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The publicity for the Ukraine war has been handled far more successfully by the US, NATO and allies than the campaign to justify the 2003 US war on Iraq. The Ukraine news is pervasive. It comes from the front, from anchors in Kyiv, from interviews with victims, medical staff and politicians. Moscow-based Western correspondents who dominate the airwaves, television and print media provide unenlightening input from Russia. The war is being won for hearts and minds while bloody battles rage in eastern Ukraine. Blanket efforts to influence global public opinion in favour of the war will go on long after the war ends.
This is true of this week’s 20th anniversary coverage of George W. Bush’s deadly and destructive war on Iraq which afflicted chaos, anarchy and sectarianism on the core country of the Eastern Arab World (Mashreq) and shook the region. By repeating the three false pretexts for launching the war, the media gives them currency and some credibility. Few commentators state the fact that the US “lied” by saying Iraqi president Saddam Hussein retained banned weapons of mass destruction (WMD), had ties to Al Qaeda which attacked the US in 2001, and, the most farfetched of all, posed a threat to the US. “Lied” is a leaded word which conveys the accusation that the US intended to mislead the global public even this was true.
On the issue of WMD, on the website of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, ex-UN nuclear inspector Robert Kelley wrote, “The UN Special Commission on Iraq [UNSCOM] and the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] Action Team carried out hundreds of person-days of inspections in Iraq [in 1992-1993]. We discovered nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programmes and methodically destroyed them, even to the extent of blowing up entire factories and laboratories and bringing special nuclear materials out of the country.” A US expert, Kelley also wrote the report to the IAEA on inspections carried out ahead of the war found no evidence of nuclear material or equipment. His report was ignored in Washington and London.
The Saddam Hussein-Al Qaeda connection was invented by US officials with the aim of providing Bush with justification for his war but was dismissed by the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2006. Al Qaeda made its appearance in Iraq after the US occupation when Abu Musab Al Zarqawi was tasked by Usama Bin Laden to establish cells in Iraq. Saddam Hussein had neither the aspiration nor possibility to mount strikes on the US which is more than 11,000 kilometres distant from Baghdad.
On April 9, 2007, former director of Central Intelligence George Tenet said on a 60 Minutes television interview, “We could never verify that there was any Iraqi authority, direction and control, complicity with Al Qaeda for 9/11 or any operational act against America, period.”
Twenty years on lies and misrepresentations continue to be adopted by today’s politicians and commentators. The most common is that Saddam Hussein established “a minority Sunni regime”. This, somehow, justified its removal.
Although Saddam Hussein, a Sunni, appointed relatives to senior posts, the government was secular and included Christian, Kurdish and Shiite ministers in key roles. Deputy prime minister and foreign minister Tareq Aziz was a Christian. Defence industry and industry minister Amr Al Sadi — who built weapons used by Iraq during the Iran war and liaised with UN weapons inspectors — is a Shiite. He was not a member of the ruling Baath Party. His brother was a high ranking official in the oil ministry. An early Baathist who reached the top ranks of the party, Saadoun Hammadi, another Shiita, was oil minister, prime minister, and foreign minister. Mohammed Saeed Al Sahhaf, a Shiita born in Karbala like Hammadi, served as information and foreign minister. Iraq’s health minister in the 1990s was a Kurd whom I met in Baghdad in 1992 or 1993 during a conference convened by a Jordanian doctors’ association. The majority of members in the Baath and Communist parties were Shiitas who made up about 55 per cent of the population.
Two examples of Monday’s 20th anniversary coverage are revealing.
Commenting in The Washington Post about US Secretary of State Colin Powell’s pre-war statement on WMD to the UN Security Council, Ishaan Tharoor said that he “would lament the defects in the US intelligence process” which gave Bush the pretext to wage war. There were no “defects” just lies which were recognised as lies at the time by opponents and critics of the war.
Beating around the bush, Tharoor admitted that “Saddam’s regime” was “nominally secular” although it was, in fact, “secular” and inclusive. Tharoor also wrote that the “regime ..presided over a united sense of Iraqi identity that was, to a certain extent, broken up by the US invasion and its aftermath”. There was an Iraqi identity before the war and, there was no “certain extent” about the US effort, launched in May 2003, to destroy the Iraqi identity. The US imposed a divide-and-rule system of governance based on ethnic — Arab-Kurd — and sectarian — Shiite and Sunni — identity. Instead of democracy, this system has produced sectarian and ethnic cleansing and rule by expatriate pro-Iranain Shiita militia leaders turned politicians.
In her 50-minute BBC documentary, “A Choice of Horrors”, Caroline Wyatt interviewed a number of academics, journalists and ex-officials on the whys and wherefores of the war. The programme was divided between interviews with proponents and opponents of the war. Pro-ponents relied on non-existent WMD and Saddam Husein’s repression. Wyatt argued correctly that the end of the Cold War left the US as the global hyperpower which, after 2000, had the muscle to conduct “humanitarian interventions” although the Iraq war was a straightforward war of conquest and not a “humanitarian intervention”. While opponents spoke of US hubris and argued Iraq emerged from the US war broken, violent and impoverished, they were overshadowed by proponents who spoke first. This weakened the conclusion that the US intervention was worse than non-intervention. The war of words over the US war on Iraq continues unabated.
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The flurry of criticism and counter-outrage over the classical colonial era is no mere academic matter, warns ANDREW MURRAY: what is being debated is whether fresh imperial slaughter can be sold to the public
The British empire is one of the front lines in the culture war. Few things make Establishment academics and pundits angrier than the critical scrutiny British imperialism is increasingly subjected to, particularly by scholars that aren’t white, male and privileged, the characteristics hitherto regarded as essential for holding an opinion on the subject.
Historians like Niall Ferguson and Robert Tombs argue that the empire wasn’t such a bad thing overall, a few undeniable excesses notwithstanding, or, as a fallback, too complex to pass judgement on. They are keener on emphasising Britain’s role in abolishing slavery than its prior record of promoting and profiting from it, and its foundational part in the development of capitalism.
They also disdain the intrusion of new scholars onto their terrain. In one especially unpleasant article, Tombs singled out three for the sin of exploiting “the fashionable theme of ‘anti-colonialism’,” as if hostility to colonialism was a priori a historical disability.
The impertinent trio were Afua Hirsch, David Olusoga and Kehinde Andrews, all of whom are black writers of distinction. Not particularly subtle, I would say.
Most recently, the imperial case has been set out by Nigel Biggar, a moral philosopher no less, who finds the record of the empire broadly congenial in a new book. He regards a reappraisal of the empire as threatening to the present social order since any critique has to foreground issues like racism, exploitation and state violence, essential components of Britain best left unexamined lest they undermine the bromides of liberal capitalist democracy.
This is the critical point. History isn’t over and, in particular, the history of British imperialism is a story without an ending so far.
When Ferguson wrote his pro-imperial history of the British empire 20 years ago, he wasn’t shy about proclaiming his purpose. It was to encourage a revival of imperial methods for governing the world, on the part of the US above all, since Britain was no longer equipped to go it alone.
The “bring back the empire” brigade had its way with Afghanistan and Iraq. Twenty years on from the start of the Afghan occupation it ended in utter ignominy.
And 20 years after the Iraq invasion, a bleak anniversary marked this week, no-one can be found to excuse the aggression.
Not even the Times. Like every other newspaper worldwide in the Murdoch empire, it cheered on the Bush-Blair invasion. Yet this week it editorialised that the war was “an unmitigated disaster” and “a hubristic act of overreach, a reckless product of the American ‘unipolar moment’ that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union.
“For those responsible, including in Britain, the verdict of history grows only more damning with the passage of time… We all now live with its legacy: a less stable, more dangerous world than at any time since the second world war.”
The article could have been a Stop the War Coalition leaflet, in fact. Although there was no acknowledgement that the war was a disaster fully endorsed by the Times and its proprietor at the time. Anyway, imperial misadventures now turn sour even faster than they did in Queen Victoria’s days.
Yet still today, the preservation of a benign understanding of the British empire seems essential to the present system: the idea that it is, and always has been, pretty much the best people could aspire to.
Its propagandists realise that when the Colston statue was pulled down, for example, this was not just a matter of an image of a notorious slave trader being removed, it was the desecration of a central prop of contemporary politics.
The whole British bourgeoisie has at least one foot on the Colston pedestal. The sanctity of our past, in the Ferguson-Tombs historical telling, is the blank cheque written to today’s imperialists, cashable in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, Syria and Ukraine in this century alone.
The legacy of the empire also legitimises authoritarianism, racism, and sundry other maladies, including the supremacy of the City of London in economic counsels and the overweening influence of the arms and energy monopolies.
To deride “anti-colonial” history is to sustain 21st-century neo-colonialism and the brutalisation of Iraq with its million dead, torture, sectarian strife and despoliation.
If we take one lesson from this anniversary week, let it be the importance of anti-imperialism to any serious socialist politics, from Iraq to Ukraine to Britain itself.
Obstructed: we are now as free as South Africa, Poland and Hungary
The latest figures show that real living standards for working people in Britain have now stagnated for 15 years. This is a slump entirely unprecedented in its duration.
At the same time, Britain has been downgraded in a global ranking of freedom, on account of “increasingly authoritarian” legislation, according to Civicus Monitor. New powers that restrict the right to protest have led to us being downgraded from “narrowed” to “obstructed.” We are now only one level above “repressed.”
“Narrowed,” the next level up, is a description which fits the democracy which allowed Tony Blair to take us into a war of choice ignoring public opinion. The rot runs deep.
The laws include those clamping down on the right to protest and giving police sweeping new powers — just what the Met doesn’t need this week — as well as the government’s drive to undermine civil organisations, like charities, critical of its policies.
To that could be added the fresh attack on the right to strike and legislation aimed at driving down electoral participation by the poor and the young.
It is impossible to see these developments as unrelated. As bleak economic circumstances undermine the consent of the people to capitalist class rule, coercion is intensified. Witness President Emmanuel Macron — a darling of all centrists — imposing the degradation of French pensions by decree rather than a parliamentary vote.
And Britain is in a worse state than France.
Can democracy survive capitalism in more-or-less unending crisis and the risk of a war of the great powers? This is being debated in Establishment circles, which would rather squeeze civil rights than profit margins.
The left must join the discussion and mobilise for the defence of democracy. At the moment, we are as frogs in water gradually coming to the boil.
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The late Gene Sharp, ideological godfather of countless colour revolutions, probably would not be pleased to see his teachings posthumously hijacked by a most unconventional activist. Father Anthony is an unyielding, pesky Serbian Orthodox cleric who gets high on driving his country’s authorities crazy, but has he heard of Gene Sharp? Or ever read Sharp’s classical color revolution manual, “Self-liberation,” even more suggestively subtitled
“A guide to Strategic Planning for Action to End a Dictatorship or Other Oppression”?
Perhaps he and Sharp simply arrived at similar conclusions independently.
Be that as it may, internal tensions in Serbia are rising, fuelled by popular suspicion that NATO is strong-arming the vacillating government to renounce Kosovo.
Concomitantly, the charismatic monk’s visibility and credibility have also been rising steadily.
Hardly a day goes by that he is not harassed by the police or arrested on some imputation of “disorderly conduct.” He is held in jail until he scrapes together roughly 1000 euros to pay the brutal fine meted out for such “misconduct.” A pattern is emerging. It seems that the authorities typically stage incidents for the principal purpose of keeping Father Anthony off the streets of Belgrade as much as possible.
With a small band of devout supporters, he has been at it since 2016, when local oligarchs in the provincial town of Valjevo, possessed by a sense of impious impunity, decided to inundate the 13thcentury monastery of Saint Archangel Michael nearby. The medieval shrine stood in the way of their artificial lake project, conceived brazenly so they could enjoy sail boating. That is when Father Anthony’s righteous indignation boiled over, and a modern Savonarola was born. He has been relentlessly haunting the powers that be ever since.
Following that initial protest, the good father’s public rhetoric expanded noticeably beyond theological matters and futile appeals in neo-liberal Serbia for the preservation of religious and cultural monuments. Every Saturday in Belgrade he leads a religious procession, a litany, making the rounds of what he regards as the nodal points of the occupation system that holds Serbia in subjection: the Patriarchal headquarters of the silenced Church, the national television broadcasting facility, and the parliament building, with the Presidential office close by, situated on the other side of the park. At each of these locations, Saturday after Saturday Anthony delivers scorching homilies on a wide range of sensitive topics that are certainly on everyone’s mind but are rarely whispered by his fellow-citizens, and even then by only a few audacious lips. Today in Serbia, that sort of preaching is offensively annoying. Clearly it does not have the effect of winning friends or influencing people, especially not in the dark corridors of power.
The fact that Anthony has no friends in the aforementioned quarters has been particularly evident over the past several weeks. He has been continuously caught in a revolving door, as he is sprung in and out of jail for his impassioned street denunciations of what he sees as betrayal to NATO and its regional vassals of Serbia’s spiritual and cultural heartland, Kosovo. As of this writing, he is still incarcerated on the other side of the revolving door, where he was safely tucked away to prevent him from adding his unique imprint to the “No to capitulation” mass rally in Belgrade in opposition to EU’s harsh ultimatum to Serbia to supinely accept NATO orchestrated secession of Kosovo.
Image: Anthony preaching with NATO bombed building in the background (Source: Stephen Karganovic)
Over the past week, Father Anthony demonstrated once more his brilliant capacity to mock and annoy, as should be expected from a student of Gene Sharp. On the day of his latest arrest on March 16th, he further unnerved the jittery authorities by nonchalantly taking a provocative, although perfectly legal, stroll in the park between the National Assembly building and the President’s office [at 16:36 minutes]. He knew that the police would frown on his unpredictable presence in that public space, but decided with a handful of supporters to test the effectiveness of his civil rights anyway. Permission for a public gathering, defined by law as nineteen or more persons, was not received and pointedly not solicited. The authorities’ already rattled nerves were tried additionally when his followers separated into small groups of two and three, each clearly under the legal threshold, while disingenuously pretending that they congregated by pure chance and were not even acquainted with each other.
Whether intentionally designed or not, it turned into a classical Gene Sharp performance. The freaked out police, who had orders to disperse them, technically were in a legally untenable position [at 21:31 minutes]. Eventually, exactly as Sharp’s manual predicts they would, they solved the “rule of law” problem by crudely brushing all formalities away. They settled the matter Balkan style, the only method they know. An officer approached the monk, no court order or any such nonsense in hand of course, and peremptorily ordered Anthony to vacate the public area where he was legally entitled to be. Refusing to budge, Father Anthony preached and argued with the stone faced praetorians and finally he was rewarded with his Gene Sharp (or, if one prefers, Ghandi) moment. As the conversation was getting nowhere, he deliberately collapsed to the ground [at 33:02 minutes] forcing police officers to physically carry him off to a waiting vehicle [at 34:01 to 36:40 minutes]. In plain sight and for the obvious edification of the citizenry, Father Anthony was carted off to an undisclosed location. On best available information, he still remains there, incommunicado.
At last report, for this playful caper he was sentenced to five days in jail; there is no official word whether or not he offered to pay the fine, or the offer was refused.
Regrettably, neither Amnesty International nor the International Criminal Court, which lately purports to have been busy investigating human rights violations, have expressed the slightest interest in Father Anthony, the treatment he habitually receives, or his whereabouts. Nor have inquiries been made by international dignitaries who have been flocking to Belgrade to finalise with their local lackeys the handover of Kosovo to NATO occupiers and their Albanian minions. It seems to suit everybody perfectly that the monk has vanished.
For all we know, Father Anthony may be somewhere sharing a jail cell with incarcerated journalist Dejan Zlatanovic, comforting another forlorn prisoner of conscience in this dark night of the soul for the entire Serbian nation.
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Stephen Karganovic is president of “Srebrenica Historical Project,” an NGO registered in the Netherlands to investigate the factual matrix and background of events that took place in Srebrenica in July of 1995. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
Featured image: Serbian Monk Anthony defying the police (Source: Stephen Karganovic)
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Twenty years ago on this coming weekend, I was in Mongolia as the Deputy US Ambassador. After writing a Dissent Cable in early March 2003 on the pending US war on Iraq to my boss Secretary of State Colin Powell, I made the decision to resign from the US government as it was poised to invade, occupy and destroy the sovereign state of Iraq. I was one of three US diplomats who resigned – Brady Kiesling and John Brown resigned before me.
For months, the Bush administration attempted to get the US public to believe that Saddam Hussein was hiding weapons of mass destruction and therefore was a threat to the United States and the international community. Colin Powell’s February 5, 2003 briefing on weapons of mass destruction to the U.N. Security Council was a bust and the Bush administration was unable to get the necessary votes for the UN to authorize military operations in its name. Nor did millions of ordinary citizens around the world believe Bush and Powell’s justification for war and they were marching against the war in numbers never seen in the recorded history of our planet.
As a reminder of the events leading up to the war on Iraq and the complicity of the media in providing the Bush administration all the coverage it wanted, The Dissenter is publishing the daily history of the Bush administration’s lies and the media cover-up. On March 16, 2023, The Dissenter posted the twenty-year old March 16, 2003 Washington Post article by Walter Pincus on his investigation of Secretary of State Colin Powell’s claims of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction in his infamous February 5, 2003 speech at the UN Security Council. Pincus’ investigation revealed that “US intelligence agencies have been unable to give Congress or the Pentagon specific information about the amounts of banned weapons or where they are hidden.” Pincus highlighted how US officials “repeatedly have failed to mention the considerable amount of documented weapons destruction that took place in Iraq between 1991 and 1998.” The Post buried this small article on page A17, instead of on the front page where it belonged. Pincus wrote, “The front pages of The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times are very important in shaping what other people think. They’re like writing a memo to the White House,” and that’s why the Post buried his critical article.
Tragically and criminally, the Bush administration went ahead and attacked Iraq and in the next decade created massive instability in the Middle East and the conditions for the rise of violent militia groups that are still terrorizing the region and the world. In the next two decades, the US continued its war mongering in Europe, Africa and North East Asia.
Today, twenty years after the beginning of the disastrous war on Iraq, the world is faced with the US war mongering in two major areas and several smaller ones. In Ukraine, the US is providing weapons for the US proxy war to “weaken” Russia..at the terrible expense of the lives of tens of thousands of Ukrainians and Russians and the destruction of a large amount of housing and national infrastructure in Ukraine.
In the Pacific and Asia, the US has encouraged NATO, the NORTH ATLANTIC treaty organization to expand its area of concern/influence halfway around the world with NATO country ships and ground personnel in military war maneuvers to threaten China’s remarkable economic rise and modest military increase – in China’s own front yard. The US and South Korea are having the largest war maneuvers in decades on the border with North Korea.
In these dangerous actions with Russia, China and North Korea, the US and European media have been cheerleaders for military confrontation, just as they were for the US war on Iraq. Only this time, the US is challenging large, nuclear weapons countries, not a small country that the US knew had already destroyed its weaponry.
We are facing the same desire in the US and European media to bow to the wishes of the governments rather than the media being investigative journalists to give the public the honest truth about what is happening in a current brutal war in Ukraine and the lead-up to military actions in the Western Pacific and Northeast Asia.
Having served 29 years in the US Army/Army Reserves and retiring as a Colonel and 16 years as a US diplomat in US embassies in Nicaragua, Grenada, Somalia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Micronesia, Afghanistan and Mongolia, all I can say is “Don’t believe everything the US government says or the US media writes.”
No one wins when diplomacy is shot dead by military actions. Keep talking instead of shooting.
The future of our planet will depend on it!!
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Ann Wright is a retired US Army Colonel and a former US diplomat who resigned from the US government in March 2003 in opposition to the US war on Iraq. She had served in US embassies in Nicaragua, Grenada, Somalia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Micronesia, Afghanistan and Mongolia. Since her resignation 20 years ago this weekend, she has worked for peace with CODEPINK: Women For Peace, Veterans For Peace and many other peace organizations. She has travelled to Iran, Russia, China, North Korea, Cuba and other countries under U.S. sanctions to write about U.S. imperialism. She is the co-author of Dissent: Voices of Conscience.
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In a follow-up to his explosive story accusing U.S. President Joe Biden of ordering the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines, veteran U.S. journalistSeymour Hersh charged Wednesday that the White House—in collaboration with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz—is attempting a “cover-up of its operation” by “feeding” false alternative narratives to the press, most prominently The New York Times.
Hersh’s initial reporting, which was based on anonymous sourcing, was quickly dismissed by the Biden administration, with State Department Spokesperson Ned Price calling the detailed February account “false” and suggesting that those who believe its version of events are “naive” and “gullible.”
Hersh, who famously exposed U.S. forces’ massacre of Vietnamese civilians in My Lai and the torture of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, forcefully hit back at the Biden administration on Wednesday and criticized the American press for failing to push the White House on the September attack, which has major geopolitical implications.
“Press aides for the White House and Central Intelligence Agency have consistently denied that America was responsible for exploding the pipelines, and those pro forma denials were more than enough for the White House press corps,” Hersh wrote on his Substack.
“There is no evidence that any reporter assigned there has yet to ask the White House press secretary whether Biden had done what any serious leader would do: formally ‘task’ the American intelligence community to conduct a deep investigation, with all of its assets, and find out just who had done the deed in the Baltic Sea,” the journalist continued. “According to a source within the intelligence community, the president has not done so, nor will he. Why not? Because he knows the answer.”
Officials from Norway, Germany, and Sweden told the United Nations last month that they are still investigating the explosions that severely damaged the Nord Stream pipelines, setting off an environmental nightmare and immediate speculation as to who was responsible. Such speculation is ongoing, with both official and unofficial probes attempting to determine the perpetrator.
The Nord Stream 2 pipeline—which Biden vocally opposed—never became operational, as the German government put it on hold just ahead of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
During a press briefing late last month, Price said the U.S. “is not a party to this investigation because there are countries on whose sovereign territory this attack occurred, and we’re deferring it to them to conduct this investigation.”
On March 7, nearly a month after Hersh published his report, The New York Times ran a story—also based on anonymous sourcing—alleging that “new intelligence reviewed by U.S. officials” indicates “a pro-Ukrainian group carried out the attack on the Nord Stream pipelines last year.”
The Ukrainian government has denied any involvement in the attack.
“U.S. officials said there was much they did not know about the perpetrators and their affiliations,” notes the Times report, which makes brief mention of Hersh’s story and quotes unnamed U.S. officials denying any Biden administration involvement.
The same day as the Times published its story, the German weekly newspaper Die Zeit ran a report alleging that German investigators “succeeded in identifying the boat that was allegedly used for the secret operation” to sabotage the Nord Stream pipelines.
“It is said to be a yacht rented from a company based in Poland, apparently owned by two Ukrainians,” Die Zeit reported. “According to the investigation, the secret operation at sea was carried out by a team of six people. It is said to have been five men and one woman.”
In his Wednesday piece, Hersh contended that the message of the Times and Die Zeit stories—both of which emphasized that much of the sabotage operation remains shrouded in mystery—”was that the press and the public should stop asking questions and let the investigators unravel the truth.”
“Holger Stark, the author of the report in Die Zeit, went a step further and noted that there were some ‘in international security services’ who had not excluded the possibility that the yacht story ‘was a false flag operation.’ Indeed, it was,” Hersh alleged, citing an anonymous source inside the U.S. intelligence community.
That source told Hersh that the yacht narrative reported by Die Zeit “was a total fabrication by American intelligence that was passed along to the Germans, and aimed at discrediting your story.”
Hersh went on to add that
“the disinformation professionals inside the CIA understand that a propaganda gambit can only work if those on receiving are desperate for a story that can diminish or displace an unwanted truth.”
“And the truth in question is that President Joe Biden authorized the destruction of the pipelines and will have a difficult time explaining away his action as Germany and its Western European neighbors suffer as businesses are shuttered amid high day-to-day energy costs,” wrote Hersh, citing an energy expert who argued that the damage to the Nord Stream pipelines “led to a further surge of natural gas prices.”
According to Hersh, the “most telling evidence” of the “weakness” of the Times reporting can be found in a podcast interview featuring Julian Barnes, one of three reporters whose bylines appeared on the March 7 story.
Barnes told podcast host Michael Barbaro that “we know really very little” about the pro-Ukrainian group that the Times reporting alleges may have been behind the Nord Stream attack.
“This group remains mysterious,” Barnes said. “And it remains mysterious not just to us, but also to the U.S. government officials that we have spoken to. They know that the people involved were either Ukrainian, or Russian, or a mix. They know that they are not affiliated with the Ukrainian government. But they know they’re also anti-Putin and pro-Ukraine.”
In response, Hersh wrote that “the Times reporters in Washington were at the mercy of White House officials ‘who had access to intelligence.'”
“But the information they received,” he added, “originated with a group of CIA experts in deception and propaganda whose mission was to feed the newspaper a cover story—and to protect a president who made an unwise decision and is now lying about it.”
Hersh also alleged that while it remains an “open question” whether Scholz was aware of the planned pipeline sabotage in advance, the German leader has “clearly been complicit since last fall in support of the Biden Administration’s cover-up of its operation in the Baltic Sea.”
Hersh wrote:
In early March, President Biden hosted German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Washington. The trip included only two public events—a brief pro forma exchange of compliments between Biden and Scholz before the White House press corps, with no questions allowed; and a CNN interview with Scholz by Fareed Zakaria, who did not touch on the pipeline allegations. The chancellor had flown to Washington with no members of the German press on board, no formal dinner scheduled, and the two world leaders were not slated to conduct a press conference, as routinely happens at such high-profile meetings. Instead, it was later reported that Biden and Scholz had an 80-minute meeting, with no aides present for much of the time.
Citing an anonymous official with “access to diplomatic intelligence,” Hersh wrote that “certain elements in the Central Intelligence Agency were asked to prepare a cover story in collaboration with German intelligence that would provide the American and German press with an alternative version for the destruction of Nord Stream 2.”
“In the words of the intelligence community,” Hersh continued, “the agency was ‘to pulse the system’ in an effort to discount the claim that Biden had ordered the pipelines’ destruction.”
From Common Dreams: Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
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Although Western media were boasting about Sberbank’s 78% plunge in profit in 2022 due to US-led sanctions, with CEO German Gref acknowledging a “most difficult year”, it appears that the US economic system is the one actually on the brink as four banks have already collapsed, with dozens more expected to follow.
CNN described the Russian bank’s drop in profit as a “collapse” in its headline, but then had to admit in the article that “Sberbank’s resilience in the face of sanctions helped Russia’s banking sector recover from a loss-making first half in 2022.”
This is in line with Gref’s belief that this year’s profits should be close to the record 1.25 trillion rubles ($16.5 billion) earned in the “pre-crisis year.” “Our business model passed another strength test,” he added.
It is recalled that Russian Presidential spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on March 14 that there is “practically” no risk of Russia facing a fallout from the SVB collapse, adding that: “Our banking system has certain connections with some segments of the international financial system, but it is mostly under illegal restrictions.”
Despite alarmist headlines from US media and experts, Peskov was proven correct as no Russian bank has collapsed despite Western sanctions. Meanwhile, the full repercussions of SVB’s downfall are yet to be felt, with former Lehman Brothers executive Lawrence McDonald believing that up to another 50 American banks could collapse if structural problems are not fixed.
“So Lehman failed and then it forced this too-big-to-fail system, and then, now this interest rate shock to the regional banks is moving hundreds of billions of dollars out of regional banks into the big banks… So you could have another 50 bank failures… unless they fix the structural problem,” said McDonald on March 22.
“There’s going to be further damage. They have to cut rates and then they have to have a deposit guarantee, a larger one, that’s what they’re going to come up with… That’s a bailout. That’s basically the federal government taking on bank deposit risk,” he added.
By being cut-off from the Western banking system, Russia is effectively protected from the series of bank collapses that are expected to follow. Russia faced a credit crunch due to the fallout from the US subprime mortgage crisis in 2008, which ultimately led to the Global Financial Crisis, a demonstration of how it too was exposed to weaknesses in the US economy.
Although Russia was cut-off from SWIFT only two-days after the special military operation began, in addition to many other Western restrictions, including a $60 per barrel oil price cap, President Vladimir Putin boasted about the resilience of the Russian economy.
The IMF reported that Russia’s economy contracted by 2.2% in 2022 and will start growing again in 2023, expanding by 0.3%, and then 2.1% in 2024. This is impressive when considering that fellow European countries, which are not sanctioned, will be struggling immensely. The UK is expected to contract by 0.6% and Germany will have a growth of only 0.1%.
At the same time, the OECD forecasts that US economic growth would slow from 1.5% this year to 0.9% next year. This is due to higher interest rates slowing down demand. Bloomberg on March 21, citing sources, reported that the US Treasury Department is studying the possibility of guaranteeing all bank deposits in the event of a recession in the banking sector.
The current banking crises has forced economists, including from the esteemed JPMorgan Chase, to make new recession forecasts after any hopes of recovery were snuffed away.
“The Fed is facing a difficult task on Wednesday, but it is likely already past the point of no return,” JPMorgan strategists wrote in a note to clients on March 22. “A soft landing now looks unlikely, with the airplane in a tailspin (lack of market confidence) and engines about to turn off (bank lending).”
Goldman Sachs also echoed JPMorgan and said in mid-March that the banking crisis could deliver a severe blow to economic growth.
For his part, former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers has warned multiple times, including as recently as March 9 but even from before the banking crisis, that the economy could be heading for a “Wile E. Coyote moment,” referencing a Looney Tunes character who was always blissfully unaware that he was about to hit the ground after running off the edge of a cliff.
However, the expected collapse of many banks in the US and the impending economic crisis has not deterred the determination of the Biden administration to fanatically arm, fund and train the Ukrainian military and regime. With millions of Americans on the verge of dropping out of the Middle Class, Washington continues to send tens of billions of dollars to Ukraine, and all the while Western sanctions are now beginning to have a minimum effect on the Russian economy, thus effectively rendering them nearly useless.
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Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.
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Meet the People controlling your weather sitting in their Command and Control Centers in Jordan, Switzerland and Germany.
Dr Helmut Fluhrer claims he has produced tons of rain under Government contract for Australia, Switzerland, UAE and Jordan.
His company WeatherTec works for governments only.
Ionization Technology is based on charging aerosols in the atmosphere and WeatherTec Emitter Stations are based on the ground.
WeatherTec’s description is
“Charge humidity and clouds with ions; Reduce required humidity to generate rainfalls”
Its strengths are reputed as “Rainfalls cover large areas (>1000 km2); Most environmentally friendly technology”. See this.
Its key limitation is stated as “Requires areas with > 40% humidity”.
So now we know why it’s been raining since April in Melbourne and MSM tells everyone that it will be a wet Spring and someone cited, a wet Summer!
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Russia slammed the UK on Wednesday for its plan to supply Ukraine with shells containing depleted uranium.
In a statement on its website, the Russian Foreign Ministry said the initiative was “further proof of London’s intention to aggravate the confrontation” and contradicted the UK’s claim of being “committed to the post-conflict rebuilding of that country.”
“London has apparently forgotten about the well-known serious consequences of the use of toxic and radioactive munitions by the West during the conflicts in Yugoslavia and Iraq. A desire to increase the suffering of civilians and to do irreparable environmental damage shows that the British have no regard whatsoever for the Ukrainian people,” it stressed.
The ministry called the British policy “openly cynical,” showing “who the real aggressor and warmonger in Ukraine is.”
“London must know that it will bear full responsibility for violating the fundamental norms of international law…We will respond to such actions accordingly,” it said.
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National Assembly Speaker of the Republic of South Africa, Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, said publicly in a recent statement before the supreme legislative body in Cape Town that the African National Congress (ANC) led government would continue to support the people of the Russian Federation.
This proclamation came amid a highly-publicized visit by People’s Republic of China President Xi Jinping to Moscow where the strategic partnership between the two countries was further solidified.
The administration of President Joe Biden along with the entire ruling class of the United States are quite concerned about the three-day visit of President Xi to Russia where he held extensive discussions with his counterpart Vladimir Putin. Both China and Russia are principal adversaries of the U.S., the European Union and the entire North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) alliance.
Russians welcome Xi Jinping (Source: Abayomi Azikiwe)
At present a protracted conflict is underway in Ukraine where the U.S. has prompted and continued a proxy war against Moscow and its allies in the region. Since February 24, 2022, the Biden administration has sent emissaries across the globe in an effort to build support for the NATO position in Eastern Europe.
Nonetheless, among many states and peoples within the Global South, there has been a lack of enthusiasm for the U.S. stance in the war. In many cases in Africa, Latin America, Asia and some European states, there is considerable solidarity with the Russian aims and objectives in what Moscow describes as a “special military operation.” For those who have followed and studied the geostrategic situation in Ukraine, the entire process of staging a coup in February 2014 with the ultimate desire to incorporate even more states into NATO can only be viewed by Russia as well as the anti-imperialist, socialist and non-aligned states with suspicion and trepidation.
“She was delivering the closing remarks at the second Russia-Africa parliamentary conference in Moscow over the weekend (March 18-19). The gathering was also addressed by Russian president Vladimir Putin, who has pledged ongoing support to African nations in the fields of nuclear energy, training, and education. Mapisa-Nqakula has appealed to Russia to help Africa obtain a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council. ‘If that does not happen, we will continue to have the kinds of conflicts we are seeing on our continent,’ she added. She said that South Africa would continue to look to Russia for support in the quest for economic and political prosperity. ‘We will continue to lean on you, and you can rest assured that, as a country and as a people of South Africa, we will continue to support the people of Russia,’ she said. Mapisa-Nqakula also offered for South Africa to host peace talks between Russia and Ukraine while attending the inter-parliamentary union in Bahrain. She said that sanctions imposed by the Western world on African nations as a result of conflict on the continent, was a human rights violation.”
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has repeatedly urged the resolution of the Ukraine crisis through internationally-mediated negotiations. The desperate posture of the Biden administration and its Democratic and Republican colleagues in both branches of Congress has resulted in the drafting of legislation which would punish AU member-states that maintain cordial diplomatic and economic relations with Russia.
Ramaphosa in a state visit to the U.S. during late 2022, urged the abolition of the draft bill which is described as curtailing Russia’s malign influence in Africa. The AU member-states as a whole have rejected the rationale behind such proposed legislation.
Joint Naval Exercises Draw the Ire of Washington
In late February, the military forces of the Republic of South Africa, Russian Federation and People’s Republic of China held joint naval exercises in the Indian Ocean. The decision by these three states represented a repudiation of the foreign policy orientation of Washington towards all three countries.
Despite the diplomatic maneuvers of the Biden administration, Africa’s most industrialized state has engaged in these naval exercises with the two governments which represent the major impediments to Washington’s military and diplomatic status. Consequently, there is a sequential trajectory related to the denunciation of the anti-Russia in Africa bill of the U.S. Congress, the call for an end to the war in Ukraine and the burgeoning relations between Moscow, Pretoria and Beijing.
All three states are members of the Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) Summit which holds regular meetings. The concept behind BRICS is to build economic links between these countries, among others, outside the influence and control of Washington and Wall Street. There are proposals for the expansion of BRICS to encompass the entire AU region along with countries within Latin America.
One observer of the rapidly changing dynamics of international diplomacy and economics was quoted in an article published by the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland. Finance Prof. Lemma W. Senbet of the University of Buffalo, State University of New York, noted that the declining influence of the U.S. as it relates to the blatant disregard for its foreign policy interests must be taken into consideration by the State Department and the Pentagon. Smith cites BRICS as one forum which can enhance the capacity of the Global South to loosen its dependence upon the former colonial and present neo-colonial centers of dominance.
“Senbet says that [this] relationship (BRICS) is in the background of the naval exercises. He indicates it’s not just about South Africa’s relations with Russia, but with China and India as well. ‘China is the largest trading partner in Africa. Tourism is also a big deal in South Africa.’ China is a huge tourism market for the country, as is India. And this is in addition to China’s trade and investment. ‘So, the extent to which they (South Africa) could suffer economic consequences is mitigated by their participation in this economic partnership.’ The western response to the invasion of Ukraine is mainly about protecting the international order, according to Senbet. But he says, ‘there are many countries, especially in the Global South, that think the order doesn’t work for them.’ South Africa is not the only African country to take a neutral stance in the Russia-Ukraine war. Several others have. ‘The U.S. and EU need to pay more attention to the rest of the globe, who are the lower-income, lower-developed economies that actually feel left out of the order. The order has to be inclusive.’”
Consequently, Washington will inevitably depend more on its military prowess to advance an imperialistic political and economic agenda around the globe. This creates a dangerous international scenario for billions of people to contemplate. As the financing of the Ukraine war continues under the Biden administration, several analysts of the war see a strong possibility for a broader engagement by NATO forces.
As the Ukrainian troops suffer greater casualties and setbacks on the battlefield, provocative military actions will escalate. The recent downing of a Pentagon predator drone over the Black Sea has frustrated the White House which falsely claims that these surveillance weapons are operating in “international airspace”.
Any attempt to widen the Ukraine war would prove disastrous for the majority of working and oppressed peoples living in various geopolitical regions including inside of Western Europe and North America. Within the U.S., the economy has suffered tremendous shocks during the month of March where several high-profile bank collapses have compounded the impact of ongoing layoffs of hundreds of thousands of workers employed in the technological and service sectors of the economy. These developments have precipitated a crisis of confidence in the capitalist and imperialist systems.
As Russia and China have written off tens of millions of dollars in loans to African states during 2022-2023, the U.S.-based International Monetary Fund (IMF) is imposing draconian conditionalities on several countries on the continent including, Egypt, Ghana and Zambia. These African states are severely impacted by the rising interest rates imposed by the Federal Reserve of the U.S. and other central banks in the capitalist states.
Moreover, the imperialist proxy war against Russia and the rising tensions between Washington and Beijing, are hampering the free flow of agricultural products and other commodities from Russia and Ukraine to the African continent as well as other geopolitical regions. Rather than address the need for a peaceful settlement of the Ukraine conflict, Washington and Wall Street are leading the world into a possible nuclear confrontation along with a worldwide economic depression.
What is needed at this conjuncture is a broad-based antiwar and anti-imperialist movement in the Western industrialized states which could place political pressure on their governments to end the war in Ukraine and redirect the trillions in military expenditures to social spending and the rebuilding of infrastructure in a way which benefits the working class and oppressed throughout the globe.
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Abayomi Azikiwe is the editor of the Pan-African News Wire. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
Featured image: South Africa, Russia and Chinese flags during joint naval exercises (Source: Abayomi Azikiwe)
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“It is with profound sadness, the Edmonton Police Service (EPS) announces the passing of Constable Corinne Kline. Our thoughts and prayers are with her family and friends during this difficult time. We will miss her dearly.” EPS wrote on Twitter (click here)
“Corinne Kline: A true gem, a leader, a parent, a wife, a friend, a community member & a colleague has departed and we mourn. We will always remember her positive spirit for her family, the service and the community she loved.” (click here)
Police did not announce her cause of death, but CTV News Edmonton confirmed she had a medical condition and was hospitalized last week. (click here)
COVID-19 vaccination status
My Take…
If Constable Corinne was triple COVID-19 vaccinated in March 2022, and was immunocompromised, it is highly probable that her doctor would have urged her to stay uptodate on her vaccines (every 6 months), and she most likely would have had fiveCOVID-19 vaccines in total before she was hospitalized last week.
In addition to that, she had COVID-19 infection at least twice.
I believe most doctors in Canada had no idea that the COVID-19 vaccines damage the immune system and cause immune dysfunction or immunosuppression.
I don’t know the source of her immunocompromised status, but the COVID-19 vaccines would have only made her situation that much worse.
Edmonton Police Service had a COVID-19 vaccine mandate in place, and announced that more than 95% of EPS employees were fully vaccinated by Nov.30, 2021 (click here)
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All images in this article are from the author
The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity
by Michel Chossudovsky
Michel Chossudovsky reviews in detail how this insidious project “destroys people’s lives”. He provides a comprehensive analysis of everything you need to know about the “pandemic” — from the medical dimensions to the economic and social repercussions, political underpinnings, and mental and psychological impacts.
“My objective as an author is to inform people worldwide and refute the official narrative which has been used as a justification to destabilize the economic and social fabric of entire countries, followed by the imposition of the “deadly” COVID-19 “vaccine”. This crisis affects humanity in its entirety: almost 8 billion people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings and our children worldwide. Truth is a powerful instrument.”
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***
1. Hassan Diab Support Event, Ottawa, March 26, 2:30 pm
Hassan Diab goes on trial in France (in absentia) on April 3, 2023.
This is for a 1980 bombing in Paris, although Hassan was not even in France at the time! His ordeal has disrupted his life for nearly 15 years, including more than three years in a maximum-security prison in France. Imagine the terrible price paid, and is still being paid, by him and his family.
For a good review of his ordeal, check out this short video:
Please join students from Carleton University’s Department of Sociology and the Justice for Hassan Diab Support Committee to show support for Hassan and get the latest information about the upcoming trial.
