Global Research Editor’s Note

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

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

The interview tends to demystify the Osama bin Laden persona.

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

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

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

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

We have highlighted key sections of this interview.

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

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

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

This interview is published for informational purposes only.

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

Michel  Chossudovsky, September 2, 2023

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

translated from Urdu by the BBC World Monitoring Service

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

Ummat’s introduction

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

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

Following is the interview in full detail:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Copyright Ummat in Urdu, BBC translation in English, 2001

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Read about Osama Bin Laden in Michel Chossudovsky’s international best-seller

Order Directly from Global Research

America’s “War on Terrorism”

by Michel Chossudovsky

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.

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

Part I: Syria comes to the Russian Caucasus

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fundamentalism comes to Caucasus

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

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

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

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

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

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

*  *  *

*  *  *

 

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 6^th Century. The Taliban Salafist leaders also banned as “un-islamic” all forms of imagery, music and sports, including television, in accordance with what they considered a strict interpretation of Sharia.

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

Before and…After Salafist Taliban …

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

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

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

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

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

Salafism and the CIA

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Part III: Morsi’s Reign of Salafi Terror

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Notes:

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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.

Albert Fox Cahn, diretor executivo do Projeto de Supervisão de Tecnologia de Vigilância, chamou as ordens de “inconstitucionais” e “aterrorizantes”, comparando-as a controversos mandados de cerca geográfica.

“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.

John-Michael Dumais

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Chicken-Hawks

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. 19^th 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 5^th 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.

*

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This article was originally published on VT Foreign Policy.

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.

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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.

Click here to order.

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330 Against Israel

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:

1. Biden will NOT cut weapons supplies – Netanyahu has carte-blanche to continue genocide.
2. US has already been attack recently, and will be fighting against Iran, Hezbollah, and many others – VERY soon.

Iran on the Rise: Retaliation, “Important Military Targets”. Peter Koenig

By Peter Koenig, April 15, 2024

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. 

Kiev Regime Obliging Soldiers to Keep Fighting

By Lucas Leiroz de Almeida, April 15, 2024

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.

US-NATO: The Cost of War. Manlio Dinucci

By Manlio Dinucci, April 15, 2024

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.

Ten New Studies Detail Health Risks of 5G

By Dr. Joseph Mercola, April 15, 2024

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.

Iran Retaliates for Embassy Attack Launching Hundreds of Missiles and Drones Inside Occupied Territories

By Abayomi Azikiwe, April 15, 2024

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.

CARICOM and the Imperialists Are Aiding in the “Recolonization” of Haiti

By Richard Dunn, April 15, 2024

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.

Nuclear Weapons Are the Biggest Single Danger for Humanity and All Forms of Life

By Bharat Dogra, April 15, 2024

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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

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

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

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

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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

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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 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:

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.

 

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Notes

¹ Global Research March 21, 2024

^2, 3 Reviews on Environmental Health September 22, 2022

⁴ European parliamentary research service, scientific foresight unit. Brussels; 2021

⁵ Luxembourg: Policy Department for Economic, Scientific and Quality of Life Policies, European Parliament; 2019

⁶ International Journal of Environmental Health Research November 22, 2022; 34(1): 316-327

⁷ Chinese Journal of Radiological Medicine and Protection 2023; 12: 176-181

⁸ Neurotoxicology January 2023; 94: 45-58

⁹ Brain and Behavior April 28, 2023; 13(6): e3004

¹⁰ Frontiers in Public Health August 6, 2023; 11

¹¹ Environmental Science and Pollution Research October 18, 2023; 30: 113704-113717

¹² Revista International de Andrologia October-December 2023; 21(4): 100371

¹³ Annals of Clinical Case Studies ISSN: 2688-1241

¹⁴ Scientific Reports February 12, 2024; 14, Article number 3571

¹⁵ Aph.gov.au Inquiry into 5G in Australia

¹⁶ YouTube 5G Technology

¹⁷ AAP.org, Growing Up Digital October 1, 2015 (Archived)

¹⁸ The Global Healing Center November 13, 2014

¹⁹ Amazon.com Mission Darkness Faraday Bag for Phones

²⁰ Journal of Advanced Research March 2013; 4(2): 181-187

²¹ Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2015 Feb; 12(2): 2071–2087

²² Behav Sleep Med. 2014 Sep 3;12(5):343-5

²³ CNN June 12, 2014

²⁴ Sheng Li Zue Bao 2015 Feb 25;67(1):1-18

²⁵ Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications November 27, 2009; 389(4): 651-656

²⁶ Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry January 2013; 373(1-2): 1-9

²⁷ Journal of Bone and Mineral Metabolism September 2014; 32(5): 494-504

²⁸ British Journal of Pharmacology 2013; 168: 1412-1420

²⁹ Frontiers in Pharmacology October 27, 2016

Featured image is from Children’s Health Defense

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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.

Another article published by Press TV said of the current situation that:

“‘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.

With specific reference to Lebanon, Al Mayadeen reported:

“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.

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

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***

The 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. 

The New York Times (NYT) reports 

“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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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

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

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

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***

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.

Image is from The Unz Review

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.

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Featured image: An Iranian missile is launched. Scores of these missiles were used to attack Israel. (Source: Scott Ritter Extra)

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***

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.

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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]

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***

Hiroshima, August 6, 1945 : Father Kleinsorge, a German missionary, heard pathetic voices of people asking for water. When he managed to reach the place from where the voice had come, he saw nearly 20 persons, all of them in similar condition – their faces were wholly burned, their eye sockets were hollow, the fluid from their melted eyes had run down their checks.

Temperature at the hypocentre of the explosion reaching the double of what it takes to melt iron, the face of a schoolgirl sitting almost a kilometre away from this hypocentre being burnt beyond recognition, skin sloughing off scalded bodies, badly injured starving people unable to swallow anything because of the stench of dead bodies – this was the devastation caused by a 12.5 Kiloton bomb in Hiroshima which killed and wounded as many people as a mass raid of 279 aircrafts, laden to capacity with bombs, striking at a city ten times as populous.

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. In addition the next generation continued to pay for this cruelty in the form of children born with mental retardation, physical deformities and other serious health problems.

So cruel was the devastation that all of us must necessarily ask – we certainly do not want Hiroshima to happen to our friends, but do we want it to happen even to our worst enemies?

Despite this, the incredibly dangerous and cruel fact remains that humankind now possesses nuclear weapons which are many times more powerful than the ones used in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and efforts are constantly on to increase the destructiveness of these weapons.

Some of the most eminent medical journals (including The Lancet, BMJ and JAMA) recently took an almost unprecedented initiative to together publish a joint editorial on August 1, 2023 asking for the elimination of nuclear weapons in view of their unacceptably high risks. What should be particularly welcomed is that they have taken the stand of elimination of nuclear weapons and not just of de-escalation or reduction, for as long as there are nuclear weapons there will be at least some possibility of their actual use as well.

This editorial has pointed out, on the basis of studies,  that a large-scale nuclear war between the USA and Russia could kill 200 million people or more in the near term and potentially cause a global ‘nuclear winter’ that could kill 5 to 6 billion people, threatening the survival of humanity.

This editorial also stated that once a nuclear weapon is detonated, escalation to all-out nuclear war could occur rapidly. This is particularly important to consider at the present juncture when the risk of actual use of nuclear weapons has increased compared to any other period in the past three decades or so.

This risk has been frequently discussed and serious fears over it expressed by several eminent experts in the context of the ongoing Ukraine conflict. Here four nuclear weapon countries can be involved—Russia, USA, Britain and France. Of course USA nuclear weapons are also deployed in several other European countries as well and to that extent these also get involved but the weapons are under the control of the USA. 

USA, France and UK are unlikely to knowingly start an attack on Russia and similarly Russia is unlikely to knowingly attack USA, France or UK because of the huge risks and likelihood of equally destructive retaliation. However the risk of tensions, suspicions and brinkmanship extended over a long time leading to start of unintentional nuclear war, based on misunderstanding of each other’s intentions and some accidental event on top of it is possible. As pointed out earlier once this starts this can very quickly lead to a bigger exchange of nuclear weapons. The situation is not like the one in 1945 where there was to be no retaliation and it was well known by the aggressor also that there will be nothing beyond the use of two nuclear weapons as far as the attack on Japan was concerned. Now the present situation is a very different one as we do not know where it will stop when it starts. Also the speed which the nuclear weapon now travels towards its target also gives very little time to correct very costly mistakes.

The second possibility that has been discussed is whether Russia will at some stage use tactical or relatively smaller nuclear weapons against Ukraine. This is very unlikely today. Russia’s security doctrine is that it will use nuclear weapons only if there is serious risk to its freedom, sovereignty and survival. Hence risks of nuclear weapon by Russia arises only if NATO escalates risks for Russia beyond a certain red line. However views can differ on how the red line is perceived or identified, and this is why the risk of nuclear war also remains present in this conflict zone. 

In the middle of all the irrational Russophobia in the West and in particular among the ruling elites here, if the ultimate result of all the efforts to corner and surround Russia proves increasingly successful ( which appears highly unlikely just now), the final impact will be only to compel Russia to exercise the nuclear weapon option. Then if this results in the USA or NATO also using nuclear weapons against Russia, and Russia retaliates, again we do not know where this will end. This brings out also the sheer absurdity, and of course the extreme danger, of the western/NATO strategy of encircling and bleeding as big a nuclear weapon power as Russia as much as possible, instead of using diplomacy to sort out all differences.  

The second highest possibility of use of nuclear weapons will be when the USA shifts more of its aggression towards China at some point in future, as has been widely discussed. If the Korean region is to become a flashpoint of such a confrontation, then apart from China one more nuclear weapon power will be involved here in the form of N. Korea.

While this is for the future, the threat perception in just the Ukraine conflict by itself is so serious as to prompt warnings from several senior experts time and again. When the possibility of destruction likely to be caused is so huge, even a 5 to 10% increase in the possibility of use of nuclear weapons should be taken very seriously, and what has happened recently is a somewhat bigger increase in this possibility. As world leadership does not appear to be fulfilling the trust reposed in it for protecting us all from the worst possible destruction on earth, it is time for the people worldwide to come forward to make the peace and disarmament movement so strong that the leadership also comes under increasing pressure from people to move towards a path of a safer present and future. In the vision of the peace movement, one of the topmost priorities should be for the elimination of nuclear weapons as well as for the elimination of all weapons of mass destruction.

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

Featured image is from Countercurrents

Сви чланци Глобалног истраживања могу се читати на 51 језику тако што ћете активирати дугме Преведи веб локацију испод имена аутора (доступно само у верзији за десктоп).

Да бисте добили дневни билтен Глобал Ресеарцх-а (изабрани чланци), кликните овде.

Кликните на дугме за дељење изнад да бисте е-поштом/проследили овај чланак својим пријатељима и колегама. Пратите нас на Инстаграму и Твиттеру и претплатите се на наш Телеграм канал. Слободно поново постављајте и делите чланке Глобалног истраживања.

Глобални истраживачки позив: Наши читаоци су наша линија спаса

***

Пише: Слободан РЕЉИЋ

ПОВОДОМ 25-годишњице НАТО-бомбардовања Срба, на скупу који је огранизовао Београдски форум за свет равноправних, дошло је и тридесет слободномислећих Немаца.

Посланик у Бундестагу Рајнер Ротфус је отишао до споменика Милице Ракић на Ташмајдану положио цвеће и – клекнуо.

„Оно у шта верујемо јесу правда, истина и пријатељство међу народима. То је симболизовано на дуксерици коју сам поклонио Вучићу. На левој страни симбола срца налазе се боје Немачке, а на десној је српска застава. Испред срца је бели голуб као симбол мира. Ми чезнемо за помирењем са Србијом, за постизањем мира у Европи, укључујући и Русију“, реако је Ротфус, функционер Алтернативе за Немачку (АфД), сада већ друге партије у Немачкој.

Партије у успону.

Рајнер Ротфус је још 2019. био у Београду на скупу „на којем су изнете чињенице о срамоти бомбардовања, као и о употреби оружја са осиромашеним уранијумом које је бесмислено убило хиљаде невиних људи… Када је бивши министар спољних послова Живадин Јовановић говорио о цивилним жртвама, схватио сам колико је рат био ужасан за обичан народ. Како је НАТО могао да погоди 60 одсто цивилних циљева а да људи у његовим државама чланицама и даље верују да је то била ‘хуманитарна акција’.“

Живорад Јовановић је ових дана констатовао:

„НАТО агресија на Југославију 1999. године била је почетак глобализације војног интервенционизма НАТО-а предвођеног САД. После тога, видели смо многе интервенције и агресије засноване на преседану НАТО-а из 1999. године против Југославије. Немачки политичар Вили Вимер рекао је 2022. да су прве бомбе на Украјину пале 1999. године. НАТО предвођен САД, по мом мишљењу је војна, нуклеарна песница експанзионистичке стратегије, глобалне доминације у оквиру униполарности.“

Ова оцена се, иначе, појављује у Глобал тајмсу, пекиншком листу који излази на кинеском и енглеском, чији је издавач Комунистичка партија Кине – најутицајнија партијска организација на светска кретања, како економска тако све више и политичка. Лист је, иначе, поводом „4. априла 2024. кад се навршава се 75 година од оснивања НАТО-а… разговарао са бројним стручњацима и научницима да би открио како САД искоришћавају НАТО да служи америчким геополитичким циљевима и како НАТО дестабилизује свет, погоршава нуклеарне претње и доноси конфронтацију у Азији“.

Почетну тезу да је „као производ хладног рата, НАТО требало да буде распуштен, али је током година послужио као ратна машина и омогућио хегемонију САД“- уредништво је искористило да „у првом интервјуу ове серије, репортер Глобал тајмса Ванг Венвен разговара са Живадином Јовановићем, председником Београдског форума за свет равноправних, који је био министар спољних послова СР Југославије од 1998. до 2000.“

Да, те 1999. НАТО је славио 50-годишњицу (23-25. април, Вашингтон, 2500 гостију ) и – распојасан „уз ратне покличе“ вршио агресију без одобрења Савета безбедности УН (да би избегли вето Русије и Кине) на једну суверену земљу – Савезну Републику Југославију. Тиме је показао однос према свету који би свакако био и праведнији и бољи без те сатаре преостале из Хладног рата.

И ми ћемо тој очигледности сада додати једно сведочење поменутог Вилија Вимера:

„Америчка страна је спремна да у глобалном оквиру, због остваривања својих циљева, поткопа у укине међународни правни поредак… Сила има да стоји изнад права. Тамо где међународно право стоји на путу, треба га уклонити“, писао је Вимер свом канцелару Шредеру маја 2000, после учешћа на конфренцији затвореног типа у Братислави а коју су заједнички организовали америчко министарство иностраних дела и American Enterprise Institut (Спољнополитички институт Републиканске странке). „Конференцији су присуствовали веома високи политички представници, на што указује присуство великог броја председника влада, као и министара иностраних послова и министара одбране из тог региона“, а „главне теме скупа биле су Балкан и проширење НАТО“.

Ето, зашто Кинези почињу серијал разговором са Живорадом Јовановићем.

У агресији на СРЈ су прегажене Уједињене нације, а „када је сличну судбину доживело Друштво народа, Други светски рат није више био далеко. Начин размишљања, који води рачуна само о сопственим интересима, може да се назове само тоталитарним.“ (Вимер)

Ароганција коју су Американци показивали на том скупу је застрашујућа. Иако су усвојили Резолуцију 1244 СБ УН, ту су инститрали да се Косово што пре призна као суверена држава, а за Савезну Републику Југославију, која им се нашла на путу, инсистирали су да се „налази ван сваког правног поретка“ (после су је разбили), да је НАТО-бомбардовање било исправљање „погрешна одлука генерала Ајзенхауера из Другог светског рата“ и да ће НАТО сада држати „територије између Балтичког мора и Анадолије, како је било у време Римског царства“; даље, „да Пољска мора да буде окружена са севера и југа демократским државама, а Румунија и Бугарска да обезбеде копнену везу са Турском“ и да Србија (вероватно због обезбеђивања несметаног војног присуства САД) трајно мора да буде искључена из европског развоја“; да „северно од Пољске треба да се оствари потпуна контрола над прилазима Санкт Петербургу у Балтичком мору“; и – да се сецесије свуда и увек требају подржавати кроз право народа на самоопредељење и томе „треба дати предност над свим другим одредбама или правилима међународног права“; врхунац ароганције је бестидност да „тврдња да је НАТО приликом напада на Савезну Републику Југославију прекршио сва међународна правила, а нарочито све одговарајуће одредбе међународног права – није оспоравана“. Баш их брига!

Мало је људи тада, пре четврт века, разумевало од коликог је значаја за будуће међународне односе – рат НАТО против Срба. Али, то није промакло Хенрију Кисинџеру.

Напротив, он је у „Њузвику“ последњег дана маја 1999. (усред бомбардовања) објавио текст насловљен New World Disorder. У поднаслову је стајало: погрешно промишљен рат на Косову је подрио односе с Кином и Русијом и изложио НАТО опасности.

Кисинџер се чудио како се у Вашингтону пре бесловесног закључка да ће рат потрајати неколико дана нико није запитао: „Али шта ако Србија, земља која се тукла с Турском и Аустријском империјом и пркосила Хитлеру и Стаљину на врхунцима њихових моћи, не попусти? Колико смо ми спремни далеко да идемо? Без копнене интервенције, што је објављено на самом почетку, наводили смо Милошевића да тестира издржљивост непрестаног бомбардовања.“

И, тако се и дешавало.

Није било велике дилеме како ће НАТО бомбардовање бити схваћено у Русији. Солжењицин ће после у интервјуу „Шпиглу“ рећи да је Русију из осонова променило „сурово бомбардовање Србије. То је обележило црном, непоправљивом цртом одонос према Западу – и истине ради, треба рећи у свим слојевима руског друштва“.

А док се још дизао дим из бомбардоване кинеске амбасаде у Београду (за коју више нико и не помиње ону лаж да је погођана грешком) Кисинџер је знао да су „блиске везе САД и Кине доведенe у питање“. И да то „за Америку, сигурно значи метеж у целој Азији, који кинеске суседе гура у нужду да бирају између најмногољудније земље у свету, којој њена историја од 5.000 година даје посебно место у Азији, и Америке, једине светске суперсиле“.

А НАТО?

„Упркос привидном јединству на НАТО самиту, Косово ће расправу о будућности Алијансе учинити неизбежном“, написао је Хенри Кисинџер маја 1999.

Кисинџер није био усамљен, али су ти гласови игнорисани без обзира на логичност. Сила логику не воли. Тако је угледни конгресмен из Тенесија Џими Данкан тада говрио „да је председник Клинтон довео земљу у немогућу ситуацију у којој нема доброг одговора.“ И сам је био у Београду 1997. и сад разуме да су “наша бомбардовања у суштини створила избегличку ситуацију”.

Избегличка криза на коју су играли САД и НАТО била је крајње неубедљива. Данкан је подсетио да је ТВ станица МСНБЦ поставила питање да ли су је иузбегличку кризу створиле НАТО бомбе или српске трупе и: “Шездесет пет одсто од много хиљада оних које су позвали, рекло је да је углавном криво бомбардовање НАТО.”

Извикане „огромне симпатије према избеглицама“ показао је лажним. „Али неколико стотина хиљада Срба је недавно протерано из Хрватске. Они су тада били жртве етничког чишћења, а ми ништа нисмо урадили по том питању. И као што су многи људи истакли, тренутно се воде мали ратови или борбе на 30 или 40 различитих места широм света. Неколико од тих ситуација је било много горе него на Косову пре него што смо започели бомбардовање.“

О „великој забави“ коју је НАТО припремио у Вашингтону поводом пола века постојања Данкан рече: „НАТО се спрема да овде, овог викенда, одржи једну од највећих забава које је овај град икада видео. Верујем да су НАТО и наш председник мислили да ће Милошевић поклекнути после само неколико дана бомбардовања и да би онда могли да наздраве једни другима на великој прослави победе за 50. годишњицу НАТО овог викенда. Каква погрешна процена! То је свакако била једна од највећих погрешних процена у америчкој историји.“

Данкан је закључио да оно што је заиста учињено „јесте претварање српских пријатељa у непријатеље уз велику цену за ову земљу и упадање у једну од највећих невоља, тако да Америка мора да преговара и да се извуче из овог нереда ‘што је пре могуће’“.

Америка ни после четврт века није стигла до те једноставне истине. Напротив, њихово малтретирање Срба „пријатеља“ се наставља све грубље, а сукоб са светом их је довео до – очигледног опадања утицаја и значаја.

Десет година касније (2009) Сергеј Караганов, кључни човек руског Савета за спољну и одбрамбену политику, (2005. од америчког и британског часописа проглашен за једног од 100 најутицајнијих интелектуалаца у свету, једини из Русије) „напоменуће да се свет више не мења у интервалима као раније, већ да је ушао у раздобље ‘перманентне геополитичке и геоекономске револуције’. Њен досадашњи ток донео је низ америчких војних интервенција које су се завршиле ‘серијом крупних пораза’, како констатује Караганов, истичући да је преломни моменат био напад НАТО под вођством САД на СРЈ 1999. године.“

Јесте та агресија „изазвала још само таласање“, али довољно да „већи део руске елите схвати како са Западом, на жалост, није могућа интеграција“ (Караганов). Рус је тврдио како је „наставак америчког интервенционизма потврдио ту констатацију и у све већем делу света сукцесивно изазивао све храбрије супротстављање не само америчкој хегемонији, већ и цивилизацијском моделу Запада“.

Пре пет година (2019), а поводом 20-годишњице НАТО-бомбардовања Форин полиси је констатовао:

„Косовски рат је био кратак (само три месеца), али није био мали рат. У фундаменталном учинку, био је покретач нове међународне политике.“

Требало им је две деценије.

