindead Biden actually did convince Bibi the Butcher to forego his military retaliation against Iran, which still remains very questionable, FM Katz is attempting to rally the world currying favor for Israel, especially from the West and UN, into collectively delivering painful economic sanctions against Iran, seeking worldwide Israeli support intent on both distracting global attention away from its genocide against the Palestinians and absolving the Jewish Rogue State pariah of its over-the-top international crime on April Fool’s Day, bombing the Iran consulate in Syria, which is the real terrorist act here and of course Israel is actually the real “greatest threat to regional stability and world order.” And clearly all along, the real terrorist pariahs inflicting by far the most death and destruction on the planet are the US/Israel following orders from their kingpin City of London controllers.
Of course, perennial neocon blowhard John Bolton, former US national security adviser and ambassador to the UN had to rally for more warmongering rhetoric with the following statements to CNN:
Passivity at this point for Israel would be a big mistake. This is not time to play academic games and message and signal. This is a question of power. If they came from a different location containing nuclear warheads, Israel might not be so lucky.
Members of both the Senate and House are hardline AIPAC controlled Israeli firsters that demand Biden slam Iran with a new round of economic sanctions against Iran, totally ignoring Israel’s flagrant international breach of law taking out the Iran Consulate in Damascus.
Again, it’s okay if you violate international law as long as you line up on the US/West’s side. Total double standard arbitrarily applied with US rules-based exceptionalism, still trying to impose on nations deemed a threat to Washington’s waning unipolar order. On Monday Congress will vote to impose sanctions barring Iranian imports, Iran’s oil sales to China and financial transactions between Iran and US. Following Israel FM’s lead, the Israel controlled Congress will come up with more sanctions against Iran, and place pressure on EU to declare Iran’s military the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) a terrorist organization.
Right on cue French warmonger Macron on Monday is calling for strengthening sanctions against Iran.
Another US House resolution also seeks to defy Biden’s edict and backs Israel’s military retaliation against Iran. Stand with Israel or be unseeded from your lofty position atop the US government is the kind of bribery/blackmail control Israel wields over Washington DC, of course per the marching orders of the City of London planetary controllers pushing the world toward the West vs. East Armageddon scenario.
Again, all of this appears more bread and circus theater and bluster to placate the worried world that WWIII is trying to be avoided. The real terrorists – the planetary controllers well over a century ago planned their scripted Armageddon Zio vs. Islamic war currently bent on executing their drastic depopulation agenda that’s also been in the works for some time, in due time unleashing their WWIII as the globalists’ biggest WMD kill weapon of them all. It seems the big one is coming sooner than later, i.e., possibly prior to the election with yet another US false flag terrorist attack at home as the excuse to declare national emergency martial law to cancel the November election.
As a sidelight to this big theatrical sideshow, Israel propaganda painting Iran as the big bad eternal enemy showing its evil “true colors” displays some of Saturday’s missiles fired at Israel. But the last several seconds of footage is from near a decade ago of a Russian Grad missile launch in what’s being purported as a compilation of this weekend’s Iranian strikes against Israel. This is just one among countless examples of how the Jewish State constantly uses deception to always over play its persecuted victim role to justify continually getting away with murderous genocide nonstop for the last three-quarters of a century during its entire existence as a nation.
If the United States wants to come to the field to support Israel, we will not sit idle here, the smallest attack by the United States on Iranian soil will force us to support Iran.
Iran’s account of Saturday’s “slap in the [Israeli] face” completely disputes the Israel claim that 99% of all the Iranian drones and missiles were successfully intercepted and failed to hit their targets. On Sunday April 14th Iran Foreign Minister Amir-Abdollahian stated:
In this operation, the armed forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran, with accurate calculations and using drones and guided missiles, targeted the military base where the Zionist regime’s F-35 aircraft carried out aggression on the building of Iran’s Embassy in Damascus.
The following day on Monday Iran Foreign Ministry spokesmanNasser Kan’anistated:
Iran’s action was necessary and proportionate and targeted military sites. Iran acted to defend its national security and interests given the lack of action by the UN Security Council and ensuing irresponsible behavior of the US, Britain and France.
Again, Iran’s response was precise, measured and on estimate parity with the Israeli April 1st attack, although minus any IDF top brass generals assassinated, unlike the IRGC officers in Syria.
Also on Sunday, Chief of staff of the Iranian Armed Forces, Major General Mohammad Baqeri stated that Iran’s hypersonic missiles “reached their goals,” hitting Israel’s Nevatim Airbase where the US made F-35s were used to carry out the terrorist attack on the Iran Consulate. These claims refute the probable lies from Netanyahu and his war cabinet that little to no damage in Israel occurred. Israel’s war cabinet is discussing how it will respond to the Iran attack as again Bibi could once again defy Biden and retaliate and escalate the wider conflict further. IDF spokesman Peter Lerner told the press on Monday April 15th:
Just because we were successful in intercepting, we should not underestimate what Iran did. We are currently reviewing the options after IDF presented what it believes could be done. [Countermeasures could involve] a strike or no strike.
Iranians celebrate in the city of Ahvaz on April 14, 2024 after hearing news of the country’s retaliation against the Israeli regime’s terrorist attack on the Islamic Republic’s diplomatic mission in Damascus. (Photo by Tasnim news agency)
Israeli national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvirurged his government to send the strong signal to its enemies, with this dangerously volatile, provocative, if not maniacal rhetoric:
Ideas of containment and moderation are the perceptions that ended on October 7. To create a deterrent in the Middle East, Israel has got to show that it is prepared to go berserk.
Meanwhile on Sunday, Iran Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) warned Israel with the statement:
Should the Israeli regime plan to continue its wicked actions against Iran, by any means or methods or at any levels, it will get a response ten times harsher.
According to Iran’s Press TV in an article on Monday April 15th:
The Iranian Army Chief Commander Major General Abdolrahim Mousavi says the country will not hesitate to give a ‘stormy and unified’ response to any act of aggression against it.
Brutally massacring close to 34,000 Palestinians in just over six months, mostly women and children, Israel lost this war months ago before the world court of public opinion. Both Israel and the US are genocidal war criminal nations that will eventually be prosecuted and punished. Last Friday April 12thWall Street Journal ran an article entitled “Israel Wins Gaza Battles but Risks Losing the War” and then the day prior last Thursday, Israel’s Haaretzwent even further “Saying What Can’t Be Said: Israel Has Been Defeated – a Total Defeat.” Writer Ron Unz makes the astute observation in his latest April 15thUnz Review article about all previous Israel wars:
Most of these previous half-dozen campaigns were fought against heavily-equipped conventional armies but their combined length totaled considerably less than the time Israel has now spent trying to defeat Gaza’s lightly-armed Hamas militants.
If Biden keeps his word, refusing to join or assist Israel if it continues this deadly tit-for-tat game of chicken, and Israel follows through to strike back at Iran, the Jewish State will then allegedly be on its own to fight off Iran’s reactive wrath that will ignite the full-fledge Middle East war that would almost certainly bring catastrophic consequences to not only Israel and this war-ravaged region, but perhaps entire planet. Both Israel with its Sampson option and Iran possess nuclear weapons. It appears the dreaded World War III scenario that top US Freemason Albert Pike predicted back in 1871, describing the war between the Islamic World (Iran et al backed by Eastern powers Russia, China) versus political Zionists (Rothschild et al City of London controlled Western powers Israel, US, NATO, EU) has at least temporarily been averted. But Israel vows revenge. Meanwhile, Israeli war cabinet meets again today to mull over how and when it will respond to Iran’s weekend attack, with the world teetering on the edge.
*
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.
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/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).
To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.
Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
On Saturday April 13, thousands of people gathered in Niamey, the capital of the West African state of Niger, demanding the dismantling of the United States Africa Command (AFRICOM) operations inside their country.
This demonstration represents an ongoing struggle in several former French colonies to end the economic, political, cultural and military ties to the imperialist powers.
In addition to the negative influence from Paris, the U.S. has joined their counterparts in France deploying thousands of military personnel under the guise of fighting “Islamic terrorism”. AFRICOM was launched in February 2008 from its base in Stuttgart, Germany.
Over the course of the last sixteen years, the Pentagon has built a military base in the Horn of Africa state of Djibouti, also a former French colony. They share this installation, known as Camp Lemonnier, with thousands of French troops.
Other outposts for AFRICOM operations have included Mali, Guinea-Conakry and Burkina Faso which have been struck by military coups since 2020. In Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, the new military-led governments have formed an Alliance of Sahel States. The purpose of the grouping is to enhance the security of these states independent of French and U.S. domination as well as to counter the now lifted sanctions imposed by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).
ECOWAS, a fifteen-member regional alliance of governments, led now by newly elected President Bola Tinubu of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, had been persuaded by the U.S. and France to take a hostile position towards the overthrow of the western-backed administration of Mohamed Bazoum in Niger last July 26. The National Council for the Safeguard of the Homeland (CNSP) was formed with widespread support from broad sections of the Nigerien population.
During the change of governments in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, people raised their national flags alongside that of the Russian Federation. Since the military seizure of power within these states, military advisors from Moscow have been requested.
Since the Pentagon-NATO-led counter-revolution in Libya during 2011, the first full-scale operation of AFRICOM, rebel groups have surfaced causing tremendous damage to the stability of various states throughout West and North Africa. These rebel formations operate in a similar fashion as al-Qaeda and the so-called “Islamic State.” Both of these designated “terrorist” organizations have their origins within U.S. intelligence in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria.
Although these entities claim they are motivated by Islam in carrying out their attacks, nearly all of their operations target civilians, many of whom are Muslims. The existence of these groupings and the violence they perpetuate provides a rationale for the continued presence of imperialism within their territories.
The propaganda and psychological warfare of France and the U.S. seeks to make the case for the indispensability of their assistance and occupation in order to fight terrorism. Nonetheless, since the formation of AFRICOM and the escalation of French interventions, the overall security situation in the Sahel and other regions of the African continent has worsened.
The Arrival of Russian Advisors in Niger
Therefore, following a pattern established by other Sahel states, the CNSP government in Niger has requested security assistance from the Russian Federation. Military advisors began to arrive in the uranium-rich state on April 12.
“Reporting from the scene, a correspondent from Sputnik revealed that Russian experts have landed in Niger in an effort to train local forces on combating terrorism…. The landing of Russia’s IL-76 aircraft in Niamey was aired by Nigerien state broadcaster RTN which stated that this update came after a conversation between Russian President Vladimir Putin and chairman of Niger’s National Council for the Safeguard of the Homeland, Abdourahmane Tchiani. The broadcaster announced that the arrival entails the installation of an air defense system through which Russian instructors will provide quality training for the Nigerien military staff.”
These developments are creating much consternation on the part of the State Department and Pentagon based in Washington. During March, the U.S. dispatched a high-level delegation from the administration of President Joe Biden to Niamey in a failed attempt to salvage a military agreement allowing AFRICOM to remain in Niger.
Even after the CNSP leadership declared the military pact with the U.S. “null and void”, the Biden administration officials from the Defense and State Departments continued to speak publicly as if there was still the potential for remaining in Niger. The official position of the Biden administration is that they have not been formally ordered to leave the country.
However, it has been quite obvious for many months that the CNSP government views the U.S. in the same vein as France. The steadfast character of Niger and the two other Alliance States has not only staved off the intervention of an imperialist-backed ECOWAS invasion it indeed prompted Tinubu and his colleagues to invite these three governments to return to the regional grouping. All of the sanctions imposed by ECOWAS have been lifted against the CNSP in Niamey.
By setting a standard for anti-French and anti-U.S. postures in these underdeveloped states, the pro-western regimes in West Africa are concerned that the same pattern could unfold in their countries. Even in Nigeria, which is the most populated state on the continent with ostensibly the largest national economy, problems of hyper-inflation and foreign debt are hampering the capacity of the Tinubu administration to provide a decent standard of living for the majority of people inside the country.
CNSP Administration Bolstered by Mass Support for Independent Foreign Policy
Since the July 26 seizure of power by the CNSP, there have been demonstrations of hundreds of thousands of people in Niger compelling the administration to reverse the path of neo-colonial dominance by France and the U.S. During the April 13 rallies and marches, people held signs telling AFRICOM to leave the historic city of Agadez and return to Washington.
French and U.S. involvement in post-colonial African states have never been beneficial to the majority of the people who are workers, farmers and youth. Irrespective of the vast deposits of strategic resources such as gold, diamonds, uranium, iron ore, bauxite, petroleum, natural gas and other assets such as waterways, agricultural potential and youthful labor forces which constitute in many states the overwhelming majority of people, the annual household incomes are some of the lowest in the world. The imperialists are committed to the maintenance of regimes which serve the interests of the ruling classes within the western industrial states.
In acknowledging the withdrawal of French troops from Niger, which was completed in March, the same above-mentioned article from Al Mayadeen noted:
“Presently, the U.S. maintains a deployment of 648 troops across two bases in the former French colony. In 2017, the Nigerien government granted approval for the deployment of armed U.S. drones to target militants as part of the Sahel counterterrorism mission. Despite participating with France and other Western allies in withholding aid to Niamey in response to Bazoum’s ouster, Washington has asserted that disengagement from Niger is not a viable option. As of September, Germany had approximately 110 soldiers stationed in the uranium-rich nation, while Italy had around 300 soldiers deployed there prior to the coup”.
Therefore, the declining influence of the Pentagon and international finance capital poses a dilemma for Washington, Paris and its NATO allies. In the 21st century, the People’s Republic of China has established partnerships with African Union (AU) member-states which have proved far more resilient than what is being offered by the imperialist centers.
Since the beginning of the Russian Special Military Operation in Ukraine more than two years ago, many AU member-states have exercised their independence in rejecting the overtures from the Biden administration to line up behind the efforts aimed at bringing down the government of President Vladimir Putin. The AU policy on Ukraine is that the war has negatively impacted food security on the continent.
In regard to the situation in Palestine, there is overwhelming support among the African masses for an immediate ceasefire and the recognition of an independent state. The Republic of South Africa, led by the African National Congress (ANC), has taken the Zionist regime to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) even though the legal challenge charging Israeli genocide against the Palestinians has been ridiculed by the Biden administration, saying it has no merit.
All of these factors are shaping the general mood within many African states not limited to the Sahel. With the U.S. pursuing its same unilateral foreign policy, there will surely be a continuing shift away from the forced subservience to Washington and Wall Street.
*
Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
Abayomi Azikiwe is the editor of the Pan-African News Wire. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
All 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).
To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.
Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
The Middle East has, for some time, been a powder keg where degrees of violence are tolerated with ceremonial mania and a calculus of restraint.
Assassinations can take place at a moment’s notice.
Revenge killings follow with dashing speed.
Suicide bombings of immolating power are carried out.
Drone strikes of devastating, collective punishment are ordered, all padded by the retarded notion that such killings are morally justified and confined.
In all this viciousness, the conventional armed forces have been held in check, the arsenals contained, the generals busied by plans of contingency rather than reality. The rhetoric may be vengeful and spicily hysterical, but the states in the region keep their armies in reserve, and Armageddon at bay. Till, naturally, they don’t.
To date, Israel is doing much to test the threshold of what might be called the rule of tolerable violence.
With Iran, for instance, it has adopted a “campaign between the wars”, primarily in Syria. For over a decade, the Israeli strategy was to prevent the flow of Iranian weapons to Hezbollah, intercepting weapons shipments and targeting storage facilities. “Importantly,” writes Haid Haid, a consulting fellow for Chatham House’s Middle East and North Africa Programme, “Israel appeared to avoid, whenever feasible, killing Hezbollah or Iranian operatives during these operations.”
But the state of play has changed. The Gaza War, which has become more the Gaza Massacre Project, has moved into its seventh month, packing morgues, destroying families and stimulating the terror of famine. Despite calls from the Israeli military and various officials that Hamas’s capabilities have been irreparably weakened (this claim, like all those battling an idea rather than just a corporeal foe, remains refutable and redundant) the killings and policy of starvation continues against the general Palestinian populace. The International Court of Justice interim orders continue to be ignored, even as the judges deliberate over the issue as to whether genocide is taking place in the Gaza Strip. The restraints, in other words, have been taken off.
The signs are ominous. Spilt blood is becoming hard currency. Daily skirmishes between the IDF and Hezbollah are taking place on the Israeli-Lebanon border. The Houthis are feverishly engaged with blocking and attacking international shipping in the Red Sea, hooting solidarity for the Palestinian cause.
On April 1, a blood crazed strike by Israel suggested that rules of tolerable violence had, if not been pushed, then altogether suspended. The attack on Iran’s consular offices in Damascus by the Israeli Air Force was tantamount to striking Iranian soil. In the process, it killed Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Zahedi and other commanders of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), including Zahedi’s deputy, General Haji Rahimi. Retaliation was accordingly promised, with Iran’s ambassador to Syria, Hossein Akbari, vowing a response “at the same magnitude and harshness”.
It came on April 13, involving 185 drones, 110 ballistic missiles and 36 cruise missiles, all directed at Israel proper. Superficially, this looks anarchically quixotic, streakily disproportionate. But Tehran went for a spectacular theatrical show to terrify and magnify rather than opt for any broader infliction of damage. Israel’s Iron Dome system, along with allied powers, could be counted upon to aid the shooting down of almost all the offensive devices. A statement had been made and the Iranians have so far drawn a line under any further military action. What was deemed by certain pundits a tactical failure can just as easily be read as a strategic if provocative success. The question then is: what follows?
The Israeli approach varies depending on who is being asked. The IDF Chief of Staff, General Herzi Halevi, stated that
“Israel is considering next steps” declaring that “the launch of so many missiles and drones to Israeli territory will be answered with retaliation.”
