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For at least three decades Germany enjoyed an unprecedented period of energy security, one which made it possible for the Central European country to flourish, further dominating the old continent. It didn’t take long for this economic power to translate into political influence and help Berlin expand even further, particularly in Eastern Europe.

And yet, by late February 2022, Germany’s “dream economy” came to an abrupt end thanks to its suicidal sanctions against Russia, which haven’t only proven futile, but also quite self-harming. Berlin severely underestimated the importance of access to cheap Russian energy, particularly natural gas which helped power much (if not most) of its export-oriented economic strategy.

Perhaps the best summary of just how immensely profitable it was for Germany to do business with Russia was an analysis published back in August last year, authored by Zoltan Pozsar, a renowned economic and financial expert. In his thought-provoking report, Pozsar also presented a chart showing how “$2 trillion of German value depends on $20 billion of Russian gas”. The wording was carefully chosen and it isn’t there just to be amusing. Essentially, Germany was making approximately a hundred times greater profit thanks to cheap commodities, particularly Russian natural gas, to run its export-driven economy at bargain prices.

With this now gone for years or even decades to come, Germany’s “economic miracle” has effectively become yet another footnote in history books. According to a Reuters report, published on January 30, Allianz Trade presented a study that cited contract expiries and delayed wholesale pricing effects and found that German industry is set to pay approximately 40% more for energy in 2023 than in 2021, before the energy crisis triggered by the political West’s failed economic siege of Russia.

“The large energy-price shock still lies ahead for European corporates,” Allianz Trade (better known as Euler Hermes until last year) claims.

The report states that higher corporate utility bills last year were contained as long pass-through times from wholesale markets and government interventions mitigated the immediate hit from surging prices as Russia’s energy exports to the West were disrupted due to the imposition of self-defeating sanctions by the European Union.

The European Central Bank (ECB) stepped in to fund the resulting budget deficits, which effectively means that, despite the official stance and Russophobic posturing, it was directly funding Moscow’s massive financial build-up. However, Allianz Trade estimates that as the pass-throughs are ending, meaning the price increases will soon hit EU corporate profits by 1-1.5% and lead to lower investment, in Germany’s case this would amount to €25 billion (approximately $27 billion).

And while the report claims that German corporate finances are robust and that a state-imposed natural gas price cap allegedly might help, it’s extremely likely to make things much worse. This doesn’t only include the fact that it’s exceedingly difficult to physically replace Russian natural gas with a readily available (much less affordable) alternative, but is also simply impossible for certain EU members such as Hungary, which is landlocked and couldn’t rely on port terminals for seaborne LNG shipments.

To make matters worse, such alternatives are also at least five times more expensive than Russian natural gas, which is effectively destroying the EU’s already dwindling industrial competitiveness on the global markets. Many EU officials have already expressed their frustration with the US due to this, with some high-ranking leaders in Brussels accusing Washington DC of profiteering at the expense of the increasingly troubled bloc.

Although the report insists that fears of crisis leading to deindustrialization and loss of competitiveness against the United States were overdone due to labor costs and exchange rates having a higher impact on manufacturing than energy prices, the same is not true in regard to other countries around the world. The exporters are losing market shares in areas such as agriculture, machinery, electrical equipment, metals, transport, etc. and the main beneficiaries tend to be Asian, Middle Eastern and African companies, not American ones, the report admits.

This effectively means that EU corporations will not only lose their global market share, but could also eventually start losing it in Europe itself, as the already high manufacturing costs in the EU will be even higher due to surging energy costs, which are affecting both citizens and companies.

On Saturday, the economy ministry stated that the German government’s one-time subsidy to help private households and small businesses with gas prices – the first stage of a package that will be complemented with retroactive price caps kicking in in March – has cost €4.3 billion so far. Germany has earmarked €12 billion for this purpose, but the government states that the €4.3 billion is not the final cost as many eligible companies are yet to apply. With the end of February being the deadline, they have exactly a month to do so.

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Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.

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***

By May 2020, it had become apparent that the standard practice of putting COVID-19 patients on mechanical ventilation with ventilators was a death sentence

Between 50% and 86% of COVID patients placed on life support ended up dying

By May 2020, doctors had also found that high-flow nasal cannulas and proning led to better outcomes than ventilators

The World Health Organization promoted the use of ventilators as a way to purportedly curtail the spread of virus-laden aerosols, thereby protecting other patients and hospital staff. In other words, suspected COVID patients were sacrificed to “protect” others

The matter becomes even more perverse when you consider the fact that many “COVID cases” were patients who merely tested positive using faulty PCR testing. Hospitals also received massive incentives to diagnose patients with COVID and put them on a vent

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By May 2020, it had become apparent that the standard practice of putting COVID-19 patients on mechanical ventilation with ventilators was a death sentence.¹ As early as April 9, 2020, Business Insider reported² that 80% of COVID-19 patients in New York City who were placed on ventilators died, which caused a number of doctors to question their use.

The Associated Press³ also publicized similar reports from China and the U.K. A U.K. report put the figure at 66%, while a small study from Wuhan, China, put the ratio of deaths at 86%. Data presented by attorney Thomas Renz in 2021 showed that in Texas hospitals, 84.9% of patients died after more than 96 hours on a ventilator.⁴

The lowest figure I’ve seen is 50%.⁵ So, somewhere between 50% and 86% of all ventilated COVID patients died. Compare that to historical prepandemic ratios, where 30% to 40% of ventilated patients died.

High-Flow Cannulas and Proning Were Always More Effective

Meanwhile, doctors at UChicago Medicine reported⁶ getting “truly remarkable” results using high-flow nasal cannulas in lieu of ventilators. As noted in a press release:⁷

“High-flow nasal cannulas, or HFNCs, are non-invasive nasal prongs that sit below the nostrils and blow large volumes of warm, humidified oxygen into the nose and lungs.

A team from UChicago Medicine’s emergency room took 24 COVID-19 patients who were in respiratory distress and gave them HFNCs instead of putting them on ventilators. The patients all fared extremely well, and only one of them required intubation after 10 days …

‘Avoiding intubation is key,’ [UChicago Medicine’s Emergency Department’s medical director Dr. Thomas] Spiegel said. ‘Most of our colleagues around the city are not doing this, but I sure wish other ERs would take a look at this technique closely.'”

The UChicago team also endorsed proning, meaning lying in the face-down position, which automatically improves oxygenation and helps alleviate shortness of breath.

Yet despite these early indications that mechanical ventilation was as unnecessary as it was disastrous, placing COVID patients on life support is standard of care to this day, more than three years later. How could that be?

How China and the WHO Created Ventilator Hysteria

In a September 30, 2020, Substack article,⁸ journalist Jordan Schachtel described how China and the World Health Organization came up with and nurtured the idea that mechanical ventilation was the correct and necessary first-line response to COVID:

“In early March, when COVID-19 was ravaging western Europe and sounding alarm bells in the United States, the WHO released COVID-19 provider guidance⁹ documents to healthcare workers.

Citing experience ‘based on current knowledge of the situation in China,’ the WHO recommended mechanical ventilators as an early intervention for treating COVID-19 patients. The guidance recommended¹⁰ escalating quickly, if not immediately, to mechanical ventilation.

In doing so, they cited the guidance being presented by Chinese medical journals, which published papers in January and February claiming that ‘Chinese expert consensus’ called for ‘invasive mechanical ventilation’ as the ‘first choice’ for people with moderate to severe respiratory distress.

The WHO further justified this approach by claiming that the less invasive positive air pressure machines could result in the spread of aerosols, potentially infecting health care workers with the virus.”

That last paragraph is perhaps the most shocking reason for why millions of COVID patients were sacrificed. They wanted to isolate the virus inside the mechanical vent machine rather than risk aerosol transmission.

In other words, they put patients to death in order to “save” staff and other, presumably non-COVID, patients. If you missed this news back in 2020, you’re not alone. In the flurry of daily reporting, it escaped many of us. Here’s the description given in the WHO’s guidance document.

Strangely enough, while the U.S. quickly began clamoring for ventilators, China started relying on them less, and instead exported them in huge quantities. As noted by Schachtel, “China was making a fortune off of manufacturing and exporting ventilators (many of which did not work correctly and even killed patients¹¹) around the world.”

COVID Patients Effectively Euthanized

That ventilation and sedation were used to protect hospital staff was also highlighted by The Wall Street Journal in a December 20, 2020, article,¹² which noted:

“Last spring, with less known about the disease, doctors often pre-emptively put patients on ventilators or gave powerful sedatives largely abandoned in recent years. The aim was to save the seriously ill and protect hospital staff from COVID-19 …

Last spring, doctors put patients on ventilators partly to limit contagion at a time when it was less clear how the virus spread, when protective masks and gowns were in short supply.

Doctors could have employed other kinds of breathing support devices that don’t require risky sedation, but early reports suggested patients using them could spray dangerous amounts of virus into the air, said Theodore Iwashyna, a critical-care physician at University of Michigan and Department of Veterans Affairs hospitals in Ann Arbor, Mich.

At the time, he said, doctors and nurses feared the virus would spread through hospitals. “We were intubating sick patients very early. Not for the patients’ benefit, but in order to control the epidemic and to save other patients,” Dr. Iwashyna said ‘That felt awful.'”

As noted in a January 23, 2023, Substack article,¹³ in which James Lyons-Weiler revisits the ventilator issue and the shocking reason behind it, “euthanizing humans is illegal. Especially for the benefit of other patients. It should feel awful.”

The matter becomes even more perverse when you consider the fact that many “COVID cases” were patients who merely tested positive using faulty PCR testing.

They didn’t have COVID but were vented anyway, thanks to the baseless theory that you could have COVID-19 and be infectious without symptoms. Hospitals also received massive incentives to diagnose patients with COVID — whether they actually had it or not — and to put them on a vent.

Frontline Nurse Blew the Whistle on Vent Misuse

Some of you may remember Erin Olszewski, a retired Army sergeant and frontline nurse who blew the whistle on the horrific mistreatment of COVID patients at Elmhurst Hospital Center in Queens, New York, which was “the epicenter of the epicenter” of the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S.

She described¹⁴ a number of problems at Elmhurst, including the disproportionate mortality rate among people of color, the controversial rule surrounding Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) orders, lax personal protective equipment (PPE) standards, and the failure to segregate COVID-positive and COVID-negative patients, thereby ensuring maximum spread of the disease among noninfected patients coming in with other health problems.

Olszewski also highlighted the fact that COVID-negative patients were being listed as confirmed positive and placed on mechanical ventilation, thus artificially inflating the numbers while more or less condemning the patient to death from lung injury.

Making matters worse, many of the doctors treating these patients were not trained in critical care. One of the “doctors” on the COVID floor was a dentist. Residents (medical students) were also relied on, even though they were not properly trained in how to safely ventilate, and were unfamiliar with the potent drugs used.

At the time, Olszewski blamed financial incentives for turning the hospital into a killing field. Elmhurst, a public hospital, received $29,000 extra for a COVID-19 patient receiving ventilation, over and above other treatments, she said.

If Elmhurst had infection control in mind when ventilating patients, they certainly didn’t follow through, as COVID-positive and negative patients were comingled — a strategy Olszewski suspected was intended to drive up the COVID case and mortality numbers.

Killing for Profit

Others have also highlighted the role of financial incentives. In early April 2020, Minnesota family physician and state Sen. Scott Jensen explained:¹⁵

“Medicare has determined that if you have a COVID-19 admission to the hospital you’ll get paid $13,000. If that COVID-19 patient goes on a ventilator, you get $39,000; three times as much.”

Former CDC director Robert Redfield also admitted that financial policies may indeed have resulted in artificially elevated hospitalization rates and death toll statistics. As reported August 1, 2020, by the Washington Examiner:¹⁶

“… Redfield agreed that some hospitals have a monetary incentive to overcount coronavirus deaths … ‘I think you’re correct in that we’ve seen this in other disease processes, too.

Really, in the HIV epidemic, somebody may have a heart attack but also have HIV — the hospital would prefer the [classification] for HIV because there’s greater reimbursement,’ Redfield said¹⁷ during a House panel hearing … when asked by Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer about potential ‘perverse incentives.’ Redfield continued: ‘So, I do think there’s some reality to that …”

In addition to receiving exorbitant payments for COVID admissions and putting patients on a ventilator, hospitals are also paid extra for:¹⁸

• COVID testing for all patients
• COVID diagnoses
• Use of remdesivir
• COVID deaths

When everything is said and done, a COVID patient can be “worth” as much as $250,000, but for the maximum payment, they have to leave in a body bag. If we know anything, it’s that profit motives can make people commit atrocious acts, and that certainly appears true when it comes to COVID treatment.

In the U.S., hospitals also LOST federal funding if they failed or refused to administer remdesivir and/or ventilation, which further incentivized them to go along with what amounts to malpractice at best, and murder at worst.

Patient Rights Have Evaporated

There’s also evidence that certain hospital systems, and perhaps all of them, have waived patients’ rights, making anyone diagnosed with COVID a virtual prisoner of the hospital, with no ability to exercise informed consent. As noted by Citizens Journal in December 2021:¹⁹

“We now see government-dictated medical care at its worst in our history since the federal government mandated these ineffective and dangerous treatments for COVID-19, and then created financial incentives for hospitals and doctors to use only those ‘approved’ (and paid for) approaches.

Our formerly trusted medical community of hospitals and hospital-employed medical staff have effectively become ‘bounty hunters’ for your life.

Patients need to now take unprecedented steps to avoid going into the hospital for COVID-19. Patients need to take active steps to plan before getting sick to use early home-based treatment of COVID-19 that can help you save your life.”

There Must Be a Reckoning

There’s no telling how many COVID patients have already lost their lives to this medical malpractice, and it must stop. Patient rights must be reestablished and be irrevocable, we need to hold decision-makers to account, and lastly, we have to somehow ensure that our hospitals cannot be turned into killing fields for profit ever again. As noted by Lyons-Weiler in his January 2023 article:²⁰

“We need harsh, hard investigations with consequences — and activists need to write bills tying the hands of protocolists to prevent them from ever again killing one patient to hypothetically save another — under threat of a murder charge.

We need legislation for ‘on-demand’ scripts for off-label medicines that patients want for potentially deadly infections — regardless of ‘FDA Approval’ (FDA does not, by definition, have to ‘approve’ off-label scripts.”

COVID Treatment Guidance

While SARS-CoV-2 has become milder with each iteration, I still believe it’s a good idea to treat suspected COVID at first signs of symptoms — especially if you’ve gotten the COVID jab. COVID hospitalization and death are now “pandemics of the vaccinated,” to reuse and rephrase one of the globalist cabal’s favorite mantras.

Perhaps it’s the common cold or a regular influenza, maybe it’s the latest COVID variant. Either way, since they’re now virtually indistinguishable, at least in the early stages of infection, your best bet is to treat symptoms as you would treat earlier forms of COVID. Treatment for long-COVID also overlaps with the protocols for SARS-CoV-2 infection. Early treatment protocols with demonstrated effectiveness include:

• The Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance’s (FLCCC’s) prevention and early at-home treatment protocol. They also have an in-hospital protocol and long-term management guidance for long-haul COVID-19 syndrome. You can find a listing of doctors who can prescribe ivermectin and other necessary medicines on the FLCCC website.
• The AAPS protocol
• Dr. Tess Lawrie’s World Council for Health protocol
• America’s Frontline Doctors

Based on my review of these protocols, I’ve developed the following summary of the treatment specifics I believe are the easiest and most effective.

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Notes

¹ Medscape April 6, 2020

² Business Insider April 9, 2020

³ The Associated Press April 8, 2020

^4, 18, 19 Citizens Journal December 20, 2021

^5, 12 Wall Street Journal December 20, 2020

^6, 7 Newswise April 23, 2020

⁸ The Dossier Substack September 30, 2020

⁹ WHO Clinical Management of Severe COVID-19

¹⁰ WHO Infection Prevention and Control for COVID

¹¹ NBC News April 30, 2020

^13, 20 Substack Popular Rationalism January 23, 2023

¹⁴ YouTube Perspectives on the Pandemic 2020

¹⁵ Fox News April 9, 2020

¹⁶ Washington Examiner August 1, 2020

¹⁷ Breitbart July 31, 2020

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***

Apparently, being in favor of peace in Europe is reason enough for the Ukrainian neo-Nazi regime to threaten someone’s life. After criticizing the German Foreign Minister’s irresponsible pro-war remarks and emphasizing the importance of peace with Russia for European stability, Croatian President Zoran Milanovich has been added to Myrotvorets, the Ukrainian government’s public kill-list. The case shows how the Ukrainian regime deals with its own international “allies” – since Croatia is a member of NATO and the EU.

Croatian President Milanovich “disappointed” Ukrainian and Western leaders with his realistic statements. He has long asserted that Moscow is an important point for European stability and supported talks that take Russian interests into account. Recently, he criticized Annalena Baerbock’s pro-war statements, saying:

“The German foreign minister says we must be united, because I quote, we are at war with Russia. I didn’t know that, Maybe Germany is at war with Russia, but then, good luck. Maybe this time it turns out better than 70-odd years ago. If we are at war with Russia, then let’s see what we need to do. But we won’t ask Germany for its opinion”.

In the last week of January, Milanovich’s name appeared on the website of the “Myrotvorets” group, in the “list” section, which is intended to expose the data of the people the Kiev regime wants to kill. The site also informs the groups that helped it to obtain the data of the listed. The information is provided by various intelligence agencies, both Ukrainian and Western ones, including American institutions such as the CIA and FBI. In the case of Milanovich, this was provided by Ukraine’s GRU.

“Myrotvorets” (ironically, the word “peacemaker” in Ukrainian) is formally a Ukrainian NGO, but which, in practice, acts as a state department. The group collects data from people considered enemies by the government and indexes it on a large online platform. On its website which is hosted on a NATO’s server, Myrotvorets defines itself as a “Center for Research of Signs of Crimes against the National Security of Ukraine, Peace, Humanity, and the International Law”, which provides “information for law enforcement authorities and special services about pro-Russian terrorists, separatists, mercenaries, war criminals, and murderers”.

What makes the site extremely dangerous is not merely listing people who supposedly “should die”, but the fact that the Kiev regime actually uses the information given by the organization to persecute and kill those listed. Murders such as that of Daria Dugina, who was included on the site, show that Kiev is really trying to fulfill the objective of eliminating all those who are identified by Myrotvorets as “criminals”. Also, when a listed person dies, the site updates its section by putting the word “liquidated” in the victim’s name.

It is also necessary to emphasize that, in addition to politicians, diplomats, military and journalists, according to research recently made by Russian officials, more than 300 children from Donbass are included in the list. Many formal requests have already been made by Russians and foreigners for the site to be disabled, but no action has been taken so far.

In justifying Milanovich’s inclusion on the death list, Myrotvorets exposes: “2.02.2022. ‘There is no European or EU stability without Russia’, said Croatian President Zoran Milanović, adding that ‘Russia is a factor in that equation, and we should have an agreement with Russia’. Milanović accused the UK of ‘inciting’ and believes that pushing Ukraine towards the confrontation with Russia is ‘irresponsible’. Asked why he did not meet the UK’s Secretary of State for Defence, Ben Wallace, who was in Zagreb, the Croatian president, told journalists he does not meet with defense ministers”.

As we can see, the statement to justify the addition is old. In fact, this is not the first time the President appears on the list. He had already been included in early 2022, when he criticized UK’s anti-Russian provocations. But apparently his name was hidden in recent months, having now reappeared due to his criticism of Baerbock.

The site constantly updates its kill-list, deactivating and reactivating files, according to the frequency of “pro-Russian” statements made by those listed. For example, the head of Twitter Elon Musk was even included in the list after defending peace negotiations with Russia, and was subsequently hidden. In this sense, Milanovich’s defense criticism against Baerbock seems to be the reason for his “re-addition”.

Indeed, it remains to be seen what the position of the EU and NATO will be in the face of the fact that the leader of a member country of both organizations is being threatened with death by a non-member state. In theory, the West should protect Milanovich and even engage in preventive intelligence operation to stop Kiev from trying anything. But, in reality, both organizations are more likely to ignore the topic and continue to support the neo-Nazi regime, despite all its crimes.

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Lucas Leiroz is a researcher in Social Sciences at the Rural Federal University of Rio de Janeiro; geopolitical consultant. You can follow Lucas on Twitter and Telegram.

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***

The War Room/DailyClout Pfizer Documents Analysis Project Post-Marketing Group (Team 1) – Barbara Gehrett, MD; Joseph Gehrett, MD; Chris Flowers, MD; and Loree Britt – produced a shocking review of the paediatric data found in

[Confidential[Pfizer document [released under FOI in October 2021] entitled: 

5.3.6 Cumulative Analysis of Post-Authorization Adverse Event Reports of PF-07302048 (BNT162B2) Received Through 28-FEB-2021 (a.k.a., “5.3.6“).

It is important to note

1) that the adverse events (AEs) in the 5.3.6 document were reported to Pfizer for only a 90-day period starting on December 1, 2020, the date of the United Kingdom’s public rollout of Pfizer’s COVID-19 experimental mRNA “vaccine” product and

2) no pediatric dose of the Pfizer product was approved for use during that time frame.

What dose(s) of Pfizer’s mRNA “vaccine” was given to these children since no approved dose existed?

Important points from this report include:

• A seven-year-old experienced a stroke.
• One child and one infant suffered facial paralysis.
• One infant had a kidney adverse event, either kidney injury or failure.
• Of the 34 cases, 24 (71%) were classified as serious.
• Predominantly female patients were affected — at least 25 of 34 (73.5%) patients.
• Table 6 reports 34 cases of use in pediatric individuals. However, 28 additional cases were excluded because details such as height and weight were “not consistent with pediatric subjects.”
• Ages ranged from two months to nine years, with median 4.0 years, which means half the children were under four years of age.
• 132 adverse events were reported in the 34 children – i.e., an average of 3.88 AEs per child.

Shockingly, Pfizer concluded:

“No new significant safety information was identified based on a review of these cases compared with the non-paediatric population.”

Please read the disturbing, two-page report by the Post-Marketing Group (Team 1) here.

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***

Bill Gates has warned that the next pandemic will be worse than COVID-19 and it’ll also be “man-made.” The Microsoft co-founder said that the next one will be “much more brutal” than the mild cold symptoms experienced with the coronavirus.

Gates told the Lowy Institute think tank in Sydney on Monday that the ruling class needs to set aside their “differences “and work together to control the public to prepare for the next virus. He called for greater global cooperation using the Covid-19 pandemic as an example of how countries could improve their stranglehold on humanity and the slave class.

According to The Daily Mail UK, Gates wants the world to model Australia’s totalitarian control and psyop that had people willingly bowing to masters and voluntarily giving up their inalienable rights. “Compare the economic cost of being prepared for the next one to the cost of this one, over $US10 trillion economic loss,” he said.  “With the pandemic, we were foolish not to have the tools, the practice, and global capacity to be on standby like we do with fire or earthquakes.”

Gates praised Australia’s policies in helping to keep infection rates low before vaccines were rolled out. “Some of the things that stand out are that Australia and about seven other countries did population scale diagnostics early on and had quarantine policies,” he said.

Total control over the population means that COVID doesn’t spread, apparently. “That meant you kept the level of infection low in that first year when there were no vaccines.”

“The one thing that still hangs in the balance is will we have the global capacity and at the regional and country levels that would mean that when an (infectious disease) threat comes up we act in such a way that it doesn’t go global,” Gates said. “We need to be doing every five years a comprehensive exercise at both country and regional levels of pandemic preparedness and you need a global group that’s scoring everybody.”

Gates added that he thinks China’s obvious slave system is good. “I see China’s rise as a huge win for the world … the current mentality of the US to China, and which is reciprocated, is kind of a lose-lose mentality.” That means he thinks total control, and worse slavery than we are living under now will be a “win”. But for whom? Certainly to those in slave class.

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***

President Biden’s green new world of more electric vehicles on US highways might result in increasing lithium fires — if that’s because of a crash or perhaps a ‘spontaneous’ battery fire.

The latest incident occurred on Saturday when a Model S “spontaneously” burst into flames on a California freeway.

On Saturday, the Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District tweeted footage of a Tesla Model S engulfed in flames.

Crews arrived to a Tesla Model S engulfed in flames, nothing unusual prior. 2 Fire Engines, a water tender, and a ladder truck were requested to assist. Crews used jacks to access the underside to extinguish and cool the battery. Thousands of gallons were used in extinguishment. pic.twitter.com/5dIXxo9hP5

— Metro Fire of Sacramento (@metrofirepio) January 29, 2023

“The fire was extinguished with approx 6,000 gallons of water, as the battery cells continued to combust,” the fire department said.

The vehicle battery compartment spontaneously caught fire while it was traveling freeway speeds on EB Hwy 50. The fire was extinguished with approx 6,000 gallons of water, as the battery cells continued to combust. Thankfully no injuries were reported. pic.twitter.com/PRmlWzQdXS

— Metro Fire of Sacramento (@metrofirepio) January 29, 2023

Several years ago, we pointed out one Tesla fire took at least 20 tons of water to extinguish. For some context, it only takes 3 tons of water to put out a gasoline car fire.