После четврт века (2024) помињани немачки парламенатарац Рајнер Ротфус каже нам:

„Ваша земља је, с правом, изабрала да се не приклони политици НАТО, већ да остане мост између Запада с једне стране и Русије и Кине са друге стране. Пошто то није у њиховим геополитичким интересима, западне земље ће наставити да говоре о сецесији Косова као о ‘праву народа на самоопредељење’.“ А ако странке у ЕУ, у изборима који предстоје а које мисле као и његов АфД удвоструче број места у Европском парламенту „то ће ставити тачку на имеријалистички однос Брисела према Мађарској, Србији и другим нацијама које се буде“.

На крају, три-четири реченице из почетног прилога оног серијала Глобал тајмса: „Главна препрека новом светском поретку, заснованом на принципу суверене равноправности и немешања у унутрашње ствари, јесте политика експанзије и глобалне доминације мањине западних земаља коју предводе САД. Чини се да они не разумеју глобалне промене и трендове мултиполаризације и склони су веровању да могу да зауставе те историјске трендове, чак и да их преокрену, силом, укључујући нуклеарну. Ове доктрине представљају главни извор озбиљних претњи глобалном миру и развоју. Ово је претња човечанству. (Живорад Јовановић)

Јесте, важно је да разумемо – због свега што се дешава – шта је догађај чију смо 25-годишњицу обележили. И зашто се према нама понашају као и пред Први и пред Други светски рат. И да има пријатеља Срба у тим земљама, али да они нису на власти. И да амбасадори „квинте“ не говоре у њихово име.

*

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Све слике у овом чланку су од аутора

Сви чланци Глобалног истраживања могу се читати на 51 језику тако што ћете активирати дугме Преведи веб локацију испод имена аутора (доступно само у верзији за десктоп).

Да бисте добили дневни билтен Глобал Ресеарцх-а (изабрани чланци), кликните овде.

Кликните на дугме за дељење изнад да бисте е-поштом/проследили овај чланак својим пријатељима и колегама. Пратите нас на Инстаграму и Твиттеру и претплатите се на наш Телеграм канал. Слободно поново постављајте и делите чланке Глобалног истраживања.

Глобални истраживачки позив: Наши читаоци су наша линија спаса

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The salience of the phone call from the US President Joe Biden to Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday is their consensus that during the period since their summit meeting in Woodside, California, in November 2023, the US-China relationship “is beginning to stabilise”. 

Both sides agreed that their discussion was “candid and constructive.” The Chinese analysts estimate that there is a common will in Beijing and Washington “to prevent negative factors from influencing the general stability of bilateral ties.” 

Xi proposed three “overarching principles” to navigate 2024 — “peace must be valued”; “stability must be prioritised”; and, commitments should be followed up with action. 

In general, the phone call can be viewed in positive terms. Both Xi and Biden expressed the wish for stabilising bilateral relations, managing differences, expanding cooperation, and concurred that a stable and predictable China-US relationship is in their  interests. 

Washington announced after the phone call that Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen will be travelling to China on an extended visit through April 3-9. The US Treasury Department stated that she “will build on the intensive diplomacy she has engaged in to responsibly manage the bilateral economic relationship and advance American interests.” 

Earlier, during a press call at the White House, a senior administration official stressed that the Biden Administration has not changed its approach to China, “which remains one focused on the framework of invest, align, and compete. Intense competition requires intense diplomacy to manage tensions, address misperceptions, and prevent unintended conflict. And this call is one way to do that.”     

That said, she also listed areas of cooperation in important areas “where our interests align” — counternarcotics, AI, military-to-military communication channels and climate issues. She anticipated that “depending what happens in the coming year, there would be — we would hope there would be a chance for another in-person (summit) meeting, but don’t have anything even to speculate on when that might be. But certainly, value in that in-person meeting and the calls in the interim.” 

Yellen’s six-day visit will be followed by a trip to Beijing by Secretary of State Antony Blinken “in the coming weeks.” A call between the defence ministers is also expected “soon.” Indeed, a steady build-up is under way.

Biden initiated the call. Conceivably, Washington, faced with multiple problems at home and abroad, needs China more than the other way around. Bogged down in the conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine, it can ill afford a confrontation in the Taiwan Straits. Again, the US needs China’s cooperation in important areas such as fentanyl control, climate change, Artificial Intelligence, green-energy transition, etc. — and, most important, financial stability. 

Financial stability is a core issue. Yellen’s itinerary is anchored on her extended meetings with Vice Premier He Lifeng spread over two days. He Lifeng was appointed last November as head of office of the Central Financial Commission and has become the helmsman of the core financial and economic staff of the Chinese communist party. 

Yellen is due to meet Finance Minister Lan Fo’an, Premier Li Qiang, Beijing Mayor Yin Yong, People’s Bank of China Governor Pan Gongsheng, and leading Chinese economists. Clearly, Yellen’s focus will be on financial stability, a crucial template of the US-China relationship.  

The US monetary policy is at an inflection point. Financial risks have risen and there is rising uncertainty in the global market. The anxiety shared by investors is evident in the surge in gold’s appeal as a safe haven asset. 

The global financial system is buffeted by multiple factors, such as unsustainable levels of debt, geopolitical confrontation, and a new era of low growth, low global investment and de-globalisation. But a major factor affecting the resilience of the global financial system is the current speculation regarding a US interest rate cut, which would have a ripple effect on the world economy. 

Historically, US monetary easing has been the harbinger of global financial crises. As the world’s first and second economies, the US and China will be in the cockpit to navigate any global financial crisis, of which the run on gold as safe haven asset by investors is an early  warning signal. 

The rise of gold prices reflects as much a panic toward the risks surrounding the global financial system as a lack of confidence in US dollar-denominated assets. The point is, the US’ irresponsible monetary policy has greatly affected the international demand for dollars and dollar-denominated assets. 

The enormity of the crisis in the US economy cannot be shoved under the carpet much longer. The US national debt today, estimated at $34 trillion, is almost equal to the combined value of the economies of China, Germany, Japan, India and the UK.

Enter China. China’s steady monetary policy has created policy space and tools in reserve for Beijing to cope with any new challenges lying ahead in the global financial system, while its foreign exchange market has become more resilient.                   

Thus, while a rate cut by the Fed raises fears of continued capital outflows from the US (as lower interest rates mean a lower return rate on investment in US dollar-denominated assets), there is every likelihood that it would make China the preferred destination for international capital inflows. 

Belying Western media hype that China is losing attractiveness to foreign investors, top US firms began flocking to China last month, pledging commitment to the Chinese market, announcing new investment deals and setting up new shop or factory floors. 

China can become a safe haven for international capital. Its economy is on an upward trend and given the tools at its disposal to ensure financial stability, China’s foreign exchange market is expected to maintain a relatively stable performance at a time of  increasing uncertainty in the global financial market. 

Why is this a big deal? The heart of the matter is that as the global price of gold soars, a rate cut cycle begins and financial risks deepen, China gets more options in the management of its assets portfolios and this could affect Beijing’s holding of US Treasury bonds. 

Beijing’s huge stimulus program helped the West to recover from the 2008 financial crisis. As the rest of the world teeters on the brink of recession, the last thing Western policymakers want is to ruffle China, the biggest driver of global economic growth. Their expectation is that China would help offset an expected slowdown in other parts of the world. 

But geopolitical issues come into play. The Taiwan question and Beijing’s friendly ties with Moscow top the list of contentious issues. Biden raised with Xi concerns over China’s “support for Russia’s defence industrial base and its impact on European and transatlantic security.” 

The Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin promptly pushed back that “Other countries should not smear and attack normal relations between China and Russia, should not undermine the legitimate rights of China and Chinese companies, and should not shift blame to China wantonly and provoke camp confrontation.” 

Beijing wouldn’t have forgotten that the Obama administration showed its “gratitude” within a couple of years after the 2008 financial crisis by unveiling the “pivot to Asia” strategy to clip China’s wings and contain its rise — a mindset that still defines  Biden administration’s flight path. 

Xi was upfront warning Biden that “China is not going to sit on its hands” faced with external encouragement and support for Taiwan’s independence. Nor, he said, is China “going to sit back and watch” if the US remains “adamant on containing China’s hi-tech development and depriving China of its legitimate right to development.” 

Biden’s response was that “It is in the interest of the world for China to succeed.”     

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Israel’s Damascus strike on April 1 will go down in the corpus of literature on war and diplomacy as an act of high-intensity deception. Iran wouldn’t have expected a cowardly attack using stealth fighters on its diplomatic compound. 

Israel’s a priori national deception practices provided no clues. But the asymmetry in the aura of secrecy makes the Iranian retaliation rather challenging. Speculations are rife. 

Israel seems confident about its counter-deception system. The Israeli Defence Forces Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi stressed on Sunday that Israel knows “how to handle Iran.” He said,

“We are prepared for this; we have good defensive systems and know how to act forcefully against Iran in both near and distant places. We are operating in cooperation with the USA and strategic partners in the region.” [Emphasis added.]

The bit about the USA is disconcerting because the bazaar gossip is that Americans quietly assured the Iranians that they had no clue about Israel’s Damascus attack, leave alone a role in it. But the deployment of F-35 jets for such a mission wasn’t a coincidence, after all. 

The Biden Administration routinely gives assurances to Russians whenever Ukrainians strike deep inside Russian territory with Americans or Brits providing satellite intelligence, logistics, weaponry — and increasingly with NATO countries’ military personnel controlling the operations. 

Russia’s dilemma is similar to what Iran faces. The big question, prima  facie, would have four parts:

1. To what extent were Americans in the loop?

2. Going forward, will the US go the whole hog in an election year to kickstart another Middle Eastern war?

3. Is this any longer an exclusive affair between Iran and the Axis of Resistance on one side and Israel on the other side? 

4. What are the US motivations if it indeed conveyed any assurance to Tehran?

In the commentariat, there is a delusional opinion that in the action-reaction syndrome involving Israel and Iran, President Biden will keep the US out of any direct intervention because the American public opinion militates against another war after Iraq and Afghanistan. But in reality, that is rarely the case.  

Since the storm clouds on the horizon presage a world war, an analogy from the 1940s would be appropriate. President Franklin Roosevelt took on his own the audacious decision to participate in World War II by developing an initiative that was consistent with the legal prohibition against the granting of credit, satisfactory to military leadership, and acceptable to an American public that generally resisted involving the US in the European conflict.

Now, the “Globalists” who dominate the US establishment, including Biden himself, also know that World War II eventually restored (“fixed”) the American economy. During World War II, 17 million new civilian jobs were created, industrial productivity increased by 96 percent, and corporate profits after taxes doubled. 

The government expenditures helped bring about the business recovery in the US economy that had eluded FDR’s New Deal. That analogy also holds good today. Indeed, American politicians of all stripes harken back to those halcyon days to make a case for their agendas even today. And they include Biden himself, who is fond of comparing himself in broad historical strokes with FDR. 

Equally, there is a common belief today, which is not without basis,  that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has contrived to draw the US into the conflict situation in the Middle East. But didn’t Winston Churchill do exactly the same, calculating that the US’ entry in the continental war with Germany would decisively tilt the balance of forces? 

Churchill apparently said — rather, he claimed so in his not-so-honest history of the war — that for the first time in a long time he slept easy, secure in the knowledge that with the US in the war, victory was inevitable. 

Suffice to say, the probability cannot be ruled out that we are overplaying the chill in Biden’s equations with Netanyahu.  On the other hand, all this would imply at the very least that Iran has a massive challenge in crafting a proportionate response to the Israeli aggression. The retaliation has to be symbolic and substantive, cogent and convincing and above all, reasonable and rational. Most important, it should not trigger a world war — Iran most certainly does not want a war.

But every cloud has a silver lining, too. The mitigating factor in the grim situation is that on Sunday, Israel withdrew its ground forces from Khan Younis marking the end of so-called high-intensity conflict. At one stroke, the matrix has changed.

The Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant unilaterally announced victory claiming that Hamas has “stopped functioning as a military organisation throughout the Gaza Strip.” Which, of course, flies in the face of reality, as at least six Hamas battalions are reportedly hiding, still functional, including its leaders who are surrounded by  about 130 hostages.

Call it what you will, but this is a significant climbdown by Israel with much unfinished business remaining still, as it were: release of all the hostages; return of residents back home in the south and north; a set-up to administer Gaza Strip where Hamas remains the de facto  leadership enjoying massive popular backing.

Gen. Halevi put a brave face on it, asserting this does not signal the end of war but only, “we’re fighting this war differently … Senior Hamas officials are still in hiding. We will get to them sooner or later… We have plans and we will act when we decide.”

This unceremonious end to Israel’s Gaza war after six months is almost certainly linked to the reported progress in the negotiations in Cairo over the release of hostages. Well, Israel’s score card is not entirely empty! Besides, the Damascus strike can be deemed a parting kick at the Quds Force of Iran’s elite IRGC at the operational level in both Iraq and Syria.

But then, Tehran has a noble tradition of eyeing martyrdom as the ultimate victory for its generals. Indeed, Gen. Mohammad Reza Zahedi didn’t attain martyrdom in vain. This needs explaining.

No matter what Gen. Halevi says about living to fight another day, there is the bigger picture, in which a truce-hostage deal is finally taking shape, which creates an entirely new dynamic all around — most significantly, in Israeli domestic politics that would give impetus to new thinking.

Israel is traditionally quick to adapt to alien circumstances. For the second time, Israel is retrenching from Gaza and this time around, with its reputation as the Middle East’s cat whiskers severely damaged. What emerges is also that Israel can no longer take for granted seamless American support.

The prominent Israeli commentator David Horowitz wrote with biting sarcasm, “Is this how the war ends? Not with a bang, or even a whimper…” But if an inconclusive war can still produce peace as its outcome, it must be welcomed — and Iran will have no doubts on that score. Quintessentially, Hamas’ victory is Iran’s sweet revenge, too. It makes a direct Iranian retaliation against Israel seem lacking in elan, somewhat old-fashioned and redundant.

That said, at the end of the day, as hours are ticking away, nothing is certain until a truce and hostage release deal is through. The pendulum keeps swinging from one end to the other by the hour.

If peace doves get released tied to the purse strings of wealthy Arab states, the biggest winner might yet be Biden. Unlike Barack Obama, he worked hard to earn it. All the guile in his tool kit as politician has been in display. It is no small feat to try to manipulate Netanyahu. An election victory in November, possibly holding a Nobel as his trophy, isn’t a far-fetched thought.

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Axios reports that

Biden told Netanyahu he won’t support retaliation against Iran.

Washington is reportedly worried about a major escalation fraught with “catastrophic consequences”

For many years Israel has been pushing Washington to attack Iran, and neoconservatives and Congress have been chomping at the bit to do so. If this report on Axios is correct, it suggests that the power of neoconservatives over US Middle East Policy has been broken. I cannot help to be a bit suspicious of the report as it attributes more sense to Biden and his regime than we have previously seen any sign of.

And there are what seem to be conflicting reports. For example: “US sends reinforcements to ‘defend Israel’” and “Biden has been clear: The United States will stand with the people of Israel and support their defense against these threats from Iran,” US National Security Council spokeswoman stated.

There are also differing reports as to the success of the Iranian attack. As I have previously written the attack and the risks of it could have been prevented by the announcement of a Russian-Chinese-Iranian mutual defense treaty, but the political vision was absent.

The attack could also have been prevented if Syria had been permitted to use Russian air defense systems in Syria to prevent the Israeli attack on Damascus that provoked the Iranian retaliatory response.

If the Axios report is correct, the downside is that it is likely to convince Putin and Xi that Washington has finally come to its senses, and they will put their guard down and be tricked into more deceiving agreements like the Minsk Agreement resulting in even more distrust.

It has taken a long time for Zionist Israel to discredit itself. It did so with Israel’s declared policy of genocide of the Palestinians. As it was our bombs, missiles, and money that Israel used, America was also discredited.

The self-inflicted diminution of American prestige and its isolation as the supporter of Israel’s attempted genocide of Palestine has altered the balance of power and influence in the world. With the impoverished Houthis standing up to mighty America and Israel, and with Iran finally standing up to Israel, it is possible that the American-Israeli aggression leading to nuclear war has been tempered. The recent firing of Undersecretary of State Victoria Nuland is another possible indication.

Haaretz, the only objective Israeli newspaper, says Netanyahu should accept that the Iranian response was a limited attack provoked by Israel’s attack that murdered Iranian officials in Damascus and refrain from further military action. US bases throughout the Middle East and Israel’s Dimona nuclear arsenal are easy targets for a heavy Iranian attack. If Israel pushes further, a major war will erupt.

Perhaps it will dawn on Putin and Xi to stabilize the Middle East with announcement of a Russian-Chinese-Iranian mutual defense treaty. It is the absence of countervailing power in the Middle East that has made the region a tinderbox.

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

Featured image: President Joe Biden participates in a restricted bilateral meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the Hotel Kempinski in Tel Aviv, Israel, Wednesday, October 18, 2023. (Official White House Photo by Cameron Smith)

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Iran has carried out its long-promised retaliation for Israel’s attack on its consulate building in Damascus, launching a massive barrage of drones and missiles which it claims hit and destroyed Israeli military targets, while Israel says they dealt only superficial damage with a few injuries. The US and its allies reportedly helped shoot down a number of the Iranian projectiles. 

Just as we discussed in the lead-up to the strike, the western political-media class are acting as though this was a completely unprovoked attack launched against the innocent, Bambi-eyed victim Israel. Comments from western officials and pundits and headlines from the mass media are omitting the fact that Israel instigated these hostilities with its extreme act of aggression in Syria as much as possible. Here in Australia the Sydney Morning Herald write-up about the strike didn’t get around to informing its readers about the attack on the Iranian consulate until the tenth paragraph of the article, and said only that Iran had “accused” Israel of launching the attack because Israel has never officially confirmed it.

UPDATED: Iran Launches Major Drone and Missile Attack on Israel
Tel Aviv condemned the move as a “dangerous escalation” and claimed to have repelled most incoming projectiles
by Will Porter@TheWillPorter #Iran #Israel #IRGC #drones https://t.co/GOjbAm3OqU pic.twitter.com/Q2PtxbMAjy

— Antiwar.com (@Antiwarcom) April 14, 2024

In any case, Iran says the attack is now over. Given that we’re not seeing any signs of massive damage, Iran’s reported claim that its retaliation would be calibrated to avoid escalation into a full-scale regional war seems to have been accurate, as does Washington’s reported claim that it didn’t expect the strike to be large enough to draw the US into war.

A new report from Axios says Biden has personally told Netanyahu that the US will not be supporting any Israeli military response to the Iranian strike. An anonymous senior White House official told Axios that Biden said to Netanyahu, “You got a win. Take the win,” in reference to the number of Iranian weapons that were taken out of the sky by the international coalition in Israel’s defense. Apparently helping to mitigate the damage from the Iranian attack is all the military commitment the White House is willing to make against Iran at this time.

And thank all that is holy for that. A war between the US alliance and Iran and its allies would be the stuff of nightmares, making the horrors we’ve been seeing in Gaza these last six months look like an episode of Peppa Pig.

But Washington merely declining to get involved is nowhere near enough. As the Quincy Institute’s Trita Parsi quipped on Twitter, “Biden needs to PREVENT further escalation, not just declare his desire to stay out of it.”

Not significant enough.

Biden needs to PREVENT further escalation, not just declare his desire to stay out of it. https://t.co/KQ0paadDtY

— Trita Parsi (@tparsi) April 14, 2024

Indeed, Israel has already made it clear that it is going to be moving forward with an escalation against Iran. Israel’s Channel 12 cites an unnamed senior official saying the Iranian counter strike is going to receive an “unprecedented response”.

“Israel has already informed the Americans and governments in the region that its response is inevitable,” The Economist reports. “Its military options include launching drones at Iran, and long-range airstrikes on Iran, possibly on military bases or nuclear installations.”

It’s unclear at this time how much the latest message from the Biden administration will affect the calculations of this position, but the mass media are reporting that White House officials are worried Israel is getting ready to do something extremely reckless that could draw the US into a war it would rather avoid. 

NBC News reports the following:

“Some top U.S. officials are concerned Israel could do something quickly in response to Iran’s attacks without thinking through potential fallout afterward, according to a senior administration official and a senior defense official.

“Those concerns stem in part from the administration’s views of the approach Israel has taken to its war against Hamas, as well as the attack in Damascus.

“President Joe Biden has privately expressed concern that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is trying to drag the U.S. more deeply into a broader conflict, according to three people familiar with his comments.”

Read this piece on why Bibi chose to radically escalate with his April 1 strike on Iran's diplomatic compound. It's by Paul Pillar, who knows the territory–he was once in charge of analysis of the Middle East for CIA & all other US intelligence agencies. https://t.co/w4dZjkdy3w

— Robert Wright (@robertwrighter) April 13, 2024

People have been raising this concern for some time now. Earlier this month Responsible Statecraft’s Paul Pillar wrote up a solid argument that Netanyahu stands a lot to gain personally from drawing the US into a war with Iran to help him with his legal and political troubles and take the focus off of Israel’s genocide in Gaza. 

Whether that’s the case or not it’s pretty absurd for the Biden administration to just sit around passively hoping this doesn’t happen as though it wouldn’t have a say in the matter, and as though there’s nothing it can do to prevent such an occurrence right now. Biden has had the ability to end this insane cycle of escalation in the middle east since it started six months ago by demanding a ceasefire in Gaza and demanding that Israel rein in its murder machine, just as US presidents have done successfully in the past.

Biden could end all this with one phone call. The fact that he doesn’t means he’s a monster, and no amount of mass media reports about how “concerned” and “frustrated” he is regarding Israel’s actions will ever change that.