National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir was taloned in his hawkishness, demanding that Israel launch a “crushing” counterattack, “go crazy” and abandon “restraint and proportionality”, “concepts that passed away on October 7.” The “response must not be a scarecrow, in the style of the dune bombings we saw in previous years in Gaza.”
Cabinet minister Benny Gantz, who is a voting member of the war cabinet alongside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, is tilting for a “regional coalition” to “exact the price from Iran, in the way and at the time that suits us. And most importantly, in the face of the desire of our enemies to harm us, we will unite and become stronger.” The immediate issues for resolution from Gantz’s perspective was the return of Israeli hostages “and the removal of the threat against the residents of the north and south.”
Such thinking will also be prompted by the response from the Biden administration that Netanyahu “think very carefully and strategically” about the next measures. “You got a win,” President Joe Biden is reported to have told Netanyahu. “Take the win.” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has also expressed the view that, “Strength and wisdom must be the two sides of the same coin.”
For decades, Israel has struck targets in sovereign countries with impunity, using expansive doctrines of pre-emption and self-defence. In doing so, the state always hoped that the understanding of tolerable violence would prevail. Any retaliation, if any, would be modest, with “deterrence” assured. With the war in Gaza and the fanning out of conflict, the equation has changed. To some degree, Ben Gvir is right that concepts of restraint and proportionality have been banished to the mortuary. But such banishment, to a preponderant degree, was initiated by Israel. The Israel-Gaza War is now, effectively, a global conflict, waged in regional miniature.
*
Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He currently lectures at RMIT University. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). Email: [email protected]
All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.
To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.
Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
***
First published on July 26, 2023
The ground-breaking movie Oppenheimer, despite its unsympathetic protagonist, packs a powerful anti-nuclear punch that makes it hard, if not impossible, to sleep after watching the film.
For this reason alone, the movie should be shown on the floor of Congress and in the White House as required viewing by all in DC bent on spending $1.7 trillion over the next decades to build new nuclear weapons to kill us all.
Only those with a global death wish or on the payroll of Northrop Grumman, the military contractor with the nuclear “modernization” contract, could watch this film and still root for US nuclear rearmament, a horror show now underway with the blessings of DC politicians. Unless people rise up in fury, unless this Hollywood movie sparks a second nuclear-freeze movement, a repeat on steroids of the 80’s nuclear weapons freeze, Congress and the White House will raid the treasury to expand our nuclear arsenal.
On the agenda is a new sea-launched nuclear cruise missile, a gravity bomb with two-stage radiation implosion, a long range strike bomber and the replacement of 400 underground nuclear missiles in the midwest with 600 new Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles. These new ICBMS–The Sentinel–could each carry up to three warheads 20 times more powerful than the atomic bombs the US dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to incinerate 200,000 people in a span of three days.
Irish actor Cillian Murphy plays the role of J. Robert Oppenheimer, a hand-wringing scientist, an unfaithful lackluster womanizer, a man with few convictions but lots of demons, who traverses an emotional landscape of ambition, doubt, remorse and surrender.
Oppenheimer oversees the Manhattan Project, the team of scientists hunkering down in the beautiful desert of Los Alamos, New Mexico, to build the hideous atomic bomb before the Germans or Russians crack the code.
In a scene reminiscent of the absurd 1950s, when pig-tailed school children scrambled under desks in mock nuclear drills, scientists don sunscreen and goggles to protect themselves during the blinding Trinity Test.
This was the first atomic test conducted with no warning to the downwinders–the nearby indigenous people of the Southwest who developed cancer as a result of radioactive fall out.
This was the test before President Truman ordered a 9,000 pound uranium bomb named “Little Boy’ loaded onto a B-29 bomber. This was the trial performance before the same President, depicted in the movie as unctuous and arrogant, orders Fat Boy, a second plutonium bomb– prototype for today’s nuclear weapon–dropped on Nagasaki.
Though the movie can be slow, a three hour endurance test, its historical insights and gut-churning imagery compensate for its lack of likable characters, save for Lt. General Leslie Groves, played by a fun-to-watch Matt Damon as Oppenheimer’s Pentagon handler.
One of the most haunting moments juxtaposes in living color celebrations of the bombings, applause and accolades for Oppenheimer standing at the podium with the guilt-consumed scientist’s black and white visions of irradiated souls, skeletal remains, flesh turned to ash–all amid a cacophony of explosions and pounding feet, the death march.
Even more disturbing are the questions that tug at the moviegoer, who wonders,
“Where are the Japanese victims in this film?
Why are they missing from this picture?
Why are they never shown writhing in pain, their lives and cities destroyed?” Instead, the human targets are seen only through the lens of Oppenheimer who imagines faceless x-rayed ghosts torn asunder in the burning wreckage, their skin, their flesh falling off their bones, their bodies disappearing into nothingness.
The omission of the real victims in the interest of maintaining a consistent point of view may make sense from a filmmaker’s perspective, but not from the standpoint of historians and truth tellers. Writer-director Christopher Nolan could have shown us photos, authentic aerial footage of the Japanese, blinded and burned, before the final credits roll to remind us the horror is real, not just a Hollywood movie bound for several Oscar nominations.
In the name of truth the movie does, however, smash the persistent myth that the US had no other choice but to drop the atomic bombs to end WWII.
Through dialogue, we learn Japan was about to surrender, the Emperor simply needed to save face; the point of irradiating Hiroshima and Nagasaki, targeting civilians in far off cities, was not to save the world but to show the Soviets the US possessed the technology to destroy the world, so better not cross the aspiring empire.
In closed door sessions, all filmed in black and white, we watch as crusading anti-communist politicians–determined to stop Oppenheimer from advocating for arms control talks with the Soviets–crucify their atomic hero for his association with members of the Communist Party, leftist trade unions and a long ago anti-capitalist lover who threw his bourgeois flowers in the trash.
When the McCarthyites strip Oppenheimer of his security clearance, it’s a big “who cares” shrug for a movie audience weary of Oppenheimer’s internal conflicts over whether science can be divorced from politics, from the consequences of a scientist’s research. How can anyone with a heart want to continue this line of work? To hell with the security clearance.
The movie Oppenheimer is compelling and powerful in its timeliness, though one can’t help but think it would have been exponentially more powerful had it been told from a different point of view, from the point of view of a scientist who opposed the death-march mission.
We see glimpses of a pond-staring fate-warning Albert Einstein, who in real life lobbied to fund the atomic bomb research only to later oppose the project.
It could have been his story–or the story of one of the 70 scientists who signed a “Truman, don’t drop the bomb” petition that Oppenheimer squelched, persuading Edward Teller, the “father of the hydrogen bomb” not to present Truman with the petition drafted by Leo Szilard, the chief physicist at the Manhattan Project’s Chicago laboratory. The movie’s reference to the petition was so fast, so quiet, so mumbled, the audience could have missed it.
If we are not careful, more mindful, more awake, we might miss our moment, our moment to avert another nuclear holocaust, this one a far worse nightmare in which five billion of the Earth’s 8 billion people perish, either immediately from radiation burns and fire or in the months that follow during a famine in which soot blocks the sun.
The White House and a majority of Congress want to rush us, a sleepwalking populace into WWIII with Russia, a nation of 143 million people, 195 different ethnicities and 6,000 nuclear weapons. For those, like the shameful editors of the Washington Post, who insist we continue to forever fund the proxy war, for those in high places who refuse calls for a ceasefire, this movie reminds us of the existential danger we confront in a sea of denial, complicity and exceptionalism.
Despite campaigning on a platform of no first use of nuclear weapons, President Biden’s Nuclear Posture Review echoes his predecessor Trump’s approval of first use should our allies’ interests be threatened.
CODEPINK activists are distributing flyers outside showings of Oppenheimer to invite stunned movie goers leaving the theater in a daze to take action, to join our organization and amplify our peace-building campaigns, to ground the nuclear-capable F-35, to declare China is Not our Enemy and to partner with the Peace in Ukraine Coalition.
This is the movie, this is the moment, this is the time to challenge the euphemistic nuclear modernization program, to expose the madness of militarism that abandons urgent needs at home to line the pockets of military contractors gorging at the Pentagon trough.
This is the time to demand a ceasefire and peace talks to end the war in Ukraine, to stop preparations for war with China, to finally pass legislation to ban first use, to take our ICBM’s off hair trigger alert, to abide by our disarmament obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and to campaign for the US to become signatories to the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW).
Opposed by NATO–a huckster for nuclear proliferation–the TPNW has been signed by 95 state parties wishing to outlaw the development, deployment and use of nuclear weapons.
Unlike Oppenheimer, we can make the right choice; the choice that saves the human race from immediate extinction.
*
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.
Marcy Winograd of Progressive Democrats of America served as a 2020 DNC Delegate for Bernie Sanders and co-founded the Progressive Caucus of the California Democratic Party. Coordinator of CODEPINKCONGRESS, Marcy spearheads Capitol Hill calling parties to mobilize co-sponsors and votes for peace and foreign policy legislation.
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).
To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.
Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
Israel started it. First came the unprovoked attack on the Iranian consulate in Damascus on April 1, which killed six Iranian military officials, including two generals, and six Syrian civilians who were pedestrians in the upscale Mezze neighborhood.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) confirmed the attack on Israel, saying it launched the drones and missiles under Operation True Promise on April 14 as a retaliatory strike.
This was the first-ever direct attack on Israeli territory by Iran, even though Israel has attacked Iran numerous times.
Iran launched a barrage of explosive drones and fired missiles at Israel, although many of the drones and missiles were shot down before reaching Israeli territory. The launches came from Iran, as well as from Iraq and Yemen.
Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the Israeli military spokesman, reported an Israeli military base in southern Israel was hit causing some damage, and added Israel would do what was needed to protect its citizens when asked if Israel would respond to this attack.
A 7-year-old girl was seriously wounded in southern Israel, apparently from debris after the attack.
According to Israeli media, the first wave of the attack saw 300 bomb-carrying drones fired towards Israel. The Israeli Iron Dome air defense system launched hundreds of intercept missiles against the attack. As the region waited with baited breath, 200 ballistic missiles were launched towards Israel in the second wave of the attack, including 30 cruise missiles. Israeli media said the Iron Dome air defense missiles launched in the intercept of the Iranian attack cost $1.3 billion, which was paid for by the American taxpayers.
Air raid sirens wailed across Israel, and people were instructed to find safe shelter well ahead of the beginning of the attack.
Israel has, with the help of the US, a multilayered air-defense network that includes systems capable of intercepting a variety of threats including long-range missiles, cruise missiles, drones and short-range rockets.
Iran’s mission to the United Nations said it now deemed the matter “concluded”, referring to the retaliatory strike on Israel in response to the deadly strike in Damascus, carried out on a diplomatic mission, which under the Vienna convention is deemed off-limits to attack.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today said that his country has been preparing for a direct attack by Iran for years. Netanyahu is remembered for his cartoon drawing of a bomb which he used as a visual aid in his speech of the UN General Assembly in the past. He has consistently pointed to Iran as enemy number one. He was responsible for pressuring President Trump to tear up the Iran nuclear deal, even though it was effectively curbing Iran’s uranium enrichment progress.
When President Biden took office, he had tried to re-negotiate the Iran nuclear deal, but failed to reach an agreement.
Israel’s staunchest ally, the US, stopped many aircraft outside of Israel, while France, the UK and the Kingdom of Jordan all participated in downing their share of Iranian drones and missiles.
Israel has requested the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to meet in an emergency session in order to condemn the attack on Israel.
The UNSC has received a letter from Iran asserting its attack was within the UN Charter framework governing the right to self-defense.
EU leaders have condemned Iran’s revenge attack on Israel, along with the US, the UK, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Mexico, the Netherlands and Norway.
However, following the attack on the Iranian consulate in Damascus, the US and its European allies refused to agree to a UN resolution to condemn the Israeli attack. At the time, Iran said they would refrain from a retaliatory strike if the international community would agree to condemn the deadly actions of Israel. But, the western democracies refused, and this set the stage to an obligatory response.
President Biden said he would convene a meeting of the Group of Seven advanced democracies on Sunday “to coordinate a united diplomatic response to Iran’s brazen attack.”
In is worth noting, that the ‘Group of Seven advanced democracies’ could view the killing of innocent civilians walking in the street in Damascus on April 1 as acceptable, and not warranting condemnation. It begs the question: what is ‘advanced democracy’?
Regional tensions remain high, amid fears of further escalation in the event of a possible Israeli counter-strike.
Senior international correspondent for CNN, Nick Robertson, analyzed the cause of the attack was Netanyahu’s continuing provocations. He has been mired in a war in Gaza which has seen almost 40,000 deaths, legal charges of genocide leveled at Israel, western aid organizations accusing Israel of using starvation as a weapon of war, and demands of a ceasefire in Gaza coming from European countries which had previously been friends of Israel.
The Israeli public have revolted against Netanyahu and his extremist right-wing allies. The public have demanded his resignation because of his failure to negotiate the release of the Israeli hostages held in Gaza. The public accuse Netanyahu of wanting the win his war in Gaza at any cost, even if it means none of the hostages will survive.
While most embattled leaders in a war would focus on the battle zone, Netanyahu instead sends a missile strike on Damascus in an effort to distract from his domestic political problems, and the fact that after six months of daily bombardment of Gaza, he has not claimed victory.
Biden spoke to Netanyahu after the attack, and reaffirmed the US support for Israel under attack, but Biden made it clear that the US will not militarily support Israel if they chose to reply. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the US does “not seek escalation.”
Analysts described Iran’s attack on Israel as carefully calibrated to prevent further escalation. Before the Iranian response, Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon announced temporarily closing their airspace, and news media were issuing warnings of an imminent attack, even before the first drones were flying. Amir Al-Mousawi, former Iranian diplomat and political analyst, told Al Mayadeen TV in an interview that there had been a deadline for the West and Israel which ended at 9 pm local time April 13, hours prior to the beginning of the attack on Israel.
Both Hamas and Hezbollah are supported by Iran, and form part of the axis of resistance to the occupation of Palestine, Lebanon and Syria by Israel. These various resistance groups, some armed, and some unarmed, are calling for the freedom of the Palestinian people who are denied all human rights. Israel also occupies Shebaa Farms in the south of Lebanon, and the Golan Heights of Syria.
Netanyahu might be proud of the success of its defense in the Iranian attack, because he failed to defend Israel during the Hamas attack on October 7. Even though Hamas is just a resistance group, and far less powerful militarily than Israel, which is considered the strongest and best-equipped army in the Middle East, Israel’s border defenses collapsed and the military took days to repel the Hamas militants. On that day, militants from Hamas and Islamic Jihad killed 1,200 people in Israel and kidnapped 250 others.
The Israeli offensive in Gaza has caused widespread devastation and killed over 33,000 people, mainly women and children.
*
Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version).
To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.
Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
Over the last couple of years, many readers have urged me to focus my investigative reporting on the role of U.S. government agencies such as the Department of Defense instead of harping on the perfidious conduct of pharmaceutical companies such as Pfizer and Moderna.
I am aware of the preeminent role the Department of Defense has played in the criminal pandemic response. Nevertheless, I do not draw a sharp distinction between the DoD and companies like Pfizer and Moderna. I view the officers and directors of these corporations as having a symbiotic relationship with ranking officers of U.S. government agencies.
Fellow Substack authors, Katharine Watt and Sasha Latypova, have correctly emphasized that the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech gene injection shots are NOT pharmaceutical products, and that neither company actually manufactures these substances.
Both investigators emphasize that Pfizer and Moderna are mere front organizations, and—pursuant to the PREP Act of 2005—bear no actual power or liability.
I agree. However, in reviewing the history of the U.S. industrial corporations, I note that many guys moved back and forth between heading corporations and heading government agencies. Robert McNamara began his career in the military working for General Curtis LeMay. Later he worked for the Ford Motor Company and ultimately became its president, and then he became the Secretary of Defense for Kennedy and Johnson.
Senior officers and directors of the industrial services company, Brown & Root, were key supporters of Lyndon Johnson’s political career, and he rewarded the company handsomely after escalating the war in Vietnam, thereby helping the company to win the moniker “Burn & Loot.”
Donald Rumseld and Dick Cheney enjoyed similar careers, moving back and forth between the private and public sectors. Shortly before Cheney became a key figure in America’s Iraq War fiasco, he was the CEO of Halliburton, whose stock price enjoyed a 5X return between March 2003 and June 2008.
During the bird flu scare of 2005, President Bush asked Congress to allocate $7 billion in emergency funding to prepare for the possibility of the bird flu mutating into a human epidemic. He specifically asked for $1 billion to be allocated for the purchase of Tamiflu, jointly developed by Gilead Sciences and Roche. It just so happened that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was a major shareholder who made millions from the trade.
2005 was a windfall year for the Bio-Pharmaceutical Complex, whose lobbyists worked closely with the Bush Administration to pass the PREP Act. This radical piece of legislation has served as a key instrument for giving U.S. government agencies emergency power and for enriching the pharmaceutical industry in the event of a pandemic—real, perceived, exaggerated, or fabricated.
One of the most powerful supporters of Theranos—the fraudulent blood testing company started by Elizabeth Holmes—was former Secretary of State, George Schultz. He still had cronies in the Pentagon who were keen to purchase Holmes’s bogus machines for the military.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, we saw the blossoming of similar cozy relationships. FDA Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb was appointed to Pfizer’s Board of Directors shortly after he left the agency. Likewise, six months after he gave approval to Moderna’s new COVID-19 vaccine, FDA Commissioner Dr. Stephen Hahn was offered a position at the venture capital firm that was one of Moderna’s primary backers. Among major media players, Jim Smith, the CEO of Reuters, was appointed to Pfizer’s Board of Directors in 2014 and is also on the international business council of the World Economic Forum.