SUPPORT HASSAN DIAB
SUNDAY MARCH 26, 2:30 – 4:30 PM ET
at CARLETON DOMINION-CHALMERS CENTRE (355 Cooper Street, Ottawa, Ontario)
Speakers:
Michelle Weinroth with Raphael Weinroth-Browne (Cellist): Opening
Hassan Diab: Welcome
Roger Clark: Where we are now
Lawyer Don Bayne: What to expect at the trial
Dr. Deborah Conners and students: Importance of support for Hassan.
Ria Heynen: Closing
Free Admission
Silent Auction
Live Music
Free Food and Drink
Caricaturist
The event will be live streamed herestarting at 2:30 pm ET, Sunday March 26
If you can, please come in person to show Hassan your support.
This event has been organized by Carleton University Students along with the Hassan Diab Support Committee.
2. Amnesty International Calls on France to Halt its Case against Hassan Diab
“Amnesty International has called on the French government to halt its ‘groundless’ prosecution of Diab and to find those responsible for the Oct. 3, 1980, attack on a Paris synagogue that killed four people and injured 40 others.
The renewed prosecution of Hassan Diab risks substituting the necessary pursuit of truth and accountability … with another travesty of justice,” Amnesty International said in a recent statement…
I think it’s important for Canada to signal to the French authorities that Canada does not accept this is a fair trial,” said Clark, former secretary general of Amnesty International (Canada). “This, I think, is part of Canada’s obligation to protect its citizens.”
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau must honor his words from June 2018 and refuse any future request from France for the extradition of Hassan Diab. Your support is vital to protect the rights of people in Canada against unjust prosecution and violation of fundamental rights.
We would like to reach at least 10,000 signatures on the petition before delivering it to PM Trudeau. Please sign the petition, if you haven’t done so already, and share it with at least 5 people you know. We need a groundswell of support to protect Hassan from a second wrongful extradition!
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The CDC has indicated on their website for months that 92% of adults have taken at least on shot of a COVID-19 vaccine. Yet a prior surveys Zogby and Rasmussen indicated that fraction may only be two thirds.
Now a recent, independent report from Northeastern University has found that the proportion of unvaccinated is not 8% but more like 25%. This agrees separately with a Kaiser Family Foundation report. Apparently the CDC vaccination administration system is not accurately identifying each person by a unique identifier and linking each injection to that code. Therefore, if a patient does not have the prior vaccine card or goes to a different vaccines center with slightly different name spelling, then the encounter is counted as a brand new person coming forward. This is leading to double-counting of “vaccinated” in CDC records.
CDC=Centers for Disease Control, CS=COVID States Project, KFF=Kaiser Family Foundation
These findings give new hope to the unvaccinated that they are not alone in holding strong against the adverse safety profile of the COVID-19 vaccines and standing up for the preservation of good health and right to decide what is injected into their bodies.
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Featured image is from Children’s Health Defense
The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity
by Michel Chossudovsky
Michel Chossudovsky reviews in detail how this insidious project “destroys people’s lives”. He provides a comprehensive analysis of everything you need to know about the “pandemic” — from the medical dimensions to the economic and social repercussions, political underpinnings, and mental and psychological impacts.
“My objective as an author is to inform people worldwide and refute the official narrative which has been used as a justification to destabilize the economic and social fabric of entire countries, followed by the imposition of the “deadly” COVID-19 “vaccine”. This crisis affects humanity in its entirety: almost 8 billion people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings and our children worldwide. Truth is a powerful instrument.”
All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate This Article button below the author’s name.
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***
This clip is adapted from the critically acclaimed documentary “War Made Easy,” produced in 2007 by the Media Education Foundation at the height of the Iraq war. “War Made Easy” takes a blistering look at how U.S. media outlets from Fox News to MSNBC enthusiastically disseminated Bush administration propaganda and helped sell a war that would kill thousands of American troops and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, most of them innocent civilians.
To mark the 20th anniversary of the Iraq War, the RootsAction Education Fund will be hosting a virtual screening of “War Made Easy” on Monday, March 20, at 6:45 pm ET., followed by a live panel presentation at 8 pm ET.
Panelists will include Kathy Kelly, President of the Board of World BEYOND War and co-coordinator of Ban Killer Drones; Dennis Kucinich, former U.S. Congressman; David Swanson, campaign coordinator of RootsAction and Executive Director of World BEYOND War; Norman Solomon, national director of RootsAction and author of “War Made Easy,” the book that the documentary was based on; India Walton, senior strategic organizer with RootsAction Education Fund and director of Roots Action Civic Engagement in Buffalo; and Marcy Winograd, coordinator of CodePink Congress and co-chair of the Peace in Ukraine Coalition.
You also have the option to watch the documentary online any time before March 24, courtesy of the Media Education Foundation, here.
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***
Iraq and Libya were both targeted by the U.S. in the month of March. The anniversaries of these war crimes must be commemorated, and the nature of the US/EU/NATO war machine must be understood.
“The International Criminal Court should uphold an objective and impartial stance, respect the jurisdictional immunity enjoyed by the head of state in accordance with international law, exercise its functions and powers prudently by the law, interpret and apply international law in good faith, and avoid politicization and double standards.” (Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin)
This commentary really should be part two from the piece I wrote last week in the run-up to the anti-war mobilization that took place March 18th which commemorated the 20th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. In that article I made a similar argument about why the U.S. should be seen as the greatest threat to the survival of collective humanity on our planet.
That point, however, needs to be reinforced because in typical arrogance, on the eve of that mobilization and the official March 20th date of the U.S. invasion, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issues an arrest warrant for Russia President Vladimir Putin while Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Tony Blair and Barack Obama, responsible for horrific crimes against humanity and literally millions of deaths combined in Serbia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Yemen and Syria, walk around as free individuals.
It would be comical if it was not so deadly serious and absurd. Just a couple of years ago when the ICC signaled under the leadership of theChief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda wanted to conduct an investigation into possible crimes in Afghanistan by the U.S. state, the Trump Administration told the court in no uncertain terms that the Court would be subjected to the full wrath of the U.S. government and the Court quietly demurred in favor of a national probe that everyone knew was a sham.
This is just part of the infuriating double standards that Chinese spokesperson Wang Wenbin refers to. For many in the global South, the “neutral” international mechanisms and structures created to uphold international law have lost significant credibility outside of the West.
The politicization of the ICC on the Ukrainian war and the unprincipled participation of the United Nations that provided political cover for the invasion and occupation of Haiti after the devastating earthquake in 2010 are just two examples of how international structures ostensibly committed to upholding international law and the UN Charter are now seen as corrupt instruments of a dying U.S. and Western colonial empire.
How did we get here?
It is not a mere historical coincidence that the world became a much more dangerous place with the escalation of conflicts that threatened international peace in the 1990s. Without the countervailing force of the Soviet Union, the delusional white supremacists making U.S. policy believed that the next century was going to be a century of unrestrained U.S. domination.
And who would be dominated? Largely the nations of the global South but also Europe with an accelerated integration plan in 1993 that the U.S. supported because it was seen as a more efficient mechanism for deploying U.S. capital and further solidifying trade relations with the huge and lucrative European Market.
Central to the assertion of U.S. global power, however, was the judicious use of military force. “Full Spectrum Dominance” was the strategic objective that would ensure the realization of the “Project for a New American Century” (PNAC ). There was just one challenge that had to be overcome. The U.S. population still suffered from the affliction labeled the “Vietnam syndrome .” Traumatized by the defeat in Vietnam the population was still reticent about giving its full support to foreign engagements that could develop into a possible military confrontation.
How was this challenge overcome? Human rights.
“Humanitarian interventionism ,” with its corollary the “responsibility to protect” would emerge in the late 90s as one of the most innovative propaganda tools ever created. Produced by Western human rights community and championed by psychopaths like Samantha Power, the humanitarianism of the benevolent empire became the ideological instrument that allowed the U.S. to fully commit itself to military options to advance the interests of U.S. corporate and financial interests globally while being fully supported by the U.S. population.
With this new ideological tool, the Clinton Administration bombed Serbia for 78 days in 1999 without any legal basis but with the moral imperative of the “responsibility to protect.” By the early 2000s it was obvious that the U.S. was not going to be bound by international law. Operating through NATO and with the formulation of a “rules based order” in which the U.S. and its Western European allies would make the rules and enforce the order, the world has been plunged into unending wars, illegal sanctions, political subversion and the corruption of international structures that were supposed to instrumentalize the legal, liberal international order.
But white supremacist colonial hubris resulted in the empire overextending itself.
Twenty years after the illegal and immoral attack on Iraq where it is estimated that over a million people perished and twelve years after the racist attack on Libya where NATO dropped over 26,000 bombs and murdered up to 50,000 people, the U.S./EU/NATO Axis of Domination is in irreversible decline but the U.S. hegemon, like a wounded wild beast is still dangerous and is proving to be even more reckless then just a few years ago.
The disastrous decision to provoke what the U.S. thought would be a limited proxy war with Russia that would allow it to impose sanctions on the Russian Federation will be recorded in history, along with the invasion of Iraq, as the two pivotal decisions that greatly precipitated the decline of the U.S. empire.
However, with over eight hundred U.S. bases globally, a military budget close to a trillion dollars and a doctrine that prioritizes a “military-first strategy,” the coming defeat in Ukraine might translate into even more irresponsible and counterproductive moves against the Chinese over Taiwan in the Pacific and more aggressive actions to maintain U.S. hegemony in the Americas through SOUTHCOM and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
The commemoration of the attacks on the peoples of Iraq and Libya is an act of solidarity not only with the peoples of those nations, but with the peoples and nations suffering from the malign policies of this dying empire today. It is a time of rededication to peace and to justice, two elements that are inextricable. In the Black Alliance for Peace, we say that peace is not the absence of conflict, but rather the achievement by popular struggle and self-defense of a world liberated from global systems of oppression that include colonialism, imperialism, patriarchy, and white supremacy.
This understanding is the foundation for why we are launching with our partners, an effort to revive the call to make the Americas a Zone of Peace on April the 4th, the day the state murdered Dr. King and the date that the Black Alliance for Peace was launched in 2017.
For Africans and other colonized peoples, the task is clear. The U.S./EU/NATO Axis of Domination embodies the anti-life structures of colonial/capitalist oppression and must be seen as the primary contradiction facing global humanity. We recognize that other contradictions exist. We are not naive. But for the exploited and colonized peoples of this planet, until there is a shift in the international balance of forces away from the maniacs in the “collective West,” the future of our planet and collective humanity remains imperiled.
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Ajamu Baraka is Chairman of the Coordinating Committee of the Black Alliance for Peace and an editor and contributing columnist for the Black Agenda Report. Baraka serves on the Executive Committee of the U.S. Peace Council and leadership body of the U.S. based United National Anti-War Coalition (UNAC) and the Steering Committee of the Black is Back Coalition.
Comments Off on Commemorations of the Attack on Iraq March 20th and Libya March 19th Reaffirm that the U.S./EU/NATO Axis of Domination Remains the Greatest Threat to International Peace on Our Planet
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***
In his iconic 1950s anti-war hit song ‘Where Have All the Flowers Gone?’, Pete Seeger posed the eternal question about war: ‘when will they ever learn?’ Of course, Seeger’s question was primarily directed at those individuals who choose to participate in the fighting. But it might equally have been directed at those in the ‘anti-war’ movement.
A few years later in 1963, Native Canadian Buffy Sainte-Marie penned the equally iconic ‘Universal Soldier’ to draw attention to ‘individual responsibility’ for war.
The question ‘Why war?’ has troubled human beings for millennia and individuals of conscience have long resisted it, sometimes paying a heavy price for doing so. And back in 1932, two of humanity’s giants – Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud – grappled with the question, exchanging letters on the subject.
Beyond war, a great deal of effort has gone into understanding conflict and violence, including their structural and cultural components, and I have noted some of these efforts, including my own, in a wide range of documents such as these:
Four things fundamentally missing from all previous efforts to halt a particular war or to end war generally, however, are these:
a serious effort to understand the dysfunctional psychology, and what causes it, that drives human violence generally,
a serious effort to analyse war as a system of power: Who is causing it, why and how? (This is important because understanding how power works in the world system as well as who, precisely, is driving what is happening, why, and how they are doing it are crucial prerequisites for developing an effective strategy to resist, or end, war.)
a sophisticated nonviolent strategy based on this understanding and analysis that is thoughtfully designed to address each of the foundational components of war, and
sufficient courageous people committed to implementing this strategy by participating in it themselves and mobilizing others to do so too.
Consequently, to say that anti-war efforts lack sophistication is to put it mildly in the extreme. As the very long history of ‘anti-war’ struggle clearly demonstrates.
And so it was listening to the anti-war speeches delivered in Washington DC at the Rage Against the War Machine rally on 19 February 2023. You can watch whole or abridged versions of these speeches here: Rage Against the War Machine.
Rage might give a person power in some contexts but, in itself, rage has zero strategic value. And are these people really feeling ‘rage’ about the ongoing war all over the planet or even the war in Ukraine? And acting on it? Of course not. Even if they were, as mentioned ‘rage’ is no substitute for acting powerfully (that is, strategically) to end war.
Moreover, there is a simple reason for this. Most anti-war activists do not feel rage against the war machine for the simple reason that they are terrified of it.
And this fear incapacitates them, leaving most anti-war activists too scared to seriously commit themselves to doing what is necessary to end war. Again, as the record demonstrates.
Hence, they complain powerlessly, rather than analysing, devising strategy and then acting powerfully knowing that their actions will contribute to the long-term struggle to end war once and for all.
So let me go back a step and analyze why the anti-war movement is so frightened and powerless and why it cannot learn from its own history of failure.
Why do most people complain?
In essence, this happens because when they were children, their parents interfered with their emotional expression which, in turn, stifled those innate behaviors bestowed by evolution to ensure that the baby, and later the child and then adult, acted to have their needs met. Usually by a young age, the child will learn to complain powerlessly when they do not get what they want. But complaining, rather than acting, does not meet their needs.
Thus, just as the child, endlessly thwarted by a parent who ignores the child’s genuine needs and then ignores their pleas to have these addressed, is trapped in the mode of complaining, most activists never learn that the role of politicians is to ignore them too. Of course, the value in this for those who genuinely wield power in society and whose aim is to facilitate perpetual war to achieve a variety of Elite ends (notably including the ongoing consolidation of Elite power and the maximization of corporate profits by financing both sides in any war) is that efforts of this nature, such as public protests against ‘government policies’ absorb and dissipate dissent, as intended.
And so it was on 19 February 2023 when a list of anti-war speakers echoed the eternal cries of powerlessness at one of the latest manifestations of an anti-war street protest:
As even former US Secretary of State Alexander Haig once noted about a massive anti-war demonstration: ‘Let them march all they want, as long as they continue to pay their taxes.’ See Alexander Haig. As a four-star general, Haig, not regarded as the most intelligent Secretary of State in US history, certainly understood that tactical choice is a question of strategy. Most activists have no idea.
So What Must We Do to End War?
Earlier in this article I identified four elements missing from the anti-war movement’s efforts. Let me restate them and offer my own learning in relation to these points.
a serious effort to understand the dysfunctional psychology, and what causes it, that drives human violence generally.
As the final stage of more than four decades investigating the cause of violence, I spent 14 years living in seclusion with Anita McKone. You can read what I learned in the document ‘Why Violence?’, in which I explain the destructive impact of the ‘visible’, ‘invisible’ and ‘utterly invisible’ violence that adults relentlessly inflict on children – resulting in the bulk of the adult human population being unconsciously terrified, self-hating and powerless, with Anita’s description of our process in:
a serious effort to analyse war as a system of power: Who is causing it, why and how? This is important because understanding how power works in the world system as well as who, precisely, is driving what is happening, why, and how they are doing it are crucial prerequisites for developing an effective strategy to resist, or end, war.
I made considerable effort to explain this as part of a wider study identifying the Global Elite and how its power is exercised in the world system. This included explaining why the Elite has a vested interest in ensuring that war continues. For more than 200 years, members of this Elite have carefully facilitated the precipitation of war and then profited immensely from financing both sides in any war of significance as well as the rebuilding of infrastructure and the care of injured soldiers in its aftermath. Hence, preparations for war, the conduct of war and the rebuilding/healing necessary post-war is the most profitable economic venture, by far, conducted on Planet Earth and it greatly enriches Elite families, such as the Rothschilds and Rockefellers, as well as their agents.
But for the simplest explanation of nonviolent strategy to end war, you can read it on this website starting with the list of ‘Strategic Goals for Ending War’.
sufficient courageous people committed to implementing this strategy by participating in it themselves and mobilizing others to do so too. This is important because nonviolent activism to end war has a price, measured in jail terms, adverse psychological assessments from people intent on stopping you, and a myriad other penalties depending on the legal jurisdiction in which the activist operates.
But if the antiwar activist is not willing to pay the price of their nonviolent activism, then the victims of wars in other places will pay the price of war with their lives.
Clearly, identifying sufficient courageous people is a primary challenge and the obvious shortage of courageous and tenacious people committed to strategically resisting war is just another outcome of our violently dysfunctional parenting of children mentioned in the first point above.
So if we are going to mobilize sufficient people willing to act powerfully over an extended period to resist all of those foundational elements that make war possible, we must profoundly alter our parenting model to produce powerful children and offer adults a chance to heal from the violence they suffered as children as well.
Otherwise we are condemned to watch people speak against war and march up and down in ‘anti-war’ rallies (or employ other tactics devoid of strategic impact) until the world is blown up.
An Obvious Criticism
An obvious criticism of the approach I have outlined above is that it is ‘too slow’. It offers no quick solution to deal with the immediacy of the threat we face at the current moment with the proxy war being fought by the US and NATO through Ukraine against Russia which includes the risk of the war ‘going nuclear’.
And I am well aware of the many calls for negotiations on the one hand – see, for example, ‘The Ukraine War: Think Deeper Or We Shall All Lose’ – and long-standing US war-fighting policy on the other as routinely explained in a plethora of US Government ‘defense strategy’ documents.
But the obvious response to the ‘too slow’ criticism of my longer-term proposals above is simple: The result of the current crisis is so far beyond the existing anti-war movement to realistically influence, it is laughable. And so, in my view – which is consistent with my research into, and analysis of, what has transpired historically:
And while there is undoubtedly considerable risk of the war ‘going nuclear’ through policy or strategic miscalculation – see ‘Stanislav Petrov, “The Man Who Saved The World,” Dies At 77’ – accident – see Command and Control – or rogue local ‘initiative’, the Elite will ‘gamble’ against these possibilities while (presumably) constraining it at policy level, as has most likely occurred throughout the nuclear age.
Insane? Of course, it is insane. See ‘The Global Elite is Insane Revisited’. It’s just that, in my view, there is nothing new to observe here: Just repetition of what we have seen before, which includes being taken to the brink of nuclear war and relying on ‘unknown factors’ – including, but not exclusively, background control by the Elite – to avoid it.
Conclusion
War is brutal. The Elite perpetuates war endlessly to capture control of people and resources to maintain the existing system of world power and make monumental profits. It will not be stopped because we make fine speeches, chant anti-war slogans at rallies or call for negotiations.
The human world is a system of power. And we need to understand how that system of power works to understand, and change, the world. This applies particularly when dealing with systems, structures and processes at the heart of Elite power, such as economics and war.
But underlying even this we need to understand the psychology of human violence because this also enables us to understand why the Elite controls world affairs to precipitate war (among a vast range of other violent and exploitative outcomes) as well as why ‘ordinary’ people fight in wars and the vast bulk of people who identify as ‘anti-war’ are so powerless.
In essence, war will be ended by analysing and understanding what makes it all happen and taking action intelligently, courageously and tenaciously to change what makes it possible; that is, by resisting in strategically appropriate ways the foundational components on which the entire system of war is built.
And given the ultimate foundation of the war system is our violent parenting model that renders virtually all humans into a state of fearful submission to violence, we haven’t even started the long journey to end war yet.
Nevertheless, while my own lifetime of effort has failed to remedy anything significant about the war system, out of love for my uncles, great uncles and humanity generally – see ‘Who Am I?’ – I continue to focus my own attention on undermining its foundations as documented above. It is slow, ‘unrewarding’ work in the short term.
Obviously, given the precarious state of the world in many respects, a tremendous amount of intelligent, strategically-oriented action will be needed for this hope to be realized.
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Robert J. Burrowes has a lifetime commitment to understanding and ending human violence. He has done extensive research since 1966 in an effort to understand why human beings are violent and has been a nonviolent activist since 1981. He is the author of ‘Why Violence?’ His email address is [email protected] and his website is here. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
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It ought to be easy. Open bank vault, remove weapons dealers, close bank vault. In reality, we need a ton of tools, work, and luck.
In constant dollar terms, after Korea, Vietnam, Reagan’s second term, and Obama’s first term U.S. military spending went down, just never as much as it had gone up. So, ending wars, including Cold Wars, may help.
We now have a war underway in which the U.S. participation is understood as primarily spending money. Ending that spending could be expanded into reducing military spending more broadly.
With Afghanistan and Iraq it took a year-and-a-half each to get good U.S. majorities in polls saying the wars never should have been started. The war in Ukraine appears to be on the same trajectory. Of course, those who believed the wars shouldn’t have been started did not, for the most part, believe they should be ended. The wars had to be continued for the sake of the troops, even if the actual troops were telling pollsters they wanted the wars ended. My hope is that U.S. opposition to the war in Ukraine may grow in the absence of troopist propaganda, as U.S. troops are not involved in large numbers and not supposed to be involved at all.
We also have the U.S. media looking back, with some glimmers of honesty here and there, at 20 or so years of disastrous war spending. Some of those wars have already been ended without the appropriate reductions in military spending. We can point out that U.S. military spending is now about double what it was in 2000.
We can also point out that the Democratic Party Platform of 2020 promised what we’re demanding, and that once elected Biden and the Democrats did the opposite of what they’d promised. That platform tied reducing military spending to ending the wars on Afghanistan and Yemen. They’ve actually ended one of those and pretended to end the other, while increasing military spending. Actually ending the war in Yemen via the War Powers Resolution might help us cut military spending — not that ending that war is any easier. But there is an active movement working on it, and a zoom call this Saturday about it with several Congress Members expected to take part.
People have generally caught on that when a bank or a corporation or a disease epidemic that impacts rich people needs money, somebody simply invents unlimited money out of nowhere. So our constant demand that military spending go down so that human and environmental spending can go up may be less persuasive. We may be giving ourselves two incredibly difficult tasks rather than making one of them easier. If the U.S. government were willing to fund education or housing or the environment, it would simply do so. Reducing military spending wouldn’t compel it to do so. I conclude that we should not shy away from all the usual comparisons of what we could get for what is spent on militarism, nor from comparing the U.S. military with those of other countries, but that there may be something else that’s more important.
I mean the evil of war. The moral case against war, and against the spending that generates more wars. Looking back at our efforts to end the war on Iraq, we never did even really try to teach the public that modern wars are one-sided slaughters. The fact that well over 90% of the deaths were Iraqis never got through, nor the fact that they were disproportionately the very old and young, nor even the fact that wars are fought in people’s towns and not on 19th century battlefields. Today the very best Congress Members will tell you the war was a mistake and cost money and so forth. But just image on a smaller scale murdering a bunch of your neighbors and then saying it was a mistake and you’re sorry the bullets cost so much, even while buying twice as many bullets every day. The point of teaching people the immorality of war is not to feel good or to make someone feel bad, but to mobilize action. People care. People will act and fund efforts to help distant strangers if someone tells them about the need.
Here’s how military spending has gone the past few times through. Biden proposes a massive increase in military spending — above and beyond both what he proposed the year before and what the Congress increased that to.
The corporate media reports on the budget proposal mostly as if the single item that takes up more than half of it doesn’t even exist. Nobody is asked for a preferable budget proposal, just as no presidential or congressional candidates ever are. The basic facts discoverable from a simple pie-chart are kept secret from most people.
Zero Democrats object or encourage No votes or vote-withholding threats or even state that they will personally vote No. (But the Congressional “Progressive” Caucus publishes a so-called “explainer” with three sentences at the end vaguely objecting.)
Congress, with Republicans in the lead, proposes a massive increase over and above Biden’s massive increase.
“Progressive” Democrats whimper about the Republican increase, suggesting through omission that it was the only increase.
But, zero Democrats object or encourage No votes or vote-withholding threats or even state that they will personally vote No (the one exception I know of was in the Senate one year, and not exactly a Democrat: Bernie Sanders once said he would vote No).
The bill passes both houses and is signed into law.
“Progressive” Democrats tell people they voted No, and moreover they’ve cosponsored the People Over the Pentagon Act.
But that’s a bill to reduce a bit the military spending that has gone through the roof during the years they’ve been proposing that bill, a bill that won’t pass the House but if it did would have to pass the Senate and the President, and then military spending could simply be increased by the $100b that bill reduced it by.
If a Congress Member or a caucus thereof were serious, they would do what the Progressive Caucus did to oppose the Manchin dirty oil deal. They withheld their votes from a Democrats-only procedural vote to bring a bill to the floor unless that deal was left out. They got what they wanted. But that bill was last year’s military authorization act. Never once have they organized and withheld their votes to reduce military spending. This should be our primary demand to them:
Will you speak out about the need for your colleagues to join you in voting No on military spending unless it is significantly reduced — doing so on every relevant vote, whether or not you expect to succeed, but even if you might?
A caucus of Congress Members in a single House can change policy by withholding votes — depending how many of them there are, how many are in on the vote, and what other members are voting with them for their own reasons — and I don’t think many Congress Members believe that many of their constituents know that.
Might they risk making it worse? Worse than the current course of destroying all life on Earth? Perhaps. But they’d make an actual effort and we’d see who did, and who didn’t and needed pressure.
A single Congress Member can force a swift debate and vote on ending a war, such as Yemen or Syria. I know that most Congress Members are confident their constituents have never heard of that. Not one Democrats spoke in support of a recent resolution to end U.S. warmaking in Syria. How many of them have heard from us that we want that war ended, troops brought home, troops brought home from everywhere, foreign bases closed, and military spending slashed?
The media’s biggest lie on military spending is that of omission. Our job is to make it a story.
The media’s biggest lie overall is that of powerlessness. The reason the government spies on and disrupts and constrains activism is not that its pretense of paying no attention to activism is real, just the opposite. Governments pay very close attention. They know damn well that they cannot continue if we withhold our consent. The constant media push to sit still or cry or shop or wait for an election is there for a reason. The reason is that people have far more power than the individually powerful would like them to know. But we only have it if we exercise it.
President Biden has proposed a record $886 billion military budget for 2024. This budget includes $170 billion for new bombers, intercontinental ballistic missiles and ballistic missile submarines; $30 billion for missile defense, $11 billion for hypersonic weapons and long range missiles; $13.5 billion for cyber activities, etc. –and this doesn’t even include $$$ to fund the war in Ukraine! Join us as we break down the military budget and explore opportunities to oppose these weapons systems. In addition to examining the budget as a moral document, we will also learn about CODEPINK’s Ground the F-35 campaign and how the F-35 Coalition is building the anti-war movement as it plans for protests. CODEPINK will host Ground the F-35 actions in New York City, Chicago, Nova Scotia, Washington DC, Madison, Philadelphia, Burlington, the Bay Area, Massachusetts and Seattle to demand Congress defund the F-35 fighter jet, capable of carrying both conventional and nuclear weapons.
Featuring
David Swanson is an author, activist, journalist, and radio host of Talk World Radio. He is Executive Director of World BEYOND War and campaign coordinator for RootsAction.org. David’s books on war and peace include Leaving World War II Behind (an argument against the use of WWII as reason for more wars) and War Is A Lie (a catalog of the types of falsehoods regularly told about wars). David Swanson was awarded the 2018 Peace Prize by the U.S. Peace Memorial Foundation. David Swanson is on the advisory boards of: Nobel Peace Prize Watch, Veterans For Peace, Assange Defense, BPUR, and Military Families Speak Out.
Danaka Katovich is National Co-Director of CODEPINK, overseeing a myriad of issue campaigns, including the Ground the F-35 campaign. Danaka graduated from DePaul University with a bachelor’s degree in political science in November 2020. Since 2018, Danaka has been working towards ending US participation in the war in Yemen. At CODEPINK, Danaka works on youth outreach as a facilitator of the organization’s Peace Collective, a cohort focused on anti-imperialist education and divestment.
Lindsay Koshgarian is the Program Director for the National Priorities Project. Lindsay’s work and commentary on the federal budget and military spending has appeared on NPR, the BBC, CNN, The Nation, U.S. News and World Report, and others. At NPP, her work is at the intersection of military and domestic federal spending.
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Below is a video of Christopher Black in the 2014 Rhodes Forum, “Dialogue of Civilizations”.
He talks about the Rwanda Tribunal and the criminal methods used in the Tribunal to control the trials and come up with fixed outcomes.
He argues that the war in Rwanda is used, time and again, by the US in its propaganda to justify its wars of interventions.
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What has just taken place in Moscow is nothing less than a new Yalta, which, incidentally, is in Crimea. But unlike the momentous meeting of US President Franklin Roosevelt, Soviet Leader Joseph Stalin, and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill in USSR-run Crimea in 1945, this is the first time in arguably five centuries that no political leader from the west is setting the global agenda.
It’s Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin that are now running the multilateral, multipolar show. Western exceptionalists may deploy their crybaby routines as much as they want: nothing will change the spectacular optics, and the underlying substance of this developing world order, especially for the Global South.
What Xi and Putin are setting out to do was explained in detail before their summit, in two Op-Eds penned by the presidents themselves. Like a highly-synchronized Russian ballet, Putin’s vision was laid out in the People’s Daily in China, focusing on a “future-bound partnership,” while Xi’s was published in the Russian Gazette and the RIA Novosti website, focusing on a new chapter in cooperation and common development.
Right from the start of the summit, the speeches by both Xi and Putin drove the NATO crowd into a hysterical frenzy of anger and envy: Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova perfectly captured the mood when she remarked that the west was “foaming at the mouth.”
The front page of the Russian Gazette on Monday was iconic: Putin touring Nazi-free Mariupol, chatting with residents, side by side with Xi’s Op-Ed. That was, in a nutshell, Moscow’s terse response to Washington’s MQ-9 Reaper stunt and the International Criminal Court (ICC) kangaroo court shenanigans. “Foam at the mouth” as much as you like; NATO is in the process of being thoroughly humiliated in Ukraine.
During their first “informal” meeting, Xi and Putin talked for no less than four and a half hours. At the end, Putin personally escorted Xi to his limo. This conversation was the real deal: mapping out the lineaments of multipolarity – which starts with a solution for Ukraine.
Predictably, there were very few leaks from the sherpas, but there was quite a significant one on their “in-depth exchange” on Ukraine. Putin politely stressed he respects China’s position – expressed in Beijing’s 12-point conflict resolution plan, which has been completely rejected by Washington. But the Russian position remains ironclad: demilitarization, Ukrainian neutrality, and enshrining the new facts on the ground.
In parallel, the Russian Foreign Ministry completely ruled out a role for the US, UK, France, and Germany in future Ukraine negotiations: they are not considered neutral mediators.
A multipolar patchwork quilt
The next day was all about business: everything from energy and “military-technical” cooperation to improving the efficacy of trade and economic corridors running through Eurasia.
Russia already ranks first as a natural gas supplier to China – surpassing Turkmenistan and Qatar – most of it via the 3,000 km Power of Siberia pipeline that runs from Siberia to China’s northeastern Heilongjiang province, launched in December 2019. Negotiations on the Power of Siberia II pipeline via Mongolia are advancing fast.
Sino-Russian cooperation in high-tech will go through the roof: 79 projects at over $165 billion. Everything from liquified natural gas (LNG) to aircraft construction, machine tool construction, space research, agro-industry, and upgraded economic corridors.
The Chinese president explicitly said he wants to link the New Silk Road projects to the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU). This BRI-EAEU interpolation is a natural evolution. China has already signed an economic cooperation deal with the EAEU. Russian macroeconomic uber-strategist Sergey Glazyev’s ideas are finally bearing fruit.
And last but not least, there will be a new drive towards mutual settlements in national currencies – and between Asia and Africa, and Latin America. For all practical purposes, Putin endorsed the role of the Chinese yuan as the new trade currency of choice while the complex discussions on a new reserve currency backed by gold and/or commodities proceed.
This joint economic/business offensive ties in with the concerted Russia-China diplomatic offensive to remake vast swathes of West Asia and Africa.
Chinese diplomacy works like the matryoshka (Russian stacking dolls) in terms of delivering subtle messages. It’s far from coincidental that Xi’s trip to Moscow exactly coincides with the 20th anniversary of American ‘Shock and Awe’ and the illegal invasion, occupation, and destruction of Iraq.
In parallel, over 40 delegations from Africa arrived in Moscow a day before Xi to take part in a “Russia-Africa in the Multipolar World” parliamentary conference – a run-up to the second Russia-Africa summit next July.
The area surrounding the Duma looked just like the old Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) days when most of Africa kept very close anti-imperialist relations with the USSR.
Putin chose this exact moment to write off more than $20 billion in African debt.
In West Asia, Russia-China are acting totally in synch. West Asia. The Saudi-Iran rapprochement was actually jump-started by Russia in Baghdad and Oman: it was these negotiations that led to the signing of the deal in Beijing. Moscow is also coordinating the Syria-Turkiye rapprochement discussions. Russian diplomacy with Iran – now under strategic partnership status – is kept on a separate track.
Diplomatic sources confirm that Chinese intelligence, via its own investigations, is now fully assured of Putin’s vast popularity across Russia, and even within the country’s political elites. That means conspiracies of the regime-change variety are out of the question. This was fundamental for Xi and the Zhongnanhai’s (China’s central HQ for party and state officials) decision to “bet” on Putin as a trusted partner in the coming years, considering he may run and win the next presidential elections. China is always about continuity.
So the Xi-Putin summit definitively sealed China-Russia as comprehensive strategic partners for the long haul, committed to developing serious geopolitical and geoeconomic competition with declining western hegemons.
This is the new world born in Moscow this week. Putin previously defined it as a new anti-colonial policy. It’s now laid out as a multipolar patchwork quilt. There’s no turning back on the demolition of the remnants of Pax Americana.
‘Changes that haven’t happened in 100 years’
In Before European Hegemony: The World System A.D. 1250-1350, Janet Abu-Lughod built a carefully constructed narrative showing the prevailing multipolar order when the West “lagged behind the ‘Orient.’” Later, the West only “pulled ahead because the ‘Orient’ was temporarily in disarray.”
We may be witnessing a similarly historic shift in the making, trespassed by a revival of Confucianism (respect for authority, emphasis on social harmony), the equilibrium inherent to the Tao, and the spiritual power of Eastern Orthodoxy. This is, indeed, a civilizational fight.
Moscow, finally welcoming the first sunny days of Spring, provided this week a larger-than-life illustration of “weeks where decades happen” compared to “decades where nothing happens.”
The two presidents bid farewell in a poignant manner.
Xi: “Now, there are changes that haven’t happened in 100 years. When we are together, we drive these changes.”
Putin: “I agree.”
Xi: “Take care, dear friend.”
Putin: “Have a safe trip.”
Here’s to a new day dawning, from the lands of the Rising Sun to the Eurasian steppes.
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This article was originally published on The Cradle.
Pepe Escobar, born in Brazil, is a correspondent and editor-at-large at Asia Times and columnist for Consortium News and Strategic Culture. Since the mid-1980s he’s lived and worked as a foreign correspondent in London, Paris, Milan, Los Angeles, Singapore, Bangkok. He has extensively covered Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia to China, Iran, Iraq and the wider Middle East. Pepe is the author of Globalistan – How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War; Red Zone Blues: A Snapshot of Baghdad during the Surge. He was contributing editor to The Empire and The Crescent and Tutto in Vendita in Italy. His last two books are Empire of Chaos and 2030. Pepe is also associated with the Paris-based European Academy of Geopolitics. When not on the road he lives between Paris and Bangkok.
The present conflict between Russia and Ukraine is arguably the culmination of the foreign policy pursued by the United States of America since the ending of its ideological Cold War with the Soviet Union.
The emphasis today is still on saving people’s lives as the rain and flooding continue, and nobody knows yet what the final damages will be to America’s richest farmlands and how that will impact food security in the United States, and the nation’s already fragile economy. Almost half of California’s agricultural products are exported to other countries.
It will pass 33 years since the first post-WWII “democratic and multiparty” elections in all six Yugoslav republics in 1990. Next year, however, not only that this country did not exist anymore but the Yugoslavs have been faced with a civil war as a result of the post-Cold War “democratization process”.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation this month awarded a $4.8 million grant to a company that sells “smart” face masks for cows. ZELP, which stands for Zero Emissions Livestock Project, claims its artificial intelligence (AI) mask technology for livestock will reduce methane emissions — considered to be a main greenhouse gas — and curb climate change.
A year ago when NATO member Turkey neared a 15 point negotiated settlement, the US and UK each sent a top official to Kyiv not to request, but demand that Ukraine President Zelensky walk away to keep fighting. That grotesque demand led to over 100,000 unnecessary Ukraine deaths over the next year. A third of the Ukraine economy vanished. Six million left Ukraine and another six million relocated.
While the world’s attention is focused on the US proxy war with Russia in Ukraine, 900 US troops continue to occupy Syria, as they have since 2017 , and 2,000 remain stationed in Iraq, 20 years after the US attacked, overthrew its government, and hung its president. Around 500 have been in Somalia since Biden redeployed them in June 2022.
The politicians and shills in the media who orchestrated 20 years of military debacles in the Middle East, and who seek a world dominated by U.S. power, must be held accountable for their crimes.
It is becoming increasingly difficult to find one’s way through the jungle of lies and half-truths. More and more contemporaries therefore do not want to hear anything more from politicians. Personally, the alternative media keep me “afloat” because they still “pay tribute to the truth” due to their independence from government.
Liza Burke, a UGA senior, was in Cabo San Lucas with a “big group of friends” for her “last spring break” when, on March 10, she complained of a headache at breakfast. “A few hours later, her friends called the doctor because they couldn’t wake her. She was immediately rushed to the hospital where she was diagnosed with Arteriovenous malformation (AVM) which cause her brain to hemorrhage.”
In the year 1 B.C. (Before Corona), we here in New Zealand were getting along rather well. Despite the exorbitant cost of food and housing, the majestic and available beauty of the physical country gave us immeasurable comfort. Our government, we thought, might not have been the most efficient one in the world, nor the one most populated with high intelligence, but it seemed to make an effort to represent its citizenry and to provide basic services.
The emphasis today is still on saving people’s lives as the rain and flooding continue, and nobody knows yet what the final damages will be to America’s richest farmlands and how that will impact food security in the United States, and the nation’s already fragile economy. Almost half of California’s agricultural products are exported to other countries.
Tulare County in Central California is the county that is suffering the most, and it is also the second largest county in the U.S. in terms of food production, producing over $8 BILLION annually, with sales of dairy products making up almost one fourth of those sales, followed by citrus and nuts. (Source.)
Kern County, just to the south of Tulare County, is the nation’s #1 county in agricultural production, and Fresno County, just to the north of Tulare County, is the nation’s 3rd largest producer of agriculture, and both of those counties have also seen devastating floods in the Central Valley of California.
Monterey County on the Central Coast of California, is the 4th largest county in the U.S. in terms of agriculture production, and they too have been hit with devastating floods, wiping out most of the vegetable and strawberry farms.
I have put together a video report that is just under 15 minutes. I have friends and family members who live in Tulare County, so I can confirm from first hand experiences that none of this is exaggerated. It is real.
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It’s been six weeks since I published a report, based on anonymous sourcing, naming President Joe Biden as the official who ordered the mysterious destruction last September of Nord Stream 2, a new $11-billion pipeline that was scheduled to double the volume of natural gas delivered from Russia to Germany. The story gained traction in Germany and Western Europe, but was subject to a near media blackout in the US. Two weeks ago, after a visit by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to Washington, US and German intelligence agencies attempted to add to the blackout by feeding the New York Times and the German weekly Die Zeit false cover stories to counter the report that Biden and US operatives were responsible for the pipelines’ destruction.
Press aides for the White House and Central Intelligence Agency have consistently denied that America was responsible for exploding the pipelines, and those pro forma denials were more than enough for the White House press corps. There is no evidence that any reporter assigned there has yet to ask the White House press secretary whether Biden had done what any serious leader would do: formally “task” the American intelligence community to conduct a deep investigation, with all of its assets, and find out just who had done the deed in the Baltic Sea. According to a source within the intelligence community, the president has not done so, nor will he. Why not? Because he knows the answer.