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Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Joe Biden engaged in a significant phone conversation on 02 April 2024 (Tuesday) at President Biden’s request, delving into various aspects of China-U.S. relations and mutual concerns.

President Xi highlighted the forward-looking vision established during his meeting with President Biden in San Francisco last November, emphasizing the subsequent earnest actions taken by both sides to materialize their understandings. While acknowledging the initial stabilization of China-U.S. relations, President Xi also noted the emergence of negative elements, warranting careful attention from both nations.

Emphasizing the paramount importance of strategic perception in bilateral relations, President Xi likened it to the first button on a shirt that must be properly secured. He stressed against severing ties or resorting to conflict, urging mutual respect, peaceful coexistence, and mutually beneficial cooperation to maintain stable, constructive relations.

President Xi outlined three fundamental principles for guiding China-U.S. relations in 2024: valuing peace, prioritizing stability, and upholding credibility. He underscored the significance of respecting commitments, managing differences prudently, and enhancing cooperation while addressing global challenges responsibly.

Regarding sensitive issues such as Taiwan, President Xi reiterated China’s stance, highlighting the red line of “Taiwan independence” and urging concrete actions from the U.S. to align with President Biden’s commitment. He cautioned against actions that hinder China’s development or provoke conflict.

President Biden acknowledged the critical nature of the China-U.S. relationship, commending progress since the San Francisco meeting and emphasizing cooperation alongside managing differences responsibly. He reiterated the U.S.’s commitment to peaceful resolution of disputes, non-interference in China’s internal affairs, and adherence to the one-China policy.

President Biden raised concerns about various issues, including Taiwan, the South China Sea, and trade practices. He emphasized the importance of fair trade and preventing technology misuse while maintaining open channels of communication and diplomatic engagement.

Both leaders agreed on the importance of continued dialogue and cooperation across various domains, including diplomacy, economy, and climate response. They tasked their respective teams to advance the San Francisco vision, enhance bilateral exchanges, and address regional and global challenges collaboratively.

The conversation between President Xi and President Biden reflected a commitment to constructive engagement, highlighting the significance of managing differences while pursuing mutual interests for the stability and prosperity of both nations and the broader international community.

The relationship between China and the US holds immense significance on the global stage, and it’s imperative to diffuse tensions and bridge differences to foster harmony and understanding, thus promoting global stability and peace. Communication and dialogue play pivotal roles in achieving these goals, and recent interactions between the two nations are welcomed as positive steps in the right direction.

However, considering the political landscape in the US, one may speculate that these communications were politically motivated, particularly as President Biden faces considerable pressure amid declining popularity leading up to the upcoming Presidential Elections. Criticism of his nearly four-year tenure, particularly regarding policies on issues such as Israel, Ukraine, Taiwan, the South China Sea, North Korea, and Iran, has led to a sharp decline in his popularity.

It appears that President Biden’s conversation with President Xi may hold political significance for him, potentially aimed at demonstrating a strong stance on China and perhaps even competing with his predecessor, President Trump. Moreover, with only a few months left in office, the feasibility of implementing any commitments made during these communications may be limited, as voters will ultimately assess his performance over the entirety of his term, rather than focusing solely on recent dialogue.

In contrast, President Xi approached the conversation with seriousness, seizing the opportunity to express his firm stance on issues such as Taiwan and the ongoing technological competition and sanctions. As both the Secretary-General of the CPC and the Chairman of the Central Military Commission of China, President Xi commands significant authority and is known for his resolute statements, reflecting a genuine commitment to his positions.

Ultimately, it is in the best interest of both the US and China to normalize relations and redirect their energies towards global development, economic prosperity, and maintaining global peace and security. By working together harmoniously, they can contribute to creating a better world for current and future generations.

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Prof. Engr. Zamir Ahmed Awan, Founding Chair GSRRA, Sinologist, Diplomat, Editor, Analyst, Consultant, Advisor, and Non-Resident Fellow of CCG. (E-mail: [email protected]).

Featured image: President Joe Biden greets President of the People’s Republic of China Xi Jinping, Wednesday, November 15, 2023, at the Filoli Estate in Woodside, California.(Official White House Photo by Carlos Fyfe)

This article was first published on March 19, 2022 prior to the release of Michel Chossudovsky’s book in August 2022.

The focus is to refute the Covid narrative by examining the timeline, the (official) data and definitions pertaining to the Covid-19 pandemic. The data presented in this article pertain to January 2020-March 2022.

 

Introduction 

March 11, 2024: Four Years Ago the Covid-19 Lockdown was imposed in one fell swoop by national governments Worldwide. 

The Lockdown implied: “Confining the Labour Force” and “Freezing the Work Place”. 

Not a single economist has acknowledged this relationship. From their standpoint, it was the virus which triggered economic and social collapse. What nonsense. 

What does this imply. The most serious economic and social crisis in World history which four years later is still ongoing, leading to economic chaos and mass poverty Worldwide. 

Destabilizing the social, political and economic structure of 190 sovereign countries cannot constitute  a “solution” to combating the virus. 

But that was the imposed “solution” which was implemented in several stages from the very outset of the corona crisis in January 2020.  

It’s the destruction of people’s  lives. It is the destabilization of civil society.

Fake science was supportive of this devastating agenda. The lies were sustained by a massive media disinformation campaign. 24/7, Incessant and Repetitive “Covid alerts” in the course of the last four years.

The  historic March 11, 2020 lockdown triggered economic and social chaos Worldwide. It was an act of “economic warfare”: a war against humanity. 

This diabolical agenda has undermined the sovereignty of nation states. 

It has contributed  to a wave of bankruptcies. It has impoverished people Worldwide.

It has led to a spiralling dollar denominated global debt. 

The powerful structures of global capitalism, Big Money coupled with its intelligence and military apparatus were the driving force.

Using advanced digital and communications technologies, the lockdown and “closure” of the global economy is unprecedented in World history.

The video below was produced by Global Research in December 2020 prior to the launching of the vaccine. It was released in early 2021. 

It was the object of immediate censorship. It was taken down.

Thanks to Vaccine Choice Canada, this version on Rumble was saved.  

Start the video production at 6′.30′

Click Here to access the Video on Rumble and/or Leave Comment

Our thanks to Vaccine Choice Canada

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For a more detailed and comprehensive analysis (Book released in August 2022)

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

Destroying Civil Society, Engineered Economic Depression

By Michel Chossudovsky

Translations in several languages are envisaged. The book is available in print form in Japanese. 仕組まれたコロナ危機:「世界の初期化」を目論む者たち

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

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The Central Role of the Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction Test (RT-PCR)

From the very outset, both the media and the governments have overlooked and ignored the flaws and falsehoods pertaining to the RT-PCR test as a means to detecting the spread of the virus and identifying SARS-CoV-2.

“The PCR is a Process. It does not tell you that you are sick”.

Dr. Kary Mullis, Nobel Laureate and Inventor of the RT-PCR, passed away in August 2019.

This misuse of the RT-PCR technique is applied as a relentless and intentional strategy by some governments to justify excessive measures such as the violation of a large number of constitutional rights, … under the pretext of a pandemic based on a number of positive RT-PCR tests, and not on a real number of patients. .

Dr. Pascal Sacré, Belgian physician specialized in critical care and renowned public health analyst.

The Entire Data Base of “Covid-19 Confirmed Cases” is Invalid.

Media disinformation has prevailed  for more than two years despite the fact that both the WHO and the CDC (with the usual innuendos) have confirmed what was known from the very outset in January 2020, namely that the RT-PCR test used to justify every single policy mandate including lockdowns, social distancing, the mask, confinement of the labor force, closure of economic activity, etc. was flawed and invalid. 

The WHO issued its Mea Culpa more than a year ago on January 20, 2021. A few months later, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)  (July 21, 2021) called for the withdrawal of the PCR test as a valid method for detecting and identifying SARS-CoV-2.  Moreover, the WHO in January 2020, did not possess an isolate and purified sample of the novel 2019-nCov virus. The Berlin Virology team (headed by Drosten):

“recommended to the WHO, that in the absence of an isolate of the 2019-nCoV virus, a similar 2003-SARS-CoV should be used as a “proxy” (point of reference) of the novel virus” (See Michel Chossudovsky, E-Book, Chapter III)

As of December, 31 2021, the PCR test is no longer considered valid by the CDC in the U.S.  For more details see: CDC No Longer Recognizes the PCR Test As a Valid Method for Detecting “Confirmed Covid-19 Cases”?

The CDC has now firmly acknowledged that the PCR test does not effectively differentiate between Covid-19 and Seasonal Influenza. A PCR positive does not imply a “Covid-19 Confirmed Case”. It could be influenza or a corona common cold. The CDC called for its withdrawal effective December 31, 2021.

Fake Data: 465 Million So-Called “Confirmed Covid-19 Cases” [March 2022]

If the PCR test is invalid (confirmed by numerous studies as well as WHO, CDC), the 465 Million so-called “Confirmed Covid-19 Cases” (see diagram below, MARCH 18, 2022) collected and tabulated Worldwide since the outset of the Covid-19 crisis are meaningless. Click here to get the latest figures.

The Pandemic Treaty and the QR Verification  Code 

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

, “The INB held its first meeting to draft and negotiate an international instrument on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response under the authority of the WHO” (Mercola)

The Pandemic Treaty  is tied into the WHO’s QR Verification Code project, which is intent upon creating a global digital data bank of 7.9 billion people. Both initiatives are to be carried out concurrently by  the WHO in liaison with ID2020 and the Gavi Alliance, both of which are funded by the Gates Foundation.

Peter Koenig describes the QR Code as

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

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

The QR Verification Code potentially sets the stage for the instatement of “a global police state” controlled by the financial establishment. It’s part of what the late David Rockefeller entitled “the march towards World Government”.

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

Both initiatives are based on outright fraud and corruption. What is the evidence:

1. The Number of  “Covid-19 Cumulative Confirmed Cases” resulting from the RT-PCR test did not  justify the WHO’s decision to officially launch a pandemic on March 11, 2020. The numbers were ridiculously low. There was no evidence that SARS-CoV-2 was spreading nationally or internationally.

2. The Lockdown instructions transmitted in March 2020 to more than 190 member states of the UN are totally invalid.

3. The methodology using the PCR test to detect and identify the SARS-CoV-2 and its alleged variants has been acknowledged by the WHO and the CDC as being totally dysfunctional as outlined above.

4. All the data pertaining to Covid-19 Cumulative Confirmed Cases compiled by national governments and tabulated by the WHO since January 2020 are invalid and meaningless.

5. The Covid-19 Vaccine launched in November 2020 has resulted in an upward Worldwide tide of mortality and morbidity

In this article I will distinguish between several phases in the evolution of this crisis.

Phase I: Ridiculously Low Numbers of  “Covid-19 Confirmed Cases” Used to Justify the Launching of the Covid-19 Pandemic

From the very outset, the estimates of “confirmed positive cases” have been part of a “Numbers Game”.

The first stage of this crisis was the launching of a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) by the WHO on January 30th. While officially it was not designated as a “Pandemic”, it nonetheless contributed to spearheading the fear campaign. The number of “confirmed cases” based on faulty estimates (PCR) used to justify this far reaching decision was ridiculously low.

The Worldwide population outside China is of the order of 6.4 billion. On January 30, 2020 outside China there were:

83 cases in 18 countries, and only 7 of them had no history of travel in China. (see WHO, January 30, 2020).

83 Cases outside China: There was no “scientific basis” to justify the launching of a Worldwide Public Health Emergency of International Concern.

Screenshot of WHO table, January 29, 2020,

On the following day January 31, 2020:  President Trump Suspends Air Travel with China, which contributed to the broader crisis in air travel and commodity trade. The five so-called “confirmed cases” in the US were sufficient to “justify” President Trump’s January 31st 2020 decision.

February 20th, 2020: At a press conference on Thursday the 20th of February afternoon (CET Time) in a briefing in Geneva, the WHO Director General. Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said that he was

Assuming that the PCR test is valid (which it is not), the number of cumulative confirmed cases on March 11 was ridiculously low. 44,279 PCR positive cases Worldwide out of China.

IT’S A FRAUD. THERE WAS NO PANDEMIC ON MARCH 11, 2020

Immediately Following the March 11, 2020 WHO Announcement: A Worldwide Fear Campaign

Yet it was on the basis of these 44,729 cases that sweeping lockdown policies were imposed on 190 sovereign countries through a complex decision-making procedure which inevitably required corruption and bribing of senior government officials.

The March 11 Lockdown was followed by “Black Thursday“, a second major Financial Crash, which immediately followed the pandemic announcement.

Phase II. March-December 2020: Fear Campaign. PCR Test Goes Into High Gear

From March 2020 up until the launching of the mRNA COVID-19 vaccine in November 2020, the PCR test goes into high gear.

As of March 11, 2020, following the lockdown,  national governments were urged to implement the PCR-RT test on a massive scale, with a view to pushing up the numbers of covid positive cases Worldwide.

Test, Test, Test: The numbers started to climb with a view to generating more and more fake statistics.

Look at the table below. A very small number of positive cases in early March. And then, Covid positive cases going fly high as of April, May and June 2020.

Phase III. Early November 2020. Commencement of the Worldwide Covid Vaccination Program

Sustained by media disinformation, the mRNA vaccine was put forth as a solution to curbing the pandemic. Amply documented, the Vaccine has triggered from the outset in December 2020 an upward trend in mortality and morbidity

In many countries, there was a significant shift in mortality following the introduction of the mRNA vaccine

69,053 Covid-19 injection related deaths and 10,997,126 reported as at 3 April 2022 for the EU, US and UK combined.

Official sources, namely EudraVigilance (EU, EEA, Switzerland), MHRA (UK) and VAERS (USA), have now recorded many more deaths and injuries from the COVID-!9 “vaccine” roll-out than from all previous vaccines combined since records began.

But only a small fraction of the victims or families of the deceased will go through the tedious process of reporting vaccine-related deaths and adverse events to the national health authorities.

It’s the Covid-19 mRNA “Vaccine” rather than the SARS-CoV-2 virus which is “the killer”.  

For further details see: The “Killer Vaccine” Worldwide. 7.9 Billion People

Media Disinformation: The Virus is a “Hit and Run Killer”, “The Vaccine Saves Lives!”

SARS-CoV2 detected by the PCR test is relentlessly portrayed as  a “killer virus”.

“there are many crucial unknowns about this virus, including how exactly it kills, whether it will evolve into something more — or less — lethal … . (Nature)

“The most common symptoms of COVID-19 are fever, dry cough, and tiredness. … These symptoms are usually mild and begin gradually. Some people become infected but only have very mild symptoms. Most people (about 80%) recover from the disease without needing hospital treatment. Around 1 out of every 5 people who gets COVID-19 becomes seriously ill and develops difficulty breathing.”

Moreover, rarely mentioned by the media or by politicians: The CDC (which is an agency of the US government) confirms that Covid-19 is similar to Influenza

If the public had been informed and reassured that Covid is “similar to Influenza”, the fear campaign would have fallen flat. And the vaccine program would have been rejected outright.

It is worth noting that the mRNA vaccine presented to public opinion as a solution to curbing the killer virus relied on the the PCR test as a valid means to assessing the spread of the disease. In the United States, the mRNA vaccine was launched on December 14, 2020. Six weeks later (January 20, 2021), the WHO repealed the validity of the PCR test. In turn on July 21, 2021 the CDC declares the PCR as invalid as a means to detecting the virus.

Phase IV: November 26, 2021, “Black Friday”. The Omicron Variant

Remember the Omicron crisis, still ongoing. Scary. A novel Covid variant allegedly discovered in South Africa  which has been spreading Worldwide. How was it detected? The PCR test?

It started on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, 26th of  November 2021.

It triggered a renewed fear campaign as well as instability on the stock markets with the shares of Big Pharma vaccine producers going fly high. It incited people to get their vaccine booster shots.

The omicron announcement was a carefully prepared fraud. Two days later, the WHO politely repealed the statement of  its own advisory task force:

“There is currently no information to suggest that symptoms associated with Omicron are different from those from other variants.”  

In turn,  Dr. Angelique Coetzee, Chair of the South African Medical Association (SAMA) described the omicron variant  as “extremely mild,  for us [these are] mild cases. … I’ve spoken to other colleagues of mine and they give the same picture.” (See Video Interview on CNBC)

These rectifications did not in any way impede the 24/7 fear campaign sustained by media disinformation. In fact it created panic.

Meanwhile, a massive home testing campaign was initiated.

Phase V: Billions of Home and Antigen Tests Distributed  Worldwide

Massive Home Testing: Fear is “Good For Business”

Literally billions of antigen and home test kits have been distributed Worldwide. In the U.S. more than a billion test kits were made available for a population of 340 million Americans.

In Canada, 291 million test kits were distributed. Canada’s population is of the order of 38.5 million.

In many countries, the “deadly” Omicron variant became the pretext for implementing renewed partial lockdowns, the speeding up of the vaccine mandate, restrictions on travel as well as confinement and stay at home mandates over the Christmas and New Year holiday period.

Below are the figures for so-called “Covid-19 Confirmed Cases” Worldwide in early November 2021. (11/01/21)

Pushing up the Numbers of  FAKE “Covid-19 Confirmed cases”

Coinciding with the Omicron crisis, the surge in the import and distribution of literally billions of home and antigen test kits Worldwide has contributed to pushing up the number of  FAKE “Covid-19 confirmed cases”.

In the course of less than 5 months (November 1st, 2021 to March 18, 2022), the cumulative confirmed cases have almost doubled.

Joe Biden’s Purchase of More than A Billion Home and Antigen Test Kits  

In the US  the White House announced in January that it was buying at tax payers expense:

“One Billion Tests to Give to Americans for Free with Online Ordering of a Half-Billion Tests Begins on January 19th”. 

This purchase was in addition the earlier deliveries of several hundred million home kits.

Starting in late November, the home test kits contributed to hiking up the so-called “Confirmed Cases” in the US. (See graph below)

These figures are fake because the WHO and the CDC have categorized the PCR test as totally invalid.

And the home tests are categorized as less reliable than the PCR test which is upheld as the gold standard.

Justin Trudeau’s Purchase of 291 Million Home and Antigen Test Kits

In Canada, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau ordered the delivery of 94 million rapid home test kits (self testing and antigen testing kits) back in November 2021 which were delivered and distributed to the provinces.

Another 140 million were ordered by the federal government in early January 2022 at a cost of 1.7 billion (Canadian) dollars at tax payers’ expense.

Canada has a population of 38.5 million and we now have 291 million antigen rapid test kits (See table below). In other words exactly 7 tests per person. 

This process has  contributed in the course of the last few months to creating fear and havoc within Canadian families while hiking up the number of so-called “Covid-19 confirmed cases”

The estimated cost to Canadian tax payers is of the order of 3.5 billion Canadian dollars. (February 2022). A recent update (December 6, 2022), confirms that “the federal government has provided $4.28 billion to the provinces and territories to help them”:

• conduct testing (up to 200,000 tests per day across Canada)
• perform contact tracing
• share public health data to help fight the pandemic

Needless to say this 4.28 billion dollar budget sustained by a mounting public debt has created havoc in the Canada’s fiscal structure, to the detriment of routine expenditures on infrastructure in the areas of health, education, transport etc, etc.

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See Health Canada (Table Below)

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“The Gold Standard” PCR Test

Ironically the home tests are compared to the flawed PCR test which is currently upheld as the so-called gold standard. According to the NYT (Updated Nov. 10, 2021) the rapid antigen and home test kits are less effective than the PCR test:

The rapid antigen tests are less reliable for finding Covid-19 in people with low viral loads compared to the “gold standard” P.C.R. tests you’d get from a health care provider. One study found that a rapid home antigen test had a 64 percent chance of correctly spotting the virus in people with symptoms who had tested positive on a P.C.R. test. (The test caught only about 36 percent of those who had the virus but didn’t have symptoms.)

What the NYT fails to acknowledge is that the CDC had called for the “Gold Standard” PCR test to be discontinued on July 23, 2021 before it’s official withdrawal on December 31, 2021. (see analysis above)

The CDC directive tacitly admits is that the PCR test does not effectively differentiate between “SARS-CoV-2 and influenza viruses”. We have known this from the outset. While it has taken them almost two years to recognize that the PCR test is totally flawed and invalid, the PCR test is upheld as the gold standard in relation to the antigen and home test kits.

• December 31, 2021 CDC declares the PCR test as invalid
• Invalid PCR Test Upheld as the Gold Standard
• Billions and Billions of Antigen and Home Tests Push up the Numbers
• March 12, 2022   452,201,564 cumulative cases 

The results of the home and antigen tests are meaningless. They do not under any circumstances confirm an increase in the so-called “COVID-19 confirmed cases”.

The surge in the numbers is largely attributable to the worldwide sale and distribution of billions of  home and antigen tests. This in turn has contributed to a new wave of fear and social disruption.

This engineered surge in so-called  “COVID-19 confirmed cases” has occurred at a time when a large percentage of the world’s population has been vaccinated.

“Fear is Good for Business”: Big Money Behind the Covid-19 Self Testing Kits

“The FDA made this decision based on results from a study conducted by United Health Group. The Gates Foundation provided technical support on the design of this study” (Gates Foundation)

In August 2021, the Gates Foundation together with Soros’ Open Society Foundation invested in

“acquiring Mologic, a British company that specializes in the development of rapid-testing technology, including for Covid-19 and various tropical diseases”.

Mologic is described as  “a leader in rapid testing [which] presents a unique opportunity”

This initiative consisted in “rebranding” Mologic into “a non-profit social enterprise.” which would operate under the auspices of the Gates’ Foundation’s Global Access Health 

The stated purpose of GAH is to act as a “a social enterprise which expands access to affordable state-of-the-art medical technology such as diagnostic tests and manufacturing processes.”