Moncef Slaoui was head of vaccine development at GlaxoSmithKline until 2017. At the time President Trump appointed him to lead Operation Warp Speed, he was a board member of both CEPI and Moderna, a primary candidate for Warp Speed funds. Though he resigned from the Moderna board to avoid a conflict of interest, he retained his stock options, which gained $2.4 million in value on the day the company announced favorable preliminary results of its Phase I trials. This raised concerns about his neutrality in judging its vaccine’s safety and efficacy data, so he agreed to divest his shares of Moderna stock.
Like Krupp and I.G. Farben during the Third Reich, U.S. corporations are bound to U.S. government institutions like the DoD, DARPA, NIH, HHS, and BARDA in an arrangement that strongly resembles Fascist Corporatism.
It seems to me that in trying to understand these relationships, it is useful to consider President Eisenhower’s Farewell Address in 1961. His warning to Americans about the rise of the Military-Industrial Complex is now more relevant than ever, and all Americans should be throughly acquainted with this speech.
*
Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
Featured image is from Children’s Health Defense
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
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).
To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.
Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
After Iran’s retaliation against Israel with 330 drones, cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles, there were no fatal casualties or civilian damage in Israel. Iran demonstrated its capabilities, put up deterrence, and offered to “call it a day”. US President Biden and other Israeli allies quickly urged Israel to accept the Iranian offer and not start a new much bigger round of escalation.
Israel, however, knows only genocide and escalation. Netanyahu’s government has this evening Monday 15 April 2025 promised to hit “hard” back at Iran.
In an unsourced report, Channel 12 claims the war cabinet has made the decision to hit back “clearly and forcefully” against Iran for its missile and drone attack on Saturday night.
The response will be designed to send the message that Israel “will not allow an attack of that magnitude against it to pass without a reaction,” the report says. The response will also be designed to make plain that Israel will not allow the Iranians to “establish the equation” they have sought to assert in recent days. This appears to be a reference to Iran’s warning that future Israeli strikes on Iranian territory, including its international diplomatic premises, will henceforth again be met by Iranian retaliatory strikes on Israel. (The Times of Israel, April 15, 2024)
Netanyahu of course knows, that next time, Iran will respond with not “just” 330 drones or missiles, but up to 10 times more, or 3,000 – 3,500 missiles. Israel’s claim that they shot down “more than 99% of the Iranian missiles” is a blatant lie. The big majority of Iran’s drones and cruise missiles were meant to deplete Israeli air defense magazines, make Israel reveal its air defense structure – and make way for Iranian ballistic missiles with up to 1,500 kg. warheads. Iran succeeded eminently. Out of the 330 missiles, shooting down “more than 99%” would mean that only three Iranian missiles got through.
Western media have confirmed, that at least nine Iranian ballistic missiles came through and hit 3-4 of Israel’s most guarded military sites, including two airbases and a security center.
The number of nine Iranian ballistic missiles getting through is to be seen relative to the fact, that only 110 missiles were ballistic out of the total 330 drones and missiles which Iran sent. There is no chance that Israel can intercept the next wave of perhaps 3,500 Iranian missiles, or that Iran next time will be polite enough to warn Israel and the US 72 hours in advance.
But Netanyahu calculates that with the next round of escalation with Iran, Israel will either drag the US into a war with Iran – or Israel will go nuclear.
And Israel’s president Isaac Herzog already yesterday said in an interview with Sky News that Israel would have to make it “clear” to the Iranian régime, that this cannot pass by. Herzog and Netanyahu are on the same page.
Israel will push the US to attack Iran – or Israel will go up to the nuclear level.
Those are the alternatives put up by Netanyahu for US president Biden to contemplate.
*
Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
Karsten Riise is a Master of Science (Econ) from Copenhagen Business School and has a university degree in Spanish Culture and Languages from Copenhagen University. He is the former Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Mercedes-Benz in Denmark and Sweden.
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).
To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.
Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
Today, April 15, a day when American citizens pay taxes, I wanted to talk to you about where the money you pay for taxes actually goes and about the need to create an accountable and transparent system for budgeting and financing of the Federal Government so as to assure that your money goes to efforts that are in your interest, in the national interest.
But, sadly, the threat of world war is so great today that I must address that overwhelming subject first.
The possibility of a world war is so high that we have no choice, for sake of human survival, but to launch a global peace movement that is not merely about opposing war, but also is about organizing people, in every country, people who have the will, the bravery, the vision, and the determination to shut down every aspect of the economy, the culture, the educational system, the media, and of daily life that promotes the current deadly addiction to war.
While we were sleeping the United States economy was so hollowed out by the so-called free trade pushed by the banks, the control of our money so monopolized by the rich, and so many jobs were shipped abroad to enrich the few and impoverish the many, that now war appears to be the only stimulant left that can induce economic vitality.
War is most certainly the best way to give power to bankrupt governments and to give legitimacy to broken ideological systems. In addition, many politicians around the world are secretly thinking to themselves that war is the only thing that can save them from being overthrown and jailed.
The constant attacks of Israel on Iran have drawn the first of what could be numerous attacks by Iran on Israel. Those attacks will be used to justify greater attacks by Israel on Iran, and then attacks on other countries. Those attacks will eventually force the United States into the conflict, and that conflict may merge with the conflict Ukraine, thus bringing in Russia, and perhaps Germany, France, Great Britain, and Turkey.
How much further the conflict would spread beyond that, whether up to nuclear war, or out to China, India, Korea and Japan, we do not know yet.
What we do know is that Israel is inseparable from the financial, technological, military, intelligence, industrial complex that now has near complete control of the media and of policy in the United States, Canada, and Great Britain.
We must not fool ourselves about the gravity of the situation. The fact that Iran’s attack on Israel was smaller than it could have been, or the fact that Israel’s possible response is marketed as a possible “tit-for-tat,” mean nothing.
We must remember the “Phoney War.”
The Phoney War refers to the eight months between the German invasion of Poland on September 1st, 1939 and the German invasion of France on May 10th, 1940. Although there was great uncertainly as to what would happen then, and plenty of wishful thinking about some magic solution, the truth was that once United Kingdom and France declared war on Germany following the invasion of Poland, the ball was set in motion.
You see, banks and corporations make enormous fortunes from the build up for war, and they want to encourage crises that demand massive spending on weapons—which translate into massive profits for their owners.
But banks and corporations do not want total war because total war is profoundly destructive, and because if there is such a war, the chain of command will shift from the banks and corporations to the military—which is not in the interests of the bankers.
The problem is that if the banks and corporations push the situation too far, as they have done now, then the chain of command moves over to the hands of the military and the generals follow orders like clockwork—and that is even more true granted the dangerous push to import AI going on everywhere.
It will require a revolution, at every level, to stave off this war. We must question the authority of the rich and powerful to make policy at every turn, and question every decision from the top to the bottom, asking of every single policy, law, or guideline, whether it is constitutional, legal, or moral.
We must not be afraid to say no to those who cloak themselves in Ivy League authority, or to those who wear uniforms, or to those who drive fancy cars, live in luxurious homes, and appear on TV.
If we must build our own journalism, our own communities, our own provisional governments to oppose this illegal and unconstitutional usurpation of authority, then so be it.
Only the pursuit of truth, combined with focused and immediate action, can put us on a road towards peace and away from a war of annihilation.
*
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 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.
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).
To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.
Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
A three-day Palestine conference in Berlin was forcibly shut down after three hours on Friday. Electricity was abruptly terminated in the midst of the presentation by Salman Abu Sitta, the 87 year old author of the authoritative “Atlas of Palestine”.
Former Greek Finance Minister and leader of DIEM25, Yanis Varoufakis, was prevented from entering Germany to attend the conference. He went on Twitter/X to send a message,
“Do you know that the German Interior Ministry has just banned me from entering Germany? Indeed if that were not enough,I have been bannedfrom talking to you via zoom, or indeed through a video message like this, exactly like this. The threat being that I will be tried in Germany for breaking German law. Why? Because of a speech that I published yesterday on my blog calling for universal human rights in Israel-Palestine …. So my question to my German friends, to Germans in general whether you agree with me or not doesn’t matter. … Is this (banning) in your name? Is it something that you feel comfortable happening in your democracy? From my perspective this is essentially the death knell of the prospects of democracy in the Federal Republic of Germany.”
Yanis Varoufakis BANNED by Germany's Interior Ministry from carrying out any political activity in Germany.
They're so desperate to silence anyone who dares speak out against Germany's complicity in the ongoing genocide in Gaza.
Another banned guest speaker was UK citizen Dr. Ghassan Abu Sittah. He told Middle East Eye,
”I have just returned from Germany where I was prevented from entering the country for attending a conference in Germany to give evidence on the war in Gaza and my witness statement as a doctor working in its hospitals. This morning at 10 I landed in Berlin to attend a conference on Palestine where I had been asked … to give my evidence of the 43 days that I had seen in the hospitals in Gaza, working in both Shifa and al-Ahli Hospital. Upon arrival I was stopped at the passport office. I was then escorted down to the basement of the airport where I was questioned for around 3.5 hours. At the end of 3.5 hours I was told that I will not be allowed to enter German soil and that this ban will last the whole of April. Not just that … if I were to try to link up by Zoom or Facetime with the conference even if I were outside Germany or if I were to send a video of my lecture to the conference in Berlin, then that would constitute a breach of German law and that I would endanger myself to have a fine or even up to a year in prison.”
Dr. Abu Sitta further commented,
“Germany is defending itself against Nicaraguan charges that it is an accomplice to genocidal war as described by the International Court of Justice. This is exactly what accomplices to a crime do. They bury the evidence and they silence or harass or intimidate the witnesses. …. This crackdown on free speech is a dangerous precedent…We are watching the first genocide unfold in the 21st Century and for Germany to become implicated as an accomplice in silencing the witnesses of this genocide does not bode well for the rest of the century.”
A large contingent of police invaded the conference and shut off the electricity. Organizers told the reported 250 conference attendees to not provoke the police to violence. Afterward, organizersheld a press conferencereporting on the behaviour of police before and during the crackdown. Even before the conference, police tried to intimidate supporters of the conference and the owner of the conference venue. They threatened the venue owner might not be able to hold events in future if the conference went ahead.An organizer asked, “Are these the methods of the mafia or democracy?”
Western and Israeli media reported the closure was to prevent “anti semitism” or “hatred of Israel”. On this dubious and hypothetical basis, public education about a real ongoing massacre and mass starvation was made illegal.
Source: PressTV
*
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.
Rick Sterling is an independent journalist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. He can be reached at [email protected]. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
Note to readers: please click the share buttons above
feature image: Hitler, Schacht and Prescott Bush
First published by Global Research in May 2016, this carefully researched article by Yuri Rubtsov sheds light on the role of Wall Street and the US Federal Reserve in financing the Nazi government of Adolph Hitler.
Global Research Introduction
From World War I to the Present: Dollar denominated debt has been the driving force behind all US led wars.
Wall Street creditors are the main actors.
They were firmly behind Nazi Germany. They financed Operation Barbarossa and the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941.
1932 Secret Agreement: Wall Street Finances Hitler’s Nazi Party
“On January 4th, 1932, a meeting was held between British financier Montagu Norman (Governor of the Bank of England), Adolf Hitler andFranz Von Papen (who became Chancellor a few months later in May 1932) At this meeting, an agreement on the financing of the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP or Nazi Party) was reached.
This meeting was also attended by US policy-makers and the Dulles brothers, something which their biographers do not like to mention.
A year later, on January 14th, 1933, another meeting was held between Adolph Hitler, Germany’s Financier Baron Kurt von Schroeder, Chancellor Franz von Papen and Hitler’s Economic Advisor Wilhelm Keppler took place, where Hitler’s program was fully approved.” (Y. Rubtsov, text below)
Upon the accession of Adolph Hitler as Chancellor in March 1933, a massive privatization program was initiated which bears the finger-prints of Wall Street.
Dr. Hjalmar Schacht –re-appointed in March 1933 by Adolph Hitler to the position of President of The Reichsbank— was invited to the White House (May 1933) by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
“After his meeting with the U.S. President and the big bankers on Wall Street, America allocated Germany new loans totalling $1 billion” [equivalent to $23.7 billion in 2023, PPP estimate] (Y. Rubtsov, op cit)
Barely a year later, in April 1934, The Economist “reported that military expenditure was forcing the Minister of Finance to look for new resources” including the privatization of the Deutsche Reichsbahn (German Railways) (quoted in Germa Bel, p. 20). The Nazi government also sold off State owned shipbuilding companies, State infrastructure and public utilities.
“[T]he government of the Nazi Party sold off public ownership in several State-owned firms in the mid-1930s. These firms belonged to a wide range of sectors: steel, mining, banking, local public utilities, shipyards, ship-lines, railways, etc.
In addition, the delivery of some public services that were produced by government prior to the 1930s, especially social and labor-related services, was transferred to the private sector, mainly to organizations within the party.” (Germa Bel, University of Barcelona)
The proceeds of the privatization program were used to repay outstanding debts as well as fund Nazi Germany’s buoyant military industrial complex.
Numerous U.S. conglomerates had invested in Nazi Germany’s arms industry including Ford and General Motors:
Both General Motors and Ford insist that they bear little or no responsibility for the operations of their German subsidiaries, which controlled 70 percent of the German car market at the outbreak of war in 1939 and rapidly retooled themselves to become suppliers of war materiel to the German army.
… In certain instances, American managers of both GM and Ford went along with the conversion of their German plants to military production at a time when U.S. government documents show they were still resisting calls by the Roosevelt administration to step up military production in their plants at home. (Washington Post, November 30, 1998)
“A Famous American Family” Sleeping with the Enemy. The Role of Prescott Bush
Of significance: “A famous American family” made its fortune from the Nazis, according to John Loftus’ documented historical analysis.
Prescott Bush (grandfather of George W. Bush) was a partner in Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. , and director of the Union Banking Corporation , closely linked to the interests of German corporations, including Thyssen Stahl, an important company involved in the arms industry of the Third Reich.
The Bush family links to Nazi Germany’s war economy were first brought to light at the Nuremberg trials in the testimony of Nazi Germany’s steel magnate Fritz Thyssen.
Image: Senator Prescott Bush with his son George H. Walker Bush. (1950s)
Thyssen was a partner of George W. Bush’s grandfather Prescott Bush:
“From 1945 until 1949 in Nuremberg, one of the lengthiest and, it now appears, most futile interrogations of a Nazi war crimes suspect began in the American Zone of Occupied Germany.
Multibillionaire steel magnate Fritz Thyssen –-the man whose steel combine was the cold heart of the Nazi war machine– talked and talked and talked to a joint US-UK interrogation team.
… What the Allied investigators never understood was that they were not asking Thyssen the right question. Thyssen did not need any foreign bank accounts because his family secretly owned an entire chain of banks.
He did not have to transfer his Nazi assets at the end of World War II, all he had to do was transfer the ownership documents – stocks, bonds, deeds and trusts–from his bank in Berlin through his bank in Holland to his American friends in New York City: Prescott Bush and Herbert Walker [father in law of Prescott Bush]. Thyssen’s partners in crime were the father and [grandfather] of a future President of the United States [George Herbert Walker Bush]. (John Loftus, How the Bush family made its fortune from the Nazis: The Dutch Connection)
The American public was not aware of the links of the Bush family to Nazi Germany because the historical record had been carefully withheld by the mainstream media. In September 2004, however, The Guardian revealed that:
George Bush’s grandfather, the late US Senator Prescott Bush, was a director and shareholder of companies that profited from their involvement with the financial backers of Nazi Germany. …
His business dealings, which continued until his company’s assets were seized in 1942 under the Trading with the Enemy Act, has led more than 60 years later to a civil action for damages being brought in Germany against the Bush family by two former slave labourers at Auschwitz and to a hum of pre-election controversy.”
( Ben Aris and Duncan Campbell, How the Bush’s Grandfather Helped Hitlers Rise to Power, Guardian, September 25, 2004)
Screenshot, The Guardian
Prescott Bush entered politics in 1950. In 1952 he was elected Senator for Connecticut, a position which he held until January 1963.
Evidence of the Bush family’s links to Nazism was available well before George Herbert Walker Bush (Senior) and George W. Bush entered politics, not to mention Bush Senior’s stint at the CIA.
The U.S. media remained totally mum. According to John Buchanan (New Hampshire Gazette, 10 October 2003):
After 60 years of inattention and even denial by the U.S. media, newly-uncovered government documents in The National Archives and Library of Congress reveal that Prescott Bush, the grandfather of President George W. Bush, served as a business partner of and U.S. banking operative for the financial architect of the Nazi war machine from 1926 until 1942, when Congress took aggressive action against Bush and his “enem\\y national” partners.
The documents also show that Bush and his colleagues, according to reports from the U.S. Department of the Treasury, tried to conceal their financial alliance with German industrialist Fritz Thyssen, a steel and coal baron who, beginning in the mid-1920s, personally funded Adolf Hitler’s rise to power by the subversion of democratic principle and German law. Furthermore, the declassified records demonstrate that Bush and his associates, who included E. Roland Harriman, younger brother of American icon W. Averell Harriman, and George Herbert Walker, President Bush’s maternal great-grandfather, continued their dealings with the German industrial tycoon for nearly a year after the U.S. entered the war.
While Prescott Bush’s company’s assets, namely Union Banking Corporation were seized in 1942 under the Trading with the Enemy Act (See below), George W. Bush’s grandfather was never prosecuted for his business dealings with Nazi Germany.