Sarah Miller—an energy expert and an editor at Energy Intelligence, which publishes leading trade journals—explained to me in an interview why the pipeline story has been big news in Germany and Western Europe. “The destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines in September led to a further surge of natural gas prices that were already six or more times pre-crisis levels,” she said. “Nord Stream was blown up in late September. German gas imports peaked a month later, in October, at 10 times pre-crisis levels. Electricity prices across Europe were pulled up, and governments spent as much as 800 billion euros, by some estimates, shielding households and businesses from the impact. Gas prices, reflecting the mild winter in Europe, have now fallen back to roughly a quarter of the October peak, but they are still between two and three times pre-crisis levels and are more than three times current US rates. Over the last year, German and other European manufacturers closed their most energy-intensive operations, such as fertilizer and glass production, and it’s unclear when, if ever, those plants will reopen. Europe is scrambling to get solar and wind capacity in place, but it may not come soon enough to save large chunks of German industry.” (Miller writes a blog on Medium.)
In early March, President Biden hosted German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Washington. The trip included only two public events—a brief pro forma exchange of compliments between Biden and Scholz before the White House press corps, with no questions allowed; and a CNN interview with Scholz by Fareed Zakaria, who did not touch on the pipeline allegations. The chancellor had flown to Washington with no members of the German press on board, no formal dinner scheduled, and the two world leaders were not slated to conduct a press conference, as routinely happens at such high-profile meetings. Instead, it was later reported that Biden and Scholz had an 80-minute meeting, with no aides present for much of the time. There have been no statements or written understandings made public since then by either government, but I was told by someone with access to diplomatic intelligence that there was a discussion of the pipeline exposé and, as a result, certain elements in the Central Intelligence Agency were asked to prepare a cover story in collaboration with German intelligence that would provide the American and German press with an alternative version for the destruction of Nord Stream 2. In the words of the intelligence community, the agency was “to pulse the system” in an effort to discount the claim that Biden had ordered the pipelines’ destruction.
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First published on October 6, 2022
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Abstract
We make a quantitative comparison between the COVID-19 mortality statistics of the Government of Canada (Public Health Agency of Canada; managed by the Chief Public Health Officer) and calculated total excess all-cause mortality (ACM) (deaths from all causes) for the Covid period. The claimed “COVID-19 deaths” mortality is almost double the total excess ACM for the same period, which we find to be irreconcilable with reality. We describe how these numbers have been uncritically used in public Government communications, by leading media, and in a recent scientific article co-authored by Canada’s Chief Public Health Officer, which claims that “without the use of restrictive measures and without high levels of vaccination, Canada could have experienced […] almost a million deaths.” We conclude that the COVID-19 mortality statistics are unreliable at best, and possibly meaningless.
Introduction
In Canada and in the world, there were virtually no reported deaths assigned to COVID-19 prior to the 11 March 2020 World Health Organization (WHO) declaration of a pandemic. Likewise, no anomaly in all-cause mortality by time (day, week, month) can be detected prior to the said declaration.1
The Government of Canada records “COVID-19 deaths” and reports the cumulative value on a weekly basis, at its Public Health Agency of Canada “COVID-19 epidemiology update” dashboard.2
Government of Canada officers and employees use the same cumulative “COVID-19 deaths” data in their peer-reviewed scientific articles (see below).
This brief report is about the irreconcilable discrepancy between the Government of Canada’s numbers of “COVID-19 deaths” and rigorous evaluations of excess total all-cause mortality (ACM) for the same time periods.
What the Canadian Government and legacy media say
Table 1 presents statements made by the Government of Canada and by leading media, reporting cumulative “COVID-19 deaths”. The list is incomplete.
Table 1. COVID-19 death count statements
Clearly, these numbers are an integral part of the Government of Canada’s communication campaign during the Covid period.
In addition, countless audio and video recorded interviews have media interviewers and commentators advancing these and comparable large cumulative numbers of “COVID-19 deaths”, typically to emphasize the seriousness of the declared pandemic, and always implying that infection with the presumed SARS-CoV-2 virus was the dominant or only medical factor causing the deaths.
The detailed time evolution of the cumulative number of “COVID-19 deaths” is available at the Government of Canada (Public Health Agency of Canada) dashboard and its csv-file download,17 and is represented in the following graph (Figure 1), in which the time axis starts on 1 February 2020.
Figure 1. Time evolution of the cumulative number of “COVID-19 deaths” for Canada. The vertical line marks the week of 11 March 2020, when a pandemic was declared by the WHO. Data is from the Government of Canada (accessed on 3 October 2022).18
The same data as in Figure 1, viewed in terms of weekly new “COVID-19 deaths”, for the same time period (February 2020 to present), is shown in Figure 2.
Figure 2. Time evolution of the weekly new number of “COVID-19 deaths” for Canada. The vertical line marks the week of 11 March 2020, when a pandemic was declared by the WHO. Data is from the Government of Canada (accessed on 3 October 2022).19
There is a consensus in the Government of Canada and the major media outlets that these numbers of “COVID-19 deaths”, reviewed above, represent true and reliable mortality caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, since COVID-19 is uniquely ascribed to this virus.
We were not able to find any Government of Canada sources or publications that suggested that the presumed virus could have played an insignificant or minor role in causing the deaths in some of the deaths attributed to or associated with “confirmed” COVID-19; nor were we able to find any Government (or investigative media) effort to estimate the fraction of any such “false positive” attributions of cause of death.
What the all-cause mortality says
All-cause mortality by time is the most reliable data for detecting and epidemiologically characterizing events causing death, and for gauging the population-level impact of any surge or collapse in deaths from any cause. Such data is not susceptible to reporting bias or to any bias in attributing causes of death. More and more researchers are recognizing that it is essential to examine ACM by time, and excess deaths from all causes compared with projections from historic trends, to help make sense of the events surrounding COVID-19: See Rancourt et al. (2022)20 and references therein.
Before we describe the quantification method, it is instructive to examine the ACM by time in Canada over the last three decades. Figure 3 shows ACM by month for Canada, from January 1991 through December 2020. Contrary to usual practice, we use the full y-scale, showing the zero, so that one may evaluate the relative importance of the seasonal variations and of any other changes compared to numbers of all the deaths in the country. This provides a reference to ascertain the degree to which the declared pandemic caused a notable excess in mortality after 11 March 2020.
Figure 3. All-cause mortality (ACM) by month for Canada, from January 1991 to December 2020, inclusive. The data is from StatCan.21 There are characteristic dips in February, due to the known artifact arising from February typically having only 28 days. The March-May 2020 peak that occurs immediately following the pandemic announcement of 11 March 2020 is historically anomalous, and we have discussed it previously.22
Next, we apply similar quantitative methods that we applied recently for the USA23 to the case of Canada, to quantify excess total ACM for the Covid period, which started on 11 March 2020. By “excess” we mean in addition to the expected mortality for the Covid period, based on the historic trend prior to 11 March 2020. As such, the expected mortality for the Covid period is the mortality that one would predict if the Covid period were just like recent prior periods, in terms of the factors that determine mortality.
We use the StatCan data of ACM by week,24 which starts at the week ending Saturday 9 January 2010, and ends at the week ending Saturday 14 May 2022. Although StatCan refers to this data as “provisional weekly death counts”, we have observed that successive updates for this product (their Table 13-10-0768-01) do not change the previously released data to a degree that could significantly change our calculations or conclusions. The last values in the dataset for May do not appear to be anomalous.
Given the end date of the data and given the start date of 11 March 2020 of the declared pandemic, the Covid period used in our calculation (the “defined Covid period”) is the 114-week period between the week ending Saturday 14 March 2020 and the week ending Saturday 14 May 2022, inclusive. We sum ACM over this 114-week period. We define non-overlapping 114-week periods of summation of ACM, which immediately precede the defined Covid period. Four such consecutive periods prior to the defined Covid period can be accommodated by the data.
We plot the resulting sum of ACM values versus time, along with the ACM by week (on a different y-axis), in Figure 4.
Figure 4. All-cause mortality (ACM) by week, 2010-2022, left y-axis (light blue continuous curve) for Canada; and ACM sums over the five 114-week non-overlapping consecutive periods described in the text, right y-axis (dark blue dots, joined by line segments). The ACM sums are positioned in time on the x-axis at the first week of the respective summation period. The last 114-week period is our operational Covid period (the defined Covid period). The orange straight dashed line is the least-squares best fit to the four ACM sums prior to the defined Covid period. The sharp spike occurring in the summer of 2021 corresponds to the heat wave that occurred in British Columbia (and the north-western USA).
We make a least-squares fit of a straight line to the four ACM sums of the 114-week periods prior to the defined Covid period (shown in Figure 4). Taking “x” to be the week number, where x=1 is the first week in the StatCan data, the resulting fitted line has slope = 264.5 ACM-sum-on-114-weeks per week, intercept = 516,400 deaths in 114-week period, and Pearson correlation coefficient r = +0.9989.
Therefore, the expected 114-week ACM sum for the defined Covid period, based on the least-squares fitted straight line, is (657.1 ± 1.3) x 103 deaths, where the uncertainty is estimated as the mean of the four absolute values of the deviations of the observed values from the fitted line; whereas the measured ACM sum for the 114-week defined Covid period is 679,645 deaths.
This means that the excess mortality for the 114-week defined Covid period ending on the week ending on Saturday 14 May 2022, is:
679,645 − (657.1 ± 1.3) x 103 = (22.5 ± 1.3) x 103 deaths, which is seen in Figure 4.
Covid-assigned deaths versus all-cause mortality
The thus obtained excess ACM for the 114-week defined Covid period ending on 14 May 2022 can be compared to the cumulative “COVID-19 deaths” on 14 May 2022.
The latter official value for 14 May 2022, from the Government of Canada (Public Health Agency of Canada), is: 40,684 “COVID-19 deaths”.25
Therefore, we have:
This means that there were 18,200 more “COVID-19 deaths” than the 22,500 excess all-cause deaths (up to 14 May 2022).
The “COVID-19 deaths” mortality, in magnitude, is 181% of the calculated total excess ACM (up to 14 May 2022).
If the same ratio were applied to the USA, there would have been 1.81 x 1.27M26 = 2.30M “COVID-19 deaths” in the USA, more than double the official USA number (998,587 “COVID-19 Deaths” on 14 May 2022, CDC).27
It is inconceivable that a virus killed this many more people than the total excess ACM, because this would imply that in the absence of the presumed virus there would be a large deficit of ACM. Alternatively, one would need to believe that Covid measures (masking, social distancing, isolation, shutting down economic sectors, etc.) cause a net reduction of deaths from all other causes; such as not causing any deaths while more than eliminating “influenza and pneumonia”, which in Canada have reported deaths in the range 6.2 to 8.6 K/year for 2016 through 2019.28
The presumed SARS-CoV-2 virus would have killed approximately twice as many people as the calculated excess ACM. This means that, in addition to presumably being the cause for all the excess ACM (which is implausible), the presumed SARS-CoV-2 virus would have also had to rush in and kill 18,200 people, in the same time period and before they could die of other causes, who most certainly would have died without the Covid circumstances. What is the meaning of a presumed virulent virus that kills people who would have died, when they would have died? Alternatively, for example, the Covid measures would have saved 18,200 people from “influenza and pneumonia”, say, while the presumed SARS-CoV-2 virus killed them.
More realistically, if approximately half of the excess deaths were due to the aggressive measures (including: harmful medical treatment, neglect of vulnerable individuals, social and physical isolation, and loss of regular occupation and care protocols), then at most 10,000 or so deaths could have been caused by the presumed SARS-CoV-2 virus, in this period, and the reported number of “COVID-19 deaths” is inflated by a factor of approximately 4, if the cause-of-death determinations can be taken to be meaningful.
Discussion: What does the Government of Canada say?
Deputy Prime Minister of Canada Chrystia Freeland29 has stated that if Canada had the same “COVID-19 deaths” rate per capita as the USA, then there would have been 70,000 more COVID-19 deaths in Canada.30 Freeland referred to a study by Naylor and other academics as her source. Razak et al. (including Naylor) make their analysis up to or near 12 February 2022 when the reported cumulative “COVID-19 deaths” for Canada were at 35,268. For this date, they report “COVID-19 deaths” rates per capita (per million) of 919 for Canada and 2,730 for the USA (their Figure 1C).31 The USA rate would produce 105,000 deaths in Canada, which is 70,000 more than 35,000.
This statement by Freeland has a “COVID-19 deaths” rate for the USA, which is 3.0 times larger than for Canada, but Freeland does not mention two important factors:
(1) the USA has an excess-ACM death rate (per capita) that is 6.5 times larger than for Canada [(1.27M/22.5K)(38M/330M) = 6.5], and
(2) the Covid-measures stringency index (Oxford Stringency Index) is statistically indistinguishable for the USA and Canada [Figure 2 in Razak et al.32].
Freeland’s attention should have been turned instead to a metric that takes into account the different health statuses of the vulnerable populations in the two countries.33 Freeland could have asked herself: “Why is the ratio of ‘COVID-19 deaths’ to excess ACM deaths [(40.7K/22.5K)/(0.999M/1.27M)] some 2.3 times larger in Canada than in the USA?” This contextualized comparison would mean a relative (compared to the USA) catastrophic failure of the Covid measures intended to prevent spread of the disease in Canada, in which the presumed infection appears to have disproportionately devastated those close to death in Canada. Freeland misled herself in her use of the USA regarding comparative efficacy of Covid measures in Canada.
Discussion: What do the Government scientists say?
Ogden et al. (with Canada’s Chief Public Health Officer Theresa Tam), publishing in the peer-reviewed journal Canada Communicable Disease Report (CCDR) in July/August 2022 wrote:34
“Together, these observations show that without the use of restrictive measures and without high levels of vaccination, Canada could have experienced substantially higher numbers of infections and hospitalizations and almost a million deaths.”
One million added “COVID-19 deaths” in Canada corresponds to adding approximately 150% of the baseline total (not excess) ACM deaths for the Covid period. This would increase the Covid-period total (not excess) ACM from approximately 680,000 deaths (Figure 4) to approximately 1,680,000 deaths. One can gauge what that would look like on Figures 3 and 4.
To make it more visual and concrete, we simulate the ACM by week for Canada with the added said “almost a million deaths” in Figure 5. Here, for the sake of illustration and simplicity, we add the one million deaths to the defined Covid period uniformly to each of the 114 weeks in the period (1M/114 = 8,772 deaths added to each week in the defined Covid period; keeping in mind that the Ogden et al. article uses data up to 20 April 2022, which is close to our defined Covid period end date).
Figure 5. Simulated all-cause mortality (ACM) by week, 2010-2022, for Canada, using the proposal of Ogden et al. (red line), as explained in the text. The original data for the Covid period is shown by the dashed grey line.
Figure 5 suggests that the proposal made by Ogden et al. is not compatible with any reasonable view.
The theoretical notion that one million deaths were averted by the Covid measures in Canada is incredible on its face, but also contrary to reality. It would correspond to 210 million deaths globally [(1M/38M) x 8B]; and to 8.7 million deaths in the USA [(1M/38M) x 330M].
This conclusion by Ogden et al. (including Canada’s Chief Public Health Officer Theresa Tam) is not connected to reality because, in addition to relying on reported “COVID-19 deaths” numbers, it is a product of their theoretical modelling exercise. All such models applied to nations have been shown to often be grossly unreliable. Arguably the most renowned epidemiologist (cited >450K times),35 Stanford University’s Professor of Medicine John Ioannidis and co-authors had this to say about the models:36
“Epidemic forecasting has a dubious track-record, and its failures became more prominent with COVID-19. Poor data input, wrong modeling assumptions, high sensitivity of estimates, lack of incorporation of epidemiological features, poor past evidence on effects of available interventions, lack of transparency, errors, lack of determinacy, consideration of only one or a few dimensions of the problem at hand, lack of expertise in crucial disciplines, groupthink and bandwagon effects, and selective reporting are some of the causes of these failures. Nevertheless, epidemic forecasting is unlikely to be abandoned.”
At this point, readers have a choice of preferring to side more with one of two end-point views. Either:
(a) the Government of Canada saved one million lives, and thereby brought down mortality coincidentally to virtually the same level as in the pre-Covid periods (Figures 3 and 4); within 22,500 deaths, which is approximately +3% of expected mortality in the absence of Covid circumstances; or
(b) there was no such contagious and virulent pathogen present, and, if anything, the Covid measures may have caused net harm.
In making this evaluation, readers should keep in mind that the article by Ogden et al. (including Canada’s Chief Public Health Officer Theresa Tam) is written by the architects of the Covid measures in Canada, and of the COVID-19 testing and vaccination campaigns. It is published by the Government. And it constructs a theoretical justification for unprecedented harsh nation-wide Government measures. It cannot be viewed as unbiased.
Conclusion
We determined the expected defined Covid period mortality (nominally from 11 March 2020 to 14 May 2022), in the absence of the Covid period circumstances to be: (657.1 ± 1.3) x 103 deaths.
The actual defined Covid period mortality was 679,645 deaths.
Therefore, the defined Covid period excess mortality is (22.5 ± 1.3) x 103 deaths, which is significantly smaller than the Government’s reported “COVID-19 deaths” number of 40,684 for the same period.
These numbers (22.5K vs 40.7K) cannot be reconciled by any reasonable explanation, which we have explored.
The recent suggestion by Ogden et al., derived from using the Government-reported “COVID-19 deaths” mortality, that “without the use of restrictive measures and without high levels of vaccination, Canada could have experienced […] almost a million deaths.”, appears to be palpably disconnected from reality (Figure 5).
In conclusion, our analysis overall leads us to suggest that the COVID-19 mortality statistics collected and presented by the Government of Canada (Public Health Agency of Canada) are unreliable at best, and possibly meaningless.
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1 Rancourt, D.G. (2020) “All-cause mortality during COVID-19: No plague and a likely signature of mass homicide by government response”, ResearchGate, 2 June 2020. https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.24350.77125 | archived at: https://archive.ph/PXhsg
2 Government of Canada (2022) “COVID-19 epidemiology update”. Updated: 2022-10-03. https://health- infobase.canada.ca/covid-19/ (accessed on 3 October 2022).
3 Ogden NH, Turgeon P, Fazil A, Clark J, Gabriele-Rivet V, Tam T, Ng V. “Counterfactuals of effects of vaccination and public health measures on COVID-19 cases in Canada: What could have happened?” Canada Communicable Disease Report (CCDR) 2022;48(7/8):292–302. https://doi.org/10.14745/ccdr.v48i78a01
4 https://health-infobase.canada.ca/src/data/covidLive/Epidemiological-summary-of-COVID-19-cases-in- Canada-Canada.ca.pdf (accessed on 27 September 2022).
5 Ibid. (accessed after 4 April 2022)
6 https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/world/canada-covid-cases.html | Archived: https://archive.ph/puy6S (accessed on 27 September 2022).
7 https://globalnews.ca/news/6649164/canada-coronavirus-cases/ (accessed on 27 September 2022).
8 https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/covid-19-hospitalizations-down-by-42-in-quebec-1.6053545 (accessed on 27 September 2022).
9 https://www.thestar.com/politics/federal/2022/08/25/did-a-conservative-leadership-hopeful-compare- covid-19-vaccines-to-nazi-atrocities-leslyn-lewis-rejects-cowardly-accusation.html | Archived: https://archive.ph/iTEjc (accessed on 27 September 2022).
10 https://globalnews.ca/news/9084719/covid-deaths-hit-one-million-who/ (accessed on 27 September 2022).
11 https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/tracking-every-case-of-covid-19-in-canada-1.4852102 (accessed on 28 September 2022).
12 https://graphics.reuters.com/world-coronavirus-tracker-and-maps/countries-and-territories/canada/ (accessed on 28 September 2022).
13 https://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/kaplan-myrth-ontario-election-covid-19-isnt-over-vote-for-the-party- that-will-act-on-this-reality (accessed on 28 September 2022).
14 https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-canada-40000-covid-19-deaths/ | Archived: https://archive.ph/v3w1r (accessed on 28 September 2022).
15 https://globalnews.ca/news/8834765/covid-canada-40k-deaths-6th-wave/ (accessed on 29 September 2022).
16 https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/us-million-covid-deaths-1.6150574 (accessed on 28 September 2022).
17 See Footnote 2
18 See Footnote 2
19 See Footnote 2
20 Rancourt, D.G., Baudin, M., Mercier, J. “COVID-Period Mass Vaccination Campaign and Public Health Disaster in the USA – From age/state-resolved all-cause mortality by time, age-resolved vaccine delivery by time, and socio-geo-economic data”, Research Gate, 2 August 2022, DOI:10.13140/RG.2.2.12688.28164, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/362427136_COVID- Period_Mass_Vaccination_Campaign_and_Public_Health_Disaster_in_the_USA_From_agestate- resolved_all-cause_mortality_by_time_age-resolved_vaccine_delivery_by_time_and_socio-geo- economic_data | archived here: https://archive.ph/lFNwK
21 StatCan (2022) “Deaths, by month”. Release date: 2022-01-24. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=1310070801 (accessed on 6 June 2022).
22 Rancourt, D.G., Baudin, M. and Mercier, J. (2021) “Analysis of all-cause mortality by week in Canada 2010-2021, by province, age and sex: There was no COVID-19 pandemic and there is strong evidence of response-caused deaths in the most elderly and in young males”. ResearchGate, 6 August 2021, https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.14929.45921 | archived here: https://archive.ph/CYA20
23 Rancourt et al. (2022): Footnote 20.
24 StatCan (2022) “Table 13-10-0768-01 Provisional weekly death counts, by age group and sex”. Release date: 2022-09-08. https://doi.org/10.25318/1310076801-eng | also: https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=1310076801 (accessed on 12 September 2022)
25 See Footnote 2
26 Rancourt et al. (2022): Footnote 20.
27 “COVID Data Tracker – Trends in Number of COVID-19 Cases and Deaths in the US Reported to CDC, by State/Territory”, CDC, https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#trends_totaldeaths_select_00 (accessed on 2 October 2022).
28 “Leading causes of death, total population, by age group”, Table: 13-10-0394-01 (formerly CANSIM 102-0561), Release date: 2022-01-24, Statistics Canada, https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=1310039401 (accessed on 2 October 2022).
29 https://deputypm.canada.ca/en | archived: https://archive.ph/uyAHz (accessed on 1 October 2022).
30 Video: “All-cause deaths continue to skyrocket in Canada”, Rebel News, 26 September 2022. https://rumble.com/v1lmo2p-all-cause-deaths-continue-to-skyrocket-in-canada.html (at 4:12).
31 Fahad Razak, Saeha Shin, C. David Naylor, Arthur S. Slutsky. “Canada’s response to the initial 2 years of the COVID-19 pandemic: a comparison with peer countries” CMAJ Jun 2022, 194 (25) E870-E877; DOI: https://doi.org/10.1503/cmaj.220316 . See also the 27 June 2022 Globe&Mail opinion piece by Razak, Slutsky and Naylor: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-we-need-new-strategies-to- tackle-covid-this-fall/ | archived: https://archive.ph/moeYs .
32 Ibid.
33 Rancourt et al. (2022): Footnote 20.
34 Ogden et al. (2022): Footnote 3.
35 Google Scholar authenticated profile of John P.A. Ioannidis: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=JiiMY_wAAAAJ&hl (accessed on 1 October 2022).
36 Ioannidis JPA, Cripps S, Tanner MA. “Forecasting for COVID-19 has failed”. Int J Forecast. 2022 Apr- Jun;38(2):423-438. doi: 10.1016/j.ijforecast.2020.08.004. Epub 2020 Aug 25. PMID: 32863495; PMCID: PMC7447267. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijforecast.2020.08.004
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Mehr als eineinhalb Jahrzehnte nach dem völkerrechtswidrigen Angriffskrieg der US-geführten NATO gegen die Bundesrepublik Jugoslawien (SRJ) unter Einsatz hochgiftiger und radioaktiver Uran-Geschosse wird das ungeheure Ausmaß dieses Kriegsverbrechens deutlich.
In Serbien haben die aggressiven Krebserkrankungen bei Jung und Alt in den letzten Jahren ein epidemisches Ausmaß erreicht. Das Leid der Menschen schreit zum Himmel. Besonders betroffen sind der Süden Serbiens und das Kosovo. Nach Angaben des serbischen Gesundheitsministeriums erkrankt jeden Tag ein Kind an Krebs. Das gesamte Land ist verseucht. Durch die Schädigung des Erbgutes (DNA) werden Generationen um Generationen missgebildeter Kinder zur Welt kommen. Wissentlich und willentlich wurde ein Völkermord begangen.
Bis vor kurzem hat die Politik unter Mithilfe der Medien den verunsicherten Bürgern Serbiens auf Druck der Verursacher des Genozids die Wahrheit vorenthalten. Mutigen und verantwortungsbewussten Ärzten, Ex-Militärs, Ex-Politikern und Wissenschaftlern ist es nun gelungen, diese Mauer des Schweigens zu durchbrechen – zum Wohle des serbischen Volkes und der vielen anderen Völker dieser Welt, die sein Schicksal teilen.
Uranwaffen sind Massenvernichtungswaffen
Als die USA in Vietnam das Entlaubungsmittel “Agent Orange” und Napalm eingesetzt hatten, war die Welt entsetzt. Das war nicht mehr Krieg, das war Schlächterei an der Zivilbevölkerung und nachhaltige Zerstörung der Natur. 50 Jahre danach kommt dort Generation um Generation schwer behindert zur Welt – zum Sterben geboren. Doch die Waffenindustrie, auch die Atomwaffenindustrie, hat seit Vietnam ihr Geschäft zügig weiterentwickelt. Alle Kriege sind nach den Rechtsnormen des Nürnberger Tribunals illegale Angriffskriege und sie werden immer mörderischer, hinterhältiger, flächendeckender, genozidaler. So auch der erste Krieg der US-geführten NATO auf europäischem Boden gegen die Bundesrepublik Jugoslawien 1999.
Hier setzte die US-Armee unter stillschweigender Duldung der NATO-Verbündeten – darunter auch Deutschlands – Massenvernichtungswaffen ein, die sie im 2. Golfkrieg 1991 und in Bosnien-Herzegowina 1994/95 bereits erprobt hatte: hochgiftige und radioaktive Uranwaffen. Die NATO selbst hat zugegeben, dass sie 30.000 Geschosse mit abgereichertem Uran (Depleted Uranium; DU) abgefeuert hat, das Militär Serbiens spricht von 50.000 Geschossen. Das entspricht 10 bis 15 Tonnen Uran.
Da bereits umfangreiche wissenschaftliche Literatur und Filmmaterial (“Deadly Dust”) zu diesem Kriegsverbrechen in deutscher, englischer und serbischer Sprache zur Verfügung stehen, hier nur einige Anmerkungen:
Wegen des langen Abbauprozesses der Radioaktivität und ihrer Toxizität werden Abfälle der Uran- und Atomindustrie – vorwiegend DU des Isotops 238 – für einen sehr langen Zeitraum in gesicherten Deponien gelagert. Zur Verringerung des damit verbundenen hohen Kostenaufwands wird DU daher gerne kostenfrei an Interessenten wie das Militär abgegeben. DU besitzt Charakteristika, die vor allem für die Rüstungsindustrie sehr attraktiv sind.
Die nach einer deutschen Technologie entwickelten DU-Geschosse – so Professor Dr. med. Siegwart-Horst Günther – haben wegen der hohen Dichte des metallischen Urans (1,7 Mal größer als die von Blei) eine hohe Durchschlagskraft und sind speziell zum Brechen von Stahlpanzerungen und unterirdischen Beton-Bunkern geeignet. DU ist zudem ein brennbares Material, das sich beim Durchschlagen einer Panzerplatte von selbst entzündet, bei 3.000 Grad Celsius zu Uranoxidstaub verbrennt und dabei hochtoxische und radioaktive Stoffe (Uranoxid) freisetzt.
Dieses Uranoxid-Aerosol mit Partikelgrößen im Nanobereich gelangt über die Atemluft, das Wasser und langfristig auch über die Nahrungskette in den menschlichen Körper.
In der Lunge werden die DU-Staubteilchen auch an die roten und weißen Blutzellen angelagert und gelangen so in alle Organe des Körpers, auch ins Gehirn, in die Niere und in die Hoden, so dass in vielen Organen Krebs entsteht und die Erbsubstanz (DNA) irreversibel geschädigt wird. Die starke Kanzerogenität des DU ist darauf zurückzuführen, dass die Chemo- und die Radiotoxizität synergetisch wirken.
Über die Placenta kann DU auch ein ungeborenes Kind erreichen und ihm schweren Schaden zufügen. Mögliche Langzeitschäden sind genetische Defekte bei Säuglingen, Kinderleukämien, Krebserkrankungen und Nierenschädigungen. Da die Uranoxid-Partikel durch die Verbrennungshitze die Eigenschaft von Keramik angenommen haben, sind sie wasserunlöslich, sitzen in dieser Form im Körper fest und können über Jahre ihre radioaktive Wirkung (Alpha-Strahlung) entfalten.
Krieg mit Uranwaffen ist wissentlich und willentlich herbeigeführter Völkermord
Für den Biochemiker Albrecht Schott ist DU ein Beispiel für Eingriffe in die Schöpfung, die diese existenziell gefährden und damit keine Waffe gegen Staaten, sondern eine Waffe gegen den Planeten. Der bekannte deutsche Journalist und Filmemacher Frieder Wagner bezeichnet Uranwaffen als “Ausrottungswaffe” und die Opfer dieser mörderischen Waffen als die “Toten des stillen Sterbens”. Uranwaffen sind die “perfekte Waffe”, um massenhaft Menschen umzubringen, das heißt, einen Völkermord zu begehen.
Seit der UN-Konvention über die Verhütung und Bestrafung des Völkermordes von 1948 ist der Genozid ein Straftatbestand im Völkerstrafrecht, der nicht verjährt. Gekennzeichnet ist er durch die spezielle Absicht, auf direkte oder indirekte Weise eine nationale, ethnische, rassische oder religiöse Gruppe als solche ganz oder teilweise zu zerstören. Deshalb wird der Völkermord auch als “einzigartiges Verbrechen”, als “Verbrechen der Verbrechen” (englisch “crime of crimes”) oder als “schlimmstes Verbrechen im Völkerstrafrecht” bezeichnet.
Die australische Ärztin, Atomwaffenspezialistin und Friedensaktivistin Helen Caldicott schreibt in ihrem Buch “Atomgefahr USA”:
Es ist klar, dass das Pentagon schon lange vor der Operation Wüstensturm [2. Golfkrieg 1991; der Verfasser] um die gesundheitlichen Risiken wusste, die von uranhaltiger Munition ausgehen. In zahlreichen Militärberichten wird eingeräumt, dass Uran-238 Nierenschäden, Lungen- und Knochenkrebs, (nicht bösartige) Erkrankungen der Lunge, Hauterkrankungen, neurokognitive Störungen, Chromosomenschäden und Geburtsfehler verursachen kann.
Aus diesem Grund sind Kriege unter Einsatz hochgiftiger und radioaktiver Uranwaffen sowohl Kriegsverbrechen als auch wissentlich und willentlich herbeigeführter Völkermord – so auch der Krieg gegen die Bundesrepublik Jugoslawien 1999. Gemäß der UN-Konvention gegen Völkermord verpflichten sich die Vertragsparteien, Völkermord beziehungsweise Personen, die einen solchen begehen, zu bestrafen, unabhängig davon, ob sie regierende Personen, öffentliche Beamte oder private Einzelpersonen sind.
Aggressive Krebserkrankungen in Serbien erreichen epidemisches Ausmaß
Die Bombardierung Serbiens dauerte 78 Tage. Dabei wurden 1.031 Soldaten getötet, 5.173 Soldaten und Polizisten verwundet, 2.500 Zivilisten starben – darunter 78 Kinder – und über 6.000 Zivilisten wurden verwundet. Neben den Projektilen mit DU, die zudem Spuren hochgiftigen Plutoniums aufwiesen, sind auch andere explosive Kombinationen und Raketenkraftstoffe mit bestimmten chemischen Verbindungen zum Einsatz gekommen, die bei Explosionen sehr giftig wirken und Krebserkrankungen bewirken. Die Zahl dieser Krebserkrankungen wuchs von Jahr zu Jahr. Auch stiegen die Zahl der Neugeborenen mit Missbildungen und jene aggressiver Leukämieerkrankungen bei Kindern.
Vor über einem Jahr wurden Schätzungen des serbischen Verbands zur Krebsbekämpfung bekannt: Studien hätten gezeigt, dass der Einsatz der Uranwaffen zwischen 2001 und 2010 zu 15.000 Krebserkrankungen und 10.000 Toten geführt habe, so der Verbandsleiter und Onkologe Prof. Dr. med. Slobodan Cikaric. Insgesamt habe es in diesem Zeitraum 330.000 Krebserkrankungen in Serbien gegeben. Die Todesrate habe seit dem Jahr 1999 jährlich um 2,5 Prozent zugenommen.
Bereits im Jahr 2013 äußerte Professor Cikaric in der serbischen Zeitung Blic, dass Serbien 14 Jahre nach der Bombardierung mit DU eine Explosion von Krebserkrankungen aller Art erwarte. Er sollte Recht behalten. Übermittelt sind Zusammenbrüche des Immunsystems mit ansteigenden Fällen von Infektionskrankheiten, schwere Funktionsstörungen von Nieren und Leber, aggressive Leukämien und andere Krebserkrankungen (auch Mehrfachkrebs), Störungen im Knochenmark, genetische Defekte und Missbildungen sowie Aborte und Frühgeburten bei Schwangeren wie nach der Tschernobyl-Katastrophe.
Liest man heute eine serbische Zeitung oder geht über einen serbischen Friedhof, dann fällt einem in den seitenlangen Todesanzeigen oder Grabinschriften die kurze Lebenszeit vieler Verstorbener ins Auge. Es müsste jeweils heißen: “Gestorben an den Folgen von DU-Vergiftung und Verstrahlung”.
Viele Bürger Serbiens sind aufgrund ihres jahrelangen Mitleidens mit kranken Angehörigen und infolge des ängstlichen Abwartens, ob und wann auch sie eventuell von einer der schrecklichen und meist tödlich verlaufenden Krankheiten eingeholt werden, psychisch stark belastet. Auch wenn die meisten von ihnen die Ursache der schweren Erkrankungen erahnen, bleibt trotzdem eine große Verunsicherung, die anhaltende Stressgefühle auslöst.
Von politischer Seite hat man sowohl in Serbien wie auch in den anderen mit DU verseuchten Ländern im Nahen und Mittleren Osten und in den NATO-Ländern selbst die Bevölkerung bewusst nicht aufgeklärt. Man wollte sich unter anderem Regressforderungen entziehen und das mörderische Handwerk ungestört weiterführen. Stress, Ängste wie auch Depressionen schwächen das bereits belastete Immunsystem zusätzlich und führen zu einer höheren Infektionsanfälligkeit. Das zeigen Forschungsergebnisse des interdisziplinären Forschungsgebiets der Psycho-Neuro-Immunologie (PNI).
Volk hat Recht auf Wahrheit
Um das eigene Leben und das der Familie befriedigend gestalten, Vorsorge für die Zukunft treffen oder als Ehepaar entscheiden zu können, ob man Kinder in die Welt setzen will oder nicht, dafür muss jeder Bürger die wirtschaftlichen, sozialen und politischen Gegebenheiten in seinem Land realistisch einschätzen können. Das kann er aber nicht, wenn ihm die Wahrheit über Vorkommnisse vorenthalten wird, die sein Leben stark beeinträchtigen können. Deshalb ist es eine moralische Verpflichtung all derer, die sich mit dem Problem der Verseuchung des Landes auseinandergesetzt haben – Ärzte, Wissenschaftler, Journalisten, von Kontamination betroffene Militärs und Zivilisten –, die Mitbürger aufzuklären und ihnen beizustehen.
Hinzu kommt, dass die Identität eines Volkes auf dem Recht der Bürger auf Wahrheit und das Wissen um ihre Geschichte gründet. Historiker und Vertreter weiterer Wissenschaften haben dazu einen wichtigen Beitrag zu leisten. Die Auseinandersetzung darf aber nicht ihnen allein überlassen werden. Die Suche nach der Wahrheit und die Aufklärung des Volkes ist auch eine politische Aufgabe, die von politischen Verantwortungsträgern zu lösen ist und unter keinen Umständen von ihnen unterbunden werden darf. Regierung und Parlament haben sich zu positionieren. Wie können Bürger einer Regierung oder Volksvertretung vertrauen, die ihnen die Wahrheit über ein Problem vorenthält, das sie existenziell betrifft?
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Dr. Rudolf Lothar Hänsel ist Schul-Rektor, Erziehungswissenschaftler (Dr. paed.) und Psychologe (Dipl.-Psych.). Nach seinen Universitätsstudien wurde er wissenschaftlicher Lehrer (Professor) in der Erwachsenenbildung: unter anderem Leiter eines freien Schul-Modell-Versuchs und Fortbildner bayerischer Beratungslehrkräfte und Schulpsychologen. Als Pensionär arbeitete er als Psychotherapeut in eigener Praxis. Bei einer Öffentlichen Anhörung zur Jugendkriminalität im Europa-Parlament war er Berichterstatter für Deutschland. In seinen Büchern und Fachartikeln fordert er eine bewusste ethisch-moralische Werteerziehung sowie eine Erziehung zu Gemeinsinn und Frieden. Für seine Verdienste um Serbien bekam er 2021 von den Universitäten Belgrad und Novi Sad den Republik-Preis „Kapitän Misa Anastasijevic“ verliehen.
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Preface
It will pass 33 years since the first post-WWII “democratic and multiparty” elections in all six Yugoslav republics in 1990. Next year, however, not only that this country did not exist anymore but the Yugoslavs have been faced with a civil war as a result of the post-Cold War “democratization process”.
For two decades before 1980, Yugoslavia was prospering with a GDP of 6,1%, a decent standard of living, free medical care, and education guaranteed the right to a job, affordable public transportation housing, and utilities, a literacy rate over 90%, life expectancy 72 years. Most of the economy was in the public not in the profit sector. It was a different case because it had established its form of the social model of economic activity which was the mixed economy with private-sector enterprise and state-run industry. It was considered to be a success story of market socialism (with huge international loans and donations by the West!) it had higher rates of growth than more of the Western countries.
The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia had an advanced welfare state and it was a multiethnic society (it was populated by Serbs, Croats, Slovenians, Bosnian Muslims, Macedonians, Hungarians, Albanians, and many others) which lived in harmony under the communist pressure and dictatorship and, therefore, in many regards it was a (wrong) model of development. The outsider can say that it was something special about this land, and the question is why did people spill so much blood over there in the 1990s? Who was to blame for that?
Before WWII
The Serbs, the most numerous Yugoslav nation, lost their freedom after the Ottoman Turks attacked them in 1389 in the field of Blackbirds which is called Kosovo. The Serbs lost their statehood which lasted several centuries produced a strong encouragement in the myth of Kosovo. For standing up against the Turks Serbs were prosecuted and invented torture devices were implemented. Serbs lived under terrible prosecution, Serbs were wiped, Serbs were lynched except the matter that they were lynched by impalement. It means that the sharp stick is put up in your anus and driven through your body and exits through your back without harming vital organs. The Ottoman Turkish army was an expert in doing it. There was however a way to avoid all this – converge to Islam. And many did, many had no choice. This made a part of the Slavic population Muslim while the rest is Christian Orthodox.
On the other hand, the state religion of the Austrian Empire was Roman Catholic from which the large Croatian population got a great influence. When Austria-Hungary illegally annexed Bosnia-Herzegovina (breaking the decisions of the 1878 Berlin Congress) and a large population fell under it in 1908, the Yugoslav dream (coming from outside of Serbia) was never more threatened. A group of young Yugoslav nationalists called “Young Bosnia” which included Serbs, Croats, and Bosnian Muslims decided that enough is enough. A Bosnian young man Gavrilo Princip (having a Roman Catholic-Latin origin surname) shot and killed the Austrian warmonger-archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo on June 28th, 1914 (the day of the 1389 Kosovo Battle). After he was quoted as saying “I am a Yugoslav nationalist, aiming for the unification of all Yugoslavs, we must be free from Austria” the Austrians used this event as the reason to attack the last Slavic stronghold after Russia: Serbia.
This was, however, not the real reason for the attack. The Austrians and Germans had the plan to expand their common Pan-Germanic Empire in the east and the war was the only way at that time they could do it. During the early period of WWI, a group of Yugoslav politicians fled from Austria-Hungary and formed the Yugoslav Committee in London which was collaborating with the Government of Serbia in exile (in Greece). In July 1916, on the Corfu Island in Greece, the Yugoslav Committee (composed mainly of the Croats) together with the Serbian Government declared that the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenians are “the same by the blood, by the language, by the feelings of their unity, by the integrated territory which they inhabited undividedly, by the common vital interests of their national survival and many developments of the material life.”