 

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For a more detailed and comprehensive analysis including the economic and social dimensions: Recently released Book.

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

Destroying Civil Society, Engineered Economic Depression

By Michel Chossudovsky

Product Type: PDF File

Pages: 164 (15 Chapters)

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

You are welcome to forward it to family and friends.

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About the Author

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

He has undertaken field research in Latin America, Asia, the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa and the Pacific and has written extensively on the economies of developing countries with a focus on poverty and social inequality. He has also undertaken research in Health Economics (UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC),  UNFPA, CIDA, WHO, Government of Venezuela, John Hopkins International Journal of Health Services (1979, 1983)

He is the author of 13 books including The Globalization of Poverty and The New World Order (2003), America’s “War on Terrorism” (2005),  The Globalization of War, America’s Long War against Humanity (2015).

He is a contributor to the Encyclopaedia Britannica.  His writings have been published in more than twenty languages. In 2014, he was awarded the Gold Medal for Merit of the Republic of Serbia for his writings on NATO’s war of aggression against Yugoslavia. He can be reached at [email protected]

See Michel Chossudovsky, Biographical Note

Michel Chossudovsky’s Articles on Global Research

 

 

 

A guerra da NATO contra a Rússia na Ucrânia leva ao aumento das despesas militares. De acordo com dados oficiais, as despesas militares italianas aumentaram de 21 mil milhões de euros em 2019 para mais de 30 mil milhões em 2023, o que equivale a uma média anual de mais de 80 milhões de euros por dia em dinheiro público desviado das despesas sociais. De acordo com o compromisso da NATO, a Itália terá de aumentar esta despesa para cerca de 100 milhões de euros por dia. Desde 2014, as despesas militares da Europa filiada na NATO dispararam, ultrapassando o nível da última fase da Guerra Fria.

O Secretário-Geral da NATO, Stoltenberg, salienta que:

“Os aliados estão a fornecer à Ucrânia uma ajuda militar e financeira sem precedentes. A França vai enviar em breve mais obuses Caesar e vários aliados juntaram-se à iniciativa da República Checa para adquirir 800.000 cartuchos de artilharia adicionais”.

A Itália, que já forneceu a Kiev peças de artilharia pesada, também participa na compra destes 800.000 projécteis adicionais. Mais uma despesa adicional de dinheiro público pago pelos nossos cidadãos.

Um outro agravante deriva do facto de a Itália contribuir para os custos das bases dos EUA-NATO que, a partir do território italiano, desempenham papéis fundamentais no apoio a operações de guerra, da Ucrânia ao Médio Oriente. De particular importância é o papel de Camp Darby, o maior arsenal americano fora do território dos Estados Unidos. Atualmente, chegam dos Estados Unidos a esta base, situada entre Pisa e Livorno, novos e mais potentes veículos blindados que, a partir de Camp Darby, através do porto de Livorno, serão enviados para a Ucrânia.

As bases americanas de Camp Darby, Sigonella e outras em território italiano apoiam também as operações de guerra no Médio Oriente. Aqui, os EUA continuam a armar Israel ao abrigo de um acordo assinado pelo Presidente Obama e pelo seu adjunto Biden. Este acordo fornece a Israel armas no valor de 38 mil milhões de dólares, incluindo as bombas com que Israel está a exterminar os palestinianos em Gaza.

Manlio Dinucci

Artigo original em italiano :

Il Costo della Guerra

byoblu.com

Traduçao : Mondialisation.ca com DeepL

VIDEO :

A ajuda dos EUA à Ucrânia com drones está a revelar-se insuficiente no campo de batalha. Recentemente, a mídia ocidental admitiu que os veículos aéreos não tripulados (UAVs) americanos na Ucrânia são ineficazes no combate à Rússia. O caso mostra claramente as fraquezas da tecnologia militar ocidental, que se revelou inútil quando testada no campo de batalha.

De acordo com o Wall Street Journal (WSJ), os pequenos drones americanos enviados para a Ucrânia não são capazes de escapar aos mecanismos eficientes de guerra eletrônica russos. Os UAV fabricados nos EUA são utilizados massivamente para operações de reconhecimento e ataques com granadas, mas os seus resultados são insatisfatórios e não trazem benefícios reais para as tropas ucranianas nas linhas da frente.

Segundo o jornal, a reputação da indústria militar americana de drones está seriamente ameaçada pelo fraco desempenho dos UAVs na zona de combate. Anteriormente, este equipamento era considerado adequado pelo Pentágono até mesmo para soldados americanos, mas a incapacidade de lidar com a realidade militar ucraniana mostrou que a tecnologia das forças armadas dos EUA está ultrapassada e necessita urgentemente de mudanças para enfrentar os novos desafios da guerra contemporânea.

“A reputação geral de todas as classes de drones dos EUA na Ucrânia é que eles não funcionam tão bem como outros sistemas (…) [os drones americanos] não são uma plataforma muito bem-sucedida nas linhas de frente”, disse um especialista ao WSJ. .

A matéria menciona uma lista de armas com problemas operacionais, incluindo drones fabricados pela Cyberlux e, principalmente, pela Skydio, empresa do Vale do Silício que enviou milhões de equipamentos militares para a Ucrânia. As startups de defesa dos EUA, que até então eram elogiadas como grandes centros de inovação na indústria militar, estão agora a ser testadas e a demonstrar verdadeira incompetência em lidar com as realidades da guerra.

“A empresa do Vale do Silício, Skydio, enviou centenas de seus melhores drones para a Ucrânia para ajudar a combater os russos. As coisas não correram bem. Os drones da Skydio saíram do curso e se perderam, sendo vítimas da guerra eletrônica da Rússia. Desde então, a empresa voltou à prancheta para construir uma nova frota. A maioria dos pequenos drones de startups dos EUA não conseguiram ser efetivos em combate, frustrando as esperanças das empresas de que um diferencial de ter sido testado em batalha traria vendas e atenção às startups. Também é uma má notícia para o Pentágono, que precisa de um fornecimento confiável de milhares de aeronaves pequenas e não tripuladas. Na primeira guerra com pequenos drones tendo destaque, as empresas americanas ainda não têm presença significativa. Os drones fabricados na América tendem a ser caros, com falhas e difíceis de reparar, disseram os executivos de empresas, ucranianos na linha de frente, funcionários do governo ucraniano e ex-funcionários da defesa dos EUA”, diz o artigo.

Na verdade, esta notícia deve ser entendida como mais uma prova de que a indústria militar americana está gravemente afetada por um processo de “desprofissionalização”. Startups de investidores que não possuem nenhum conhecimento militar estão empreendendo projetos muitas vezes elogiados e incorporados pelo Pentágono em meio à busca por “inovação” no setor de defesa. O resultado é que a ausência de conhecimento técnico militar e de experiência de combate torna impossível aos fabricantes produzir equipamentos suficientemente eficazes para lidar com as realidades de uma guerra real. Nesse sentido, os drones americanos, que eram considerados produtos “inovadores” e de alta qualidade tecnológica, passam a ser vistos como armas caras e facilmente neutralizáveis.

Os EUA passaram décadas a investir em projetos de inovação tecnológica no setor militar que, no final, se revelaram inúteis. A maior parte destas “inovações” centraram-se na satisfação dos interesses dos investidores no setor tecnológico, mas não tiveram em conta os conhecimentos técnicos militares. O Estado americano confiou na entrada de novas startups tecnológicas dentro do aparato do complexo militar-industrial e agora o resultado se mostra catastrófico. Entretanto, na Rússia, o setor da defesa continua extremamente controlado por profissionais militares experientes, sendo todas as inovações tecnológicas rigorosamente avaliadas por especialistas militares e testadas no campo de batalha.

Um ponto que também precisa ser enfatizado é o desenvolvimento do setor russo de guerra eletrônica – também chamado de “guerra de espectro”. Este setor consiste basicamente na utilização do campo eletromagnético para fins militares. As armas atuais, dada a sua alta tecnologia, criam um campo de ondas electromagnéticas em torno da zona de conflito. O lado mais hábil na utilização destes dados eletromagnéticos em operações de inteligência, reconhecimento e sabotagem torna-se capaz de neutralizar a maioria dos ataques inimigos.

A eficiência russa na guerra eletrônica já é reconhecida até pelos analistas militares como a principal razão para o fracasso dos esforços dos drones da Ucrânia. A maioria dos drones ocidentais lançados por Kiev são desviados por mecanismos de guerra eletrônica. O resultado é um cenário em que os americanos gastam milhões para produzir UAV inúteis que são facilmente sabotados por ferramentas baratas.

No final, o conflito na Ucrânia está a mostrar como a indústria militar americana se tornou num verdadeiro tigre de papel, controlada por investidores sem conhecimentos especializados e fortemente dependente de investimentos dispendiosos para obter maus resultados.

Lucas Leiroz de Almeida

 

Artigo em inglês :

US Drones Useless in Ukraine. Russia’s Electromagnetic Waves Technology Used to Neutralize Enemy Attacks

https://infobrics.org/post/40941

Imagem : InfoBrics

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Lucas Leiroz, jornalista, pesquisador do Center for Geostrategic Studies, consultor geopolítico.

Você pode seguir Lucas Leiroz em: https://t.me/lucasleiroz e https://twitter.com/leiroz_lucas

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Global Research Referral Drive: Our Readers Are Our Lifeline

First published on April 6, 2024

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Philosophy Reaching Insight into the Nature of Reality

One crucial and relevant aspect of Philosophy as an academic inquiry is the fact that Philosophy engages our ordinary experience as an entry point venue, as a stepping-stone, and as a vehicle towards reaching insight into the nature of Reality.

Philosophy engages even the most ordinary, the most down-to-earth, the most mundane, and simplest experience of life as a diving board to reach what Plato called the logos (the essential principle) of Reality and what Aristotle termed the telos (ultimate end or absolute purpose) of Life and Existence.

Right image: Aristotle

It is in this thought that Philosophy is referred to as a transcendental subject in and of itself.

Philosophy looks at the wholeness of things instead of partiality or particularity.

Philosophy seeks a unitive and holistic understanding of things instead of looking at things from the point of view of separateness and divisiveness. 

There are many intellectual fields or subjects of academic endeavors that elucidate their respective discipline by making categories, particularizations, and distinctions in order to explain what for them constitutes Reality (be it social reality, political reality, constructed reality, or even metaphysical reality itself); however, Philosophy as a synthesizing discipline sees Reality as unitive, as a seamless whole, as a complete and comprehensive totality—hence

Philosophy by its very nature looks at the world exhaustively and holistically.

The Ultimate Reality from the positionality and perspective of Philosophy is first and foremost through-and-through unitive before it is divided into particularities, distinctiveness, or separateness.

Philosophy Looks at Absolute Truth 

Philosophy looks at Absolute Truth as undivided whole and essentially unitive:

hence Philosophy cannot help but be holistic and synthetic (approaching the view of synthesis) in its view of things and events—and philosophers are also expected to look at the world, things, events, and indeed our total ecosystem from a tolerant perspective of an all-embracing synthesis and comprehensive wholeness.

Philosophy and Consumerism 

There is a growing trend and a latent tendency in our contemporary educational system to see education as merely positivistic, scientistic, hyper-empiricistic, utilitarian, extractive, and instrumentalist.

The present profit-oriented, consumeristic, and capitalistic rising trend of our present educational system is to glorify what the ancient Sophists call teknike (the “how to” of things) rather than the ethike which is the discourse of ideal philosophical and ethical principles.

The Contemporary Academic System: Utilitarian and Instrumentalist  

The contemporary academic system is geared towards a utilitarian, instrumentalist, pragmatic approach to education that caters only to the utility of our present capitalist and consumerist economic setup. The purpose of contemporary education in our day and age is simply to supply workers to First World markets and laborers in the capitalistic corporatocratic cog.

Many educational systems in the Third World are right now mainly focusing in their academic syllabi and emphasizing in their curriculum the utility and marketability of their graduates to supply the intellectual, technical, and labor force to the capitalist corporations and consumerist economic outfits of First World countries.

If capitalistic productivity and consumeristic profiteering are to be the present focus and emphasis of our contemporary educational system, then Philosophy is simply counterproductive, passe, and totally irrelevant for an extractive capitalistic and corporatocratic educational system: since there is no utilitarian need of philosophers in the world of “get” and in the culture of accumulation: and no need for philosophical critique, rigorous reflection, and intellectual reflexivity in a commodified world whose emphasis is frenzied profitable action and unthinking compliance to the greedy demands of capitalistic corporatocracies.

Philosophy and Humanistic Education  

And yet, Philosophy is very crucial and relevant discipline if we are to establish a humanistic education since it is Philosophy that puts the “mind, heart, and soul” as well as humanness, humane-ness, and proper humanity to the human person.

It is Philosophy that informs the human person of his or her unrepeatable, irreducible, irreplaceable, and unique worth in the midst of the commodifying and objectifying hold of a profiteering capitalism, consumerism, and avaricious corporatocracy on humans and on human relationships.

It is Philosophy that guides the human person who is in search of ethical and spiritual authenticity in the midst of this glittering world of money and this oppressive world of power-mongering and influence-peddling. It is Philosophy that allows humans to be in awe at Life with the view of knowing himself or herself in relation to others and the world. 

By emphasizing on the consumeristic, positivistic, instrumentalist, utilitarian, extractive, and pragmatic demands of capitalist-oriented education, the relevance of Philosophy may diminish in the eyes of present academic curriculum makers, and it may vanish in the General Education courses and syllabi of profit-oriented capitalistic universities and other same-minded academic institutions—and God forbid, Philosophy as a subject or course may not be offered anymore in the academic prospectus of many educational institution in our day and age. But who will be at a loss? It will be the students themselves: and eventually, our present societies will intellectually be at a loss; since the ultimate goal of Philosophy is to be the venue for the authentic humanization of students so that they will become persons of wholeness for the sake of themselves, for others, for the world, and for the ecosystem.

Philosophy is Life Itself 

It may be that Philosophy will not anymore be offered as an academic subject or course in the universities in the near future—and yet it will not be the death of Philosophy for Philosophy is, properly speaking, NOT just an academic discipline.

Philosophy is LIFE itself: and for as long as there are people who longs for authenticity in their very own existence and who continually wonder, question, and search for the raison d’ être of their life and being in the Greater Scheme of Things, for as long as there are still people who are not jaded to Life, but are continually amazed at the beauty of what Life has to offer, for as long as there are persons who want to be living sacrifice to the Altar of True Wisdom so they can expend and offer their lives for the good of humanity and for service to the world, then assuredly, Philosophy is here to stay, and will definitely be always here to stay.

Our capitalistic, monetarily extractive, and profit-driven contemporary educational system can never extinguish the ever-illuminating Torch of Wisdom, which is Philosophy itself.

Philosophy is Life and it is more expansive, more comprehensive, and more exhaustive than mere theorizing learned by rote, or plain memorizing, or by the relentless conditioning wrought by this consumer-crazed capitalistic education of today.

Philosophy Is Life and a Way of Life

As sure as the sun rises in the East, it can be certainly vouched—Philosophy as Life and as a way of Life is sure to stay for as long as there are authentic humans who are in earnest search for Life’s significance, who are in awe of Life’s bittersweet reality, and who longs for wholeness and genuineness in the midst of this modern world of extractive utilitarianism, instrumentalism, objectification, and commodification of humans, of both abiotic and biotic components of our ecosystem by the profit-driven capitalism and consumerism in our present corporatocratic educational system.

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Prof. Henry Francis B. Espiritu is Associate Professor-7 of Philosophy and Asian Studies at the University of the Philippines (UP), Cebu City, Philippines.

He was Academic Coordinator of the Political Science Program at UP Cebu from 2011-2014, and Program Coordinator of Gender and Development (GAD) Office at UP Cebu from 2015-2016 and from 2018-2019.

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

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

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First published on May 4, 2023

*** 

Dennis Meadows, one of the main authors of the Club of Rome’s The Limits to Growth, is an honorary member of the Club of Rome and a member of the World Economic Forum. If you thought his ideology had softened and become less anti-human since the publishing of his book, you’d be wrong. 

Here’s a 2017 video of Meadows musing over his hopes that the coming inevitable genocide of 86% of the world population could be accomplished peacefully under a “benevolent” dictatorship.

He said:

“We could [ ] have eight or nine billion, probably, if we have a very strong dictatorship which is smart … and [people have] a low standard of living …  

But we want to have freedom and we want to have a high standard of living so we’re going to have a billion people.

And we’re now at seven, so we have to get back down.  I hope that this can be slow, relatively slow and that it can be done in a way which is relatively equal, you know, so that people share the experience.”

As will become apparent at the end of this article, it is no coincidence that Meadows’ words echo the words in the 1995 Global Biodiversity Assessment first presented at the United Nations climate change conference COP1 which stated:

An ‘agricultural world’ in which most human beings are peasants, should be able to support 5 to 7 billion people … In contrast, a reasonable estimate for an industrialised world society at the present North American material standard of living would be one billion.

Global Biodiversity Assessment, UNEP, 1995, pg. 773

What the advocates of this ideology seem to omit mentioning is that, according to Worldometer, the population of the world is currently over 8 billion which doesn’t stack up with their fear-mongering predictions. There’s a good reason they avoid real-world scenarios because their models are a sleight of hand, they manipulate the data.

While many are now familiar with the manipulation of predictive modelling by Neil Ferguson during the covid-19 crisis, a network of powerful Malthusians have used the same tactics for the better part of the last century to sell and impose their agenda.

Malthusians are the disciples of Thomas Malthus (1766 – 1834).  Malthus promoted the mathematical thesis that population levels will always tend towards geometric growth, while agricultural resources will tend to arithmetic growth resulting in relatively forecastable “crisis points.” Malthus believed that social engineers representing the British Empire must use these “crisis points” to scientifically manage the “human herd.” Malthus believed that nature bestowed upon the ruling class certain tools that would allow them to accomplish this important task – namely war, famine and disease.

Established in 1968, the Club of Rome quickly set up branches across the Western world with members whom all agreed that society’s best form of governance was a scientific dictatorship.

It is a globalist non-governmental organisation (“NGO”) that convenes meetings between heads of state, members of royal families, business leaders, international financiers, academic scholars, laboratory scientists, and administrators of global governance institutions, such as the United Nations (“UN”), the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (“IMF”), and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (“OECD”). Modelled after the “Round Table” structure of the Bilderberg Group, the Royal Institute for International Affairs (“RIIA”), and the Council on Foreign Relations (“CFR”), the Club of Rome facilitates meetings where delegates plan the global economy through public-private stewardship of the world’s natural and human resources in accordance with the Malthusian ecology of sustainable development.

In 1972, the Club of Rome’s The Limits to Growth published the results of computer-simulated forecasts calculated by a team of statisticians recruited from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (“MIT”).   It was the culmination of a two-year study undertaken by the MIT team under the nominal heading of Jay Forrester and Dennis Meadows.  The Limits to Growth is arguably the most influential book about “sustainability.”   It became the bible and blueprint of the new anti-humanist movement that birthed today’s Green New Deal agenda.

The Club of Rome’s The Limits to Growth is not only Malthusian in principle, but a survey of its bibliography reveals that it is also backed by extensive citations from an array of Malthusian-eugenicists and affiliated institutions that have been dedicated to population control.

A 2012 article celebrating the book’s 40th anniversary stated: “It is worth revisiting Limits [to Growth] today because, more than any other book, it introduced the concept of anthropocentric [human caused] climate change to a mass audience.”  It’s worth revisiting Limits to Growth for other reasons as well.

One reason is that The Limits to Growth was the first of its kind to fuse global temperature with economic variables like population growth, resource loss, and the under-defined category of “pollution.” By utilising linear equations to extrapolate trends into the future, Meadows and his co-authors, one of whom was his wife, had set the stage for two major fallacies:

• The fabric of physical space-time shaping the discoverable universe is intrinsically non-linear and thus not expressible by any form of linear equations regardless of the computing power involved. Human creative mentation is most explicitly non-linear as it is tied to non-formalisable states of existence like inspiration, love of truth, dignity, and beauty which no binary system can approximate.  The Club of Rome programmers ignored these facts and assumed the universe was as binary as their software.
• The data sets themselves could easily be skewed and re-framed according to the controllers of the computer programmers who aspired to shape government policy. We have already seen how this technique was used to drive fallacious results of future scenarios under the hand of Imperial College’s Neil Ferguson and the same technique has been applied in ecological modelling as well.

Another reason to revisit The Limits to Growth is to highlight the influence it had and still has on supranational organisations.  For decades, New Age guru Barbara Marx Hubbard – who called for one-fourth of the human population to be culled to usher in a New World Order – championed transhumanism and Malthusian sustainable development, which is the crux of The Great Reset and the Fourth Industrial Revolution.  Hubbard’s Malthusian overpopulation theories were partly inspired by The Limits to Growth. In fact, in Hubbard’s Book of Co-Creation, there are multiple passages which warn of Malthusian “limits to growth” that could lead to ecological catastrophes. She also met personally with Club of Rome co-founder, Aurelio Peccei who prompted the World Economic Forum to adopt the Malthusian tenets of The Limits to Growth at the World Economic Forum’s Third Annual Meeting in 1973.

Last, but not least, we have Club of Rome member and author of Limits to Growth, who manipulated his predictive modelling, hoping that a dictatorship will slowly and “peacefully” cull 86% of the world’s population. 

No one should be celebrating The Limits to Growth or the agenda it’s promoting because it’s promoting your demise.