Traditional fire extinguishers, such as foam and water, are ineffective at extinguishing lithium fires. A class-D dry powder extinguisher is certified for combating battery fires, though many fire departments across the country are not prepared to fight battery fires.

Tesla states in a firefighting manual that “large amounts of water” are needed to extinguish a car battery fire. It even said these fires could last as long as 24 hours.

Someone might need to explain to Biden and his administration that the shift to EVs isn’t as ‘ESG-friendly’ as it’s perceived to be.

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Lawyers representing anti-arms campaigners told the High Court on Tuesday it was “absurd” that former UK Prime Minister Liz Truss resumed arms sales to Saudi Arabia amid concerns that Riyadh had committed war crimes in Yemen.  

The comments came as a judicial review brought by the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) and Mwatana for Human Rights, challenging the UK’s continued licensing of arms sales to Riyadh despite those concerns, opened in the court.

Ben Jaffey, who represents CAAT, said emails obtained by his legal team showed that civil servants working at the Export Control Joint Unit had raised concerns with the Ministry of Defence over the sale, despite Truss stating that there was no pattern of Saudi war crimes in Yemen.

He added that Truss had made her decision despite the MoD actively tracking at least 528 alleged breaches of International Humanitarian Law in Yemen by the Saudi-led coalition.

“[The emails] are quite revealing and lay bare a logical flaw in how Britain resumed arms sales to Riyadh,” said Jaffey.

“No attempt was made even to make an assessment of some of the most grave allegations [by Saudi Arabia] as an entire category of attacks [by helicopters] was excluded from the UK government’s analysis.”

Jaffey also said that the pattern of attacks perpetrated by the Saudi-led coalition showed it was “unwilling to follow their own rules of engagement” in Yemen.

According to Oxfam, the UK has licensed at least £7.9bn ($9.6bn) in arms to Saudi Arabia across 547 licences since 2015, including Tornado and Typhoon aircraft and bombs.

CAAT says the true value of arms sales could be more than £23bn (around $28bn) when additional “open licensees” are taken into account.

A previous court challenge by CAAT in 2019 forced the UK government to suspend arms sales. But after an internal review, sales resumed in 2021 on the basis that the breaches of humanitarian law were “isolated incidents”.

The UK government has recently refused to release information in response to FOIs filed by Middle East Eye about arms sales to Saudi Arabia, following the coalition’s 2016 bombing of a crowded funeral hall in Sanaa, one of the deadliest of the war.

The Department of International Trade and the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office both cited a section of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, which exempts the release of documents when more than 24 hours of staff time – valued at £600 ($742) – would be required to retrieve them.

MEE has filed a new, narrowed FOI request with DIT based on suggestions it provided when rejecting the original request. A response is expected by the end of February.

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***

President Kennedy had a unique ability that Pentagon generals did not have. He was able to analyze an international crisis by placing himself in the shoes of his adversary in an attempt to understand his adversary’s motives. Doing that enabled him to figure a way out of the crisis that did not involve war. The response of the generals and the Pentagon was always the same: invade, bomb, kill, and destroy.

Today’s generals are no different from their counterparts back in the early 1960s. They are unable to step into the shoes of Russian officials and try to figure out a resolution of the crisis in Ukraine. Instead, their answer is bombs, missiles, death, destruction and, now, tanks. They are simply not mentally equipped to do what Kennedy did. 

Understanding how Kennedy resolved the Cuban Missile Crisis goes a long way toward understanding what motivated the Russians to invade Ukraine. 

In 1962, Kennedy learned that the Soviet Union (i.e., Russia) was installing nuclear missiles in Cuba. With the full support of the Pentagon, Kennedy decided that he could not let that happen. There was no way that U.S. officials were going to permit the Russians to install nuclear missiles pointed at the United States from only 90 miles away.

And yet, the Soviets had every right in the world to install nuclear missiles in Cuba, so long as it was done with the consent of the Cuban regime. After all, even though the Pentagon and the CIA considered Cuba to be a de facto U.S. colony, Cuba was, in fact, an independent and sovereign country. If it wanted Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba, it had the right to invite the Soviets to install them there.

Nonetheless, both Kennedy and the Pentagon decided that they would not permit Russia’s nuclear missiles to remain in Cuba. Why? Because they simply did not want nuclear missiles pointed at the U.S. from only 90 miles away. They considered such missiles to a grave threat to U.S. “national security.”

Reflecting how important this principle was to Kennedy, he was even willing to go to nuclear war against Russia to prevent those Russian missiles from being stationed in Cuba. In fact, what is not widely recognized is that Kennedy actually did initiate war against the Soviets. That was when he ordered a military blockade against Soviet ships carrying nuclear weapons to Cuba. Under international law, a blockade is an act of war. Fortunately, the Soviets did not respond with retaliatory war measures.

Yet, Kennedy’s blockade was met with severe disapproval from the generals. It was considered to be too weak. One member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff compared Kennedy’s blockade to British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement of Hitler at Munich. With their one-track mind, the generals were pressuring Kennedy to bomb and invade Cuba. Their insistence on pressuring Kennedy to take an action that would almost certainly result in nuclear war reflected how strongly they felt about not having Russian missiles so close to America’s border.

Thus, if Kennedy were president today, he wouldn’t need to ask why the Russians felt the same way about having U.S. nuclear missiles stationed in Ukraine, which shares a border with Russia. He would understand that their sentiments would be no different from the sentiments of Kennedy and the Pentagon with respect to Russian nuclear missiles in Cuba.

But there was another factor that Kennedy considered when he stepped into the shoes of the Russians in an attempt to understand the crisis and arrive at a mutually agreeable peaceful resolution of it. Ever since Kennedy became president, both the CIA and the Pentagon were hell-bent on achieving regime change in Cuba. That’s what the CIA’s invasion at Cuba’s Bay of Pigs in 1961 was all about. After it failed, the Pentagon began incessantly pressuring Kennedy to initiate a full-scale military invasion of the island. The Pentagon even came up with a fraudulent false-flag operation named Operation Northwoods to provide Kennedy with an excuse to invade Cuba. To his everlasting credit, Kennedy rejected it.

Kennedy figured out that the reason the Cubans wanted those nuclear weapons was to deter the Pentagon and the CIA from invading Cuba again. If the deterrence failed, Cuban officials wanted the nuclear weapons as a way to fight back against a vastly more powerful army.

What mainstream journalists and commentators fail to realize is that in the long state of hostilities between the United States and Cuba, it has always been the United States  — specifically the Pentagon and the CIA — that has been the aggressor. Given such, Cuba had every right in the world to defend itself from what Martin Luther King described as the “greatest purveyor of violence in the world.”

When Kennedy came to the realization that it was the obsessive quest of the Pentagon and the CIA to invade Cuba that had provoked the Cuban Missile Crisis, he figured a way out of the crisis. He simply promised Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev that he would never permit the Pentagon and the CIA to bomb or invade Cuba again. His promise worked. The Soviets removed their nuclear missiles from Cuba and took them home.

Except for one thing. At the last minute, Khrushchev asked Kennedy to remove U.S. nuclear missiles from Turkey that were pointed at the Soviet Union. Yes, you read that right. While it was opposing Soviet missiles in Cuba that were pointed at the United States, the Pentagon had its nuclear missiles in Turkey that were pointed at Russia.

Kennedy understood Khrushchev’s point, and he agreed with it. He promised the Russian leader that he would remove the nuclear missiles in Turkey within six months.

Needless to say, most Americans were relieved and pleased with Kennedy’s resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Not so, however, the Joint Chiefs of Staff. They were livid. Kennedy had effectively left Cuba permanently in communist control, something that the Pentagon considered to be a grave threat to “national security.” As I point out in my book An Encounter with Evil: The Abraham Zapruder Story, the JCS considered Kennedy’s resolution of the crisis to be the biggest defeat in U.S. history. They considered Kennedy to be a “weak sister” when it came to confronting the communists. They considered him to be a coward and, even worse, a traitor for making nice with Russia.

What would Kennedy have done with Ukraine if he had been president? He would never have allowed the Pentagon to use NATO to absorb former members of the Warsaw Pact. He would have also recognized that Russia’s reaction to U.S. nuclear missiles in Ukraine would have been the same as the U.S. reaction to Russian missiles in Cuba. He would have understood that their reaction to having U.S. nuclear missiles in Ukraine would be no different from their reaction to having those U.S. nuclear missiles in Turkey. In fact, there is no doubt that Kennedy would have recognized that NATO was a Cold War dinosaur that needed to be put down, especially given the end of the Cold War.

Where is President Biden in all this? Needless to say, Biden, unfortunately, is no John Kennedy.

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Jacob G. Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation. He was born and raised in Laredo, Texas, and received his B.A. in economics from Virginia Military Institute and his law degree from the University of Texas. He was a trial attorney for twelve years in Texas. He also was an adjunct professor at the University of Dallas, where he taught law and economics. In 1987, Mr. Hornberger left the practice of law to become director of programs at the Foundation for Economic Education. He has advanced freedom and free markets on talk-radio stations all across the country as well as on Fox News’ Neil Cavuto and Greta van Susteren shows and he appeared as a regular commentator on Judge Andrew Napolitano’s show Freedom Watch. View these interviews at LewRockwell.com and from Full Context. Send him email.

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***

The US-led West’s Mainstream Media is predictably silent and appears to be deliberately ignoring this “politically inconvenient” report. Drawing attention to it would erode the public’s confidence in their perception managers who told them over the past year that all war crimes accusations against Kiev are supposedly just so-called “Russian propaganda”.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) is widely regarded in the US-led West’s Golden Billion as among the world’s most reliable authorities for documenting alleged violations of people’s human rights. It doesn’t matter that their reports are usually weaponized by that same de facto New Cold War bloc for Hybrid War ends since most of their population remains unaware of this reality. Instead, they believe everything that HRW says, which now places the Golden Billion in a narrative dilemma after that group’s latest report.

Titled “Ukraine: Banned Landmines Harm Civilians”, HRW extensively documented the widespread use of so-called “butterfly mines” around Izium during the that Russia controlled that city from April to September. This NGO also quoted an unnamed Ukrainian deminer who told them that “They are everywhere”, which is why such professionals assessed that “it could take decades to clear the area of landmines” after Kiev recklessly scattered countless numbers of them all across Northeastern Ukraine.

The US-led West’s Mainstream Media (MSM) is predictably silent and appears to be deliberately ignoring this “politically inconvenient” report. Drawing attention to it would erode the public’s confidence in their perception managers who told them over the past year that all war crimes accusations against Kiev are supposedly just so-called “Russian propaganda”. HRW’s reputation in the public psyche is so deeply ingrained that they also can’t smear them as “Russian propagandists” either.

Nevertheless, the SBU’s fascist troll network will still likely attack them as such on social media exactly as they did Amnesty International after it proved last August that Kiev was illegally militarizing residential areas and thus exploiting civilians there as de facto human shields to deter Russian strikes. Cynically speaking, it would actually be beneficial for Russia’s soft power interests if they do so since this network’s aggressive attacks inadvertently discredit their side in the eyes of the general public.

Regardless of whether or not those trolls ridiculously claim that HRW is supposedly a “Russian propaganda front” or whatever, the average Westerner who becomes aware of their latest report will likely begin to reconsider a lot of what they’ve previously been told about the Ukrainian Conflict. After all, this latest development coincides with the “official narrative” about NATO’s proxy war on Russia through that former Soviet Republic decisively shifting in recent weeks.

American and Polish officials led the way in flipping everything upside-down by nowadays warning that Kiev might likely lose after 11 months of falsely claiming that its victory was supposedly “inevitable”. On the same day that HRW’s report dropped, the New York Times informed their audience that the West’s anti-Russian sanctions are a failure after citing experts and the IMF who both agree that this targeted multipolar Great Power’s economy has recovered to its pre-special operation level.

Considering this newfound narrative context, those Westerners who come across the HRW’s latest report will thus likely wonder what’s going on after unexpectedly being barraged with claims that Kiev will likely lose, the West’s anti-Russian sanctions failed, and Ukraine is committing war crimes against its own people. It’s unrealistic to expect an average person not to react in that aforementioned way since their intuition will naturally tell them that something is very wrong.

Most of them might not put everything together and realize that the Western narrative about the Ukrainian Conflict is built on nothing but lies, but the majority might finally begin countenancing that possibility. The three narrative bases upon which Western support for Kiev is built have just been discredited since it’s no longer “inevitable” that Ukraine will win, Russia’s economy hasn’t collapsed, and the side that their de facto New Cold War bloc backs is committing war crimes against its own people.

In hindsight, the West’s perception managers should never have spun everything the way they did by falsely presenting Kiev’s victory as “inevitable”, assuring everyone that Russia’s economy had supposedly already collapsed, and framing Ukraine as an innocent lamb that can do no wrong. This combination of narratives could never be indefinitely maintained since the facts were always going to discredit it with time, hence why the decision was just made to decisively shift the “official narrative”.

This selfsame shift, however, is narratively dangerous for the Golden Billion since it’s so abrupt and literally the complete opposite of everything that the average Westerner was hitherto told. An uncertain number of their targeted audience will thus certainly realize that everything that their perception managers told them up until this point was a lie while the majority will become much more susceptible to that thought. HRW’s report will thus aid in their awakening, and more such related reports will follow.

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This article was originally published on Andrew Korybko’s Newsletter.

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.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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***

Qatar has been into the spotlight largely due to it having hosted the Fifa Football Cup in 2022. Western notions regarding LGBT and gender rights motivated a lot of media and activism criticism against the nation. Now, Qatar is once again a hot topic in Europe because of the so-called Qatargate. It is, in short, about European authorities having received gifts from Qatari authorities in what has been denounced as a kind of bribery. In December Eva Kaili, a European Parliament vice president was arrested over such charges, and three others are being investigated.

Much has been talked about the scandal, and Ursula von der Leyen herself, European Commission President, has even stated that it undermines trust in European institutions. Similarly, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock has talked about European credibility being on the line. Such a statement, Caroline de Gruyter (a Foreign Policy correspondent) argues, could be premature.

One should keep in mind that, so far, there is not enough evidence linking any European institution – other than the European Parliament – to the so-called Qatargate. There are however, according to some media stories, in Germany, for example, suspicions about the problem that goes beyond European Union institutions and beyond Qatar itself, as the supposed role of Morocco is also being investigated.

In 2021, Qatar played an important role in trying to mediate between Saudi Arabia and its rival Iran. The same year, a landmark “solidarity and stability” agreement was signed between Qatar on one hand, and the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Bahrain on the other, thus re-establishing full diplomatic relations with Doha and ending a three-year-old Gulf crisis and blockade on Qatar. Ever since, its diplomatic soft power has been increasing in the region and beyond.

The small Gulf nation has one of the world’s largest sovereign funds and it seeks to use its wealth to secure geopolitical influence and protection. In doing so, the Qatari authorities in Doha are not alone: other Gulf states employ similar policies.

Washington’s Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft lobby expert Ben Freeman, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Saudi Arabia and Qatar are not part of the 10 largest spenders at lobbying firms in Washington DC.

In 2017, de Gruyter reminds us, both the UAE and Saudi Arabia heavily boycotted Qatar. In response, the country, in the US alone, quadrupled its lobbying budget and, similarly, also has been sponsoring media companies, think thanks and so on in Europe. Doha has also invested heavily in paying 440,000 pounds’ worth of trips to UK law-makers over the last decade.

Bilateral relations between Doha and Riyadh (Saudi Arabia) have improved, but those between the former and the UAE are still far from good.

Belgian authorities have so far charged four people linked to the European Parliament over corruption accusations regarding Qatari gifts supposedly aimed at influencing decision-making. Pertaining to this investigation, Qatari authorities deny having done anything illegal – the cultural institution of wasta (involving favors and gifts) clashes with Western notions of corruption. While there must be mechanisms to avoid decision-makers being seduced by expensive gifts or “bought off”, a very strict Western understanding of corruption in such matters can potentially hamper intercultural dialogue and diplomatic understanding with such Arab nations, thus also hampering trade.

In December 2022, the European Parliament suspended all work on legislation pertaining to Qatar. The country’s representatives have been barred from accessing the Parliament’s premises. A statement from Doha’s mission to the EU said “preconceived prejudices” were behind this suspension, which affects an EU-Qatar aviation agreement and legislation related to visa liberalization, among other things. The diplomatic statement described it as “discriminatory restriction” and added that no effort had been made to engage with Qatar’s government in order to establish the facts.

The timing is not so good: the Gulf nation, which is a major liquified natural gas (LNG) exporter, was a vital piece in the European plans for coping with its energy crisis. In October 2022, Qatari energy minister Saad al-Kaabi warned that by 2023 Europe is to face a tougher crisis, with the depletion of its gas reserves – a situation which can extend itself even up to 2025.

So far, the overall imports of LNG from Qatar are just about 5 percent of the European bloc gas imports, according to European Commission data. However, Doha has two ongoing megaprojects, due to be completed by 2027, which are expected to make its LNG production capacity grow tremendously. In November 2022, Berlin signed a 15-year gas contract with US company ConocoPhillips plus QatarEnergy, which is state-owned, to ensure at least 2 million metric tons of LNG annually, starting from 2026. Italy and several other European countries are eyeing Qatar too, according to  Cinzia Bianco, a European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) research fellow on the Gulf.

Pragmatically speaking, energy security is usually considered to be more important than Western discourses on human rights and such a corruption scandal. This is why Belgian MEP Marc Tarabella’s  lawyer claimed his client’s change of discourse on Qatar could be explained by “realpolitik” – not corruption

In post-Nord Stream Europe, amid an economic, financial and energy crisis, Europeans today suffer the consequences of anti-Russian sanctions which have backfired and also of an American subsidy and trade war waged against their companies. In this context, Europe has sought to further enhance its trade and energy ties with countries such as Qatar and Morocco (which competes with Algeria).

Much has been talked about the need for stricter European anti-corruption pieces of legislation. The exact role and the acceptable boundaries of lobbying must also be discussed. The problem however is much deeper, and even Qatar itself and other countries cannot provide an easy alternative to Europe’s woes, as shown, for example, by this latest scandal, and by Algerian-Moroccan problems.

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

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***

A higher percentage of eligible voters regularly show up to the polls in Mexico, Brazil, and Slovakia than in the world’s pre-eminent and oldest democracy.

The two parties that, in reality, constitute a uniparty duopoly bend over backward to cater to their respective pet voting blocs (racial minorities for Democrats and Evangelicals for Republicans, for instance).  But those demographics pale in comparison to the volume of non-voters.

The 2020 presidential election was a banner year for participatory democracy.  It turned out a record number of voters (most of them presumably legal, eligible ones), amounting to 62% of the electorate.  That’s the best it gets participation-wise in the US.  The 2022 midterms produced about a 47% turnout.

George Carlin, whom I revere, did a whole hilarious bit in which he blamed the slovenly public for producing terrible politicians, citing the ignorant American population as the reason electoral politics is pointless.

Some percentage of the non-voting population is certainly apathetic or disinterested in politics.  And they deserve a share of the blame for the sorry state of affairs, for sure.

Yes, some contingent of the population will always be checked out of participatory politics because they simply can’t be bothered to engage in civic pursuits.  But a minimum of 38% — on the best of years — of the entire eligible voting public each election cycle?  Are they all useless, ignorant slobs who don’t appreciate the precious, hard earned right to self-government?

Or is there something more intrinsic to the U.S. political system that dissuades them?

The majority of non-voters are independents who do not identify with either party.  Most have no higher than a high school education and also make less than $40K/year.  In other words, they’re people don’t belong to the permanent D.C. political class and don’t see their interests represented there.

Less than 30% of Americans approve of the American two-party system.  Lots of non-voters, like one interviewed by NPR, don’t feel like voting matters at all: “I feel like my voice doesn’t matter[.]  People who suck still are in office, so it doesn’t make a difference.”

Can the political system be reformed to counteract this widespread perception that participation is pointless?  Here are potential remedies to the real or imagined disincentives for non-voters to participate in the Great American Experiment:

• Break the two-party duopoly.  The American Conservative published a thorough article on how to accomplish this.
• Term limits.  The McCarthy refuseniks actually pushed for a vote on this issue as a precondition to elect the new House speaker.
• Spotlight the corruption.  Require politicians to wear an insignia on their $1,000 suits for every corporation that has funneled money into their campaign, directly or indirectly, like NASCAR drivers.  Voters should know whether they’re supporting a human being or a mindless corporate robot.
• Transparency. Declassify all the documents currently hidden from the public that do not have a legitimate national security justification to remain classified, as determined by some truly independent panel empowered to make such judgment calls.  By the government’s own admission, up to 90% of these documents would not adversely affect national security if they were released. Their status as classified does not serve “national security”; it keeps the Deep State’s dirty secrets hidden from those of us who pay for their dirty deeds to be performed in our name.  JFK expressed the essence of this wild notion, and he was rewarded with a bullet in the head.

Of course, reform might a pipe dream.  The swamp is so deep at this point that the only true remedy may be to drain it all and start over.

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This article was originally published on American Thinker.

Ben Bartee is an independent Bangkok-based American journalist with opposable thumbs.  Follow his stuff via Armageddon Prose and/or Substack, Patreon, Gab, and Twitter.  Bitcoin public address:bc1qvq4hgnx3eu09e0m2kk5uanxnm8ljfmpefwhawv.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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***

Slowly, against their will, and against their natural inclination to watch football and eat pizza, Americans are awaking to the reality of a totalitarian system with its tentacles wrapped around every aspect of their existence. Sadly, the true nature of this tyranny still eludes the understanding of most citizens, in part because the process by which America was transformed utterly has been slow, in part because the commercial media points us away from the true causes of this slippage and pins all blame on easily identifiable bad guys.

Those seeped in the progressive political tradition sensed a radical loss of justice and transparency under the George W. Bush administration, a trend that only accelerated under the Trump administration—with a perceived reprieve under Obama and the possibility of a positive turn under Biden.

Those marinated in the juices of conservative politics observed an end of freedom and the spread of socialist, or “leftist,” ideology that oppresses the citizen under Clinton and Obama.

Both interpretive communities refer to the same social and political trends, to the war on freedom that renders us up as sacrificial lambs to the cruel gods of global capital. The rhetoric employed by the two groups is so radically different, however, and the histories of the United States that they embrace are so divergent, that they are lost in intense ideological conflicts even as they describe the same creeping totalitarianism.

That conflict is no accident. That ideological battle over the insignificant is just what the doctor ordered for the interests of high finance. Or as J. P. Morgan put it,

“By dividing the people, we can get them to expend their energies in fighting over questions of no importance to us except as teachers of the common herd.”

The super-rich already had their consultants come up with detailed studies on how to divide up citizens by religion, by ethnic identity, by cultural signifiers, and by class so that they are incapable of unity even in the face of the complete takeover of the economy, the media, education and the political process.

Progressives refer to the supporters of Trump in rural areas as “stupid” and fundamentalist Christians refer to the followers of the Democratic Party as “evil.”

This profound misunderstanding is probably reinforced by numerous classified operations in which individuals promoting divisive left-wing, or right-wing, positions are encouraged, and paid, to do so as render those who should have common cause as foes.

There is another reason why we have such a difficult time understanding the transformation of our society. The nature of this totalitarianism runs against the assumptions we were taught by movies, novels, and news reports. Our minds are cluttered with archetypes for dictatorship and evil that are at odds with the reality.

The greatest crime of Hollywood was convincing us that evil takes the form of a monster with fangs and claws, of an evil leader with a sinister smile. Corrupt journalists extend this fiction to the public sphere, explaining how evil is embodied in foreign leaders like Kim Jong-un, Xi Jinping, or Vladimir Putin, or in domestic ill-doers like Hillary Clinton (for the right) or Donald Trump (for the left).

As a result, we are unable to detect, or to understand, the takeover of our society that has taken place.

That is to say that we are confronted by “inverted totalitarianism,” to borrow the term of the philosopher Sheldon Wolin, a cultural and political state in which all aspects of our daily lives are controlled by multinational corporations without our knowing and we lose all freedom.

As a result, our actions are profoundly limited; we are constantly beaten down by an iron fist covered in the soft glove of interest charges, student loans, and constant surveillance.

The totalitarianism that we face is “inverted” in the sense that we expect some dictator standing on top and playing the bad buy, oppressing us out of personal greed, vanity or cruelty. But the true source of our misery is rather the manner in which multinational corporations use supercomputers to calculate profits and then extract as much money as possible from us by making it impossible for us to grow our own food, to heal our own illnesses, to teach ourselves, or to entertain ourselves. Instead, we must buy products, online, or in supermarkets, in transactions from which multinational corporations and banks will invariably take a major cut. The only learning that is recognized and accredited is expensive and is controlled by corporations.

We are offered only false choices between Pepsi or Coke, between Taco Bell or Wendy’s, between action films or romantic comedies, and between the Democratic or Republican Parties.