It happened to the thing which the Ottoman and the Austrian-Hungarian authorities were afraid of the most. After WWI, the Yugoslavs had a country of their own mainly built on Serbian blood. The interwar royal Yugoslav state was short-lived because another world war came soon in April 1941. In the hope to keep Yugoslavia out of the war, the Yugoslav regent Prince Paul signed the Tripartite Pact with Nazi Germany, fascist Italy, and Imperial Japan on March 25th, 1941. However, British diplomacy did not like such political development in the Balkans and, therefore, they encouraged the anti-German military coup in Belgrade and brought the Serbian people against the pact. The Brits were very happy with the new pro-British Yugoslav Government established on March 27th, 1941 but the Germans were not anymore. A. Hitler decided to wipe Yugoslavia off the map together with Greece. Yugoslavia was attacked from all sides together with Greece on April 6th, 1941.
At that time, Yugoslavia was divided into 12 pieces and some of them went to fascist Italy, some of them to Hungary, some of them to Albania while Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina were united in the Croatian fascist state under the Ustasi regime which was called Independent State of Croatia (concerning its internal affairs, the ISC was, really, independent especially regarding the policy of genocide on the Serbs, Jews, and Roma). Croatian fascists were quick to destroy all the not fascist (i.e., not Croatian) elements in the state primarily the Serbs. And that meant that A. Hitler’s final solution (of the Jewish question) applied here as well (as the final solution of the Serb question). Hundreds of thousands of Serbs (at least 700.000) but also Jews and Roma were killed most of them in the 4th largest concentration camp in Europe called Jasenovac on the Sava River. And one important detail is that the Croatian political fascist regime was fully integrated with the Roman Catholic clergy and even some of the priests (Franciscans) were the heads of the concentration camps and executors.
During the war, there was one real anti-fascist movement, a nationalist Yugoslav Royal Army in the Homeland (the Ravna Gora movement or the Chetniks of General Draža Mihailović) and one quasi anti-fascist movement – the communists (the Partisans) led by Josip Broz Tito (according to V. Molotov, he was a Jew from Odessa). Although when the war began, these two movements cooperated to a certain extent, the mutual conflict soon occurred due to the Partisan’s attacks on the Chetniks followed by the civil war till May 1945. During the second part of the war, the Western allies (especially W. Churchill) betrayed Serbian nationalists and Serbian people by making political trade with J. V. Stalin – in fact, they crucially supported the Yugoslav communists after the Tehran Conference in November 1943.
On November 29th, 1943, J. B. Tito declared a new Yugoslavia and two years later the country was occupied by his partisans who officially called it liberation. Skilled in his political games he was a worldwide accepted leader who was not only a leader but a brand as well and above all the dictator. He was one of the three founders of the non-alignment movement in 1961 (the first conference was in Belgrade) sponsored by the West to play the game of middle ground between great powers, between East and West in international relations during the Cold War.
After WWII
At the end of WWII, the communists conducted the federalization of the new socialist Yugoslavia. After the genocide against the Serbian people who were killed by the nationalist Ustasi movement (the Croats and Bosnian Muslims) in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina and everything that happened during the war, the communists attempted to align it with a policy of national reconciliation in the conditions of a totalitarian regime by establishing a state in which there would be an internal balance of the six federal units. Those were Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro, and Macedonia.
People who lived in these federal units suddenly started to be deemed as different nations according to their republic’s belonging. For example, in Yugoslav Macedonia (there are three parts of historical-geographic Macedonia: the Serbian/Yugoslav, Bulgarian, and Greek) there was a specially developed national consciousness to be Macedonian, as well in Montenegro to be Montenegrin. Moreover, some historically artificial nations within republics became created allegedly on an ethnic basis. For instance, suddenly, 20 years after WWII, the Muslim nation of ethnic Serbs who were Islamized during the 500 years of the Ottoman occupation was formed (however, the Catholic or Orthodox, or Christian nations have not been ever created). Later and today, they gained Bosniak or Bosnian identity primarily based on their religion combined with the republic’s identity. Nevertheless, such division and the increasing power of federal units later in the 1990s demonstrated expulsion and migration of the population to the “mother” countries, and more or less division among the population within the country.
When Josip Broz Tito (officially) died on May 4th, 1980, many Yugoslavs were crying not for him as much as for Yugoslavia itself. His (official) funeral was the largest statesman funeral in recorded history.
Internal tensions in the country, from 1981, grew steadily, reinforced by the economic slowdown and high debt to foreign investors. Debt, inherited from J. B. Tito’s time, was further increased. In 1984, the (USA President at that time) Ronald Reagan’s administration was specifically targeting Yugoslavia’s economy in the secret memo, National Security Directive 133 which stated that the US policy will be promoting the trend towards a market-oriented Yugoslav economy structure. And it was in line with previous decision directives which advocated expanded efforts to promote revolutions to overthrow communist Governments. It triggered the whole series of other initiatives which of course were not published. What the USA wanted is that Yugoslavia quit being a socialist (command) market economy and become a free-market economy, modelled on the Western pattern.
The destruction of the Yugoslav economy
While the Soviet system was starting to collapse in 1980s, Washington wasted no time and was sending advisors to Yugoslavia from the non-profit organization called National Endowment for Democracy (the NED). Allen Weinstein, who planned the NED, told Washington that “a lot what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA”. So the NED became the CIA’s satellite. And what did it do? It started financing opposition groups, young journalists, trade unions, and other pro-open market economists and NGOs. The NED financed the so-called G17 in Serbia – a notorious pro-Western colonial political group.
And who were they? Those were the NGOs made up of 17 free-market economists which after became a political party and had after the Western-sponsored revolution of October 5th, 2000 in their hands Ministry of Finance and Economy. They were working closely with the IMF and the World Bank, and a coordinator of the G17 Plus Professor Veselin Vukotić, who was the minister of privatization in the Yugoslav Government of the (Croat)
PM Ante Marković just before the destruction of Yugoslavia, was in charge of the World Bank’s bankruptcy program for Yugoslavia during 1989 and 1990 which let off the devastation of the Yugoslav economy. So this was not simply a group of economists, it was a network and the IMF and the World Bank use this network to impose their policies on Yugoslavia, or now on Serbia.
And how do they do it? They did it in three stages:
They force the Government to stop subsidizing domestic production (food, medical means), transportation, free medical care, and so on. In other words, you cut public sector spending, you cut wages, cut employment, you abolish working management enterprises, and as a result, you force your people to work harder for lesser.
They use laws to force public (state) businesses to go into bankruptcy. And the World Bank uses this mechanism which is called a trigger, they use this term to describe the process ” to trigger the bankruptcy of the Yugoslav industry”.
Then these businesses are bought from foreign speculators and other interested foreign groups. Creditors could take these businesses during the 45 days and either the businesses are sold (privatized) or canceled. This is called privatization through liquidation! Evidence from the World Bank confirms that under V. Vukotić’s intervention from 1989 till 1990 (still Yugoslavia existed) more than 1100 industrial firms were wiped out!
The standard of living declined by 18% from January to October 1990. At the same time, unemployment rose to 20% and thus increased tension between the Yugoslav republics. So, usually, when you have this kind of unsatisfactions everybody is looking for a guilty party.
When a man has nothing and he is not aware in the existential sense, he clings to those types of ideas that awake the human inside him, and those are usually national or religious stories. Suddenly he feels more important when someone tells him “yes it is their fault, not yours”. In desperation, PM A. Marković visited his bosses in Washington essentially to meet with President Bush Senior, when he said that rising tensions between the Yugoslav republics and nationalities would be a consequence of these austerity measures and privatization plan and he asked for another loan because otherwise there would be troubles.
And we all know that the American administration did not want any trouble in the Balkans so President Bush in November of 1990 went to Congress and pushed them to pass the law which demanded that if any republic of Yugoslavia wanted further US aid, they would have to break away from Yugoslavia and proclaim their independence. It is a public law! It required that republics do not hold national elections but only the elections in their own republics! And when the financial aid went to Yugoslavia, it went only to those parts controlled by radical ultranationalists and even fascist parties (like the HDZ in Croatia or the SDA in Bosnia-Herzegovina) which the USA officially considered as democratic and supported them as such.
The destruction of Yugoslavia was not the result of the preexisting internal divisions. Those internal divisions were exacerbated as the result of an outside (Western) intervention.
By 1991 the inflation was 200%. The central Federal Government of Yugoslavia could not repay the state (public) debt and could not even buy the raw material for domestic industrial production. The economic cooperation between the republics stopped existing. The republics did not get any money from the Federal Government, but neither sent the money from the taxes to the federal budget. As a consequence, the whole fiscal structure soon collapsed. The republics were left at their own “devices” and then it appeared a new form of nationalism. However, the republican political leaders did not work on calming people down, but, actually, they have been doing quite opposite. People were going in the street protesting with the message “do not sacrifice peace for the political aims”.
The political destruction of Bosnia-Herzegovina
The Yugoslav republics on the election in 1990 got the people who were far away from calming down inter-republican economic and political tensions. In Bosnia-Herzegovina, President Alija Izetbegović (who, in fact, lost the elections as being a vice-winner) was propagating the ideas from the 1970 nationalistic Islamic Declaration, as he said, for instance, “there can be neither peace nor coexistence between the Islamic religion and non-Islamic social and political institutions”. He emphasized the percentage of religion over ethnicity. In fact, there was a moment when he could prevent the war when he signed the 1992 Lisbon Agreement which would make Bosnia-Herzegovina a confederation of three ethnic regions (Muslim, Croat, and Serbian).
However, Alija Izetbegović did not like such a solution at all as he wanted whole power for himself and his Bosnian Muslims, and luckily for him, the USA did not like it as well (the Croat and Serb political representatives from Bosnia-Herzegovina agreed about the Lisbon Agreement and signed it). On May 2nd, 1992 Alija Izetbegović was kidnapped at the Sarajevo airport by the Yugoslav People’s Army (the YPA) as he returned from the European Community talks in Lisbon. He is exchanged for the YPA’s prisoners the next day. That weekend (May 2‒3rd, 1992) was up to that time the most violent in both Sarajevo and the rest of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
However, the last US ambassador in Yugoslavia, V. Zimmermann, did not like it much more. As he said “If you don’t like it, why sign it?”, So, after the consultations with him in Belgrade in the US embassy, Alija Izetbegović simply withdraw his signature from the agreement and, therefore, opened a door to the bloody war! The Socialist Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina was constituted as a federal unit in which three ethnic nations were equal: the Serbs, Croats, and Muslims (no majorization). These three groups in Bosnia-Herzegovina were constituents that means in terms of resolving their status outvoting was legally impossible. Bosnia’s secession would be possible only if the political representatives of these three agree on secession, and was legally impossible to agree for the Muslim and the Croatian representatives to overrule the Serbs (what in practice happened). Since they could not agree on the future of Bosnia-Herzegovina, the war started on a dispute in religious terms and territorial division.
Ethnic divisions in Yugoslavia in 1991
As it became clear that the European Community was going to recognize on April 6th, 1992 the independence of Bosnia-Herzegovina proclaimed earlier by Bosnian Muslims and Croats, a night before (between April 5−6th,) in Banja Luka, the Assembly of the Serbian People of Bosnia-Herzegovina declared independence for the Serbs in this ex-Yugoslav republic (the Serbian Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina. The name was changed on August 12th, 1992 into the Republic of Srpska). The next separatists in Bosnia-Herzegovina have been the Roman Catholic Croats who on July 5th, 1992 proclaimed the independence of their controlled region called the Republic of Herzeg-Bosnia (Western Herzegovina), headed by the leader of the ultranationalistic Croatian HDZ party (Croatian Democratic Union) for Bosnia-Herzegovina, Mate Boban, who favored the partition of the republic between Croatia and Serbia (according to the oral agreement by Croatian President Franjo Tuđman and Serbian President Slobodan Milošević reached in Karađorđevo in 1991). The capital of this republic was multiethnic Mostar. Mate Boban was allied with Franjo Tuđman, whereas other Bosnian Croat leaders, including Stjepan Kljuić and Jovan Divjak, opposed F. Tuđman and the declaration for the partition of Bosnia-Herzegovina. However, on July 7th, the Croatian President officially stated he does not support the formation of Herzeg-Bosnia as a Croatian independent state. Rather, he said Herzeg-Bosnia will help administer the area amid wartime chaos while the integrity of Bosnia-Herzegovina formally remained his chief concern.
In the end, after 4 years of civil war on the territory of ex-Yugoslavia, much inspired and fuelled by Washington, the US administration designed the Dayton Peace Accord in December 1995. According to the accord, Bosnia-Herzegovina gained the status of an independent country but was divided into two political entities: the unitary Republic of Srpska (49%) and the ethnically cantonized Muslim-Croat Federation (51%). However, the division lines between these three main ethnic communities still exist today with the constant Croat struggle for the status of the third political entity based on ethnic belonging.
The Bosnian conflict (of 3,5 years) was a tragedy for all those involved – the Muslims/Bosniaks, Serbs, and Croats. However, the international Western focus of guilt was laid overwhelmingly on the Serbian side from the very beginning (Slovenia in June 1991), mainly because the Serbian side presented well-organized armed resistance to the destruction of Yugoslavia in order not to be repeated the genocide over the Serbs from WWII in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina.
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Dr. Vladislav B. Sotirović is a former university professor in Vilnius, Lithuania. He is a Research Fellow at the Center for Geostrategic Studies. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
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The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation this month awarded a $4.8 million grant to a company that sells “smart” face masks for cows.
ZELP, which stands for Zero Emissions Livestock Project, claims its artificial intelligence (AI) mask technology for livestock will reduce methane emissions — considered to be a main greenhouse gas — and curb climate change.
Cows and other ruminant animals emit methane in the process of digesting their food.
The mask goes around the cow’s head and captures the methane gas exhaled by the animal, oxidizing it and then releasing it into the air as carbon dioxide and water vapor, according to ZELP.
It also has sensors that continuously collect millions of data points on the animals that are processed by machine learning algorithms.
“Our AI is trained to detect heat, flag welfare conditions, and identify the most efficient animals with a high-level of accuracy,” ZELP said.
But critics, including third-generation farmer Howard Vlieger, said the Gates-funded venture is illogical and driven by greed.
Vlieger, who advises crop and livestock farmers across the U.S., said, “This is what you would get when you combine greed and stupidity.”
ZELP — which collaborates with the agricultural giant Cargill — makes its money by leasing the smart masks out to farmers and by selling carbon offset credits, Critical Sway said.
“History will show that the vast majority of so-called environmentally beneficial projects like this are going to make Bernie Madoff look like an altar boy,” Vlieger said.
The technology forces farmers “to get addicted to chemicals and chemical fertilizers” that harm the planet and people while reducing natural biodiversity, Shiva said.
Shiva said Gates’ solutions ignore obvious natural remedies for environmental problems, such as the regenerative agriculture practices of managed grazing and natural soil enrichment.
Industrial farming practices — not cows — are the problem
But according to Vlieger, ruminant animals in their natural habitat are not the key drivers of environmental problems.
Source: Children’s Health Defense
“When the settlers worked their way across the plains, there were millions of buffalo,” Vlieger said. “If ruminant animals were the problem, why didn’t we have climate change problems then?”
Techno-fixes like ZELP’s smart masks ignore the issue of where and how the animals graze, Vlieger and others said.
Conventional livestock production — which includes confining large numbers of animals in concentrated animal feeding operations, more commonly known as factory farms — “manipulates pieces of the ecosystem in an effort to maximize production and profits, thereby leading to the complication and expense of dealing with unintended consequences,” according to a 2015 report by the Savory Institute, a regenerative agriculture organization that promotes wholistic management of livestock.
An intact ecosystem effectively balances ruminant methane production and breakdown, the report authors said.
Indeed, researchers — including W. Richard Teague, Ph.D., professor emeritus and grazing ecologist at Texas A&M AgriLife Research & Extension Center — found that with appropriate regenerative crop and grazing management, ruminant animals not only reduce overall greenhouse gas emissions but also provide essential ecosystem services that increase soil carbon sequestration and reduce environmental damage.
Teague and his colleagues said in a 2016 article published in the Journal of Soil and Water Conservation that “to ensure long-term sustainability and ecological resilience of agroecosystems, agricultural production should be guided by policies and regenerative management protocols that include ruminant grazing.”
Allowing cows to open graze “under appropriate management results in more carbon sequestration than emissions,” Teague told Successful Farming.
Grazing systems that are regenerative cause soil microorganisms to increase, which helps drive carbon sequestration and methane oxidization, Teague added.
‘This is wrong in so many ways’
Vlieger said ZELP’s smart mask would generate electromagnetic radiation that could harm the animals.
“Many years ago when the USDA [U.S. Department of Agriculture] was talking about the electronic ID ear tags for cattle, I wrote an article about the dangers of the electromagnetic frequencies — and that was way before we had a fraction of the information that we have today,” he said.
Blogger Tessa Lena also criticized the cow smart mask because it is a step in normalizing “smart” facewear for both animals and humans — something that is “a win-win for all fascists,” she said in a March 14 Substack post.
Lena said:
“It’s a very lucrative ‘product adoption curve for Big Tech — and extremely consistent with how they’ve been going about their ‘product adoption curves’ since day one of the industry’s existence.”
Smart faceware is also “useful to the totalitarian types in the government” and a “treasure trove of yummy ‘new oil’ biometric data for the delight of all fascists,” Lena added.
Her solution?
People must wake up and refuse to do this, she said.
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Suzanne Burdick, Ph.D., is a reporter and researcher for The Defender based in Fairfield, Iowa. She holds a Ph.D. in Communication Studies from the University of Texas at Austin (2021), and a master’s degree in communication and leadership from Gonzaga University (2015). Her scholarship has been published in Health Communication. She has taught at various academic institutions in the United States and is fluent in Spanish.
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***
As Ukraine sinks into collapse from Russia’s invasion the US provoked, the death and destruction has made no dent on Uncle Sam’s inhumane conscience.
A year ago when NATO member Turkey neared a 15 point negotiated settlement, the US and UK each sent a top official to Kyiv not to request, but demand that Ukraine President Zelensky walk away to keep fighting. That grotesque demand led to over 100,000 unnecessary Ukraine deaths over the next year. A third of the Ukraine economy vanished. Six million left Ukraine and another six million relocated.
The US didn’t blow up a negotiated peace to inflict this carnage on Ukraine. They simply wanted, in the words of US war emissary, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, to keep the war going to “weaken Russia”. That was an abomination that should shame every peace loving American.
Today begins US sabotage 2.0 of a new Russo Ukraine peace proposal. Chinese President Xi Jinping arrives in Moscow to meet with Russian President Putin and virtually with Ukraine President Zelensky to possibly negotiate peace. War weary Zelensky expressed openness to Xi’s 12 point peace proposal.
President Biden should be thrilled that peace in the war may be at hand. Instead he’s apoplectic. His national security spokesman John Kirby offered,
“We don’t support calls for a ceasefire right now. We certainly don’t support calls for a ceasefire that would be called for by the PRC in a meeting in Moscow that would simply benefit Russia.”
Once again it’s not about ending a war destroying Ukraine as a functioning state. And God forbid peace be brokered by our other arch enemy China in America’s 21stcentury Cold War that could quickly go nuclear. Outside of the US and Australia, the rest of the world in cheering on China’s peace efforts. Even European NATO countries are likely tho silently on board. They’re not thrilled about the US blowing up the Nord Steam pipeline and tripling their energy costs to degrade Russia.
By preventing a March, 2022 peace agreement, the US blew a chance for an agreement that would have reverted to the pre-invasion territorial lines. An easily prevented year of war means any new peace agreement will likely see the annexation of the Donbas provinces and the Ukrainian oblasts of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.
Once again the US has overplayed its hand, ensuring, it we don’t stumble into nuclear war, the utter ruin of Ukraine and the demise of US unipolar dominance.
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Featured image: Graffiti “Stop War” on Russia’s war in Ukraine in the Mauerpark in Berlin, Germany. Image taken on March 11, 2022. Source: Wikimedia Commons.
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***
The BoerBurgerBeweging (Farmer-Citizen Movement) was founded to represent the interests of Dutch farmers facing severe difficulties or being closed down altogether as a result of Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s efforts to implement European Union-mandated curbs on the use of nitrogen fertilisers, in order to serve the bloc’s climate change green agenda.
Initially a protest movement, the BBB has been involved in many major demonstrations, often involving tractors, in the Netherlands — but it arrived as a political force in the country’s recent regional government elections for the first time, which also determine the make-up of the First Chamber of the States General — the upper house or senate of the Dutch legislature.
As the results of the election become clearer, it now appears to scale of the Farmer-Citizen Movement’s success was greater than polls initially suggested, with it being due to claim 17 seats in the Senate and become by far the largest party there, according to pro-farmer campaigner Eva Vlaardingerbroek.
The precarious four-party coalition government of the supposedly “centre-right” Prime Minister Mark Rutte, meanwhile, appears to have suffered somewhat worse losses than expected, with Vlaardingerbroek suggesting they will be unable to achieve a majority even with the support of the Labour Party and the Greens.
🇳🇱 UPDATE on the Dutch elections!
The final votes have been counted. The BBB (farmers citizens movement) gained a staggering 17 seats and the ruling parties have suffered severe losses and won’t reach a majority – not even with the help of the Green Party + Labour. #DutchFarmerspic.twitter.com/ZQTtB48Riw
Vlaardingerbroek has previously alleged that her country is being used as a “pilot” for a broader agenda, with Prime Minister Rutte “very deeply involved in the World Economic Forum [and] a great proponent of all the ideas laid out in the 2030 Agenda and the Great Reset.”
“It’s all related, all these policies are out of those institutions and they are being implemented in our country first, we are sort of the pilot country together with Canada for this agenda,” she added, lamenting the impact of the scheme on farmers targeted by the EU’s Natura 2000 scheme who have in many cases been tending their land and livestock for generations, but now face being forced out of business by state power.
Some members of the Dutch Cabinet have been giving pause by the bloody nose the BBB inflicted on them in the elections, however, with Wopke Hoekstra, who leads the supposedly Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) party which is in coalition with Prime Minister Rutte’s People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD), warning the government can no longer simply “move on to the order of the day”.
Dutch PM: Hungary Has No Place in EU After LGBT Teaching Law, Bloc Should Force Hungary ‘to Its Knees’ https://t.co/JnkWZ7sJKq
Regardless of the unease on the government benches, however, Dutch politics will not change overnight, given the somewhat labyrinthine mechanism by which the composition of the Dutch Senate is decided.
The Senate’s makeup is determined indirectly by the elections for regional governments — the States-Provincial — whose members then select Senators with the assistance of four electoral colleges representing former Dutch colonies in the Caribbean and Dutch expatriates.
As with U.S. presidential elections, there is a delay between the people casting their votes and their will being implemented by their institutional representatives, but with 99 per cent of votes counted in the provincial elections the seat projections for the formal appointment process for Senators — scheduled for May — are now near-certain to hold true.
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***
While the world’s attention is focused on the US proxy war with Russia in Ukraine, 900 US troops continue to occupy Syria, as they have since 2017 , and 2,000 remain stationed in Iraq, 20 years after the US attacked, overthrew its government, and hung its president. Around 500 have been in Somalia since Biden redeployed them in June 2022.
On March 8, the House and Senate Foreign Relations Committees voted for resolutions to repeal the 1991 and 2002 Authorizations of Military Force (AUMFs) against Iraq, but that was hardly a victory for the antiwar community because US troops remain with the acquiescence of the current Iraqi government, and even so, it’s not clear that the House and Senate will pass the resolutions.
Also on March 8, the House voted down House Concurrent Resolution 21 to withdraw all US troops from Syria within 180 days in accordance with the 1973 War Powers Act, which states that US armed forces cannot be sent to war unless Congress declares war or unless a national emergency is created by attack on the US.
The resolution’s advocates argued that the Authorization for the Use of Military Force passed 22 years ago, after 9/11, does not legally justify ongoing US wars. Opponents of the resolution argued that ISIS remains a threat and the 22-year-old AUMF is still legally valid.
According to the “Costs of War Project” at Brown University, the US has invoked the post-09/11 AUMF as the legal basis for air strikes and operations in eight countries, detention in 1 (Guantanamo, Cuba), and support for “counter terrorism partners” in 13.
Resolution 21
In the debate preceding the vote on Resolution 21, no one mentioned the military industrial motive for continuing the war, but South Carolina Republican Joe Wilson did note that withdrawal would mean losing the Al-Omar oil field, the largest in Syria and the site of the largest US base there. Of course, Wilson didn’t say that would mean returning Syria’s oil to Syria. He said, “Upon withdrawal terrorists will also have unfettered access to the Omar oil field.”
No one pointed out that Article 2(4) of the UN Charter prohibits “the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state,” making the US occupation an international crime, because US officials don’t talk about that. International law is for other nations to obey.
Florida Republican Matt Gaetz explained why he had introduced the resolution:
“Most Americans don’t know a single Syrian. And so people watching this debate might wonder how has it come to be that Syria has become the great platform of great power competition in the world. It begins in 2011, during the Arab Spring, when Assad, who is undeniably a madman, and a despot, opens fire on his own people protesting. Then part of the Syrian army defects, they engage in warfare against Assad, and all of a sudden, they’ve got a whole lot of weapons and money being sent from the rich Gulf monarchies through Jordan, in Syria.
“So Iran is not just going to watch this Assad’s their ally, they activate Hezbollah, they then invade Syria. So now you’ve got Jordan, the Gulf monarchies, Iran, but wait, Russia is pitching their vision of the world as a regime preservation force, whether you’re Maduro or Assad, so they get involved, and what do they get for their time, a warm water port in the eastern Mediterranean.
“So we’ve got Russia, the Gulf monarchies. Israel starts to get worried about Hezbollah and Iran. So Israel cuts a deal with Russia to keep Iran out of southern Syria. And if it doesn’t get any worse than that. Now, all of a sudden, you’ve got the Kurds who declare war on Syria. And it makes it a little messy, that the Kurds are also in conflict with Turkey, which is a NATO ally.
“And then somehow, the United States in 2015 says, ‘You know what, we need to get involved in this mess in Syria.’ And since we’ve been there, we have seen Americans die, we’ve seen 10s of billions of dollars wasted.
And what is hilarious about the 2001 AUMF that the neoconservatives wave around like some permission slip for every neoconservative fantasy of turning an Arabian desert into a Jeffersonian democracy, is that that very 2001 AUMF would justify attacking the people that we’re fighting against, and the people we’re funding, because both have ties to al Qaeda, and of course, the 2001 AUMF dealt with al Qaeda, all this talk about a reemergence of ISIS.
“I would encourage my colleagues to go read the Inspector General’s report of the last quarter that indicates that ISIS is not a threat to the homeland. And with the Turks conducting operations in Syria, against ISIS, with Assad and Russia having every incentive to create pressure on ISIS. I do not believe that what stands between a caliphate and not a caliphate are the 900 Americans who have been sent to this hellscape with no definition of victory, with no clear objective, and purely existing as a vestige to the regime change failed foreign policies of multiple former presidents.”
Montana Democrat, Ryan Zinke, responded that we have to fight ISIS in Syria, or fight them in the streets here:
“But there is no doubt that Syria also remains a center for radical Islamic forces and terrorism, like ISIS, like PKK. These are organizations that will never stop ever. They are committed to destroy this nation and our allies, and we should be aware of their objectives. Lastly, the hard truth is this. Either we fight him in Syria, or we’ll fight them here, either we fight and defeat them in Syria, or we’ll fight in the streets of our nation.”
Gaetz’s argument for withdrawal was hardly ideal, but his response to Zinke was apt:
“My patriotic colleague, Mr. Zinke of Montana gave up the game when he said ISIS will never be gone. So presumably the position of those holding that viewpoint is that we have to stay in Syria forever, maybe make it the 51st state.”
In the most disturbing and ominous moment of the hearing, Florida Republican Anna Polina said we need all the troops we’ve got to go up against China:
“We need to be focusing on his bigger issues like China. Make no mistake if we take China at their word, a peer to peer fight is coming, and it will require 100% of our military.”
The House ultimately voted the resolution down 103 to 321, with 47 Republicans voting yes, 171 no, while 56 Democrats voted yes, 150 no, and 11 congresspersons did not vote. The Democrats’ House Progressive Caucus reportedly endorsed a yes vote, but the caucus claims 101 members, so barely more than half, at best, actually voted for the resolution.
Some resistance to some US wars is better than none, but in Congress, for now, that’s as good as it gets.
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Ann Garrison is a Black Agenda Report Contributing Editor based in the San Francisco Bay Area. In 2014, she received the Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza Democracy and Peace Prizefor her reporting on conflict in the African Great Lakes region. She can be reached at ann(at)anngarrison.com.
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.
“We believe in many of the points on the peace plan put forward by China,” Putin said. Beijing’s proposal calls for the cessation of hostilities and for both sides to resume peace talks.
Putin expressed doubt that Kyiv or its Western backers were ready for negotiations, saying the Chinese proposal could be used as a foundation when “the West and in Kyiv are ready for it.” The Biden administration has come out strongly against China’s mediation efforts, as the White House has said it’s against calls for a ceasefire.
But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is open to discussing the issues with China, and Xi is expected to call him following his trip to Moscow, which wraps up on Wednesday. Zelensky said Tuesday that he has asked Beijing for talks on a “peace formula” for Ukraine.
Zelensky has put forward his own peace proposal, which calls for the withdrawal of Russian troops and for war crimes tribunals.
“We offered China to become a partner in the implementation of the peace formula. We passed over our formula across all channels. We invite you to dialogue. We are waiting for your answer,” Zelensky said.
After holding hours of talks on Tuesday, Putin and Xi put out a joint statement that said China believes Russia is ready to restart peace talks.
“The Chinese side positively assesses the willingness of the Russian side to make efforts to restart peace talks as soon as possible,” the statement said.
The statement also said that Russia welcomes “China’s readiness to play a positive role in a political-diplomatic settlement of the Ukrainian crisis and the constructive ideas set forth in the document drawn up by the Chinese side.”
Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Monday doubled down on the Biden administration’s opposition to a ceasefire, saying the world must “not be fooled” by China’s efforts. The position follows a pattern of the US discouraging peace talks throughout the war.
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Dave DeCamp is the news editor of Antiwar.com, follow him on Twitter @decampdave.
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Tensions are dramatically escalating on the Korean Peninsula, after a series of missile tests from Pyongyang in 2022. The United States and South Korea have responded to these threats with military maneuvers of their own, raising the stakes even further. But this is a recipe for disaster: To avoid an all-out war on the Korean Peninsula, the United States must stop the muscle-flexing, commit to diplomacy instead, and adopt a peace-first strategy.
North Korea’s progress in weapons development should come as no surprise; in 2021, Kim Jong-unannounced that North Korea would expand its nuclear weapon capabilities in order to deter what they perceive as hostility and aggression from the United States. This perception by Pyongyang is a direct result of the Biden administration’s continuation of decades of failed policies—consisting of isolation, sanctions, and military threats—all these dotted with occasional flurries of diplomacy. To have even a chance of halting the expansion of North Korea’s nuclear weapons program and preventing a conflict that crosses the nuclear threshold, the United States must address the root cause of tensions: the unresolved Korean War.
An enduring conflict. While an armistice signed in 1953 halted fighting between the United States and North Korea, the Korean War never legally ended; neither country signed a formal peace agreement. This 70-year state of war has ingrained mutual distrust between North Korea and the United States—which, since North Korea developed nuclear weapons, has cemented even further.
After the United States expanded its nuclear presence in Korea, introducing tactical nuclear weapons to South Korea in 1958, North Korea pursued technology capable of producing weapons-grade plutonium. Tensions boiled over in the 1990s, with North Korea announcing its intention to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in response to United States-South Korea joint military exercises as well as the United States’ push for inspections of suspected military facilities in North Korea. The Agreed Framework of 1994, in which North Korea agreed to freeze its plutonium-production complex in exchange for light-water reactors from the United States, simmered tensions. However, the deal collapsed in 2002 when the Bush administration confrontedNorth Korea over fears of a clandestine uranium enrichment program. North Korea then restarted plutonium production and withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty—leading to its first nuclear test on October 9, 2006.
Since then, time and time again, the United States has insisted on North Korea’s unilateral and complete denuclearization without first reducing tensions and building trust. Continuing to press North Korea to dismantle arguably its most effective deterrent without resolving its underlying contentious relationship with the United States is certain to fail: North Korea will continue to see such demand for unilateral denuclearization as a non-starter in negotiations.
For example, during the first round of the six-party talks in August 2003 (involving belligerents of the Korean War—the United States, South Korea, North Korea, and China—as well as Japan and Russia), the United States rejected North Korea’s calls for normalizing relations and a non-aggression pact. Instead, the United States demanded that North Korea completely dismantle its nuclear arsenal before providing diplomatic or other incentives. To this demand, North Korea’s Vice Foreign Minister Kim Gye-gwan responded, “The United States wants North Korea to drop its pants and be naked and humiliated before the United States is prepared to improve relations. We are technically at war with the United States. You want us to surrender unconditionally.”
During the fifth and sixth rounds of the talks, the United States and North Korea agreed that Pyongyang would “provide a complete and correct declaration of all its nuclear programs” by end of 2007. But once the deadline arrived and the United States inquired about North Korea’s actual number of nuclear weapons, Kim Gye-gwan said, “We’re still technically at war with you. It would be inappropriate for us to discuss weapons with an enemy state.”
Demanding again North Korea’s unilateral denuclearization was also responsible for ending without a deal the 2019 talks in Hanoi between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and US President Donald Trump. North Korea had offered to dismantle all its nuclear production facilities in Yongbyon in exchange for partial sanctions relief. But, maintaining its all-or-nothing stance, the United States countered by demanding that North Korea fully dismantle its nuclear weapons program.
Former US officials who had made progress on freezing North Korea’s nuclear weapons program from 1994 to 2002 agree that security guarantees are necessary for North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons. Former US Secretary of Defense William Perry argued that since North Korea views its nuclear arsenal as a deterrent against a possible US invasion, South Korea and the United States should address North Korea’s security concerns and normalize relations first before seeking its denuclearization. Former Los Alamos National Laboratory director Siegfried Hecker, who visited the Yongbyon nuclear site four times, also said that he believes North Korea “will not give up its weapons and weapons program until its security can be assured.”
Unsustainable status quo. Despite these calls, the Biden administration—like the three US presidential administrations before—remains entangled in the failed policy of up-front denuclearization, like when the US State Department’s Press Secretary Ned Price recently rolled back Under Secretary for Arms Control Bonnie Jenkins’ comments on pursuing an arms control and risk reduction approach to North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. While the administration’s North Korea policy review released in 2021 claims to strike a balance between President Donald Trump’s “grand bargain” diplomacy and President Barack Obama’s “strategic patience” approach, in practice, both approaches maintain the status quo of maximum pressure—through sanctions and military exercises—without putting anything on the negotiating table.
The status quo in US-North Korean relations will only worsen the security of the Korean Peninsula.
Diplomacy is the only option. To truly improve the security of the Korean Peninsula, the Biden administration should trade its bold approach for a strategy of diplomacy toward North Korea. An effective diplomacy must be fourfold. First, the United States should emphasize it is willing to resume diplomacy, focusing on immediate de-escalation of tensions and restoration of communication channels. Second, it should prioritize formally ending the Korean War with a peace agreement with North Korea. Third, the Biden administration should rebuild trust by offering to lift sanctions, especially those that impact the North Korean population. Fourth, it should also take steps to reduce tensions such as scaling down or ceasing joint military exercises with South Korea, especially since joint military exercises do not deter North Korea but rather provoke a cycle of tit-for-tat provocative rhetoric and actions.
Diplomacy has been the most successful method of making progress toward denuclearization. In 1994, the Clinton administration successfully persuaded North Korea to freeze plutonium production at the Yongbyon complex in the Agreed Framework. The 2018-2019 summits between the United States and North Korea resulted in several tension-reducing measures, including the repatriation of US soldiers’ remains, reunions of Korean families separated by the war, landmine clearance in the demilitarized zone, North Korea’s self-imposed moratorium on nuclear and long-range missile testing, and suspension by the United States of joint military exercises with South Korea. However, while past talks aimed solely at North Korea’s denuclearization, future negotiations should instead first address the root cause of the security crisis to build toward longer-lasting agreements and mutual trust.
Amid heightened tensions with other nuclear-armed powers, including Russia and China, the United States must do everything it can to diffuse the situation with North Korea through peaceful and diplomatic means. The potential for escalatory responses heightens the risk of a catastrophic war that would put millions of lives at risk of death, suffering, and displacement. Decades of pressure-based tactics have failed to make progress on North Korea’s denuclearization and only worsened global security. It’s time to try something different.
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Colleen Moore is the director for advocacy at Women Cross DMZ, a non-profit organization of women mobilizing for peace on the Korean Peninsula. Moore is a policy, advocacy, and campaign strategy professional, with expertise in progressive foreign policy and national security, particularly focusing on East Asia, peacebuilding, and nuclear disarmament. She previously held positions at Beyond the Bomb, Global Zero, Win Without War, Seeds of Peace, and East Timor and Indonesia Action Network.
Featured image: US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un shake hands at the Hanoi Summit in Vietnam on February 27, 2019. The summit ended without a deal after the United States demanded again North Korea’s unilateral denuclearization. (Credit: White House)
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***
The politicians and shills in the media who orchestrated 20 years of military debacles in the Middle East, and who seek a world dominated by U.S. power, must be held accountable for their crimes.
Two decades ago, I sabotaged my career at The New York Times. It was a conscious choice. I had spent seven years in the Middle East, four of them as the Middle East Bureau Chief. I was an Arabic speaker. I believed, like nearly all Arabists, including most of those in the State Department and the CIA, that a “preemptive” war against Iraq would be the most costly strategic blunder in American history. It would also constitute what the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg called the “supreme international crime.” While Arabists in official circles were muzzled, I was not. I was invited by them to speak at The State Department, The United States Military Academy at West Point and to senior Marine Corps officers scheduled to be deployed to Kuwait to prepare for the invasion.
Mine was not a popular view nor one a reporter, rather than an opinion columnist, was permitted to express publicly according to the rules laid down by the newspaper. But I had experience that gave me credibility and a platform. I had reported extensively from Iraq. I had covered numerous armed conflicts, including the first Gulf War and the Shi’ite uprising in southern Iraq where I was taken prisoner by The Iraqi Republican Guard. I easily dismantled the lunacy and lies used to promote the war, especially as I had reported on the destruction of Iraq’s chemical weapons stockpiles and facilities by the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) inspection teams. I had detailed knowledge of how degraded the Iraqi military had become under U.S. sanctions. Besides, even if Iraq did possess “weapons of mass destruction” that would not have been a legal justification for war.
The death threats towards me exploded when my stance became public in numerous interviews and talks I gave across the country. They were either mailed in by anonymous writers or expressed by irate callers who would daily fill up the message bank on my phone with rage-filled tirades. Right-wing talk shows, including Fox News, pilloried me, especially after I was heckled and booed off a commencement stage at Rockford College for denouncing the war. The Wall Street Journal wrote an editorial attacking me. Bomb threats were called into venues where I was scheduled to speak. I became a pariah in the newsroom. Reporters and editors I had known for years would lower their heads as I passed, fearful of any career-killing contagion. I was issued a written reprimand by The New York Times to cease speaking publicly against the war. I refused. My tenure was over.
What is disturbing is not the cost to me personally. I was aware of the potential consequences. What is disturbing is that the architects of these debacles have never been held accountable and remain ensconced in power. They continue to promote permanent war, including the ongoing proxy war in Ukraine against Russia, as well as a future war against China.
The politicians who lied to us — George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden to name but a few — extinguished millions of lives, including thousands of American lives, and left Iraq along with Afghanistan, Syria, Somalia, Libya and Yemen in chaos. They exaggerated or fabricated conclusions from intelligence reports to mislead the public. The big lie is taken from the playbook of totalitarian regimes.
Many of these same pundits are pushing further escalation of the war in Ukraine, although most know as little about Ukraine or NATO’s provocative and unnecessaryexpansion to the borders of Russia as they did about Iraq.
“I told myself and others that Ukraine is the most important story of our time, that everything we should care about is on the line there,” George Packer writes in The Atlantic magazine. “I believed it then, and I believe it now, but all of this talk put a nice gloss on the simple, unjustifiable desire to be there and see.”
Packer views war as a purgative, a force that will jolt a country, including the U.S., back to the core moral values he supposedly found amongst American volunteers in Ukraine.
“I didn’t know what these men thought of American politics, and I didn’t want to know,” he writes of two U.S. volunteers. “Back home we might have argued; we might have detested each other. Here, we were joined by a common belief in what the Ukrainians were trying to do and admiration for how they were doing it. Here, all the complex infighting and chronic disappointments and sheer lethargy of any democratic society, but especially ours, dissolved, and the essential things — to be free and live with dignity — became clear. It almost seemed as if the U.S. would have to be attacked or undergo some other catastrophe for Americans to remember what Ukrainians have known from the start.”