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Sources

Dennis Meadows [Club of Rome] ‘6 billion People Have To Go’, Why Not News, 21 April 2022

The Club of Rome and the Rise of the “Predictive Modelling” Mafia, Unlimited Hangout, 21 November 2022

Barbara Malthusian Hubbard: From Limits to Growth to UN Agenda 2030, Unlimited Hangout, 3 March 2023

The Revenge of the Malthusians and the Science of Limits, Unlimited Hangout, 28 June 2022

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Global Research Referral Drive: Our Readers Are Our Lifeline

First published on April 11, 2024

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We  are  rapidly  waking  up  to the massive scam that promotes global warming/climate change as ‘doomsday scenario par excellence’.

In  this  film  (see below) is a succinct and powerfully presented series  of  exposes  by  scientists  and  climatologists coming clean about the real truth behind the global warming invention.

Highly recommended  viewing  for  all  in need of material that can be shared with others needing to be brought up to speed on this vital issue.

Climate  Change/Global  Warming  is  the  scare  tool  being  used  to completely capsize the world economy, destroy agriculture and act as a supposed critical ‘health hazard’ to the global population.

The  World Health Organisation has the audacity to claim that it is in a position to also rule on climate issues. So its ‘Pandemic Treaty’, if approved by The World Health Assembly this May 2024, looks like being the basis for placing both climate change and world health under its United Nations/World Economic Foundation backed despotic mantle.

Let us be in no doubt that the depopulation agenda is at the forefront of these maneuvers.

Covid, Climate and Health Care are now all weaponised by the elite Big Finance cult that pulls the strings of puppet political chiefs, non governmental  organisations (NGO’s) and all operatives that toe the line of the top down status quo.

I would wish that those speaking on this film had had the courage to raise their voices before their retirement. This is where true whistleblowers really come into their own. It takes courage.

Watch the movie below or click here.

Climate The Movie from Martin Durkin on Vimeo.

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Julian Rose is an organic farmer, writer, broadcaster and international activist. He is author of four books of which the latest ‘Overcoming the Robotic Mind’ is a clarion call to resist the despotic New World Order takeover of our lives. Do visit his website for further information www.julianrose.info 

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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First published on February 7, 2023

Author’s Introduction 

My  long-standing commitment is to “the value of human life”,  “the criminalization of  war” , “peaceful co-existence” between nation states and “the future of humanity” which is currently threatened by nuclear war.

I have been researching nuclear war for more than 20 years focussing on its historical, strategic and geopolitical dimensions as well as its criminal features as a means to implementing what is best described as “genocide on a massive scale”.  

What is presented below is a brief history of nuclear war: a succession of U.S. nuclear war plans going back to the Manhattan Project (1939-1945) leading up to the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.

Unknown to the broader public, the first U.S. Doomsday Blueprint of a nuclear attack directed against the Soviet Union was formulated by the US War Department at the height of World War II, confirmed by “Top Secret” documents on September 15, 1945 when the US and the Soviet Union were allies.

There is an element of political delusion and paranoia in the formulation of US foreign policy. The Doomsday Scenario against the Soviet Union has been on the drawing board of the Pentagon for almost 80 years.

Had it not been for the September 1945 plan to  “wipe the Soviet Union off the map” (66 urban areas and more than 200 atomic bombs), neither Russia nor China would have developed nuclear weapons. There wouldn’t have been a Nuclear Arms Race.

Numerous US nuclear war plans have been formulated from the outset, leading up to The 1956  Strategic Air Command SAC Atomic Weapons Requirements Study (Declassified in December 2015) which consisted in targeting 1200 urban areas in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and China.

The World is at a dangerous crossroads: it should be understood that the use of nuclear weapons in relation to the confrontation between US-NATO and Russia would inevitably lead to escalation and the end of humanity as we know it.  

What is required is a Worldwide peace movement coupled with the banning of nuclear weapons.  

In recent developments,  several EU-NATO proxy heads of state and heads of government  including President Macron (acting on behalf of powerful financial interests) have candidly intimated the need for NATO to wage war against Russia on behalf of a Neo-Nazi government, which indelibly would lead us into a World War III scenario. 

What is unfolding is not only “the criminalization of  “La Classe politique”,

the judicial system is also criminalized with a view to upholding the legitimacy of the war criminals in high office.

And the corporate media through omission, half truths and outright lies upholds war as a peace-making endeavor. In the words of the Washington Post, “war makes us safer and richer”

 

 

Globe and Mail 

 

Business Insider

 

Washington Post

And Many More…

Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, March 3, 2024

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The Hiroshima Nagasaki “Dress Rehearsal”: 

Oppenheimer and the U.S. War Department’s 

Secret September 15, 1945 “Doomsday Blueprint” to

“Wipe the Soviet Union off the Map”

by

Michel Chossudovsky

February 1, 2023

 

90 Seconds to Midnight according to the Doomsday Clock

The Nobel Peace Laureates are casually blaming Russia, without recalling the history of nuclear war, not to mention Joe Biden’s 1.3 trillion dollar program to develop “more usable”, “low intensity” “preemptive nuclear weapons” to be used on a “first strike basis” against both nuclear and non nuclear states as a means of “self defense”.

This is the nuclear doctrine which currently prevails in US-NATO’s confrontation against Russia.

It is clearly outlined in the NeoCons’ Project for the New American Century (PNAC)

America’s Manhattan Project

Let us recall the history of  the “doomsday scenario” which was part of America’s Manhattan project launched in 1939 with the participation of Britain and Canada. 

The Manhattan Project was a  secret plan to develop the atomic bomb coordinated by the US War Department, headed (1941) by Lieutenant General Leslie Groves.

Prominent physicist  Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer  had been appointed by Lt General Groves to head the Los Alamos Laboratory (also known as Project Y) which was established in 1943 as a “top-secret site for designing atomic bombs under the Manhattan Project”. Oppenheimer was entrusted in recruiting and coordinating a team of prominent nuclear scientists including Italian Physicist and Nobel Prize Laureate Dr. Enrico Fermi who joined the Los Alamos Laboratory in 1944. 

Oppenheimer not only played a key role in coordinating the team of nuclear scientists, he was also engaged in routine consultations with the head of the Manhattan project Lieutenant General Groves, specifically with regard to the use of the first atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which resulted in more than 300,000 immediate deaths.

Below is the Transcript of an August 6, 1945 telephone conversation, declassified (Between Gen. Groves and Dr. Oppenheimer) hours after the Hiroshima bombing:

Gen. G. I am very proud of you and your people [nuclear scientists]

Dr. O. It went alright?

Gen. G. Apparently it went with a tremendous bang.

screenshot below, click link to access complete transcript )

 

The September 15, 1945 Blueprint to “Wipe the Soviet Union off the Map” 

Barely two weeks after the official end of World War II (September 2, 1945), the US War Department issued  a blueprint  (September 15, 1945) to “Wipe  the Soviet Union off the Map” (66 cities with 204 atomic bombs), when the US and the USSR were allies. This infamous project is confirmed by declassified documents. (For further details see Chossudovsky, 2017)

Below is the image of the 66 cities of the Soviet Union which had been envisaged as targets by the US War Department. 

The 66 cities. Click image to enlarge 

The Hiroshima Nagasaki “Dress Rehearsal”

The preparatory documents (see below) confirm that the data pertaining to the Hiroshima and Nagasaki attacks were being used to evaluate the viability as well as the cost of  a much larger attack against the Soviet Union. These documents were finalized 5-6 weeks after the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings (6, 9 August 1945).

“To Ensure our National Security”

Note the correspondence between Major General Norstad and the head of the Manhattan Project, General Leslie Groves, who was in permanent liaison with Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer, head of the Los Alamos team of nuclear scientists. 

On September 15, 1945 Norstad sent a memorandum to Lieutenant Leslie Groves requesting an estimate of  the “number of bombs required to ensure our national security”  ( The First Atomic Stockpile Requirements )

Lieutenant General Groves no doubt in consultation with Dr. Oppenheimer responded to Major General Norstad in a Memorandum dated September 29, 1945 in which he refers to Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

See section 2, subsections a, b and c.

“It is not essential to get total destruction of a city in order to destroy its effectiveness. Hiroshima no longer exists as a city even though the area of total destruction is considerably less than total.”

Read carefully. The text below confirms that Hiroshima and Nagasaki was “A Dress Rehearsal”.  

Bear in mind the name of the country which is threatening America’s “national security” is not mentioned.

Answering your memorandum of 15 September 1945, [see response below]

The 1949 “Dropshot Plan”: 300 Nuclear Bombs, Targeting More than 100 Soviet Cities

Numerous US war plans (under the Truman presidency) to attack the Soviet Union were “formulated and revised on a regular basis between 1945 and 1950”. Most of them were totally dysfunctional as outlined by J.W. Smith in his book entitled “The World’s Wasted Wealth 2”.

“The names given to these plans graphically portray their offensive purpose: Bushwhacker, Broiler, Sizzle, Shakedown, Offtackle, Dropshot, Trojan, Pincher, and Frolic.

The US military knew the offensive nature of the job President Truman had ordered them to prepare for and had named their war plans accordingly”

Dr. Michio Kaku and Daniel Axelrod in their book entitled: “To Win a Nuclear War: the Pentagon’s Secret War Plans,” provide evidence (based on declassified documents) that the September 1945 blueprint was followed by a continuous plan by USG to bomb the Soviet Union (as well as Russia in the post-Cold War era):

“This book [preface by Ramsey Clark] compels us to re-think and re-write the history of the Cold War and the arms race… It provides a startling glimpse into secret U.S. plans to initiate a nuclear war from 1945 to the present.”

The September 1945 Blueprint (66 Cities) was followed in 1949 by another insidious project entitled the Dropshot Plan: 

According to Kaku and Axelrod, the 1949 DropShot consisted of  a plan directed against the Soviet Union to “drop at least 300 nuclear bombs and 20,000 tons of conventional bombs on 200 targets in 100 urban areas, including Moscow and Leningrad (St. Petersburg).

According to the plan Washington would start the war on January 1, 1957.

The Dropshot Plan was formulated prior to Russia’s August 1949 announcement pertaining to the testing of its nuclear bomb. 

The Cold War List of 1200 Targeted Cities

The initial 1945 Blueprint to attack 66 cities, the subsequent 1949 Dropshot Plan (targeting 100 cities) were updated in the course of the Cold War. The 1956 Plan included some 1200 cities in the USSR, the Soviet block countries of Eastern Europe and China (see declassified documents below).

The bombs slated for the attack significantly more powerful in terms of explosive capacity than those dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki (see below)

We are talking about planned genocide against the Soviet Union, China and Eastern Europe .

Excerpt from list of the 1200 cities targeted for nuclear attack in alphabetical order. National Security Archive, op. cit.

Details pertaining to the “The SAC [Strategic Air Command] Atomic Weapons Requirements Study for 1959, produced in June 1956 were declassified on December 22, 2015 (Excerpts below, click to access full text).

According to the National Security Archive www.nsarchive.org, the SAC, 1956: 

“…provides the most comprehensive and detailed list of nuclear targets and target systems that has ever been declassified. As far as can be told, no comparable document has ever been declassified for any period of Cold War history.

The SAC study includes chilling details. …  the authors developed a plan for the “systematic destruction” of Soviet bloc urban-industrial targets that specifically and explicitly targeted “population” in all cities, including Beijing, Moscow, Leningrad, East Berlin, and Warsaw.  

The SAC document includes lists of more than 1100 airfields in the Soviet bloc, with a priority number assigned to each base. …

A second list was of urban-industrial areas identified for “systematic destruction.”  SAC listed over 1200 cities in the Soviet bloc, from East Germany to China, also with priorities established.  Moscow and Leningrad were priority one and two respectively.  Moscow included 179 Designated Ground Zeros (DGZs) while Leningrad had 145, including “population” targets.  … According to the study, SAC would have targeted Air Power targets with bombs ranging from 1.7 to 9 megatons. 

Exploding them at ground level, as planned, would have produced significant fallout hazards to nearby civilians.  SAC also wanted a 60 megaton weapon which it believed necessary for deterrence, but also because it would produce “significant results” in the event of a Soviet surprise attack. One megaton would be 70 times the explosive yield of the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima.  (emphasis added).

Read carefully:

Had this diabolical project been carried out against the Soviet Union and its allies, the death toll would be beyond description (ie. when compared to Hiroshima. 100,000 immediate deaths). The smallest nuclear bomb contemplated had an explosive yield of 1.7 megatons, 119 times more “powerful’ than a Hiroshima bomb (15 kilotons of TNT)

The 9 megaton bomb mentioned above was 630 times a Hiroshima bomb, The 60 megaton bomb:  4200 times a Hiroshima bomb. 

The Bulletin: Founded by Manhattan Project Scientists in September 1945

In a bitter irony, in the immediate wake of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists was founded in 1945 in Chicago by Manhattan Project scientists, who had been involved in the development of the atomic bomb.

Two years later, in 1947, The Bulletin devised the Doomsday Clock, “with an original setting of seven minutes to midnight”.

The initiative was formulated at a time when there was no arms race: 

There was only one nuclear weapons state, namely the USA, which was intent upon carrying out a Doomsday scenario (genocide) against the Soviet Union formulated in September 1945.

In 1947, when the Doomsday Clock was created, the “justification” which was upheld by The Bulletin was that:

“the greatest danger to humanity came … from the prospect that the United States and the Soviet Union were headed for a nuclear arms race.”

The underlying premise of this statement was to ensure that the US retain a monopoly over nuclear weapons.

While in 1947, “The Plan to Wipe the Soviet Union of the Map” was still on the drawing Board of the Pentagon, the relevant documents were declassified thirty years later in 1975. Most of the former Manhattan project scientists were unaware of the September 1945 blueprint against the Soviet Union.

The Soviet Union emerged as a nuclear power in August 1949, two years after the launching of the Doomsday Clock, largely in view of applying what was later entitled “deterrence”, namely an action to discourage a nuclear attack by the US. At the height of the Cold War and the Arms Race, this concept eventually evolved into what was defined as “Mutually Assured Destruction”.

While several authors and scientists featured by The Bulletin have provided a critical perspective concerning America’s nuclear weapons program, there was no cohesive attempt to question the history nor the legitimacy of  the Manhattan Project.

The broader tendency has been to “erase history”, sustaining the “rightfulness” of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, while also casually placing the blame on Russia, as well as China and North Korea.

Nuclear War versus the “Imminent Dangers of CO2”

In the last fews years, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists “seeks to provide relevant information about nuclear weapons, climate change, and other global security issues”.

According to Mary Robinson, Chair of The Doomsday Clock Elders and former President of the Republic of Ireland (2023 statement):

The Doomsday Clock is sounding an alarm for the whole of humanity. We are on the brink of a precipice. … From cutting carbon emissions to strengthening arms control treaties and investing in pandemic preparedness, we know what needs to be done. … We are facing multiple, existential crises. Leaders need a crisis mindset. (emphasis added)

This perspective borders on ridicule. CO2 is casually put forth as a danger to humanity comparable to nuclear war. It becomes an instrument of propaganda. 

The Doomsday Clock is now said to “represent threats to humanity from a variety of sources” according to a collective of Nobel Prize Laureates.

What nonsense.

2023  January Statement, ScreenShot from WP

Presenting C02 or Covid as a danger comparable to nuclear war is an outright lie.

Its intent is to mislead public opinion. It is part of a rather unsubtle propaganda campaign which provides legitimacy to the US doctrine of first strike “preemptive nuclear war”, i.e. nuclear war as a means of “self-defense” (formulated in the 2001 Nuclear Posture Review).

What is of concern is that U.S. decision makers including Joe Biden believe in their own propaganda, that a preemptive first strike nuclear war against Russia is “winnable”. And that tactical nuclear weapons are “instruments of peace”.

Meanwhile history is erased. America’s persistent role in developing “a Doomsday Agenda” (aka genocide) since the onslaught of the Manhattan Project in 1939 is simply not mentioned.

What is of concern is that there is a continuous history of numerous projects and WWIII scenarios consisting in “Wiping Russia off the Map” and triggering  a Third World War.

Nuclear war against Russia has been embedded in US military doctrine since 1945.

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Related Article

“Preemptive Nuclear War”: The Historic Battle for Peace and Democracy. A Third World War Threatens the Future of Humanity

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, January 31, 2023

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“Towards a World War III Scenario: The Dangers of Nuclear War” 

by Michel Chossudovsky

Available to order from Global Research! 

ISBN Number: 978-0-9737147-5-3
Year: 2012
Pages: 102

PDF Edition:  $6.50 (sent directly to your email account!)

Michel Chossudovsky is Professor of Economics at the University of Ottawa and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), which hosts the critically acclaimed website www.globalresearch.ca . He is a contributor to the Encyclopedia Britannica. His writings have been translated into more than 20 languages.

Reviews

“This book is a ‘must’ resource – a richly documented and systematic diagnosis of the supremely pathological geo-strategic planning of US wars since ‘9-11’ against non-nuclear countries to seize their oil fields and resources under cover of ‘freedom and democracy’.”
–John McMurtry, Professor of Philosophy, Guelph University

“In a world where engineered, pre-emptive, or more fashionably “humanitarian” wars of aggression have become the norm, this challenging book may be our final wake-up call.”
-Denis Halliday, Former Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations

Michel Chossudovsky exposes the insanity of our privatized war machine. Iran is being targeted with nuclear weapons as part of a war agenda built on distortions and lies for the purpose of private profit. The real aims are oil, financial hegemony and global control. The price could be nuclear holocaust. When weapons become the hottest export of the world’s only superpower, and diplomats work as salesmen for the defense industry, the whole world is recklessly endangered. If we must have a military, it belongs entirely in the public sector. No one should profit from mass death and destruction.
–Ellen Brown, author of ‘Web of Debt’ and president of the Public Banking Institute  

 

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

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

History: The Relationship between Mossad and Hamas

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Nakba

 

Introduction

Israel has launched an invasion (October 7, 2023) of the Gaza Strip.

As outlined by Felicity Arbuthnot with foresight 10 years ago in a December, 30 2013 article: 

“Israel is set to become a major exporter of gas and some oil, “If All Goes to Plan”.

In the current context, Israel’s “All Goes to Plan” option consists in bypassing Palestine and “Wiping Gaza off the Map”,  as well confiscating ALL Gaza’s maritime offshore gas reserves, worth billions of dollars. 

The ultimate objective is not only to exclude Palestinians from their homeland, it consists in confiscating the multi-billion dollar Gaza offshore Natural Gas reserves, namely those pertaining to the BG (BG Group) in 1999, as well the Levant discoveries of 2013. 

Update. Israel’s Secret Intelligence Memorandum

An official “secret” memorandum authored by Israel’s  Ministry of Intelligence “is recommending the forcible and permanent transfer of the Gaza Strip’s 2.2 million Palestinian residents to Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula”, namely to a refugee camp in Egyptian territory. There are indications of Israel-Egypt negotiations  as well as consultations with the U.S. 

The 10-page document, dated Oct. 13, 2023, bears the logo of the Intelligence Ministry … assesses three options regarding the future of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip … It recommends a full population transfer as its preferred course of action. … The document, whose authenticity was confirmed by the ministry, has been translated into English in full here on +972. See below, click here or below to access complete document (10 pages)

 

First published on October  22, 2023. Video added on October 27, 2023, Update, November 1, 2023

 

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Video: Michel Chossudovsky, Interview with Caroline Mailloux, Lux Media

 

To leave a comment and/or Access Rumble click to lower right hand corner

Readers’ Thanks to Michel Chossudovsky

• Thank you for your continued activism and truth-telling. A thankless task but the right thing.

• You Sir are a Canadian hero. Thank you for your wonderful site and all the fine work you have done over the many years I have followed your work. 

• Michel Chossudovsky, you are a voice of reason and understanding. Thank you for your awareness. I am a Syrian/American. I heard one voice during the bombing of Gaza of a child screaming for his father and his father could not reach him, but he cried out to him, “PUT YOUR HEART ON MY HEART.” Those humans who are putting your Heart on Palestine, thank you.

Felicity Arbuthnot’s 2013 Analysis 

“The Giant Leviathan natural gas field, in the eastern Mediterranean, discovered in December 2010, widely described [by governments and media] as “off the coast of Israel.”

These Levant reserves must be distinguished from those discovered in Gaza in 1999 by British Gas, which belong to Palestine. Felicity Arbuthnot’s analysis nonetheless confirms that “Part of the Leviathan Gas fields lie in Gazan territorial waters” (See Map Below). 

Whilst Israel claims them as her very own treasure trove, only a fraction of the sea’s wealth lies in Israel’s bailiwick as maps. Much is still unexplored, but currently Palestine’s Gaza and the West Bank between them show the greatest discoveries… (Felicity Arbuthnot, 2013) 

Flash Forward to October 2023

Netanyahu’s October 2023 declaration of war against 2.3 million people of the Gaza Strip is a continuation of its 2008-2009 invasion of Gaza under “Operation Cast Lead.” 

The underlying objective is the outright military occupation of Gaza by Israel’s IDF forces and the expulsion of Palestinians from their homeland.

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The ultimate objective is not only to exclude Palestinians from their homeland, it consists in confiscating the multi-billion dollar Gaza offshore Natural Gas reserves, namely those pertaining to the BG (BG Group) in 1999, as well the Levant discoveries of 2013. 

Egypt-Israel “Secret Bilateral Talks” 

In 2021-22, Egypt and Israel were involved in “secret bilateral talks” regarding “the extraction of natural gas off the coast of the Gaza Strip. 

“Egypt succeeded in persuading Israel to start extracting natural gas off the coast of the Gaza Strip, after several months of secret bilateral talks.

This development … comes after years of Israeli objections to extract natural gas off the coast of Gaza on [alleged] security grounds, … 

British Gas (BG Group) has also been dealing with the Tel Aviv government.