The process by which citizens lost their self-reliance, their self-sufficiency in food production and in energy production, and the basic skills of sewing, knitting and carpentry, growing dependent on products supplied by corporations, began 100 years ago. We can trace the current crisis back to the campaigns of John D. Rockefeller to force citizens to be dependent on petroleum through the promotion of automobiles and trade, the slashing of budgets for public transportation and the massive funding for highways, the push for the mechanization of farming and the popularization of plastics.

Rockefeller also paid off experts so as to marginalize homeopathic medicine and traditional treatments and create dependency on overpriced hospitals that are tied to corporations, while rendering universities and research institutes dependent on the benevolence of the rich, thus making systematic critiques of the sources of wealth a taboo topic.

To be more specific, the invisible inverted totalitarianism that has taken control of our daily experiences can be traced back to the launch of Windows as an operating system in 1985. Microsoft Word, under the rule of Bill Gates (an ardent student of John D. Rockefeller), set out to control the means by which citizens utilize their computers and later, to control how they interacted with each other over the internet.

Sure, presidential elections were held every four years, and the public was given a chance express itself. Secret secret police did not cart off those who criticized the government—in fact criticism of government was encouraged as way to distract from the impact of bank deregulation.

Most citizens were hardly aware that having one corporation control the system software for all computers that they supposedly “owed” meant that they had lost their freedom.

Yet the shift was profound. Whereas the individual previously could decide for himself where to place files in his office, how to organize documents and layout his papers around his typewriter, the manner in which information is organized within Windows is extremely limited, determined in advance by unaccountable forces and the format and layout cannot be modified by the user.

Needless to say, this first step down the road to tyranny, this fatal loss of basic autonomy, was carefully covered up in the rhetoric of convenience and efficiency, exciting innovation and technological advancement, so that few recognized the loss.

Myths about the importance of convenience, of connectivity and of globalization were swallowed by the entire population. Critical topics like the scientific method, the control of the means of production and the decision-making process in government, and in other institutions, were forgotten.

The next step in this hidden tyranny over our daily lives came in the form of search engines like Google, social networks like Facebook, and other massive, interconnected, corporations that mediated the interactions of the individual with the community, often taking over critical functions that previously belonged to the community or to non-profit institutions like schools or research centers.

Under the guise of greater convenience for the individual, businessmen with unlimited funding from investment banks were able to buy up rivals, block out alternatives that offered search engines as cooperatives, and thereby created search engines that pose as transparent institutions but derive money through the sophisticated manipulation of human interactions using algorithms.

Because Google and Facebook had such resources that they could lose money for years, the manner in which they whittled away at the autonomy of the citizen was almost undetectable. Equally important was the strategy of using short-term stimulation of the brain by postings, instant messages and gaudy news reports, to remap the connections between synapses so as to render most incapable of complex, three-dimensional, thinking. That service, the creation of a dumbed down, passive, population, was true product that internet giants offer to their real clients.

Google controls what information we access to, in what order we have access to it, and it lays out a hierarchy of significance in search results that has some basis in fact, but is primarily a political act for sale to the highest bidder.

Results of Google searches are altered, on a case-by-case basis, in response to the needs of corporations to promote their views to extremely specific audiences.

Although we are trained to think of Google as a public service, its falsehoods, increasingly given authority by the parallel Wikipedia entries created by public relations firms, are not subject to external review. Google users are never permitted to participate in the process of the formulation of policy, or in the review of content. That is to say, the United States calls itself a democracy, but the primary tool that citizens rely on for information is run as a dictatorship.

Another popular cloak for the slip into tyranny is the framing of “opinion” as content in the news. Scientific fact ceased to be central in reporting from 1990s. In its stead, opinion polls of groups selected by polling companies are held up as a confirmation of what is true.

Public opinion polls are the propaganda equivalent of stock buybacks. The billionaires, having radically deregulated the economy and dumbed down the population, merely force-feed their opinions to the public through the media that they control and then claim that the policies they want are demanded by the public.

Facebook gives the appearance that the citizen can express himself freely, and can make friends with anyone. Yet, since Facebook Inc. controls whom a citizen can easily find through its network, and who sees what, and it does not permit users to use their own software, or design their own page, or own the networks they create on Facebook, or to have any say in how Facebook is administered, the freedom is fiction.

Legal concepts like the contract have been twisted beyond recognition in the totalitarian cyberspace that surrounds us.

A contract is a negotiated agreement between two parties. On-line, however, whether it is the decision to accept cookies, or to comply with the rules for a commercial application, the user has no right to make demands of the corporation. He or she is given the false choice of either agreeing with all conditions offered, or not having access to the service. The contract is an empty ritual.

We are accustomed to permitting Facebook, Twitter, SnapChat or Instagram to determine what becomes of information that we share, and we are unaware of the billions in profits those corporations make by selling off the information, the content, and the creative ideas that we supply without giving us any compensation. In a sense, these social networks are a form of virtual slavery.

Click here to watch the video

COVID-19 Totalitarianism

Because the thinking of citizens has been degraded for decades, and citizens rely on corporate-sponsored sources for basic information, it became possible, for the first time, to create a virtual pandemic, planned by the super-rich, promoted by the news sources that they own, authorized by experts at the institutes and universities that they fund, and legitimated by government agencies (and international institutions like the World Health Organization) that have been radically privatized.

Previously, a significant number of citizens were capable of assessing the accuracy of information on their own. Research institutes like Harvard University still had an ethical commitment to the scientific method and to academic integrity.

All that is over now. The façades of the NIH and Harvard remain the same, maybe they are even better maintained, but the intellectual innards have rotted away. Distinguished professors are easily assembled to give testimony to ridiculous theories about COVID19.

The dangers of the COVID19 vaccines are not the primary threat. The danger lies rather in the shift of the decision-making process for policy away from science, and away from a transparent policy debate. COVID19 serves a successful precedent for invisible forces at private equity funds to decide medical policy in secret and then feed it to us through authority figures.

Those invisible forces now feel they are free to require of us, without any accountability to science, that we have any substance that they offer injected into our bodies as a condition for the right to attend school, to find employment or to receive medical treatment.

The process was made possible by the interaction of social networks, search engines, commercial media, and other critical components of daily experience that determine opinions concerning reliable and authoritative voices. That process is run as an invisible dictatorship that controls a distracted, confused and unfocused population, drowning in connectivity.

Nothing will get better until citizens recognize the cause of this nightmare was not the legacy of the Bushes, the Clintons, the Obamas or the Trumps, although they all played their role, but rather the end of the self-reliant and informed citizen with access to the writings of experts with a deep commitment to the scientific method and to ethical principles.

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This article was originally published on Fear No Evil.

Emanuel Pastreich served as the president of the Asia Institute, a think tank with offices in Washington DC, Seoul, Tokyo and Hanoi. Pastreich also serves as director general of the Institute for Future Urban Environments. Pastreich declared his candidacy for president of the United States as an independent in February, 2020.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from Medical Tyranny

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***

Realizing NATO’s war with Russia will likely end unfavorably, the US is test-driving an exit offer. But why should Moscow take indirect proposals seriously, especially on the eve of its new military advance and while it is in the winning seat?

Those behind the Throne are never more dangerous than when they have their backs against the wall.

Their power is slipping away, fast: Militarily, via NATO’s progressive humiliation in Ukraine; Financially, sooner rather than later, most of the Global South will want nothing to do with the currency of a bankrupt rogue giant; Politically, the global majority is taking decisive steps to stop obeying a rapacious, discredited, de facto minority.

So now those behind the Throne are plotting to at least try to stall the incoming disaster on the military front.

As confirmed by a high-level US establishment source, a new directive on NATO vs. Russia in Ukraine was relayed to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Blinken, in terms of actual power, is nothing but a messenger boy for the Straussian neocons and neoliberals who actually run US foreign policy.

The secretary of state was instructed to relay the new directive – a sort of message to the Kremlin – via mainstream print media, which was promptly published by the Washington Post.

In the elite US mainstream media division of labor, the New York Times is very close to the State Department, and the Washington Post to the CIA. In this case though the directive was too important, and needed to be relayed by the paper of record in the imperial capital. It was published as an Op-Ed (behind paywall).

The novelty here is that for the first time since the start of Russia’s February 2022 Special Military Operation (SMO) in Ukraine, the Americans are actually proposing a variation of the “offer you can’t refuse” classic, including some concessions which may satisfy Russia’s security imperatives.

Crucially, the US offer totally bypasses Kiev, once again certifying that this is a war against Russia conducted by Empire and its NATO minions – with the Ukrainians as mere expandable proxies.

‘Please don’t go on the offensive’

The Washington Post’s old school Moscow-based correspondent John Helmer has provided an important service, offering the full text of Blinken’s offer, of course extensively edited to include fantasist notions such as “US weapons help pulverize Putin’s invasion force” and a cringe-worthy explanation: “In other words, Russia should not be ready to rest, regroup and attack.”

The message from Washington may, at first glance, give the impression that the US would admit Russian control over Crimea, Donbass, Zaporozhye, and Kherson – “the land bridge that connects Crimea and Russia” – as a fait accompli.

Ukraine would have a demilitarized status, and the deployment of HIMARS missiles and Leopard and Abrams tanks would be confined to western Ukraine, kept as a “deterrent against further Russian attacks.”

What may have been offered, in quite hazy terms, is in fact a partition of Ukraine, demilitarized zone included, in exchange for the Russian General Staff cancelling its yet-unknown 2023 offensive, which may be as devastating as cutting off Kiev’s access to the Black Sea and/or cutting off the supply of NATO weapons across the Polish border.

The US offer defines itself as the path towards a “just and durable peace that upholds Ukraine’s territorial integrity.” Well, not really. It just won’t be a rump Ukraine, and Kiev might even retain those western lands that Poland is dying to gobble up.

The possibility of a direct Washington-Moscow deal on “an eventual postwar military balance” is also evoked, including no Ukraine membership of NATO. As for Ukraine itself, the Americans seem to believe it will be a “strong, non-corrupt economy with membership in the European Union.”

Whatever remains of value in Ukraine has already been swallowed not only by its monumentally corrupt oligarchy, but most of all, investors and speculators of the BlackRock variety. Assorted corporate vultures simply cannot afford to lose Ukraine’s grain export ports, as well as the trade deal terms agreed with the EU before the war. And they’re terrified that the Russian offensive may capture Odessa, the major seaport and transportation hub on the Black Sea – which would leave Ukraine landlocked.

There’s no evidence whatsoever that Russian President Vladimir Putin, and the entire Russian Security Council – including its Secretary Nikolai Patrushev and Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev – have reason to believe anything coming from the US establishment, especially via mere minions such as Blinken and the Washington Post. After all the stavka – a moniker for the high command of the Russian armed forces – regard the Americans as “non-agreement capable,” even when an offer is in writing.

This walks and talks like a desperate US gambit to stall and present some carrots to Moscow in the hope of delaying or even cancelling the planned offensive of the next few months.

Even old school, dissident Washington operatives – not beholden to the Straussian neocon galaxy – bet that the gambit will be a nothing burger: in classic “strategic ambiguity” mode, the Russians will continue on their stated drive of demilitarization, denazification and de-electrification, and will “stop” anytime and anywhere they see fit east of the Dnieper. Or beyond.

What the Deep State really wants

Washington’s ambitions in this essentially NATO vs. Russia war go well beyond Ukraine. And we’re not even talking about preventing a Russia-China-Germany Eurasian union or a peer competitor nightmare; let’s stick with prosaic issues on the Ukrainian battleground.

The key “recommendations” – military, economic, political, diplomatic – were detailed in an Atlantic Council strategy paper late last year.

And in another one, under “War scenario 1: The war continues in its current tempo,” we find the Straussian neocon policy fully spelled out.

It’s all here: from “marshaling support and military-assistance transfers to Kyiv sufficient to enable it to win” to “increase the lethality of military assistance transferred to include fighter aircraft that would enable Ukraine to control its airspace and attack Russian forces therein; and missile technology with range sufficient to reach into Russian territory.”

From training the Ukrainian military “to use Western weapons, electronic warfare, and offensive and defensive cyber capabilities, and to seamlessly integrate new recruits in the service” to buttressing “defenses on the front lines, near the Donbass region,” including “combat training focusing on irregular warfare.”

Added to “imposing secondary sanctions on all entities doing business with the Kremlin,” we reach of course the Mother of All Plunders: “Confiscate the $300 billion that the Russian state holds in overseas accounts in the United States and EU and use seized monies to fund reconstruction.”

The reorganization of the SMO, with Putin, Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov, and General Armageddon in their new, enhanced roles is derailing all these elaborate plans.

The Straussians are now in deep panic. Even Blinken’s number two, Russophobic warmonger Victoria “F**k the EU” Nuland, has admitted to the US Senate there will be no Abrams tanks on the battlefield before Spring (realistically, only in 2024). She also promised to “ease sanctions” if Moscow “returns to negotiations.” Those negotiations were scotched by the Americans themselves in Istanbul in the Spring of 2022.

Nuland also called the Russians to “withdraw their troops.” Well, that at least offers some comic relief compared with the panic oozing from Blinken’s “offer you can’t refuse.” Stay tuned for Russia’s non-response response.

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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. 

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from The Cradle

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***

 

 

Commentators are busy speculating how the American president’s promise – endorsed by the country as enthusiastically as Zelensky himself– of M1 Abram tanks to Ukraine will affect the war that grinds on in Ukraine. Many assume that gifts of fighter jets will follow shortly. 

What disturbs me is the semantics of Biden’s announcement of the gift, rationalized and neatly summed up by, “We all want an end to this war.”

I wonder if Joe Biden is aware that his statement comes in the very week that marks 50 years since the inglorious end of the U.S. war in Vietnam, (noted more widely in the foreign press than in the U.S.) How many times and for how many years did Americans and perhaps their Vietnamese quislings hear that kind of heroic talk about victory there? Similar assurances from military leaders and politicians were offered in subsequent wars. Remember Afghanistan where American military forces likewise abandoned the noble cause, although that took two decades to prove unworkable, and humiliating as well.

How can one answer Biden’s noble declaration—”We want to end this war”? So clean, so unambiguous, he talks to us as if we are children; “Yes, my little ones; daddy will take care of everything. I’ll finish off that coyote in no time and you’ll all be safe.”

And who are Biden’s “We”? Do they include you and me? All Europe? Pentagon strategists? Profiteering weapons suppliers and busy intelligence agencies?

Does his “We” include the crowds of pundits—we have an abundance of conflict specialists newly available after their Iraq and Afghanistan tenures? Is Biden speaking for America’s faithful war-partner Britain and its reluctant ally Germany? If any skeptical Europeans remain hesitant about increased military buildups, it could be directed at them. Who doesn’t want to end this war? I expect Russia too would agree to this.

Biden’s language is cunningly comforting, reassuring. It could even be read as an appeal for peace; couldn’t it? “….end this war.”

For me, and likely some others as well, that invocation is actually discomforting. It’s too close to the pleading slogans of anti-war protestors of past generations. Some may recall that cry back in early 2003 when the wholesale bombing of Iraq was imminent. “Hm. Really? A bit late”, sighed my Iraqi companions that bleek day when we sat on a grassy Mosel knoll and heard news from across the world that millions of dissident marchers spoke against an invasion of their land. (Didn’t those anti war liberals know that a 13-year-long embargo war had already battered and impoverished the nation?) Once the bombing of Iraq was well under way and the drama of the American land assault filled the news reports, occasionally one might hear a feeble “end the war’ on the margins of American life.

No one is guessing how long the NATO/Ukraine-Russia battles will last. Speculation is that this war can only intensify. What few voices who suggest that some negotiations should begin are being stilled. No one is objecting to the billions of dollars Washington has already committed to this madness. You saw what happened three months ago when a feeble suggestion by the Democratic Progressive Caucus to initiate negotiations between Ukraine and Russia was presented to the White House. They slunk away in embarrassment.

Meanwhile Mr. Biden assures a lot of people that “We all want an end to this war.” They can count on America.

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Barbara Nimri Aziz whose anthropological research has focused on the peoples of the Himalayas is the author of the newly published “Yogmaya and Durga Devi: Rebel Women of Nepal”, available on Amazon. 

She is a regular contributor to Global Research.

All images in this article are from the author

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“Yogmaya and Durga Devi: Rebel Women of Nepal”

By Barbara Nimri Aziz

A century ago Yogmaya and Durga Devi, two women champions of justice, emerged from a remote corner of rural Nepal to offer solutions to their nation’s social and political ills. Then they were forgotten.

Years after their demise, in 1980 veteran anthropologist Barbara Nimri Aziz first uncovered their suppressed histories in her comprehensive and accessible biographies. Revelations from her decade of research led to the resurrection of these women and their entry into contemporary Nepali consciousness.

This book captures the daring political campaigns of these rebel women; at the same time it asks us to acknowledge their impact on contemporary feminist thinking. Like many revolutionaries who were vilified in their lifetimes, we learn about the true nature of these leaders’ intelligence, sacrifices, and vision during an era of social and economic oppression in this part of Asia.

After Nepal moved from absolute monarchy to a fledgling democracy and history re-evaluated these pioneers, Dr. Aziz explores their legacies in this book.

Psychologically provocative and astonishingly moving, “Yogmaya and Durga Devi” is a seminal contribution to women’s history.

Click here to order.

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About a year ago I chanced to speak with a teenager, the daughter of a friend, at a gathering of the ‘resistance’. Like her mother she is a musician, and she attends a private girls’ high school here in Wellington. I asked about school and, in particular, about the novels she was reading in her English class during her senior year. I was surprised to hear that no novels were currently assigned … so I inquired further. “We get excerpts,” she informed me, “but over the course of last year we read one entire book.”

So during her junior and senior years at a prestigious girls’ school in an ostensibly first-world Western educational system, the curriculum was nearly devoid of literature.

I shuddered to ask about her history classes, but I did take the liberty of promising her a copy of Orwell’s 1984. To my delight but not my surprise, because she is a curious person avid to learn, she devoured the extracurricular novel within two weeks. Perhaps too, because she was unjabbed and was one of the very few who refused to wear a mask at her school, surrounded as she was by a sea of unthinking submissive fellow students, she was all the more motivated.

I recall that this earnest young kid was denied the opportunity to participate in a summertime music camp because of her jab status thanks to then Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s imposed apartheid system. The music faculty who ran the summer school didn’t have the guts or the wisdom to allow a healthy young talented player, who had been an eager participant in the past, to join their ‘vaccinated’ ensemble.

I myself, having donated Orwell, decided to revisit a work I hadn’t read in years, and I was struck by how poignant and delicate the great author’s love scenes were rendered. Most of the final third of the book, devoted as it was to a meticulous delineation of psychological and physical torture, seemed didactic and less appealing, though agonizingly true.

I wondered how a young mind would engage with, interpret and understand such a challenging book, a book that ended with the lover-protagonists’ immensely sad betrayal of each other, having been broken.

I wondered how a young mind would understand the oppressive force of a State that turned the meanings of words into their opposites and altered history to suit its prevailing political needs.

I wondered whether this teenager understood the concepts of free expression and open debate, mired as she was in a corona culture of cancellation, suppression, ignorance and ostracism.

I wondered what and how she was being taught.

Teaching itself, like most forms of human interaction, may be coercive. Everywhere we are surrounded by attempts to persuade, cajole, entice, allure or, as we have seen so clearly these past three years, simply force us to a particular end. Advertisers use the lighter arts of seduction to bring our monies to their products; governments, when their own light touches fall short of their goals, resort to mandates. Free choice, like free thinking, is under constant assault. Is teaching yet another one of these assaults? Can one teach without resorting to shaping, molding, coercion?

The Socratic method is generally understood as a method of questioning, of inquiry in the pursuit of truths. The Socrates depicted by Plato claimed to know virtually nothing but inquired indefatigably of his auditors. It is best shown in the dialogue Theaetetus – shown in its ideal form, as far as I’m concerned, since I have had the general impression from many of the other dialogues that the modest unknowing Socrates quite purposefully led his students to his own preordained convictions about philosophical matters. In the Theaetetus, however, our Socrates – or, at least, Plato’s Socrates – defines his role as that of a midwife. It is a striking and magnificent analogy, for the teacher – Socrates, who happens incidentally to be the son of a midwife – is one who merely helps to bring forth that which is immanent within his student. He facilitates the birth of knowledge residing within. As he says:

“I am so far like the midwife that I cannot myself give birth to wisdom … though I question others, I can myself bring nothing to light because there is no wisdom in me … Those who frequent my company … have never learnt anything from me; the many admirable truths they bring to birth have been discovered by themselves from within. But the delivery is heaven’s work and mine” (Cornford, p. 26)[1].

Centuries later, the much-misunderstood and often maligned Sigmund Freud introduced the technique of free association after having been frustrated with attempts at hypnosis – a form of suggestion – for the treatment of neurosis. Free association was one of Freud’s most magnificent achievements, and one of the pillars upon which psychoanalysis is founded. One can hardly overestimate the uniqueness of a setting in which a person is encouraged simply to say anythingand everything that comes to mind, without self-censorship, interference or judgment, no matter how bizarre, perverse, repulsive or frightening. Freud in essence developed a method of midwifery akin to Socrates – facilitating the birth of hidden knowledge within.

Without diverging into the complexities and intricacies of free association within the treatment paradigm of psychoanalysis, necessitating as it does the patient’s unquestioning trust in the analyst, which is hardly ever complete, and involving the inevitable self-suppressions of shameful, dubious or delicate material, the introduction of this technique, its astonishing potential, and the inherent assumptions of liberty and autonomy within its very fabric are scarcely imaginable.

Free association represents a culmination of the Socratic method and a blazing example of the antithesis to force and censure. Freud himself devoted a half-hour daily to self-analysis via free association throughout his life, an example, wryly enough, far more honored in the breach by his psychoanalytic followers than in the observance.

Socrates and Freud were creatures of their times and mores and culture. Yet the method they devised provided the very tool to transcend the cultural, moral and political restrictions of their respective societies. This is a point I cannot emphasize enough, and the same may be said for the American Founders who, trammeled as they were by their own societal prejudices, nonetheless produced a document whose basic principles provided the means to overcome such limitations.

Virtually everything about these past three years of blight under the shadow of the Corona War has ventured to stifle and eliminate liberty. The ‘science’ was invoked to silence debate: it became something that would tolerate no doubt, discussion or criticism — no real science, in fact. People who attempted to offer differing opinions were eliminated from social media. Doctors who asked for evidence behind oppressive restrictions and public health dictates were persecuted. Those who dared to champion bodily autonomy by refusing the jab were set apart.

In fact, it has all grown stale and boring, as befits the gray suffocating miasma of enslaving control.

I’m sick of it.

If we have learned nothing else from these past three dystopian years, it is that our once-trusted authorities — in government, media, ‘science’, business and even sport — have shown themselves to be wholly corrupt and cowardly. Their suppression of debate, their outright refusal to participate in open exchanges, to allow questioning and inquiry, and the relentless insistence on their ‘one way’ — this would all be laughable were it not so poisonous.

But what of today’s youth? They seem to have little awareness of history, and even less understanding of the immensity of the struggles to realize our unalienable right to freedom of expression – not from any fault of their own, but from the fault of the institutions that are betraying them.

My friend’s daughter, who had the courage to withstand the pressure of peers and school and the curiosity to search for books – whole books, not smatterings – is an exception. I have had the pleasure of meeting several other brave and exceptional youths who have withstood an immensity of pressure to mask up, conform, relinquish bodily autonomy, who have endured ostracism and ridicule, but who have maintained their dignity and independence.

These wonderful exceptions give me great hope that we can indeed establish a future graced by vitality, autonomy and choice, one that nourishes the single most genuine and unassailable contribution of the West towards human progress: liberty.

And perhaps in this beckoning future I may gently inquire of these young forming souls what they think of Socrates, Freud, and the fate of Julia and Winston in 1984 …

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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/

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Note

1 “Plato’s Theory of Knowledge: the Theaetetus and the Sophist of Plato,” translated and with a running commentary by Francis Macdonald Cornford, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, Ltd. 1915.

Featured image is from Amazon

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***

On January 27, the International Holocaust Remembrance Day, a gunman shot ultra-Orthodox Jewish worshippers as they came out of the Ateret Avraham synagogue in the Neve Yaakov Jewish settlement in East Jerusalem.

The gunman was 21-year-old Khairi Alkam a resident of East Jerusalem. He was later shot dead by Israeli police. The dead were five men, aged 20 to 60, and two women, aged 60 and 70. Three others were wounded.

The Neve Yaakov Jewish settlement’s population is about 23,300. The Jews there have citizenship, civil rights, and human rights. They can travel and return home at any time. Their children can study abroad and return home to Israel for jobs. This settlement, like countless others in the Occupied Territories, is illegal under international law.  A synagogue is out of place in East Jerusalem, as West Jerusalem is where the Jews live.  East Jerusalem is for the Palestinians.

The Palestinians living in East Jerusalem have no citizenship, they cannot leave, they cannot go abroad for education and return, and their residency permit can be revoked at any time. They are prevented from building a new home or making necessary repairs to their existing home or business.  They have no civil rights, or human rights. Many of their homes and business have been demolished or confiscated for decades.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said the top two goals of his new administration are to establish more settlements in the Occupied Territories and to normalize relations with Saudi Arabia.