The Iraq war cost at least $3 trillion and the 20 years of warfare in the Middle East cost a total of some $8 trillion. The occupation created Shi’ite and Sunni death squads, fueled horrific sectarian violence, gangs of kidnappers, mass killings and torture. It gave rise to al-Qaeda cells and spawned ISIS which at one point controlled a third of Iraq and Syria. ISIS carried out rape, enslavement and mass executions of Iraqi ethnic and religious minorities such as the Yazidis. It persecuted Chaldean Catholics and other Christians. This mayhem was accompanied by an orgy of killing by U.S. occupation forces, such as as the gang rape and murder of Abeer al-Janabi, a 14-year-old girl and her family by members of the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne. The U.S. routinely engaged in the torture and execution of detained civilians, including at Abu Ghraib and Camp Bucca.
There is no accurate count of lives lost, estimates in Iraq alone range from hundreds of thousands to over a million. Some 7,000 U.S. service members died in our post 9/11 wars, with over 30,000 later committing suicide, according to Brown University’s Costs of War project.
Yes, Saddam Hussein was brutal and murderous, but in terms of a body count, we far outstripped his killings, including his genocidal campaigns against the Kurds. We destroyed Iraq as a unified country, devastated its modern infrastructure, wiped out its thriving and educated middle class, gave birth to rogue militias and installed a kleptocracy that uses the country’s oil revenues to enrich itself. Ordinary Iraqis are impoverished. Hundreds of Iraqis protesting in the streets against the kleptocracy have been gunned down by police. There are frequent power outages. The Shi’ite majority, closely allied with Iran, dominates the country.
The occupation of Iraq, beginning 20 years ago today, turned the Muslim world and the Global South against us. The enduring images we left behind from two decades of war include President Bush standing under a “Mission Accomplished” banner onboard the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier barely one month after he invaded Iraq, the bodies of Iraqis in Fallujah that were burned with white phosphorus and the photos of torture by U.S. soldiers.
The U.S. is desperately attempting to use Ukraine to repair its image. But the rank hypocrisy of calling for “a rules-based international order” to justify the $113 billion in arms and other aid that the U.S. has committed to send to Ukraine, won’t work. It ignores what we did. We might forget, but the victims do not. The only redemptive path is charging Bush, Cheney and the other architects of the wars in the Middle East, including Joe Biden, as war criminals in the International Criminal Court. Haul Russian President Vladimir Putinoff to The Hague, but only if Bush is in the cell next to him.
Many of the apologists for the war in Iraq seek to justify their support by arguing that “mistakes” were made, that if, for example, the Iraqi civil service and army were not disbanded after the U.S. invaded, the occupation would have worked. They insist that our intentions were honorable. They ignore the hubris and lies that led to the war, the misguided belief that the U.S. could be the sole major power in a unipolar world. They ignore the massive military expenditures spent annually to achieve this fantasy. They ignore that the war in Iraq was only an episode in this demented quest.
A national reckoning with the military fiascos in the Middle East would expose the self-delusion of the ruling class. But this reckoning is not taking place. We are trying to wish the nightmares we perpetuated in the Middle East away, burying them in a collective amnesia. “World War III Begins With Forgetting,” warns Stephen Wertheim.
The celebration of our national “virtue” by pumping weapons into Ukraine, by sustaining at least 750 military bases in more than 70 countries and by expanding our naval presence in the South China Sea, is meant to fuel this dream of global dominance.
What the mandarins in Washington fail to grasp is that most of the globe does not believe the lie of American benevolence or support its justifications for U.S. interventions. China and Russia, rather than passively accepting U.S. hegemony, are building up their militaries and strategic alliances. China, last week, brokered an agreement between Iran and Saudi Arabia to re-establish relations after seven years of hostility, something once expected of U.S. diplomats. The rising influence of China creates a self-fulfilling prophecy for those who call for war with Russia and China, one that will have consequences far more catastrophic than those in the Middle East.
There is a national weariness with permanent war, especially with inflation ravaging family incomes and 57 percent of Americans unable to afford a $1,000 emergency expense. The Democratic Party and the establishment wing of the Republican Party, who peddled the lies about Iraq, are war parties. Donald Trump’s call to end the war in Ukraine, like his lambasting of the war in Iraq as the “worst decision” in American history, are attractive political stances to Americans struggling to stay afloat. The working poor, even those whose options for education and employment are limited, are no longer as inclined to fill the ranks. They have far more pressing concerns than a unipolar world or war with Russia or China. The isolationism of the far right is a potent political weapon.
The pimps of war, leaping from fiasco to fiasco, cling to the chimera of U.S. global supremacy. The dance macabre will not stop until we publicly hold them accountable for their crimes, ask those we have wronged for forgiveness and give up our lust for uncontested global power. The day of reckoning, vital if we are to protect what is left of our anemic democracy and curb the appetites of the war machine, will only come when we build mass anti-war organizations that demand an end to the imperial folly threatening to extinguish life on the planet.
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Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist who was a foreign correspondent for fifteen years for The New York Times, where he served as the Middle East Bureau Chief and Balkan Bureau Chief for the paper. He previously worked overseas for The Dallas Morning News, The Christian Science Monitor, and NPR. He is the host of show The Chris Hedges Report.
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In April 1953, newly elected President Dwight D. Eisenhower, a retired five-star Army general who had led the landings on D-Day in France in June 1944, gave his most powerful speech. It would become known as his “Cross of Iron” address. In it, Ike warned of the cost humanity would pay if Cold War competition led to a world dominated by wars and weaponry that couldn’t be reined in. In the immediate aftermath of the death of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, Ike extended an olive branch to the new leaders of that empire. He sought, he said, to put America and the world on a “highway to peace.” It was, of course, never to be, as this country’s emergent military-industrial-congressional complex (MICC) chose instead to build a militarized (and highly profitable) highway to hell.
Image: President Dwight D. Eisenhower (National Archives)
Eight years later, in his famous farewell address, a frustrated and alarmed president called out “the military-industrial complex,” prophetically warning of its anti-democratic nature and the disastrous rise of misplaced power that it represented. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry, fully engaged in corralling, containing, and constraining it, he concluded, could save democracy and bolster peaceful methods and goals.
The MICC’s response was, of course, to ignore his warning, while waging a savage war on communism in the name of containing it. In the process, atrocious conflicts would be launched in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia as the contagion of war spread. Threatened with the possibility of peace in the aftermath of the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991, the MICC bided its time with operations in Iraq (Desert Storm), Bosnia, and elsewhere, along with the expansion of NATO, until it could launch an unconstrained Global War on Terror in the aftermath of the attacks of September 11, 2001. Those “good times” (filled with lost wars) lasted until 2021 and the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Not to be deterred by the fizzling of the nightmarish war on terror, the MICC seized on a “new cold war” with China and Russia, which only surged when, in 2022, Vladimir Putin so disastrously invaded Ukraine (as the U.S. had once invaded Afghanistan and Iraq). Yet again, Americans were told that they faced implacable foes that could only be met with overwhelming military power and, of course, the funding that went with it — again in the name of deterrence and containment.
In a way, in 1953 and later in 1961, Ike, too, had been urging Americans to launch a war of containment, only against an internal foe: what he then labeled for the first time “the military-industrial complex.” For various reasons, we failed to heed his warnings. As a result, over the last 70 years, it has grown to dominate the federal government as well as American culture in a myriad of ways. Leaving aside funding where it’s beyond dominant, try movies, TV shows, video games, education, sports, you name it. Today, the MICC is remarkably uncontained. Ike’s words weren’t enough and, sadly, his actions too often conflicted with his vision (as in the CIA’s involvement in a coup in Iran in 1953). So, his worst nightmare did indeed come to pass. In 2023, along with much of the world, America does indeed hang from a cross of iron, hovering closer to the brink of nuclear war than at any time since the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962.
Updating Ike’s Cross of Iron Speech for Today
Perhaps the most quoted passage in that 1953 speech addressed the true cost of militarism, with Ike putting it in homespun, easily grasped, terms. He started by saying, “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.” (An aside: Can you imagine Donald Trump, Joe Biden, or any other recent president challenging Pentagon spending and militarism so brazenly?)
Ike then added:
“This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.”
He concluded with a harrowing image: “This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.”
Ike’s cost breakdown of guns versus butter, weapons versus civilian goods, got me thinking recently: What would it look like if he could give that speech today? Are we getting more bang for the military megabucks we spend, or less? How much are Americans sacrificing to their wasteful and wanton god of war?
Let’s take a closer look. A conservative cost estimate for one of the Air Force’s new “heavy” strategic nuclear bombers, the B-21 Raider, is $750 million. A conservative estimate for a single new fighter plane, in this case the F-35 Lightning II, is $100 million. A single Navy destroyer, a Zumwalt-class ship, will be anywhere from $4 to $8 billion, but let’s just stick with the lower figure. Using those weapons, and some quick Internet sleuthing, here’s how Ike’s passage might read if he stood before us now:
“The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick-veneer and reinforced concrete school in 75 cities. It is five electric power plants, each serving a town with 60,000 inhabitants. It is five fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some 150 miles of pavement. We pay for a single fighter plane with more than 12 million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 64,000 people.”
(Quick and dirty figures for the calculations above: $10 million per elementary school; $150 million per power plant [$5,000/kilowatt for 30,000 homes]; $150 million per hospital; $5 million per new mile of road; $8 per bushel of wheat; $250,000 per home for four people.)
Grim stats indeed! Admittedly, those are just ballpark figures, but taken together they show that the tradeoff between guns and butter — bombers and jet fighters on the one hand, schools and hospitals on the other — is considerably worse now than in Ike’s day. Yet Congress doesn’t seem to care, as Pentagon budgets continue to soar irrespective of huge cost overruns and failed audits (five in a row!), not to speak of failed wars.
Without irony, today’s MICC speaks of “investing” in weapons, yet, unlike Ike in 1953, today’s generals, the CEOs of the major weapons-making corporations, and members of Congress never bring up the lost opportunity costs of such “investments.” Imagine the better schools and hospitals this country could have today, the improved public transportation, more affordable housing, even bushels of wheat, for the cost of those prodigal weapons and the complex that goes with them. And perish the thought of acknowledging in any significant way how so many of those “investments” have failed spectacularly, including the Zumwalt-class destroyers and the Navy’s Freedom-class littoral combat ships that came to be known in the Pentagon as “little crappy ships.”
Speaking of wasteful warships, Ike was hardly the first person to notice how much they cost or what can be sacrificed in building them. In his prescient book The War in the Air, first published in 1907, H.G. Wells, the famed author who had envisioned an alien invasion of Earth in The War of the Worlds, denounced his own epoch’s obsession with ironclad battleships in a passage that eerily anticipated Ike’s powerful critique:
The cost of those battleships, Wells wrote, must be measured by:
“The lives of countless men… spent in their service, the splendid genius and patience of thousands of engineers and inventors, wealth and material beyond estimating; to their account we must put stunted and starved lives on land, millions of children sent to toil unduly, innumerable opportunities of fine living undeveloped and lost. Money had to be found for them at any cost—that was the law of a nation’s existence during that strange time. Surely they were the weirdest, most destructive and wasteful megatheria in the whole history of mechanical invention.”
Little could he imagine our own era’s “wasteful megatheria.” These days, substitute nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles, strategic bombers, aircraft carriers, and similar “modern” weapons for the ironclads of his era and the sentiment rings at least as true as it did then. (Interestingly, all those highly touted ironclads did nothing to avert the disaster of World War I and had little impact on its murderous course or ponderous duration.)
Returning to 1953, Eisenhower didn’t mince words about what the world faced if the iron cross mentality won out: at worst, nuclear war; at best, “a life of perpetual fear and tension; a burden of arms draining the wealth and labor of all peoples; a wasting of strength that defies the American system, or the Soviet system, or any system to achieve true abundance and happiness for the peoples of this earth.”
Ike’s worst-case scenario grows ever more likely today. Recently, Russia suspended the START treaty, the final nuclear deal still in operation, that oversaw reductions in strategic nuclear weapons. Instead of reductions, Russia, China, and the United States are now pursuing staggering “modernization” programs for their nuclear arsenals, an effort that may cost the American taxpayer nearly $2 trillion over the coming decades (though even such a huge sum matters little if most of us are dead from nuclear war).
In any case, the United States in 2023 clearly reflects Ike’s “cross of iron” scenario. It’s a country that’s become thoroughly militarized and so is slowly wasting away, marked increasingly by fear, deprivation, and unhappiness.
It’s Never Too Late to Change Course
Only Americans, Ike once said, can truly hurt America. Meaning, to put the matter in a more positive context, only we can truly help save America. A vital first step is to put the word “peace” back in our national vocabulary.
“The peace we seek,” Ike explained 70 years ago, “founded upon a decent trust and cooperative effort among nations, can be fortified, not by weapons of war but by wheat and by cotton, by milk and by wool, by meat and timber and rice. These are words that translate into every language on earth. These are the needs that challenge this world in arms.”
The real needs of humanity haven’t changed since Ike’s time. Whether in 1953 or 2023, more guns won’t serve the cause of peace. They won’t provide succor. They’ll only stunt and starve us, to echo the words of H.G. Wells, while imperiling the lives and futures of our children.
This is no way of life at all, as Ike certainly would have noted, were he alive today.
Which is why the federal budget proposal released by President Biden for 2024 was both so painfully predictable and so immensely disappointing. Calamitously so. Biden’s proposal once again boosts spending on weaponry and war in a Pentagon budget now pegged at $886 billion. It will include yet more spending on nuclear weapons and envisions only further perpetual tensions with “near-peer” rivals China and Russia.
This past year, Congress added $45 billion more to that budget than even the president and the Pentagon requested, putting this country’s 2023 Pentagon budget at $858 billion. Clearly, a trillion-dollar Pentagon budget is in our collective future, perhaps as early as 2027. Perish the thought of how high it could soar, should the U.S. find itself in a shooting war with China or Russia (as the recent Russian downing of a U.S. drone in the Black Sea brought to mind). And if that war were to go nuclear…
The Pentagon’s soaring war budget broadcast a clear and shocking message to the world. In America’s creed, blessed are the warmakers and those martyrs crucified on its cross of iron.
This was hardly the message Ike sought to convey to the world 70 years ago this April. Yet it’s the message the MICC conveys with its grossly inflated military budgets and endless saber-rattling.
Yet one thing remains true today: it’s never too late to change course, to order an “about-face.” Sadly, lacking the wisdom of Dwight D. Eisenhower, such an order won’t come from Joe Biden or Donald Trump or Ron DeSantis or any other major candidate for president in 2024. It would have to come from us, collectively. It’s time to wise up, America. Together, it’s time to find an exit ramp from the highway to hell that we’ve been on since 1953 and look for the on-ramp to Ike’s highway to peace.
And once we’re on it, let’s push the pedal to the metal and never look back.
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William J. Astore, a retired lieutenant colonel (USAF) and professor of history, is a TomDispatch regular and a senior fellow at the Eisenhower Media Network (EMN), an organization of critical veteran military and national security professionals. His personal substack is Bracing Views.
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Introduction to the topic
It is becoming increasingly difficult to find one’s way through the jungle of lies and half-truths. More and more contemporaries therefore do not want to hear anything more from politicians. Personally, the alternative media keep me “afloat” because they still “pay tribute to the truth” due to their independence from government.
But since we cannot assume that “free spirits” will teach us each what is truth and what is a lie, we should be able to distinguish between them ourselves. We must learn to think for ourselves (Kant). Hence the attempt at a psychological approach to the subject. Also worth mentioning is Dr Garcia’s article “Lies, damned lies and elephants” (1).
The 20th anniversary of the start of the war of aggression against Iraq by the USA, Great Britain and a “coalition of the willing” in violation of international law is certainly an appropriate occasion to raise awareness about the destructive effects of political lies and manipulation.
However, the following will not only deal with violence as the ultima ratio of politics, but more generally with the destructive effects of lies and manipulation on the human soul and human relationships, and with truth as an “antidote”.
The information and cultural values that parents and educators pass on to the child on a daily basis are of great importance for building trust in fellow human beings.
The image of man of the Christian occidental culture says that man – even the small child – carries bad qualities within himself. The educators approach the child with this information – whether consciously or unconsciously. They always suspect ill will in the child and are therefore often insincere, strict and violent. This makes the child afraid of the other person.
When the child learns to be afraid, this permeates all his actions, how he moves and gives himself in the community. The emotional reaction of fear then becomes a component of his character, which he carries into adulthood more or less consciously into every interpersonal relationship.
Trust in fellow human beings – the foundation of a personality – also develops in the relationship with the persons of childhood. Since the human being is the product of the experiences and impressions that parents, teachers and educators impart to him or her from earliest childhood, what kind of information and what culturally prevailing values they pass on to the child are decisive.
If the child is unsettled and deceived by untruthful information and/or confusing lies, it will distance itself from fellow human beings. Trust in the other person can only develop if he or she can rely on his or her honesty.
Dear readers, allow me to draw your attention in this context to the unfavourable effects of religious education on the child’s soul: it is about non-existent spirits, devils and angels.
No sooner does the child show its first spiritual impulses and learn to speak than it is “taken into care” by the parents and the church. A few years later, when the consciousness of the “I” is formed, the god and devil of the respective religion already intervene. The child’s belief in demons is crystallised in the ideas of the devil and hell. According to psychiatrists, anxiety neuroses and severe mental disorders are sometimes the result.
“Psychological operations” in the overall social space
A lie is a statement that the liar knows or suspects to be untrue. He utters it with the intention that the receiver will believe it. Manipulating another person is also a deception. It is used to gain an advantage and means the deliberate and covert influence or control of the experience and behaviour of individuals or groups, which is intended to remain hidden from them.
As early as 500 years ago, Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527) wrote “Il Principe”, one of the first works of modern political philosophy. On this, the Swiss psychologist Dr Barben writes:
“For Machiavelli, power and fame meant everything, goodness and humanity meant nothing. He praised as powerful and successful those despots ‘who were not scrupulous about loyalty and knew how to ensnare people by cunning’. A ruler, he wrote, must ‘display mildness, loyalty, humanity, honesty and piety’, but if necessary brutally ‘turn these qualities into their opposite’. Nor should he ‘shrink from evil’ and must be able to ‘twist and turn according to the wind'” (2).
But these ancient and crude methods of the political manipulator Machiavelli were to disappear with time. That is why American “spin-doctors” used soft power after the fall of the Berlin Wall. A “spin doctor” is a communications expert who works to ensure that, for example, the public understands a statement or decision in a way that is advantageous to the client or politician (3).
This form of propaganda was more discreet, subtle and “pleasing” compared to the communist methods. Joseph S. Ney, US government advisor and Harvard professor described it as “an excellent tool for getting the world to ‘voluntarily’ do what America wanted” (4). With soft power, it was possible to shape public opinion in a way that mere propaganda never could. But that was not enough!
In order to improve “communication”, that is, to “optimise” the opinion of world public opinion especially in times of war, the “Psy-Op” group of the US Army was strengthened by tens of thousands of personnel and cooperation with Hollywood studios was intensified. “Psy-Op” is to be called “psychological operation” instead of the formerly ugly term “psychological warfare”. However, Larry Dietz, a senior US military officer specialising in psychological warfare, defined “PsyOp” thus:
“Psychological operations are an additional weapon system to accomplish a mission ordered by a military commander. (…). The aim of PsyOp is to influence the behaviour (of targets) in the sense of the military command.” (5) See also the article by Alan Lash: “Psyops are not new, just more dangerous” (6).
Drawing again on Leo Tolstoy’s (1828-1910) famous quote about the character of rulers, and learning that politicians are “the most mendacious of men”, one wonders why we citizens hand over power to them so lightly:
“One could still justify the subordination of an entire people to a few people if those in power were the best people; but that is not the case, has never been the case and can never be the case. The worst, most insignificant, most cruel, most immoral and especially the most mendacious people often rule. And that this is so is no accident.” (7)
The question of war is also a general cultural question, which reminds us that our entire culture is permeated by the principle of violence and therefore also falls again and again into the error of being able to solve national problems by the method of violence, that is, war. Everywhere, power is placed above human solidarity and a sense of community.
Another target group of ‘PsyOp’ are children and adolescents – a particularly sinister chapter. On this, Dr Barben writes:
“To increase kill rates in military operations, the Pentagon uses simulators on which routine killing is practised. These are used to train soldiers to overcome their natural inhibition to kill. They practise killing as many people as possible quickly and automatically. A few years ago, the Pentagon signed contracts with Hollywood. The film and entertainment industry gave the military killing simulators an ‘attractive’ design and marketed them as ‘children’s games’ “. (8)
In reality, these ‘games’ have exactly the same effect on children and young people as they do on soldiers. According to the US military psychologist Dave Grossman, they get people used to killing and brutalise their feelings (9).
On the subject of “killer games”, the author, together with recognised university professors, military scientists, youth psychiatrists, home directors and affected high school students, wrote two handouts for parents and teachers: “Da spiel ich nicht mit!” (I’m not playing!) (10) and “Game OVER!” (11). Both deal with the effects of this so-called “entertainment violence” in television, video and computer games – and what can be done about it.
When will the human conscience finally make itself heard?
The most effective antidote to lies and manipulation is the truth respectively its dissemination. But we cannot yet say when the human conscience, whose warning cry has rung through the centuries, will finally make itself heard in order to expose the terrible error of imperiousness.
Nor do we know when the conscience of humanity will proclaim the so-called “absolute truth” that human beings belong together and are under the law to work together and join hands. There is no doubt, however, that the existence of the human race will depend on people professing all-human solidarity to a far greater extent than they have done so far.
To this day, discord is sown among those who would depend on uniting against the forces of nature and ensuring a tolerable existence for all people on this earth, and they are also lied to “through their teeth”.
Thus, the prerogative of the rulers and the delusion of the ruled make possible time and again relapses into the warlike mentality that causes unspeakable suffering in the lives of individuals and peoples alike. At the same time, there is shameless talk of the “ethos of war”, in which the noblest virtues of man such as courage and renunciation, loyalty to duty and willingness to make sacrifices would unfold.
Enlightenment and education as the most important measures against lies, manipulation and war.
History is a work of man. If you want to change this world, you have to change man. Accordingly, enlightenment and education are the most promising measures that can be taken against war, manipulation and lies.
Of course, parents and educators should urge children to always stick to the truth. And if one does not yet know it, one should invite the other to explore it together. It is also essential that adults always set an example of honesty and truthfulness to the children.
Lies and manipulation respect neither the dignity nor the equality of human beings. They violate conscience and the commandment of brotherhood. By degrading fellow human beings to objects of manipulation, they do not respect them as equal partners.
Those who have the honest intention to inform may be mistaken, but they feel committed to the truth. He wants to communicate something true to the other person. In doing so, he does not pursue a secret purpose which he hides from the other.
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Dr. Rudolf Lothar Hänsel is a school rector, educational scientist and graduate psychologist. After his university studies, he became an academic teacher in adult education. As a retiree he worked as a psychotherapist in his own practice. In his books and professional articles, he calls for a conscious ethical-moral education in values as well as an education for public spirit and peace. In 2021, he was awarded the Republic Prize “Captain Misa Anastasijevic” by the Universities of Belgrade and Novi Sad for services to Serbia.
(7) Tolstoy, Leo N. (1968). Speech against war. Frankfurt a. M., p. 74
(8) Barben, Judith (2009). Spin doctors in the Federal Parliament. CH-5401 Baden, p. 41f.
(9) op. cit., p. 42
(10) Hänsel, Rudolf and Renate (eds.) (2005). I won’t play along! Effects of “entertainment violence” in television, video and computer games – and what to do about it. Donauwörth
(11) Hänsel, Rudolf (2011). GAME OVER! How killer games manipulate our youth. Berlin
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***
A 22 year old University of Georgia student, Liza Burke, was hospitalized after experiencing a brain hemorrhage while on spring break in Mexico, according to those who know her. (click here)
Liza Burke, a UGA senior, was in Cabo San Lucas with a “big group of friends” for her “last spring break” when, on March 10, she complained of a headache at breakfast.
“A few hours later, her friends called the doctor because they couldn’t wake her. She was immediately rushed to the hospital where she was diagnosed with Arteriovenous malformation (AVM) which cause her brain to hemorrhage”
The Mayo Clinic describes AVM as “a tangle of blood vessels that irregularly connects arteries and veins, disrupting blood flow and oxygen circulation.”
Burke underwent emergency surgery to remove part of her skull and was placed on life support.
With the help of the more than $138,000 raised, she was placed on a medical flight on Tuesday and returned to the US, where she was transported to Jacksonville, Florida, where her mother lives, and is being treated at the Mayo Clinic.
South Korea reports brain AVM rupture & bleed in a 28 yo woman post 1st Pfizer COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine dose
I’ve seen many people comment that Liza Burke’s brain bleed couldn’t possibly be caused by COVID-19 vaccines, since AVMs are congenital malformations. But this is an error in not understanding the interactions between jabs and AVMs.
In Feb.2022, South Korean doctors reported a case of a 28 yo woman who had her 1st Pfizer COVID-19 mRNA vaccine dose and 4 days later developed severe headaches, with a CT showing a brain bleed and an angiogram showing an AVM (click here).
She underwent surgical treatment for AVM nidus removal with hematoma evacuation.
The Korean authors note: “As of the publication of this paper, 5 Japanese individuals died of brain bleed post Pfizer mRNA vaccination, 4 of them women.” The authors express concerns about this.
As for the mechanism of how COVID-19 vaccines can damage AVMs and cause them to bleed:
“enhanced systemic inflammation is believed to be the pathogenic mechanism directly or indirectly related to abnormal vessel injury caused by the vaccine. Direct endothelial damage induced by the COVID-19 vaccine can lead to the development of vasculitis, whereas inflammation and extracellular matrix remodeling following vaccination may result in AVM growth and rupture.”
“Recruitment of neutrophils and macrophages to the site of injury can increase the concentrations of leukocyte-derived metalloproteinases, which can damage the vessel walls of AVMs and lead to their rupture”
In short, COVID-19 mRNA vaccines cause inflammation and damage of blood vessels, including congenital AVMs, which can lead to their rupture and bleeding.
My take on brain aneurysms vs AVMs
I just published a substack article about COVID-19 mRNA vaccines damaging blood vessel walls which leads to the formation of aneurysms that can be fatal when they rupture. Women are disproportionately dying from ruptured aneurysms. (click here)
AVM is a weak spot in the blood vessels that you’re born with. If COVID-19 mRNA vaccines can damage blood vessel walls anywhere in the body, they can also damage AVMs. That weak spot, once inflamed, is then at risk for rupture and bleeding.
The underlying mechanism of COVID-19 vaccine damage is the same, whether it is an aneurysm or AVM.
Interestingly, the US VAERS Database contains numerous cases of AVMs bleeding following Pfizer or Moderna COVID-19 mRNA vaccination. (click here)
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Dr. William Makis is a Canadian physician with expertise in Radiology, Oncology and Immunology. Governor General’s Medal, University of Toronto Scholar. Author of 100+ peer-reviewed medical publications.
Featured image is from the author
The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity
by Michel Chossudovsky
Michel Chossudovsky reviews in detail how this insidious project “destroys people’s lives”. He provides a comprehensive analysis of everything you need to know about the “pandemic” — from the medical dimensions to the economic and social repercussions, political underpinnings, and mental and psychological impacts.
“My objective as an author is to inform people worldwide and refute the official narrative which has been used as a justification to destabilize the economic and social fabric of entire countries, followed by the imposition of the “deadly” COVID-19 “vaccine”. This crisis affects humanity in its entirety: almost 8 billion people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings and our children worldwide. Truth is a powerful instrument.”
ISBN: 978-0-9879389-3-0, Year: 2022, PDF Ebook, Pages: 164, 15 Chapters
Comments Off on Georgia College Student on Life Support with Brain Bleed After Trip to Mexico. Just Like Brain Aneurysms, AVMs Are Also at Risk for Rupture & Bleed from Pfizer & Moderna COVID-19 mRNA Vaccines
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***
As the Empire of Lies celebrates the International Criminal Court issuing an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin, let’s revisit who the ICC really works for.
Watch war criminal John Bolton threaten to arrest ICC judges and go after their finances if they or any organization or company assist the ICC in taking any action against American war criminals:
I asked ChatGPT about the war crimes of American leaders and the following is what it returned…
Henry Kissinger
Henry Kissinger, a former U.S. Secretary of State, has been accused of being involved in several war crimes during his time in office. Here are some of the main allegations against him:
The bombing of Cambodia: Kissinger played a key role in the secret bombing campaign in Cambodia during the Vietnam War, which led to the deaths of thousands of civilians. The bombing was carried out without the knowledge or approval of Congress or the American public.
Chilean coup and Operation Condor: Kissinger supported the 1973 coup in Chile that overthrew the democratically-elected government of President Salvador Allende and led to the establishment of a military dictatorship under General Augusto Pinochet. Kissinger also allegedly played a role in the creation of Operation Condor, a coordinated campaign of political repression and state terror carried out by several South American military dictatorships in the 1970s and 1980s.
East Timor invasion: Kissinger gave tacit approval to the Indonesian invasion of East Timor in 1975, which led to the deaths of up to 200,000 people. The invasion was widely condemned by the international community as a violation of international law.
Assassination plots: Kissinger has been accused of involvement in several assassination plots against foreign leaders, including Chilean General Rene Schneider and Cuban leader Fidel Castro.
Preparing for a visit to paedo island.
Bill Clinton
NATO and Bill Clinton have been accused of various war crimes during the conflict in the Balkans in the 1990s. Here are some of the main allegations:
The bombing of civilian targets: NATO carried out a bombing campaign against Serbia and Montenegro in 1999, which included the targeting of civilian infrastructure such as bridges, power plants, and factories. The bombing led to significant civilian casualties and displacement.
Depleted uranium weapons: NATO forces used depleted uranium weapons during the conflict, which can cause long-term health problems and environmental damage.
Failure to prevent ethnic cleansing: Some critics have argued that NATO and Clinton did not do enough to prevent ethnic cleansing and other atrocities committed by Serb forces in Bosnia and Kosovo.
Violation of international law: Some legal experts and human rights groups have argued that the NATO bombing campaign violated international law, particularly with respect to the principles of proportionality and distinction between civilian and military targets.
Bill Clinton, as the President of the United States, oversaw the implementation of economic sanctions against Iraq in the 1990s. The sanctions restricted Iraq’s ability to import goods and conduct international trade, leading to shortages of food, medicine, and other essential supplies.
Some estimates suggest that the sanctions contributed to the deaths of half a million Iraqi civilians, including many children. The sanctions were lifted in 2003, following the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
Dick Cheney
There are a number of allegations and criticisms regarding Dick Cheney’s actions as Vice President of the United States during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Some of the most significant accusations include his role in:
Promoting the invasion of Iraq in 2003, which was based on faulty intelligence and led to the deaths of thousands of Iraqi civilians and US military personnel.
Authorizing the use of enhanced interrogation techniques, such as waterboarding, that are widely considered to be torture and violate international law.
Ignoring or condoning human rights abuses committed by US military personnel and contractors, such as the abuse and torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
Advocating for expanded executive powers and limiting congressional oversight in matters of national security, which some critics argue undermined democratic norms and principles.
While Cheney has defended his actions and argued that they were necessary to protect US national security, his record is controversial and has been subject to significant criticism from human rights groups, legal scholars, and others.
There is evidence to suggest that DU contamination in Iraq has had negative health effects on the civilian population. Studies have shown that DU exposure can lead to long-term health problems, including cancer, birth defects, and other illnesses. A 2013 report by the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health found that DU contamination was present in the soil and water near bombing sites in Iraq and that exposure to DU was a potential health risk for local populations.
There is evidence to suggest that cancer rates in Fallujah, Iraq increased significantly after the US military used depleted uranium (DU) during the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
A 2010 study published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health found that the rate of leukemia in Fallujah was 38 times higher than expected and the rate of lymphoma was 10 times higher than expected. Other studies have found elevated rates of breast cancer, colon cancer, and other illnesses in the region.
George W. Bush
Some of the key criticisms and accusations against George W. Bush include:
The invasion of Iraq: Bush was the key architect of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, which was launched on the pretext of eliminating weapons of mass destruction. However, it was later revealed that there were no such weapons in Iraq, and the war was widely criticized as a mistake. The war resulted in the deaths of thousands of Iraqi civilians, and many argue that it was a violation of international law.
Use of torture: Bush’s administration was accused of authorizing the use of torture against suspected terrorists in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. Techniques such as waterboarding, sleep deprivation, and stress positions were reportedly used on detainees, which many argue constitutes a violation of international law.
Guantanamo Bay detention center: Bush authorized the establishment of the Guantanamo Bay detention center, where suspected terrorists were held without trial and subjected to harsh interrogation techniques. Many have criticized the detention center as a violation of due process and human rights.
Targeted killings: Bush’s administration authorized targeted killings of suspected terrorists, including the use of drone strikes in countries such as Pakistan and Yemen. Critics argue that such killings violate international law and raise serious questions about due process and accountability.
While there is ongoing debate and disagreement over the legality and morality of George W. Bush’s actions during his time in office, many human rights organizations and legal experts have accused him of committing war crimes and violating international law.
Barrack Obama
There is a lot of debate and controversy over the actions of former President Barack Obama during his time in office, particularly in relation to his use of drone strikes and his handling of conflicts in countries such as Libya, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. Some have accused him of committing war crimes, while others argue that his actions were justified in the context of the global war on terror.
Some of the key criticisms and accusations against Barack Obama include:
Use of drone strikes: Obama significantly escalated the use of drone strikes in countries such as Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia, and authorized the targeted killings of suspected terrorists without trial. Critics argue that such strikes violate international law and raise serious questions about due process and accountability.
Intervention in Libya: Obama authorized a military intervention in Libya in 2011, which was aimed at removing dictator Muammar Gaddafi from power. The intervention has been criticized as a violation of international law, and for contributing to the ongoing conflict and instability in the region.
Involvement in Syria: Obama authorized support for rebels fighting against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and also launched airstrikes against ISIS targets in the country. The conflict has resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians and has been criticized as a violation of international law.
Continuation of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan: Despite campaigning on a promise to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Obama authorized the continuation of both conflicts during his time in office. The wars have been criticized for their impact on civilians and for contributing to ongoing instability in the region.
While there is ongoing debate and disagreement over the legality and morality of Barack Obama’s actions during his time in office, many human rights organizations and legal experts have accused him of committing war crimes and violating international law.
The conflicts in countries such as Libya, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan have resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, including both combatants and civilians. Many of these deaths were caused by a variety of actors, including government forces, rebel groups, and terrorist organizations.
The use of drone strikes, in particular, has been criticized for causing significant civilian casualties. Estimates of civilian deaths resulting from U.S. drone strikes vary widely, with some sources suggesting that the number of civilians killed may be as high as several thousand. However, precise figures are difficult to obtain due to the secrecy surrounding the U.S. drone program and the difficulty of determining whether those killed in strikes were combatants or civilians.
Hillary Clinton
As Secretary of State under President Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton played a key role in the U.S. intervention in Libya in 2011. The intervention was aimed at supporting the Libyan rebels who were fighting to overthrow long-time dictator Muammar Gaddafi. The conflict lasted for several months and resulted in a significant number of casualties.
Estimates of the number of people killed during the Libyan civil war vary widely, but some sources suggest that the total number of casualties may have been in the tens of thousands. The exact number of deaths is difficult to determine, as many of the deaths were the result of fighting between various armed groups, as well as airstrikes carried out by NATO forces.
Since the overthrow of Gaddafi, Libya has struggled to establish a stable and functional government. The country has been plagued by ongoing violence and instability, with various armed groups vying for power and control of key territories. The lack of a strong central government has also contributed to the rise of extremist groups such as ISIS.
Overall, the U.S. intervention in Libya has been criticized for contributing to the ongoing conflict and instability in the country.
There have been reports of slave markets operating in Libya since the intervention in 2011. These reports have been widely condemned by international organizations and human rights groups.
The ongoing conflict and instability in Libya have created a situation where human trafficking and the exploitation of vulnerable individuals have become major problems. Reports suggest that many of the people who are being sold in these slave markets are migrants and refugees who are attempting to cross the Mediterranean to reach Europe.
The situation in Libya has been described as a humanitarian crisis, with many people being subjected to forced labor, sexual exploitation, and other forms of abuse.
Joe Biden
As Vice President and President, Joe Biden has been involved in a number of U.S. military interventions and foreign policy decisions that have been criticized for their human rights implications. Here are a few examples:
Iraq War: As a Senator, Joe Biden voted in favor of the 2002 Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq, which authorized the U.S. invasion of Iraq. The war has been widely criticized for its high civilian death toll and the destabilizing impact it had on the region.
Drone strikes: As Vice President, Biden played a key role in the Obama administration’s drone program, which authorized targeted killings of suspected terrorists in countries such as Yemen and Pakistan. The program has been criticized for causing civilian casualties and violating international law.
Saudi Arabia: Biden has been criticized for his administration’s close relationship with Saudi Arabia, despite the country’s human rights abuses and involvement in the conflict in Yemen.
Immigration policy: Biden’s immigration policies, including the continued use of detention centers and deportations, have been criticized for their treatment of immigrants and asylum seekers.
Afghanistan: Biden’s decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan has been criticized for its handling and potential impact on the country’s stability and human rights situation.
Biden’s economic sanctions on Syria and Yemen have contributed to the ongoing humanitarian crises in both countries. In Yemen, the sanctions have contributed to the country’s ongoing civil war, which has resulted in widespread famine, disease, and displacement. Yemen is the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, with an estimated 80% of the population in need of humanitarian assistance.
The sanctions have also had a devastating impact on Syria’s economy, exacerbating the country’s humanitarian crisis. According to a report by the Syrian Network for Human Rights, the sanctions have contributed to a decline in living standards and increased poverty, particularly for vulnerable populations such as women and children.
In both Yemen and Syria, the sanctions have made it difficult for humanitarian aid to reach those in need, further worsening the humanitarian situation. The international community has called for an end to the sanctions and increased support for humanitarian efforts in both countries.
ChatGPT (owned by Microsoft) says Epstein did kill himself in prison.
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***
In 2003, March was different. Baghdad seemed almost empty, burdened with worries and sadness. The successive dust storms of spring had clothed it with a heavy mask that hid the feelings of exhaustion and futility.
I was a reporter at a local Iraqi weekly newspaper at the time of the US-led invasion. My editor asked me to cover people’s preparations for war and the upcoming battles in southern Baghdad.
Every briefing was dominated by whispered and off-the-record conversations. Officials spoke about the shortage of ammunition and the fearsome weapons and equipment Iraq’s army expected to face. But who dares to speak publicly or publish such things in the media?
On the record, leaders trumpeted imaginary victories that they would achieve over the invading forces. The moment the camera and recording devices were switched off the truth came out – everyone was terrified.
The Americans began their invasion in the south. Telephone lines with the southern governorates had been almost completely cut off, and once the US-led forces bombed the radio and television building and the backup transmitters, broadcasts ground to a halt.
Yet the news of the battles in Basra and Nasiriyah were reaching us one way or another. The fighting was fierce, but the coalition forces were advancing.
I was living in my parents’ house in southern Baghdad at the time.
Weeks before, the area had been turned into a military barracks. The Iraqi army used the primary school over the road as a base, while deploying dozens of tanks, heavy artillery and anti-aircraft guns in the surrounding open lands.
On 3 April, I had to cross the street to take a taxi to the frontline, where my editor asked me to cover the battles. As was my custom in those days, whenever I left the house, I said goodbye to everything in it, not knowing if I would ever return.
I nearly didn’t. After a few steps an explosion ripped through the street and covered everything with dust. A shell or a missile had hit one of the nearby tanks. The battles had reached Baghdad.
I was terrified. This was the first time I’d ever seen a bombing in front of my eyes.
All I remember about the Iran war was the bodies of martyrs wrapped in the Iraqi flag and the wailing of their families. In the Gulf War, I remember the sounds of blasts, the sight of warplanes bombing from the air, and the massive destruction they left behind. But this time it was different. I was there, all by myself.
I had to decide whether to go back to the comfort of my family or walk on, fulfilling my duty as a reporter. Would my fear defeat me?
Suadad al-Salhy interviews security forces in Fallujah in 2018 (MEE)
This paralysis lasted just a few seconds. My parents must have heard the explosion. If I come back now, I thought, they won’t let me out again. I wanted to be part of the event; to offer something for my country, to use my beliefs and convictions. Didn’t they teach us that the homeland deserves all kinds of sacrifices? Was this not the essence of what I had studied and learned over the past 25 years? How can I expect the soldier to continue to defend me when I think about fleeing at the first sign of danger?
Yes, this was me. I adopted such silly ideas.
Anyway, I made up my mind and moved forward without looking back.
Forced to flee
At al-Rasheed, a town 15km south of Baghdad, chaos reigned. Aerial bombardment got heavier with every hour, and US troops were being air dropped here and there.
I’d been moving around the front, filling my notebook with scenes of destruction and fear. Suddenly, the streets were empty. Everyone had fled and I was alone. I had to get home before I was stranded.