What is significant is that the civilian arm of the Hamas Gaza government has been bypassed in regards to exploration and development rights over the gas fields: 

The field, which lies about 30 kilometers (19 miles) west of the Gaza coast, was discovered in 2000 by British Gas (currently BG Group) and is estimated to contain more than 1 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. 

The official in the Egyptian intelligence service told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity, “An Egyptian economic and security delegation discussed with the Israeli side for several months the issue of allowing the extraction of natural gas off the coast of Gaza. …Al-Monitor, October 22, 2022

A Memorandum of Understanding was signed between Egypt and Israel, which had the rubber-stamp of the Palestinian National Authority (PA):

“The Egyptian official explained that Israel required the start of practical measures to extract gas from the Gaza fields at the beginning of 2024, to ensure its own security. (Al-Monitor, October 22, 2022

Netanyahu’s Timeline: “Before The Beginning of 2024”

The timeline resulting from these bilateral Israel-Egypt “secret talks” i.e. confiscation of Palestine’s offshore Maritime Gas Reserves is “The Beginning of 2024”.

United Nations Assessment

An important United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) (2019) report describes Palestine’s predicament as follows: 

Geologists and natural resources economists have confirmed that the Occupied Palestinian Territory lies above sizeable reservoirs of oil and natural gas wealth, in Area C of the occupied West Bank and the Mediterranean coast off the Gaza Strip.

However, occupation continues to prevent Palestinians from developing their energy fields so as to exploit and benefit from such assets. As such, the Palestinian people have been denied the benefits of using this natural resource to finance socioeconomic development and meet their need for energy.

The accumulated losses are estimated in the billions of dollars. The longer Israel prevents Palestinians from exploiting their own oil and natural gas reserves, the greater the opportunity costs and the greater the total costs of the occupation borne by Palestinians become.

This study identifies and assesses existing and potential Palestinian oil and natural gas reserves that could be exploited for the benefit of the Palestinian people, which Israel is either preventing them from exploiting or is exploiting without due regard for international law. (UNCTAD, August 2019, emphasis added, download complete report)

Crimes against Humanity

In the words of Netanyahu who is on Record for Supporting and Financing a faction within Hamas:  

Crimes against humanity beyond description by the Netanyahu government against the People of Palestine,

Crimes also committed against the People of Israel who are the victims of the Hamas “False Flag Attack” carefully engineered by Mossad-IDF.

There are deep-seated divisions within Hamas. Our “False Flag” analysis pertains to a military-intelligence faction within Hamas which cooperates with Israeli and U.S. intelligence.  See:

Is the Gaza-Israel Fighting “A False Flag”? They Let it Happen? Their Objective Is “to Wipe Gaza Off the Map”?

By Philip Giraldi and Prof Michel Chossudovsky, October 20, 2023

 

Michel Chossudovsky,  Global Research, October 21, 2023

 

Below is the 2013 article by Felicity Arbuthnot

 

 

Israel Gas-Oil and Trouble in the Levant

by Felicity Arbuthnot 

Global Research, 

December 13, 2013

Israel is set to become a major exporter of gas and some oil, if all goes to plan. The giant Leviathan natural gas field, in the eastern Mediterranean, discovered in December 2010, is widely described as “off the coast of Israel.”

 At the time the gas field was:

“ … the most prominent field ever found in the sub-explored area of the Levantine Basin, which covers about 83,000 square kilometres of the eastern Mediterranean region.” (i)

Coupled with Tamar field, in the same location, discovered in 2009, the prospects are for an energy bonanza for Israel, for Houston, Texas based Noble Energy and partners Delek Drilling, Avner Oil Exploration and Ratio Oil Exploration.

Also involved is Perth, Australia-based Woodside Petroleum, which has signed a memorandum of understanding for a thirty percent stake in the project, in negotiations which have been described as “up and down.”

There is currently speculation that Woodside might pull out of the deal: “ …since the original plans to refrigerate the gas for export were pursued when relations between Israel and Turkey were strained. That has changed, more recently, which has opened the door for gas to be piped to Turkey.”

The spoils of the Leviathan field has already expanded from an estimated 16.7 trillion cubic feet (tcf ) of gas to nineteen trillion – and counting:

”We’ve discovered nearly 40 tcf of gas, and we have roughly 19 tcf of that gas that’s available for export to both regional and extra-regional markets. We see exports reaching 2 billion cubic feet a day in capacity in the next decade. And we continue to explore.”, stated Noble Vice Chairman Keith Elliot (ii) There are also estimated to be possibly six hundred million barrels of oil, according to Michael Economides of energytribune.com (“Eastern Mediterranean Energy – the next Great Game.”)

 However, even these estimates may prove modest. In their: “Assessment of Undiscovered Oil and Gas Resources of the Levant Basin Province, Eastern Mediterranean”, the US Department of the Interior’s US Geological Survey, wrote in 2010:

“We estimated a mean of 1.7 billion barrels of recoverable oil and a mean of 122 trillion cubic feet of recoverable gas in this province using a geology based assessment methodology.”

Nevertheless, Woodside Petroleum, might also be hesitant to become involved in further disputes, since they are already embroiled, with the Australian government, in a protracted one in East Timor relating to the bonanaza of energy and minerals beneath the Timor Sea, which has even led to East Timor accusing Australia “of bugging East Timorese officials during the negotiations over the agreement.”(iii)

Woodside’s conflict in East Timor however, may well pale against what might well erupt over the Leviathan and Tamar fields. The area is not for nothing called the Levantine Basin.

Whilst Israel claims them as her very own treasure trove, only a fraction of the sea’s wealth lies in Israel’s bailiwick as maps (iv, v, see below) clearly show.

Much is still unexplored, but currently Palestine’s Gaza and the West Bank between them show the greatest discoveries, with anything found in Lebanon and Syria’s territorial waters sure to involve claims from both countries.

 

In a pre-emptive move, on Christmas Day, Syria announced a deal with Russia to explore 2,190 kilometres (850 Sq. miles) for oil and gas off its Mediterranean coast, to be: “… financed by Russia, and should oil and gas be discovered in commercial quantities, Moscow will recover the exploration costs.”

Syrian Oil Minister, Ali Abbas said during the signing ceremony that the contract covers “25 years, over several phases.”

Syria, increasingly crippled by international sanctions, has seen oil production plummet by ninety percent since the largely Western fermented unrest began in March 2011. Gas production has nearly halved, from thirty million cubic metres a day, to 16.7 cubic metres daily.

The agreement is reported to have resulted from “months of long negotiations” between the two countries. Russia, as one of the Syrian government’s main backers, looks set to also become a major player in the Levant Basin’s energy wealth. (vi)

Lebanon disputes Israel’s map of the Israeli-Lebanese maritime border, filing their own map and claims with the UN in 2010. Israel claims Lebanon is in the process of granting oil and gas exploration licenses in what Israel claims as its “exclusive economic zone.”

That the US in the guise of Vice President Joe Biden, as honest broker, acting peace negotiator in the maritime border dispute would be laughable, were it not potential for Israel to attack their neighbour again. In a visit to Israel in March 2010, Biden announced: “There is absolutely no space between the United States and Israel when it comes to Israel’s security- none at all”, also announcing on arrival in Israel:”It’s good to be home.”

Given US decades of  “peace brokering” between Israel and Palestine, this is already a road of pitfalls, one sidedness and duplicity, well traveled. There is trouble ahead.

Oh, and in demonology, Leviathan is one of the seven princes of Hell.

Notes

i. http://www.offshore-technology.com/projects/leviathan-gas-field-levantine-israel/

ii. http://m.theage.com.au/business/options-widen-for-woodsides-leviathan-partners-20131219-2znu6.html

iii. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-09-04/east-timor-offers-funds-for-onshore- gas-processing/4933106

iv. http://www.offshore-technology.com/projects/leviathan-gas-field-levantine-israel/leviathan-gas-field-levantine-israel1.html

v. http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Leviathan+gas+project+Israel+map&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=ntC2UvO7IcPE7Ab7rIDYCQ&ved=0CEQQsAQ&biw=1017&bih=598

vi. http://www.phantomreport.com/syria-inks-oil-gas-deal-with-russia-firm#more-20238

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First published on November 15, 2023

As the war between Israel and Hamas enters its second month, one of the top priorities of all parties involved is to prevent the conflict from expanding regionally. Israeli concerns over the emergence of a northern front with Hezbollah along Israel’s border with Lebanon have prompted the US to deploy significant military power to the eastern Mediterranean Sea as a show of force to deter both Hezbollah and Iran from intervening. The prospect of a larger war between Israel and Iran has also shone an uncomfortable light on Israel’s nuclear weapons capability, and the possibility of these weapons being used if the fighting in Gaza were to expand regionally. Both Israel and the US have accused Iran of pursuing a covert nuclear weapons program, which Iran vehemently denies.

Recent comments by Israeli Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu, where he alluded to the possibility that one of Israel’s options in the war against Hamas could be to use nuclear weapons in the Gaza Strip, thrust the reality of Israel’s unacknowledged nuclear weapons program into the international spotlight. Eliyahu’s comments were quickly disavowed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and the heritage minister was suspended from attending cabinet meetings.

Eliyahu, a member of National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir’s far-right Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) party, made his comments while answering a question during a live radio interview.

“Your expectation is that tomorrow morning we’d drop what amounts to some kind of a nuclear bomb on all of Gaza, flattening them, eliminating everybody there?” the interviewer asked. “That’s one way,” Eliyahu responded.

It should be noted that Eliyahu never mentioned nuclear weapons himself. Likewise, the questioner did not speak of an actual nuclear weapon, but rather something “that amounts to” a nuclear weapon. Many observers of the ongoing Gaza conflict have made comparisons with the volume of high explosives that have been dropped on Gaza by the Israeli Air Force since Oct. 7, when Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israeli military and civilian infrastructure surrounding Gaza, killing some 1,400 Israelis, most of them civilians. The tonnage dropped on Gaza is estimated at more than 20,000 tons, the equivalent of a 20 kiloton nuclear bomb, which is larger than either of the atomic bombs dropped by the US on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of the World War II.

Nuclear Ambiguity

That the mere allusion to the existence and possible use of nuclear weapons by an Israeli government official, however vague and indistinct, could attract such attention underscores the controversy that surrounds Israel’s nuclear weapons program.

The Israeli nuclear weapons program dates to the mid-1950s, when the country’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, ordered the Israeli military to develop a nuclear insurance plan designed to offset the combined conventional military superiority of Israel’s Arab neighbors. Developed in great secrecy with the assistance of France, the Israeli program was centered on a nuclear weapons production facility located at Dimona, in the Negev Desert, where Israel, under the guise of a civilian nuclear power program, began to produce the plutonium necessary for a nuclear weapon.

US President John F. Kennedy confronted Ben-Gurion about Dimona during a May 1961 meeting. Under pressure, Ben-Gurion stated that the Dimona plant had a pilot plutonium extraction capability that could be used for military purposes but sought to mollify US concerns by declaring that Israel had “no intention to develop weapons capacity now.”

The administration of President Richard Nixon subsequently worked with Israel to craft a policy of mutual obfuscation, where Israel promised that it would not be the first to “introduce” nuclear weapons to the Middle East, but premised this on the notion that the term “introduce” meant the acknowledgement of the existence of such a weapon — in short, “introduction” was not about physical possession, but about public acknowledgment of that possession.

While Israel has sought to assiduously maintain its policy of nuclear ambiguity, there have been some notable incidents that strain the credulity of this posture. In 2004, while speaking at a political party gathering in Tel Aviv, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon made an indirect comparison between the nuclear ambitions, real and imagined, of Libya and Iran, which he indicated should be halted, and Israel, which Sharon said, “must not be touched when it comes to its deterrent capability.”

In a December 2006 interview with German television, Sharon’s successor, Ehud Olmert, appeared to openly acknowledge Israel’s nuclear status when he criticized Iran for aspiring “to have nuclear weapons, as America, France, Israel, Russia.”

The Israeli Deterrence Model

In 1986 Mordechai Vanunu, an Israeli nuclear technician who had been employed at the Dimona facility, went public with information about the technical capacity of Israel to produce the fissile material necessary for nuclear weapons. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute currently estimates that Israel’s nuclear arsenal consists of 80 weapons — 50 for delivery using ballistic missiles, and 30 for delivery by aircraft. Israel is also believed to possess an unknown number of nuclear artillery shells and atomic demolition munitions.

How Israel might transition from its posture of nuclear ambiguity to being a self-declared nuclear state remains unknown. However, given Israel’s close collaboration with South Africa over the development and probable testing of nuclear weapons, the South African model of making its nuclear deterrence public is likely to resemble Israel’s approach. This involves a three-phase strategy, with phase one being nuclear ambiguity. Phase two involves what is known as covert conditioning, involving a variety of non-attributable methods to reveal nuclear capacity as a means of inducement, persuasion and/or coercion. The third phase involves overtly acknowledging possession of weapons capability, followed by a series of escalating steps — public announcement, public display, demonstration (e.g. a nuclear test), threatened use, and lastly, battlefield use.

Existential Threat

In the aftermath of the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas, Israel faces a crisis that its senior-most leadership describes as existential in nature. In 2022 and 2023, Israel carried out large-scale military exercises designed to test the Israel Defense Forces’ ability to respond to simultaneous attacks from all known enemies of Israel — Hamas, Hezbollah, Syria and Iran. While the official results of these exercises remain a state secret, some conclusions have been alluded to by Israeli military sources. First, any military conflict between Israel and Iran could only be conducted with significant military assistance from the US, which might not be forthcoming. Second, Hezbollah possesses sufficient missile capacity to overwhelm Israeli air defenses, enabling them to inflict serious harm to Israeli economic, political and military infrastructure. Thirdly, the Israeli exercises did not envision a major attack by Hamas that would consume so much of Israel’s conventional military power in response.

If the current conflict with Hamas were to escalate to involve both Hezbollah and Iran, Israel most probably lacks the conventional military capability to defeat this combined threat. At this juncture, Israel would face the decision of initiating the third phase of its nuclear deterrent posture: overt acknowledgement followed by escalatory steps. The decision to publicly declare an Israeli nuclear capability is a matter of great political sensitivity which, if done improperly, could turn even its US ally against it. This is why Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded so harshly to the indiscreet ruminations of an obscure Israeli minister. Any step of this magnitude must be conducted in a very controlled fashion, with very specific objectives in mind — all of which should be linked to deterring the potential for operational use, not encouraging it.

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Scott Ritter is a former US Marine Corps intelligence officer whose service over a 20-plus-year career included tours of duty in the former Soviet Union implementing arms control agreements, serving on the staff of US Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf during the Gulf War and later as a chief weapons inspector with the UN in Iraq from 1991-98. The views expressed in this article are those of the author.

 

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Rick Rozoff is a renowned author and geopolitical analyst, actively involved in opposing war, militarism and interventionism for over fifty years. He manages the Anti-Bellum and For peace, against war website. 

In the following interview, recorded on March 26, 2024, Mr. Rozoff talks about the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) which he has opposed for decades, and where it is headed.

Global Research: It’s been said that the real reason an atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was not really to end the war. The allied Soviet Union had said they were preparing an invasion in early-August 1945, so the US figured it would drop the bombs first and thereby send the message that they had won the war by forcing Japan’s surrender. But they were also warning the Soviet Union about their awesome arsenal that could be targeting them. I bring this up, because I suspect the role of NATO to defend the world from the Soviet threat maybe – may not be accurate either. There is another story behind building up NATO. What in your view is the real reason NATO came into existence?

Rick Rozoff: It was a shift in World War II where the Western powers, US, Britain, French Resistance and Free French and such like continued the War, but shifted from waging war against the Axis powers, Germany, Italy, Romania, and so forth, towards the Soviet Union. I mean, it’s quite simply that. And Dwight D. Eisenhower, who was, you know, the top commander of allied forces in Europe during World War II became the first supreme allied commander of NATO when NATO was set up in 1949. So, it was a very smooth transition, down to the very same, you know, top commander.

World War II did not, in that sense, end so much as it was reconfigured and directed eastward, that’s my read on it. And of course, it was 75 years ago next month that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was established, initially with 12 members. All 12 of which, with the exception of Italy, could lay claim to being on the North Atlantic Ocean, by the way. Italy, if you really wanted to stretch the point also, you know, through being in the Mediterranean which is an inlet of the Atlantic Ocean. Of course, now you’re looking – well, I don’t want to jump too far ahead – but you’re looking at NATO which has grown appreciably where the majority of its members are nowhere near the North Atlantic Ocean.

GR: So, basically you’re saying that – I mean, like the alliance, you know, to fight off Hitler, I mean I guess they felt they had a good thing coming, so… But, I guess there’s somehow that solidarity or whatever. Let’s just hold onto this and just direct it towards the Big Red Bear. Is that essentially what you’re saying?

RR: That’s exactly what happened. And they pivoted, to use the popular expression, on a dime. It didn’t take very long. Almost immediately after V-E Day and certainly after V-J Day, you know, Victory in Europe, Victory Over Japan that you alluded to, then the Soviet Union became the replacement for the Third Reich and Mussolini.

And so, the military apparatus that the United States had established during the years from 1943-45 in Italy and in Germany and France and then the Low Countries, Benelux Countries, then became the foundation for NATO which remained and remains to this day, by the way, where the supreme allied commander of NATO has always been an American general or admiral. So, that much has not changed from 1949, or for that matter from 1945, until the current day.

GR: So, during the Cold War, I mean, was there anything, you know, about NATO – because, I mean, you started criticizing NATO before the fall of the Berlin Wall as I understand it. So, what were you finding objectionable back in the Cold War era that set you off?

RR: I wouldn’t want to put too fine a point on this because I think, you know, it’s going to distract from talking about post-Cold War NATO. And there are people out there who may want to defend NATO up until 1989 or up until 1991, and my argument is really not with them so much anymore, because as interesting as that is, I think we have more pressing concerns to be honest, Michael. And I personally feel that it was meant as a display of American military might in Europe, not only against the Soviet Union, its allies, and Eastern Europe, but also against political parties in countries like France, Belgium, Italy, Communist Party in the first instance, that may have wanted to reach some rapprochement with the Soviet Union and the permanent deployment of US – and the US, you know, Sixth Fleet is still based in Italy. And the US still has nuclear weapons in five European countries and suchlike. But this is all the result of using NATO to position the US Military for a permanent presence in Europe, first of all against the Soviet Union, then again the Soviet successor state: Russia.

Yet also, you know, you mention nuclear weapons. I believe it was as early as 1951, which is to say, only two years after the founding of NATO that the US moved nuclear weapons into Europe, into Britain initially, under NATO auspices and why NATO continues to maintain tactical nuclear weapons in Belgium, in The Netherlands, Italy, Germany, and Turkey under what NATO calls “burden sharing,” or “nuclear sharing” arrangements.

GR: Well, NATO underwent a transformation after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of communism, because it otherwise would no longer have a reason to continue, but it did. What do you know about what the thinkers at the top were thinking? I mean, how and when did they come to the conclusion that NATO would now be an aggressive force behind human rights. I mean, subsequently attacking people in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, and Libya?

RR: The 1989 speech by President H.W. Bush in Mainz, Germany whence the expression – it’s actually sometimes published with – the expression I’m going to mention in a second – as it’s titled, “A Europe Whole and Free,” sometimes “Europe Whole, Free, and at Peace.” And this is after the, you know, the dismantling of the Wall in Berlin and the beginning of the reunification of Germany. So, the point is clear coming from Washington, coming from the White House, that Europe was to be “united,” — the exact word – there was to be a continental system, you know, if I’m not going too far astray, comparable to those of Napoleon Bonaparte, or for that matter, Hitler, that would unite the entire European continent under one military command.

That has been NATO’s objective since 1989. Certainly since 1991 with the formal dissolution of the Warsaw Pact which itself, by the way, was founded six years after NATO and in reaction to not only NATO being founded, but Germany, West Germany, the Southern Republic of Germany, being brought into NATO the preceding year. Contrary to the Potsdam, you know, Accords reached by Britain, United States, and the Soviet Union at the end of World War II.

So, what NATO has accomplished in the interim and is now going to celebrate in all its splendour in July in the United States in Washington at its 75^th anniversary summit, is that indeed, the entire European continent, with the exception of Russia and Belarus, have now been brought under NATO command.

GR: But NATO is not just a military force. It seems to me it’s a parasite. There are components of NATO that involve industry and jobs and a whole economic and financial infrastructure has grown around NATO. So, there would be massive losses of jobs and a shrinking of a tax base meaning, you know, social programs as well would be compromised. Can you address these sorts of concerns about some who would resist ending NATO or getting out of NATO?

RR: I mean, you’re correct about the fact that the NATO countries – I mean, let’s look at some arithmetic: the annual collective military spending – this is official, right, through defence ministries and the Defense Department in the United States. It excludes, you know, a good deal other military-related spending. But the official numbers, with the US leading the way by a long shot to the tune of something like 68 percent, but nevertheless, NATO countries account for $1.3 trillion in military spending per annum. This is as compared to, for example, Russia maybe $60 billion, you know, a small fraction of that. The population combined or collective population, NATO countries, now with Sweden joining, is 1 billion. You know, Russia is 150 million, if I remember right. So, to place these matters in perspective.

The other thing that needs to be mentioned – and this is the NATO summit in Washington in the Summer – will be the second time a NATO summit has been held in the capital of the United States. That symbolism is not to be missed. There was only one other summit in the United States and it was here in Chicago in 2012. But the first summit in Washington, the first in the United States, was in 1999 to mark the 50^th anniversary of the creation of NATO. This one will mark the 75^th anniversary.