Netanyahu announced new measures to strengthen Jewish settlements, preparations to demolish the attacker’s family home, plans to get more guns into the hands of the Israeli citizens and taking away social security and health benefits from the family of any Palestinian attacker.

National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, a far-right extremist, who has been called a terrorist in the past, has called for an increase in settlements. He called for demolishing dozens of Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem, granting more gun licenses to Jews, and applying the death penalty to Palestinians convicted of killing Israelis.

Three extra battalions have been deployed in the Occupied West Bank to strengthen defenses on the numerous Jewish settlements there.

Tensions have escalated since Israel ramped up raids in the West Bank last spring, with nearly 190 Palestinians killed in the West Bank and East Jerusalem in 2022, making it the deadliest year in those Occupied Territories since 2004.  About 30 Palestinians have been killed since the beginning of 2023.

Over 30 people were killed in Palestinian attacks against Israelis last year, according to Israeli figures.

Three Palestinians were hospitalized after being shot by a Jewish settler near Nablus in the north of the West Bank, in a separate incident on Friday.

Why is a synagogue in East Jerusalem?

Neve Yaakov is a religious Jewish settlement that Israel considers to be a neighborhood of its capital. Israel claims all of Jerusalem as its undivided capital, while the Palestinians seek East Jerusalem, captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war, as the capital of their future state. In a long-standing custom, recognized by the international community, the East section of Jerusalem is for Palestinians, and the West section is for the Jews. However, over recent years, the Israeli government has allowed Jewish zealots to confiscate homes and businesses and encroach illegally into East Jerusalem.  The Palestinians are suffering from ethnic cleansing on a massive scale condoned by the Jewish government.

Why are settlers in East Jerusalem?

According to B’Tselem, The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, two parallel regimes are operating in Israel. In the West is a democracy, and in the East is a military occupation.

“The entire area that Israel controls is ruled by a single apartheid regime, governing the lives of all people living in it and operating according to one organizing principle: establishing and perpetuating the control of one group of people – Jews – over another – Palestinians – through laws, practices and state violence.”

B’Tselem advocates for a future where the Israeli occupation and apartheid will end.

In June, plans to build nearly 500 homes in a new Jewish settlement in East Jerusalem were announced. Critics say this further undermines any hope for a two-state solution. Israel captured the West Bank and East Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war and has built illegal settlements across both territories that are now home to some 700,000 Jewish settlers.

Are the settlements legal?

The international community considers the establishment of Jewish settlements in the Israeli-Occupied Territories illegal.

They violate Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, and they are in breach of international declarations.  The United Nations Security Council, the United Nations General Assembly, the International Committee of the Red Cross, the International Court of Justice, and the High Contracting Parties to the Convention have all affirmed that the Fourth Geneva Convention applies to the Israeli-Occupied Territories.

Numerous UN resolutions and prevailing international opinion hold that Israeli settlements in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights are a violation of international law, including UN Security Council resolutions in 1979, 1980, and 2016. UN Security Council Resolution 446 refers to the Fourth Geneva Convention as the applicable international legal instrument and calls upon Israel to desist from transferring its population into the territories or changing its demographic makeup.

United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334, which passed 14-0 with the United States abstaining, declared that Israel’s settlement activity in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, including East Jerusalem, “has no legal validity and constitutes a flagrant violation under international law”, and demanded that Israel “immediately and completely cease all settlement activities”.

The legal status of Jerusalem

The 1967 war resulted in the occupation by Israel of East Jerusalem and the Palestinian Territories.  Israel annexed East Jerusalem in 1980; however, this is not recognized by the international community, a community that rejects the acquisition of territory by war and considers any changes on the ground illegal and invalid.

36 structures belonging to Palestinians were demolished throughout December 2022 in East Jerusalem and adjacent areas lying within the al-Quds District of the Palestinian Authority, on orders from the Jewish government. Parts of another structure were demolished on January 4, 2023. 26 non-residential buildings were demolished by the authorities and an agricultural terrace and three fences surrounding plots of land were also demolished.

Saturday shooting in East Jerusalem

A 13-year-old Palestinian boy shot and wounded two Israelis on Saturday in the neighborhood of Silwan in East Jerusalem, less than 24 hours after the deadly attack outside the synagogue. The wounded were taken to hospital and the boy was arrested after he was injured. Security footage showed the victims to be observant Jews by their religious dress.

Both Palestinian attackers behind the shootings on Friday and Saturday came from East Jerusalem.

Silwan is home to more than 60,000 Palestinians and is located strategically to the south of Al-Aqsa Mosque. The area has been the target of Israeli settler expansion for years, with hundreds of Palestinian families facing the threat of expulsion, either through lawsuits by powerful settler groups or administrative eviction orders by the Israeli-run Jerusalem municipality.

Netanyahu will do everything to stay out of prison

Former Prime Minister, Yair Lapid, said Netanyahu would do everything to avoid going to prison. Taking on allies who are ultra-right extremists is what he was forced to do to form a government after the November election.  Everyone agrees that this is the most far-right and religious government in Israel’s history. Netanyahu has been facing charges of fraud, bribery, and breach of trust since 2020. His hands are tied: he must bow down to the radical demands and threats issued by his extremist partners. Should he stand up to them and refuse, they have the power to withdraw their support of him, and his government will fall, and he will go to prison.

Ben-Gvir became Israel’s security minister after a far-right bloc of parties led by Netanyahu won elections in November.  The leader of the far-right Otzma Yehudit political party has a history of racist and inflammatory remarks against Palestinians and Arabs, praising previous attacks on Palestinians as “heroic.” He has advocated for the deportation of all Palestinians.

What happened in Jenin and Gaza?

Thursday’s attack on Jenin, the deadliest single incursion in the West Bank since 2002, followed a particularly bloody month that saw at least 30 Palestinians killed by Israelis in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Israeli commandos killed nine Palestinians in the Jenin refugee camp.

Gaza fired rockets at Israel on Thursday night in response to the Jenin attack. Israel then targeted Gaza with airstrikes. Gaza has been blockaded by Israel since 2007.

The Palestinian Authority said on Thursday night that it was canceling security cooperation with Israel in response to the raid on Jenin, prompting US officials to urge them to reverse the decision.

Friday, Scuffles between Israeli forces and Palestinian mourners erupted after the funeral for a 22-year-old Palestinian north of Jerusalem in the Occupied West Bank.

Is resistance legal?

International law recognizes the legitimate right of a people to fight for its freedom, and for “liberation from colonial control, apartheid, and foreign occupation by all the means at its disposal, including armed struggle”, as confirmed, for example, by a resolution of the UN General Assembly in 1990.

The use of force to achieve liberation is legitimate. How force is used is governed by the laws of war, the main purpose of which is to protect uninvolved civilians on both sides.

The fighters in Jenin were not terrorists; they were in an act of armed resistance against an occupying power, on occupied land, and they were not targeting civilians.

UN calls Israel an Apartheid state

In March 2022, the UN Special Rapporteur for the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territory, Michael Lynk, issued a report in which he identified Israel as an Apartheid state.

“There is today in the Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967 a deeply discriminatory dual legal and political system, that privileges the 700,000 Israeli Jewish settlers living in the 300 illegal Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank,” said Lynk.

Israel, he said, conforms to the definition as a “political regime which so intentionally and prioritizes fundamental political, legal and social rights to one group over another, within the same geographic unit based on one’s racial-national-ethnic identity”.

The US defends Israel and allows them impunity

The US strongly condemned the attack in East Jerusalem, and was “shocked and saddened by the loss of life.”

President Joe Biden spoke with Netanyahu to offer US support to the government and people of Israel, calling the shootings “an attack against the civilized world.” “The President stressed the iron-clad US commitment to Israel’s security,” according to a Biden spokesperson.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has arrived in Egypt and will visit Israel and the West Bank.

Blinken’s trip was planned before the recent violence.  The Biden administration and the US State Department have no peace plans for Palestinians. Blinken will support Netanyahu and his extremist allies, but will not offer any lasting solution to either side. The US and other Western countries have pressed Israel to rein in settlements, but without any success.

The Palestinian leadership in the West Bank upheld its decision to halt security coordination with Israel to protest the deadly raid in Jenin. After a meeting headed by President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah, the Palestinian Authority called on the international community and the US administration to demand Israel stop its raids and operations in the West Bank.

Blinken should make a stop at the offices of B’Tselem.  They could give him a road map.

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This article was originally published on Mideast Discourse.

Steven Sahiounie is a two-time award-winning journalist. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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***

Within one year of the Ukrainian conflict it has been evident that the West is quick to scrutinize Russia without taking a better look at their own actions in the past. NATO has been involved in numerous conflicts since its establishment including Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya etc. Numerous violations have surfaced to the public however these atrocious acts have not received even remotely close criticism.

Since September 2022 Armed Forced of Russian Federation has carried out series of strikes in energy sector of Ukraine and received a whole lot of outraged comments from various global leaders and heads of international organizations. However in 2001 US Army allied with NATO members made a devastating rocket attack on critical energy, telecommunications, and government facilities of Baghdad leaving the whole capital without electricity, heating, water and reception. At the time Western community saw these actions as necessary means to end the regime of Saddam Hussein, considering he allegedly has weapons of mass destruction. In the end Iraq wasn’t anywhere near these weapons but nobody paid for blood and destruction of the Iraqi people.

It’s not the only occasion US Armed Forces has been caught inflicting damage to human life. The creator of WikiLeaks Julian Assange was the first person to effectively question US methods used in wrongly waged wars in the Middle East. On his website he published a leaked video of American soldiers opening fire from helicopters at the group of unarmed, innocent civilians. All of the targets were shot down to the ground leaving a bloody mess in a result of an unprovoked attack. Obviously no charges or accusation have been made against NATO or Ukraine.

North Africa has suffered the same unfair approach of the West. Once upon a time rich and prosperous Libya is now struggling to gain stability and form a unified government in order to break away from chaos and destruction. NATO’s action at the beginning of Libyan’s revolution was clearly illegal. The Western states had no right bombing the military academy. Besides malicious attacks NATO has failed to provide aid to the people of the North African country. Alliance failed to establish a new government. After all it even failed to provide refugees with a home in Europe, which they have destroyed. However during the Ukrainian conflict NATO was more than generous to provide homes, aid and financial help to the Ukrainian government and people.

One of the most infamous failures of NATO happened just last year, when the US forces withdrew from Afghanistan. The alliance has spent $978 billion over the period of 19 years without any evident success. During the same period over 2 million people have died, most of them were civilians. Countless homes and life have been ruined however NATO countries didn’t face any scrutiny for their actions. Moreover NATO didn’t provide refuge for most of these people or any sufficient help and at the same time over 6 million people have left Ukraine to live in Europe with over $100 billion provided in aid. Why does Ukraine deserve such help and the Middle Eastern states deserve destroyed homes and their resources stolen by World’s powerhouses.

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Ahmad al-Khaled is a Syrian journalist with four years of experience in covering the Syrian conflict and ME politics in general. His articles are published in leading regional and global media (Youm7, Ahl Masr, Rai Al Youm, Al Masdar, Ahval, Jerusalem Post, etc.)

Featured image: NATO heads of state at the alliance’s summit in Brussels (Source: Liberation News)

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***

Another doozy from the Canadian government.

Following along several other bills winding their way along the Road to Serfdom…

• Bill C-11 regulates the internet under the CRTC and paves the way toward institutionalized content moderation, the requirement for licenses to publish online, and regulation of user generated content (in Senate)
• Bill C-36 the Online Harms Bill sought to designate political dissent as “hate speech” and invoked penalties for criticizing politicians (not sure where this one is at the moment).
• Bill C-18 throws a funding lifeline to Canada’s flailing agitprop industry (a.k.a the mainsteam media), in that it will require tech platforms to pay licensing fees for content the media outlets post there (passed third reading in November). This bill will reward big media conglomerates like Bell, while freezing out small and independent organizations.

Here comes another one, Bill C-36: An Act respecting cyber security, amending the Telecommunications Act and making consequential amendments to other Acts, which passed first reading last June.

It’s been largely flying under everybody’s radar so far. The Canadian Civil Liberties Association has been actively raising awareness and Michael Geist had Brenda McPhail, their Director of the Privacy, Technology and Surveillance Program on his podcast last October.

We mentioned C-26 in AxisOfEasy #273 citing Gowling WLG’s coverage of it by Brent Arnold (Brent Arnold sits on the Internet Society Canada Chapter board, as do I, but I am writing this post from my role as easyDNS CEO, and not ISCC.)

The Government Hereby Grants Itself The Following Powers:

The new bill is ostensibly a cyber-security and critical infrastructure bill, but it is riddled with nebulous, open-ended terms, Kafka-esque secrecy provisions, onerous penalties and conspicuously absent of any semblance due process:

It effectively subjects Canada’s telecom and internet sectors to the whim of unelected bureaucrats and political functionaries.

Am I being bombastic? You tell me: given that the legislation that grants them the power to order a telecommunications service provider “to do or stop doing anything“. 

“Part 1 amends the Telecommunications Act to add the promotion of the security of the Canadian telecommunications system as an objective of the Canadian telecommunications policy and to authorize the Governor in Council and the Minister of Industry to direct telecommunications service providers to do anything, or refrain from doing anything, that is necessary to secure the Canadian telecommunications system. It also establishes an administrative monetary penalty scheme to promote compliance with orders and regulations made by the Governor in Council and the Minister of Industry to secure the Canadian telecommunications system as well as rules for judicial review of those orders and regulations.”

I guess it all comes down to what you mean by “anything”.

Speaking of anything, the government can deem “any” service or system a vital service or system – which then makes that entity subject to requirements, that…

Last year, around this time, the same government that is introducing this bill arbitrarily enacted bank account seizures, not only against protestors, but also targeting crowdfunded contributions to their fundraisers.

This was done under the aegis of the Emergencies Act, however the seizures started before the EA was even ratified in Parliament, and the list of fundraising contributors was largely sourced from a third-party spreadsheet that was hacked from a foreign crowdfunding platform.

Nevermind that the entire thing went away within a week – rationalized as “mission accomplished” (the reality was the measure sparked a run on banks and nearly blew up the Canadian financial system)

Not much mention of this in the MSM, oddly…

The 2022 invocation of the Emergencies Act  made it clear that our government is perfectly willing to act unilaterally, without due process, in contravention of basic human rights to unbank people at whim.

Bill C-26 will give them a veneer of Soviet-era legislation to unperson you in the online realm.

What Can You Do?

While I said I’m not speaking with my ISCC hat on today, the Internet Society Canada Chapter is one of the civil society bodies that does its level best to bring informed, rational commentary and input to the policy making process. Membership includes a couple ex-CRTC commissioners and even a recent appointee to the Order of Canada.

Consider signing up as a member today and help us bring a clue to the process, or alternatively, get behind the Canadian Civil Liberties Association.

You can also make your views known to your MP. They don’t care if they get your vote or not, so don’t even bother telling them you won’t vote for them. You have speak their language, e.g

“I know you don’t care about my vote – but I feel strongly enough about this issue to make the maximum allowable personal contribution to your opponent, and fund raise for them wherever I can”.

In my case they at least started replying to my emails after that.

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***

 

 

 

Perhaps it was inevitable that the main achievement of the seventh summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States in Argentina is to have been able to happen at all, thus keeping alive the vision of a Greater Nation for all the peoples of the region. Compared to the tremendous dynamism and forthrightness of CELAC’s founders, the summit’s Final Statement exhibits a bland, mediocre agenda of evasion and hollow aspirations. On a positive note, the Declaration confirms the commitment of the member States to integration, unity and political, economic, social and cultural diversity as a community of sovereign nations and it also reaffirms the proclamation of Latin America and the Caribbean as a Zone of Peace.

But the experiences of the last ten years show that in many respects the region’s reality runs contrary to most of the statements in the Declaration’s 111 points of the Declaration. Examples of this are the extensive presence of US military bases throughout the continent, the constant interventions of Western powers and interests in the region, the harassment and contempt towards indigenous and Afro-descendant peoples, the application of “lawfare” against prominent political figures in several countries and the routine political manipulation of human rights institutions. More than anything, it has been electoral fortunes that have allowed the region to overcome initiatives aimed at sabotaging Latin American and Caribbean unity, such as the nefarious Lima Group.

Still, the underlying interventionist threat persists and the CELAC summit gave space to lamentable elements of what remains of the cruel interventions to damage Venezuela. The presidents of Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay attacked the government of Venezuela with the usual false accusations of lack of democracy and it is worth recalling that the Lima Group was supported or endorsed at one time or another by the following countries: Argentina, Barbados, Bolivia under the coup regime, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Grenada, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru and Saint Lucia. Self-evidently, the power of manipulation and coercion in the region of the United States, and its allies among the NATO countries, persists and they simply wait for favorable conditions to be able to use it.

In the end, President Nicolás Maduro Moros decided not to participate in the summit because the Argentine authorities could not guarantee his protection against possible legal provocations based on the illegal coercive measures of the US government against Venezuela. The Final Declaration of the summit calls for the lifting of the illegal blockade of Cuba but not of the illegal unilateral measures against Venezuela, which now even the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has had to condemn as an abuse of the human rights of the Venezuelan people. Nor does the Final Declaration mention the theft in broad daylight of the patrimony of the Venezuelan people, the company CITGO, the gold stored in London and billions of dollars in the European financial system, by the United States and the governments of the European Union.

The ambivalence inherent in the Final Declaration is also reflected in its support for decolonization and human rights without calling for the closure and withdrawal of the US military base at Guantanamo or condemning the permanent abuse of human rights the base represents as a center for illegal detention and torture. That omission indicates the level of the capture by the United States and its Western allies of the consciences of many leaders in the region. This was also seen unexpectedly in an outburst by President Lula da Silva at the margins of the summit. Lula made an absurd comparison between the illegal US aggression against Venezuela and the legitimate military operation of the Russian Federation in defense of Russian-speaking populations attacked by the government of Ukraine in alliance with NATO countries for eight years and counting.

Lula’s grossly foolish remark could be simply an attempt on his part to signal his ideological virtue to the elites controlling the US Democratic Party and its allies in the Brazilian elite who supported Lula in the presidential elections last October. On the other hand, the just recently announced decision of leaders such as Lula, Gustavo Petro and Alberto Fernández not to send weapons in support of Ukraine does honor the declaration of the region as a zone of Peace. Although it undoubtedly also has to do with the aspirations of Brazil and, especially, Argentina in relation to a future expansion of the BRICS group of countries.

In this global context, the eagerness of the ruling classes of the most powerful countries in Latin America to appease the US and European elites conflicts with the imperative of taking advantage of the economic benefits offered by the People’s Republic of China and the development of a multipolar world. In fact, President Xi Jinping greeted the summit via an online link and stressed that China is working to push relations between China and Latin America and the Caribbean towards a new era based on respect, equality, mutual benefit, innovation, openness and well-being for all peoples.

While China demonstrates good faith with its extensive investment, cooperation and trade with the region, the regional policy of the United States has not changed since President Monroe’s declaration of December 2nd 1823. The recent frank comments of the head of the US Southern Command, General Laura Richardson, confirm that the United States continues to regard Latin America and the Caribbean as a subaltern zone, a source and supplier of fabulous natural resources. In addition, General Richardson said in her remarks to the Atlantic Council, a NATO-funded think tank, that Latin America and the Caribbean “has a lot to do with our national security and we have to start our play”, as if the peoples of the region will not remember the brutal history of intervention and destabilization by the United States over two centuries.

In relation to the tension between the encouraging message of President Xi Jinping and the permanent interventionist position of the United States, the presidents of Brazil and Argentina announced the day before the summit in Buenos Aires a project for a common currency between the two countries. They claim the initiative will boost regional trade and reduce dependence on the US dollar, perhaps in the style of the European Currency Unit (ECU), introduced in 1979 as an accounting unit for cross-border financial transactions. The ECU was associated with the European Exchange Rate Mechanism that sought to stabilize sharp variations between the different currencies of European countries. In 1999 the ECU was replaced by the single European currency, the Euro.

One has only to look at the economic history of Europe of the last 20 years to understand the futility of the idea that such a common currency will reduce regional dependence on the US dollar. Quite simply, all the corresponding independent financial architecture is lacking, for example a robust payments system, independent insurance institutions and other key financial services, a regional system of rating agencies or a banking system capable of resisting aggressive speculation in international financial and commodity markets. The idea looks like another example of the superficiality and ideological dependence on the West of the region’s social democratic political classes. They seem to hope they can evade facing the implications of the fundamental truth they themselves recognize in relation to environmental issues and other issues, for example, volatile commodity prices or foreign debt, that Western capitalism harms the peoples of the region and the whole world.

The capitalist model of the mythical invisible hand of the free market and its neoliberal fictional corollaries is collapsing. Even so, most governments of the CELAC countries seem to want to apply that same economic model to promote their countries’development. This reality makes especially unconvincing point six of the Final Declaration, which affirms “the importance of prioritizing sustainable economic recovery with a cooperative, inclusive, equitable and solidarity-based approach.” But that economic model already exists in a well advanced form, thanks to the same revolutionary countries of the Bolivarian Alliance of our Americas (ALBA) that so many of the region’s governments attack and disparage without justification. This is the fundamental contradiction of CELAC and the biggest challenge facing Ralph Gonsalves, who now holds the pro tempore presidency of CELAC on behalf of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, a member country of ALBA.

As President Comandante Daniel and our Vice President Compañera Rosario said in Nicaragua’s message to the summit:

“The world urgently needs justice and peace… Respectful and Supportive Cooperation. The world needs understanding, empathy and affection. The Better World that we all want to create, urgently needs Respect, Peace, Solidarity and the Ability to Live Together, sharing the Scientific and Technological Development that has cost us all so much…We sing and move in Life and Hope, striving, We Go Forward… Always Further On!”

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This article was originally published on Tortilla con Sal, translated from Spanish.

Stephen Sefton, renowned author and political analyst based in northern Nicaragua, is actively involved in community development work focussing on education and health care. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).

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***

For a country constantly chest-thumping about the size of its economy, the United States is remarkably over-reliant on one form of “export” – war. For decades, the American-led political West used proxy wars to hurt its geopolitical adversaries. While most of these weren’t a direct existential threat to US rivals and were relatively limited in scope, recent years brought a major shift to this strategic approach.

Washington DC has become more bellicose than at any point in its history, aggressively attacking the very heartlands of its opponents. In the case of Russia and China, the only reason America isn’t directly attacking either of the superpowers is their ability to immediately “return the favor“. And yet, the US keeps fanning up conflicts that are pushing the world ever closer toward another global conflict.

Ukraine and Taiwan are the two most prominent examples of America’s strategy of “accelerated escalation”, obviously designed to cause “irrational decision-making” in both Moscow and Beijing, according to the Pentagon-funded RAND Corporation. With Ukraine reaching a boiling point and Russia forced to intervene, Washington DC is determined to do the same with China in Taiwan. In recent years, top American officials, including several military commanders, have been warning about the “inevitability of war with China”.

However, the latest statement is quite concerning, issued in the form of a memo by an active four-star general and circulated with an official order. This is particularly dangerous, especially when taking into account the fact that the general took the step of conveying it through the official chain of command. According to NBC News, General Mike Minihan sent it to his subordinate officers:

“A four-star Air Force general sent a memo on Friday to the officers he commands that predicts the U.S. will be at war with China in two years and tells them to get ready to prep by firing ‘a clip’ at a target, and ‘aim for the head’. In the memo sent Friday and obtained by NBC News, Gen. Mike Minihan, head of Air Mobility Command, said, ‘I hope I am wrong. My gut tells me will fight in 2025.'”

According to various sources, the US Air Force general commands approximately 50,000 US servicemen and nearly 500 planes, making his comments all the more concerning. This is particularly true when taking into account that USAF is in direct control of two arms of America’s thermonuclear triad – its land-based ICBMs (intercontinental ballistic missiles) and nuclear-armed strategic bombers.

Perhaps the most alarming part of the grisly prediction is that it instructed commanders under him to “consider their personal affairs and whether a visit should be scheduled with their servicing base legal office to ensure they are legally ready and prepared.” Minihan claims this is because China is allegedly “determined to make a move” against its breakaway island province of Taiwan within the next two years and that this would trigger a direct US military response.

He further called for “a fortified, ready, integrated, and agile Joint Force Maneuver Team ready to fight and win inside the first island chain.” Minihan also issued an order that all steps in preparation for war with China were to be reported to him directly by February 28. As to why he thinks this is “inevitable” by 2025, NBC claims he stated the following:

“Minihan said in the memo that because both Taiwan and the U.S. will have presidential elections in 2024, the U.S. will be ‘distracted,’ and Chinese President Xi Jinping will have an opportunity to move on Taiwan.”