When I got there, everyone was standing in the garage. It took me a few seconds to understand what was going on. My father was forcing my family to leave.
Blasts were hitting nearby in ever-shorter intervals, shaking the earth beneath us. Though our neighbourhood was full of tanks and Iraqi troops, we so far seemed to have been spared. Maybe because the soldiers there hadn’t fired a single shot at the Americans.
It was clear the bombs would come eventually.
Everyone tried to convince my father to leave with us, but he refused.
He could be very dictatorial, and once his mind was made up he refused to consider any objections.
My father was a textile merchant who had a number of shops in a major Baghdad market. I’d never seen him so exhausted and resigned.
He was caught between two fires: on one side he had to protect his family, and on the other he needed to protect his property.
Like the merchant he was, he chose to send his family to safety and stay and look after his wealth.
We wept, and told him we must all live or die together, but his stubbornness won through. Iraqis had been told that American soldiers were rapists, and the fear of that shame was too much for him to bear. Little did he know that two of my brothers, Mustafa and Murtada, hid somewhere without him knowing, so he wouldn’t be alone.
I watched it all silently. My disappointment was even greater than my fear. My brain was working differently. Maybe still is.
My mind was trying to store as many details and feelings as possible, not pausing to process what was going on around me, sucking in every event, image and conversation.
No way out
So we left, hoping to find a route south where a house had been prepared in case we needed to flee.
More than 20 of us, mostly women and children, crammed into a double-seater pickup truck. My brother Muhammad took the wheel. Barely 25 years old, he had never taken responsibility for himself, let alone his family.
It soon became clear that my father did not choose his timing well. US forces had been dropped on all roads leading south, cutting Baghdad off.
Muhammad drove frantically, trying to find a gap in the US line, probing the small, unpaved roads that led out of Baghdad through farmland of dense citrus plantations. No luck.
In the fields, Iraqi soldiers fled flaming tanks. Some took their military jackets off, trying to disguise their identity, though the cold was biting.
Muhammad ignored all the signs of danger around us and drove towards the main road between Baghdad and Babel. Bursts of American gunfire rained down on us, forcing him to turn around and drive as fast as he could.
When the gunfire stopped, so did we, anxious to count our losses. Thank God there were no injuries. It seems that the shooting was just a warning.
It was about six in the evening. We were hungry, broke, scared and without a destination.
Like most Iraqis, Muhammad was never asked whether he wanted this war. He was never able to give his permission for the experiment he was just subjected to. He was drowning in worry.
When we began to drive again, the car swayed along the dirt road very slowly, as if it was carrying all the weight of the world on its back.
A weary fleeing Iraqi soldier grabbed on, desperate to lighten the load on legs that could no longer bear him.
I offered him some water. Later we would learn his name was Hashem. He was thin, in his 20s, and his features could barely be seen behind a veneer of dirt and gunpowder.
Hashem leaned back and drank water with a strange pleasure that was out of proportion to the place and time, as if he was tasting a fine wine.
We all submitted to Hashem’s silence, respecting his strange meditation rituals.
Ten minutes later, Hashem quietly suggested that we go with him to Diyala, a province northeast of Baghdad.
“You guys need a destination, and I need a car to take me home. Why don’t we go together?” he said.
He had no idea what he was giving us. For Hashem, he was trading a service for a service. In fact, he had pulled us all out of a vortex of loss in which we had been spinning for hours, if not decades.
The plan created excitement. Especially for Muhammad, who finally relaxed and regained some of his spirit, cracking jokes and teasing the kids.
This worn-out and defeated soldier had given everyone a temporary sense of reassurance.
Lost dignity
The distance between Baghdad and the Diyala district of Hibhib, where Hashem’s village was located, is no more than 60km.
Usually it would take about an hour to get to. But we were just one of tens of thousands of vehicles ferrying panicked families away from hell.
Cars spread out across the flat lands beyond the city, covering every inch of earth like metal paving.
The eyes of the city’s fleeing residents were lifeless, lost and weary.
I can remember the silence. Thousands of vehicles squeezed together but none of them making a sound. No horns, no conversations, no grumbling, no requests. Even the children had no voice. Everyone seemed resigned to their unknown fate.
Hashem’s family received us in the best possible way: no questions. For Iraqis in difficult circumstances, even asking about their plight can be seen as an insult.
Though the children were asleep in warm beds, that night passed heavily. There were no mobile phones in Iraq at that time, and phone lines had been completely severed. We had no way of finding out what happened to my father and my brothers, and they knew nothing of us.
Finally, the sun rose. We asked Hashem to allow us to leave, wary of being a burden on this impoverished family. But they refused, and after long, sometimes angry, discussions, they suggested that we stay in a building under construction on a nearby farm.
Our new home consisted of one room made of bare bricks. There were no tiles on the floor, no electricity or water, and the windows and door were yet to be attached. But it was perfect, for a few hours at least.
After three days, Muhammed went to Baghdad to seek out our father. Instead, he returned with one of my father’s business partners and his family, who joined us in our shelter, bringing food and blankets we used to cover the damp and dirty floor.
At night, heavy cold air followed the dark. Though this corner of rural Iraq was almost silent, the echo of explosions began to greet our ears from time to time.
We didn’t have enough blankets, so divided into two groups: one who slept in the day, another at night.
I still remember the coldness of the earth, a chill that used to creep into my body whenever I tried to sleep. Whatever we put beneath us couldn’t protect us from the damp, muddy ground.
The only source of fresh water was 3km away, and our lives began to resemble those of stray dogs, lapping up wastewater and relieving ourselves in the open. At least stray dogs do not feel their lost dignity, because, after all, they know that they are dogs.
We stayed there for ten days. It might as well have been ten months, or a decade. Every day I prayed this nightmare would end. I no longer wanted anything but to go home. I no longer cared who ruled or who ruled what.
Who could possibly care anymore about such nonsense as a US invasion and Iraqi sovereignty? Nothing made sense anymore.
Learning the hard way
When we returned to Baghdad it was still on fire. Dozens of corpses lay in the streets, and American soldiers were everywhere. Those sights stirred nothing in me.
In fact, I felt nothing as each major event was followed by another one. I did not much care about the fall of Baghdad, or that the country was now in the hands of the Americans.
That’s not to say that what followed didn’t make me sad, heartbroken or angry at times. But nothing changed me in the way those ten days did.
After those nights of terror and the humiliation of displacement, I was no longer the same person. Things were no longer what they used to be. The concept of sacred and precious changed forever.
Whatever I felt about the bonds between me and places, people, ideas, institutions and power had completely altered.
I learned – the hard way, unfortunately – that human life is more valuable than anything else in the world. I also learned that life’s greatest achievement is having choices, and that no one gives you what you deserve for free.
Those early days of the Iraq war have ruled my life and determined my paths. All the battles I have fought since aim at one thing: preserving my right to choose and preventing any person, regime or authority from taking this right away from me.
Millions of Iraqis and non-Iraqis have lived and are still living the same or similar experiences. Many even harsher.
For two weeks, I have been receiving dozens of requests to talk about the 20th anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq. Most of them I ignored. Not because I have nothing to talk about, but because the memory of the invasion is like some great, deep wound, the worst to strike me since I was born, and I’m still trying to recover from it.
Nothing can prepare you for the moment you discover your true value to those that rule you and world leaders who describe themselves as advanced and moral.
How are you supposed to recover from understanding that, to Saddam Hussein and the invading American army, you have the same rights as those scrawny stray dogs? I’m reminded of it every time I see one on the street.
This is what the 20th anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq means to me, and this is what the Americans have still not grasped, that the impact of their actions stays with people for a lifetime.
We Iraqis had no choice when America decided to go to war. But whatever happened, since March 2003 we now at least have options. We can be state-builders or gangsters, fighters or civil servants, serve foreign powers or serve ourselves. The choices are there, though they may not be easy.
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In the year 1 B.C. (Before Corona), we here in New Zealand were getting along rather well. Despite the exorbitant cost of food and housing, the majestic and available beauty of the physical country gave us immeasurable comfort. Our government, we thought, might not have been the most efficient one in the world, nor the one most populated with high intelligence, but it seemed to make an effort to represent its citizenry and to provide basic services. At the time – 2019 by conventional dating – I was an employee of the health sector and I provided psychiatric services to the people of Lower Hutt, a small city just outside Wellington, the nation’s capital.
When I first received news about the new virus that had emerged in Wuhan and, shortly thereafter, had rapidly spread to Italy, I was skeptical; but the snowball set in motion gathered mass and momentum and by early 2020 the entirety of New Zealand was under house arrest. During that calamitous time, I had happened to have planned a vacation. With nowhere to go I volunteered my services at a local primary care facility for several weeks, helping with prescriptions, advising GPs about mental health issues and making home visits when necessary. When I returned to work as a psychiatrist and tended my usual flock, everyone was masked, protective equipment was being pushed and distancing was de rigueur.
I recall having to make an emergency visit to a patient who had, astoundingly enough, been discharged from hospital to a posh Wellington hotel. The thing is: she was confined to her room, had no social contact, and received her food from trays left at her door. This of course was not exactly a recipe for wellness and, predictably enough, she decompensated to the extent that I had been called in for an assessment.
By the time I arrived seven members of the police force were on site, with Plexiglass face shields, surgical masks under them, bulletproof vests and batons. I and the nurse who accompanied me were dressed normally: maskless, gownless, gloveless. The young person was ushered out of this bizarre form of seclusion and isolation to hospital, where real, actual and present people could attempt to administer some human care.
As I drove along the motorway during those days I noticed the electronic signboards thanking ‘essential workers’ as I had been deemed, being in healthcare, as if other workers were non-essential … To blow off steam during that first lockdown, I occasionally frequented a local playground, despite the restrictions that forbade its use, and shot a few hoops by my lonesome. On one occasion a neighbour happened to stray by: he leapt an additional twelve feet out of the way after he saw me.
During this bizarre, unsettling, surreal and, frankly absurd time, this twilight zone of fear, I remember the prohibitions against swimming in Wellington harbour and the eerie extinction of the street lamps at night. I also noticed that my local hospital was a ghost-town: virtually no patients were in residence.
I wrote letters to Parliament and the papers and various Ministers questioning the government’s health strategy, noting the glaring absence of any actual treatment. I received, at best, a few automated replies.
Meanwhile, a country that had ‘come together’ by staying apart had now become a country in a relatively permanent state of fear, a country that accepted governmental restrictions and controls with hardly a whimper.
But in February 2021 – year 1 A.D. (anno democidii) the Pfizer inoculation was rolled out, approved for use by Medsafe and touted by then Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern as ‘safe and effective’. Thus began Phase II of the juggernautical war against human autonomy and true health.
Medsafe’s initial assessment was not particularly effusive, and it rightly raised concerns about long-term safety data. In fact, Chris James, the Group Manger of Medsafe, New Zealand’s regulatory watchdog, could not grant consent to distribution of the Pfizer product.
Strangely – or not so strangely – enough, the members of MAAC have been kept secret. The Ministry of Health has refused to provide their names.
The rest, of course, became history: the jab mandates that have cost many their jobs and have resulted in many adverse reactions and even deaths; the second perfidious lockdown based on one positive test result in Auckland; the destruction of small businesses; the creation of a ‘vax apartheid’ society; and the continuing recommendation of a medical intervention which has always been unnecessary and dangerous.
As I write today a number of good doctors here in New Zealand, doctors who attempted to treat people with covid appropriately, doctors who insisted on informed consent and who took their Hippocratic Oath to do no harm seriously, are under attack by another statutory medical body – the Medical Council of New Zealand. They are actively persecuted, they have been referred to Health and Disability Commission tribunal hearings, are having provisions attached to their licences when these licences are up for renewal, are compelled to undertake ‘reeducation’ programmes, and are prevented from freely prescribing medicines as their clinical judgment sees fit. Professional Conduct Complaint procedures against such doctors are ongoing, while twenty thousand of their colleagues keep their heads down and their lips sealed.
May I ask how assiduous the government has been in requiring the reporting of adverse events? May I ask how assiduous it has been in mandating autopsies after each death that has occurred in a person who has received the Pfizer jab?
e) a gene-altering spike-protein creating mRNA injection
Take your pick.
And hold the government and its minions to account. Because if we don’t it will be déjà vu all over again, only far far worse.
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Dr. Garcia is a Philadelphia-born psychoanalyst and psychiatrist who emigrated to New Zealand in 2006. He has authored articles ranging from explorations of psychoanalytic technique, the psychology of creativity in music (Mahler, Rachmaninoff, Scriabin, Delius), and politics. He is also a poet, novelist and theatrical director. He retired from psychiatric practice in 2021 after working in the public sector in New Zealand. Visit his substack at https://newzealanddoc.substack.com/
The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity
by Michel Chossudovsky
Michel Chossudovsky reviews in detail how this insidious project “destroys people’s lives”. He provides a comprehensive analysis of everything you need to know about the “pandemic” — from the medical dimensions to the economic and social repercussions, political underpinnings, and mental and psychological impacts.
“My objective as an author is to inform people worldwide and refute the official narrative which has been used as a justification to destabilize the economic and social fabric of entire countries, followed by the imposition of the “deadly” COVID-19 “vaccine”. This crisis affects humanity in its entirety: almost 8 billion people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings and our children worldwide. Truth is a powerful instrument.”
ISBN: 978-0-9879389-3-0, Year: 2022, PDF Ebook, Pages: 164, 15 Chapters
All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.
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***
The recent Chinese brokered agreement between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Islamic Republic of Iran stunned the world. The Biden administration was among the most surprised, as they saw yet another example of the diminishing status of the US in the Persian Gulf region. Saudi Arabia and its oil-rich neighbors have watched as the US has walked away from the region.
Steven Sahiounie of MidEastDiscourse interviewed Dr. Javad Masoumi, a geopolitical researcher and analyst, to shed light on some key issues surrounding this new agreement.
Steven Sahiounie (SS): The Chinese brokered agreement between Saudi Arabia and Iran surprised the world. In your opinion, will restoring full relations between the two have an effect of China’s Belt and Road project?
Javad Masoumi (JM): China’s Belt and Road Initiative was established in 2013. It connects China to Asia, Europe, the Middle East and Africa through rail, road and sea corridors. This road belt evokes memories of the ancient Silk Road. This plan has placed China in a position of physical, financial, cultural, technological and political influence at the international level. China is drawing the exact details of the world map with new railways and bridges and ports with different capacities and potentials. This project has affected 60 countries of the world including Iran and Saudi Arabia. In addition to economic effects, China can transmit political and cultural values. Initiatives such as the road belt provide an attractive perspective of China’s centrality. It requires the cooperation of other countries, including Iran and Saudi Arabia. Based on this, China is trying to highlight the world around it, including Iran, India, Saudi Arabia and Russia, in the new world order. In China’s mediation in the recent agreement, Iran and Saudi Arabia effectively demonstrated that it can change diplomacy anywhere in the world. By using economic leverage, China is trying to force countries to impose their own policies. By organizing joint financing, China has made it possible to implement large infrastructure projects. China is one of the largest and most important trading partners of Iran, and is Saudi Arabia. Trilateral regional and extra-regional cooperation is at a common and turning point. Iran and China have a common point in the historical and ancient silk road belt. Also, Iran and China are fighting unilateralism in the world, and fighting against The United States of America with shared capacities and opportunities in West Asia. China’s road belt initiative has benefits for all countries on the route of this ancient road, including Saudi Arabia. It also facilitates trade and economic relations. This idea can play a role in realizing the important goals of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization as well as the important goals of the global development plan.
SS: The tension between Riyadh and Tehran was solved after decades by the recent Chinese brokered agreement to resume full relations. In your opinion, will this play a role in ending the suffering of the Syrian people?
JM: The reopening of embassies and the resumption of relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia can have a positive effect on regional developments, including Syria. This agreement is considered a step towards reducing tension in Syria. Iran and Saudi Arabia are two powerful countries in the region of the Islamic world. These two countries have many capacities in the region in trans-regional issues. In addition, both Iran and Saudi Arabia have considerable influence in Syria. Following this agreement, regional tensions in Syria will definitely decrease. Of course, the necessary condition is that relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia are formed in good faith. In this case, we can witness the solution of the Syrian case. In general, if this agreement is implemented with the implementation of constructive and executive strategic plans, in the future we can witness peace in the West Asian region, especially in Syria. The costs of the conflict in Syria will lead to the reconstruction and development of the Syrian economy. The agreement between Iran and Saudi Arabia can lead to peace and stability and an end to the suffering of the Syrian people.
SS: The media has been for decades fueling a war between Sunni and Shiite people. In your view, will the rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran help to end this media war?
JM: The real meaning of the media war between Iran and Saudi Arabia was in the creation of news and television channels in Persian and Arabic languages by the two countries. Saudi Arabia was able to become a leading media power in the West and Southwest Asia by spending its oil dollars in the field of media and gaining the support of European and American powers. The emergence of Iran International news network in the form of Persian satellite TV is an example of this media war. What is certain is that the media war works like a very strong ballistic missile. In a short period of time, the Iran International network is in close competition with the BBC Persian network. In today’s era, which is called global village and virtual world, media is one of the tools of interference in the politics and governance of countries. Soft power in the global village is one of the sources of authority of countries and great powers, including Iran and Saudi Arabia. The problems of Iran-Saudi diplomacy in the past are based on a misunderstanding but have deep roots in the religious history of Shia and Sunni. Saudi Arabia is Sunni and Iran is Shia. But due to the fact that both countries are Muslim, Iran and Saudi Arabia will never directly go to war with each other. But they have faced each other in proxy conflicts. In the meantime, the active role of some trans-regional countries, including Israel, The UK and the US, has used the gap between Shia and Sunni religious differences and fueled this division between the two Muslim countries. The strategic development is that after the agreement between Saudi Arabia and Iran, the media policies of these two countries will be rearranged and adjusted based on identifying and defining the commonalities of each other’s demands. It should be accepted that in the current situation of the agreement between Iran and Saudi Arabia, the media of both countries will create a suitable opportunity for the development of strategic interactions. The most important factor affecting the relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia is the West, especially the United States and Israel. So it can be said that Iran and Saudi Arabia represent two religious thoughts, Shia and Sunni. But both are Muslims who seem to be careful about this important agreement and avoid tension. The zeroing of tensions is conditional on applying changes and rearranging the strategy of extensive media policies in the intellectual and identity foundations, which seems necessary and necessary in the conditions of the recent agreement between Iran and Saudi Arabia.
SS: The US and EU have seemingly approved this Saudi Arabia and Iran rapprochement brokered by China. In your opinion, will this bring life back to the Iranian nuclear deal negotiations?
JM: The restoration of relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia will help the stability of the West Asian region. But the JCPOA is a different matter and this agreement may have more of a psychological effect. The agreement between Iran and Saudi Arabia is considered relatively timely to break the JCPOA political deadlock. Certainly, this correct procedure of restructuring Iran’s foreign policy will not be ineffective in completing the JCPOA. I hope there is a change of attitude in international foreign policy. It is important to note that Iran’s nuclear activities, including enrichment at various levels, are completely peaceful and in line with Iran’s rights based on the NPT and are under the supervision, verification and control of the Agency. Iran wants to continue implementing the JCPOA obligations. But some regional and extra-regional countries, especially Israel, have tried their best to hide the facts. Iran has been the most active delegation during the negotiations and has put forward many initiatives to clarify the negotiations.
What is certain is that countries and the United Nations do not pay attention to the important and extremely worrying issue of Israel’s military nuclear program, which causes instability in the region and is a serious threat to world peace and security. In the current situation, the agreement between Iran and Saudi Arabia is based on the strategic policy of reducing tension and improving the level of peace, stability and security in the region.
With the dictatorship of Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel has become a more serious threat to the world with its temporary existence and the chaotic situation of the civil war. It seems that changes are taking place at the international level, which have also affected the JCPOA case. The issue of JCPOA is more of a political case than a technical case. Based on the political model of international relations, Iran’s agreement with Saudi Arabia also has a psychological effect on the JCPOA case. But the JCPOA case is a different matter.
SS: The Israeli media have been calling the Saudi Arabia and Iran agreement to restore full relations as a big loss for Israel politically, and they are considering it a threat to their national security. In your view, how could this affect Israel?
JM: America and Israel were surprised. Israel relied on the continued hostility of Saudi Arabia against Iran. Above all, Israel does not want Iran to be powerful enough to effectively balance the power with Israel. Tel Aviv only looks at the world, especially Saudi Arabia, through the lens of its own benefit. Tehran’s agreement with Riyadh is a fatal blow to Israel’s Iranophobia project. The agreement between Iran and Saudi Arabia is a strategic and double defeat for Israel and America and a fatal blow to their project to create an Arab-Israeli NATO against Iran. The new regional order has entered a new phase that is not in the interest of America and Israel. The former officials of the Zionist regime described the agreement between Iran and Saudi Arabia to resume relations with each other as a complete failure of Tel Aviv’s foreign policy and the collapse of the regional coalition against Iran. The recent agreement showed that there is a fundamental weakness in America and Israel towards Iran.
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***
Today the Free Alex Saab Movement makes an urgent call to the world to denounce the alarming health condition of Venezuelan diplomat Alex Saab, which endangers his life.
In July 2021, the Working Group against Torture and several UN rapporteurs expressed their concern about the irreparable deterioration of Alex Saab’s health condition.
Let us recall that in Cape Verde, on July 7, 2021, after many refusals, Alex Saab was visited by his family doctor, who in his report detected a worrying health condition of the Venezuelan official, especially because Saab is a stomach cancer survivor. The doctor diagnosed: anemia, anorexia, diabetes mellitus type 2, hypothyroidism, hypertension, high risk of thromboembolic disease including pulmonary embolism and deep vein thrombosis. In addition, he highlighted that a high infection by the bacterium Helicobacter pylori was found in his blood and an endoscopy identified bleeding from the digestive tract that could mean recurrence of the cancer; likewise, the lower left molar was found broken due to the beatings received during the torture and access to proper medical care was recommended, however, he was never allowed to receive treatment.
Subsequently, the treating physician issued, on September 9, 2021, a new report highlighting the need for patient Alex Saab to receive specialized medical care and asked the authorities of Cape Verde to take into consideration the need to preserve the health and life of Alex Saab. Cape Verde did nothing in this regard.
Alex Saab arrived in the territory of the United States, kidnapped for the second time, on October 16, 2021 and from that moment until today he has not received any medical attention according to the basic diseases that had been reported, ignoring the call of the UN rapporteurs.
Alex Saab is in the Federal Detention Center in Miami and his prison situation is even worse than in Cape Verde; he has not been allowed family visits and has not seen his wife and children for more than two years and eight months, who have also been victims of persecution by the U.S. authorities and their allies.
Alex Saab has also not been allowed consular visits, which is a human right of every prisoner deprived of liberty. The U.S. State Department has not responded to the Venezuelan State’s request to grant him a consular visit, as established in Article 36 of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations.
In the medical reports made in July, Alex Saab’s doctor had already informed that they had identified bleeding from the digestive tract, which could mean a recurrence of the cancer. Now, it is extremely alarming to learn that Alex has been vomiting blood for weeks and despite having reported it to the U.S. authorities, there is still a lack of medical attention at the prison. Why has the U.S. not bothered to treat him?
Everything indicates that the lack of medical attention is part of a State policy, as was his illegal arrest. Could it be that they want to hand over Alex Saab dead to the Venezuelan authorities? Why then the insistence on not providing him with medical attention, and not allowing his doctor to visit him?
Everyone knows that the truth is on the side of the Venezuelan diplomat, and sooner or later the United States must release him, but they are taking more time than usual, could it be that they are waiting for his illnesses to develop further?
We, the #FreeAlexSaab Movement, holds the U.S. Government responsible for the life and for what may happen to the diplomat Alex Saab Moran.
We ask at the same time that the International Committee of the Red Cross to be present at the Federal Detention Center in Miami-USA.
Likewise, we urge the High Commissioner of the UN Human Rights to take action and denounce this violation of the human rights of the Venezuelan diplomat illegally detained in U.S. territory.
We request the Secretary General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, as the highest defender of International Law, to make an announcement on this case, which constitutes a flagrant violation of international law and human rights.
We demand immediate freedom for Alex Saab Moran, the Venezuelan diplomat kidnapped in the United States. We urgently require a humanitarian, political and diplomatic solution to this unjust situation.
It is time for a solution that will bring benefits for both nations, it is time to move forward, we urge the U.S. Government to sit down and reach an agreement, Venezuela has shown to be open to a solution.
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***
Registered practical nurse and single mother Sarah Choujounian has been terminated from her position and faces regulatory investigation and discipline for the crime of upholding her oath to advocate on behalf of her patients.
Choujounian was working in long-term care when she began denouncing the unethical and dehumanizing ways COVID-19 lockdowns were harming the elderly that she was supporting.
Her regulator, The College of Nurses of Ontario (CNO) has since launched an investigation against her which has now transpired into disciplinary action.
Interested members of the public need to email [email protected] for the link to the livestream. They should reference that they are interested in observing the Discipline Hearing which begins tomorrow in CNO and S.A. Choujounian-Abulu.
— Sarah Choujounian (@SarahChoujounia) March 9, 2023
“There are twelve allegations against me,” says Choujounian. “They are coming after me saying that I misinform the public and how dangerous it is that I went against what [the regulator] says.”
The College of Nurses of Ontario expects its members to support public health measures and be a “role model” for “directives that keep patients and the public safe,” according to a December 2020 statement.
The same statement says that “handwashing, masking, social distancing and vaccinations are effective strategies to prevent the spread of COVID-19,” which appears to ignore the real-world data showing that COVID-19 vaccination does not prevent the spread of COVID-19.
“I was chief steward of the union and I was trying to be the voice of the people. I was shut down very fast,” details Choujounian. She continues to describe horrific accounts of isolation and forced medication on the residents she cared for during the initial COVID response in early 2020 when residents were locked in their rooms and family members were barred from entry to provide care and support.
“A lot of residents were failing to thrive,” she says, and “residents who weren’t listening [to isolation orders] were locked in their rooms and sedated. Some walkers were taken away. They were dying alone. It felt so disgusting.”
Choujounian thought more people would come forward to denounce the harms COVID policies were having on the public after she founded Nurses Against Lockdowns which eventually turned into Canadian Frontline Nurses with ousted pediatric nurse Kristen Nagle.
But that didn’t happen. “Even up until today, nurses are scared to speak up,” she says.
This is par for the course when your regulatory body makes an example out of its members with intimidating investigations and silencing discipline.
The College of Nurses claims that too many people reached out 2 get the links 2 my disciplinary hearing which made their system crash & they couldn’t respond 2 the demand🤔
Everything should be resolved by now, if you haven’t gotten a reply, call & demand it at (416)928-0900🙏
Choujounian says that the media was subsequently weaponized against them after they received death threats and RCMP visits to their homes.
With several days of hearing left, Choujounian says that they don’t expect to win at the CNO level.
”It’s nurses from [the CNO] council representing the jury. So they won’t go against the college,” she logically explains. “Everything that we bring forward [in terms of evidence and experts] will be used for the appeal that we plan on doing afterward.”
“If I have to, I’ll go all the way up to the Supreme Court because I believe that I did exactly what I was told to do in nursing school. The first thing that we learn is the Code of Ethics and how if the medical industry turns against the people, it’s our job to ‘agitate and advocate’ for what is best for our communities so I’m being punished when I feel like I should be getting a medal.”
Since her termination, Choujounian sold her home and has begun a mental health support program called Lighting Up Dark Corners.
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Featured image is a screenshot from the Twitter video
The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity
by Michel Chossudovsky
Michel Chossudovsky reviews in detail how this insidious project “destroys people’s lives”. He provides a comprehensive analysis of everything you need to know about the “pandemic” — from the medical dimensions to the economic and social repercussions, political underpinnings, and mental and psychological impacts.
“My objective as an author is to inform people worldwide and refute the official narrative which has been used as a justification to destabilize the economic and social fabric of entire countries, followed by the imposition of the “deadly” COVID-19 “vaccine”. This crisis affects humanity in its entirety: almost 8 billion people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings and our children worldwide. Truth is a powerful instrument.”
All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.
To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.
Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
***
For a long time, massive propaganda has been the way for the US Government to influence public opinion for or against one cause or another. It is deliberately spread by both the government and the mainstream media to mold the public opinion in favor of our government’s particular agenda. All our mainstream media are usually complicit in the propaganda campaign. Throughout our violent history, the propaganda by our government has played a vital role in molding the public opinion in favor of its nefarious policies whether it was the created war with Mexico in 1846, or the coup d’état against Queen Lili’uokalani of Hawaiian Kingdom in 1893 and its ultimate annexation in 1898 or war with Spain in 1895 resulting in the acquisition of territories in the western Pacific and Latin America or resulting in the acquisition of Gaum from Spain in 1899, just to name a few. We Americans are led to believe that America’s intentions were and always are noble and peaceful. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The Atomic Bombing of Japan
President Harry Truman threw not one but two atomic bombs on civilian targets in Japan’s cities Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 killing more than 250,000 people, many instantly and others succumbed to their injuries later. This criminal act was committed even though Japan was ready and desperate to surrender. Truman refused to its simple demand that its Emperor should be saved.
After this criminal act, Truman and his administration went on telling American people ‘Blatant lies’ that by atomic bombing of Japan, one million American lives were saved to end the war otherwise invasion of Japan would have been necessary with massive loss of half to one million American soldiers. Majority of Americans then and still now believe this lie.
The World War II
In this war with Nazi-Germany, Russians lost some 26 million people. It was Russia who was more responsible for the defeat of Nazis, not the allied forces as we are led to believe. At that time, the Russians were our friends, part of the Allied Forces. But after the war, President Truman and Winston Churchill decided that Russians were our enemies and should be stopped from advancing their influence in Eastern Europe. Truman followed up by creating NATO in 1949 to dominate Russia. Massive propaganda was carried out against the “Soviet threat” in the united States and Britain. Stalin became a boogey man, a dangerous dictator to be feared. It was projected that the Soviet Union and Communism was bent on conquering the world. A foolish cold war was started by the United States and huge arms development began in USA and UK. Soviets followed suit. What followed was the beginning of a massive, expensive, and foolish arms race that continued for decades and even now. Hundreds of trillions of Dollars were spent on weapons of mass destruction by the US, UK, the NATO countries and the Soviet Union was too forced to do the same. Trillions of Dollars were diverted towards arms development which could have been used for the welfare of the people. The threat of the Soviet Union was exaggerated. The soviets were recovering from massive war devastation and were in no position to threaten the United States. Yet, propaganda of the communist and Soviet threat was carried on for decades. The result was, the American people believed their leaders. Like they say, when a lie is repeated several times, people believe it.
The Vietnam War
I remember, during the Vietnam War, I was in college, and I used to watch Huntley/Brinkley News in the evening. These news gave the idea that we were winning. General Westmoreland–who was the Supreme Commander of our whole operation there–was assuring President Johnson that the war was turning around in our favor and that we were winning. It turned out that all this was a lie as final events of 1975 revealed when we were forced to flee by planes and helicopters from our Saigon embassy with our tail between our legs.
Gulf of Tonkin Incident
In August 1964, the U.S. escalated the Vietnam War based on the reports of an unprovoked attack in the Gulf of Tonkin. On August 2, 1964, the US government claimed that the American destroyer USS Maddox which was stationed in the Gulf of Tonkin off the coast of North Vietnam was attacked by North Vietnamese torpedo boats. Again, it was attacked on August 4th. After the second attack, the U.S. Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution almost unanimously, allowing the government to “take all necessary measures” to protect U.S. forces in Vietnam. It was tantamount to a declaration of war, but it was based on a lie. In early 2000s, nearly 200 documents were declassified and released by the National Security Agency. These documents revealed that there was no attack on August 2nd or 4th, 1964. The U.S. government had created this “lie” for their own gains and perhaps for Johnson’s own political prospects. This lie jumpstarted the war that would claim 58,220 American and more that 3 million Vietnamese lives. This is what our government does, and our mass-media always conspires with our government and follows through with these lies.
A North Vietnamese P-4 engaging USS Maddox, August 2, 1964 (Licensed under the Public Domain)
The Gulf War
Shortly after Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990, an organization called Citizen for a Free Kuwait was formed. It hired a public relations firm—Hill & Knowlton–for $11 million paid by Kuwait’s government. It arranged for an appearance before a group of members of US Congress in which a young woman identifying herself as a nurse working in the Kuwait city hospital described Iraqi soldiers pulling babies out of incubators and letting them die on the floor. The story helped tip the Congress and the US public towards a war with Iraq. All our major compliant news media carried out these lies’ day and night to all Americans. Hence majority of Americans were convinced of the legality of this illegal war.
Invasion of Afghanistan
After 9/11 attacks, George Bush asked the ruling Janata of Afghanistan to hand over Osama Bin Laden who was living there. The Taliban spokesman requested the proof that Osama was behind the attacks. This was a fair demand. The Bush administration in its arrogance said, “we don’t negotiate with the terrorists” and refused to give any proof of Osama’s involvement in the crime. As a matter of fact, according to reports, they had no proof of Osama’s involvement in this crime. Most of the terrorists were Saudi Arabians and few were from Egypt. Still today, they don’t have any proof of Osama’s involvement in this heinous crime. After 20 Years of criminal invasion and war with Afghanistan, once again we were forced to run away from it like we did in Vietnam. But no American politician admits to this blunder and no lessons are learned from our criminal wars.
Invasion of Iraq
Then came the immoral and disastrous invasion of Iraq. The whole war was based on a lie. George W. Bush and his administration carried out a major campaign of lies that Iraq was developing weapons of ‘mass destruction’. Remember the ‘Mushroom Clouds’? Saddam Hussein was projected as a bogeyman, a new Hitler. Some 72% of Americans approved of this invasion.
What was the result? Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction. Iraq as a country which was doing well, was destroyed. More than a million Iraqi civilians were killed, and $2 trillions of taxpayers’ dollars were squandered. Thousands of our young men were injured, many of them were maimed for a miserable life while war criminals like George Bush is playing golf and his war criminals like Dick Cheney, Condoleeza Rice and Wolfowitz are enjoying their lives today.
According to the Costs of War project at Brown University revealed that 20 years of post -9/11 wars have cost the U.S. an estimated $8 trillion and have killed more than 900,000 people.
“American Democracy”
There is massive propaganda in this country as well as around the globe. All the time, our president and other politicians tout the greatness of America and its great democracy. In reality, America is controlled by the oligarchs and the superrich. They buy and control our politicians and these politicians do their bidding, paying back their paymaster. Average American has no voice. But most Americans still buy the media narrative and believe that America is a great democracy.
Israel
Image is from The Unz Review
Ever since the 1967 Arab-Israel War, the pro-Israel propaganda and the narrative by the US Government and the mass media in our country is so strong that nobody, from the president down to the Senators or the Congressmen or any professor or any public figure dare to criticize Israel in its apartheid policies towards the Palestinians or their illegal occupation of Palestinian lands. No politician dares to criticize Israel without losing the next election or no professor can criticize Israel without losing his/her tenure from any prestigious college or university in America. Because the powerful Jewish lobby AIPAC (American Israel Political Action Committee) is watching every politician in this country. Is that freedom of speech? And the American people accept this because they have no choice. Our government doles out $3.8 billion military aid every year—total aid given since 1949 depending on the source, varying from $133 to $146 billion–while some 33.98 million of Americans were living below the poverty line in 2019 and as of 2020, some 14 million American children or 1 in 5 children don’t get enough food to eat. To our government, who is more important? Few millions of Israelis some 6756 miles away or close to 40 million of American citizens who are very poor? But nobody dares complain because it will never be reported by our mainstream mass media or see the light of the day. The poor have no voice in this country. They are kept there to serve the rich and the powerful.
Ukraine War
Take a recent example of Ukraine War. The whole war was the work of the United States. Since the collapse of the Soviet union in 1989-90, Russian president Gorbachev was promised –in exchange for his allowing East Germany to merge with West Germany—that “NATO will not move one inch eastward towards Russia”. But afterwards, Bill Clinton added 3 nations to NATO and George Bush Jr. added 7 more. NATO expanded to include 30 nations. When Putin came to power in 2000-2001, he said that Ukraine joining NATO will be a red line for Russia. But they invited Ukraine to join NATO. So, Putin was recklessly provoked to invade Ukraine. Immediately, massive American propaganda machine went to work full throttle. Every American mainstream news media has been blaming Russia for this war and are demonizing Putin, comparing him with Hitler. Ever since the invasion of Ukraine, every mainstream mews media is carrying anti-Russia propaganda taking their clue from our government. Unfortunately, most Americans are unaware of the real reasons behind Russia’s attack on Ukraine. So, they believe every word of this propaganda by our news media as well as by our government. History repeats itself many times like they believed weapons of mass destruction story about Iraq in 2003.
Just like during mid-1960s our generals were telling the government that we are winning the Vietnam War…a blatant lie. They were losing the war. The same way, our media taking their clue from the government is telling Americans that Ukraine is winning the war with Russia; another lie like before.
Talking about the 2020 election, Donald Trump and his cronies went on falsely claiming that the election of Joe Biden was fraudulent; it was stolen. Millions of Americans still believe that. They are die-hard believers in Trump’s lies.
Just last September, as per Seymour Hersh, the Nord Stream pipeline was destroyed by the United States’ Navy and that of Norway, an international terrorist act by any standard but no attention was given to this major news in American mainstream news-media. A total black out. That is called “the censorship by omission”, to borrow a phrase from veteran journalist John Pilger.
There are protests by thousands of people in France, Germany, and Britain. As the people of NATO-Europe are suffering from very high energy costs due to sanctions on Russia, they are demanding that their country get out of NATO, stop the Ukraine War, stop supporting Ukraine, be friends with Russia etc. But amazingly, you don’t see any of these protests being reported in mainstream news media in America. Is that freedom of information? No. That is, once again “the censorship by omission”. The media is censoring any news which can change the public opinion in America or Britain against supporting this proxy war.
Noam Chomsky, the famous expert, and critique of US foreign policy has described this Ukraine War as “the proxy war by the United States to the last Ukrainian”. But you will never see famous critiques like him, Chris Hedges, Ralph Nader or professor John Mearsheimer ever being interviewed on our mainstream news media. Because if given an opportunity, they will demolish the current narrative of our government and the mass media about this proxy war.
Vietnam veteran and author Andrew Bacevich so aptly writes in his interesting book of 2021, After the Apocalypse: “That much is certain, however: In Washington, refusal to abide by the expressed rhetorical conventions of American global leadership offers sufficient grounds for being effectively silenced. Critics of empire like Noam Chomsky on the left and Patrick Buchanan on the right offer examples. Each may be allowed his say and each may even attract large audiences. But in this instance, the audience does not translate into influence. To question American Exceptionalism and oppose the American Empire is to become persona non grata wherever members of the foreign policy establishment congregate. That describes Chomsky and Buchanan’s fate.”
Capitalism
Have you ever seen or heard on our mainstream media, the criticism of capitalism? It will never happen. Because it is capitalism or our current economic system that keeps our billionaires and superrich in power. It is our “winner take all” economic system that keeps the rich getting richer and the poor staying poor today. These superrich know that if people realize that it is this unfair system that keeps them poor, then the majority will try to change this system for a more equitable system like socialism or social democracy. The superrich then will lose their wealth and power. So, they will never allow public opinion to form against capitalism. Hence the unfair system continues uninterrupted.
Majority of Americans get their news from the mainstream news media. So, they don’t get the real unbiased story or facts. They believe everything our mainstream news media and our government tells them. And the government and our news media have an agenda to mold Americans’ public opinion in certain way like supporting a future war or future law or future plan. Like Noam Chomsky famously wrote many years ago about “Manufacturing Consent”. That is what they are doing and are successful at that.
Majority of Americans believe in America’s exceptionalism. Many Americans believe that America is a God Chosen country to do good in the world.
From early childhood, we are all led to believe that America is a “free country”. The fact is that America has largest number and percentage of people in jail than any other country including China or Russia.
Our leaders constantly tell us that we are “the leaders of the free world”. Most Americans believe this propaganda. The fact is that in most UN Resolutions, America and its satellite states like Israel vote on one side while the rest of the world votes the opposite way. But the propaganda machine keeps churning. The tragedy is, most Americans keep believing in this propaganda and lies.
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Chaitanya Davé is a Chemist and a Chemical Engineer and a businessman. He has authored three books: CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY: A Shocking Record of US Crimes since 1776-2007, COLLAPSE: Civilization of the Brink-2010, Capitalism’s March of Destruction. Author of many articles on politics, history, and environment Founder/President of a non-profit charity foundation helping the poor villagers of India, Nepal, Haiti, USA-homeless and other poor countries. He can be contacted at [email protected].