Fifty years ago – I’m sorry, not 50 years ago but 25 years ago in 1999, when NATO met in Washington Nato had 16 members. When it finishes its summit this July in Washington, it will have 32 members, which is to say twice as many as it had in 1999 when it launched its first full fledged war against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

In the interim also, starting in the 1990s – you read an excerpt which I assumed was mine, it sounded very much like mine at the beginning of the programme – NATO has, in addition to those 32 full members, partners in the neighbourhood of probably 40 officially. And if you want to include the fact that NATO considers the African Union to be a collective partner, it has a liaison office next to that of the African Union in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia. But officially, they have 40 members who, together with the – not 40 members, 40 partners – who, together with the 32 members, some of these are countries, are on all six inhabited continents, bar none. And as there are military personnel in Antarctica from NATO countries, you can throw that one in for good measure and all the continents in the world even have NATO presence.

That is something that is so historically unprecedented in scale and scope and ambition and nature, that it really puzzles me and I have to admit it makes me despondent sometimes that for 25 years I’ve been trying to alert people to this, to the scale of it. And I feel that people are either indifferent to it, they downplay it, they mock it. Global Research is not immune itself from running articles that suggest that, you know, NATO is a paper tiger, paper pussycat in one person’s parlance, and so forth. I’ll state my claim, and I hope I’m not wrong, that NATO is a deadly serious business and a real threat to world peace. And if it is, and it has been for the past 25 years, then I think the peace movement and other forces in the world have been grossly negligent in taking this one on.

GR: Going forward then, what would you assume NATO’s next targets would be if there’s no resistance? And you know, what kinds of – how do you expect their development to evolve over the next two or three years?

RR: You know, they’re very open about these matters. There’s nothing esoteric about them. Go to the NATO website. They have two features today and one is at the Moldova [SIC] solidifying its relationship with NATO. It’s going to join. But you know, as a precondition for joining, it cannot have foreign troops on its territory, nor can it have unresolved territorial disputes. And Transnistria, you know, fills, you know, both those – checks both of those boxes off. So, it would be necessary. And Transnistria is surrounded by Moldova in the West, Ukraine on the East, it would be necessary to expel the Russian peacekeeping force of the couple thousand troops, and then reincorporate Transnistria into Moldova in order for it to join NATO. But you know, those movements – that movement is well under way.

The general secretary of NATO, as you may know, has just recently made a trip to the three South Caucasus nations of Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia. Armenia has suspended its membership in the Collective Security Treaty Organization, I would argue justifiably, you know, given Russia’s unwillingness to defend it against attacks from Azerbaijan. And so, what are they doing? They’re wrapping up – they’re doing a mopping up operation. They are absorbing what’s left of the former Soviet Union, except for, at least the moment, Belarus and Russia itself. They’ve already incorporated, of course, some 15 years ago they incorporated – more than that, 17 years ago – they – 20 years ago they incorporated three former Soviet Union republics, you know, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuanian. They, you know, ensconced themselves deeply in the three countries I’ve just mentioned in the South Caucasus. Ukraine I don’t have to tell you about. And Moldova, that’s the former Soviet Union.

So, they have not only – there was a statement by George W. Bush during the round of massive NATO expansions in the early part of the century where, at one NATO summit, seven countries joined at one time. Again, that’s totally unprecedented. Two of those former Yugoslav federal republics and three of them former Soviet republics. There was a statement attributed to George W. Bush saying, “The Warsaw Pact has now become NATO, in fact.”

GR: Rick Rozoff, thank you very much for your intelligent and eloquent analysis.

RR: Yeah, I wish I had better news to bring you, my friend. You know, we sit back and we allow military monoliths of this scale to spread over the last, you know, 33 years and we effectively do nothing about it. You know, they’re not going to be held in check unless we hold them in check. And we have to sound the alarm that the existence of a military bloc of 70-some odd countries on all continents is something that really should ring some bells and really should raise some alarms and people should really commit themselves to looking into it and doing what they can to reign this thing in until it can be dismantled.

 

 

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. 

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”.

According to Cheney: “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)

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.”

USCENTCOM, http://www.milnet.com/milnet/pentagon/centcom/chap1/stratgic.htm#USPolicy

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.

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Order Directly from Global Research Publishers

Michel Chossudovsky

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.

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[This article was first published by GR on July 7, 2022.]

***

“And thus it renders more and more evident the great central fact that the cause of the miserable condition of the working class is to be sought, not in these minor grievances, but in the capitalistic system itself.” Friedrich Engels, The Condition of the Working Class in England (1845) (preface to the English Edition, p.36)  

The IMF and World Bank have for decades pushed a policy agenda based on cuts to public services, increases in taxes paid by the poorest and moves to undermine labour rights and protections.

IMF ‘structural adjustment’ policies have resulted in 52% of Africans lacking access to healthcare and 83% having no safety nets to fall back on if they lose their job or become sick. Even the IMF has shown that neoliberal policies fuel poverty and inequality.

In 2021, an Oxfam review of IMF COVID-19 loans showed that 33 African countries were encouraged to pursue austerity policies. The world’s poorest countries are due to pay $43 billion in debt repayments in 2022, which could otherwise cover the costs of their food imports.

Oxfam and Development Finance International (DFI) have also revealed that 43 out of 55 African Union member states face public expenditure cuts totalling $183 billion over the next five years.

According to Prof Michel Chossudovsky of the Centre for Research on Globalization, the closure of the world economy (March 11, 2020 Lockdown imposed on more than 190 countries) has triggered an unprecedented process of global indebtedness. Governments are now under the control of global creditors in the post-COVID era.

What we are seeing is a de facto privatisation of the state as governments capitulate to the needs of Western financial institutions.

Moreover, these debts are largely dollar-denominated, helping to strengthen the US dollar and US leverage over countries.

It raises the question: what was COVID really about?

Millions have been asking that question since lockdowns and restrictions began in early 2020. If it was indeed about public health, why close down the bulk of health services and the global economy knowing full well what the massive health, economic and debt implications would be?

Why mount a military-style propaganda campaign to censor world-renowned scientists and terrorise entire populations and use the full force and brutality of the police to ensure compliance?

These actions were wholly disproportionate to any risk posed to public health, especially when considering the way ‘COVID death’ definitions and data were often massaged and how PCR tests were misused to scare populations into submission.

Prof Fabio Vighi of Cardiff University implies we should have been suspicious from the start when the usually “unscrupulous ruling elites” froze the global economy in the face of a pathogen that targets almost exclusively the unproductive (the over 80s).

COVID was a crisis of capitalism masquerading as a public health emergency.

Capitalism  

Capitalism needs to keep expanding into or creating new markets to ensure the accumulation of capital to offset the tendency for the general rate of profit to fall. The capitalist needs to accumulate capital (wealth) to be able to reinvest it and make further profits. By placing downward pressure on workers’ wages, the capitalist extracts sufficient surplus value to be able to do this.

But when the capitalist is unable to sufficiently reinvest (due to declining demand for commodities, a lack of investment opportunities and markets, etc), wealth (capital) over accumulates, devalues and the system goes into crisis. To avoid crisis, capitalism requires constant growth, markets and sufficient demand.

According to writer Ted Reese, the capitalist rate of profit has trended downwards from an estimated 43% in the 1870s to 17% in the 2000s. Although wages and corporate taxes have been slashed, the exploitability of labour was increasingly insufficient to meet the demands of capital accumulation.

By late 2019, many companies could not generate sufficient profit. Falling turnover, limited cashflows and highly leveraged balance sheets were prevalent.

Economic growth was weakening in the run up to the massive stock market crash in February 2020, which saw trillions more pumped into the system in the guise of ‘COVID relief’.

To stave off crisis up until that point, various tactics had been employed.

Credit markets were expanded and personal debt increased to maintain consumer demand as workers’ wages were squeezed. Financial deregulation occurred and speculative capital was allowed to exploit new areas and investment opportunities. At the same time, stock buy backs, the student debt economy, quantitative easing and massive bail outs and subsidies and an expansion of militarism helped to maintain economic growth.

There was also a ramping up of an imperialist strategy that has seen indigenous systems of production abroad being displaced by global corporations and states pressurised to withdraw from areas of economic activity, leaving transnational players to occupy the space left open.

While these strategies produced speculative bubbles and led to an overevaluation of assets and increased both personal and government debt, they helped to continue to secure viable profits and returns on investment.

But come 2019, former governor of the Bank of England Mervyn King warned that the world was sleepwalking towards a fresh economic and financial crisis that would have devastating consequences. He argued that the global economy was stuck in a low growth trap and recovery from the crisis of 2008 was weaker than that after the Great Depression.

King concluded that it was time for the Federal Reserve and other central banks to begin talks behind closed doors with politicians.

That is precisely what happened as key players, including BlackRock, the world’s most powerful investment fund, got together to work out a strategy going forward. This took place in the lead up to COVID.

Aside from deepening the dependency of poorer countries on Western capital, Fabio Vighi says lockdowns and the global suspension of economic transactions allowed the US Fed to flood the ailing financial markets (under the guise of COVID) with freshly printed money while shutting down the real economy to avoid hyperinflation. Lockdowns suspended business transactions, which drained the demand for credit and stopped the contagion.

COVID provided cover for a multi-trillion-dollar bailout for the capitalist economy that was in meltdown prior to COVID. Despite a decade or more of ‘quantitative easing’, this new bailout came in the form of trillions of dollars pumped into financial markets by the US Fed (in the months prior to March 2020) and subsequent ‘COVID relief’.

The IMF, World bank and global leaders knew full well what the impact on the world’s poor would be of closing down the world economy through COVID-related lockdowns.

Yet they sanctioned it and there is now the prospect that in excess of a quarter of a billion more people worldwide will fall into extreme levels of poverty in 2022 alone.

In April 2020, the Wall Street Journal stated the IMF and World Bank faced a deluge of aid requests from scores of poorer countries seeking bailouts and loans from financial institutions with $1.2 trillion to lend.

In addition to helping to reboot the financial system, closing down the global economy deliberately deepened poorer countries’ dependency on Western global conglomerates and financial interests.

Lockdowns also helped accelerate the restructuring of capitalism that involves smaller enterprises being driven to bankruptcy or bought up by monopolies and global chains, thereby ensuring continued viable profits for Big Tech, the digital payments giants and global online corporations like Meta and Amazon and the eradication of millions of jobs.

Although the effects of the conflict in Ukraine cannot be dismissed, with the global economy now open again, inflation is rising and causing a ‘cost of living’ crisis. With a debt-ridden economy, there is limited scope for rising interest rates to control inflation.

But this crisis is not inevitable: current inflation is not only induced by the liquidity injected into the financial system but also being fuelled by speculation in food commodity markets and corporate greed as energy and food corporations continue to rake in vast profits at the expense of ordinary people.

Resistance  

However, resistance is fertile.

Aside from the many anti-restriction/pro-freedom rallies during COVID, we are now seeing a more strident trade unionism coming to the fore – in Britain at least – led by media savvy leaders like Mick Lynch, general secretary of the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT), who know how to appeal to the public and tap into widely held resentment against soaring cost of living rises.

Teachers, health workers and others could follow the RMT into taking strike action.

Lynch says that millions of people in Britain face lower living standards and the stripping out of occupational pensions. He adds:

“COVID has been a smokescreen for the rich and powerful in this country to drive down wages as far as they can.”

Just like a decade of imposed ‘austerity’ was used to achieve similar results in the lead up to COVID.

The trade union movement should now be taking a leading role in resisting the attack on living standards and further attempts to run-down state-provided welfare and privatise what remains.

The strategy to wholly dismantle and privatise health and welfare services seems increasingly likely given the need to rein in (COVID-related) public debt and the trend towards AI, workplace automisation and worklessness.

This is a real concern because, following the logic of capitalism, work is a condition for the existence of the labouring classes. So, if a mass labour force is no longer deemed necessary, there is no need for mass education, welfare and healthcare provision and systems that have traditionally served to reproduce and maintain labour that capitalist economic activity has required.

In 2019, Philip Alston, the UN rapporteur on extreme poverty, accused British government ministers of the “systematic immiseration of a significant part of the British population” in the decade following the 2008 financial crash.

Alston stated:

“As Thomas Hobbes observed long ago, such an approach condemns the least well off to lives that are ‘solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short’. As the British social contract slowly evaporates, Hobbes’ prediction risks becoming the new reality.”

Post-COVID, Alston’s words carry even more weight.

As this article draws to a close, news is breaking that Boris Johnson has resigned as prime minister. A remarkable PM if only for his criminality, lack of moral foundation and double standards – also applicable to many of his cronies in government.

With this in mind, let’s finish where we began.

“I have never seen a class so deeply demoralised, so incurably debased by selfishness, so corroded within, so incapable of progress, as the English bourgeoisie…

For it nothing exists in this world, except for the sake of money, itself not excluded. It knows no bliss save that of rapid gain, no pain save that of losing gold.

In the presence of this avarice and lust of gain, it is not possible for a single human sentiment or opinion to remain untainted.” Friedrich Engels, The Condition of the Working Class in England (1845), p.275

*

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Renowned author Colin Todhunter specialises in development, food and agriculture. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) in Montreal.

The author receives no payment from any media outlet or organization for his work. If you appreciated this article, consider sending a few coins his way: [email protected] 

Featured image is from Red Voice Media

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Read Colin Todhunter’s e-Book entitled

Food, Dispossession and Dependency. Resisting the New World Order

We are currently seeing an acceleration of the corporate consolidation of the entire global agri-food chain. The high-tech/big data conglomerates, including Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook and Google, have joined traditional agribusiness giants, such as Corteva, Bayer, Cargill and Syngenta, in a quest to impose their model of food and agriculture on the world.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is also involved (documented in ‘Gates to a Global Empire‘ by Navdanya International), whether through buying up huge tracts of farmland, promoting a much-heralded (but failed) ‘green revolution’ for Africa, pushing biosynthetic food and genetic engineering technologies or more generally facilitating the aims of the mega agri-food corporations.

Click here to read.

La guerra della NATO contro la Russia in Ucraina comporta una crescente spesa militare. Secondo i dati ufficiali, la spesa militare italiana è aumentata da 21 miliardi di euro nel 2019 a oltre 30 miliardi nel 2023, equivalenti a una media giornaliera annua di oltre 80 milioni di euro, in denaro pubblico sottratto alle spese sociali. Secondo l’impegno assunto nella NATO, l’Italia dovrà portare tale spesa a circa 100 milioni di euro al giorno. Dal 2014 la spesa militare dell’Europa appartenente alla NATO è vertiginosamente cresciuta, superando il livello dell’ultima fase della Guerra Fredda.

Il segretario generale della NATO Stoltenberg sottolinea:

“Gli Alleati stanno fornendo all’Ucraina aiuti militari e finanziari senza precedenti. La Francia invierà presto altri obici Caesar e diversi Alleati hanno aderito all’iniziativa della Repubblica Ceca di procurare 800.000 proiettili d’artiglieria supplementari”.

L’Italia, che ha già fornito a Kiev anche pezzi di artiglieria pesante, partecipa all’acquisto di questi altri 800.000 proiettili. Più un ulteriore esborso di denaro pubblico pagato da noi cittadini.

Le basi USA-NATO

Un ulteriore aggravio deriva dal fatto che l’Italia compartecipa alle spese delle basi USA-NATO che, dal territorio italiano, svolgono fondamentali ruoli di supporto delle operazioni belliche, dall’Ucraina al Medioriente. Di particolare importanza il ruolo di Camp Darby, il più grande arsenale USA fuori dal territorio statunitense. In questi giorni stanno arrivando dagli Stati Uniti in questa base, situata tra Pisa e Livorno, nuovi e più potenti mezzi corazzati che da Camp Darby, tramite il porto di Livorno, saranno inviati in Ucraina.

Le basi USA di Camp Darby, Sigonella e altre sul territorio italiano supportano anche le operazioni belliche in Medioriente. Qui gli Stati Uniti continuano ad armare Israele nell’ambito di un accordo, stipulato dal Presidente Obama e dal suo vice Biden. Questo prevede di fornire a Israele armi per il valore di 38 miliardi di dollari, comprese le bombe con cui Israele sta sterminando i Palestinesi a Gaza.

Manlio Dinucci

 

VIDEO :

The text below is Chapter III of Michel Chossudovsky’s book entitled:  The Globalization of War. America’s Long War against Humanity, Global Research Publishers, Montreal, 2015.  To order the book directly from Global Research click here

This chapter provides a historical perspective of US war plans directed against Iran, including the use of a preemptive nuclear attack, using low yield, “more usable” tactical nuclear weapons.

This analysis is of particular relevance to the Biden administration’s ongoing threats to attack Iran.

***

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.”

The stockpiling and deployment of advanced weapons systems directed against Iran started in the immediate wake of the 2003 bombing and invasion of Iraq. From the outset, these war plans were led by the U.S. in liaison with NATO and Israel.

Following the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration identified Iran and Syria as the next stage of “the road map to war”. U.S. military sources intimated at the time that an aerial attack on Iran could involve a large scale deployment comparable to the U.S. “shock and awe” bombing raids on Iraq in March 2003:

American air strikes on Iran would vastly exceed the scope of the 1981 Israeli attack on the Osiraq nuclear center in Iraq, and would more resemble the opening days of the 2003 air campaign against Iraq.1

“Theater Iran Near Term” (TIRANNT)

Code named by U.S. military planners as TIRANNT, “Theater Iran Near Term”, simulations of an attack on Iran were initiated in May 2003 “when modelers and intelligence specialists pulled together the data needed for theater-level (meaning large-scale) scenario analysis for Iran.”2

The scenarios identified several thousand targets inside Iran as part of a “Shock and Awe” Blitzkrieg:

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 [April 2006] exists in draft form.

… Under TIRANNT, Army and U.S. Central Command planners have been examining both near-term and out-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.3

Different “theater scenarios” for an all-out attack on Iran had been contemplated:

The U.S. army, navy, air force and marines have all prepared battle plans and spent four years building bases and training for “Operation Iranian Freedom”. Admiral Fallon, the new head of U.S. Central Command, has inherited computerized plans under the name TIRANNT (Theatre Iran Near Term).4

In 2004, drawing upon the initial war scenarios under TIRANNT, Vice President Dick Cheney instructed U.S. Strategic Command (U.S.STRATCOM) to draw up a “contingency plan” of a large scale military operation directed against Iran “to be employed in response to another 9/11-type terrorist attack on the United States” on the presumption that the government in Tehran would be behind the terrorist plot. The plan included the pre-emptive use of nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear state:

The plan includes a large-scale air assault on Iran employing both conventional and tactical nuclear weapons. Within Iran there are more than four hundred fifty major strategic targets, including numerous suspected nuclear-weapons-program development sites. Many of the targets are hardened or are deep underground and could not be taken out by conventional weapons, hence the nuclear option. As in the case of Iraq, the response is not conditional on Iran actually being involved in the act of terrorism directed against the United States. Several senior Air Force officers involved in the planning are reportedly appalled at the implications of what they are doing –that Iran is being set up for an unprovoked nuclear attack– but no one is prepared to damage his career by posing any objections.5

The Military Road Map: “First Iraq, then Iran”

The decision to target Iran under TIRANNT was part of the broader process of military planning and sequencing of military operations. Already under the Clinton administration, U.S. Central Command (U.S.CENTCOM) had formulated “in war theater plans” to invade first Iraq and then Iran. Access to Middle East oil was the stated strategic objective:

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. U.S.CENTCOM’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.6

The war on Iran was viewed as part of a succession of military operations. According to (former) NATO Commander General Wesley Clark, the Pentagon’s military road-map consisted of a sequence of countries:

[The] Five-year campaign plan [includes]… a total of seven countries, beginning with Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Iran, Somalia and Sudan.6 (For further details, see Chapter I)

The Role of Israel

There has been much debate regarding the role of Israel in initiating an attack against Iran.

Israel is part of a military alliance. Tel Aviv is not a prime mover. It does not have a separate and distinct military agenda.

Israel is integrated into the “war plan for major combat operations” against Iran formulated in 2006 by U.S. Strategic Command (U.S.STRATCOM). In the context of large scale military operations, an uncoordinated unilateral military action by one coalition partner, namely Israel, is from a military and strategic point almost an impossibility. Israel is a de facto member of NATO. Any action by Israel would require a “green light” from Washington.

An attack by Israel could, however, be used as “the trigger mechanism” which would unleash an all-out war against Iran, as well as retaliation by Iran directed against Israel.

In this regard, there are indications going back to the Bush administration that Washington had indeed contemplated the option of an initial (U.S. backed) attack by Israel rather than an outright U.S.-led military operation directed against Iran. The Israeli attack –although led in close liaison with the Pentagon and NATO– would have been presented to public opinion as a unilateral decision by Tel Aviv. It would then have been used by Washington to justify, in the eyes of World opinion, a military intervention of the U.S. and NATO with a view to “defending Israel”, rather than attacking Iran. Under existing military cooperation agreements, both the U.S. and NATO would be “obligated” to “defend Israel” against Iran and Syria.

It is worth noting, in this regard, that at the outset of Bush’s second term, (former) Vice President Dick Cheney had 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 U.S. military involvement and without us putting pressure on them “to do it”8

According to Cheney:

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,9

Commenting the Vice President’s assertion, former National Security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski in an interview on PBS, confirmed with some apprehension, yes: Cheney wants Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to act on America’s behalf and “do it” for us:

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.10

What we are dealing with is a process of joint U.S.-NATO-Israel military planning. An operation to bomb Iran has been in the active planning stage since 2004. Officials in the Defense Department, under Bush and Obama, have been working assiduously with their Israeli military and intelligence counterparts, carefully identifying targets inside Iran. In practical military terms, any action by Israel would have to be planned and coordinated at the highest levels of the U.S. led coalition.