The wording is quite concerning, especially when coming from a high-level military commander. General Minihan directed all Air Mobility Command personnel to “fire a clip into a 7-meter target with the full understanding that unrepentant lethality matters most. Aim for the head.” Using such phrases when talking about the “coming war” with a nuclear-armed China is unwise, to say the least, not to mention the complete disregard for the most basic diplomatic etiquette. Additionally, China’s conventional capabilities are very different in comparison to just a decade ago. Beijing has invested heavily in technological advances that rival or even surpass America’s, particularly hypersonic weapons, in which Washington DC significantly lags behind.

Still, China has spent decades trying to resolve the Taiwan issue peacefully, especially through close economic ties with the island, but the US has been undermining these efforts, particularly in recent years. Beijing’s attempts to achieve nonviolent political reunification with Taiwan have been severely compromised by American arms deliveries, with Taipei spending dozens of billions on weapons, most of which haven’t even been delivered due to the current US focus on Ukraine. China has been warning Washington DC against fomenting the independence ambitions of its breakaway island province. However, the US hasn’t only ignored this, but it seems it’s already planning yet another war with another superpower.

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Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.

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***

Gitanas Nauseda, the president of Lithuania, has potentially signed a death warrant for 2.6 million of his fellow citizens.

The Lithuanian President, Gitanas
Nauseda called on Western countries to "cross the red line" and send fighter jets and long-range missiles to Ukraine. pic.twitter.com/yPf62HGvtn

— What's the media hiding? (@narrative_hole) January 31, 2023

According to the CIA’s main European propaganda conduit, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (sic),

Nauseda said in an interview with Lithuanian television on January 31 that fighter aircraft and long-range missiles were “essential military aid” and “at this crucial stage in the war, where the turning point is about to happen.” “These red lines must be crossed,” he added. The United States and Germany have so far ruled out such demands from Kyiv, though France says it is not against it in principle.

Nauseda is a neocon wannabe. In August 2019, before Russia’s SMO, he refused to talk or enter negotiations with Vladimir Putin over the growing tension in the neighborhood. “What could I be talking about with Mr President Putin at this point?” he said, according to the Baltic News Network.

“As long as we have the situation in Ukraine, as long as escalation of tensions continue in the entire region, I see no point in exchanging diplomatic pleasantries and, importantly, I haven’t got the moral right to do so – there is nothing to celebrate, tensions are felt throughout the region.”

Nauseda demands all red lines be crossed, behavior that will ultimately end in a nuclear conflagration. He characterizes the negotiation of differences as “diplomatic pleasantries” and argues that due to the fact his country is on the border with Russia, “we can see the true danger, the true risk,” while Europeans further West cannot.

However, last June, Berlin, and Vilnius agreed to “take preparations to expand the multinational NATO combat unit in Lithuania to the size of a brigade eventually,” Reuters reported.

The plan to increase the “multinational” effort to push additional troops and missiles up against a border shared with Russia was agreed to after consultations with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and the PMs of Latvia and Estonia.

In 2004, Lithuania became a full member of NATO. As such, it was permitted to join the effort to kill Afghans and occupy their country. “Since joining the Alliance in 2004,” Lithuania’s Ministry of National Defense proclaimed, “we have been actively involved in international NATO-led missions and operations in the Balkans, Afghanistan, where we have led the Provincial Reconstruction Team in Ghowr, Iraq and elsewhere. Lithuania continues to contribute to NATO’s missions and operations.”

Last February, as Russia prepared for its SMO to disarm, neutralize, and denazify Ukraine, a delegation of Lithuanian lawmakers begged the USG to permanently station foreign troops on its soil. In addition to “defending” itself from Russia, the Lithuanians argued neighboring Belarus is also a threat.

Belarus, according to the war propaganda media in the West, is “embattled, authoritarian,” and its decision to match the buildup of NATO troops in Eastern Europe with Russian Federation troops “is a major victory in Putin’s war with the West,” according to The Atlantic, a publication adopted by the Emerson Collective, “a left-of-center private grantmaking enterprise [established by Steve Jobs’ widow] that advocates for a wide variety of left-progressive causes,” according to Influence Watch.

As we now know, so-called “progressives” became warmongering neocons, or rather neolibs, after Obama basically destroyed the antiwar movement, a fact celebrated by The Washington Post.

This neutralization allowed Obama and his  Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, to invade Libya, arm jihadis in Syria, continue the occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq, and sign off on the CIA kidnapping, torture at secret “black sites,” and executing alleged terror suspects (no evidence or trial required), in addition to dispatching Hellfire missile drones across the Middle East, killing hundreds, including American citizens.

Gitanas Nauseda and bureaucrats from across the Baltic states are clamoring for USG troops, and weapons systems, including Patriot and Avenger missiles.

In 2018, Lithuania “asked Washington to install the systems more regularly for exercises,” Reuters reported. “Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, once ruled from Moscow but now part of NATO and the European Union, need Western help despite growing defence budgets due to their small economies.”

Russia has no intention of invading the Baltics short of a possible threat, something that is a growing possibility now that the USG is in the neighborhood, working to arm these small European countries to the teeth, and urging them to engage in Russia bashing.

Last July, Vilnius increased restrictions on trade through its territory to Russia’s Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad. The effort to isolate and persecute Russians in Kaliningrad is a NATO and EU objective.

“Lithuania said that its decision was taken after consultation with the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm,” the CNBC division of the USG war propaganda media reported.

After Russia told Lithuania “that Moscow would respond to its ban on the transit of goods sanctioned by the EU to Russia’s exclave of Kaliningrad in such a way that citizens of the Baltic state would feel the pain,” the Baltic country backed off.

NATO had hoped the embargo of Russian goods along the Suwalki corridor to the Kaliningrad Oblast would open a new flash point in Eastern Europe. However, this did not pan out the way they expected.

“On the Polish-Lithuanian border, the West must respond to Russia’s actual capabilities rather than making assumptions about its intent,” declared Foreign Affairs, an adjunct of the Council on Foreign Relations, funded by the David Rockefeller Studies Program.

In other words, NATO must confront Russia no matter what it does, as Putin is the New Satan, a step-up from the New Hitler.

Lithuania, like Ukraine, is wholly expendable. Both are pawns, the weakest pieces on Zbigniew Brzezinski’s “Grand Chessboard” of “American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives.”

The “imperative” is not “democracy” for neo-nazis in Ukraine or their collaborators in Poland and Lithuania. It is a concerted effort to take down “competitors,” that is to say nations and leaders resistant to the neoliberal agenda of imposed poverty and theft of natural resources.

Russia will not allow this to happen. It has warned on numerous occasions that any existential threat imposed on the country will result in a nuclear conflict.

Biden’s war secretary, Lloyd Austin, has specifically come and said the objective is to weaken Russia and depose Vladimir Putin.

Insanity rules. Jennifer Rubin, a neocon who fled “conservatives” to support Biden, and is accused of writing “political pornography” for the CIA’s Washington Post, believes “Lloyd Austin is right,” Russia must be weakened.

Rubin’s hubris and arrogance, along with that of her fellow conspirators, both in and out of the state, will result in turning this loathsome warmongering woman, and practically every other American, into radioactive dust.

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This article was originally published on the author’s blog site, Kurt Nimmo on Geopolitics.

Kurt Nimmo is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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***

One year after he was deported for refusing the COVID-19 vaccine — precluding him from playing in the 2022 Australian Open — tennis star Novak Djokovic on Sunday made history when he returned to Australia to win his 10th Australian Open and 22nd Grand Slam title.

With Bill Gates in attendance, Djokovic defeated Greece’s Stefanos Tsitsipas, becoming only the second player to win a men’s Grand Slam competition 10 or more times. He also tied the record, held by Rafael Nadal, for Grand Slam wins.

Following his victory, Djokovic visibly teared up, hiding his face in a towel while sitting on the sidelines awaiting the trophy presentation. Afterward, he told reporters:

“Of course, when I went into my box, I just think emotionally collapsed there and teared up, with especially my mother and my brother, when I gave them a hug, because up to that moment, I was not allowing myself to, I guess, be distracted with things off the court or whatever was happening in dealing with an injury, things happening off the court, as well, that could easily have been a big disturbance to my focus, to my game.

“It required an enormous mental energy really to stay present, to stay focused, to take things day by day, and really see how far I can go.”

Djokovic had to overcome a hamstring injury, requiring him to receive “77 therapies a day,” according to his coach, Goran Ivanisevic.

He also faced a media backlash involving his father, who earlier during the tournament was photographed with a group of fans holding the Russian flag and the “Z” symbol — understood as a sign of support for Russia in its conflict with Ukraine. His father did not attend Sunday’s final.

But Gates — one of the world’s foremost proponents of the COVID-19 vaccine — did attend, however, watching the semifinal and the final matches of the men’s tournament.

Gates was in Australia to speak to the country’s Lowy Institute. His remarks raised some eyebrows, when he appeared to be critical of the same COVID-19 vaccines he previously and enthusiastically promoted — and heavily invested in.

Bill Gates just admitted mRNA jabs don’t stop infection, don’t block transmission, don’t block mutants, don’t last, don’t work at all — after he sold stock in his vaccine ventures 😂😂😂. Thanks, Suckers!https://t.co/a5ROLmha1O

— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) January 27, 2023

Djokovic, an outspoken proponent of bodily autonomy, was willing to risk his career to remain unvaccinated

Djokovic, known for his success on the tennis court, gained even wider fame for his outspoken stance against mandatory COVID-19 vaccination and for bodily autonomy.

In a February 2022 interview, a BBC reporter asked Djokovic if he was “prepared to forgo the chance to be the greatest player that ever picked up a racket, statistically, because you feel so strongly about the jab?”

“Yes, I do,” Djokovic responded. When prodded about why he felt that way, Djokovic stated, “Because the principles of decision-making on my body are more important than any title.”

Throughout 2022, Djokovic said he was willing to forego other Grand Slam tournaments, such as Wimbledon and the French Open, rather than get vaccinated for COVID-19.

The issue resurfaced following Djokovic’s victory on Sunday, when tennis legend John McEnroe and sports broadcaster Chris Fowler engaged in a debate, live on ESPN, over Djokovic’s vaccination status and the tournaments he missed as a result.

Fowler said Djokovic missed tournaments such as the Australian Open and Wimbledon in 2022 as “a part of his choices, to be fair,” adding, “He made choices that led to that for some of those things.”

McEnroe, in response, said, “I think he should have been permitted to play.”

According to Fox News, McEnroe previously spoke out in support of Djokovic’s stance, describing the Biden administration’s vaccination mandates that kept Djokovic out of the US Open as “BS.”

In August 2022, just prior to the US Open, Children’s Health Defense organized an “End All Travel Mandates” protest in support of Djokovic, attracting mainstream media coverage.

Djokovic, who won the 2021 Australian Open, initially was issued a visa to enter Australia for the 2022 competition. However, authorities subsequently canceled the 35-year-old’s visa, then restored it and then canceled it again — leading to his expulsion.

At the time, Australia’s Immigration Minister Alex Hawke unilaterally revoked Djokovic’s visa on “health and good order” grounds, “on the basis that it was in the public interest to do so.” Djokovic argued that he had secured a medical exemption allowing him to enter the country.

Djokovic subsequently missed the US Open, another Grand Slam tournament, in September 2022, because the Biden administration wouldn’t lift its COVID-19 vaccine mandate for foreigners entering the country — even though unvaccinated spectators could attend US Open matches.

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Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D., based in Athens, Greece, is a senior reporter for The Defender and part of the rotation of hosts for CHD.TV’s “Good Morning CHD.”

Featured image: Novak Djokovic image credit: Manan Vatsyayana

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***

The Wuhan lab story is largely a red herring, meant to distract and divert our attention. The great crime consists of the bioweapons disguised as vaccines, coupled with totalitarian anti-constitutional misgovernance flourishing beneath the pretext of “health”.

The virus stories, medical mandates, and fraudulent testing protocols are all intended to lead us to accept and demand that they (our governments) inject us with experimental, proven dangerous,injections. There was no “pandemic”.

In the following video, Sasha Latypova and Wolfgang Wodard deconstruct the “Fifth Generation Warfare”/on-going Psychological Operation, designed to instill unreasonable fear as a foundation for further assaults on our health and freedoms. — Mark Taliano

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

Featured image is from Children’s Health Defense

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***

Discussions on the transfer of Western fighter jets to Ukraine continue, but none of the NATO countries are ready to take the initiative.

US President Joe Biden once again claimed that the US will not supply Ukraine with F-16 fighter jets. Despite the fact that the discussion on this issue intensified after the decision to transfer tanks to Ukraine.

Some NATO member countries already know the mood swing of their American patrons and avoid any forceful language in their speeches.

Poland is ready to transfer its F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine only in “full coordination” with NATO countries, the Polish Prime Minister claimed.

In his turn, French President Macron warned that Paris “initially excludes nothing.” Thus, the transfer of combat aircraft to Ukraine is also possible. Macron also voiced in advance some conditions for Kiev. In particular, weapons should not be used for strikes on the territory of Russia, and the supplies should not reduce the defense capability to France.

Meanwhile, US representatives are already preparing the public opinion for any possible supplies. Former US Ambassador to Russia Michael Mcfaul suggested that Zelensky could sign a commitment to not use F-16 fighters for strikes on targets inside Russian territory. It is not clear what an effect such a piece of paper would have during the confrontation between Russia and NATO.

In fact, any discussions on the supply of fighter jets to Ukraine are still nothing but talks. After all, the “European partners” are just waiting for an order from the United States.

Washington is apparently in no hurry to escalate the situation further. They still need to deliver the promised Leopard and Abrams tanks to Ukraine.

The notorious tanks are only a small part of all the military supplies that are continuously moving to Ukraine; but they became an important political reason for NATO to demonstrate its alleged cohesion and generosity.

In Russia, they respectively responded to the upcoming arrival of German and American tanks on the Donbass front lines with their own media campaign. Many public and private figures announced generous rewards for captured and destroyed tanks.

On January 29, a famous Russian actor, on behalf of “some representatives of a large Russian business”, announced a prize of 10 million rubles for each Abrams destroyed.

A couple of days ago, the Russian company FORES announced a reward of 5 million rubles for the first destroyed or captured American M1 Abrams or German Leopard 2.

The initiative was also supported by government agencies. The governor of the Trans-Baikal Territory will pay to fellow countrymen 3 million rubles for the seizure and 1 million rubles for the destruction of the German Leopard tank of any modification. US Abrams tanks are cheaper — 1.5 million for the capture and 500 thousand rubles for the destruction.

These are just some of the announced prizes. The hunt begins, and the stakes are rising.

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A war against the Soviet Union was wanted by the industrialists, bankers, large landowners and other members of Germany’s upper class, the “elite” of the land. That was one of the reasons, and arguably the paramount reason, why they had enabled the coming to power of Hitler, a politician of whom it was widely known that he considered the destruction of the Soviet Union as the great task entrusted to him by providence. Hitler’s so-called “seizure of power” (Machtergreifung) was in reality a “transfer of power,” and this transfer was orchestrated, logically enough, by those who, behind the democratic façade of Weimer Germany, ensconced in the army, judiciary, state bureaucracy, diplomacy, and so forth, wielded power, namely the upper class. However, to win the great war planned by Hitler, Germany, a highly industrialized country but lacking colonies and therefore woefully short of strategic raw materials, had to win it fast, before the depletion of the stockpiles of imported rubber and above all petroleum that Germany could establish before the start of the conflict. These reserves, much of which consisted of imports from the US, could not be adequately replenished by synthetic fuel and rubber produced at home (on the basis of coal) and/or oil supplied by friendly or neutral countries such as Romania and – after the Hitler-Stalin Pact of August 1939 – the Soviet Union.

It is in this context that the Nazis had developed the strategy of Blitzkrieg, “lightning warfare”: synchronized attacks by massive numbers of tanks, airplanes, and trucks (for transporting infantry), piercing the defensive lines behind which the bulk of the enemy’s forces were typically ensconced in the style of World War I, then encircling these forces, leaving them to face either annihilation or capitulation.

In 1939 and 1940, this strategy worked perfectly: Blitzkrieg produced Blitzsieg, “lightning victory,” against Poland, Holland, Belgium, and – spectacularly so – against France, supposedly a great military power. When, in the spring of 1941, Nazi Germany was poised to attack the Soviet Union, everyone–not only Hitler and his generals but also the army commanders in London and Washington – expected a similar scenario to unfold: the Red Army would be finished off by the Wehrmacht within a maximum of two months. Hitler and his generals despised the Soviet Union as a ‘giant with feet of clay”, whose army, presumably “decapitated” by Stalin’s purges during the thirties, was nothing more than “a joke,” as the Führer himself put it on one occasion. On the eve of the attack, Hitler felt supremely confident: he reportedly “fancied himself to be on the verge of the greatest triumph of his life.”

Image: German infantry and a supporting StuG III assault gun during the battle (Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 de)

From the Ostkrieg, their Blitzkrieg in the east, on what would later be called the “eastern front,” Hitler and his generals expected much more than from their previous lightning campaigns. Their stockpiles of fuel and rubber had already dwindled after their gas-guzzling planes and panzers had embarked on a conquest of Europe from Poland to France via Norway; by the spring of 1941, the remaining supplies of fuel, tires, spare parts, etc. sufficed to wage motorized war for no more than a couple of months. The shortfall could not be compensated by imports from the Soviet Union as part of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact of August 1939, as is claimed by some historians. According to a meticulous study by the Canadian history professor Brock Millman, published in the The Journal of Contemporary History, merely four percent of Germany’s fuel came from Soviet sources. In 1940 and 1941, Germany depended mostly on petroleum imported from two countries : first, Romania, initially a neutral country but an ally of Nazi Germany  as of November 1940; second, the United States, whose “oil barons” supplied the Hitler regime with enormous quantities of “liquid gold” via neutral countries such as Franco’s Spain and occupied France; these exports were to continue until the United States entered the war in December 1941. As for the relatively modest imports of Soviet petroleum, they actually troubled Hitler deeply because according to the terms of the 1939 Pact, Germany had to deliver high-quality industrial products and state-of-the-art military technology, used by the Soviets to strengthen their defenses in preparation for a German attack that they expected sooner or later.

Hitler believed this dilemma could be resolved by attacking the Soviet Union, and by attacking as soon as possible, even though stubborn Britain had not yet been vanquished: the “lightning victory” that was confidently expected to materialize quickly in the east would deliver to Germany the rich oil fields of the Caucasus, where the gas-guzzling Panzers and Stukas would in future be able to fill their tanks to the brim at any time. Germany would then be a truly invincible über-Reich, capable of winning even long, drawn-out wars against any antagonist. This was the plan, code-named “Barbarossa,” and its implementation got underway on June 22, 1941; but things would not work out as its architects in Berlin had expected.

While the Red Army took a terrible beating at first, it had not massed its forces at the border but opted for a defense in depth; withdrawing in relatively good order, it managed to elude destruction in one or more of the kind of huge encirclement battles that Hitler and his generals had dreamed of. It is this “defense in depth” that prevented the Wehrmacht from destroying the Red Army, as Marshal Zhukov has emphasized in his memoirs. The Germans advanced, but increasingly slowly and at the price of great losses. By late September, that is, two months after the start of Barbarossa, when victory should have been a fait accompli and the German soldiers ought to have been heading home to be welcomed there as conquering heroes, they were still a very long way from Moscow and even farther from the Caucasian oil fields, a major object of Hitler’s desires in his Ostkrieg. And soon the mud, snow and cold of fall and early winter were to create new difficulties for troops that had never been expected to fight in such conditions.

In the meantime, the Red Army had recuperated from the blows it had received initially, and on December 5, 1941, it launched a devastating counter-offensive in front of Moscow. The Nazi forces were thrown back and had to adopt defensive positions. With great difficulty, they would manage to arrest the Red Army’s offensive and survive the winter of 1941-1942.  In any event, on the evening of that fateful fifth of December, 1941, the generals of the Wehrmacht’s high command reported to Hitler that, on account of the failure of the Blitzkrieg-strategy, Germany could no longer hope to win the war.

The Battle of Moscow heralded the failure of the lightning-war strategy against the Soviet Union. From a Blitzsieg, a “lightning-like victory,” on the eastern front, in 1941, Nazi Germany’s political and military authorities had expected that it would have made a German defeat in the entire war impossible, and that would almost certainly have been the case. It is probably fair to say that if Nazi Germany had defeated the Soviet Union in 1941, Germany would today still be the hegemon of Europe, and possibly of the Middle East and North Africa as well. However, in front of Moscow, in December 1941, Nazi Germany suffered the defeat that made an overall German victory impossible, not only victory against the Soviet Union itself, but also victory against Great Britain and victory in the war in general. In other words, December 5, 1941, was the real turning point of the Second World War. It ought to be noted that at that point – a few days before Pearl Harbor – the United States was not yet involved in the war against Germany. In fact, the US only became involved in that war because of the Battle of Moscow.

Image: German infantry in position for an attack. (Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 de)

Shortly after Germany’s Führer received the bad news from Russia, he learned that the Japanese had attacked Pearly Harbor on December 7 and that the Americans had reacted with a declaration of war against Japan, but not against Germany, which had nothing to do with this attack.  However, Hitler himself declared war on the United States, namely on December 11. His alliance with Japan did not require him to do so, as some historians have claimed, because it required to come to the aid of a partner that was attacked by a third country; however, the land of the rising sun was not attacked but had itself initiated the hostilities. With this dramatic gesture of solidarity vis-a-vis his Japanese partner, Hitler undoubtedly hoped that would cause Tokyo to reciprocate and declare war on his own mortal enemy, the Soviet Union. In this case, the Red Army would have to fight a war on two fronts, and this might have revived Germans prospects for victory in the titanic Ostkrieg. But Japan did not take the bait, and Nazi Germany was thus saddled with another formidable enemy, though it would take a long time before American forces would engage in actual combat against Nazi troops.

The Battle of Moscow was definitely the turning point of World War II, but other than Hitler and his generals, hardly anyone knew that Germany was henceforth doomed to lose the war. The general public certainly was not aware of this, not in Germany, not in the occupied countries, not in Britain and certainly not in the US. It looked as if the Wehrmacht had suffered a temporary setback, presumably – according to Nazi propaganda – due to the unexpectedly early onset of winter; but it was still ensconced deep in Soviet territory and continued to occupy a huge part of the country. It was therefore expected that the Germans would resume the offensive in 1942, as indeed they would.

In the spring of 1942, Hitler scraped together all available forces for an offensive — code-named “Operation Blue” (Unternehmen Blau) – in the direction of the oil fields of the Caucasus. He had convinced himself that he still had a chance of winning the war, but certainly not “if he did not get the petroleum of Maikop and Grozny.” The element of surprise had been lost, however, and the Soviets still disposed of huge masses of men, oil, and other resources. The Wehrmacht, on the other hand, could not compensate for the huge losses it had suffered in 1941 in its “crusade” in the Soviet Union: 6,000 airplanes and more than 3,200 tanks and similar vehicles; and more than 900,000 men had been killed, wounded, or gone missing in action, amounting to almost one third of the average strength of the German armed forces.

The forces available for a push toward the oil fields of the Caucasus were therefore extremely limited and, as it turned out, insufficient to achieve the offensive’s objective. Under those circumstances, it is quite remarkable that in 1942 the Germans managed to make it as far as they did. But when their offensive inevitably petered out, in September of that year, their weakly held lines were stretched along many hundreds of kilometres, presenting a perfect target for a Soviet counterattack. This is the context in which an entire German army was bottled up, and ultimately destroyed, in Stalingrad, in a titanic battle that started in the fall of 1942 and ended in early February 1943, precisely eighty years ago. After this sensational victory of the Red Army, the ineluctability of German defeat in World War II was obvious for all to see. It is for this reason – but also because of the long duration of the battle, the huge numbers of troops involved, and the unprecedented losses suffered by both sides – that most historians consider this battle, rather than the Battle of Moscow, as the turning point of the worldwide conflict of 1939-1945.

It must be recognized that, from a strictly military point of view, the Battle of Moscow of September 1941 had already ensured that the bulk of the German armed forces would be tied down on the eastern front, with a length of approximately 4,000 kilometers, and that it was there that the Germans would have to use the bulk of their what remained of their meager resources in petroleum and rubber. This situation had eliminated the possibility of any new German military initiatives against the British and made it impossible to supply Rommel in North Africa with sufficient men, equipment, and fuel to prevent his defeat at El Alamein in the fall of 1942. However, it is obvious that the fiasco at Stalingrad made the lamentable military situation of the Reich infinitely worse and made it impossible to station a sufficient number of troops on the Atlantic coast of Europe to deal with an Anglo-American invasion that was certain to materialize sooner or later. In June 1944, at the time of the landings in Normandy, the Western Allies experienced considerable difficulties, even though they only confronted a small fraction of the Wehrmacht, while the once fearsome Luftwaffe was virtually absent from the skies over the beaches because of a debilitating shortage of fuel. Without the successes of the Red Army, first in front of Moscow and then around Stalingrad, the entire Wehrmacht would have been available to fight on the western front, and the Luftwaffe would have disposed of inexhaustible quantities of Caucasian petroleum. An Anglo-American landing in Normandy would have been “mission impossible.”