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British Minister of State for Defence Annabel Goldie announced on March 20 that her country would supply Ukraine with depleted uranium munitions as part of an aid package to bolster the Eastern European state’s ongoing war effort against Russia. The munitions would be supplied alongside Challenger 2 tanks, of which Britain pledged to send 14 in January, with the majority of training for Ukrainian personnel having been completed since. The pledge to send Challenger 2s made Britain the first country to offer Western designed tanks to Kiev, with Germany under significant U.S. and Polish pressure subsequently granting permission to supply Leopard 2 tanks, widely used across Europe, to Ukraine as well.
When asked specifically whether depleted uranium weapons munitions would be supplied, Goldie replied: “Alongside our granting of a squadron of Challenger 2 main battle tanks to Ukraine, we will be providing ammunition including armour piercing rounds which contain depleted uranium. Such rounds are highly effective in defeating modern tanks and armoured vehicles.” The munitions most likely being referred to are the L26A1 and L27A1, which are compatible with British rifled tank guns. The Challenger 2s were reported in January to be scheduled for delivery by the end of March, meaning the first use of depleted uranium rounds against Russian forces could well be imminent depending on how ready Ukrainian crews are to quickly begin frontline operations.
British Army Challenger 2 Tank
The possible supply of depleted uranium weapons has long been a highly controversial issue, with the head of the Russian delegation to the Vienna Negotiations on Military Security and Arms Control Konstantin Gavrilov having thus cautioned on January 25: “We know that Leopard 2 tanks, as well as Bradley and Marauder armoured fighting vehicles, can use depleted uranium shells, which can contaminate terrain, just like it happened in Yugoslavia and Iraq. If Kiev were to be supplied with such munitions for the use in western heavy military hardware, we would regard it as the use of ‘dirty nuclear bombs’ against Russia, with all the consequences that entails.” Regarding the possible responses Russia could take, Gavrilov elaborated: “If Washington and NATO countries provide Kiev with weapons for striking against the cities deep inside the Russian territory and for attempting to seize our constitutionally affirmed territories, it would force Moscow to undertake harsh retaliatory actions. Do not say that we did not warn you.” A number of analysts took this to be an implied threat of a Russian nuclear response.
It remains highly possible that Britain is seeking to set a precedent that would pave the way to the U.S. and Germany providing depleted uranium arms for their own tanks which they are set to supply to Ukraine, as London alongside Warsaw and the three Baltic States has consistently been far less cautious in what armaments are supplied to the front. Depleted uranium is among the heaviest elements on the planet, and is produced using low-level radioactive waste left over from the manufacture of nuclear fuel or nuclear warheads which makes it affordable to produce in large quantities. It is widely used in Western anti armour rounds to provide a greater penetrative capability – a notable example is the M829 armour fin-stabilised discarding sabot round which is compatible with the M1 Abrams and Leopard 2. Using such rounds can have calamitous environmental impacts, emitting highly toxic radioactive particles emitted into the air spreading for well over 40km as easily inhalable dust and having half-lives of over four billion years.
M1 Abrams Tank Firing
The effects of depleted uranium use were seen in the Gulf War, with British Royal Navy Commander Robert Green reporting: “a surge of unexplained illnesses, cancers and children born with genetic deformities among the Iraqi people, especially in the south near the battlefields.” A confidential UN report leaked in May 1999 similarly concluded regarding depleted uranium weapons: “this type of ammunition is nuclear waste, and its use is very dangerous and harmful.” In the subsequent Iraq War the following decade the city of Fallujah was particularly heavily bombarded by depleted uranium weapons by U.S. forces, with Professor Chris Busby, one of the authors of a survey of 4,800 Fallujah residents, writing regarding the connection between these attacks and the rapid increase in cancers and birth defects that followed: “to produce an effect like this, some very major mutagenic exposure must have occurred in 2004 when the attacks happened.” He concluded that some kind of uranium weapon had to have been the cause.
The Fallujah survey by 11 experts covering over 700 households, concluded that the effects on the population were “similar to that in the Hiroshima survivors who were exposed to ionising radiation from the bomb and uranium in the fallout.” Depleted uranium weapons were found to have had highly similar effects on populations in Yugoslavia, which was heavily bombarded by NATO forces in 1999. With much of the fighting in the Russian-Ukrainian War taking place on territory Russia considers as its own, the use of depleted uranium weapons particularly against population centres, which would place the Russian speaking civilians there at tremendous risk, could lead to an unprecedentedly harsh response by Moscow potentially take the country to the brink escalation using nuclear assets of its own.
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Featured image: British Challenger 2 Tank (All images in this article are from MWM)
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After the end of the (First) Cold War and the start of what Francis Fukuyama dubbed the “End of History”, the world seemed firmly in the hands of the political West. For the next two to three decades, this resulted in one of the most disastrous and unstable periods in recent human history, with the political West ravaging much of the world, while most of the rest was held under near-constant self-defeating subservience.
The US-led power pole engaged in what can only be described as war hopping, starting one aggression after another, or worse yet, several consecutive invasions against countries on multiple continents, with its numerous vassals and satellite states sending auxiliary forces or at the very least providing support in logistics and financing. America’s superiority was both quantitative and qualitative, leaving nearly everyone else far behind. The only exception was Russia, whose only advantage was its massive strategic arsenal, the last vestige of the (First) Cold War that kept the US from exerting absolute dominance.
Moscow’s main trump card was also the world’s trump card, providing precious several decades of peace to other sovereign-minded powers, primarily China. Beijing’s meteoric rise to superpower status would have been all but impossible without it and the Asian giant’s leadership is well aware of this. It could be said that both Russia and China “have each other’s backs”, with the cooperation reaching unprecedented levels, not seen in approximately 60 years.
Not counting the purely ideological “cold war” in the aftermath of the Sino-Soviet split, the relationship between Moscow and Beijing has been cordial at worst. However, in the last 30 years, particularly since President Putin consolidated Russia’s geopolitical standing, this relationship has transformed into a fully-fledged strategic alliance in virtually every aspect, truly limitless, as Putin and Xi Jinping recently described. Since the early 1990s, Russia has transferred copious amounts of its massive technological know-how, particularly in military tech, helping push China’s defense capabilities nearly half a century ahead in less than a decade.
The result was quite positive for Beijing, but was seen with contempt in Washington DC, which loathes the idea of having to deal with “another Soviet Union”, especially after investing nearly half a century into dismantling the original and after the Clinton administration announced the US will “never let the rise of another superpower” with the equivalent or close to the power of the USSR. However, despite US attempts to prevent it, exactly this happened. Russia, at first a mere shadow of its former glory and essentially dismissed as a “done deal” by the political West, started regaining its strength, but this time not as a socialist empire, but perhaps the world’s premier realpolitik superpower. With such an approach, Moscow kept most of its historic geopolitical partnerships and was also able to expand them, including with China. President Xi Jinping’s latest visit, the first foreign trip he went on after being reelected for his third term, serves as a testament to this growing alliance.
The superpowers signed over a dozen key strategic agreements outlying the prospects of their unprecedented cooperation by the end of this decade and beyond. Apart from the growing trade exchange, which is racing towards $200 billion annually, one of the key aspects of this is a technological and military partnership. China and Russia will further expand their cooperation in areas such as information technologies and advanced AI, involving approximately 80 new projects assessed at over $165 billion. This includes aircraft and machine tools manufacturing, space research and strengthening of military cooperation, including further unification of Moscow’s and Beijing’s know-how.
In a joint statement, the (Eur)Asian giants reiterated their commitment to regularly conduct bilateral naval and aerial patrols, as well as regular military exercises, expand cooperation within and beyond the framework of existing bilateral agreements and deepen mutual trust and interoperability between their armed forces.
One particularly important segment of this growing alliance is the exchange of military technologies in which both countries excel. China’s impressive strides in microelectronics and semiconductors are of great interest to Russia, while Moscow’s traditionally world-class expertise in rocket/missile and space technologies is greatly appreciated in Beijing. This includes the latest Chinese developments in new network-centric capabilities, with drone swarms being of particular interest for Russia, which could provide key tactical advantages on the battlefield.
Moscow has certainly developed a plethora of its own similar capabilities, but getting Beijing to participate in these efforts will help expand the said capabilities even further. On the other hand, China is greatly interested in Russia’s unrivaled hypersonic technologies, especially naval, as the primary threat to its security and development comes from the belligerent thalassocratic powers of the political West and their regional vassals.
Russian military expert Andrei Martyanov outlined the virtually unknown (to the vast majority of mainstream media) aspects of this cooperation, including the immediate threat that the AUKUS represents for Beijing. With virtually all of China’s Tier 1 cities and provinces being exposed to naval aggression from the US, the Asian giant is seeking ways to nullify this possibility or at the very least push it to a minimum. Of particular concern is the US Navy’s AGM-158 JASSM (Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile), a stealthy air-launched cruise missile deployed by American CBG (carrier battle groups), including the 2000-km range JASSM-XR variant. And while such missiles can hardly be considered comparable to the latest Chinese weapons, they are relatively cheap (by US standards) and numerous (at least 2000 procured by USAF and USN), providing a strong first-strike capability for Washington DC. According to Martyanov, precisely this was very likely one of the key topics of the behind-closed-doors talks between Russian and Chinese delegations.
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Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.
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Lula is truly a liberal-globalist who voluntarily surrendered his country’s objective national interests to the West out of ideological solidarity. The same man who legendarily co-founded BRICS almost a decade and a half ago has now backstabbed one of this same multipolar group’s fellow founding fathers upon ordering his Foreign Minister to very strongly imply that his counterpart will be arrested if he visits Brazil.
Brazilian Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira’s latest interview sent shockwaves across the world after the top diplomat of this BRICS country very strongly implied that Russian President Vladimir Putin will be arrested if he sets foot on this South American state’s soil. He reaffirmed to Metropoles in an interview that
“Brazil is part of the ICC, the International Criminal Court, which we respect and follow” when asked about that partially recognized and highly controversial body’s arrest warrant against the Russian leader.
This top diplomat then added that
“Any travel, any presence of [President Putin] in a country that is a member of the International Criminal Court can lead to complications, I have no doubt.”
There’s no other way to realistically interpret his words than as ominously suggesting that he’d order the security services to detain that world leader in the event that he ever visits Brazil. While casual observers might be shocked by this stance, it’s fully in line with President Lula da Silva’s new worldview.
Since his imprisonment, this BRICS co-founder has recalibrated his approach to International Relations in a way that very closely aligns Brazil with the US nowadays. As proof of this, Lula condemned Russia’s specialoperation in a joint statement with Biden during his trip to DC in early February, after which he ordered his diplomats to vote in support of a fiercely anti-Russian resolution at the UN calling for Moscow to immediately withdraw from all the territory that Kiev claims as its own, including Crimea.
This was followed up by Lula calling Zelensky, during which time it was revealed that they discussed the latter’s so-called “peace formula” which includes the creation of a “special tribunal” for prosecuting Russians. A few weeks later, the Brazilian leader then lied by claiming that this conflict is “over small things”, which occurred on the same day as his Deputy Representative to the UN expressed annoyance at Moscow discussing Russophobia at a Security Council meeting dedicated exclusively to this scourge.
This sequence of events leaves no doubt that Brazil is politically against Russia in the New Cold War despite still officially remaining interested in exploring the expansion of mutually beneficial economic cooperation. That explains why its Foreign Minister just hinted that President Putin will be arrested if he came to Brazil, thus proving once and for all that Lula is truly a liberal-globalist who voluntarily surrendered his country’s objective national interests to the West out of ideologicalsolidarity.
“There are many other regional powers that can influence the course of history. Brazil stands out. The election of Lula at the end of last year was crucial…Brazil is on the front-line of the conflict between open and closed societies…[Lula] will need strong international support”.
Observers should no longer be under any illusions about Lula’s grand strategy, which aims to align Brazil a lot more closely with the US-led West’s GoldenBillion instead of the Sino-Russo Entente or the informallyIndian–ledGlobalSouth amidst the impending trifurcation of International Relations. Nevertheless, Vieira also spoke very highly about China in his latest interview ahead of his and Lula’s upcoming trip to the People’s Republic next week, which proves that they haven’t completely sold out.
This approach leaves open the possibility of Brazil attempting to balance between the Golden Billion’s US leader with whom Lula has politically aligned himself against Russia and the Sino-Russo Entente’s Chinese economic engine, though it remains unclear how successful this will ultimately be. In any case, there’s no doubt that Lula opposes Russia’s special operation and tasked Vieira with lying to the non-Western community about the reasons why so as to distract from Brazil’s rapid alignment with the US.
According to that top diplomat in his latest interview, “Brazil condemned the invasion of Russia and it could not be otherwise. This is even one of the constitutional precepts that guide foreign policy. This is in the initial articles of the Constitution which establishes, among other things, international law, human rights, territorial integrity and the peaceful settlement of disputes. Brazil could not fail to condemn the invasion of Ukrainian territory.”
These mandate Brazil to formulate its international position based on the “prevalence of human rights” and the “peaceful resolution of conflicts”, both principles of which are actually violated by supporting Kiev at the UN after that fascist regime went against these two concepts as was previously explained. By twisting these ideas around to justify taking a partisan stance against Russia, Vieira is participating in the latest Hybrid War on Brazil aimed at misleading the ruling party’s base about Lula’s US-alignedpolicies.
The same man who legendarily co-founded BRICS almost a decade and a half ago has now backstabbed one of this same multipolar group’s fellow founding fathers upon ordering his Foreign Minister to very strongly imply that his counterpart will be arrested if he visits Brazil. This ominous signal will likely preclude President Putin’s participation in their organization’s 2025 summit that’s supposed to be held in that country, which risks handicapping its impact to the benefit of the US’ divide-and-rule interests.
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Andrew Korybko is an American Moscow-based political analyst specializing in the relationship between the US strategy in Afro-Eurasia, China’s One Belt One Road global vision of New Silk Road connectivity, and Hybrid Warfare. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
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US-Turkish differences are on the rise and incumbent president Recep Tayyip Erdogan might be facing his most difficult election in 20 years. Erdogan’s domestic problems are well known: the country now experiances a 55 percent inflation and last October it had reached a 25-year high of 85.5%. Turkey’s currency has also lost 60 percent of its value against the dollar since early 2021.
In addition, the tragedy that ensued after the earthquake last month (around 50,000 people dead) has also sparked some outrage: many believe the disaster was made worse by poor urban planning and bad crisis management. Recent polls indicate that Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, the opposition candidate, is leading by over 10 percentage points, just weeks before the upcoming election. Polls also suggest that the Nation Alliance, a six-party opposition bloc, could get the highest number of seats this time.
Even though Erdogan faces so many internal problems, he might still win the election. Since the 2016 failed military coup against him, the Turkish President has increased his powers. Some analysts, such as Sinan Ciddi, professor of national security studies at the US Marine Corps University and author of the book “Kemalism in Turkish Politics”, believe that he can make good use of Turkish media (which supposedly is largely controlled by his AK Party) to overcome some of his problems. This scenario may provide the political West with sufficient basis to push a narrative about a “dictatorship” in Turkey, thus casting doubts on the legitimacy of any Erdogan’s election victory.
Foreign Correspondent Jamie Dettmer argues that one should expect Erdogan to contest any election defeat. Ciddi in turn believes “judges and elections officials loyal to Erdogan may overturn the results” and thus “he may not relinquish power after having lost the election.”
The fact that the West routinely weaponizes the issue of human rights and democracy, often hypocritically, is well known. The human rights issue certainly plays an important propaganda part in the wars of narratives that are part of many frictions Western powers are involved in today. Such a narrative may be losing force today, but much of Western rhetoric and diplomacy campaigns is still based on it.
The Madrid Summit Declaration, issued at the 2022 NATO Summit, stated that there has been an “unprecedented level of cooperation with the European Union”, and vows to strengthen the “strategic partnership” with the bloc. During that summit, China was, for the first time, addressed as a “challenge” to the Alliance’s “interests, security”, and also its “values”. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) describes itself, in its official website, as an organization promoting “democratic values”.
Institutionally, that has always been so, at least in theory, but today democratic values (framed in a Western understanding of the concept) are increasingly in the spotlight, in spite of the aforementioned hypocrisy. Such hypocrisy could allow for accommodating members that do not necessarily abide to Western notions of democratic rule. However, such an accommodation may become increasingly harder to be pursued, especially when Erdogan’s Turkey is seen as a kind of a hindrance to the Alliance’s strategic goals pertaining to Nordic expansion.
The aforementioned US Marine Corps University scholar Sinan Ciddi also argues that no American-Turkish rapprochement is possible under Erdogan. Contesting Turkey’s Ambassador Murat Mercan recent remarks about the inevitability of “gradual rapprochement between Turkey and the United States”, Ciddi portrays the Turkish leader as an “opponent of democratic governance”, who “shares none of the values that define and undergird the transatlantic alliance that Turkey was an integral and trusted member of.” He concludes by saying that “the United States should not settle for a bad ally.”
As I have written, Ankara has employed Pan-Turkist, Neo-Ottomanism and Turanist ideas as a tool for soft power. Its greater ambitions also threaten peace in Central Asia and even beyond. Although Turkey has been a NATO member since 1952, experts have been talking about a Turkish “Eastern turn” since at least 2016, when it started pursuing a much more aggressive and independent foreign policy seeking integration with Arab and Muslim nations. This can certainly further complicate Turkey’s already complex relationship with Russia. In spite of these tensions, Ankara and Moscow have managed so far to maintain stable bilateral relations. With the West, however, the relationship has only been declining.
Already in 2019, Washington was proposing new sanctions against the Republic of Turkey over the issue of Turkish acquisition of the Russian S-400 missile defense system. In August 2022 Ankara was planning to receive the second S-400 batch anyway – a still ongoing issue.
Turkey-US divergences on NATO’s Nordic expansion and on the Kurdish matter (two issues that I have argued to be related), might be the last straw. The Turkish opposition in fact has promised to end Ankara’s veto on NATO membership for Finland and Sweden and to “unfreeze” EU accession talks.
If Erdogan remains “inflexible” on the issue of Sweden, then what can we expect from the US? At this point, one can only speculate, but based on what we know about Washington’s modus operandi, it would not be too far-fetched to expect it to start a diplomatic campaign against Ankara in the likely event of an Erdogan reelection. Depending on how that develops, one could also expect the US to clandestinely support opposition and even Kurdish groups in attempts to destabilize Erdogan’s presidency or even aiming at regime change.
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Uriel Araujo is a researcher with a focus on international and ethnic conflicts.
NATO prophesied a Second Russian Offensive (SRO) on the muddy heals of rasputitsa [Spring]. Then when queried, on February 13, about upcoming festivities, Secretary-General Stoltenberg imparted: “we are seeing the start already.” The SRO crept imperceptibly. April Fools’ came early.
Editors have a mantra, do not look back, move on, write what is current. But sometimes looking back is vital. Those who ignore even the recent past are doomed to understand nothing, sink deeper into quagmires – and bleat again : ‘Why do they hate us’? Looking through material for the book that has been far too long in the making, I found a copy of a letter which I sent to a prominent (UK) Member of Parliament.
A number of officials are keen to push the line that Washington’s policy towards the Pacific is clearly back where it should be. It’s all part of the warming strategy adopted by the Biden administration, typified by the US-Pacific Island Country summit held last September.
During the International Parliamentary conference Russia-Africa held March 19-20 in Moscow, Russian President Vladimir Putin, in a speech at the plenary session, reminded African parliamentarians that the partnership between Russia and African countries has gained additional momentum and is reaching a whole new level. That the current geopolitical changes present an opportunity to build on the strong momentum in boosting economic cooperation.
The patent process is a part of the COVID mRNA shots that the media haven’t really addressed and people in general don’t know anything about — probably because it’s a total racket. Based on internal documents and correspondence, it appears the NIAID funded the creation of SARS-CoV-2. At the same time, it patented and receives royalty payments for the “vaccine” against said virus.
Sometimes I think that the script being used by the Biden Administration to manage its foreign and national security policies has been written by George Orwell, though I am not sure if it based on 1984 or Animal Farm. Maybe it is a combination of the two. Either way, it would help explain why there is something seriously wrong here.
They are desperately trying to plug one leak in the system after another, but what happens if the entire system suddenly comes crashing down all around them? Back on January 4th, I specifically warned that our problems would “greatly accelerate over the next 12 months”, and that is precisely what has happened.
Both Russia and China have publicly acknowledged the fact that Washington in pursuit of US hegemony disobeys international law, commits military and financial aggression, and interferes in the internal affairs of other countries.Yet Russia and China have still not announced a mutual defense treaty or made any effort to include other threatened countries such as Iran in an alliance.
Chinese President Xi Jinping has arrived in Moscow on Monday for what Beijing is calling a “trip for peace” – but at a moment the White House is emphasizing “We don’t support calls for a ceasefire right now,” according to the words of White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby.
The latest Twitter Files revealed a breathtaking effort from Stanford’s Virality Project to censor even true stories. After all, the project insisted “true stories … could fuel hesitancy” over taking the vaccine or other measures.
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During the International Parliamentary conference Russia-Africa held March 19-20 in Moscow, Russian President Vladimir Putin, in a speech at the plenary session, reminded African parliamentarians that the partnership between Russia and African countries has gained additional momentum and is reaching a whole new level. That the current geopolitical changes present an opportunity to build on the strong momentum in boosting economic cooperation.
“We are ready to jointly shape the global agenda, work together to strengthen fair and equal interstate relations, and improve mechanisms for mutually beneficial economic cooperation. Thanks to our assistance, many industrial enterprises have been built on the continent, entire industries have been created, and vital infrastructure and social facilities have been built. At the same time, Russia wrote off the debt to African states in the amount of more than $20 billion,” Putin emphasized, copy of his text posted to Kremlin’s website.
Putin further offered spiteful goal-setting policy outlines and some aspects of lofty Russia’s economic policy directions for Africa. Most of these directions considered significant have, over these years, featured prominently in all his previous speeches on Russia’s relations with Africa. But what strikes many listeners and readers relates to historical references intended to draw on the sympathy and enlist support from Africa. By simple description Africa consists of 55 member states. African is not a country but a continent, thus Africa’s debt could mean the entire Africa.
Long seen as a strategic partner, Russia has opened a new chapter and started building better relations with Africa, and most significantly made its move by writing off a number of African countries’ debts accumulated from Soviet era. After the Soviet collapse, Russia first attempted at collecting its debts. Indeed, these Soviet-leaning debt-trapped African countries were unable to pay them (these debts) back to Russia.
During the Soviet era, Moscow forged alliances with African countries, especially those that supported its communist idealogy, and supplied them with military equipment and offered technical assistance on bilateral basis. In particular, supplied arms went to Angola, Algeria, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Ethiopia, Namibia, Mozambique, Morocco and South Africa. That Soviet-era form of diplomatic engagement left those African countries indebted to an amount of $20 billion, according to official documents.
In an interview with TASS, Russian State News Agency, ahead of the first Russia-Africa Summit, Russian President Vladimir Putin explained Soviet’s role in the liberation of the continent, support for the struggle of their people against colonialism, racism and apartheid. In addition, the enormous help offered those African countries to protect their independence and sovereignty, gain statehood, support for national economies, and created capable armed forces for Africa.
“Our African agenda is positive and future-oriented. We do not ally with someone against someone else; and we strongly oppose any geo-political ‘games’ involving Africa,” he said during that interview and categorically referred to the debts write-off to Africa. “Let me point out that in the post-Soviet period, at the end of the 20th century, Russia cancelled $20 billion of African countries’ debts to the Soviet Union. This was both an act of generosity and a pragmatic step, because many of the African states were unable to service those debts. We, therefore, decided that it would be best for everyone to start our cooperation from scratch,” said President Putin during that interview in 2019.
On 23 October 2019, President Vladimir Putin and President of the Arab Republic of Egypt, African Union Chairman and Co-Chairman of the Russia-Africa Summit Abdel Fattah el-Sisi took part in the Russia-Africa Economic Forum. During the plenary session held under the theme “Russia and Africa: Uncovering the Potential for Cooperation” and attended by top officials, politicians and business leaders, and almost 2,000 Russian and foreign companies, the question of debts write-off as basis for economic growth and for developing long-term relations featured prominently.
“Economic issues are an integral part and a priority of Russia’s relations with African countries. Developing close business ties serves our common interest, contributes to the sustainable growth, helps to improve quality of life and solve numerous social problems,” Putin said, and then added, “Russia provides systematic assistance to developing the African continent. Our country is participating in an initiative to ease the African countries’’ debt burden. To date, the total amount of write-offs stands at over $20 billion. Joint programmes have been launched with a number of countries involving the use of debts to finance national economic growth projects.”
On 5 September 2017, President Putin attended a meeting of BRICS leaders with delegation heads from invited states, including the Heads of State and Government of Egypt, Tajikistan, Mexico, Guinea and Thailand. The meeting discussed the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and prospects for further developing their partner relations. Before the meeting, the BRICS leaders and delegation heads form invited states had a joint photo session, President Putin informed that
“Russia has been working actively to implement the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. We have written off over $20 billion of African countries’ debts through the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative.”
On 30 January 2015, President Putin sent his greetings to the 24th Ordinary Session of the Assembly of the African Union Heads of State and Government. The message stated in part:
“The Russian Federation’s relations with our African partners are developing positively. We have established a substantial political dialogue and work actively together in international affairs. Russia’s decision to write off much of African countries’ debt and the preferential conditions we offer the majority of Africa’s traditional export goods open up new possibilities for trade, economic and investment cooperation.”
On 27 March 2013, in Durban, South Africa, in a speech at meeting with Heads of African states, President Putin explicitly noted
“Over the course of many decades, Russia has provided direct assistance to the African continent. I would like to note that we have written off over 20 billion dollars in debt; we have written off far more than any other G8 nation. We plan to take additional measures to ease the debt burden.”
According to the Russian leader, the BRICS group’s companies are working actively in the African market; there is a growing influx of investments into various sectors in Africa’s economies, from traditional mineral extraction and farming to high technologies and banking. He added BRICS countries are championing the rights and interests of Africa and other nations with emerging economies, speaking out in favour of increasing their role and influence in the global governance system, particularly international financial and economic organizations.
On 28 June 2002, in Kananaskis, Canada, there was a media conference after the G8 Summit. There was one specific question regarding Africa. The G8 approached the plan submitted by African countries in a creative way. What can be Russia’s role and place in addressing the global problem of combating poverty?
President Vladimir Putin answered:
“As regards Russia, it has traditionally had very good relations with the African continent. We are very perceptive of the problems on the African continent. I must say that Russia has been making a very tangible contribution to solving Africa’s problems. Suffice it to say Russia is making a big contribution to the initiative adopted here, a multi-lateral initiative, including the writing off part of African debts. Of all the African debts that are to be written-off, 20% are debts to the Russian Federation. That is $26 billion.”
On 21 May 2007, The Kremlin made available Excerpts of the Transcript of the Cabinet Meeting. Finance Minister Aleksei Kudrin on the meeting of G8 finance ministers. The issue about supporting and helping African countries. Minister Kudrin told the cabinet meeting:
“We discussed the implementation of a number of initiatives that should improve the management and transparency of public finances in those countries, including by better employing revenues from the extraction of mineral resources in Africa to fight against poverty.”
“We discussed responsible lending and relations with countries that have benefited from debt relief. We are writing off debt, reducing these countries’ debt burden, and meanwhile their opportunity to incur new debts is increasing simultaneously. And a number of countries are starting to make huge loans to these countries, taking advantage of the fact that they are no longer in debt and lending to them at such a rate that these countries will once again require help. These instances exist. In fact, this practice is liable to be perceived in a negative way. A number of leading countries in the world are engaged in this practice,” he said.
At Sochi summit, Putin’s announcement about “debt write-off” was, therefore, nothing new. The Africa’s debts write-off debt has been played for years. It has, several times since his appointment, re-occurred in Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov‘s speeches, these texts are available at the official website of the Foreign Affairs Ministry.
He said:
“Russian development assistance is invariably aimed at solving the most pressing challenges faced by the countries in need. In these efforts, we are neither trying to lecture our partners on how they should build their lives, nor impose political models and values. Poverty eradication is the key objective of Russia’s state policy in the area of international development assistance at the global level.” (Remarks by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov at the UN Summit for the Adoption of the Post-2015 Development Agenda, New York, September 27, 2015 (1814-27-09-2015).
“Debt relief is an effective tool in this regard. Under the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative (HIPC), our country has written off over $20 billion of the principal debt owed by African countries alone. Russia also contributes to reducing the debt burden of the poorest countries beyond the HIPC through debt-for-aid swaps. We also take other steps towards the settlement of debt owed to Russia, both within multilateral and bilateral formats,” he added.
As it is known, Russia has written off over $20 billion debt of African states. We are undertaking steps to further ease the debt burden of Africans, including through conclusion of agreements based on the scheme “debt in exchange for development,” according to the Foreign Minister (Speech by the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov at the reception on the occasion of Africa Day, Moscow, 22 May 2014 (1243-22-05-2014).
In April, 2014, the President Vladimir Putin, approved the new State policy concept of the Russian Federation in the area of contribution to international development. Its practical implementation will contribute to the build-up of our participation in the area of assistance to the development of states of the African continent, according to the report posted to the website.
“Russia has done a great deal to alleviate the debt burden, particularly in the framework of the Enhanced Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative, and in writing off multilateral debts to the IMF and the International Development Association. The overall amount of the African countries’ indebtedness cancelled by us, including on a bilateral basis, exceeds 20 billion dollars, of which about one-half in the last two years,” Lavrov told the gathering on Africa Day in 2008 (Transcript of Remarks by Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation Sergey Lavrov at Reception on Occasion of Africa Day, Moscow, May 26, 2008 (751-26-05-2008).
As far back as May 2007, the Foreign Ministry showed interest in Africa’s debts.
“We are helping our African partners reduce the burden of foreign debt. We have written off African debt within the framework of the initiative to reduce the indebtedness of the poorest nations,” Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said at May 25 gathering of a group of ambassadors, diplomats and ministry officials marking Africa Day.
The move signaled Russia’s intention to fulfill its commitments made at that time Group of Eight (G8) meetings as well as paving the way to increased trade with the African continent. It was then, signed into law March 10 ratifying the agreement between Russia and African countries it aided during the Soviet era. Russia continued discussions on a full debt write-off on bilateral basis, African countries owed nearly $20 billion. The debt was primarily through weapon deliveries, according to the official transcript.
“The most important aspect of economic cooperation in our foreign policy is to encourage African countries to trade with us and to not only depend on development aid. Always looking for aid makes these countries less productive and funds for projects end up in foreign banks at the expense of the suffering population,” Lavrov said.
In March 2019, President Vladimir Putin chaired a meeting of the Commission for Military-Technical Cooperation with Foreign States and Kremlin’s website transcript pointed to the geographic reach of military-technical cooperation as constantly expanding, with the number of partners already in more than 100 countries worldwide.
Since then, President Putin has repeatedly called for renewed efforts, not only, in preserving, but also, in strengthening Russia’s leading position on the global arms market, primarily in the high-tech sector, amid tough competition. He further called for reliance on the rich experience in this sphere and building up consistently military technology cooperation with foreign states.
“We strictly observe international norms and principles in this area. We supply weapons and military equipment solely in the interests of security, defence and anti-terrorism efforts. In each case, we thoroughly assess the situation and try to predict the developments in the specific region. There are no bilateral contracts ever targeted against third countries, against their security interests,” he explained.
According to the Kremlin website, Russia targeted global export contracts worth $50 billion in 2018. Russia’s export priority is to expand its scope and strengthen its position on the market.
Over the past years, strengthening military-technical cooperation has been a strong part of the foreign policy of the Russian Federation. Russia has signed bilateral military-technical cooperation agreements with many African countries. On the other hand, Moscow’s post-Cold War relations with Africa, undoubtedly, lean toward military support and arms trade. Analysis by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) indicates that between 2014 and 2018, Russia accounted for 49% of arms imports to North Africa and 28% to Sub-Saharan Africa.
Africa has started accumulating debts. For example, Johan Burger’s article details crucial information in relation to Russia’s military interests in Africa. Russia has established or intends to establish military bases in Sudan along the Red Sea Coast, Somaliland, and Egypt. Another publication highlights Russia’s military bases in Madagascar, Mozambique, and Guinea. Lately, the Central African Republic intends to host a Russian military base.
October 2019, President of the Arab Republic of Egypt, African Union Chairman and Co-Chairman of the Russia-Africa Summit, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, noted in his speech at the plenary session of the Russia-Africa Economic Forum: Africa welcomes the efforts to encourage an open door policy and cooperation with its partners with a view to making a breakthrough in developing its economy. Russia and other foreign countries as well as international financial organizations have to develop cooperation and invest in Africa.
The Egyptian leader urged international and regional financial organizations to take part in funding Africa’s economic growth and to give it financial guarantees on consolidating its economic potential. This would help promote trade and investment. He further urged foreign countries to grant African states generous terms for their projects and development programmes, which would help Africa reach its dream – to embark on the road of progress, modernization and sustainable development.
Before concluding his speech, President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi emphasized that cooperation with Africa must be based on common interests, on the protection of African property, which would allow Africa to promote comprehensive sustainable development by carrying out three major goals.
First, it is necessary to accelerate economic reforms and create a businesslike atmosphere by establishing close partnership with the private sector. Second, it is essential to implement social justice principles with the broad participation of society. Third, it is necessary to consolidate peace and stability in accordance with the African Union’s Agenda 2063 and Sustainable Development Goals 2030.
The 15-member UN Security Council has unanimously adopted a resolution welcoming AU initiatives for infrastructure development and pledging support for “African solutions to African problems” in an attempt to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).Significantly noting that African Union officials have repeatedly urged African leaders to prioritize Africa’s Agenda 2063 – a strategic framework for delivering on Africa’s goal for inclusive and sustainable development – and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
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Kester Kenn Klomegah, who worked previously with Inter Press Service (IPS) and InDepthNews, is now a regular contributor to Global Research. As a versatile researcher, he believes that everyone deserves equal access to quality and trustworthy media reports.
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Rapidly progressive kidney failure to the point of hemo- or peritoneal dialysis is a medical nightmare that must be avoided at all costs.
Patients with slowly advancing renal disease due to diabetes or other problems have months if not years to get ready for dialysis or plan for kidney transplantation.
Kidney failure requiring hospitalization or dialysis should never happen after a routine vaccine, yet it has occurred multiple times after COVID-19 mRNA injections (Pfizer or Moderna).
This side effect is not listed in any consent form, FAQ, or on the blank package insert for the EUA genetic products. I wonder how many patients have gone into renal failure, were hospitalized and or died after mRNA vaccination with no recognition that Pfizer or Moderna could have triggered the catastrophe?
Chen described nine cases of antineutrophil cytoplasmic antibody (ANCA) positive vasculitis that must be diagnosed with the ANCA test and often biopsy followed by intensive medical treatment. Doctors and nurses must act fast, otherwise the condition can be fatal. As you can see from the table 7 of 8 were spared dialysis but most had permanent kidney damage to deal with for the rest of their lives. Sadly, one patient went on dialysis.
Chen CC, Chen HY, Lu CC, Lin SH. Case Report: Anti-neutrophil Cytoplasmic Antibody-Associated Vasculitis With Acute Renal Failure and Pulmonary Hemorrhage May Occur After COVID-19 Vaccination. Front Med (Lausanne). 2021 Nov 11;8:765447. doi: 10.3389/fmed.2021.765447. PMID: 34859017; PMCID: PMC8632021.
This paper serves as a reminder for doctors who are evaluating patients with constitutional symptoms weeks to months after mRNA vaccination to have a low threshold for routine common testing including serum creatinine and urinalysis. When early renal failure is detected additional testing including ANCA must be drawn and care should be elevated to specialists familiar with ANCA positive syndromes.
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The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity
by Michel Chossudovsky
Michel Chossudovsky reviews in detail how this insidious project “destroys people’s lives”. He provides a comprehensive analysis of everything you need to know about the “pandemic” — from the medical dimensions to the economic and social repercussions, political underpinnings, and mental and psychological impacts.
“My objective as an author is to inform people worldwide and refute the official narrative which has been used as a justification to destabilize the economic and social fabric of entire countries, followed by the imposition of the “deadly” COVID-19 “vaccine”. This crisis affects humanity in its entirety: almost 8 billion people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings and our children worldwide. Truth is a powerful instrument.”
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Under the 1984 Bayh-Dole Act, government scientists can collect royalties from drug companies for discoveries they make while working on the public’s dime
Taxpayers fund government research, while Big Pharma, the National Institutes of Health and NIH scientists keep all the profits
As a patent holder who profits from royalties, the NIH has a significant stake in regulations that impact patents and vaccine mandates, and may use its influence to benefit itself rather than the public
The NIH distributes $32 billion of taxpayer funds as research grants each year. As the largest federal grant-maker, the NIH has a monopoly on what research gets done and what doesn’t
Scientists vying for grants also recognize that in order to get funding, they have to play by the rules, and that means doing work that supports establishment narratives on public health policy
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In late February 2023, Moderna agreed to pay $400 million to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) for the patent it holds on Moderna’s mRNA shot.1
The patent process is a part of the COVID mRNA shots that the media haven’t really addressed and people in general don’t know anything about — probably because it’s a total racket. Based on internal documents and correspondence, it appears the NIAID funded the creation of SARS-CoV-2. At the same time, it patented and receives royalty payments for the “vaccine” against said virus.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is supposed to be the primary government agency responsible for public health research, but by the looks of it, it appears instead to be in the business of creating public health threats in order to profit from them.
And the agency itself isn’t the only one raking in profits. Many patents are held by individuals working at the NIH/NIAID. So, taxpayers fund research that may or may not work out, while Big Pharma, the NIH and individuals at the NIH profit from products that end up on the market. This is a clear conflict of interest that can hurt public health in any number of ways.
For starters, it incentivizes the NIH to support and promote potentially dangerous drugs, as we’ve clearly seen during the COVID pandemic. The NIH also has a significant stake in regulations that impact patents and vaccine mandates, and may use its influence to benefit itself rather than the public.
Conflicts of Interest Influence Public Health Policy
In the Full Measure video above, investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson reports the findings of watchdog group Open The Books, which recently took a deep dive into “the issue of government scientists collecting royalty payments from pharmaceutical companies for discoveries made while working on your dime.”
According to OpenTheBooks.com founder and CEO Adam Andrzejewski, the NIH distributes $32 billion of taxpayer funds as research grants each year to an estimated 56,000 different entities. “That basically buys you the entire American health care space,” he says.
As the largest federal grant-maker, the NIH has a monopoly on what research gets done and what doesn’t, as it decides which scientists and projects get that money. Scientists vying for grants also recognize that in order to get a piece of that pie, they have to play by the rules, and that means doing work that supports establishment narratives on public health policy.
But that’s not all. The NIH is also gobbling up patents, which further weakens its incentive to protect and promote what’s truly in the public’s best interest due to the financial conflicts of interest that come into play.
How the Third-Party Royalty Complex Works
As explained by Andrzejewski, under the 1984 Bayh-Dole Act, government scientists can collect royalties from drug companies for discoveries they make while working on the public’s dime:
“Here’s how the third-party royalty complex works. You have a government scientist funded by taxpayers, and they work in a government lab that’s also funded by taxpayers. And when they have an invention [a drug, device or therapeutic] … the NIH … then licenses that invention … to the private sector.
And the private sector then pays royalties back to NIH. NIH then distributes those royalties on a royalty split schedule, back to the scientist. Details of those royalty payments to government scientists are kept as strictly held secrets.”
In fact, these royalty payments are kept under such closed wraps, scientists who receive them aren’t even required to divulge them on their financial statements, let alone to the public. Congress can’t even access those data.
In mid-June 2022, Sen. Rand Paul questioned then-NIAID chief Dr. Anthony Fauci about whether he’d ever received royalty payments from an entity to which he had given a research grant, and whether he or anyone else on the vaccine committee had ever received payments from vaccine makers.2 Fauci suffered one of his now-famous lapses of memory and wouldn’t answer.
NIH Fights to Shield Conflicted Parties
Paul’s questioning of Fauci came on the heels of a lawsuit filed against the NIH to obtain these payment disclosures. The lawsuit was filed by Open The Books in October 2021. But while the NIH eventually did release them, many of the most crucial pieces of information were redacted, and Paul’s attempt to get answers led nowhere. As noted by Andrzejewski:
“That lawsuit unearthed 3,000 pages of royalty payments to NIH scientists from 2010 to 2021. During that time, 2,407 government scientists received $325 million in secretive royalty payments, averaging out to more than $135,000 each.
But much is left unknown. NIH redacted or blacked out key details. We don’t know who paid it. We don’t know how much each individual scientist received. We can only see their names and count the number of times that each scientist received a payment.
And they also redacted the invention, the license number or the patent number … So, every single one of those individual, third-party royalty payments has the appearance of a conflict of interest …
We need to be able to follow the money. Unelected bureaucrats are running the entire American health care complex without any scrutiny. They’re basically telling the American people, ‘Sit down, shut up, pay up. We’ll run things.’ And that’s not how the federal government is supposed to operate.”