“In 1952, Prescott Bush was elected to the U.S. Senate, with no press accounts about his well-concealed Nazi past.
There is no record of any U.S. press coverage of the Bush-Nazi connection during any political campaigns conducted by George Herbert Walker Bush, Jeb Bush, or George W. Bush, with the exception of a brief mention in an unrelated story in the Sarasota Herald Tribune in November 2000 and a brief but inaccurate account in The Boston Globe in 2001.” (John Buchanan, op. cit)
Up until Pearl Harbor (December 1941), Wall Street was trading with Germany.
In the wake of Pearl Harbor (1941-1945), Standard Oil “was trading with the enemy” selling oil to Nazi Germany through the intermediation of so-called “neutral countries” including Venezuela and Argentina.
Without the U.S. supply of oil to Nazi Germany instrumented by Standard Oil of New Jersey, the Third Reich would not have been able to invade the Soviet Union.
Michel Chossudovsky, November 21, 2023
***
History: Hitler was Financed
by the Federal Reserve and the Bank of England
By Yuri Rubtsov
May 2016
World War II: More than 80 years ago was the start of the greatest slaughter in history.
If we are to approach the problem of “responsibility for the war”, then we first need to answer the following key questions:
Who helped the Nazis come to power?
Who sent them on their way to world catastrophe?
The entire pre-war history of Germany shows that the provision of the “necessary” policies were managed by the financial turmoil, in which the world was plunged into in the wake of World War I.
The key structures that defined the post-war development strategy of the West were the central financial institutions of Great Britain and the United States — the Bank of England and the Federal Reserve System (FRS) — and the associated financial and industrial organizations set out as a means to establish absolute control over the financial system of Germany and its ability to control political processes in Central Europe.
To implement this strategy, the following stages were envisaged:
From 1919 to 1924 — to prepare the ground for massive American financial investment in the German economy;
From 1924 to 1929 — the establishment of control over the financial system of Germany and financial support for Nazism (“national socialism”);
From 1929 to 1933 — provoking and unleashing a deep financial and economic crisis and ensuring the Nazis come to power;
From 1933 to 1939 — financial cooperation with the Nazi government and support for its expansionist foreign policy, aimed at preparing and unleashing a new World War.
WWI “War Reparations”
In the first stage, the main levers to ensure the penetration of American capital into Europe began with WWI war debts and the closely related problem of German reparations.
After the US’ formal entry into the first World War, they gave the allies (primarily England and France) loans to the amount of $8.8 billion. The total sum of war debts, including loans granted to the United States in 1919-1921, was more than $11 billion.
To solve this problem, creditor nations tried to impose extremely difficult conditions for the payment of war reparations at the expense of Germany. This was caused by the flight of German capital abroad, and the refusal to pay taxes which led to a state budget deficit that could be covered only through mass production of unsecured German Marks.
The result was the collapse of the German currency — the “great inflation” of 1923, when the dollar was worth 4.2 trillion Marks. German Industrialists began to openly sabotage all activities in the payment of reparation obligations, which eventually caused the famous “Ruhr crisis” — Franco-Belgian occupation of the Ruhr in January 1923.
The Anglo-American ruling elites, in order to take the initiative in their own hands, waited for France to get caught up in a venturing adventure and to prove its inability to solve the problem. US Secretary of State Hughes pointed out:
“It is necessary to wait for Europe to mature in order to accept the American proposal.”
The new project was developed in the depths of “JP Morgan & Co.” under the instruction of the head of the Bank of England, Montagu Norman. At the core of his ideas was representative of the “Dresdner Bank” Hjalmar Schacht, who formulated it in March 1922 at the suggestion of John Foster Dulles (future Secretary of state in the Cabinet of President Eisenhower) and legal adviser to President W. Wilson at the Paris peace conference.
Dulles gave this note to the chief Trustee “JP Morgan & Co.”,which then recommended H. Schacht in consultation with Montagu Norman, Governor of the Bank of England.
In December, 1923, H. Schacht became Manager of the Reichsbank and was instrumental in bringing together the Anglo-American and German financial elites.
In the summer of 1924, the project known as the “Dawes plan” (named after the Chairman of the Committee of experts who created it – American banker and Director of one of the banks of the Morgan group), was adopted at the London conference. He called for halving the reparations and solved the question about the sources of their coverage. However, the main task was to ensure favorable conditions for US investment, which was only possible with the stabilization of the German Mark.
To this end, the plan gave Germany a large loan of $200 million, half of which was accounted for by JP Morgan.
While the Anglo-American banks gained control not only over the transfer of German payments, but also for the budget, the system of monetary circulation and to a large extent the credit system of the country.
The Weimar Republic
By August 1924, the old German Mark was replaced by a new, stabilized financial situation in Germany, and, as researcher G.D Preparta wrote, the Weimar Republic was prepared for:
“the most picturesque economic aid in history, followed by the most bitter harvest in world history” — “an unstoppable flood of American blood poured into the financial veins of Germany.”
The consequences of this were not slow to appear.
This was primarily due to the fact that the annual reparations were to cover the amount of debt paid by the allies, formed by the so-called “absurd Weimar circle”.
The gold that Germany paid in the form of war reparations, was sold, pawned, and disappeared in the US, where it was returned to Germany in the form of an “aid” plan, who gave it to England and France, and they in turn were to pay the war debt of the United States. It was then overlayed with interest, and again sent to Germany. In the end, all in Germany lived in debt [were indebted] , and it was clear that should Wall Street withdraw their loans, the country would suffer complete bankruptcy.
Secondly, although formal credit was issued to secure payment, it was actually the restoration of the military-industrial potential of the country.
The fact is that the Germans were paid in shares of companies for the loans so that American capital began to actively integrate into the German economy.
The total amount of foreign investments in German industry during 1924-1929 amounted to almost 63 billion gold Marks (30 billion was accounted for by loans), and the payment of reparations — 10 billion Marks. 70% of revenues were provided by bankers from the United States, and most of the banks were from JP Morgan. As a result, in 1929, German industry was in second place in the world, but it was largely in the hands of America’s leading financial-industrial groups.
US Investments in Nazi Germany. Rockefeller Financed Adolf Hitler’s Election Campaign
“Interessen-Gemeinschaft Farbenindustrie”, the main supplier of the German war machine, financed 45% of the election campaign of Hitler in 1930, and was under the control of Rockefeller’s “Standard oil”.
Morgan, through “General Electric”, controlled the German radio and electrical industry via AEG and Siemens (up to 1933, 30% of the shares of AEG owned “General Electric”) through the Telecom company ITT — 40% of the telephone network in Germany.
In addition, they owned a 30% stake in the aircraft manufacturing company “Focke-Wulf”.
“General Motors”, belonging to the DuPont family, established control over “Opel”.
Henry Ford controlled 100% of the shares of “Volkswagen”.
In 1926, with the participation of the Rockefeller Bank “Dillon, Reed & Co.” the second largest industrial monopoly in Germany after “I.G Farben” emerged — metallurgical concern “Vereinigte Stahlwerke” (Steel Trust) Thyssen, Flick, Wolff, Feglera etc.
American cooperation with the German military-industrial complex was so intense and pervasive that by 1933 the key sectors of German industry and large banks such as Deutsche Bank, Dresdner Bank, Danat-Bank (Darmstädter und Nationalbank), etc. were under the control of American financial capital.
The political force that was intended to play a crucial role in Anglo-American plans was being simultaneously prepared. We are talking about the funding of the Nazi party and Adolf Hitler personally.
As former German Chancellor Brüning wrote in his memoirs, since 1923, Hitler received large sums from abroad. Where they went is unknown, but they were received through Swiss and Swedish banks.
It is also known that, in 1922 in Munich, a meeting took place between A. Hitler and the military attaché of the US to Germany – Captain Truman Smith – who compiled a detailed report for his Washington superiors (in the office of military intelligence), in which he spoke highly of Hitler.
It was through Smith’s circle of acquaintances that Hitler was first introduced to German-American businessman Ernst Franz Sedgwick Hanfstaengl, a graduate of Harvard University who played an important role in the formation of A. Hitler as a politician, endorsed by significant financial support, while securing him ties and communication with prominent personalities of the British establishment.
Hitler was prepared in politics, however, whereas Germany under the Weimar Republic reigned, his party remained on the periphery of public life. The situation changed dramatically with the beginning of the 1929 financial crisis.
Since the autumn of 1929 after the collapse of the America’s stock exchange was triggered by the Federal Reserve, the third stage of the strategy of the Anglo-American financial establishment commenced.
The Federal Reserve and JP Morgan decided to stop lending to Germany, inspired by the banking crisis and economic depression in Central Europe. In September 1931, England abandoned the gold standard, deliberately destroying the international system of payments and completely cutting off the flow of “financial oxygen” to the Weimar Republic.
But a financial miracle occurred with the Nazi party: in September 1930, as a result of large donations from Thyssen, “I.G. Farben” and Industrialist Emil Kirdorf (who was a firm supporter of Adolf Hitler), the Nazi party got 6.4 million votes, and took second place in the Reichstag, after which generous investments from abroad were activated.
The main link between the major German industrialists and foreign financiers became H. Schacht.
1932 Secret Agreement: Wall Street Finances Hitler’s Nazi Party
On January 4th, 1932, a meeting was held between British financier Montagu Norman (Governor of the Bank of England), Adolf Hitler andFranz Von Papen (who became Chancellor a few months later in May 1932) At this meeting, an agreement on the financing of the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP or Nazi Party) was reached.
This meeting was also attended by US policy-makers and the Dulles brothers, something which their biographers do not like to mention.
A year later, on January 14th, 1933, another meeting was held between Adolph Hitler, Germany’s Financier Baron Kurt von Schroeder, Chancellor Franz von Papen and Hitler’s Economic Advisor Wilhelm Keppler took place, where Hitler’s program was fully approved.
It was here that they finally resolved the issue of the transfer of power to the Nazis, and on the 30th of January 1933 Hitler became Chancellor. The implementation of the fourth stage of the strategy thus begun.
The attitude of the Anglo-American ruling elites in relation to the new Nazi government was very sympathetic.
When Hitler refused to pay reparations, which, naturally, called into question the payment of war debts, neither Britain nor France showed him the claims of the payments.
Moreover, after his visit to the United States in May 1933, H. Schacht became once more head of Reichsbank, and after his meeting with the U.S. President and the big bankers on Wall Street, America allocated Germany new loans totalling $1 billion.
In June, during a trip to London and a meeting with Montagu Norman, Schacht also sought a British loan of $2 billion, and a reduction and cessation of payments on old loans.
Thus, the Nazis got what they could not achieve with the previous government.
In the summer of 1934, Britain signed the Anglo-German transfer agreement, which became one of the foundations of British policy towards the Third Reich, and at the end of the 1930’s, Germany became the main trading partner of England.
Schroeder Bank became the main agent of Germany in the UK, and in 1936 his office in New York teamed up with the Rockefellers to create the “Schroeder, Rockefeller & Co.” investment Bank, which Times Magazine called the “economic propagandist axis of Berlin-Rome”.
As Hitler himself admitted, he conceived his four-year plan on the basis of foreign financial loans, so it never inspired him with the slightest alarm.
In August 1934, America’s Standard Oil [owned by the Rockefellers] in Germany acquired 730,000 acres of land and built large oil refineries that supplied the Nazis with oil. At the same time, Germany secretly took delivery of the most modern equipment for aircraft factories from the United States, which would begin the production of German planes.
Germany received a large number of military patents from American firms Pratt and Whitney”, “Douglas”, “Curtis Wright”, and American technology was building the “Junkers-87”. In 1941, when the Second world war was raging, American investments in the economy of Germany amounted to $475 million. “Standard oil” invested – 120 million, General Motors- $35 million, ITT — $30 million, and Ford — $17.5 million.
The close financial and economic cooperation of Anglo-American and Nazi business circles was the background against which, in the 1930’s, a policy of appeasement led to World War II.
Today, the world’s financial elites have implemented the Great Depression 2.o [2008], with a followup transition towards a “New World Order“.
Yuri Rubtsov is a doctor of historical sciences, academician of the Russian Academy of military sciences, and member of the International Association of historians of World War II
Translated from Russian by Ollie Richardson for Fort Russ. (references not available in this version of the article)
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).
To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.
Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
Accusing countries of alleged intentions or ongoing programs to acquire weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) has long been the mainstay of America’s foreign policy.
Regardless of whether it was a completely unfounded claim or one based on solid intelligence, the openly imperialist foreign policy of the United States is such that it’s virtually impossible to survive it without resorting to WMDs.
Worse yet for the Pentagon, Pyongyang now also has a robust tactical arsenal, in addition to its strategic one that can reach virtually any target in the continental US. Interestingly, this now includes hypersonic weapons, a field in which Washington DC is now lagging behind Pyongyang, Beijing and Moscow.
Ironically, if the US stops complaining about a country having nuclear weapons (or any other type of WMDs), then that country is safe, as Washington DC will know it can’t act with impunity.
However, when a country most likely doesn’t have WMDs, the US keeps accusing and threatening it before launching an illegal full-scale invasion.
The example of Iraq serves as a painful lesson of that strategy.
The whole world remembers the decades of US/NATO aggression in that unfortunate country, as well as millions of dead, wounded, displaced, etc. However, that’s obviously not enough, as Washington DC has been eyeing other countries in the region, particularly Iraq’s neighbor Iran. And yet, the window of opportunity for a successful conventional conflict with Tehran is effectively gone, as Americans are increasingly uninterested in joining the US military and its endless wars in the Middle East and elsewhere.
Such a possibility is quite concerning, particularly against the backdrop of the latest clashes between Iran and Israel. Iranian strikes over the weekend, a response to the previous Israeli airstrike on its consulate building in Damascus that killed several high-ranking officers, showed that Tehran has the capability to strike targets anywhere in the Middle East. And while Israel and its allies insist that the strike was unsuccessful as they’ve managed to intercept 99% of the missiles and drones, the available footage shows that such claims are overoptimistic, to say the least. Either way, Iran demonstrated a very robust long-range strike capability. This further undermines Washington DC’s conventional capabilities against Tehran, as the Pentagon is simply unable to field enough forces for any sort of action against it. However, it should be noted that the US has been threatening Iran well before its latest clashes with Israel.
Namely, on February 4, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivanrefused to rule out the possibility of strikes inside Iran. US/NATO attacks on the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its allied militias in Iraq and Syria were already underway at the time. However, once again, the viability of strikes inside Iran is not the best, as there are close to 90 million people in the country, which also has a very robust domestic military industry, as well as a sizeable stockpile of ballistic missiles and drones, as demonstrated during the latest events over the weekend. In addition, as previously mentioned, the US itself is also a far cry from 2003 when it could muster hundreds of thousands of soldiers, as well as those of its vassals and satellite states. In other words, the Pentagon simply doesn’t have the conventional forces to pull off pretty much anything meaningful against Iran or even its proxies in the area.
So, what option does that leave the US with? Well, WMDs, of course. And indeed, Washington DC has an undisclosed number of W76-2 warheads with an extremely low yield of 2-7 kt (kilotons of TNT). This is upwards of only 10% of the destructive power of the “Fat Man” atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki on August 9, 1945. Basic military logic implies that using such weapons against near-peer adversaries is pointless. For instance, a country like Russia that has multi-megaton monstrosities such as the unrivaled RS-28 “Sarmat” and whose retaliation would devastate the entire NATO, would certainly not tolerate it. Thus, the only viable explanation is that the US wants to use such warheads in a conflict with a non-nuclear power. Faced with dwindling conventional capabilities, America is left with only one way to try to blackmail the rest of the world into accepting its vaunted “rules-based world order” – nuclear war.
This is also completely in line with the overall US military strategy – attack only those who can’t shoot back. For the time being, Iran is the only major rival without thermonuclear weapons (officially at least), making it the “perfect target”. However, this still leaves the obvious question – what if Tehran has thermonuclear weapons? Nobody could blame Iran for wanting to protect itself from any hostile forces seeking to enslave or destroy it, but the prospect of an uncontrollable escalation still remains strong, meaning that restraint should be exercised by all sides and backdoor channels should be kept open at all times. The main issue lies in the fact that the US is desperate to prevent the enlargement of BRICS+, a truly historically unprecedented effort to create a better world in which there’s an actual functioning international law and where (neo)colonialism will be suppressed (if not eradicated once and for all).
*
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 InfoBrics.
Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
Investigadores federais ordenaram ao Google entregasse informações pessoais de espectadores de vídeos específicos do YouTube, gerando dúvidas entre especialistas em privacidade sobre a constitucionalidade de tais solicitações.
Os pedidos, obtidos pela Forbes, exigem do Google forneça nomes, endereços, números de telefone e atividades de usuários de titulares de contas – e endereços IP, identificadores numéricos de localização na Internet, de não titulares de contas – que assistiram a determinados vídeos.
Os críticos disseram que as exigências ameaçam transformar espectadores inocentes do YouTube em suspeitos de crimes, violando seus direitos de liberdade de expressão sob a Primeira Emenda e direitos de privacidade sob a Quarta Emenda.
Não está claro se o Google cumpriu os pedidos
Em um caso de Kentucky analisado pela Forbes, a polícia disfarçada tentou identificar a pessoa por trás do apelido online “elonmuskwhm”, suspeita de comprar bitcoin por dinheiro, em potencial violação das leis e regras de lavagem de dinheiro que regem a transmissão de dinheiro não licenciado.
A polícia enviou links para tutoriais do YouTube – que acumularam mais de 30.000 visualizações – sobre mapeamento de drones e realidade aumentada e, em seguida, pediu ao Google informações sobre qualquer pessoa que tivesse acessado os vídeos de 1º a 8 de janeiro de 2023.