Image: Soviet soldiers running through trenches in the ruins of Stalingrad (Licensed under the Public Domain)

In any event, the impact of the Battle of Stalingrad was enormous. In Germany, the public was henceforth painfully aware that their country was heading towards an ignominious defeat, and countless people who had previously supported the Nazi regime now turned against it, Many if not most of the military and civilian leaders who were involved in the attempt on Hitler’s life in July 1944, for example, lionized today as heroes and martyrs of the German “anti-Nazi resistance,” such as Stauffenberg and Goerdeler, may have been brave individuals, but they had enthusiastically supported Hitler at the time of his triumphs, that is, before the defeat at Stalingrad. If, after the Battle of Stalingrad, they wanted to get rid of Hitler, it was because they feared that he would drag them with him into ruin. Awareness of the significance of the German defeat on the banks of the Volga similarly demoralized the allies of Nazi Germany and caused them to start looking for ways to exit the war. As for the neutral countries, many of which had hitherto sympathized with Nazi Germany, mostly because their rulers shared Hitler’s anti-Sovietism, they became considerably more benevolent towards the members of the “anti-Hitler coalition,” and above all towards the “Anglo-Americans.” Franco, for example, pretended not to notice the allied airmen whose planes had been shot down over occupied countries and who, assisted by resistance fighters, crossed the Pyrenees from France into Spain to return that way to England.

In France and in other occupied countries, the leading political, military, but also economic collaborators, that is, bankers and industrialists, started to discreetly distance themselves from the Germans. Relying on the benevolent services of the Vatican and the Franco regime, they sought contact with the Americans and the British, from whom they received sympathy and assistance as both sides were eager to preserve the established capitalist social-economic order. (The French historian Annie Lacroix-Riz has focused on this little-known aspect of the war in a couple of her thoroughly researched and documented books.)

Conversely, the news from Stalingrad boosted the morale of Germany’s enemies everywhere. After many long years of darkness, when it had seemed that Nazi Germany would dominate all of Europe forever, resistance fighters in France and elsewhere finally perceived the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel. And their ranks were now increasingly reinforced by many who had been too lethargic before they received the happy tidings from Stalingrad. In France, in particular, the name of Stalingrad became a battle cry of the resistance. After the great victory of the Red Army on the banks of the Volga, the specter of an inevitable defeat haunted Germany, while in the occupied countries everybody knew that the hour of liberation approached – slowly, perhaps, but surely.

Let us know consider the post-Stalingrad situation from the viewpoint of Uncle Sam and his British (junior) partner. There is no doubt about it: the prospect of Germany being defeated and of France and the rest of Europe being liberated by the Red Army caused alarm bells to ring in the halls of power in London and Washington. The Western Allies had been happy to remain on the sidelines, minimizing their losses and maximizing their military strength, while the Nazis and Soviets were locked in mortal combat on the Eastern Front. While the Red Army provided the cannon fodder needed to vanquish Germany, they would be able to intervene decisively, like a deus ex machina, whenever the Nazi enemy as well as the unloved Soviet ally would be exhausted. With Britain on its side as a junior partner, the USA would then be able to play the leading role in the camp of the victors and dictate the terms of the peace to the Soviets as well as the Germans. It is for this reason that, in 1942, Washington and London had refused to open a “second front” by landing troops in France. Instead, they had implemented a “southern” strategy by sending an army to North Africa in November 1942 to occupy the French colonies located there.

Image: Soviets defend a position. (Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 de)

Because of the outcome of the Battle of Stalingrad, the situation had changed dramatically. Of course, from a purely military perspective, Stalingrad proved to be a boon to the Western Allies, because this defeat had impaired the Nazi enemy’s war machine to their advantage as well. But Roosevelt and Churchill were far from happy with the fact that the Red Army was now grinding its way towards Berlin and possibly even farther westward, and that the Soviet Union – and its socialist social-economic system – now enjoyed enormous popularity among patriots in all the occupied countries and encouraged the resistance movements in France and elsewhere to make plans to introduce far-reaching, virtually revolutionary changes after the liberation of their countries. Conversely, the “Anglo-Saxons” were far from popular in countries such as France, partly because of their hitherto meagre contribution in the fight against Nazism, and partly because their air raids on cities in France and other occupied countries caused considerable civilian casualties; it was also unhelpful that Washington had long maintained diplomatic relations with the collaborator government of Marshal Pétain in Vichy and was known to look unfavourably on the plans for radical changes after liberation. In view of all this, it “became imperative for American and English strategy to land troops in France,” as two American historians, Peter N. Carroll and David W. Noble, have written and thus to prevent Western Europe and most of Germany to fall “in Soviet hands” or at least under Soviet influence. However, when the news of the Soviet triumph at Stalingrad became known and its implications started to sink in, which was in early 1943, it was too late to plan a landing in France for that same year, so things had to wait until the spring of 1944.

The landings in Normandy in June 1944 did not constitute the turning point of World War II. Militarily, Nazi Germany had already received fatal blows at the Battles of Moscow and Stalingrad, and again, in the summer of 1943, at the Battle of Kursk. And while the landings officially purported to liberate France and the rest of Europe, their “latent,” that is, unspoken but real function was to prevent the Soviet Union from singlehandedly liberating Europe, possibly including Western Europe all the way to the English Channel– a prospect that was first raised by the Red Army’s victory on the banks of the Volga. Liberating France – or occupying it, much as the Germans had occupied the country, as General de Gaulle described the outcome of the Normandy landings on one occasion! – also purported to prevent the leaders of the French resistance leaders, of whom the majority had great sympathy and admiration for the Soviets, as did the rank-and-file, from playing a major role in the reconstruction of their country. Washington and London detested this “philosovietism,” which was actually shared at the time by the majority of the French population.  But it was feared, above all, that these patriots might come to power and proceed to implement radical social-economic reforms, including nationalization of corporations and banks that had collaborated with the Nazis. (Dire warnings to that effect were emanating regularly from the leading American spy based in Switzerland, Allen Dulles, later to become head of the CIA.)

To sabotage the radical projects of the Resistance, which were incompatible with the American plans for France and all of Europe, namely the introduction of a capitalism as unbridled as possible, Washington and London decided, after much hesitation, to rely on General Charles de Gaulle, a rare bird in the sense that he was a popular resistance leader who was conservative. The Americans considered him to be an annoying megalomanic, but eventually realized his usefulness and made it possible for him to come to power in liberated France. That strategy involved orchestrating a kind of triumphant entry into Paris for de Gaulle, featuring a rather theatrical stroll down the Champs Elysées, during which other, arguably equally or even more important resistance leaders were forced to follow behind him. Even so, working with de Gaulle would prove to be far from easy for the Americans. It proved impossible, for example, to prevent him, once he had been anointed as head of the government, from adopting some radical reforms wanted by the resistance and by a majority of the French people. Without him, however, the Left might have come to power and many more far-reaching, quasi-revolutionary changes might have been introduced. And in that case the Americans would not have been able to integrate France in the anti-Soviet alliance they were to set up in Europe after the defeat of Nazi Germany and in the context of the Cold War. In fact, membership in this so-called alliance equated vassalage to Uncle Sam, and the alliance’s objective proved to be the same as that of Operation Barbarossa, namely, the destruction of the Soviet Union.

As the Second World War came to an end, and for quite a few years afterwards, most denizens of Western European countries victimized by Nazi Germany, but France in particular, were keenly aware that the libération of their homeland was above all due to the efforts and sacrifices of the Soviet Union, a fact that had become evident a the time of the Red Army’s glorious victory in the Battle of Stalingrad. It was a period of time when these same people, in stark contrast to the present situation, harboured enormous gratitude and goodwill vis-à-vis the Russians and other ethnic groups – Ukrainians, Georgians, Armenians, Azeris, Uzbeks, etc. – of the Soviet Union. The name given in June 1945 to one of the largest squares in Paris still recalls that distant and brief moment in time: Place de la Bataille-de-Stalingrad, ‘Square of the Battle of Stalingrad’.

*

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Jacques R. Pauwels, author of The Myth of the Good War: America in the Second World War, Big business and Hitler, The Great Class War 1914-1918, and Myths of Modern History.

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

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***

On 8 January 2023, several thousand supporters of former president Jair Bolsonaro stormed Brazil’s three main democratic institutions. The Congress, the Federal Supreme Court and the Presidential Palace in the capital’s Three Power Square were ransacked for several hours in an attempted coup. The meticulously planned attack sparked worldwide outrage.

On 30 October 2022, in the second round of the presidential election, Brazilians cast their votes for the Workers’ Party candidate Lula da Silva, giving him a narrow lead over the far-right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro. With a total of 50.9%, Lula obtained two million more votes than his opponent out of a total of 124 million voters. After two consecutive successful terms in office between 2003 and 2010 and 80% favourable opinion, the former workers’ leader returns to power for a new four-year term of office, until 2027.[1]

President Lula should have returned to the Presidential Palace in January 2019, as the favourite candidate in the 2018 elections. But following a conspiracy orchestrated by prosecutor Sergio Moro in the Lava Jato corruption case to prevent him from running, Lula was arbitrarily sentenced in 2017 to nine years and six months in prison – increased to 12 years on appeal – for passive corruption and money laundering, without any material evidence being presented to the court. The UN Human Rights Commission condemned the trial against Lula, saying it “violated his right to be tried by an impartial tribunal, his right to privacy and his political rights”.[2] Lula spent 580 days in prison, from April 2018 to November 2019, which allowed Bolsonaro to seize power without difficulty. The far-right leader did not even try to keep up appearances, rushing to thank Prosecutor Moro by appointing him Minister of Justice.[3] In 2019, the Supreme Court overturned Lula’s conviction, denouncing the political instrumentalization of the trial against him.[4]

Bolsonaro is an openly fascist leader. “Let’s go straight to dictatorship”, he has said in the past.[5] Nostalgic for the Brazilian military regime that scarred the country between 1964 and 1985, and an enemy of democratic principles, the former president thus described in 2019 as a “national hero” Colonel Carlo Alberto Ustra, condemned for acts of torture and barbarity by the Brazilian justice system. Dilma Roussef, President of Brazil from 2011 to 2016, was tortured by Ustra’s services when she was a young revolutionary activist opposed to the generals’ autocracy.[6]

After four years of governance, Bolsonaro’s record is singularly negative, marked by ultraconservatism, the strengthening of the power of the evangelical church, hate speech against people of colour, women, sexual diversity and the left.[7] His catastrophic management of the Covid-19 pandemic has made Brazil one of the countries with the highest lethality rate in the world. His anti-social policies have caused the poverty rate to soar, with 33 million people going hungry. Under his tenure, deforestation in the Amazon reached unprecedented levels, with a 60% increase, destroying indigenous lands and raising the concern of the world community. At the international level, his policies have led to the weakening of ties with many countries.[8]

Despite the transparency of the 2022 elections, Bolsonaro has always refused to recognise his opponent’s victory, spreading rumours of fraud and heating up his electorate, which has multiplied violent actions since October 2022, notably blocking roads. Moreover, since then, hundreds of people have been camping in front of the army headquarters in Brasilia, chanting the slogan “S.O.S Armed Forces”, explicitly demanding a military intervention in order to break the constitutional legality and prevent Lula’s accession to power on 1 January 2023, all this with Bolsonaro’s tacit agreement.[9] Moreover, Bolsonaro did not hesitate to put strong pressure on the Superior Electoral Tribunal to cancel the elections. But the SET refused to give in to the threats and validated the election, denouncing Bolsonaro’s action and calling his allegations “ludicrous and illicit”, saying they were “ostensibly conspiratorial toward the democratic rule of law”.[10]

On 30 December 2022, two days before Lula’s inauguration ceremony, Bolsonaro left the country for the United States, refusing to comply with the republican tradition of handing over the sash to his successor as a symbol of a peaceful transition. It was the first time since the advent of democracy in 1985 that an outgoing president refused to greet the new leader. That year, General Joao Figueredo, the last head of the military junta, refused to attend the inauguration ceremony of President-elect José Sarney.[11] Bolsonaro’s attitude was even publicly criticised by his outgoing vice-president, General Hamilton Mourao: “Leaders who should reassure and unite the nation around a project for the country have allowed their silence or their inappropriate and harmful protagonism to create a climate of chaos and social disintegration”.[12]

On 1 January 2023, the inauguration ceremony brought together many official delegations from all over the world to witness Lula’s inauguration as President of the Republic, illustrating the international support for the new power. Hundreds of thousands of Brazilians travelled to the capital to welcome the advent of a different era for Brazil, marked by four difficult years. To symbolise the new stage for the Brazilian people, especially for the poorest categories, Lula chose a 33-year-old woman garbage collector, Aline Sousa, to present the presidential sash.[13]

In his inaugural speech, Lula recalled the long and difficult battle that led to his victory. He denounced the use of public funds for electoral purposes by his rival. He made an indictment of the outgoing government for “destroying public policies that promoted citizenship, essential rights, health and education”. He promised Brazilians a “dignified life, without hunger, with access to employment, health and education”.[14]

A week later, on 8 January 2023, thousands of far-right activists gathered in the capital Brasilia in what was clearly a carefully planned operation. They launched an assault lasting several hours on the country’s three main democratic institutions, the Congress, the Presidential Palace and the Supreme Court, three jewels of the Square of the Three Powers built by the architect Oscar Niemeyer, ransacking the premises and destroying priceless works of art, with the aim of breaking constitutional legality. Two years almost to the day after the attack on the Capitol in Washington by Donald Trump’s supporters who refused to recognise the results of the elections, Brazil experienced the same dramatic episode. The international community unanimously condemned the attack on the rule of law.[15]

President Lula signed a decree delegating the security of the capital to the federal authorities until the end of January 2023.[16] No less than 1,200 people were arrested and the Supreme Court ordered the dismantling of the coup plotters’ camps within 24 hours.[17]

The responsibilities

Despite his denials, the main intellectual author of this coup attempt is the incumbent himself.[18] Indeed, Bolsonaro has repeatedly questioned the unanimously recognised election results, fanning the flames of resentment among his supporters and galvanising the more radical sectors tempted by illegal action. As the New York Times points out, the assault was “the violent culmination of incessant rhetorical attacks on the nation’s electoral systems by Mr. Bolsonaro”.[19] For its part, CNN pointed out that “Bolsonaro repeatedly sowed doubt about the legitimacy of the vote, without citing any evidence for his various claims”.[20] The former head of state has thus opened the way to a violent action unprecedented in the history of democratic Brazil. Through his lawyer, he persisted in describing the events as “spontaneous social movements carried out by the population”. The Supreme Court announced the opening of an investigation against him. According to the US press, “there is little question he inspired the roughly 5,000 people who were at the protest that turned violent”.[21] In addition to Bolsonaro’s responsibility, there is the responsibility of the groups that provided material and financial support for the organisation of such an operation.

The domestic intelligence services had, without any doubt, all the necessary information on the violent plans of the Bolsonarist militants. For example, numerous messages circulating on Telegram and WhatsApp called “to organize attacks against critical infrastructure, such as oil refineries and roadblocks”. There is no doubt that the groups of protesters were infiltrated by general intelligence agents, as is the case in any country in the world. For example, according to a note from the military police in Brasilia, no less than 100 buses carrying more than 4,000 people arrived in the capital between Friday 6 January and Sunday 8 January 2023.[22] Yet no action was taken to arrest the organisers and prevent the assault.

Moreover, the army is clearly responsible, having accepted the presence of the coup camp, calling for the disruption of the constitutional order, for more than ten weeks in a national security zone. Moreover, on the day of the riots, the battalion of the presidential guard permanently stationed at the Palace of the Head of State did not see fit to intervene to prevent the invasion. These soldiers “even prevented, on several occasions, the police from arresting the rioters”, according to Le Monde.[23]

Similarly, there is no doubt about the responsibility of the security forces that were supposed to protect the capital. The contingent of police officers present at the scene was much smaller than that required to guard the various institutions of Brazilian democracy. Yet the risk of incidents was very high given the massive and belligerent presence of Bolsonaro’s extremists. A meeting had taken place on 6 January between Flavio Dino, the new Minister of Justice, and local authorities including the governor of Brasilia, Ibaneis Rocha, and the head of Brasilia’s security, Anderson Torres, and an agreement had been reached on the number of agents to be deployed to protect the institutions in anticipation of the Sunday demonstration. However, against all expectations, the contingent present was much smaller than agreed. Minister Dino denounced a last-minute change, without any explanation from the authorities in Brasilia.[24] Thus, while the esplanade was supposed to be closed to the demonstrators, Governor Rocha decided at the last moment to open it. The Minister of Justice only found out about this through the press.[25] Instead of fulfilling their mission to protect the premises, the police distinguished themselves by their inaction and even complicity with the coup plotters. The New York Times expressed its astonishment: “Videos circulated online of the officers who were present appearing to escort protestors on their way to the federal buildings, and pausing to snap selfies with them”.[26] President Lula denounced “an explicit connivance of the police with the demonstrators”. The Brazilian justice system has already begun to act by arresting the head of security in the capital.[27]

Initially, the Supreme Court suspended Governor Torres of Brasilia, a strong supporter of Bolsonaro and former Justice Minister, for 90 days.[28] But investigators discovered at his home a draft presidential decree designed to annul Lula’s election by taking control of the Superior Electoral Tribunal by the federal government, causing an unprecedented scandal in Brazil. The undated document bore Bolsonaro’s name at the end with a space reserved for his signature. Torres, in a clumsy attempt to defend himself, called for the document not to be judged “out of context”, thus acknowledging the authorship of the project and the authenticity of the document intended to prepare a coup. He was immediately arrested by the authorities, pending trial.[29]

The French Penal Code

In any Western democracy, the events of 8 January would be punished by heavy prison sentences. For example, according to Article 412-1 of the French Penal Code, “committing one or more acts of violence likely to endanger the institutions of the Republic” is “punishable by thirty years of criminal detention and a fine of 450,000 euros”. In addition, the penalties are increased to life imprisonment and a fine of 750,000 euros when the acts are “committed by a person in authority”. Article 412-4 imposes a penalty of “fifteen years’ imprisonment and a fine of 225,000 euros for participating in an insurrectionary movement”. The latter is clearly defined: “by occupying by open force or by deception or by destroying any building or installation; by ensuring the transport, subsistence or communications of the insurgents; by provoking gatherings of insurgents by any means whatsoever”.[30]

The attempted coup orchestrated by Bolsonaro’s supporters illustrates the true face of the far right extremists, who are incapable of respecting democratic principles when the popular vote is against them. In a country that still bears the painful scars of two decades of military dictatorship, fractured and polarised by the outgoing administration, President Lula’s mission is to regain the necessary national cohesion and to remind all Brazilians, regardless of their political leanings, that the nation belongs to all and that it has a moral duty to look after the most fragile categories. “Order and Progress” is the republican motto of Brazil.

*

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Ph.D in Iberian and Latin American Studies at the University of Paris IV-Sorbonne, Salim Lamrani is a lecturer at the University of La Réunion, and a journalist specializing in relations between Cuba and the United States.

Notes

[1] Agence France-Presse, « Congratulations Pour In for Brazil President-Elect Lula », 31 October 2022.

[2] United Nations Human Right Office of the Hight Commissionner, « Brazil : Criminal proceedings against former President Lula da Silva violated due process guarantees, UN Human Rights Committee finds », United Nations, 28 April 2022. https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2022/04/brazil-criminal-proceedings-against-former-president-lula-da-silva-violated (Accessed 18 January 2023).

[3] Glenn Greenwald & Victor Poury, « Hidden Plot. Exclusive: Brazil’s Top Prosecutors Who Indicted Lula Schemed in Secret Messages to Prevent His Party From Winning 2018 Election », The Intercept, 9 January 2019. https://theintercept.com/2019/06/09/brazil-car-wash-prosecutors-workers-party-lula/ (Accessed 16 January 2023).

[4] Reuters, « Brazil judge orders ex-president Lula released from prison », 8 November 2019.

[5] Jack Nicas & Carly Olson, « Who is Jair Bolsonaro », The New York Times, 8 January 2023.

[6] Reuters, « Brazil’s Bolsonaro extols convicted torturer as a ‘national hero’ », 8 August 2019.

[7] Jack Nicas & Carly Olson, « Who is Jair Bolsonaro », The New York Times, 8 January 2023.

[8] Heriberto Araujo, « For Lula and the World, the Tough Job of Saving the Amazon Begins », The New York Times, 31 December 2022 ; Ecole de Politique Appliquée, « Election présidentielle au Brésil : le retour historique de Lula », Faculté de Lettres et Sciences Humaines, Université de Sherbrook, 8 November 2022. https://perspective.usherbrooke.ca/bilan/servlet/BMAnalyse/3324 (Accessed 16 January 2023).

[9] Vanessa Barbara, « The ‘Trump of the Tropics’ Goes Bust », The New York Times, 9 January 2023.

[10] Rob Picheta, « The violent attack on Brazil’s government was months in the making. Here’s what you need to know », CNN, 9 January 2023.

[11] AFP/Le Point, « Brésil : Bolsonaro s’envole pour les Etats-Unis avant la fin de son mandat », 31 December 2022.

[12] Jack Nicas & André Spigariol, « Lula Becomes Brazil’s President, With Bolsonaro in Florida », The New York Times, 1 January 2023.

[13] Ibid.

[14] Lula da Silva, « Discurso de posse do presidente Lula no Congresso Nacional », 1 January 2023. https://lula.com.br/discurso-de-posse-lula-2023/(Accessed 16 January 2023).

[15] The New York Times, « Governments Condemn Brazil Protests », 8 January 2023 ; Jack Nicas & André Spigariol, « Bolsonaro Supporters Lay Siege to Brazil’s Capital », The New York Times, 8 January 2023.

[16] David Biller, « Authorities probe who was behind uprising in Brazil capital », Associated Press, 9 January 2023.

[17] Ana Ionova & Jack Nicas, « Here’s the latest on the riot in the Brazilian capital », The New York Times, 9 January 2023.

[18] Jack Nicas, « Bolsonaro has been holed up thousands of miles away in Florida », The New York Times, 8 January 2023.

[19] Jack Nicas & André Spigariol, « Her’s what to know about the protest fueled by false claims of electoral fraud », The New York Times, 8 January 2023.

[20] Rob Picheta, « The violent attack on Brazil’s government was months in the making. Here’s what you need to know », CNN, 9 January 2023.

[21] Jack Nicas & André Spigariol, « Bolsonaro Faces Investigation for Inspiring Brazil’s Capital Riot », The New York Times, 13 January 2023.

[22] Alan Yuhas, « What We Know About the Investigations Into the Brazil Protests », The New York Times, 9 January 2023.

[23] Bruno Meyerfeld, « Au Brésil, les limites de la purge de Lula dans l’armée, après les émeutes du 8 janvier », Le Monde, 21 January 2023.

[24] Jack Nicas, « What Drove a Mass Attack on Brazil’s Capital ? Mass Delusion », The New York Times, 9 January 2023.

[25] Jack Nicas & Simon Romero, « ‘We Wille Die for Brazil’ : How a Far-Right Mob Tried to Oust Lula », The New York Times, 13 January 2023.

[26] Amanda Taud, « A Vital Question for Brazil’s Democracy : Where Were the Police ? », The New York Times, 11 January 2023.

[27] Tara John Rodrigo Pedroso & Kareem El Damanhoury, « Brazilian President Lula criticizes police for protesters’ breach of government buildings », CNN, 10 January 2023.

[28] Reuters, « Brazil’s Top Court Removes Brasilia Governor Over pro-Bolsonaro Riots », 8 January 2023.

[29] Agence France-Presse, « Election au Brésil : révelations compromettantes dans l’entourage de Bolsonaro », 13 January 2023 ; Le Monde, « Au Brésil, Anderson Torres, ancien ministre de la justice de Jair Bolsonaro, a été arrêté », 14 January 2023.

[30] Code pénal français, « Article 412-1 & 412-4 ». https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/codes/section_lc/LEGITEXT000006070719/LEGISCTA000006136044/#LEGISCTA000006136044 (Accessed 18 January 2023).

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***

First published on GR on January 9, 2023.

COVID-19 is the largest, most sophisticated propaganda operation in history. Psychological techniques were extensively used during 2020 to incite fear and panic in the population

Propaganda strategies were also used to get people to support and defend irrational COVID measures such as masking, isolation, social distancing, lockdowns and jab mandates

What made the COVID propaganda so much more effective than any previous propaganda operation is the fact that a virus is the perfect enemy. It’s invisible, could be carried by anyone, including those you love the most, and could “get” you anywhere

Classical rhetoric is about persuasion through argument. It appeals to logic. Propaganda, on the other hand, is a kind of subrational manipulation that appeals to our most basic instincts, such as fear. An informal definition of propaganda is “an organized attempt to get people to think or do something — or not think or do something”

The Great Lie is possible because the more divorced a lie is from reality, the more likely it is to succeed, as most people are reluctant to think that authority figures would lie and completely ignore reality

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In the video above,^1,2 initially published in August 2021, professor Piers Robinson, Ph.D. — co-director of the Organization for Propaganda Studies, whose research specialty is organized persuasive communication and contemporary propaganda — speaks to Asia Pacific Today about propaganda in the age of COVID.