COVID Jabs Are Rife With Conflicts of Interest
Conflicts of interest also appear to have played a role in the U.S. government’s preferential treatment of Pfizer and Moderna during the pandemic. Pfizer was the first to receive government authorization for its COVID jab, and it just so happens to be part of an NIH royalty-sharing agreement.
Moderna also has such an agreement. What this all means is that the NIH helped invent certain technologies that went into these shots, and then licensed those technologies to Pfizer and Moderna in return for royalty payments.
So, the NIH has been making tens of millions of dollars from the COVID shots. Could that financial incentive influence the NIH’s stance on vaccine mandates? What do you think?
As you may recall, Johnson & Johnson’s COVID jab was vilified for causing blood clots, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration even limited the authorized use of the Janssen shot to people over the age of 18 who have no access to Moderna’s or Pfizer’s jabs, and/or those who voluntarily opt for the Janssen shot, understanding the risks.3
Meanwhile, Pfizer’s and Moderna’s shots also cause blood clots, but neither of them was placed under restrictions. Instead, both were added to the U.S. childhood and adult vaccination schedules. Janssen wasn’t.
The NIH Royalty Cash Cow
The NIH’s secret royalties and the conflicts of interest these payments create were also addressed by “Rising” hosts Robby Soave and Briahna Joy Gray in a recent episode (video above). Alexander Zaitchik, author of “Owning the Sun: A People’s History of Monopoly Medicine from Aspirin to COVID-19 Vaccines,” also joined them on the program.
In Zaitchik’s view, the biggest scandal is not that government scientists are receiving royalty payments from drug companies but, rather, the intimate relationship that exists between government and “an industry that is using the monopoly system to price gouge the American people.”
“The NIH has basically abandoned its role to serve the public,” Zaitchik says, “and instead has become much too aligned with the industry and is an enabler, an accomplice and a protector of these monopolies. The vaccines are a point in case.
Government science was basically given, along with these massive research subsidies, through Warp Speed, to Moderna, for example. And there were no public interest provisions attached.
There were no pricing promises, there were no requests that technology be transferred [shared] with other parts of the world. It was basically a conveyor belt for private industry … So, for me, the real problem is NIH [being] fully aligned with industry on the monopoly question when public science is involved …”
Public Gets Fleeced Coming and Going
When public monies are being used for research, any scientific discoveries ought to be used for the public’s benefit, and the patents should remain public property with broad licensing rights.
This used to be the default position, but not anymore. In the 1970s, Big Pharma convinced Congress that this policy was slowing down innovation, and that if companies were allowed to claim exclusive rights to the patents, they’d be more apt to innovate. The Bayh-Dole Act was an outgrowth of this.
But we can now see why and how that doesn’t work. Public health is literally being sacrificed for profit, and since government agencies are in on it, there’s no one left to look out for the public’s interests.
Additionally, the public ends up getting fleeced twice. First, our tax dollars are being used to fund the research that private companies then lay claim to, and then we end up paying top dollar for the products we funded the development of, as there’s no price competition.
As noted by Zaitchik, while the Bayh-Dole Act is a bad law, it does have a rider that says generic production of drugs created with government funding can be mandated. However, every time patient groups have approached the NIH and asked for this provision to be enforced, as the monopoly is hurting patients who cannot afford the exorbitant prices, the NIH has rejected those requests.
For example, the U.S. Army invented a breakthrough prostate cancer drug, and Americans are paying six times the price for this drug compared to other parts of the world. But even though the government has the power to lower the price by mandating generic production, it refuses to do so.
“The whole system, up and down, has been completely corrupted by the amount of money and power the industry has been allowed to amass, because of the corruption in the patent system in general,” Zaitchik says.
Big Pharma Endangers Public Health
In closing, I’d like to draw attention to a paper published in Surgical Neurology International in October 2022, titled “The Pharmaceutical Industry Is Dangerous To Health. Further Proof With COVID-19.”4
“The COVID-19 period highlights a huge problem that has been developing for decades, the control of science by industry,” the author, Fabien Deruelle, an independent researcher in France, writes.
“In the 1950s, the tobacco industry set the example, which the pharmaceutical industry followed. Since then, the latter has been regularly condemned for illegal marketing, misrepresentation of experimental results, dissimulation of information about the dangers of drugs, and considered as criminal.
Therefore, this study was conducted to show that knowledge is powerfully manipulated by harmful corporations, whose goals are: 1) financial; 2) to suppress our ability to make choices to acquire global control of public health.”
Deruelle’s paper reviews a long list of techniques that drug companies use to shape and control the science, including the following:
Falsification of clinical trials and making data inaccessible
Faked studies
Conflict-of-interest studies
Concealment of the jab’s short-term side effects
Concealment of the fact there is no knowledge of the long-term effects of the COVID-19 jab
Dubious composition of the COVID shots, with many ingredients remaining unlisted
Inadequate testing methods
Conflicts of interest within governments and international organizations
Bribing of physicians
Denigration of renowned scientists who express differing views
The banning of alternative effective treatments
Unscientific countermeasures that eviscerate liberties and freedoms
Government use of behavior modification and social engineering techniques to impose isolation, masks wearing and vaccine acceptance
Scientific censorship by the media
White Collar Crooks Are Running the Show
Deruelle points out that all but one of the primary drug companies producing COVID “vaccines” — Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca, Merck and Johnson & Johnson — have long criminal histories, having been busted and fined huge sums for illegal marketing, recommending drugs for off-label use, misrepresenting trial results and concealing information about known dangers of their drugs. Moderna is the only exception, as it’s only been around since 2010. Deruelle writes:5
“In 2007, Merck paid $670 million, in 2009, Pfizer paid $2.3 billion, in 2010, AstraZeneca paid $520 million, and in 2012, Johnson and Johnson paid a fine of $1.1 billion …
Since 1995, Pfizer has been assessed more than $6.5 billion in penalties for 42 instances of misconduct; 36 instances of misconduct since 1995, resulting in over $11.5 billion in penalties for Johnson and Johnson; 35 instances of misconduct since 1995 and $8.8 billion in penalties for Merck.
Pfizer is singled out as having persistent criminal behavior and casual disregard for the health and well-being of patients. Pfizer is no different from other pharmaceutical companies, but it is larger and more egregious. Pfizer is a habitual offender, persistently engaging in illegal business practices, bribing physicians, and suppressing unfavorable trial results.”
Will Pfizer Stand Trial?
True to form, Pfizer is also accused of scientific fraud in its COVID-19 jab trial. Brook Jackson, who worked at one of Pfizer’s trial sites, sued Pfizer in 2021 for violating the False Claims Act.6 U.S. District Judge Michael Truncale heard oral arguments on the motions to dismiss, March 1, 2023.
As reported by The Epoch Times March 2, 2023,7 defense attorneys for Pfizer argued that “whether protocol violations occurred was ultimately irrelevant because the federal government was made aware of them but still granted emergency authorization to Pfizer’s vaccine.”
Jackson’s lawyers countered by saying the FDA authorized the vaccine before reviewing Jackson’s complaint. Judge Truncale has not issued a ruling as of this writing, and Jackson’s attorney suspects it may be weeks or even months before the judge issues his opinion.8
Conflicts of Interest Shaped COVID Responses
Deruelle also specifically delves into the conflicts of interest and relationships between the drug companies involved during COVID-19 and governments, international organizations and media — and how they worked the COVID “emergency” for their own benefit. Here are some select excerpts:9
“In 2009, the H1N1 episode should already have been enough to reveal that governments and the WHO are not autonomous. Work has shown that the 2009 H1N1 pandemic seems (based on case fatality rates [CFRs]) to have been the mildest influenza pandemic on record. Following investigations by the BMJ, it appears that this event declared by the WHO is significantly tainted by conflicts of interest.
A report by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe has heavily criticized the WHO, national governments, and EU agencies for their handling of the swine flu pandemic: distortion of priorities of public health services all over Europe, waste of huge sums of public money, provocation of unjustified fear among Europeans, and creation of health risks through vaccines and medications which might not have been sufficiently tested before being authorized in fast-track procedures.
According to former head of health at the Council of Europe, W. Wodarg, the swine flu outbreak was a false pandemic driven by drug companies that influenced scientists and official agencies …
During the COVID-19 period, France hired private consulting firms, mainly McKinsey and Company, which is known for working with pharmaceutical companies. The Senate Inquiry Commission reports that McKinsey contributed on all aspects of the health crisis, notably for social engineering strategies on the vaccination campaign and the extension of the health pass …
The suppression of good science and scientists is not new, but COVID-19 unleashed state corruption on a grand scale, suppressing science for political and financial reasons … Since the beginning of COVID-19, much scientific data and expert opinion have been censored or labeled as false or misleading by many internet platforms …
In June 2019, the World Economic Forum (WEF) and the United Nations signed a partnership (2030 agenda). In the field of health, this alliance is designed to combat key emerging global health threats and achieve universal health coverage. In October 2019, in New York City, the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security and its partners the WEF and the Gates Foundation, hosted Event 201, a fictional coronavirus pandemic …
Among the partners of the WEF, there are: Pfizer, AstraZeneka, Johnson and Johnson, Moderna, McKinsey, and Facebook et Google. A few months later, a coronavirus pandemic is declared, accompanied by its highly mediatized universal solution, the vaccine …
In addition to Event 201, other pandemic simulations, civil (MARS and SPARS in 2017) and military (Dark Winter in 2001, Atlantic Storm in 2003 and 2005, Global mercury in 2003, and Crimson Contagion in 2019), have taken place over the past 20 years. All these simulations correspond to fear programs induced by false media.
For the general welfare of the population, all these scenarios lead to the same methods (identical to those used during COVID-19): Isolation, control of movements and liberties, censorship, propaganda, and coercive vaccination of the population …
[T]here is no doubt that this is an event manipulated by governments, international agencies, pharmaceutical industries, and the media. In addition to the huge profits obtained by the pharmaceutical groups involved, the primary goal of this ‘pandemic’ seems to be compulsory vaccination, because the introduction of a European vaccine passport had already been planned since 2019 …
The objective of the WHO is to impose the Chinese model to become the norm. That is to say, a system with centralization of each person’s health data and restriction of freedoms for the unvaccinated … A period such as COVID-19 represents a powerful lever for increasing the effectiveness of global governance.”
Conflicts of Interest Threaten Our Freedom
In the final analysis, conflicts of interest and the collusion between government and industry does more than rob us of our hard-earned money. It now threatens our very freedom, as these monopolies are being used to further a totalitarian takeover of global proportions.
As such, we can no longer turn a blind eye or accept excuses such as “these relationships don’t influence our decision-making.” They absolutely influence the decisions being made, and the public is consistently on the losing end. Congress needs to start taking this seriously, and revisit laws such as the Bayh-Dole Act, which is currently allowing private monopolies to profit while no one is looking out for our interests.
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The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity
by Michel Chossudovsky
Michel Chossudovsky reviews in detail how this insidious project “destroys people’s lives”. He provides a comprehensive analysis of everything you need to know about the “pandemic” — from the medical dimensions to the economic and social repercussions, political underpinnings, and mental and psychological impacts.
“My objective as an author is to inform people worldwide and refute the official narrative which has been used as a justification to destabilize the economic and social fabric of entire countries, followed by the imposition of the “deadly” COVID-19 “vaccine”. This crisis affects humanity in its entirety: almost 8 billion people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings and our children worldwide. Truth is a powerful instrument.”
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Sometimes I think that the script being used by the Biden Administration to manage its foreign and national security policies has been written by George Orwell, though I am not sure if it based on 1984 or Animal Farm. Maybe it is a combination of the two. Either way, it would help explain why there is something seriously wrong here. For example, at the end of February Congress, confronted by a debt ceiling, began discussing cutting Medicare and Social Security while more recently a banking sector crisis seems to be developing so Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen decided to go off doing photo-ops in Kiev embracing Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky shortly after handing him the keys to the US economy.
She explained to Zelensky how the White House had approved an additional $12 billion in aid to Ukraine during the previous week, including $2 billion for the military and $10 billion to support Zelensky’s government and other infrastructure needs. The US Treasury is now de facto the source of the Ukraine government’s entire annual budget. In addition, Yellen described glowingly how the Treasury and State Departments will implement a new round of sanctions against more than 200 entities and individuals with ties to Russia’s military, high-technology industries, and its metals and mining sectors. The US Department of Commerce is also enforcing export restrictions on materials and technology, including semiconductors, sold by American companies to customers in Russia and China.
In defense of her grand mission, Yellen penned an op-ed for the always compliant New York Times explaining the importance of Ukraine to the United States. She wrote how in Ukraine
“…Russia’s barbaric attacks continue — but Kyiv stands strong and free. Ukraine’s heroic resistance is the direct product of the courage and resilience of Ukraine’s military, leadership and people. But President Volodymyr Zelensky and the Ukrainians would be the first to admit that they can’t do this alone — and that international support is crucial to sustaining their resistance. I’m in Kyiv to reaffirm our unwavering support of the Ukrainian people. Mr. Putin is counting on our global coalition’s resolve to wane, which he thinks will give him the upper hand in the war. But he is wrong. As President Biden said here last week, America will stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes… Ukrainians are fighting for their lives on the front lines of the free world. Today, and every day, they deserve America’s unyielding support.”
The Yellen op-ed drones on with a lie so large that it is astonishing that the New York Times would even print it: “When confronted with scenes of brutality and oppression, Americans have always been quick to stand up and do the right thing. Our strength as a nation comes from our commitment to our ideals — and our capacity to see in others the same desires that animated our own struggles for freedom and justice.” But then she tops that with assurances from “President Zelensky, [who] has pledged to use these funds in the ‘most responsible way.’ We welcome this commitment, as well as his longstanding agenda to strengthen good governance in Ukraine.” Huh?
And here is Yellen’s version of “Why We Fight!”:
“Our support is motivated, first and foremost, by a moral duty to come to the aid of a people under attack. We also know that, as President Zelensky has said, our assistance is not charity. It’s an investment in ‘global security and democracy.’ Let’s look at the strategic impact of our support for Ukraine so far. Mr. Putin’s war poses a direct threat to European security, as well as to the laws and values that underpin the rules-based international system.”
So, Americans have a “moral duty” apparently up to and including sending their sons and daughters to die supporting Ukraine. And ah yes, it’s all about the “free” world, democracy and the notorious rules based international system! Has anyone yet cited Hegel’s observation that the President Joe Biden Administration’s foreign policy has already “repeated itself, first as a tragedy in Afghanistan, second as a farce”?
Meanwhile one suspects Zelensky was laughing all the way to the bank as Yellen disappeared over the horizon to come up with the cash, as that old expression goes, and he probably already has one of his buddies shopping for a new villa on the French Riviera to supplement his other real estate!
But wait! The story became even more exciting the following week, involving another visit to Mr. Z by America’s nearly invisible Attorney General Merrick Garland, a man who can literally look Z in the eye as they are both very short. Garland is generally engaged in chasing white supremacists and requiring all new FBI hires to learn all about how to identify and pursue antisemites, but he has made two trips to Kiev to meet mano-a-mano with the brave olive drab t-shirt clad warrior who is already being beatified as the twenty-first century’s Winston Churchill.
Garland was in town to do the other thing the engages his sense of law and order, which is to set up a tribunal to arrest, prosecute and punish Russian war criminals after Ukraine emerges triumphant from its conflict with the unimaginably evil President Vladimir Putin. It would be modeled on the Nuremberg Tribunals that tried leading Nazis after the Second World War, and Garland has cited his family’s escape from the so-called holocaust to explain why he is intent on personally being involved in delivering what he describes as “justice.” A Justice Department spokeswoman described Garland’s mission as being in Kiev to personally “reaffirm America’s commitment to help hold Russia responsible for war crimes committed in its unjust and unprovoked invasion against its sovereign neighbor.”
Garland had several meetings with President Volodymyr Zelensky and foreign law enforcement officials including Ukrainian Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin while attending what was billed as the “United for Justice Conference.” Zelensky elaborated that the purpose of the conference was to hold Russia’s leadership accountable for the alleged atrocities carried out by its army. “The main issue of all these meetings is accountability,” he said. The US Justice Department is reportedly actively engaged in the gathering of evidence to indict the Russians. During Garland’s first visit to Ukraine in June 2022 he announced the appointment of Eli Rosenbaum, an Office of Special Investigations prosecutor best known for going after former Nazis, to direct American efforts to identify and track Russian war criminals.
Garland laid it on thick, as was expected from someone responsible for prosecuting the rest of the world when it steps out of line. He told his hosts that
“Just over twelve months ago, invading Russian forces began committing atrocities at the largest scale in any armed conflict since the Second World War. We are here today in Ukraine to speak clearly, and with one voice: the perpetrators of those crimes will not get away with them. In addition to our work in partnership with Ukraine and the international community, the United States has also opened criminal investigations into war crimes in Ukraine that may violate US law.”
He concluded by throwing out the complete bullshit party line much beloved by Joe Biden and Tony Blinken, that
“The United States recognizes that what happens here in Ukraine will have a direct impact on the strength of our own democracy.”
Of course, there is more than a little bit of irony in all this, not to mention top level hypocrisy, as the United States has killed more people directly or indirectly while committing more crimes against humanity dished out in various ways over the past twenty years than any other country, except, predictably, Israel, which currently is committing crimes against humanity on a nearly daily basis.
Curiously, however, the normally tone-deaf White House and Pentagon seem to understand, on a certain level, that opening up Pandora’s box might not be a good idea when it comes to war crimes. Last week Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austinrefused to share US information on alleged Russian crimes with the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague. The Pentagon is blocking the Biden administration from sharing evidence with the ICC collected by American intelligence agencies regarding Russian activities in Ukraine because helping the court investigate Russians might set a precedent that could help pave the way for it to prosecute Americans. Washington does not recognize the ICC, fearing that it might well seek to examine the sorry record of US military crimes in Asia and Africa. Israel similarly does to recognize the court for roughly the same reason.
So here we are, two top level officials from the Biden regime sneak into Kiev to give an arch crook money and unlimited moral support, together with a pledge that more cash is on the way as are arms and war crimes tribunals await those nasty Russians. And guess what? It is all packaged as being good for America! This sounds like a song that was sung previously in places like Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan and it was a tissue of lies then just as it is now. Yellen ought to have stayed home to tend to the banking system and should be giving the billions of dollars earmarked for Zelensky back to the American people. If Garland wants to investigate anyone it should be the Pentagon, the intelligence agencies, and Congress. And yes, his own FBI! And don’t forget how the Bidens and Clintons became multi-millionaires! And then there is the destruction of Nord Stream. Funny how every time one turns over a rock in and around the US government something really smelly surfaces.
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This article was originally published on The Unz Review.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected]. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
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With any credible evidence of alleged Russian mass kidnappings of children from former Ukraine sorely lacking, in order to justify this propaganda narrative, as well as give at least some ostensible “credence” to the recent ICC indictment against Russian President Vladimir Putin, the mainstream propaganda machine is mobilizing all of its forces.
Supposed “horror stories” of the “ordeal” these kids and their parents “have to go through” are aiming to cause an emotional reaction and present Russia and its leadership as “monstrous” as they could possibly be. One such “horror story” was published by The Guardian on March 19, just two days after the Hague-based “court” issued an arrest warrant for Putin and Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova, Presidential Commissioner for Children’s Rights.
According to The Guardian, Yevhen Mezhevyi, a 40-year-old Ukrainian citizen now living in Riga (Latvia), claims his children were “abducted and forcibly transferred” to Russia last year.
Mezhevyi’s children were apparently taken while he was serving prison time in the DNR (Donetsk People’s Republic) due to his three-year service in the Kiev regime forces (2016-2019), including in the notorious Yavoriv military base in the west of the country, infamous for the training of various openly Neo-Nazi units. According to his own admission, Yevhen Mezhevyi knew that the Russian military would be apprehending all former and current members of such Nazi-inspired cohorts, so he tried to hide his past and even threw away his uniforms in an attempt to leave no trace of his time in the Kiev regime forces.
However, despite his attempts to hide, Mezhevyi was caught and sent to a prison near the town of Olenovka, approximately 20 km southwest of Donetsk, where he remained for 45 days. He claims that after Russian forces entered the city, Mezhevyi, his son Matvii (13) and daughters Sviatoslava (9) and Oleksandra (7) were “taken” by Russian soldiers and evacuated to Vinogradnoye, a village to the south-east of Mariupol. There, humanitarian volunteers offered assistance to Mezhevyi and his family, so they “stayed there for a while” (Yevhen didn’t specify for how long). “…but then, one day, after we were taken to a checkpoint and searched, a Russian official saw something in my documents,” he lamented, obviously referring to the fact that the official found evidence of Mezhevyi’s time in the Neo-Nazi junta forces.
Despite the fact that he could have easily been sentenced to long-term prison time for this, Mezhevyi was released after 45 days.
In the meantime, his children were evacuated to Russia, as the Kiev regime forces, in which he served for three years, never stopped shelling the Donbass republics and other areas. Mezhevyi claims to have tried to get a job, but gave up after his son Matvii called him, allegedly saying that “the camp” he and his sisters were in “was closing in five days” and that “we have to either go to a foster family or an orphanage”.
Using the word “camp” for the facilities Mezhevyi’s children were housed in is quite intentional, as the obvious goal is to present Russia in the worst light possible. Apparently, the alternative was to leave the children completely alone in the DNR, where they would’ve been targeted by the Neo-Nazi junta forces, in the case of which Moscow would also be “guilty” for not evacuating them. It seems you can’t win if you’re Russian.
“I understood there was no time to look for a job. I needed to take the risk, travel to Russia and get them out of there, as soon as possible,” Mezhevyi claims, adding: “Thank God, there are volunteers who helped me get to Moscow. It was very hard to cross into Russia from the occupied territories and I was interrogated, again and again, even though I had already spent 45 days in their prison and I just wanted to get my children. But no one cared about that. Eventually, I crossed into Russia and got on a train to Moscow.”
It’s quite interesting how the apparent “Mordor of our time” let Mr. Mezhevyi cross the border and undertake the “risky journey” where the “Evil Empire” even lets “volunteers” help people find their children, “kidnapped” for whatever reason. After he arrived in Moscow, Mezhevyi was contacted by Alexey Gazaryan, an official working at a children’s ombudsman office, managed by Maria Lvova-Belova, for whom the ICC issued an arrest warrant, along with President Putin. Apparently, Gazaryan told Mezhevyi that “he didn’t mind him taking his children back, but that he needed to get a permit” from DNR social services.
The head of DNR social services, Elena Maiboroda, called Gazaryan and agreed, so on 20 June, around 11:00 PM, Mezhevyi arrived at “the camp” on the outskirts of Moscow. He claims he was “interrogated” by at least five people, including Gazaryan, a psychologist, a nurse and the head of “the camp”, who “made him” fill out dozens of papers. Mezhevyi “managed” to cross into Latvia with his children with the help of “volunteers”. The Guardian claims he “still struggles” to understand how, among the documents that the Russians “forced” his son to sign, there was also a certificate asking the child to transfer the custody of himself and his sister back to their father.
The wording is obviously a pitiful attempt to portray Russian officials as supposed “monsters” for following their own legal procedures, which, in fact, are less strict than in most Western countries. The article claims that Mezhevyi’s family has been reunited, “but only after he undertook a risky journey over the border to rescue them”. This implies that they had to be “rescued”, given his “ordeal”, including the “incredibly risky” task of “forced” signing of documents. It seems only in Russia “genocide” is conducted by getting the children safely evacuated from an active warzone to a summer camp and then helping the father, an enemy combatant, to pick them up and go wherever he pleases.
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Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.
Featured image: Yevhen Mezhevyi with Matvii, 13, and Sviatoslava (nine) and Oleksandra (seven) in Red Square, Moscow after being allowed to take them back. Photograph: Yevhen Mezhevyi
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Latest update as of 10:17 ET, March 21, 2023:
What’s being described as an initial, informal meeting between Presidents Xi and Putin is underway at the Kremlin. While the expected cordialities and expressions of closer relations were exchange, among the most notable early statements came from Putin, who said he’s “open” to peace talks with Ukraine and China’s mediation efforts.
“We have a lot of joint tasks, goals,” Putin told his Chinese counterpart while also congratulating him on re-election as the head of the Chinese state for a third 5-year term. Xi in return said “Russia succeeded in promoting prosperity under Putin’s leadership.” Putin further expressed that “we will discuss your initiative [on Ukraine] which we view with respect.”
“We are open for a negotiating process on Ukraine,” the Russian leader added. He noted to Xi that “we have looked at your proposals for the resolution of the Ukraine conflict” and previewed that “we will discuss this question.”
🇨🇳🤝🇷🇺"Welcome to Russia" — Xi Jinping has arrived in the Kremlin, an informal meeting with Vladimir Putin has started pic.twitter.com/BQ4rzfmynT
The day prior in media interviews, White House NSC spokesperson John Kirby declared that any “call for a ceasefire” in Ukraine is “unacceptable.”
Likely Moscow will only be satisfied with nothing short of a full Kiev recognition of the Donbass being under Russia; however, this is the very thing Washington will condemn and seek to induce the Zelensky administration to resist.
According to state media commentary (RT), “Moscow has said that it would consider the proposal but has pointed to several factors that stand in the way of a peaceful resolution in Ukraine.” And more of Moscow’s perspective headed into more Xi meetings: “Those include the insistence of Kiev and its Western backers on inflicting a military defeat of Russia, their firm opposition to any sort of ceasefire, as well as a law enacted by Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky that forbids holding negotiations with Russia as long as Putin remains in office.”
Kirby on Xi meeting Putin: “If there's some sort of call for a ceasefire well that's just going to be unacceptable.” -> Only US mediated ceasefires are good! pic.twitter.com/4SrnKLBu3o
Chinese President Xi Jinping has arrived in Moscow on Monday for what Beijing is calling a “trip for peace” – but at a moment the White House is emphasizing “We don’t support calls for a ceasefire right now,” according to the words of White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby. “We certainly don’t support calls for a ceasefire that would be called for by the PRC in a meeting in Moscow that would simply benefit Russia,” Kirby said.
The three-day trip was kicked off as Xi’s plane touched down at Moscow’s Vnukovo airport, where Russia’s deputy prime minister for tourism, sport, culture and communications, Dmitri N. Chernyshenko, greeted him a red carpet ceremony and military brass band. His first stop was the Kremlin for an initial and informal meeting with President Putin.
“I am very glad, at the invitation of President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, to come back to the land of our close neighbor on a state visit,” Mr. Xi said upon arrival. He added: “China and Russia are good neighbors and reliable partners connected by mountains and rivers.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that China’s 12-point peace plan in Ukraine will top the agenda. “One way or another, issues raised in (Beijing’s) plan for Ukraine will be touched upon during the negotiations,” he said. “Comprehensive explanations will be given by President Putin” of the Russian position.”
Just hours ahead of the Chinese presidential plane being en route, both Xi and Putin published separate articles previewing the bilateral summit, with Xi emphasizing China’s push to end the Ukraine crisis reflects global support. Putin for his part wrote that he has “high expectations for the upcoming talks” with his “good old friend”.
Putin said he enjoys the “warmest relationship” with Xi, in a partnership between countries which is “consistently growing stronger” and has reached “the highest level in their history”. Speaking of the talks, the first in-person summit with the Chinese leader since the start of the Ukraine war, Putin stressed, “We have no doubt that they will give a new powerful impetus to our bilateral cooperation in its entirety.” According to more from Putin’s letter, published also in English on state websites:
Yet the main thing has remained unchanged: I am talking of the firm friendship between Russia and China, which is consistently growing stronger for the benefit and in the interest of our countries and peoples. The progress made in the development of bilateral ties is impressive. The Russia-China relations have reached the highest level in their history and are gaining even more strength; they surpass Cold War-time military-political alliances in their quality, with no one to constantly order and no one to constantly obey, without limitations or taboos. We have reached an unprecedented level of trust in our political dialogue, our strategic cooperation has become truly comprehensive in nature and is standing on the brink of a new era.
Putin also at one point took a swipe directly at the United States:
Sticking more stubbornly than ever to its obsolete dogmata and vanishing dominance, the “Collective West” is gambling on the fates of entire states and peoples. The US’s policy of simultaneously deterring Russia and China, as well as all those who do not bend to the American dictation, is getting ever more fierce and aggressive. The international security and cooperation architecture is being dismantled. Russia has been labelled an “immediate threat” and China a “strategic competitor.”
Meanwhile, Washington is watching the Xi trip very closely, also as the Chinese leader is at some point soon expected to hold a phone call with Ukrainian President Zelensky….
Ahead of a meeting between Putin and Xi, White House NSC spokesperson John Kirby declares that any "call for a ceasefire" in Ukraine is "unacceptable." pic.twitter.com/Z1MUvdlTwS
And on China’s mediation efforts in the Ukraine crisis in particular, Putin vowed that efforts to split the major Eurasian allies “won’t work”…
“The crisis in Ukraine, which was provoked and is being diligently fuelled by the West, is the most striking, yet not the only, manifestation of its desire to retain its international dominance and preserve the unipolar world order,” the Russian leader wrote. “It is crystal clear that NATO is striving for a global reach of activities and seeking to penetrate the Asia-Pacific.” He continued:
It obvious that there are forces persistently working to split the common Eurasian space into a network of “exclusive clubs” and military blocs that would serve to contain our countries’ development and harm their interests. This won’t work.
Chinese President Xi arrives in Moscow to meet with the Russian President Putin. pic.twitter.com/4GLcnf3nkt
Putin concluded near the end of his letter, “We appreciate the well-balanced stance on the events in Ukraine adopted by the PRC, as well as its understanding of their historical background and root causes.” He emphasized: “We welcome China’s readiness to make a meaningful contribution to the settlement of the crisis.”
The NY Timesnotes based on Chinese state media that Xi as accompanied to Moscow by “senior officials including Wang Yi, China’s highest ranking diplomat; Foreign Minister Qin Gang; and Cai Qi, director of the General Office of the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Committee.” Ukraine at the same time issued a call for Russia to remove all of its troops, saying this is the proper formula for the successful implementation of China’s ‘Peace Plan’.
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While lost in the explosive news about Donald Trump’s expected arrest, journalist Matt Taibbi released new details on previously undisclosed censorship efforts on social media. The latest Twitter Files revealed a breathtaking effort from Stanford’s Virality Project to censor even true stories. After all, the project insisted “true stories … could fuel hesitancy” over taking the vaccine or other measures. The effort included suppressing stories that we now know are legitimate such as natural immunity defenses, the exaggerated value of masks, and questions over vaccine efficacy in preventing second illnesses. The work of the Virality Project to censor even true stories should result in the severance of any connection with Stanford University.
We have learned of an ever-expanding coalition of groups working with the government and social media to target and censor Americans, including government-funded organizations.
However, the new files are chilling in the details allegedly showing how the Virality Project labeled even true stories as “anti-vaccine” and, therefore, subject to censorship. These files would suggest that the Project eagerly worked to limit free speech and suppress alternative scientific viewpoints.
Taibbi describes the Virality Project as “a sweeping, cross-platform effort to monitor billions of social media posts by Stanford University, federal agencies, and a slew of (often state-funded) NGOs.”
He added:
“We’ve since learned the Virality Project in 2021 worked with government to launch a pan-industry monitoring plan for Covid-related content. At least six major Internet platforms were ‘onboarded’ to the same JIRA ticketing system, daily sending millions of items for review.”
According to Taibbi, it targeted anyone who did not robotically fall in line with the CDC and media narratives, including targeting postings that shared “Reports of vaccinated individuals contracting Covid-19 anyway,” research on “natural immunity,” suggesting Covid-19 “leaked from a lab,” and even “worrisome jokes.”
That included evidence that it “knowingly targeted true material and legitimate political opinion, while often being factually wrong itself.”
The Virality Project warned Twitter that “true stories … could fuel hesitancy,” including stories on “celebrity deaths after vaccine” and the closure of a central New York school due to reports of post-vaccine illness.
The Project is part of the Cyber Policy Center at Stanford and bills itself as “a joint initiative of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Stanford Law School, connects academia, the legal and tech industry and civil society with policymakers around the country to address the most pressing cyber policy concerns.”
As with many disinformation projects, it became a source of its own disinformation in the effort to suppress alternative views.
It is being funded by Craig Newmark Philanthropies and the Hewlett Foundation.
On its website, it proclaims: “At the Stanford Internet Observatory our mission is to study the misuse of the internet to cause harm, and to help create policy and technical mitigations to those harms.” It defines its mission to maintain the truth as it sees it:
“The global COVID-19 crisis has significantly shifted the landscape for mis- and disinformation as the pandemic has become the primary concern of almost every nation on the planet. This has perhaps never happened before; few topics have commanded and sustained attention at a global level simultaneously, or provided such a wealth of opportunities for governments, economically motivated actors, and domestic activists alike to spread malign narratives in service to their interests.”
What is even more disconcerting is that groups like the Virality Project worked against public health by suppressing such stories that are now considered legitimate from the efficacy of masks to the lab origin theory. It was declaring dissenting scientific views to be dangerous disinformation. Nothing could be more inimical to the academic mission. Yet, Stanford still heralds the work of the Project on its website.
There is nothing more inherently in conflict with academic values than censorship. Stanford’s association with this censorship effort is disgraceful and should be a matter for faculty action. This is a project that sought to censor true stories that undermined government or media narratives.
I am not hopeful that Stanford will sever its connection to the Project. Censorship is now the rage on campuses and the Project is the perfect embodiment of this movement. Cloaking censorship efforts in self-righteous rhetoric, the Project sought to silence those who failed to adhere to a certain orthodoxy, including scientific and public health claims that were later found flawed or wrong. The Project itself is an example of what it called “media and social media capabilities – overt and covert – to spread particular narratives.”
Stanford should fulfill its pledge in creating the Virality Project in fighting disinformation by eliminating the Virality Project.
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Kosovo-Metohija Serbs were targeted by a pogrom 19 years ago on March 17-19, 2004.
It was the second largest pogrom Serbs in the province suffered at the hands of ethnic Albanians after the end of the 1999 NATO aggression on Serbia, then part of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
Previously, approximately a quarter of a million Serbs and other non-Albanians were expelled from Kosovo-Metohija in June 1999 in the presence of international troops.
The March 2004 Kristallnacht-like violence targeted the Serbs and their property, holy sites, churches and monuments.
As a result, 4,012 Serbs were expelled from Kosovo-Metohija, and most of them never returned to their homes.
During the March 2004 violence, at least 27 people were killed – including 16 Serbs, as well as 11 ethnic Albanians who lost their lives in clashes with international forces.
Hundreds of people were injured.
In the evening of March 16, 2004, Pristina media reported that three ethnic Albanian boys had drowned in the Ibar River in a village near Zubin Potok while allegedly trying to escape attackers who were Serbs.
On the following day, thousands of ethnic Albanians crossed into the north of Kosovska Mitrovica via a bridge on the Ibar to attack local Serbs.
Gunfire began, and ethnic Albanians armed with automatic weapons were seen in the town.
Attacks, burning and looting followed in other Serb communities in the province.
Later in the day, UNMIK spokesperson Derek Chappell refuted the accusations that the ethnic Albanian boys had died while running away from Serbs – the pretext for the anti-Serb pogrom.
He said the violence had been planned beforehand.
NATO Allied Joint Force Command Naples Commander Adm Gregory Johnson branded the mass violence against Serbs as ethnic cleansing.
The mob destroyed 935 Serb homes and burned down 35 Serbian Orthodox holy sites, including 18 cultural monuments.
One of them is the medieval Church of Our Lady of Ljevis in Prizren, subsequently included in the list of UNESCO-protected monuments.
According to information released by the Serbian Orthodox Eparchy of Raska and Prizren, the number of church buildings destroyed in the March 2004 pogrom is close to one hundred.
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They are desperately trying to plug one leak in the system after another, but what happens if the entire system suddenly comes crashing down all around them? Back on January 4th, I specifically warned that our problems would “greatly accelerate over the next 12 months”, and that is precisely what has happened. We are now in the midst of the most severe banking crisis since 2008, and it could soon get a whole lot worse. We have already witnessed the second and third largest bank failures in the entire history of our nation, and now it is being reported that 186 more banks “are at risk of failure”…
On the heels of Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse earlier this month, 186 more banks are at risk of failure even if only half of their depositors decide to withdraw their funds, a new study has found.
That is because the Federal Reserve’s aggressive interest rate hikes to tamp down inflation have eroded the value of bank assets such as government bonds and mortgage-backed securities.
“The recent declines in bank asset values very significantly increased the fragility of the U.S. banking system to uninsured depositor runs,” economists wrote in a recent paper published on the Social Science Research Network.
Needless to say, these banks realize that they are in jeopardy, and a coalition of mid-size banks is literally begging federal regulators to cover all uninsured deposits for at least the next two years…
A coalition of midsize US banks asked federal regulators to extend FDIC insurance to all deposits for the next two years, arguing the guarantee is needed to avoid a wider run on the banks.
“Doing so will immediately halt the exodus of deposits from smaller banks, stabilize the banking sector and greatly reduce chances of more bank failures,” the Mid-Size Bank Coalition of America said in a letter to regulators seen by Bloomberg News.
If federal regulators don’t do this, vast amounts of money will continue to be transferred from small and mid-size banks to the “too big to fail” banks.
But I’ll tell you why such a move is not likely to happen right now.
If every bank account in America is suddenly fully guaranteed by the federal government, there will be a giant sucking sound as wealthy individuals pull their money out of European banks where large balances are not fully insured.
The European banking system is already teetering on the brink of collapse. In fact, we just learned that UBS has just agreed to an emergency purchase of Credit Suisse…
Switzerland’s biggest bank, UBS, has agreed to buy its ailing rival Credit Suisse in an emergency rescue deal aimed at stemming financial market panic unleashed by the failure of two American banks earlier this month.
“UBS today announced the takeover of Credit Suisse,” the Swiss National Bank said in a statement. It said the rescue would “secure financial stability and protect the Swiss economy.”
UBS is paying 3 billion Swiss francs ($3.25 billion) for Credit Suisse, about 60% less than the bank was worth when markets closed on Friday. Credit Suisse shareholders will be largely wiped out, receiving the equivalent of just 0.76 Swiss francs in UBS shares for stock that was worth 1.86 Swiss francs on Friday.
So to protect foreign banks, small and mid-size banks in the U.S. will be allowed to fail.
But if large numbers of small and mid-size banks start failing, this country will rapidly plunge into an economic nightmare.
If the Fed does not contain the regional bank collapse, there will be another great depression.
Small/medium banks account for 50% of US commercial and industrial lending, 60% of residential real estate lending, 80% of commercial real estate lending, and 45% of consumer lending pic.twitter.com/wzTMHxSnXI
Our economy runs on mortgages, auto loans, credit cards and debit cards.
If a bank gets into trouble, the flow of credit from that bank is restricted.
And if a bank fails, the flow of credit from that bank completely stops.
If lots of banks start going under in this country, economic activity will shrink substantially and we really will be facing “another great depression”.
Berkshire Hathaway Inc.’s Warren Buffett has been in touch with senior officials in President Joe Biden’s administration in recent days as the regional banking crisis unfolds.
There have been multiple conversations between Biden’s team and Buffett in the past week, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified because the information is private. The calls have centered around Buffett possibly investing in the US regional banking sector in some way, but the billionaire has also given advice and guidance more broadly about the current turmoil.
It appears that far more is going on behind the scenes than we are being told.
Interestingly, lots of private jets were flying in and out of Omaha on Friday…
The Private Jets arrived in Omaha in multiple groups. Sometimes landing at almost the same exact time.
Did Buffett schedule some meetings with different groups of CEOs every hour?
Number of Jets arriving: 5 ~10am (est) 3 ~2pm 5 ~3:30pm 5 ~5pm 6 ~6:15pm 3 ~7:30pm pic.twitter.com/68Ok6zl8cA
Hopefully a way can be found to stabilize the banking system, because economic conditions are certainly bad enough already.
Earlier today, I was surprised to learn that Disney is getting ready to conduct a second round of layoffs…
After announcing a plan to slash nearly 7,000 jobs, Disney is reportedly instructing managers to propose budget cuts and put together lists of employees to be laid off in the coming weeks.
It is unclear whether Disney will begin layoffs in small waves or cut thousands of employees all at once, but the company will announce at least 4,000 current employees will be out of work sometime in April, according to Business Insider.
All over America, large companies are letting workers go.
But even though a significant economic downturn has already obviously begun, we are being told that the Federal Reserve is likely to raise interest rates yet again this week…
The Federal Reserve will kick off its meeting with trading expected to be light heading into a decision on interest rates Wednesday.
Despite the market tumult, 62% of investors expect the policymakers to continue hiking rates, which would mark the ninth straight increase. Thirty-eight percent expect no change, according to CME’s FedWatch.
After everything that has transpired over the past couple of weeks, it would literally be suicidal to raise rates again.
A great financial meltdown has begun, and our leaders seem very unsure about how to handle it.
Unfortunately for them, what we have gone through so far is just the tip of the iceberg.
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