O tribunal concedeu a ordem, mas os registros judiciais não revelam se o Google cumpriu.
Num caso separado de New Hampshire, a polícia de Portsmouth recebeu uma ameaça sobre um explosivo colocado numa lata de lixo pública, informou a Forbes. Depois de vasculhar a área, a polícia descobriu que eles estavam sendo assistidos por meio de uma transmissão ao vivo do YouTube associada a uma empresa local.
Investigadores federais acreditam que eventos semelhantes ao de Portsmouth ocorreram em todo o país e solicitaram que o Google fornecesse uma lista de contas que “visualizaram e/ou interagiram com” oito transmissões ao vivo do YouTube, incluindo uma postada por Boston e Maine Live com 130.000 assinantes.
Ainda não está claro se o Google forneceu os dados neste caso.
O porta-voz do Google, Matt Bryant, disse que a empresa tem “um processo rigoroso projetado para proteger a privacidade e os direitos constitucionais de nossos usuários, ao mesmo tempo que apoia o importante trabalho de aplicação da lei”, de acordo com a Forbes.
Bryant disse que o Google examina cada demanda quanto à validade legal, rejeita solicitações excessivamente amplas ou inadequadas e às vezes se opõe totalmente às demandas.
O Google anunciou recentemente uma atualização que tornará tecnicamente impossível para a empresa fornecer informações em resposta a ordens de cerca geográfica – ordens que buscam dados de todos os usuários a uma certa distância de um crime.
Esta medida surge depois de um tribunal da Califórnia ter decidido que um mandado de cerca geográfica que cobria várias áreas densamente povoadas em Los Angeles era inconstitucional, aumentando a esperança de que os tribunais impedissem a polícia de procurar tais dados.
O YouTube não deve identificar usuários ‘sem um mandado válido’
De acordo com o advogado e especialista em privacidade digital Greg Glaser, plataformas de mídia social como o YouTube são frequentemente consideradas parte da esfera pública, e as agências de aplicação da lei normalmente fazem um bom trabalho no tratamento de tais evidências.
No entanto, Glaser enfatizou que as informações pessoais não publicadas de um usuário, como nome e endereço associado à sua conta no YouTube, devem permanecer privadas.
“Sem um mandado válido, o YouTube não deveria revelar às autoridades os detalhes não publicados das contas pessoais de seus usuários”, disse Glaser ao The Defender.
Glaser sugeriu que quando os vídeos retratam atividades criminosas, os mandados serão prontamente emitidos contra os diretamente envolvidos.
Ele também observou que, para crimes específicos, como a exploração pornográfica de crianças, a simples posse ou visualização de tais vídeos é legitimamente considerada um ato criminoso.
“O direito à privacidade não cria o direito de se envolver em atividades criminosas ou de conspirar com criminosos”, disse ele.
Apesar disso, Glaser reconheceu a necessidade de salvaguardar contra vigilância excessiva ou “espionagem de arrasto”.
“Alguns estados implementaram variações de uma ‘Lei de Proteção da Quarta Emenda‘” para resolver esta preocupação, disse Glaser. “Essas leis respeitam o bom trabalho policial e também a necessidade de um mandado, mesmo na era da vigilância eletrônica”, disse ele.
‘Inconstitucional’ e ‘aterrorizante’
Especialistas em privacidade que conversaram com a Forbes expressaram sérias preocupações sobre a constitucionalidade das ordens judiciais, argumentando que elas ameaçam desfazer as proteções constitucionais.
“Ninguém deve temer uma batida da polícia na porta simplesmente por causa do que o algoritmo do YouTube oferece”, disse Fox Cahn à Forbes. “Estou horrorizado que os tribunais estejam permitindo isso.”
John Davisson, consultor sênior do Electronic Privacy Information Center, ecoou as preocupações de Fox Cahn, enfatizando que os hábitos de visualização online podem revelar “informações profundamente sensíveis” sobre indivíduos, tais como suas crenças políticas, paixões e opiniões religiosas.
“É justo esperar que as autoridades não tenham acesso a essas informações sem uma causa provável”, disse Davisson à Forbes. “Esta ordem vira essa suposição de cabeça para baixo.”
Numerosas tecnologias cobriram o artigo da Forbes e opinaram sobre a polêmica.
O Engadget observou que os indivíduos não precisam se envolver em atividades ilegais para que seus dados sejam solicitados pelas autoridades. Essas violações de privacidade muitas vezes não são contestadas, a menos que a vítima se envolva em longas batalhas judiciais – às vezes até a Suprema Corte dos EUA, escreveu a PCWorld.
A Reclaim the Net caracterizou os esforços de vigilância do governo como “extremos”, salientando que desmascarar todos os que assistiram a um determinado vídeo “torna todos suspeitos” sem causa provável.
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).
To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.
Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
Chicken-Hawk: Someone who sends, or intends to send, other people to die for their own ambitions or ulterior motives.
Who are the biggest Chicken-Hawks in today’s world?
How about French President Emmanuel Macron? British Foreign Secretary David “Lord” Cameron? Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu? U.S. President Joe Biden?
That’s enough to start on.
Macron
France has been a second-rate power since the defeat of Napoleon. 19th century France had too many presidents, emperors, and cabinets to count. Germany crushed France in weeks in the Franco-Prussian War, the biggest European war of the period. France and Russia were then roped into World War I by Great Britain, which used them as cannon fodder in its obsession of annihilating Germany until the Americans arrived on the scene to finish the dirty work.
The story was repeated with World War II, with France again smashed until they were bailed out once more, this time by the Soviets on the Eastern Front and the Americans on the Western. Now, France plays second fiddle to Germany in the EU without anyone taking the country seriously on any matter of importance. France today is mainly a tourist attraction. It is even being kicked out of West Africa by its former colonies who are tired of being manipulated.
French President Emmanuel Macron has been supporting the U.S. proxy war against Russia in Ukraine by failing to honor the French commitments at Minsk to guarantee a peaceful settlement, by supplying weapons to Ukraine that have been used to kill Donbass civilians, and by allowing French mercenaries to fight. Now Macron wants to send 20,000 French troops into Ukraine to make a further statement against Russia.
Macron has been trying to get Britain and the U.S. to support him, with British foreign minister David “Lord” Cameron evidently taking the bait. Russia has said any NATO troops setting foot on Ukraine will be destroyed, and they mean it. Alex Christoforou of The Duran says that Macron is trying to start World War III, hoping as with the previous two world wars, that the U.S. will ride to Europe’s rescue. Of course, starting big wars is a time-tested method of dodging domestic problems which France and the West have in spades.
From my perspective, trying to draw in the U.S. against Russia in what would likely become a nuclear holocaust, qualifies Macron as a Chicken-Hawk.
Of course, it’s not all Macron’s fault. He got the training for his current job while working as a Rothschild banker, and we all know that the Rothschilds own France.
“Lord” Cameron
Don’t get me wrong, the Rothschilds own Great Britain too. Reportedly, head financier Nathaniel Rothschild, the 5th Baron Rothchild, recently sent a letter to the British government demanding that Ukraine win its war against Russia and that Russian President Vladimir Putin be gotten rid of.
So former British P.M. David Cameron was made a “Lord,” evidently so he wouldn’t have to answer questions on foreign policy in the House of Commons, then was appointed as Britain’s foreign minister. While P.M. from 2010 to 2016, Cameron had joined with Hillary Clinton in bombing Libya to destruction (a real NATO triumph) and assassinating Libyan President Qaddafi. (Remember Clinton’s gloating words: “We came, we saw, he died.”)
Cameron has now told Macron that, yeah, a new British-French entente would be a great step forward toward world peace. Again, it’s just like World War I and II, where the only way the British Empire was able to stay on its feet, was with the Americans—and Soviets in WWII—riding to the rescue. Of course, Britain lost its colonies in WWII, but was still able to secure Palestine for the Jews and keep financial control of half the world from the money-laundering center of the City of London and its outliers in the Cayman Islands, etc.
Britain has taken the lead in keeping Ukraine from making peace with Russia since early 2022, when then-P.M. Boris Johnson got Ukraine’s Zelensky to back off a signed agreement with Russia for a cease-fire. Britain has also flooded Eastern Europe and West Asia with MI6 operatives (as has the CIA) and hired jihadists to stir the pot by trying to keep Russia under attack and off-balance. Britain has had an abiding hatred toward Russia since the days of the “Great Game,” despite being willing to use Russia as a wartime ally as needed before stabbing them in the back as Churchill did after World War II.
Britain’s own army is virtually non-existent. A retired British commanding general has said their army would not last for two weeks against Russia in the field. Days ago, “Lord” Cameron paid a visit to the U.S. to demand release of the $61 billion in aid to Ukraine promised by President Joe Biden, but he was rebuffed by presidential candidate Donald Trump, while Speaker of the House Mike Johnson refused even to meet with him. Along with other Chicken-Hawks, like U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham, “Lord” Cameron declared the money spent by the U.S. on using Ukraine to weaken Russia to be a “good investment.”
It’s Cameron’s joining with Macron in trying to draw the U.S. into World War III against Russia—with China obviously included—that qualifies him as a Chicken-Hawk.
Netanyahu
Labeling Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a Chicken-Hawk is a walk in the park. Slaughtering over 33,000 defenseless Palestinian civilians, a majority women and children, along with health care and relief workers and journalists, for any reason is a prima facie case, plus suppositions that part of his motive was to escape corruption charges in the Israeli courts. A majority of the world sees what Israel is doing as outright and unabashed genocide, with more evidently to come. Now we have the bombing of the Iranian consulate in Damascus in an apparent attempt to draw Iran into a major conflict that could very well be the provocation needed to provoke World War III on the Middle Eastern node of the Anglo-American-Zionist Empire.
‘Nuff said about Chicken-Hawk Netanyahu.
Biden
To pick up on a previous point, obviously, the Rothschilds have always had a stake in America as well as Britain and France, but we have had plenty of homegrown financial oligarchs. Right now it’s the hedge fund oligarchs running places like J.P. Morgan Chase, BlackRock, Vanguard, Goldman Sachs, the Rockefeller Foundation, and others who rule over the system and dole out cash to politicians who do their bidding, Biden included. And together the oligarchs worldwide seem to have pooled their resources in supporting the WEF and its “Great Reset,” which translated is a massive program of population reduction.
But on to Biden. While a leader of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Biden was the strongest Senate backer of President George W. Bush’s wars against Afghanistan and Iraq. As Obama’s vice-president, Biden was the Obama administration’s point man, along with Victoria Nuland, the foremost U.S. Neocon, for the 2014 coup against the democratically-elected government of Ukraine.
Biden is strongly believed to have used his official position as vice-president and later president to enrich himself and his family, including through his son Hunter’s board membership with Burisma, the Ukrainian energy firm. Biden and his administration can be credibly accused of perpetrating serial instances of “lawfare” against his main political opponent, Donald Trump. Biden is complicit in the fake Covid pandemic and in supporting the WHO and Bill Gates in preparation for the next one, with an upcoming May 2024 vote on the WHO Pandemic Treaty expected to give the WHO dictatorial powers.
Election manipulation seems to have been a specialty of the Democratic National Committee’s backing of Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Biden in 2020, when both Biden and Clinton maneuvered their way around Bernie Sanders to secure the presidential nomination. Now, in 2024, Biden has refused to grant Secret Service protection to independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., even as the DNC launches its own dirty tricks campaign against Kennedy.
Of course, we have yet to see if the 2024 election will even be held. There are reports that with the early retirements of several Republican congresspersons, the House may swing to the Democrats where it could cancel the election results if Trump wins.
While claiming the U.S. is not a party to the conflict in Ukraine, the Biden administration has been provoking all-out war with Russia and threatening war with China, even while Biden runs for president at the age of 81 when he can barely speak a coherent sentence. Continuing to supply Israel with weapons for its assaults in Gaza and the West Bank, Biden is complicit in Netanyahu’s genocidal vendetta.
Further, Biden and his Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas have been destroying the country by fostering massive illegal immigration, with rumors now afloat that their purpose is to recruit a huge mercenary army to be launched against Russia, China, and their allies in World War III. This would be an attempt to deal with the fact that the American and European publics do not support such a war. Biden steadfastly refuses to take responsibility for his actions and for what he has done to this country, even as the plans for future disasters are being laid.
But there is one more thing. Biden started the proxy war against Russia in Ukraine (see my book Our Country, Then and Now) for which his intent was to “fight to the last Ukrainian,” without risking American lives. Millions of Ukrainians have fled from their homes to save their lives in this war. Probably a million young Ukrainians who stayed behind have been killed or seriously wounded with many more to come. Such psychopathy, added to the millions of deaths worldwide in other wars Biden has supported, fully qualifies Biden to be named the biggest Chicken-Hawk of all.
Conclusion
So much can and should be said here, but let me ask just one pertinent question. Are the billions of intelligent, caring people in the world who just want to live and let live for their own sake and the sake of future generations going to let this gang of Chicken-Hawks and the people in their employ destroy human life on earth and/or reduce human society to a totalitarian anthill?
More specifically, will the rest of 2024 see a Disease X “plandemic,” a canceled 2024 presidential election, then all-out world war going nuclear?
It seems possible, if not likely, with Chicken-Hawks like these in charge.
*
A Personal Statement
Finally, let me emphasize that I am not making these rather “strong” statements as a partisan of Russia, China, Iran, or any other foreign nation or combination of foreign nations. I am a proud 32-year veteran of the federal government’s civil service and a loyal citizen of the U.S. My ancestors have served our nation going back to the Revolutionary War.
But I am deeply opposed to the catastrophic trajectory of U.S. foreign policy over the past several decades under the regime of endless war. I am deeply opposed to the malign influence of the military-industrial complex over all aspects of American life. I am deeply opposed to the covert manipulation of government policy by the agencies of the Deep State. I am deeply opposed to the self-serving exercise of hidden power by the financial oligarchy headquartered in Wall Street. I am deeply opposed to the dark influence over U.S. foreign policy by the faction known as the Neocons whose loyalties so obviously lie elsewhere.
I believe U.S. foreign policy can and should perform an about-face, where it becomes a force for peace and good in the world instead of war and hatred. This means reaching accommodation and striving for cooperation and friendship with countries now considered “adversaries” or even “enemies.”
Those of us within the U.S. who honor such ideals need to take action now to assure that the U.S. and the rest of the world has a future.
*
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.
Richard C. Cook is a co-founder and Lead Investigator for the American Geopolitical Institute. Mr. Cook is a retired U.S. federal analyst with extensive experience across various government agencies, including the U.S. Civil Service Commission, FDA, the Carter White House, NASA, and the U.S. Treasury.
He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
Our Country, Then and Now
by Richard C. Cook
ISBN: 9781949762853
E-book ISBN: 978-1-949762-86-0
Year: 2023
Our Country Then and Now takes us on a 400-year journey through America’s history, providing unique snapshots from African enslavement, native dispossession, financial scandals, and wars of expansion and aggression, interspersed with tales from author Richard C. Cook’s ancestry—from Puritan forebears to fighters in the American Revolutionary War and the Civil War, to Midwest Pioneer farmers and their relations with native nations.
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).
To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.
Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
Iran just sent 330 drones and missiles from own territory to Israel. In spite of Israeli statements – the Iranian attack DID penetrate Israel’s defenses, see this.
The Israeli generals don’t look happy.
This Will Explode
Israel will retaliate.
Iran is already prepared to escalate on an even MUCH larger scale.
Iran’s response to any action will be much greater, see this.
There is no way Israel will sit down and say “let’s call it a day”. Israel will have to respond even bigger, and Iran’s next wave of attack will be even bigger yet. How big? Well – credible sources say that Hezbollah has got 150,000 missiles. Imagine Iran having many times that number of missiles prepared. Israel will be overwhelmed and smashed.
Israel Has Limited Magazines
The thing is, that no matter how well Israel’s air defense is, it only has a finite number of missiles to shoot down enemy attacks. It’s called “limited magazine depth“. Iran expects most the drones and missiles in its first waves of attack to be shot own – that’s part of the plan: To empty Israel’s air defense magazines. Once that is achieved, Iran will have free rein to hit anywhere in Israel – just like Russia has it in Ukraine.
And yes – Israel is helping Ukraine, so Russia is no doubt helping Iran right now.
It is important to note how self-confident Iran is in going up against Israel and even the USA. Iran deliberately attacked Israel at the moment when such an attack was MOST expected. This is contrary to the element of surprise.
Iran says: We are strong enough – we even warn you before we hit you.
The operation of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps was carried out while the world media was reporting that it was imminent.
The maximum preparedness of the Zionist regime and the political, diplomatic, intelligence and military support of the United States and other regime-friendly countries had created the suspicion that Iran’s military action would be neutralized by the systems of this regime and its allies. But despite the expectation of the Zionists to counter Iran’s weapons, there are many images of lightning strikes of our country’s drones and missiles on military targets and the failure of the American and British defense systems. The extent of the operations, their accuracy and pinpointing, shocked and surprised the Zionists. See this.
Iran also explains in detail how this first attack was carefully designed not to hit civilian or residential areas of Israel. What happens when this escalates in following waves, we can easily imagine.
Both sides are boasting of course. But with the report in the Middle East Eye (link above) that Iran already struck an Israeli airbase, we already see evidence for Iran’s claims to have hit strategic targets in Israel.