As noted by Robinson, COVID-19 is unquestionably the largest, most sophisticated propaganda operation in history. Psychological techniques were extensively used during 2020 to incite fear and panic in the population, while other persuasion strategies were used to get people to support and defend COVID measures such as masking, isolation, social distancing, lockdowns and jab mandates.

The Propaganda War

Indeed, propaganda is what allowed for draconian and unscientific COVID measures to be implemented in the first place. Without propaganda and simultaneous censorship of opposing views, little of what we’ve been through would have been possible.

As noted by Robinson, while the use of state propaganda could initially be justified as a necessary means to achieve a public health objective — protecting people from COVID-related illness and death — it quickly became apparent that this was not the case, and likely never was.

Today, three years in, it’s quite evident that COVID is a psychological operation. For example, since 2022 at the latest, COVID has been nothing more than another endemic respiratory infection, much like the common cold, yet the pandemic has not been declared “over.”

We now also have clear evidence that the COVID jabs don’t prevent infection or spread of the virus, which negates the entire premise for vaccine passports, yet they’re being pushed anyway. In short, COVID-19 was (and still is) a means to an end; to suspend and strip us of Constitutional rights and civil liberties, and to further social, political and financial restructuring objectives outside democratic processes.

A Propaganda Masterpiece

Another propaganda expert who has spoken about the overt use of propaganda to create and maintain the pandemic is professor Mark Crispin Miller, Ph.D., whom I interviewed in June 2021 about the academic censorship he experienced at New York University.

Ironically, it was his teaching students how to question and resist propaganda that brought on the curtailment of his academic freedom, after teaching this important subject for over 20 years. Like Robinson, Miller believes that what we’ve experienced over the past three years is a propaganda “masterpiece” of unequaled scale and sophistication.

It began with the outbreak of an unknown pathogen in China. Media showed images of people allegedly dropping dead in the streets. This has never happened anywhere else since then, which strongly suggests those images were misappropriated for one purpose — to spread fear.

According to Miller, the type of fearmongering used to propagate the belief that COVID-19 was a lethal threat was the most devastating ever used in propaganda history. What made the COVID propaganda so much more effective than any previous propaganda operation was the fact that a virus is the perfect enemy.

It’s invisible, could be carried by anyone, including those you love the most, and could “get” you anywhere. As explained by Miller, in previous propaganda operations, the enemy was typically portrayed as having the ability to “infect” the people and the nation with its evil.

This was the case both with anti-communist propaganda and the “war on terror.” Communism was likened to an infectious disease set to ravage the nation, and terrorists were likened to a pandemic that had to be controlled and combated. With COVID, the propaganda shifted to the thing of fear itself — an actual virus.

Despite a long-held understanding that asymptomatic infection doesn’t exist, the propagandists even managed to convince the public that perfectly healthy people could spread the virus. It was a complete fiction, a scientific falsehood, which is how we know that the pandemic narrative was a psychological operation, yet people were so fearful, they didn’t question it.

What Is Propaganda?

As noted by blogger and propaganda analyst Klark Barnes,³ if we want to be free, we must know what propaganda is and how it works. Classical rhetoric is about persuasion through argument. It appeals to logic. Propaganda, on the other hand, is a kind of subrational manipulation that appeal to our most basic instincts.

An informal definition of propaganda is “an organized attempt to get people to think or do something — or not think or do something.” Propaganda can be true or false, or somewhere in between, and can be used for both good and ill. Public service ads encouraging you not to smoke, for example, are a form of benevolent propaganda.

The problem with propaganda is that it’s inherently biased and one-sided, which can become outright dangerous if the other side is censored.

This is particularly true when it comes to medicine and health, and the censoring of COVID-19 treatment information and the potential hazards of the COVID shots is a perfect example of this. State propaganda and war propaganda also rely heavily on the incitement of fear and anger, which makes people behave in ways they normally wouldn’t.

They Must Constantly Stir the Pot to Keep Fear Simmering

As noted by Barnes, media forecasts of other “imminent ordeals” are also a way “to keep widespread fear and anger simmering:”⁴

“The possible next acts include a cyber-attack (‘by Russia’); a breakdown of the world supply chain, and consequent food shortages, or famine (likely to be blamed on Russia); a heightened ‘climate crisis,’ necessitating further lockdowns …

‘[T]terrorist’ attacks, by ‘white supremacists’ and angry blacks (portending war between the races); an ‘alien attack’ on Planet Earth, as in The War of the Worlds or Independence Day; and — of course — another plague or two, or three, caused by some further COVID ‘variant,’ smallpox … the Marburg virus, and/or whatever other pathogen, real or imaginary, might serve the same old purpose …

Such looming sequels to the COVID propaganda … would also each inflict a vast amount of further suffering on humanity — and so those of us who study propaganda critically, as public intellectuals, must speak out loud and clear, to set things right.”

According to Barnes, setting things right involves, first and foremost, sharing the truth. Propaganda narratives that must be countered with careful and thorough analysis include but are not limited to:

Over the past three years, I’ve written many articles detailing all of these. But setting the record straight on individual propaganda topics is not enough. If we are to retain our freedoms, Barnes believes the public also needs to get much savvier about propaganda overall.

The Free Press Has Became a Propaganda Juggernaut

For decades, we had a free press that helped keep pro-industry advertising lies in check. Professional investigative journalists working for magazines, newspapers and broadcast outlets would write in-depth exposés, outing the truth behind deceptive advertising and countering industry propaganda with science, statistics and other documented facts.

As a result of the free press doing its job, ineffective or toxic products were often driven off the market. The answer that industry came up with for this problem was to control the press with advertising dollars. By becoming a major revenue stream, advertisers more or less automatically ended up controlling the content.

Even though media management and editors will deny it, if advertisers don’t want you to speak about certain issues that might adversely impact their business, all they have to do is threaten to pull their ads.

At that point, you have to make a decision: Ditch the truth or ditch your income. Most news organizations will ditch the truth for payment, and simply will not run reports that might harm the bottom line of its advertisers. As explained by Barnes:⁵

“That real-life Ministry of Truth was not set up ex nihilo by some iron faction of totalitarian oligarchs but gradually took shape out of a corporate media cartel with interlocking boards, heavily dependent on the advertising revenues of Amazon, Big Pharma … and the media’s own parent companies … with its assets closely managed by BlackRock, Vanguard and UBS …

[As] that vast commercial system has become more unified, it also has maintained, or even tightened, its covert relations with the military and ‘intelligence community’ …

And while the commercial media system has been thus corrupted top to bottom … the ‘public’ media and ‘alternative’ press — from NPR, PBS, the BBC and CBC … to nearly every single outlet on ‘the left’ — have also been absorbed into the juggernaut primarily by their funding through such sturdy CIA pass-throughs as the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Open Society Institute …

[The] ‘free press’ … has been turned into a bio-fascist fear machine, its propaganda services assured by Bill Gates’ ‘strategic media partnerships,’ and the concomitant ‘fact-checking’ operation that he also largely funds.

The propaganda gushing daily, hourly, from that system also has depended on the wisdom of such global PR firms as Weber Shandwick, Edelman and Hill+Knowlton Strategies … and, within the Fourth Estate, the rise … of ‘journalists’ prepared, in university, to be far less concerned with honest journalism than with … serving ‘social justice.'”

The Web of Players Silencing Truth

Indeed, as Barnes notes, advertising companies have likely played an important organizational role in the COVID propaganda. Another major one, which I suspect may have had a central role, is the Publicis Groupe. I detailed some of its many connections in “The Web of Players Trying to Silence Truth.”

In summary, Publicis represents a long list of major companies within the technology, pharmaceutical and banking industries in more than 100 countries.⁶ These companies, in turn, have various partnerships with the U.S. government and global nongovernmental organizations (NGOs).

Publicis has ties to NewsGuard/HealthGuard, educational institutions, Big Tech companies like Google, Microsoft and Bing, the U.S. State Department and Department of Defense, global technocratic institutions like the World Health Organization, national and global NGOs like the Center for Countering Digital Hate. And, it dominates health websites like WebMD and Medscape.

Taken together, this explains how certain views can be so effectively erased. Publicis itself is also a partner of the World Economic Forum, which is leading the call for a “reset” of the global economy and our way of life. As such, Publicis appears to be coordinating the suppression of information that runs counter to the technocratic narrative.

The Art of the Great Lie

Marshall McLuhan once said,⁷ “Little lies don’t need to be protected. But the great lies are protected by public incredulity.” Basically, people will deny really big lies by saying “Come on, you’re crazy, they wouldn’t do that.” It’s far easier to call people “conspiracy theorists” than it is to face the possibility that what they’re saying is true.

Little lies don’t need to be protected. The big lies are protected by public incredulity. ~ Marshall McLuhan

In a November 4, 2022, article,⁸ clinical and public health physician Dr. David Bell noted that the more divorced a lie is from reality, the more likely it is to succeed, thanks to the quirks of human nature and normal psychology:

“In a former role I had a boss who lied a lot. The lies were pure fantasy, but massive in scope and delivered with sincerity. They were very successful.

This success was based on the reluctance of most people to consider that someone in a position of authority in a humanitarian organization would completely ignore all semblance of reality. People assumed the claims must be true as fabricating information to that extent in those circumstances seemed to defy logic.

The principle of Really Big Lies is based on the lies being so divorced from reality that the listener will assume their own perception must be flawed, rather than doubt the claims of the person telling the lies. Only an insane or ridiculous person would make such outlandish claims, and a credible institution would not employ such a person.

Therefore, given that the institution is apparently credible, the statements must also be credible, and the listener’s prior perception of reality was therefore flawed. Lesser lies, by contrast, are likely to be perceived as sufficiently close to known reality to be demonstrably wrong. Inventing truth can be more effective than bending it.”

I believe this is precisely the strategy employed by Big Pharma, health agencies, government officials and the deep state propaganda arm over the past three years. Their claims have been so far from any semblance of reality, anyone aware of the facts has been left feeling more than a little crazy.

Unfortunately, while most humans have a moral and ethical compass, few end up following it when confronted by psychopaths in authority and the peer pressure to conform. As noted by Bell, good team players almost always end up supporting false narratives, and those who refuse to go along with what are clearly lies tend to be but a tiny minority.

Refusing False Narratives Has Real Consequences

As Bell correctly points out, over the past three years, health care workers, patients, researchers, academics and public health employees have been forced to embrace a long list of fantasy-based dogmas that are contradicted by prior public health orthodoxy.

But it’s the sharp break from factual reality that makes it impossible to question them because, if you do, you’re now questioning “the entire current hierarchy of public health,” Bell says. To quote Dr. Anthony Fauci, you’re not attacking him when you question his irrational flip-flopping, you’re questioning science itself.

If you question these fantasy-based beliefs, you’re a science-denier, and you’re putting your employment and reputation at risk. And, unfortunately, those risks are not imaginary. Many doctors and scientists whose reputations and contributions to public health have been beyond reproach for decades have been stripped of their medical licenses and lost their jobs for speaking out against the reigning COVID narratives.

Transparency and Truth Are the Remedy

So, where do we go from here? How do we end the madness and return to reality-based public health? Bell believes that public health professionals who have misled the public will inevitably pay a heavy price for their betrayal. He writes:⁹

“Whilst growing their industry’s finances, public health professionals are degrading themselves and betraying society. The betrayal, based on incessant lying, is something for which they will inevitably face consequences …

Eventually, even the most dedicated followers will begin to question the sense of putting on a mask at a restaurant door only to remove it 10 steps later, or vaccinating vast populations against a disease to which they are already immune whilst they die of other readily preventable diseases.

The way out of this is simply to refuse to lie, or cover for the lies of others … [The] truth will catch up, one day, with those who don’t … It is far better to leave early and live with dignity.”

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Notes

¹ Asia Pacific Today August 4, 2022

² Twitter Robert Malone August 7, 2022

^3, 4, 5 Earlking56.family.blog November 19, 2022

⁶ Publicis Top Global Clients

⁷ Samim.io McLuhan Quote

^8, 9 Propaganda in Focus November 4, 2022

Featured image is from LifeSiteNews

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The Other America. Or the Three Missed Chances to Avoid World War III

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It feels like today’s world is spinning quickly out of control. Fear of nuclear confrontation between Russia and NATO has increased to a fever pitch and something worse than anything seen even amidst the dark years of the Cold War has awoken.

Counting the Dead at Hiroshima and Nagasaki

By Prof. Alex Wellerstein, February 01, 2023

How many people died as a result of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki? There is one thing that everyone who has tackled this question has agreed upon: The answer is probably fundamentally unknowable. The indiscriminate damage inflicted upon the cities, coupled with the existing disruptions of the wartime Japanese home front, means that any precise reckoning is never going to be achieved.

Air Force General Demands Preparation for War with China

By Kurt Nimmo, January 31, 2023

If the conflict in Ukraine does not end in nuclear madness, Taiwan just might. That very well may be the unintended result if Gen. Mike Minihan, the head of the USG Air Force’s Air Mobility Command, has his way.

U.S. Routinely Violates International Law, with Impunity — And Seeks to Replace U.N.

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Why Is Victoria Nuland Coming to Sri Lanka, Second Time in a Year? At the Forefront of US Incursions

By Shenali D Waduge, January 31, 2023

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Bolton’s Big Error on China and North Korea

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‘War Is Clearly Back on the Agenda’: US Says Israel Was Behind the Drone Attack on Iran

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***

If the conflict in Ukraine does not end in nuclear madness, Taiwan just might.

That very well may be the unintended result if Gen. Mike Minihan, the head of the USG Air Force’s Air Mobility Command, has his way.

China could be at war with the U.S. two years from now, according to Gen. Michael A. Minihan, who oversees the Air Force’s fleet of transport and refueling aircraft. He cited the 2024 presidential elections in Taiwan and the U.S. as part of his rationale. https://t.co/HTUm8vdMkP

— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) January 28, 2023

Minihan “has issued an ominous warning about a looming future high-end conflict against China, likely over Taiwan,” writes Joseph Trevithick for The War Zone. Minihan wants to get the USG war machine ready for what he describes as an inevitable conflict.

Minihan’s remarks are part of a two-page internal memo posted on Twitter on January 27.

New window just dropped pic.twitter.com/b8eLOrCY9U

— Mike Black (@MikeBlack114) January 27, 2023

Zachary Boyer, a spokesperson for Air Mobility Command (AMC), confirmed to The War Zone that this document, which is future-dated February 1, is indeed authentic. AMC oversees the bulk of the Air Force’s aerial refueling tankers and cargo aircraft, among other responsibilities.

Minihan said he hopes “I am wrong” about China and Taiwan.

“My gut tells me we will fight in 2025. [Chinese President] Xi [Jinping] secured his third term and set his war council in October 2022,” Minihan wrote in the memo. “Taiwan’s presidential elections are in 2024 and will offer Xi a reason. [The] United States’ presidential elections are in 2024 and will offer Xi a distracted America. Xi’s team, reason, and opportunity are all aligned for 2025.”

According to the General, there is no time to dilly-dally. The USG and its war machine must get up to speed if it is going to stop a PLA amphibious assault on Taiwan. “Drive readiness, integration, and agility for ourselves and the Joint Force to deter, and if required, defeat China.” (Emphasis in the original).

In 2022, the corporate war propaganda media posted warnings about an imminent invasion of Taiwan.

Foreign Affairs, a publication of the globalist Council on Foreign Relations, ran a disturbing headline last August, “America Must Prepare for a War Over Taiwan.” Around the same time, as if on cue, The Wall Street Journal posted “The Coming War Over Taiwan.” In April of the same year, The Economist ran “How to deter China from attacking Taiwan,” and suggested Taiwan could learn a lesson or two from Ukraine as if the corrupt and nazified Zelenskyy regime is winning the war.

All of this is vicious nonsense. China is not actively planning to invade Taiwan.

“The U.S. is running out of time to prevent a cataclysmic war in the Western Pacific,” write Hal Brands and Michael Beckley of The War Street Journal. “While the world has been focused on Vladimir Putin’s aggression in Ukraine, Xi Jinping appears to be preparing for an even more consequential onslaught against Taiwan.”

All of this chatter is designed to get you prepared for yet another conflict with a thermonuclear dimension.

Biden, his neocons, neolib advisers, generals, pundits, and a warmongering Congress—where there are less than a handful of senators and representatives opposing this metastasic insanity—are wrong about a Chinese invasion.

China realizes an amphibious assault on Taiwan is a recipe for disaster. First, Taiwan possesses weapons systems and technology to effectively defeat an amphibious assault.

“But, second, a determined attack preceded by missile and bomber attacks could destroy Taiwan’s social and physical infrastructure, along with the world’s largest chip production facilities at TSMC. Who would pay for reconstruction? And would it be worth the price?” Harlan Ullman pondered at The Hill last August. The author is a senior adviser at the globalist Atlantic Council.

Ullman wonders why the Taiwanese have not pursued a defensive “porcupine strategy.”

“This strategy relies on heavy investment in defensive capabilities such as anti-air, anti-ship and anti-tank munitions in order to inflict maximum damage on the attacking force,” Daniel Bloom explains.

The Taiwanese have not resorted to such a defense because they do not believe China will invade. The leadership realizes a Normandy-style invasion is all but impossible and would result in catastrophe for China. It would require over 200,000 troops, and they would need to traverse a hundred miles of open ocean to reach the beachheads.

“Unlike Ukraine’s steppe-like fertile plains and plateaus, Taiwan consists of over 100 islands. Taiwan’s outer islands are dotted with missiles, rockets, and artillery guns. In addition, Taiwan’s granite hills are home to tunnels and bunker systems,” notes Hemant Adlakha, a professor of Chinese at New Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University.

The European Union is China’s major trading partner. Running afoul of it, as well as the United States and Japan, would be dangerous for a leader who knows he must raise living standards at home.

A military effort to grab Taiwan would deal a death blow to the Chinese economy. China is in the middle of a real estate crisis. Its export markets are disappearing in America and Europe. General Secretary Xi Jinping understands war is a stupid move now that China’s economic growth has slowed. It would be a stupid move even if the economy was in good shape.

Finally, according to Professor Deng Yuwen, a council member of China’s Reform and Development Institute, China is not interested in a costly invasion.

“China will choose to put pressure on Taiwan using a combination of methods to promote unification… It may launch more preferential policies and try to initiate discussion on a ‘one country, two systems’ framework with Taiwan’s ruling and opposition parties.”

The USG, however, is not interested in reality.

It has but one objective—destroying competitors and retaining the crown of world leader, no matter the death toll. If this requires the mass murder of millions of people, so be it. The USG death machine is responsible for killing four million Muslims since 1990. Combine that total to an estimated 20-30 million people killed in the years after WWII.

“U.S. military forces were directly responsible for about 10 to 15 million deaths during the Korean and Vietnam Wars and the two Iraq Wars,” writes James A. Lucas.

The United States was also responsible for 14 million deaths in Afghanistan, Angola, Democratic Republic of the Congo, East Timor, Guatemala, Indonesia, Pakistan and Sudan… The United States most likely has been responsible since WWII for the deaths of between 20 and 30 million people in wars and conflicts scattered over the world.

The USG—and its ignorant, propagandized, and entertainment-distracted public—are driving the world toward a thermonuclear disaster. I believe we have turned a corner in world history.

It very well may be the final chapter.

*

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This article was originally published on the author’s blog site, Kurt Nimmo on Geopolitics.

Kurt Nimmo is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from the author

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***

Activist group Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) for all records and communications between the Surgeon General’s office and social media companies about COVID-19 vaccines.

Judicial Watch filed the lawsuit after the HHS refused to adequately respond to a FOIA request filed in March 2022.

We obtained a copy of the complaint for you here.

The request was for: “All records, including, but not limited to, electronic mail, texts, memoranda, and handwritten notes, of, regarding, referring, or relating to any efforts of Alexandria Phillips, Communications Director, Office of the Surgeon General, to contact any employee of Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, Reddit, YouTube, LinkedIn, Tumblr, and Pinterest concerning COVID-19 vaccines.”

Surgeon General Vivek Murthy has previously called for censorship of Covid misinformation. In 2021, he published a report titled “Confronting Health Misinformation,” which aimed to “slow the spread of health misinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.”

The report encouraged platforms to censor vaccine misinformation and other misinformation related to the pandemic.

In March 2022, Murthy ordered social media platforms to hand over information about accounts spreading Covid misinformation.

Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton said, “Biden’s Surgeon General is abusing his office to pressure Big Tech companies to censor Americans. This lawsuit aims to uncover the details of this government attack on the First Amendment.”

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Economic conditions are much worse than you are being told. Throughout the past year, prices have been rising much faster than most of our incomes have.  As a result, our standard of living has been rapidly declining.  It has become increasingly difficult for U.S. households to make it from month to month, and as you will see below, more than a third of all U.S. adults are actually relying on their parents to pay at least some of their bills at this point.  But even more alarming is what has been happening to real disposable income.  According to Fox Business, the most recent GDP report revealed that the decline in real disposable income that we witnessed in 2022 was the largest that has been measured since 1932…

The most troubling information in the GDP report is the precipitous drop in real disposable income, which fell over $1 trillion in 2022. For context, this is the second-largest percentage drop in real disposable income ever, behind only 1932, the worst year of the Great Depression.

Just think about that for a moment.

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It feels like today’s world is spinning quickly out of control.

Fear of nuclear confrontation between Russia and NATO has increased to a fever pitch and something worse than anything seen even amidst the dark years of the Cold War has awoken.

A strange form of insanity has swept across the collective west as the US Congress infuses billions of dollars of more lethal aid to a regime in Kiev which a smiling Senator Lindsey Graham has said Kiev “will fight Russia to the last Ukrainian”.

This is the same American Congress which unabashedly fuels Nazi-infested military units in Ukraine, and ISIS-affiliated groups in Syria and Iraq who additionally chose to declare Russia a “state sponsor of terrorism” with the senate voting unanimously to this effect on July 27, and the House of Representatives following close behind with a resolution that has vast bipartisan support of both parties.

Meanwhile in Brussels, and across the Five Eyes, pressure mounts to ban Russia’s president from the G20, while a glorification of Nazi “heroes” accelerates across the many nations of the former Soviet Union including Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania etc… all of whom having been absorbed into NATO during the past two decades.

Talk of nuclear Armageddon has become commonplace, and it appears that no effort to heal the divide between east and west is considered by any of the neo-liberal politicians occupying positions of authority

What is going on? Has the world gone insane?

Why have leading figures of the “free and democratic” west become so blind to even their own strategic interests to the point that they would voluntarily risk spreading thermonuclear fire across the globe rather than end the policy of “global NATO” and international unipolarism?

This man-made crisis- like all man made crises, has solutions.

But these solutions require that both sides Russian and American alike, properly identify the nature of those agencies pushing the world to the brink of extermination.

For it is only by doing this, that we may properly appreciate the potential of restoring the USA itself back to its constitutional traditions while at the same time establishing a basis of a genuine new security architecture so desperately needed if the world will survive the remaining decades of the 21st century.

Understanding the pathway needed to navigating through the current storm requires revisiting a bit of recent history starting with the collapse of the soviet union and the three pregnant moments which nearly saw humanity embrace a new epoch of win-win cooperation driven by a US-Russian strategic alliance.

1988-1992: The first attempt at an age of multipolar cooperation is subverted

By 1988, it was becoming increasingly clear that the system of mutually assured destruction was coming to an end.

The rigid economic systems of the Soviet bloc had been incapable of introducing the needed technological innovations to the general civilian economy which would have been needed to avoid a general breakdown.

Everyone knows of the dark days of Perestroika and the western-directed looting of the 1990s…

but few are aware of the ripe potential for a new age of cooperation and abundance driven by forces within the American intelligentsia and their Russian counterparts who saw in this crisis, an opportunity to turn swords into plowshares.

These figures sought to build a new architecture based on mutual development, trust building measures and scientific progress.

Backchannel discussions had been arranged for several years with leading figures of the new Gorbachev administration and their American counterparts within the Reagan administration and even the industrial leaders of Germany led by Deutsche Bank Chairman Alfred Herrhausen. These anti-Malthusian statesmen may not have fully appreciated the evil forces they were challenging, but they none the less worked hard to end the Cold War not by crushing Russia into oblivion, but in providing a new synergy of industrial and scientific cooperation between east and west.

The story of these plans and possibility for an age of cooperation premised on large-scale industrial progress is told both in the recent autobiography of American University in Moscow’s Dr. Edward Lozansky as well as in the 2008 Schiller Institute documentary The Lost Chance of 1989.

These figures worked hard to present development plans which involved billions of dollars of promised investments into the modernization of all sectors of the Soviet economy premised around large scale infrastructure, and industrial growth.

Despite the many promises of east-west cooperation, the 1990s instead saw a bloodied Russia swimming with sharks.

Figures like Strobe Talbott, and Jeffrey Sachs were assigned the task of breaking the Russian government and its people economically, psychologically and morally under a program of Shock Therapy overseen by the worst elements of the IMF, City of London and Washington utopians.