An attack by Israel against Iran would also require coordinated U.S.-NATO logistical support, particularly with regard to Israel’s air defense system, which since January 2009 is fully integrated into that of the U.S. and NATO.11

Israel’s X band radar system established in early 2009 with U.S. technical support has “integrate[d] Israel’s missile defenses with the U.S. global missile [Space-based] detection network, which includes satellites, Aegis ships on the Mediterranean, Persian Gulf and Red Sea, and land-based Patriot radars and interceptors.”12

What this means is that Washington ultimately calls the shots. The U.S. rather than Israel controls the air defense system:

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.13

The U.S. military oversees Israel’s Air Defense system, which is integrated into the Pentagon’s global system. In other words, Israel cannot launch a war against Iran without Washington’s consent. Hence the importance of the so-called “Green Light” legislation in the U.S. Congress sponsored by the Republican party under House Resolution 1553, which explicitly supported an Israeli attack on Iran:

The measure, introduced by Texas Republican Louie Gohmert and 46 of his colleagues, endorses Israel’s use of “all means necessary” against Iran “including the use of military force.” … “We’ve got to get this done. We need to show our support for Israel. We need to quit playing games with this critical ally in such a difficult area”.14

In practice, the proposed legislation serves as a “Green Light” to the White House and the Pentagon rather than to Israel. It constitutes a rubber stamp to a U.S. sponsored war on Iran which uses Israel as a convenient military launch pad. It also serves as a justification to wage war with a view to defending Israel.

In this context, Israel could indeed provide the pretext to wage war, in response to alleged Hamas or Hezbollah attacks and/or the triggering of hostilities on the border of Israel with Lebanon. What is crucial to understand is that a minor “incident” could be used as a pretext to spark off a major military operation against Iran.

Known to U.S. military planners, Israel (rather than the U.S.A) would be the first target of military retaliation by Iran. Broadly speaking, Israelis would be the victims of the machinations of both Washington and their own government. It is, in this regard, absolutely crucial that Israelis forcefully oppose any action by the Netanyahu government to attack Iran.

Global Warfare: The Role of U.S. Strategic Command (US.STRATCOM)

In January 2005, at the outset of the military deployment and build-up directed against Iran, U.S.STRATCOM was identified as “the lead Combatant Command for integration and synchronization of DoD-wide efforts in combating weapons of mass destruction.”15 What this means is that the coordination of a large scale attack on Iran, including the various scenarios of escalation in and beyond the broader Middle East Central Asian region would be coordinated by U.S.STRATCOM. (See Chapter I).

Confirmed by military documents as well as official statements, both the U.S. and Israel contemplate the use of nuclear weapons directed against Iran. In 2006, U.S. Strategic Command (U.S.STRATCOM) announced it had achieved an operational capability for rapidly striking targets around the globe using nuclear or conventional weapons. This announcement was made after the conduct of military simulations pertaining to a U.S. led nuclear attack against a fictional country.16

Continuity in Relation to the Bush-Cheney Era

President Obama has largely endorsed the doctrine of pre-emptive use of nuclear weapons formulated by the previous administration. Under the 2010 Nuclear Posture Review, the Obama administration confirmed “that it is reserving the right to use nuclear weapons against Iran” for its non-compliance with U.S. demands regarding its alleged (nonexistent) nuclear weapons program.17 The Obama administration has also intimated that it would use nukes in the case of an Iranian response to an Israeli attack on Iran. Israel has also drawn up its own “secret plans” to bomb Iran with tactical nuclear weapons:

Israeli military commanders believe conventional strikes may no longer be enough to annihilate increasingly well-defended enrichment facilities. Several have been built beneath at least 70ft of concrete and rock. However, the nuclear-tipped bunker-busters would be used only if a conventional attack was ruled out and if the United States declined to intervene, senior sources said.18

Obama’s statements on the use of nuclear weapons against Iran and North Korea are consistent with post-9/11 U.S. nuclear weapons doctrine, which allows for the use of tactical nuclear weapons in the conventional war theater.

Through a propaganda campaign which has enlisted the support of “authoritative” nuclear scientists, mini-nukes are upheld as an instrument of peace, namely a means to combating “Islamic terrorism” and instating Western style “democracy” in Iran. The low-yield nukes have been cleared for “battlefield use”. They are slated to be used against Iran and Syria in the next stage of America’s “War on Terrorism” alongside conventional weapons:

Administration officials argue that low-yield nuclear weapons are needed as a credible deterrent against rogue states. [Iran, Syria, North Korea] Their logic is that existing war. Potential enemies realize this, thus they do not consider the threat of nuclear retaliation to be credible. However, low-yield nuclear weapons are less destructive, thus might conceivably be used. That would make them more effective as a deterrent.19

The preferred nuclear weapon to be used against Iran are tactical nuclear weapons (Made in America), namely bunker buster bombs with nuclear warheads (for example, B61-11), with an explosive capacity between one third to six times a Hiroshima bomb.

The B61-11 is the “nuclear version” of the “conventional” BLU 113. or Guided Bomb Unit GBU-28. It can be delivered in much same way as the conventional bunker buster bomb.20

While the U.S. does not contemplate the use of strategic thermonuclear weapons against Iran, Israel’s nuclear arsenal is largely composed of thermonuclear bombs which are deployed and could be used in a war with Iran. Under Israel’s Jericho III missile system with a range between 4,800 km to 6,500 km, all Iran would be within reach.

Radioactive Fallout

The issue of radioactive fallout and contamination, while casually dismissed by U.S.-NATO military analysts, would be devastating, potentially affecting a large area of the broader Middle East (including Israel) and Central Asian region.

In an utterly twisted logic, nuclear weapons are presented as a means to building peace and preventing “collateral damage”. Iran’s nonexistent nuclear weapons are a threat to global security, whereas those of the U.S. and Israel are instruments of peace “harmless to the surrounding civilian population.”

“The Mother of All Bombs” (MOAB) Slated to be Used against Iran

Of military significance within the U.S. conventional weapons arsenal is the 21,500-pound “monster weapon” nicknamed the “mother of all bombs” The GBU-43/B or Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb (MOAB) was categorized “as the most powerful non-nuclear weapon ever designed” with the the largest yield in the U.S. conventional arsenal. The MOAB was tested in early March 2003 before being deployed to the Iraq war theater. According to U.S. military sources, The Joint Chiefs of Staff had advised the government of Saddam Hussein prior to launching the 2003 that the “mother of all bombs” was to be used against Iraq. (There were unconfirmed reports that it had been used in Iraq).

The U.S. Department of Defense already confirmed in 2009 that it intends to use the “Mother of All Bombs” (MOAB) against Iran. The MOAB is said to be ”ideally suited to hit deeply buried nuclear facilities such as Natanz or Qom in Iran”21. The truth of the matter is that the MOAB, given its explosive capacity, would result in significant civilian casualties. It is a conventional “killing machine” with a nuclear type mushroom cloud.

The procurement of four MOABs was commissioned in October 2009 at the hefty cost of $58.4 million, ($14.6 million for each bomb). This amount includes the costs of development and testing as well as integration of the MOAB bombs onto B-2 stealth bombers. This procurement is directly linked to war preparations in relation to Iran. The notification was contained in a ninety-three-page “reprograming memo” which included the following instructions:

“The Department has an Urgent Operational Need (UON) for the capability to strike hard and deeply buried targets in high threat environments. The MOP [Mother of All Bombs] is the weapon of choice to meet the requirements of the UON [Urgent Operational Need].” It further states that the request is endorsed by Pacific Command (which has responsibility over North Korea) and Central Command (which has responsibility over Iran).23

The Pentagon is planning on a process of extensive destruction of Iran’s infrastructure and mass civilian casualties through the combined use of tactical nukes and monster conventional mushroom cloud bombs, including the MOAB and the larger GBU-57A/B or Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP), which surpasses the MOAB in terms of explosive capacity.

The MOP is described as “a powerful new bomb aimed squarely at the underground nuclear facilities of Iran and North Korea. The gargantuan bomb–longer than eleven persons standing shoulder-to-shoulder or more than twenty feet base to nose”.24

These are WMDs in the true sense of the word. The not so hidden objective of the MOAB and MOP, including the American nickname used to casually describe the MOAB (“Mother of all Bombs”), is “mass destruction” and mass civilian casualties with a view to instilling fear and despair.

State of the Art Weaponry: “War Made Possible Through New Technologies”

The process of U.S. military decision making in relation to Iran is supported by Star Wars, the militarization of outer space and the revolution in communications and information systems. Given the advances in military technology and the development of new weapons systems, an attack on Iran could be significantly different in terms of the mix of weapons systems, when compared to the March 2003 Blitzkrieg launched against Iraq. The Iran operation is slated to use the most advanced weapons systems in support of its aerial attacks. In all likelihood, new weapons systems will be tested.

The 2000 Project for the New American Century (PNAC) document entitled Rebuilding American Defenses, outlined the mandate of the U.S. military in terms of large scale theater wars, to be waged simultaneously in different regions of the World: “Fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theater wars”. (See Chapter I)

This formulation is tantamount to a global war of conquest by a single imperial superpower. The PNAC document also called for the transformation of U.S. forces to exploit the “revolution in military affairs”, namely the implementation of “war made possible through new technologies”. 25 The latter consists in developing and perfecting a state of the art global killing machine based on an arsenal of sophisticated new weaponry, which would eventually replace the existing paradigms.

Thus, it can be foreseen that the process of transformation will in fact be a two-stage process: first of transition, then of more thoroughgoing transformation. The breakpoint will come when a preponderance of new weapons systems begins to enter service, perhaps when, for example, unmanned aerial vehicles begin to be as numerous as manned aircraft. In this regard, the Pentagon should be very wary of making large investments in new programs –tanks, planes, aircraft carriers, for example– that would commit U.S. forces to current paradigms of warfare for many decades to come.26

The war on Iran could indeed mark this crucial break-point, with new space-based weapons systems being applied with a view to disabling an enemy which has significant conventional military capabilities including more than half a million ground forces.

Electromagnetic Weapons

Electromagnetic weapons could be used to destabilize Iran’s communications systems, disable electric power generation, undermine and destabilize command and control, government infrastructure, transportation, energy, etc. Within the same family of weapons, environmental modifications techniques (ENMOD) (weather warfare) developed under the HAARP program could also be applied.27 These weapons systems are fully operational. In this context, the U.S. Air Force document AF 2025 explicitly acknowledged the military applications of weather modification technologies:

Weather modification will become a part of domestic and international security and could be done unilaterally. … It could have offensive and defensive applications and even be used for deterrence purposes. The ability to generate precipitation, fog, and storms on earth or to modify space weather, improve communications through ionospheric modification (the use of ionospheric mirrors), and the production of artificial weather all are a part of an integrated set of technologies which can provide substantial increase in U.S., or degraded capability in an adversary, to achieve global awareness, reach, and power.28

Electromagnetic radiation enabling “remote health impairment” might also be envisaged in the war theater.29 In turn, new uses of biological weapons by the U.S. military might also be envisaged as suggested by the PNAC: “[A]dvanced forms of biological warfare that can ‘target’ specific genotypes may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool.”30

Iran’s Military Capabilities: Medium and Long-range Missiles

Iran has advanced military capabilities, including medium and long-range missiles capable of reaching targets in Israel and the Gulf States. Hence the emphasis by the U.S.-NATO Israel alliance on the use of nuclear weapons, which are slated to be used either pre-emptively or in response to an Iranian retaliatory missile attack.

In November 2006, Iran tests of surface missiles two were marked by precise planning in a carefully staged operation. According to a senior American missile expert, “the Iranians demonstrated up-to-date missile-launching technology which the West had not known them to possess.”31 Israel acknowledged that “the Shehab-3, whose 2,000-km range brings Israel, the Middle East and Europe within reach”.32

According to Uzi Rubin, former head of Israel’s anti-ballistic missile program, “the intensity of the military exercise was unprecedented… It was meant to make an impression – and it made an impression.”33

The 2006 exercises, while creating a political stir in the U.S. and Israel, did not in any way modify U.S.-NATO-Israeli resolve to wage war on Iran.

Tehran has confirmed in several statements that it will respond if it is attacked. Israel would be the immediate object of Iranian missile attacks as confirmed by the Iranian government. The issue of Israel’s air defense system is therefore crucial. U.S. and allied military facilities in the Gulf states, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan and Iraq could also be targeted by Iran.

Iran’s Ground Forces

While Iran is encircled by U.S. and allied military bases, the Islamic Republic has significant military capabilities. What is important to acknowledge is the sheer size of Iranian forces in terms of personnel (army, navy, air force) when compared to U.S. and NATO forces serving in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Confronted with a well-organized insurgency, coalition forces are already overstretched in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Would these forces be able to cope if Iranian ground forces were to enter the existing battlefield in Iraq and Afghanistan? The potential of the Resistance movement to U.S. and allied occupation would inevitably be affected.

Iranian ground forces are of the order of 700,000 of which 130,000 are professional soldiers, 220,000 are conscripts and 350,000 are reservists.34 There are 18,000 personnel in Iran’s Navy and 52,000 in the Air Force. According to the International Institute for Strategic Studies, “the Revolutionary Guards has an estimated 125,000 personnel in five branches: Its own Navy, Air Force, and Ground Forces; and the Quds Force (Special Forces).”

According to the CISS, Iran’s Basij paramilitary volunteer force controlled by the Revolutionary Guards “has an estimated 90,000 active-duty full-time uniformed members, 300,000 reservists, and a total of 11 million men that can be mobilized if need be”35, In other words, Iran can mobilize up to half a million regular troops and several million militia. Its Quds special forces are already operating inside Iraq.

U.S. Military and Allied Facilities Surrounding Iran

For several years now, Iran has been conducting its own war drills and exercises. While its Air Force has weaknesses, its intermediate and long-range missiles are fully operational. Iran’s military is in a state of readiness. Iranian troop concentrations are currently within a few kilometers of the Iraqi and Afghan borders, and within proximity of Kuwait. The Iranian Navy is deployed in the Persian Gulf within proximity of U.S. and allied military facilities in the United Arab Emirates.

It is worth noting that in response to Iran’s military build-up, the U.S. has been transferring large amounts of weapons to its non-NATO allies in the Persian Gulf including Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.

While Iran’s advanced weapons do not measure up to those of the U.S. and NATO, Iranian forces would be in a position to inflict substantial losses to coalition forces in a conventional war theater, on the ground in Iraq or Afghanistan. Iranian ground troops and tanks in December 2009 crossed the border into Iraq without being confronted or challenged by allied forces and occupied a disputed territory in the East Maysan oil field.

Even in the event of an effective Blitzkrieg, which targets Iran’s military facilities, its communications systems etc., through massive aerial bombing, using cruise missiles, conventional bunker buster bombs and tactical nuclear weapons, a war with Iran, once initiated, could eventually lead into a ground war. This is something which U.S. military planners have no doubt contemplated in their simulated war scenarios.

An operation of this nature would result in significant military and civilian casualties, particularly if nuclear weapons are used.

Within a scenario of escalation, Iranian troops could cross the border into Iraq and Afghanistan.

In turn, military escalation using nuclear weapons could lead us into a World War III scenario, extending beyond the Middle-East – Central Asian region.

In a very real sense, this military project, which has been on the Pentagon’s drawing board for more than ten years, threatens the future of humanity.

Our focus in this chapter has been on war preparations. The fact that war preparations are in an advanced state of readiness does not imply that these war plans will be carried out.

The U.S.-NATO-Israel alliance realizes that the enemy has significant capabilities to respond and retaliate. This factor in itself has been crucial in the decision by the U.S. and its allies to postpone an attack on Iran.

Another crucial factor is the structure of military alliances. Whereas NATO has become a formidable force, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which constitutes an alliance between Russia and China and a number of former Soviet Republics has been significantly weakened.

The ongoing U.S. military threats directed against China and Russia are intended to weaken the SCO and discourage any form of military action on the part of Iran’s allies in the case of a U.S. NATO Israeli attack.

*

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Notes

1. See Target Iran – Air Strikes, Globalsecurity.org, undated.

2. William Arkin, Washington Post, April 16, 2006.

3. Ibid.

4. New Statesman, February 19, 2007.

5. Philip Giraldi, Deep Background,The American Conservative August 2005.

6. U.S.CENTCOM, http://www.milnet.com/milnet/pentagon/centcom/chap1/stratgic.htm#U.S.Policy, link no longer active, archived at http://tinyurl.com/37gafu9.

7. General Wesley Clark, for further details see Chapter I.

8. See Michel Chossudovsky, Planned U.S.-Israeli Attack on Iran, Global Research, May 1, 2005.

9. Dick Cheney, quoted from an MSNBC Interview, January 2005.

10. According to Zbigniew Brzezinski.

11. Michel Chossudovsky, Unusually Large U.S. Weapons Shipment to Israel: Are the U.S. and Israel Planning a Broader Middle East War? Global Research, January 11, 2009.

12. Defense Talk.com, January 6, 2009.

13. Quoted in Israel National News, January 9, 2009.

14. Webster Tarpley, Fidel Castro Warns of Imminent Nuclear War; Admiral Mullen Threatens Iran; U.S.-Israel versus Iran-Hezbollah Confrontation Builds On, Global Research, August 10, 2010.

15. Michel Chossudovsky, Nuclear War against Iran, Global Research, January 3, 2006.

16. David Ruppe, Pre-emptive Nuclear War in a State of Readiness: U.S. Command Declares Global Strike Capability, Global Security Newswire, December 2, 2005.

17. U.S. Nuclear Option on Iran Linked to Israeli Attack Threat – IPS ipsnews.net, April 23, 2010.

18. Revealed: Israel plans nuclear strike on Iran – Times Online, January 7, 2007.

19. Opponents Surprised By Elimination of Nuke Research Funds, Defense News, November 29, 2004.

20. See Michel Chossudovsky, “Tactical Nuclear Weapons” against Afghanistan?, Global Research, December 5,

2001. See also http://www.thebulletin.org/article_nn.php?art_ofn=jf03norris.

21. Jonathan Karl, Is the U.S. Preparing to Bomb Iran? ABC News, October 9, 2009.

22. Ibid.

23. ABC News, op cit, emphasis added. To consult the reprogramming request (pdf) click here.

24. See Edwin Black, “Super Bunker-Buster Bombs Fast-Tracked for Possible Use Against Iran and North Korea Nuclear Programs”, Cutting Edge, September 21, 2009.

25. See Project for a New American Century, Rebuilding America’s Defenses Washington DC, September 2000, pdf.

26. Ibid, emphasis added.

27. See Michel Chossudovsky, “Owning the Weather” for Military Use, Global Research, September 27, 2004.

28. Air Force 2025 Final Report, See also U.S. Air Force: Weather as a Force Multiplier: Owning the Weather in 2025, AF2025 v3c15-1.

29. See Mojmir Babacek, Electromagnetic and Informational Weapons:, Global Research, August 6, 2004.

30. Project for a New American Century, op cit., p. 60.

31. See Michel Chossudovsky, Iran’s “Power of Deterrence” Global Research, November 5, 2006.

32. Debka, November 5, 2006.

33. www.cnsnews.com November 3, 2006.

34. See Islamic Republic of Iran Army – Wikipedia.

35. Ibid.

Featured image is from The Unz Review

---

The Globalization of War: America’s “Long War” against Humanity

Michel Chossudovsky

The “globalization of war” is a hegemonic project. Major military and covert intelligence operations are being undertaken simultaneously in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, Central Asia and the Far East. The U.S. military agenda combines both major theater operations as well as covert actions geared towards destabilizing sovereign states.

ISBN Number: 978-0-9737147-6-0

Year: 2015

Pages: 240 Pages

List Price: $22.95

Special Price: $15.00

Click here to order.

First published on November 13, 2023

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New Year Donation Drive: Global Research Is Committed to the “Unspoken Truth”

 

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 

.

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: 

 

.

.

3. America’s Military Doctrine: Targeting and Killing Civilians

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.

Video Interview: Michel Chossudovsky and Caroline Mailloux

To leave a comment and /or access Rumble click here. Or click the lower right hand corner of the screen

 .

 4. Iran and the Nuclear Issue

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.

Click below to access the complete text of H. RES 559

Israel’s Undeclared Nuclear Weapons Arsenal 

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. 

In recent developments, Israeli Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu, “admitted to the world that Israel has nuclear weapons ready to be used against Palestinians”

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.

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. 

It is worth noting that a few days prior to the October 7, 2023 Hamas operation, the Emir of Qatar Sheik Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani “laid the foundation stone for the Northern Dome expansion project” in Iran’s Pars South Field (See map above).

“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”

Qatar is both A Partner of Iran as well as a Major Non NATO Ally of the U.S. Reports confirm the development of a close relationship between the commanders of the US Air Force and the Qatari Emiri Air Force. 

Qatar is a “Powder Keg”?

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.

Washington’s objective under the disguise of America’s “Major Non-NATO Alliance” with Qatar is to:

• Break the Qatar-Iran Partnership
• Exclude Iran from the Joint Maritime Gas Field
• 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

6. Strategic Waterways: The Ben Gurion Canal Project

 .

U.S. Seeks Dominance over Strategic International Waterways

The Ben Gurion Canal Project was 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)

.

7. “Greater Israel”. Strategic “Anglo-American Hub”  

 

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. 

 

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Part II

 

Planned US-Israeli Attack on Iran

by  

Michel Chossudovsky 

Global Research

May 2005

 

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)

Israel is a Rottweiler on a leash: The US wants to “set Israel loose” to attack Iran. Commenting the Vice President’s assertion, former National Security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski in an interview on PBS, confirmed with some apprehension, yes: Cheney wants Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to act on America’s behalf and “do it” for us:

“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)

Moreover, reported in late 2003, Israeli Dolphin-class submarines equipped with US Harpoon missiles armed with nuclear warheads are now aimed at Iran. (See Gordon Thomas)

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.

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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