The Nuclear Element
The NUCLEAR element is important too. Everybody knows that Israel has got at least 200-300 nuclear weapons. According to one extremely well informed source, Israeli threatened Syria with nuclear attack during the 1973, and that is why Syria stopped the war back then. But Iran is different. Everybody knows that Iran for a long time has had enough nuclear material to build nuclear weapons. And we can be sure, that Iran the past 6 months has prepared for going nuclear. As both sides have nuclear capabilities, it means, that Israel now in 2024 against Iran does NOT control the upper end of the escalation, nuclear war.
Big War – And the US Is in It
This is already a huge Middle East war and it is about to escalate and expand both vertically and horizontally. No doubt. Russia and China have coordinated the playbook with even Türkiye and Saudi Arabia. With Biden’s stupid comments the past days to “defend Israel” we know two things:
Biden will NOT cut weapons supplies – Netanyahu has carte-blanche to continue genocide.
US has already been attack recently, and will be fighting against Iran, Hezbollah, and many others – VERY soon.
US is losing in Ukraine.
US is at risk around Taiwan.
Already, US troops in Syria, Jordan, and Iraq have been targeted. And with Biden’s support to fight for Israel, we know that US supply of weapons for Israel’s genocide will continue. The US is already fully into this war. Gulf States friendly to the US have already told the US not to use bases in their countries to attack Iran – but the US will disregard the wishes of its host countries. As the war escalates, US troops in Jordan, Syria, Iraq and elsewhere will be “removed” and the US will soon find itself fighting against Iran and others. This is a war the US cannot win.
How dumb is that for the USA?
*
Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
Karsten Riise is a Master of Science (Econ) from Copenhagen Business School and has a university degree in Spanish Culture and Languages from Copenhagen University. He is the former Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Mercedes-Benz in Denmark and Sweden.
He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
Featured image: Israeli generals don’t look happy – image from Middle East Eye, brought under fair use.
The warning was on the wall. Ever since Israel attacked “out of the blue” on 1 April 2024 the Iranian Consulate in Damascus, Syria, killing seven, including two generals, an Iranian retaliation was to be expected.
Lawmakers recently voted against demobilizing veteran soldiers, forcing them to remain on the front lines for many months more. It is expected that there will be a major crisis in the army’s ranks, as soldiers are being prevented from returning to their homes, despite having fulfilled their military duties.
NATO’s war against Russia in Ukraine involves increasing military spending. According to official data, Italy’s military spending has increased from 21 billion euros in 2019 to more than 30 billion euros in 2023, equivalent to an annual daily average of more than 80 million euros, in public money diverted from social spending.
While the wireless industry is built on the premise that the only type of radiation capable of causing harm is ionizing — X-rays being one example — researchers have for a long time warned that even nonionizing and non-heating radiation can jeopardize your health. This includes not only human health, but also that of plants and animals.
The United Nations Security Council failed to condemn the attacks against the Iranian embassy due to the lack of support by the western imperialist states which arm and finance the settler-colonial regime in Israel. Therefore, it was not surprising that the Iranian government was compelled to strike Israel in a major way.
On March 11, 2024, the Jamaican government hosted a CARICOM meeting, reportedly to discuss and find some resolution to the social disruption in Haiti. The meeting was a farce from conception and was nothing more than a ploy, by the United States especially, to give some legitimacy to the unelected government of Haiti, and to use the Jamaican and other Caribbean political stooges to create a semblance of concern for the issues in Haiti.
Nearly one hundred thousand people were killed within a few minutes in Hiroshima and Nagasaki after being hit by nuclear weapons in 1945, but if we count the longer-term deaths, those caused by internal bleeding, leukaemia, various other forms of cancer, then the death toll is likely to be as high as 3,50,000.
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).
To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.
Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
Apparently, the neo-Nazi regime in Kiev wants to keep its troops on the battlefield even longer, not even sparing veterans from the terror of war. Lawmakers recently voted against demobilizing veteran soldiers, forcing them to remain on the front lines for many months more. It is expected that there will be a major crisis in the army’s ranks, as soldiers are being prevented from returning to their homes, despite having fulfilled their military duties.
On April 11, the Ukrainian Parliament voted against the approval of a bill that established the demobilization of troops who served for more than 36 months on the front lines. The project was modified and approved only under the condition that veteran soldiers remain at the front until at least February 2025. Thousands of Ukrainian soldiers were anxiously awaiting the approval of the project in its original terms so that they could finally return to their families, however, given the new terms, many of them will continue fighting until next year.
The dissatisfaction of the military can already be seen on social media. For example, Maxim Nesmaynov, a Ukrainian State Border Guard Service officer, published a post on Facebook describing the lawmakers’ actions as a “disaster”, claiming that Kiev is destroying itself “from inside”.
“This is a disaster (…) How could it be possible to promise demobilization to soldiers (…) only to abandon them at the end? (…) You can’t take away hope from soldiers that they will return home. Someone is trying to destroy the country from inside!”, he wrote on a social media post.
The Ukrainian measure is not surprising, considering the recent package of pro-mobilization policies implemented in the country. The lowering of the minimum recruitment age and the enlistment of women, the elderly and people with health problems are some examples of the Ukrainian desperation. Kiev needs to keep fighting, as its Western sponsors do not allow it to surrender. However, with constant casualties and mass migration, there are few people left to fight on the front lines. So, the “solution” proposed by the regime is simply to send women and elderly people to the front – as well as not allowing men of military age to leave the battlefield.
The main problem is that such measures are obviously unpopular among the military. Unlike nationalist battalions and foreign mercenaries, who fight for ideology or money, ordinary Ukrainian soldiers are fighting in the war only because the state forces them to, having no other reason to combat other than the fear of punishment for disobeying orders. They urgently want to return to their homes and see their families. More than that, given the high lethality rate on the front lines, each day more they fight, their hope of reuniting with their families diminishes, which is why they are in a hurry to leave the battlefield.
There are also other factors that make it extremely necessary to return soldiers to their homes. On the front lines, soldiers go through many moments of high levels of stress, which is why they can develop various health problems if they do not have long periods of rest. Returning home and reuniting with family is a way to alleviate soldiers’ suffering and allow them to continue fulfilling their military duties properly in the future. However, by forcing them to stay at the front, the Ukrainian authorities are simply harming the soldiers’ mental health and subjecting them to prolonged periods of risk during the intense battles, making it almost impossible for the soldiers to see their relatives again.
The unpopularity of the measure tends to generate a serious crisis of legitimacy. On the front lines, soldiers may rebel and begin a wave of evasion or mass surrenders. In the cities, families waiting for their loved ones will certainly start protests against the neo-Nazi dictatorship. Even military commanders tend to take more critical positions against the government, considering that they need to continue to be respected by their subordinates – which will not happen if they refuse to try to protect the interests of the troops.
All these factors will make the political and military collapse of the Kiev regime even faster. Ukraine clearly no longer has the means to continue fighting, with defeat and unconditional surrender being a mere matter of time – despite all NATO’s efforts to ensure that the war continues.
*
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 InfoBrics.
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.
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).
To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.
Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
NATO’s war against Russia in Ukraine involves increasing military spending. According to official data, Italy’s military spending has increased from 21 billion euros in 2019 to more than 30 billion euros in 2023, equivalent to an annual daily average of more than 80 million euros, in public money diverted from social spending. According to the NATO commitment, Italy will have to increase this spending to about 100 million euros per day. Since 2014, NATO-member Europe’s military spending has soared, exceeding the level of the last phase of the Cold War.
NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg emphasizes,
“The Allies are providing Ukraine with unprecedented military and financial aid. France will soon send more Caesar howitzers, and several Allies have joined the Czech Republic’s initiative to procure 800,000 additional artillery shells.”
Italy, which has already also supplied Kiev with heavy artillery pieces, is participating in the purchase of these additional 800,000 shells, with an additional outlay of public money paid by us citizens
A further aggravation comes from the fact that Italy shares in the expenses of U.S.-NATO bases that, from Italian territory, play primary roles in supporting war operations, from Ukraine to the Middle East. Of particular importance is the role of Camp Darby, the largest U.S. arsenal outside U.S. territory. These days, new and more powerful armored vehicles are arriving from the United States at this base, located between Pisa and Livorno, which will be sent from Camp Darby, via the port of Livorno, to Ukraine.
The U.S. bases at Camp Darby, Sigonella and others on Italian soil also support war operations in the Middle East, where the United States continues to arm Israel under an agreement, entered into by President Obama and his deputy Biden, to supply Israel with $38 billion worth of weapons, including the bombs with which Israel is exterminating Palestinians in Gaza.
*
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 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.
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).
To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.
Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
Several studies published between 2022 and 2024 underscore the health risks posed by 5G technology
Research contradicts the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection guidelines, demonstrating various harmful biological effects of radiofrequency radiation (RFR) on humans and the environment, including potential cancer risk
Studies reveal 5G’s potential to induce neurological damage and psychiatric problems, highlighting its effects on brain development, including the increased risk of conditions like dementia through mechanisms such as the impairment of neurosin
A December 2023 study illustrates the detrimental effects of 5G RFR on rat sperm, showing decreased sperm count and quality, with melatonin offering a protective effect
February 2024 research indicates significant changes in the fecal microbiome and metabolome profiles in mice exposed to 5G RFR, hinting at broader implications for health, including mental well-being and immune function
*
Over the past decade, I’ve written many articles discussing the evidence of biological harm from nonionizing electromagnetic field (EMF) radiation and radiofrequency radiation (RFR) from wireless technologies.
The video above features an interview I did with Siim Land in February 2020 for his Body Mind Empowerment podcast in which I discuss EMF — what it is, your greatest sources of exposure, how it affects your biology, and how to minimize your exposure. I also review how the telecommunications industry manipulates the truth to keep you unaware of the potential hazards.
While the wireless industry is built on the premise that the only type of radiation capable of causing harm is ionizing — X-rays being one example — researchers have for a long time warned that even nonionizing and non-heating radiation can jeopardize your health. This includes not only human health, but also that of plants and animals.
Over time, I became so convinced of the deleterious effects of EMF, I took three years to write “EMF*D” which was published in 2020. In it, I reviewed the overwhelming evidence showing EMFs are a hidden health hazard that simply cannot be ignored any longer.
During the pandemic, we also witnessed the rollout and installation of 5G across the country, which has exponentially increased exposures, as it’s added on top of the already existing wireless infrastructure.
The short video below, published by Investigative Europe in January 2019, gives a quick overview of how 5G differs from previous wireless technology. At the time, little if any research had been done on 5G specifically, but between 2022 and 2024, 10 new studies have been published that shed more light on this fifth-generation technology.1
5G Appeals for Moratorium Ignored Despite Evidence
The first of these, published in September 2022 in the journal Reviews on Environmental Health,2provides a good overview of the hazards 5G poses. The authors pointed out that, since September 2017, over 400 scientists and doctors have collectively submitted six appeals to the European Union, calling for a moratorium on 5G technology. All have been ignored.
The September 2021 appeal included an “extensive cover letter” in which experts argued that the EU’s reliance on guidelines by the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP) places public health at risk because the guidelines only consider “heating and no other health relevant biological effects from RFR.”
The letter countered the ICNIRP’s guidance with research from European and international expert groups detailing myriad adverse biological effects of RFR on humans and the environment. According to the authors:3
“Evidence to establish this position is drawn from studies showing changes to neurotransmitters and receptors, damage to cells, proteins, DNA, sperm, the immune system, and human health, including cancer.
The 2021 Appeal goes on to warn that 5G signals are likely to additionally alter the behavior of oxygen and water molecules at the quantum level, unfold proteins, damage skin, and cause harm to insects, birds, frogs, plants and animals.”
Aggregation of Signals Pose Serious Concerns
Under the subhead “Great Plans, Great Promises but False Claims,” the authors go on to highlight the government’s own findings:
“… the potential health and safety risks associated with RFR have been exposed in a recent EU-commissioned review of the currently available scientific evidence, the 2021 European Parliamentary Research Service’s EPRS/STOA Health impact of 5G report.4
The conclusions of the comprehensive review declared sufficient evidence for cancer from RFR in animals, sufficient evidence for adverse effects from RFR on the fertility of men, male rats and mice, and that RFR is probably carcinogenic to humans.
In short, the EPRS/STOA report shows that RFR is harmful for health. The report subsequently calls for measures to incentivize the reduction of RF-EMF exposures (p. 153), such as lowering the limit for allowed exposures and the preferential use of wired connections.
Similarly, the EU’s own (ITRE committee) 2019 in-depth analysis, 5G Deployment: State of Play in Europe, USA and Asia5 warned that, when added to 2G, 3G, 4G, WiFi, WIMAX, DECT, radar etc., 5G will cumulatively lead to dramatically more total radiation: not only from the use of much higher frequencies in 5G but also from the potential for the aggregation of different signals, their dynamic nature, and the complex interference effects that may result, especially in dense urban areas (p 11).
These concerns are based on the complexity of communications signals and the unknowns of their interactions. Electromagnetic signals transmitted by manmade communication devices are not regular waves; rather, they are a complex combination of ultra-high frequency carrier waves, and modulations that encode the messages using extremely-low and ultra-low frequencies.
In addition, the signals are pulsed at ultra-low frequencies (sent in short on-off bursts). This means that although the RFR carrier waves may sit in the high frequency GHz range, their modulations and pulse rates are much closer to brain-wave frequencies; e.g., the 217 Hz pulsing of a GSM phone signal.
Pulsed or modulated RFR signals have been shown to be more bio-active than simple continuous waves of the same intensity and exposure duration. This is of significant concern in relation to public health and is not limited to just the higher 5G frequencies.
Furthermore, as the report noted, the effects of these new complex beam formed signals have unpredictable propagation patterns that could result in unacceptable levels of human exposure to electromagnetic radiation (p. 6) but are yet to be mapped reliably for real situations, outside the laboratory.”
5G May Cause Neurological and Psychiatric Problems
The second study,6 published in November 2022, investigated the effects of 4.9 GHz (one of several 5G frequencies) RFR on the emotional behaviors and spatial memory in adult male mice. The exposure was found to induce “depression-like behavior” caused by “neuronal pyroptosis in the amygdala.”
Pyroptosis is a form of programmed cell death distinct from other forms of apoptosis, characterized by its inflammatory response. It involves the swelling and bursting of the cell, leading to the release of pro-inflammatory cytokines and intracellular contents that can trigger an immune response in the surrounding tissue.
This process is controlled by gasdermin proteins, which form pores in the cell membrane, and is often initiated in response to infections by pathogens or other signals indicating cellular damage.
The amygdala is a region of the brain involved in emotion regulation, memory, and decision-making. So, pyroptosis in this area could be indicative of neurological damage or inflammation, potentially affecting emotional regulation, behavior, and cognitive functions.
This could be relevant in the context of neurodegenerative diseases, brain injuries, or infections that impact the central nervous system, leading to various neurological and psychiatric implications.
Four Studies Confirm 5G’s Impact on Neurology
Another four studies published in 2023 also show a variety of damage occurring in the brain:
5G increases permeability of the blood-brain barrier7— In the first, RFR from 5G cellphones at 3.5 GHz or 4.9 GHz for one hour per day for 35 days straight was found to increase the permeability of the BBB in the cerebral cortex of mice.
RFR impairs neurogenesis and causes neuronal DNA damage8— In the second, continuous RFR from cellphones at 2115 MHz for eight hours was shown to induce higher levels of lipid peroxidation, carbon-centered lipid radicals, and single-strand DNA damage, resulting in impaired neurogenesis in the hippocampal region and neuronal degeneration in the dentate gyrus region.
Translation: Cellphone radiation may cause cognitive impairment and deficits, behavioral changes and dysfunctional mood regulation, neurodegenerative disorders (due to the oxidative stress within neurons) and psychiatric conditions such as anxiety and depression.
Electromagnetic radiation associated with anxiety9— This study found anxiety-like behavior in male mice exposed electromagnetic radiation at 2650 MHz for four hours a day for 28 days.
5G may promote dementia10— Lastly, a follow-up study on previous research concluded that RFRs at 1.8 GHz to 3.5 GHz:
Inhibit neurosin, an enzyme that plays a role in brain health, including the breakdown of proteins that, if not properly managed, could lead to conditions like Alzheimer’s disease. This finding suggests that cellphone radiation could potentially interfere with the brain’s ability to prevent the buildup of harmful proteins.
Inhibit the electrical activity of neurons in vitro — Neurons communicate with each other using electrical signals and this activity is crucial for everything your brain does, from processing sensory information to controlling muscle movements. Inhibiting electrical activity means disrupting normal brain cell communication, which could potentially impact brain functions.
5G Affects Brain Development
An October 2023 study11 by Bodin et al. investigated the effects of exposure to 5G during the perinatal period — around the time of birth — on the neurodevelopment of rats. The main goal of this study was to explore how being exposed to 5G EMF around the time of birth affects the brain development of rats as they grow into juveniles and adolescents.
Both male and female rat pups exposed to 5G EMF showed delayed incisor (front teeth) eruption. This indicates that EMF exposure could potentially slow down certain aspects of physical development. The study also found notable differences in behavior based on the sex of the rats.
In adolescent female rats, there was a significant reduction (70%) in stereotyped movements, such as repetitive patterns of behavior, in the open field test. This suggests that exposure may reduce certain repetitive behaviors in females. In contrast, male rats exhibited a 50% increase in stereotyped movements, indicating that the same exposure led to an increase in repetitive behaviors.
In short, the research suggests that exposure to 5G EMF at levels below the regulatory threshold during a critical period of development (perinatal period) has the potential to cause disturbances in neurodevelopment. These effects are seen in juvenile and adolescent descendants and manifest differently in males and females.
While it’s difficult to predict what the human health implications of this might be, it’s worth noting that repetitive behaviors are often associated with neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). In such cases, these behaviors may signal underlying neurological differences and can impact an individual’s social interactions, learning, and daily functioning.
In some instances, repetitive behaviors can also be symptomatic of anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), stress-related disorders and self-harming behaviors such as skin picking or hair pulling. For some individuals, repetitive behaviors can interfere with attention and focus, affecting academic performance, workplace productivity, and the ability to complete daily tasks efficiently.
It can also affect an individual’s social interactions and relationships, and can lead to social isolation, bullying, or stigma, particularly in children and adolescents, further impacting emotional well-being and self-esteem. Repetitive behaviors, particularly those associated with anxiety or compulsive disorders, can also disrupt sleep patterns, leading to insomnia or poor sleep quality, which in turn affects overall health and well-being.
RFR Decimates Male Fertility — Melatonin Can Help Restore It
A December 2023 study,12 which explored the negative effects of long-term exposure to 2100 MHz RFR on rat sperm characteristics, brought both good and bad news.
On the downside, male rats exposed to RFR at 2100 MHz for 30 minutes a day had a significantly higher percentage of sperm with abnormal shapes. There was also a significant reduction in the total sperm count among the exposed rats.
At a more detailed level, examining the sperm structure under a microscope (the ultrastructural level), damage was observed in critical parts of the sperm, including the:
Acrosome, a cap-like structure that helps the sperm penetrate an egg
Axoneme, the central shaft of the sperm tail
Mitochondrial sheath, which powers the sperm tail’s movement
Outer dense fibers, which are part of the sperm tail
The good news is that melatonin supplementation was able to prevent these problems. Rats given 10 milligrams of melatonin per kilo of bodyweight via subcutaneous administration had increased sperm counts and the proportion of sperms with normal shapes increased. Moreover, the ultrastructural damage to sperm caused by RF exposure was fully reversed. As reported by the authors:
“The percentages of abnormal sperm morphology were significantly increased with RF exposure, while the total sperm count was significantly decreased … The number of total sperms, sperms with normal morphology increased, and ultrastructural appearance returned to normal by melatonin administration.”
Case Study of 8-Year-Old Boy
In January 2024, Hardell et al. presented a case study13 of an eight-year-old boy experiencing severe headaches and other symptoms while attending a school located near a mobile phone tower equipped with 5G base stations.
The boy’s school is situated 200 meters away from a mobile phone tower with 5G base stations, with his classroom being 285 meters away. Soon after starting school, he began experiencing headaches, which were initially sporadic, not occurring every day or every week.
By autumn 2023, the boy’s headaches intensified, occurring daily and rated as a 10 on a 10-grade scale, where 0 signifies no discomfort and 10 indicates unbearable pain. He also experienced fatigue (rated 5) and occasional dizziness (rated 7), specifically while at school. At home, he occasionally had mild headaches (rated 2) that subsided relatively quickly.
In the autumn of 2023, he started wearing an RF-protective cap and outerwear at school, both indoors and outside, after which the headaches vanished.
This paper also cites epidemiological studies and laboratory research linking RF radiation exposure to cancer through mechanisms such as oxidative stress, mRNA effects and DNA damage, and argues for classifying RF radiation as a Group 1 human carcinogen, noting that “This classification should have a major impact on prevention measures.”
5G Alters Your Microbiome
Lastly, a February 2024 study14 by Wang et al. examined the impact of 5G RFR on the fecal microbiome and metabolome profiles in mice. The results indicated that the mice exposed to RFR experienced significant alterations in their intestinal microbial compositions, characterized by a decrease in microbial diversity and shifts in the microbial community distribution.
Through metabolomics profiling, the researchers identified 258 metabolites that were significantly differentially abundant in the mice exposed to RF fields compared to controls, which suggests it can have a profound impact on metabolic processes.
The authors concluded that exposure to 4.9 GHz RFR can cause intestinal microbiota dysbiosis in mice and hypothesized that the observed imbalances in gut microbiota and metabolism might be linked to depression-like behaviors in mice seen in so many studies. The imbalance in the metabolic profile may also be associated with changes in immune regulation or inflammation.
5G Will Harm Every Living Being
In September 2019, the Minister for Communications, Hon. Paul Fletcher MP asked the Committee to complete and inquiry into the “deployment, adoption and application of 5G in Australia.”15 In response, Paul Barratt, on behalf of ElectricSense, submitted a document, available as a download from aph.org, stating, in part:
“5G is dangerous and will harm every living being. Thousands of studies link low-level wireless radio frequency radiation exposures to a long list of adverse biological effects, including:
DNA single and double strand breaks
oxidative damage
disruption of cell metabolism
increased blood brain barrier permeability
melatonin reduction
disruption to brain glucose metabolism
generation of stress proteins
Let’s not also forget that in 2011 the World Health Organization (WHO) classified radio frequency radiation as a possible 2B carcinogen. More recently the $25 million National Toxicology Program concluded that radio frequency radiation of the type currently used by cell phones can cause cancer.
But where does 5G fit into all this? Given that 5G is set to utilize frequencies above and below existing frequency bands 5G sits in the middle of all this. But the tendency (it varies from country to country) is for 5G to utilize the higher frequency bands. Which brings its own particular concerns.”
Barratt goes on to list “11 reasons to be concerned about 5G radiation,” including:
Protect Yourself and Your Family From Excessive EMF
There’s no doubt in my mind that RF-EMF exposure is a significant hazard that needs to be addressed if you’re concerned about your health. The rollout of 5G certainly makes remedial action more difficult, but the added hazards are all the more reason to get involved and do what we can to minimize exposure.
Here are several suggestions that will help reduce your EMF exposure and help mitigate damage from unavoidable exposures. For even more do’s and don’ts, see the infographic by the Environmental Health Trust below.
*
Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version).
To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.
Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
Iran has fired hundreds of drones and missiles into Occupied Palestine in retaliation for the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) bombing of their embassy in Damascus, Syria on April 1.
Seven people were killed in the attack which was never condemned by the staunch allies of Tel Aviv in Washington, London and Brussels.
The United Nations Security Council failed to condemn the attacks against the Iranian embassy due to the lack of support by the western imperialist states which arm and finance the settler-colonial regime in Israel. Therefore, it was not surprising that the Iranian government was compelled to strike Israel in a major way.
President Joe Biden of the United States has recently declared that Washington’s support for the Zionist state in Tel Aviv was “ironclad.” Just days before, the White House wanted to make it appear as if the administration had fundamental differences with the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the way it was carrying out the genocidal onslaught against the people of Gaza. In actuality, there are no disagreements over the maintenance and security of the Israeli regime because it serves as an imperialist outpost in the West Asia and North Africa geo-political regions.
Since the beginning of the Al-Aqsa Flood on October 7, the U.S. has refused to call for a permanent ceasefire in the war. The mass outpouring of opposition to the U.S. arming and diplomatic support to Tel Aviv has further fractured the Democratic Party and its electoral base. The “Abandon Biden” campaign which began in the state of Michigan, has mobilized significant “uncommitted” votes within the Democratic primaries in other key swing states such as Wisconsin and Minnesota.
This retaliation by Tehran will intensify the level of military tensions throughout the Occupied Territories and the broader regions. Although Israel and the U.S. had anticipated some response from the Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), they did not expect that in a matter of hours 400-500 drones and missiles would be launched at Israeli military targets. Despite the much championed “Iron Dome” surrounding the State of Israel, Iranian and other regional sources indicated that more than half of the missiles and drones deployed reached their intended targets. See this.
In a statement issued by the IRGC on the character of the strikes against the Israeli regime, it emphasizes:
“In response to the Zionist regime’s numerous crimes, including the attack on the consular section of Iran’s Embassy in Damascus and the martyrdom of a number of our country’s commanders and military advisors in Syria, the IRGC’s Aerospace Division launched tens of missiles and drones against certain targets inside the occupied territories.”
Biden in his official response to the Iranian retaliatory attacks, urged the Israeli regime not to respond militarily to the strikes. The logical outcome of a continuing military engagement with Iran would be the enhancement of Pentagon forces in the region and the eventual need for a ground operation.
Over the last 34 years, the U.S. has been involved in several air and ground operations in the West Asia and North Africa regions. In Iraq and Kuwait during 1990-91, the U.S. deployed hundreds of thousands of troops to ostensibly eject the Iraqi military from Kuwait. Later draconian United Nations sanctions resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.
There was the imposition of a “no-fly zone” over Iraq where repeated U.S. bombings of the country were carried out. By March 2003, the U.S. under then President George Bush, Jr. engineered a major build-up in military forces as a precursor to another invasion and occupation. Hundreds of thousands more U.S. troops established bases in Iraq where they faced fierce resistance which continues up until today.
Other bombing operations, occupations and destabilization efforts have occurred in Syria, Libya and Yemen. Due to U.S. and NATO interference, large-scale dislocations have taken place involving up to 75 million people over the last two decades.
“‘Operation True Promise’ was in response to the assassination of seven Iranian military advisors in Damascus on April 1, including a senior IRGC commander in Lebanon and Syria, General Mohammad Reza Zahedi, and his deputy General Hadi Haj Rahemi, the IRGC said in its first statement. In the second statement, the IRGC retaliation came after 10 days of ‘silence and neglect’ on the part of the international organizations, especially the United Nations Security Council, to condemn Israeli aggression or punish the regime in line with Article 7 of the UN Charter. Iran then resorted to retaliatory strikes, ‘using its strategic intelligence capabilities, missiles, and drones’ to attack ‘targets of the Zionist terrorist army in the occupied territories, successfully hitting and destroying them.’”
U.S. Hypocritical Stance on Palestine Has Damaged the Administration
During the last several months since early October, the Biden administration’s miscalculation that it could avoid the political consequences of facilitating genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza has cost it politically. Most polls reflect the close race for president between Biden and former President Donald J. Trump. Biden is trailing Trump in several polls taken over the last six months and if the administration cannot reverse course on Palestine and other important foreign and domestic problems, it will inevitably fail in November to get reelected.
Even if Biden loses in the upcoming presidential elections, this will not automatically shift the U.S. foreign policy toward the Palestinian question. Trump, who was defeated in November 2020, is also a proponent of Zionism and the suppression of the people within the regions of West Asia and North Africa. It was Trump who illegally moved the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. However, Biden did not nullify this move while continuing the arms supplies to the State of Israel.
Since coming into office in January 2021, Biden has been responsible for initiating two wars. In Ukraine, the Russian Special Military Operation was a direct outcome of the U.S. policy of expanding NATO and weakening Moscow. The ongoing military, economic and political support for Tel Aviv has encouraged the six months genocide in Gaza and other areas of the Occupied Territories.
In both of these wars, the Biden administration has failed to call for a ceasefire and a negotiated settlement to the fighting. The U.S. sabotage of peace talks between Russia and Ukraine in 2022 has resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of soldiers and civilians.
Quite similarly in Palestine, all efforts to reach a ceasefire and begin talks over a permanent solution to the problems of national oppression, displacement and genocide have been blocked by the U.S. administration. Consequently, the Biden administration and its calls for ending the war, at least temporarily, is not being matched by its actions which involve provoking resistance groups in Palestine and other contiguous and neighboring states.
In Lebanon, the role of the settler-colonial regime in Israel has reignited military clashes between the IDF and Hezbollah. Although Biden has threatened the affiliates of the Axis of Resistance ordering them not to attack Israel and its allies, the objective conditions in the entire West Asia region cannot restrain the people from defending themselves against Zionist and imperialist aggression.
“The Islamic Resistance in Lebanon announced early Sunday (April 14) the targeting of several Israeli military sites in northern occupied Palestine using dozens of Katyusha rockets. In a statement, Hezbollah announced strikes on the Israeli Nafah, Yarden, and Kila outposts in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights. It reiterated that the operations were in support of the steadfast Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip and their brave and honorable Resistance and in response to the Israeli aggression on the southern Lebanese villages and towns, including al-Khiyam and Kafr Kila, which resulted in the killing and injuring of several civilians.”
Antiwar and anti-imperialist organizations along with Palestine solidarity activists must view the Israeli attacks on Iran as a direct threat to the struggle for peace and national liberation. A regional approach to ending settler-colonialism in West Asia and North Africa is the only real path to victory over racism and genocide.
*
Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
Abayomi Azikiwe is the editor of the Pan-African News Wire. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
All 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).
To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.
Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
The warning was on the wall. Ever since Israel attacked “out of the blue” on 1 April 2024 the Iranian Consulate in Damascus, Syria, killing 7, including two generals, an Iranian retaliation was to be expected.
“Iran mounted an immense aerial attack on Israel on Saturday night, launching more than 200 drones [other sources talk about 300 drones] and missiles in retaliation for a deadly Israeli airstrike in Syria two weeks ago, and marking a significant escalation in hostilities between the two regional foes.”
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) say there were over 300 areal threats, including some 200 drones, 100 ballistic missiles, and 30 cruise missiles. See this.
Israel and her Western friends claim that many of the drones were intercepted by IDF and the help from allied military support. The latter apparently include the UK, France, and Jordan – and most likely also US-NATO forces that have long been stationed in the region.
Nevertheless, according to several RT reports, a large-scale missile and drone attack against Israel has been a success, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has said in a statement published by IRNA news agency. The Islamic Republic’s military managed to “hit and destroy” some “important military targets,” it added, without providing any further details.
Short video clips published by Iranian media on social networks, viewing Islamic Republic’s missiles hitting their targets in Israel. Several missiles appeared to have been striking targets in a settlement, RT reports, however without being able to confirm the veracity of the clips.
The Guardian informs, that it was the Islamic Republic’s first-ever direct attack on the Jewish State, a development that brings the two countries to the brink of all-out conflict after more than a decade of shadow war and soaring stress six months into Israel’s war in Gaza, following the Hamas attack last October.
It was reported on Israeli television that Iran had launched more than 100 drones as well as cruise missiles towards Israel, and Iran later said it had fired a “first wave” of ballistic missiles. See this.
This latest war theatre is in full development. At this point it is unclear what exactly happened and to what level the conflict may escalate. A regional war that could expand to a WW-scenario is a real danger. It depends largely to what extent foreign – non regional – players will get involved. Arab states have already warned against any “foreign”, meaning non-regional, intervention. Specifically, that means the US / NATO. The latter would include of course almost all of the spineless European nations.
*
Iran has many reasons for retaliation. Other than the Syrian Consulate event, the killing of General Qasem Soleimani with a targeted US drone attack on 3 January 2020 in Baghdad. This assassination was still carried out under President Trump, but the question remains, did he act on behalf of Israel – as many analysts suspect?
After a public mourning of Major General Soleimani, Iran launched missiles against US military bases in Iraq wounding at least 110 troops. Deaths were not officially reported.
Over the past several decades Israeli provocations on Iran abounded no end. Israel’s intent is to wipe out Iran as part of its “master plan” towards “Greater Israel”, and control of the Gulf of Hormuz with access to the Arabian Sea – and ultimately Asia. And in the north, where Israel is currently attempting to brutally genociding Palestinians – evicting them from their homeland, an atrocious slaughter supported by most Western un-human leaders (sic).
This is not only Apartheid “social cleansing” – it is also taking possession, stealing, of tens or hundreds of billions worth of Gazan off-shore gas reserves.
To be sure, Israel is an illegal state, on Palestinian land stolen through the 1917 UK-sponsored Zionist-initiated Balfour Declaration, with the support in 1948 of the then 52-member young US-dominated United Nations. See this.
*
For the past 100 years or so, Washington was – and still is – tacitly as well as openly manipulated by a strong worldwide Zionist movement. Zionists control the world’s – at least the Western world’s – financial system, Big Finance, Wall Street, and not least the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), in Basle Switzerland, also called the Central Bank of all central banks, controlling about 90% of the worldwide monetary flow. All in Zionists command.
There is a strong symbiotic relationship, an interdependence between the Zionists, today’s Israel, and the US. The Zionists, the self-declared Chosen People, wield the scepter of Big Finance, aspiring for world domination through Greater Israel (see provisional map, below), with the might of military power by the United States.
Iran is the major stumbling block for Israel’s Zionists to achieve their goal. Once Iran is conquered, they dream, Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf States will fall in place.
Zionist-Israel has been allowed by the discreet influence of the US and UK secret services to become a “clandestine” nuclear power. They know they can count not only on the US tax-payers financial support, but more importantly, also with the Pentagon’s military might. By the way, US taxpayers have been footing a considerable portion of Israel’s budget for its 75-year existence.
Sounds controversial, doesn’t it – with the Zionists in control of worldwide Big Finance.
Israel’s provocations on Iran are openly or tacitly supported or even encouraged by Washington. The Washington war-mongers would love to go to war with Iran, a military and economic heavy weight, way beyond the Middle East.
And now, as a new BRICS member (BRICS-plus 5 [the sixth nation, Argentina, dropped out]), Iran’s strength has expanded almost exponentially, with such heavy-weight allies like China and Russia.
*
Israel’s assault on the Iranian Consulate in Damascus, may have been the spark that lit the fire. The extent of the “fire” cannot be assessed yet, as it will depend on clear-thinking and levelheadedness – or not – of Western decision makers – specifically NATO countries.
President Biden has been clear, so Western media:
“Our support for Israel’s security is ironclad. The United States will stand with the people of Israel and support their defense against these threats from Iran.”
How serious is this American promise? There is more at stake than words, especially considering Israel’s ever deeper falling within the world’s sympathy for her non-stop onslaught against Gaza and Palestine in general – having killed more than 35,000 Palestinians, about 70% of whom are women and children.
Strategically speaking, can the US afford this “unwavering” support for an outright genocide nation? And secondly, Washington knows that Iran has full support from Russia and China, Iran’s BRICS allies. BRICS association has similar meaning to that of NATO’s: Attack one country means you attack them all – and retaliation may be massive.
Are there still a few clear-thinking Western political human strategists left, not to risk total destruction of civilization as we know it? As President Putin has warned on several occasions, A Third World War, turning nuclear has no winner.
Let us hope reason and the sense for Peace will prevail.
*
Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
Peter Koenig is a geopolitical analyst and a former Senior Economist at the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), where he worked for over 30 years around the world. He 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.
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).
To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.
Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
Iran’s retaliatory attack on Israel will go down in history as one of the greatest victories of this century.
I’ve been writing about Iran for more than two decades. In 2005, I made a trip to Iran to ascertain the “ground truth” about that nation, a truth which I then incorporated into a book, Target Iran, laying out the US-Israeli collaboration to craft a justification for a military attack on Iran designed to bring down its theocratic government. I followed this book up with another, Dealbreaker, in 2018, which brought this US-Israeli effort up to date.
Back in November 2006, in an address to Columbia University’s School of International Relations, I underscored that the United States would never abandon my “good friend” Israel until, of course, we did. What could precipitate such an action, I asked? I noted that Israel was a nation drunk of hubris and power, and unless the United States could find a way to remove the keys from the ignition of the bus Israel was navigating toward the abyss, we would not join Israel in its lemming-like suicidal journey.
The next year, in 2007, during an address to the American Jewish Committee, I pointed out that my criticism of Israel (which many in the audience took strong umbrage against) came from a place of concern for Israel’s future. I underscored the reality that I had spent the better part of a decade trying to protect Israel from Iraqi missiles, both during my service in Desert Storm, where I played a role in the counter-SCUD missile campaign, and as a United Nations weapons inspector, where I worked with Israeli intelligence to make sure Iraq’s SCUD missiles were eliminated.
“The last thing I want to see,” I told the crowd, “is a scenario where Iranian missiles were impacting on the soil of Israel. But unless Israel changes course, this is the inevitable outcome of a policy driven more by arrogance than common sense.”
On the night of 13-14 April 2024, my concerns were played out live before an international audience—Iranian missiles rained down on Israel, and there was nothing Israel could do to stop them. As had been the case a little more than 33 years prior, when Iraqi SCUD missiles overcame US and Israeli Patriot missile defenses to strike Israel dozens of times over the course of a month and a half, Iranian missiles, integrated into a plan of attack which was designed to overwhelm Israeli missile defense systems, struck designated targets inside Israel with impunity.
Despite having employed an extensive integrated anti-missile defense system comprised of the so-called “Iron Dome” system, US-made Patriot missile batteries, and the Arrow and David’s Sling missile interceptors, along with US, British, and Israeli aircraft, and US and French shipborne anti-missile defenses, well over a dozen Iranian missiles struck heavily-protected Israeli airfields and air defense installations.
The Iranian missile attack on Israel did not come out of the blue, so to speak, but rather was retaliation for an April 1 Israeli attack on the Iranian consulate building, in Damascus, Syria, that killed several senior Iranian military commanders. While Israel has carried out attacks against Iranian personnel inside Syria in the past, the April 1 strike differed by not only killing very senior Iranian personnel, but by striking what was legally speaking sovereign Iranian territory—the Iranian consulate.
From an Iranian perspective, the attack on the consulate was a redline which, if not retaliated against, would erase any notion of deterrence, opening the door for even more brazen Israeli military action, up to and including direct attacks on Iran. Weighing against retaliation, however, were a complex web of interwoven policy objectives which would probably be mooted by the kind of large-scale conflict between Israel and Iran that could be precipitated by any meaningful Iranian retaliatory strike on Israel.
First and foremost, Iran has been engaged in a strategic policy premised on a pivot away from Europe and the United States, and toward Russia, China, and the Eurasian landmass. This shift has been driven by Iran’s frustration over the US-driven policy of economic sanctions, and the inability and/or unwillingness on the part of the collective West to find a path forward that would see these sanctions lifted. The failure of the Iranian nuclear deal (the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA) to produce the kind of economic opportunities that had been promised at its signing has been a major driver behind this Iranian eastward pivot. In its stead, Iran has joined both the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and the BRICS forum and has directed its diplomatic energies into seeing Iran thoroughly and productively integrated into both groups.
A general war with Israel would play havoc on these efforts.
Secondly, but no less important in the overall geopolitical equation for Iran, is the ongoing conflict in Gaza. This is a game-changing event, where Israel is facing strategic defeat at the hands of Hamas and its regional allies, including the Iranian-led axis of resistance. For the first time ever, the issue of Palestinian statehood has been taken up by a global audience. This cause is further facilitated by the fact that the Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu, formed from a political coalition which is vehemently opposed to any notion of Palestinian statehood, finds itself in danger of collapse as a direct result of the consequences accrued from the Hamas attack of October 7, 2023, and the subsequent failure of Israel to defeat Hamas militarily or politically. Israel is likewise hampered by the actions of Hezbollah, which has held Israel in check along its northern border with Lebanon, and non-state actors such as the pro-Iranian Iraqi militias and the Houthi of Yemen which have attacked Israel directly and, in the case of the Houthi, indirectly, shutting down critical sea lines of communication which have the result of strangling the Israeli economy.
But it is Israel that has done the most damage to itself, carrying out a genocidal policy of retribution against the civilian population of Gaza. The Israeli actions in Gaza are the living manifestation of the very hubris and power-driven policies I warned about back in 2006-2007. Then, I said that the US would not be willing to be a passenger in a policy bus driven by Israel that would take us off the cliff of an unwinnable war with Iran.
Through its criminal behavior toward the Palestinian civilians in Gaza, Israel has lost the support of much of the world, putting the United States in a position where it will see its already-tarnished reputation irreparably damaged, at a time when the world is transitioning from a period of American-dominated singularity to a BRICS-driven multipolarity, and the US needs to retain as much clout in the so-called “global south” as possible.
The US has tried—unsuccessfully—to take the keys out of the ignition of Netanyahu’s suicide bus ride. Faced with extreme reticence on the part of the Israeli government when it comes to altering its policy on Hamas and Gaza, the administration of President Joe Biden has begun to distance itself from the policies of Netanyahu and has put Israel on notice that there would be consequences for its refusal to alter its actions in Gaza to take US concerns into account.
Any Iranian retaliation against Israel would need to navigate these extremely complicated policy waters, enabling Iran to impose a viable deterrence posture designed to prevent future Israeli attacks while making sure that neither its policy objectives regarding a geopolitical pivot to the east, nor the elevation of the cause of Palestinian statehood on the global stage, were sidetracked.
The Iranian attack on Israel appears to have successfully maneuvered through these rocky policy shoals. It did so first and foremost by keeping the United States out of the fight. Yes, the United States participated in the defense of Israel, helping shoot down scores of Iranian drones and missiles. This engagement was to the benefit of Iran, since it only reinforced the fact that there was no combination of missile defense capability that could, in the end, prevent Iranian missiles from hitting their designated targets.
The targets Iran struck—two air bases in the Negev desert from which aircraft used in the April 1 attack on the Iranian consulate had been launched, along with several Israeli air defense sites—were directly related to the points Iran was trying to make in establishing the scope and scale of its deterrence policy. First, that the Iranian actions were justified under Article 51 of the UN Charter—Iran retaliated against those targets in Israel directly related to the Israeli attack on Iran, and second, that Israeli air defense sites were vulnerable to Iranian attack. The combined impact of these two factors is that all of Israel was vulnerable to being struck by Iran at any time, and that there was nothing Israel or its allies could do to stop such an attack.
This message resonated not only in the halls of power in Tel Aviv, but also in Washington, DC, where US policy makers were confronted with the uncomfortable truth that if the US were to act in concert with Israel to either participate in or facilitate an Israeli retaliation, then US military facilities throughout the Middle East would be subjected to Iranian attacks that the US would be powerless to stop.
This is why the Iranians placed so much emphasis on keeping the US out of the conflict, and why the Biden administration was so anxious to make sure that both Iran and Israel understood that the US would not participate in any Israeli retaliatory strike against Iran.
The “Missiles of April” represent a sea-change moment in Middle Eastern geopolitics—the establishment of Iranian deterrence that impacts both Israel and the United States. While emotions in Tel Aviv, especially among the more radical conservatives of the Israeli government, run high, and the threat of an Israeli retaliation against Iran cannot be completely discounted, the fact is the underlying policy objective of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the course of the past 30-plus years, namely to drag the US into a war with Iran, has been put into checkmate by Iran.
Moreover, Iran has been able to accomplish this without either disrupting its strategic pivot to the east or undermining the cause of Palestinian statehood. “Operation True Promise,” as Iran named its retaliatory attack on Israel, will go down in history as one of the most important military victories in the history of modern Iran, keeping in mind that war is but an extension of politics by other means. The fact that Iran has established a credible deterrence posture without disrupting major policy goals and objectives is the very definition of victory.
*
Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
Featured image: An Iranian missile is launched. Scores of these missiles were used to attack Israel. (Source: Scott Ritter Extra)
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).
To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.
Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
The late Malcolm X commenting in one of his speeches on the state of Black leadership at the time said: “These negroes do not want to build any nation; they want to crawl back on the plantation.”
On March 11, 2024, the Jamaican government hosted a CARICOM meeting, reportedly to discuss and find some resolution to the social disruption in Haiti.
The meeting was a farce from conception and was nothing more than a ploy, by the United States especially, to give some legitimacy to the unelected government of Haiti, and to use the Jamaican and other Caribbean political stooges to create a semblance of concern for the issues in Haiti.
The analytical and historical bankruptcy of the Jamaican government is openly demonstrated by the invitees to the meeting.
The three primary culprits of the Core Group—the United States, France and Canada—were invited to participate in the meeting.
These are the countries primarily responsible for the destabilization and social upheaval taking place in Haiti. Such idiocy is tantamount to putting the proverbial fox to watch the hen house.
The Jamaican parliamentary opposition, People’s National Party (PNP), needs to take a principled and enlightened position on this issue.
For much too long Jamaica’s performance at international forums and its foreign policy positions in general have degenerated into the abyss of total disappointment; it has traveled from the elementary and simplistic to backward and reactionary, respectively.
In the interest of national self-determination and respect, someone needs to rescue and restore some semblance of national pride, not just in sports but in the critical area of politics as well. If the PNP continues to sit on the sideline, then for those so inclined, Dante’s suggestion that “the hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in a period of moral crisis, maintain their neutrality,” is applicable.
Kenya and Jamaica are in no moral, legal, or political position to send any troops to Haiti, to supposedly bring law, order and stability. Apart from the Geneva Convention regarding the “noninterference in the internal affairs of other countries,” there also do not exist any agreements between Haiti and any of the subject countries, for providing military assistance to Haiti.
On the social level, they both have serious socio-economic problems, including high inflation, skyrocketing prices on basic consumer goods, a large unemployment burden, and crime rates that rival any large, developed country.
Jamaica cannot even control the reported 600 gangs running amuck in the country: shootouts in broad daylight in crowded squares; armed robberies of grocery stores or supermarkets; attacks on churches as well as the holdup of public transportation vehicles.
The Jamaican government is incapable of finding a sustainable and effective solution to the problem of crime. The “knee-jerk” approach with the Zones of Special Operations (ZoSo) have outlived their usefulness, and are a diversionary tactic for the government’s political impotence.
The convening of the meeting was not only ridiculous in the first place but, moreover, lacked legitimacy. CARICOM had no legal authority to convene such a “meeting” when one was not requested by a popularly elected government of Haiti.
The absurdity lies in the fact that the meeting was supposed to be discussing and resolving the social issues in Haiti; however, no legitimate social organization representing the Haitian working class or even from academia were represented. How stupid can that be?
Unless one is a willing participant in the imperialists’ plan to re-occupy Haiti. It is obvious that CARICOM leaders, like the OAS, are nothing but ideological misfits and imperialist “agents” in black face, and are a disgrace to the working class of their respective countries. The best reward for them is hastily voting them out of office and dumping them on the scrapheap of history.
It is disappointing that the Prime Minister of Barbados, Mia Mottley, took such a reactionary and opportunistic position by supporting foreign intervention in the domestic affairs of Haiti. Her position, by default, also gives credence to the erroneous idea that Haitians in particular, and African people in general, cannot govern themselves and need outside support—and white support at that—to bring law and order to the country.
One of the stipulations for the formation of the “interim” government is that none of the participants should be opposed to foreign intervention. This is the same line carried by the United States. Of course, Mia Mottley gladly “parrots” this position. It is rumored that she has ambitions of being Secretary General of the United Nations (UN); she is currently securing votes from the influential countries, if and when she is up for election.
Haiti’s “Unpardonable Sin”
The Republic of Haiti, founded in 1804, was the first African-populated country in the Western Hemisphere to victoriously fight for and secure its independence from the colonizers, France.
Napoleon Bonaparte, with his advanced army of personnel and arms, were routed by the Haitians and sent back to France. Having beaten the French and securing their independence was not enough; France demanded financial compensation from Haiti for its so-called material and financial “loss.”
To add insult to the socio-economic injury, the United States invaded and occupied Haiti from 1915 until 1934; the imperial powers have never “forgiven” Haiti for the triumph of its revolution.
U.S. Marine invaders in Haiti: hunting Caco rebels. [Source: laprensagrafica.com]
During the period of United States occupation, the authorities rewrote the Haitian Constitution and installed a titular president, Jean Vilbrun Guillaume Sam. Sam made all kinds of agreements with the colonizer, including giving control of Haiti’s finances to the United States.
Over the following decades, the United States and its allies have worked tirelessly to undermine the stability of Haitian society: support of the murderous dictatorship of Francois Duvalier (“Papa Doc”) and, later, his son Jean-Claude Duvalier (“Baby Doc”); direct destabilization; and two coups finally resulting in the physical removal from the country of the first democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
Imperialism’s Colonization Plan for Haiti
Ever since the reversal of the democratic gains achieved by the Aristide era, Haiti has consistently descended into social chaos to the point that it is now: the complete breakdown of the social structure and lawlessness.
Contrary to the imperialists’ narrative reported in their apologist press, there is no takeover of Haiti by gangs. The lawlessness and violence carried out in Haiti are by armed paramilitary groups supported militarily, and funded by sections of the CORE group, mainly the United States, France and Canada.
It should be noted that, in 2004, Brazil under President Lula, led the military intervention in Haiti, which overthrew Aristide. Some of these paramilitary groups include ex-security forces and current police members. And some of these paramilitary groups are known and supported by the local Haitian oligarchy, both financially and materially.
The purpose is to create havoc, social unrest, economic collapse, and political instability, which will give the imperialists a pretext to once again occupy the country through military intervention and pave the way for a puppet government, which will be favorable to capital.
The U.S. plan for reintroducing colonization and furthering Haiti’s dependency is brilliantly outlined in an essay by Haitian scholar Jemima Pierre titled “Haiti as Empire’s Laboratory.” From the signing into law by then-President Donald Trump of the Global Fragility Act (GFA), it was made clear that the United States was intent on imposing its waning world hegemony through any means necessary. This would include continued covert action in countries it saw as “threats to U.S. security.” Jemima Pierre writes: “Among the five trial countries for GFA implementation, Haiti is the first target.”
Imperialism has always changed its tactics of intervention depending on conditions: At times they use invasion, like in the cases of Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan; at other times they create unrest using local reactionary forces which have the appearance of being locally initiated and of local origin.
History is loaded with examples of developing countries struggling for national liberation and self-determination, only to have the process thwarted by imperialist intervention both from outside and within. Intervention protects and expand the oligarchy, thereby oppressing the masses. Military intervention is the political tool for reinforcing and maintaining the dominance of capital over the lives of the working class.
We Must Stand with Haiti – Resist All Intervention!
The democratic and nation-building process that began with the election of Jean-Bertrand Aristide and directly destroyed by the United States and its allies, must be resumed and continued by the democratic forces within Haiti. This calls for the full mobilization and participation of the working class of Haiti.
A U.S. Marine convoy makes its way through Port-au-Prince on April 5, 2004. [Source: nacla.org]
According to Mildred Aristide: “The struggle for freedom, dignity, security and peace has been a constant throughout Haiti’s history.”
In order for Haiti to begin the long and arduous road to recovery, the following needs to be done:
The United States and its allies—especially Canada, France and Britain—must immediately stop interfering in the internal affairs of Haiti.
There must be NO military intervention, United Nations (UN) or otherwise.
There must be NO support for foreign intervention in Haiti, disguised as “assistance,” by organizations such as the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), the Organization of American States (OAS), or the African Union (AU).
United States imperialism and its allies must be rejected and defeated by actively supporting the Zone of Peace Campaign initiated by the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) in 2014.
The United States and its allies must stop supporting a repressive, corrupt and illegitimate regime.
Progressive forces internationally, and within the African diaspora especially, must demonstrate solidarity with the people of Haiti by engaging their respective elected officials, and participatory social action to thwart any impending military action and allow the people of Haiti to solve their own problems in their own ways.
*
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.
Richard Dunn is a retired construction professional, trained in Architecture and Energy Management. He’s been a social justice activist since 1968 and was particularly active with the Walter Rodney defense demonstrations. Richard is an author, a contributing columnist to newspapers, an editor for a music industry magazine and operates a social justice website. Richard can be reached at: [email protected].
Featured image: Jamaican gangs are out of control. [Source: dreadeditions.com]
America’s “War on Terrorism”
“Whether he wrote DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER, or whether he refrained from writing it, made no difference … The Thought Police would get him just the same … the arrests invariably happened at night … In the vast majority of cases there was no trial, no report of the arrest. 
The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity
Another consideration is Turkey’s rapprochement with both Russia and Iran.