Even basic security guarantees were abandoned as the promises made by then Secretary of State James Baker to “not move NATO one inch beyond its 1992 configuration” were increasingly abandoned, as NATO transformed from a Cold War defensive alliance to an aspiring new global offensive structure absorbing as many former Soviet Nations it could acquire.

Instead of cooperation, speeches calling for a New World Order and “end of history” became part of the western political discourse

Even then Senator Joe Biden was quick to get into the action writing such 1992 tracts as “How I learned love the New World Order”

For those nations resistant to this New World Order, Balkanization and bombs were swiftly deployed to shake them into “correct behavior”

Behind the illusion of America’s victory over communism, a rot could be felt growing ever faster as the post-industrial policies of the 1970s and 1980s were transforming America’s once powerful industrial base into a useless services economy with no sovereign capacity to stand on its own feet, produce for itself or even maintain basic infrastructure.

Poverty, drug use and crime increased under Clinton while a wealth transfer was taking hold that saw America’s dwindling small and medium sized entrepreneurs wiped out under new behemoth corporations who enjoyed free reign to gobble up everything they could acquire under the financial deregulation bonanza of the North American Free Trade Agreement and Europe’s Maastricht Treaty. In both treaties, former zones of sovereign nations were stripped of their power to legally emit productive credit, use protectionism to defend their interests, or control their own national banking systems. Where sovereignty over these vital powers was once legally the prerogative of the nation, after NAFTA and Maastricht, supranational entities now enjoyed this privilege.

Within this decay on all sides of the former Iron Curtin, two new leaders came to power.

With their ascension in 1999 and 2000, it was hoped that Vladimir Putin and George Bush Jr might be able to restore a measure of sanity after a decade of betrayal.

1999-2001: The second attempt at an age of multipolar cooperation is subverted

By the year 2000, hopes were again high that the dismal decay of US-Russian relations could be healed as a young trouble shooter named Vladimir Putin was brought into play in Moscow replacing the alcoholic trainwreck that was Boris Yeltsin.

The defeat of Al Gore (whose deep relationship with Russian traitors such as Chernomyrdin and Chubais left him with no shortage of Russian blood on his hands) awoke a weary optimism among patriots in both nations.

Within the USA, over 100 elected representatives endorsed a call led by republican congressman Curt Weldon of Pennsylvania who commissioned a report titled “US-Russia Partnership: A Time for New Beginnings“.

In this influential document published in early 2001, a coherent vision not seen in over a decade was presented that called for a new paradigm touching on every aspect of US-Russian relations.

Cultural diplomacy, the teaching of Russian in American schools, Agricultural assistance, full spectrum energy development, space exploration, defense cooperation, asteroid defense, and fusion research all figured prominently in Representative Weldon’s dossier.

The sensitivity to the existential moment not being lost to history can be seen in the report’s opening remarks:

“America and Russia must forge an alliance beneficial to both, or face the near certainty that historical suspicions will reassert themselves and plunge the world into a new Cold War. Such an eventuality would be especially tragic since the United States and Russia have more in common than not. Indeed, given that the gravest and most imminent threats to both nations are terrorism and WMD proliferation, these great common enemies should make the United States and Russia natural allies.

The Cold War era model of bilateral relations and arms control is predicated on mutual antagonism and nuclear threats: a situation that is unacceptable as the basis for 21st Century U.S.- Russian relations. Russia and the United States each have unique security concerns, but have more security concerns that are shared in common. U.S. policy should encourage Russia to recognize the  advantages of U.S.-Russian cooperation in areas like counter-terrorism, non-proliferation and missile defense… The key to forging a U.S.-Russian alliance is to do it now, before U.S.-Russian relations deteriorate further. The United States must offer Russia a relationship that clearly benefits Russian as well as U.S. interests, and begin as soon as possible, working jointly toward mutually beneficial goals.”

It was this spirit of goodwill within the leading strata of American policy makers that Vladimir Putin spoke towards when he made his intention for Russia’s participation in NATO known to the west.

Of course, Putin was not ignorant to the dangers NATO posed under the influence of unipolarists like Gore, Soros, Nuland et al, but as long as figures who thought differently exercised power among western nations, then Russia’s intelligentsia presumed it to be an organization whose destructive orientation could be neutralized.

It was for this reason that Putin’s early appearances in the USA during this period alongside President Bush demonstrated the optimism that a sane foreign policy might be adopted.

Sadly, another darker current within the US governing class was emerging with the incoming Bush Administration which had a very different view of things.

This group not only carried on the worst elements of the Clinton-Gore-Talbott Russia policy of the 1990s but added an obsessive militaristic drive for global supremacy with a Pax American flavor not seen in the previous regime.

Figures like Strobe Talbott’s assistant Victoria Nuland went on to find new employment as Dick Cheney’s assistant and soon US Ambassador to NATO where she oversaw the military bloc’s vast expansion from 16 to 24 nations by 2008.

Under Nuland’s lead, Georgia and Ukraine’s aspirations to join the alliance is welcomed officially by NATO.

Nuland also worked closely with the CIA front group National Endowment for Democracy and George Soros in setting the stage for a new era of regime change operations in the form of color revolutions in Georgia (2003), Ukraine (2004) and scorched earth humanitarian bombing of nations back to the stone age across the Middle East in the wake of 9/11.

Nuland’s husband Robert Kagan was an early co-founder of the Project for a New American Century- a neoconservative think tank which produced such dystopic policy visions for the 21st century as the September 2000 Rebuilding America’s Defenses which saw both Russia and China, not as potential allies, but as intrinsic enemies to be destroyed if the planned global hegemony of the USA was to be ensured.

In total opposition to the positive spirit of win-win cooperation envisioned by Representative Curt Weldon and company, the unipolarist networks outlined in the PNAC RAD document envisioned a much more dystopic world order of Hobbesian struggle of each against all when they envisioned the wars of the future saying:

“Although it may take several decades for the process of transformation to unfold… “combat” likely will take place in new dimensions: in space, “cyber-space,” and perhaps the world of microbes. Air warfare may no longer be fought by pilots manning tactical fighter aircraft sweeping the skies of opposing fighters, but a regime dominated by long-range, stealthy unmanned craft… Space itself will become a theater of war, as nations gain access to space capabilities and come to rely on them; further, the distinction between military and commercial space systems – combatants and noncombatants – will become blurred. Information systems will become an important focus of attack, particularly for U.S. enemies seeking to short-circuit sophisticated American forces. And advanced forms of biological warfare that can “target” specific genotypes may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool.”

The thinking of grand strategist Zbigniew Brzezinski was visceral in the pulse of ideologues like Kagan, Nuland and other neocons like Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, John Bolton, Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney who ran the malleable Bush Jr presidency.

It was former National Security Advisor Brzezinski who outlined the needed carving up of Russia in his 1997 Grand Chessboard under Washington diktat could also be smelled across the pages of the PNAC white papers.

In his 1997 book, Brzezinski wrote:

“Potentially, the most dangerous scenario would be a grand coalition of China, Russia, and perhaps Iran, an ‘anti-hegemonic’ coalition united not by ideology but by complementary grievances.”

Brzezinski added: “How the United States both manipulates and accommodates the principal geostrategic players on the Eurasian chessboard and how it manages Eurasia’s key geopolitical pivots will be critical to the longevity and stability of America’s global primacy.”

Unfortunately for the world, the policy doctrine which was adopted by George Bush was not that of the better American patriots surrounding Curt Weldon, but rather this hive of unipolarists who sought to do everything possible to ensure that the world would remain as divided and suppressed as possible while a new Pax Americana could consolidate its possessions under a program of Full Spectrum Dominance.

It was this group that ensured the USA would soon quit the Anti Ballistic Missile Treaty which Bush announced in December 13, 2001.

The 1972 ABM Treaty had ensured that both Russian and American militaries cease deploying, testing and developing sea, air, space and mobile land based anti-missile systems for intercepting strategic ballistic missiles.

The USA’s withdrawal from this treaty made the increased danger of the ballistic missile shield built up around Russia (and China’s) perimeters an unbearable existential threat, and a new arms race between offensive and defensive systems was launched.

A day after the USA officially left the ABM Treaty, Russia announced its withdrawal from the START II Treaty which would have not only banned the use of multiple warheads on ICBMS but also vastly reduced the total number of warheads.

It wasn’t long before President Putin called out this threat during his famous 2007 Munich Security speech which laid out not only Russia’s understanding of the true intentions underlying the offensive properties of the Ballistic Missile systems built up across her borders, but also set firm red lines regarding NATO’s continued encroachment on Russia.

2016-2020: The Third attempt at an age of multipolar cooperation is subverted

Between 2007-2016 the western unipolarists had doubled down on Full Spectrum Dominance despite the fact that the contours of world politics had drastically changed with the new Russian-Chinese alliance that had become a bedrock of the success of Eurasian integration.

Other nations had been swept into hell under a western-manipulated Arab Spring followed by the 2011 humanitarian bombing of Libya and the targeting of Syria for similar “nation building” treatment.

In the Pacific, the Clinton-Obama Asia Pivot had accelerated US military commitment across China’s perimeter with THAAD Missiles in South Korea and 100,000 troops spread across western-manipulated Asian governments.

Under Biden and Victoria Nuland’s lead, Ukraine was lit on fire as a pro-Russian government of Viktor Yanukovych was overturned in a 2^nd color revolution and a regime chosen by the US State Department was installed in power.

Amidst this world of darkness, a light was beginning to shine as China announced the Belt and Road Initiative as its new foreign policy in October 2013, which soon began merging with Russia’s Eurasian Economic Union.

In 2015, Russia was sufficiently strong to launch into a new foreign policy doctrine in Syria which prevented another regime change project from lighting the heartland on fire.

By 2016, things were looking bleak for the world as all public opinion polls in America were forecasting certain victory for Hillary Clinton as the 45^th President of the United States.

But something changed.

The upset victory of Donald Trump did more than merely derail the continuation of neocon agenda which had found a new home in the worst elements of the Democratic Party of Obama and Clinton, but a new potential for rebuilding US-Russian relations was beginning to be felt as the new president called for good relations with Russia and China while also pushing for ending the “never ending wars” and re-calibrating American military activity in Syria with the Russians.

Throughout the 2016-2020 presidency of Trump, a full assault was launched to undo the vote of the majority of American citizens through gaslighting, “Russiagate” propaganda, and vast media witchhunts which attempted to paint Trump as “a Kremlin stooge”.

Despite this, Trump was able to fend off impeachment attempts, and managed a variety of reforms that entailed cutting NED funding in Ukraine, Hong Kong and beyond, severing vital components of the CIA from conventional military operations, harmonized US miliary operations with Russia in Syria, and drove a vast program of diplomatic bridge building across the middle east with the Abraham Accords, and in Asia where Trump brokered meetings with South and North Korean leaders. This bridge building was most important in regards to the leadership of Russia and China.

It was in April 2019, that President Trump appeared at the White House alongside Chinese Vice Premier Liu He and said:

“Between Russia, China and us, we’re all making hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of weapons, including nuclear, which is ridiculous. I think it’s much better if we all got together and didn’t make these weapons those three countries I think can come together and stop the spending and spend on things that are more productive toward long-term peace.”

Although deep state operations active within the US State Department worked tirelessly to sabotage these positive initiatives, and although neo con swamp creatures like John Bolton, and Mike Pompeo continued to surround Trump’s inner circle like vipers, it would be foolish to ignore these positive, albeit short lived initiatives to revive the missed chances of 1990 and 2000.

Will “The Other America” Please Stand Up?

Two years after the installation of Biden into the White House, the world has slid once again towards an existential cliff of confrontation not only with Russia over the events in Ukraine but increasingly China with the build up of a new NATO-of the Pacific which some have come to dub the “Quad”.

Where a post-NED color revolution Ukraine was used as a flashpoint for this antagonistic program against Russia, a post-NED color revolution in Taiwan (under the 2014 Sunflower Revolution) was used to turn this Pacific island province of China into a new potential flashpoint of war in the Pacific.

With 140+ countries joining onto the Belt and Road Initiative, and an increasing list of nations waiting to join the BRICS+ and Shanghai Cooperation Alliance, it is becoming increasingly clear that the nightmare of Zbigniew Brzezinski of a Russia-China-Iran led new Eurasian Alliance is threatening to forever upset the unipolar paradigm.

President Putin made such a point clear in a recent speech calling out the end of the unipolar system

The American population know that they do not benefit from the proxy war in Ukraine, and according to recent polls, the situation of Ukraine doesn’t even make the top 10 concerns for most Americans who care more for increased gas, food and rent prices over the geopolitical ambitions of detached neocons.

Additionally, polls by Rasmussen demonstrate that nearly 70% of Americans strongly believe America to be heading down the wrong track and approval of both the president and congress has hit historic lows.

The previous three attempts to overthrow the unipolarist ideologues and establish a sustainable foundation of US-Russian cooperation were made possible not only through well positioned politicians but a network of well organized, informed and engaged American citizens who understood how to think about the direction their nation was headed.

If today’s world is to avoid the consequence of the insane policies of Global NATO which can lead only towards thermonuclear war, then it will be thanks to the important factor of this “other America” whose time, energy and sacrifice may make all the difference between a new dark age or new age of cooperation.

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This article inspired a 30 minute documentary produced by Dr Edward Lozansky’s New Kontinent which can be viewed here in full.

Matthew Ehret the Editor-in-Chief of the Canadian Patriot Review , and Senior Fellow at the American University in Moscow. He is author of the ‘Untold History of Canada’ book series and Clash of the Two Americas trilogy. In 2019 he co-founded the Montreal-based Rising Tide Foundation. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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The U.S. Government, and its allies, frequently advocate for “a rules-based international order” (or, going even farther, they presume that “the rules-based international order” already exists) and they always avoid stating what its relationship would be (or supposedly is) to international law — the body of international laws that have been established under the authority of the United Nations — and they also avoid saying how such “international rules” would be drafted, or even what organization(s) would be authorized to do that, or even how such an organization would become authorized to do it. They don’t say what these “international rules” are (or would be): none of these “international rules” are described, though some advocates appear to assume that such “rules” already exist. The stupidity that they all assume to exist among the public, who presumably won’t recognize and reject this transparent fraud and won’t reject the blatant grabbing for unauthorized global power by the U.S. regime that is behind it, might be excessive, but they assume it, anyway, in order then to state other frauds, which are based upon that fraud.

The fraud’s objective is to replace the authority of the United Nations, by whatever the U.S. Government will say is an “international rule.” The hope, there, is that the U.S. Government will replace the U.N. and will come to dictate to the rest of the world whatever the U.S. and its allies can agree to label as being an “international rule.” This ‘international rule’ would then become enforced by America’s 900 foreign military bases around the world (plus the 749 U.S. military bases within the U.S. itself).

Increasingly, ever since the U.S. Government, without authorization from the U.N, invaded and destroyed Iraq on 20 March 2003, on the basis of lies that America’s ‘news’-media stenographically reported to the public even though knowing them to be false — and while those media were hiding from the public the proof that they were false —  the U.S. Government has been increasingly brazen in ignoring international law entirely, so as to attain its short-term goals for achieving additional conquests. This is not, at all, surprising, from a Government that even violates blatantly its own Constitution.

Today’s America is a police-state, perhaps more so than any other country on the planet. It has a higher percentage of its residents living in prisons than does any other nation on the planet. Of 62 countries ranked for annual percentage of people killed by police, only 19 were even worse than America, which was the only industrialized country among the worst 20. America spends annually about as much on its military as do all other countries combined, but much of that spending is being paid by federal Departments outside the ‘Defense’ Department in order for the international comparisons falsely to show America as spending only around 36% (rather than the actual 50%) of the global total. And the ‘Defense’ Department is so corrupt so that unlike all other federal Departments, it has never been able to pass an audit, and trillions of dollars in its spending cannot be traced to where it went or to whom received it. America’s military-industrial complex (MIC) — basically its weapons-manufacturers — control U.S. foreign policies, and consume more than half of all of the U.S. federal Government’s discretionary (i.e., congressionally controlled in the budget) spending. The MIC controls this Government, the public do not. This is an empire voracious for constantly acquiring new territories. International law is something for it to violate, not to comply with. And even domestically, the U.S. Constitution is routinely violated with impunity.

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This article was originally published on The Duran.

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse’s new book, AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change, is about how America took over the world after World War II in order to enslave it to U.S.-and-allied billionaires. Their cartels extract the world’s wealth by control of not only their ‘news’ media but the social ‘sciences’ — duping the public. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: At the start of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, President George W. Bush ordered the U.S. military to conduct a devastating aerial assault on Baghdad, known as “shock and awe.” (Source: Consortiumnews)

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***

She maybe the highest ranking American official but most Americans do not even know her name. However, she is visiting Sri Lanka twice in one year & that should mean something. Why is she visiting Sri Lanka is however more important. She first visited Sri Lanka days before riots started resulted in the resignation of the former President. Naturally, all eyes are fixed on what is likely to emerge after her forthcoming visit. Over the years, there is no doubt the US has created local “agents” covering all spectrums of society.

While UK held position of might during colonial rule, the western world have had to move over to allow US to dictate world affairs. US bullying tactics was seen in the leaked call between Nuland & US envoy to Ukraine in 2014, berating the EU. This got her a thumbs up from both Republicans & Democrats.

It is no surprise she has been in the forefront of most of US incursions. Nuland was Deputy Chief of US mission to NATO in Brussels during the unilateral attack on Afghanistan after 9/11.

Nuland & ambassador Nicholas Burns strategized to get allies involved. He & Samantha Power are on the Board of the Future of Diplomacy Project at Harvard Kennedy School in which Nuland is a Senior Fellow.

While she claims Russia has “invaded” Ukraine, she is mum on all of US invasions. Afghanistan remains illegally occupied since 2001. Nuland was the foreign policy advisor to Dick Cheney during that invasion.

She rose to fame with her “F**k the EU” 2014 February leaked tape which part of US effort to replace Ukrainian President Victor Yanukovych – which succeeded in a matter of 3 weeks. Attention was diverted from the abusive rhetoric towards the EU by an American official to blaming the Russians for taping her! US involvement in Ukraine has resulted in 13,000 lost lives & Ukraine is the poorest country in Europe – so what is the cost of this war for Ukraine?

While she could declare ‘F**k the EU’ & expected the EU not to respond, when the Turkish may referred to a State Dept spokeswoman as a ‘stupid blonde’ after her comments regarding how Turkey handled a demonstration in 2013, Nuland in 2015 took issue with Turkey for the ‘inappropriate comment’ by the Turkish mayor. This was followed by the US ambassador to Turkey posting a picture of himself on instagram with his brunette hair photoshopped to appear blonde with caption “American diplomats: we’re all blonde”. They lengths they go to, to defend each other.

Nuland’s husband Robert Kagan is the co-founder of the Project for a New American Century which is a neoconservative policy think tank.

However, the Politico Magazine in 2014 released top 50 influential people in Washington & Brookings Senior Fellow Robert Kagan & Victoria Nuland was described as the “ultimate American power couple”.

The manner that Nulands’ husband Kagan’s neocon lobby exerted pressure on even President Obama was seen in the manner Obama was eventually attacked as a ‘weak leader’ by them & Nuland even advocates permanent NATO bases along the eastern border. It is said that Obama learned too late what a wrong person, in the wrong place, at the wrong time & with a wrong direction can do – Sri Lanka, saw that after her visit to Sri Lanka days after which a riot started, she is returning again & that return should not be taken lightly. She is obviously arriving to see if the plans she has set are in order & to decide how & when to turn the switch.

Also in 2015 Nuland was at the receiving end of Egypts Muslim Brotherhood which accused her of “unreserved audacity” when she criticized the Egyptian government of stifling freedom of expression.  Her comments on the detention & interrogation of Bassem Yousself means she will certainly be making a comment on Wasantha Mudalige, the hero of the Sri Lankan aragala movement supported heavily by the US embassy in Colombo & its pawns across the board. She may also pop in a word for Sepala Amarasinghe in prison for insulting Buddhism, which is similar to the offense for which Bassem Youssef was imprisoned (insulting Islam). Youssef was eventually released.

In April 2022 Nuland visited Bangladesh. Not beating about the bush, Bangladesh was told to support US-NATO war against Russia. She visited India & Sri Lanka too & China was on that list. Her visits were infamous for what ensued after her departure. The 2014 Ukraine coup that overthrew Viktor Yanukovich was followed with the overthrowing of Sri Lanka’s President in July 2022. Her trip to Bangladesh, resulted in Bangladesh voting with 139 countries in a resolution that demanded ‘aid access & civilian protection in Ukraine’ accusing Russia of creating a ‘dire humanitarian situation’. Bangladesh had previously voted with India, Pakistan & China & abstained from UN resolution reprimanding Russia. Interestingly like Sri Lanka, Bangladesh’s major share of exports goes to US & EU while Russia supplies wheat, fertilizer, machinery, fresh & dried fruit to Bangladesh. Russia is also constructing Bangladesh’s biggest power plant. The best way US knows to deal with such situations is to pluck the human rights topic & accuse Bangladesh & threaten sanctions, which US did. Any nation that US aligns with & commits human rights violations are however omitted from US statements or sanctions. Such is the hypocrisy.

Exactly who holds power & decision in USA? Is it the President, the Congress or groups of think tanks & secret societies who promote neocon ideology disadvantageous mostly to the American citizens. They bear all the costs of the wars that US enters. The backers of the wars walk away with all the deals & profits. Unfortunately, this reality has not dawned on the American people & the few that understands are often neutralized by other means.

If Nuland was the mastermind behind the February 2014 “regime change” was she also behind the riots that ensued from March 2022 in Sri Lanka leading to the resignation of the Sri Lankan President in July 2022. US overthrew 2 democratically elected Presidents. Of course, both were hailed as victory for “democracy” & echoes Prince Charles ‘whatever love means’. In the case of Ukraine, anyone speaking against the US regime change were dubbed pro-Russian, while anyone speaking against the undemocratic ouster in Sri Lanka was equally dubbed with all sorts of names.

Ukraine is in a mess, with no nation likely to come to the rescue of the Ukrainian people, while US pawns have declared default, devalued Sri Lanka’s currency & saddled Sri Lanka with the IMF with a likely cut & paste of the Jamaican tragedy likely to happen to Sri Lanka. All that the US-local promoters will end up doing is sing hosanahs about ‘democracy’ & ‘good governance’ though none of them will feel the pinch as the IMF only punches the poor & middle class.

What we need to realize is that the decisions on regime change are coming out of policy plans of the think tanks that reign the US. Most of the top officials are serving on this think tanks & what they decide the President & Congress require to parrot. We see some of these think tanks heavily involved with youth, civil society, religious entities, legal fraternity, academia, media & even politicians funding numerous programs to align them to the US think tank goals & objectives.

The question Sri Lankans must answer – who is the US regime-change heart throb for 2024 Presidential Election? Prior to that we must all wonder what her arrival in Sri Lanka is likely to result in the moment she leaves Sri Lanka. Riots have been a corner stone of every visit, therefore Sri Lanka’s intel should be on alert even room for a possible foreign troop “invasion”.

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Shenali D Waduge is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

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***

As a medical student and researcher, I staunchly supported the efforts of the public health authorities when it came to COVID-19. I believed that the authorities responded to the largest public health crisis of our lives with compassion, diligence, and scientific expertise. I was with them when they called for lockdowns, vaccines, and boosters.

I was wrong. We in the scientific community were wrong. And it cost lives.

I can see now that the scientific community from the CDC to the WHO to the FDA and their representatives, repeatedly overstated the evidence and misled the public about its own views and policies, including on natural vs. artificial immunity, school closures and disease transmission, aerosol spread, mask mandates, and vaccine effectiveness andsafety, especially among the young. All of these were scientific mistakes at the time, not in hindsight. Amazingly, some of these obfuscations continue to the present day.

But perhaps more important than any individual error was how inherently flawed the overall approach of the scientific community was, and continues to be. It was flawed in a way that undermined its efficacy and resulted in thousands if not millions of preventable deaths.

What we did not properly appreciate is that preferences determine how scientific expertise is used, and that our preferences might be—indeed, our preferences were—very different from many of the people that we serve. We created policy based on ourpreferences, then justified it using data. And then we portrayed those opposing our efforts as misguided, ignorant, selfish, and evil.

We made science a team sport, and in so doing, we made it no longer science. It became us versus them, and “they” responded the only way anyone might expect them to: by resisting.

We excluded important parts of the population from policy development and castigated critics, which meant that we deployed a monolithic response across an exceptionally diverse nation, forged a society more fractured than ever, and exacerbated longstanding heath and economic disparities.

Our emotional response and ingrained partisanship prevented us from seeing the full impact of our actions on the people we are supposed to serve. We systematically minimized the downsides of the interventions we imposed—imposed without the input, consent, and recognition of those forced to live with them. In so doing, we violated the autonomy of those who would be most negatively impacted by our policies: the poor, the working class, small business owners, Blacks and Latinos, and children. These populations were overlooked because they were made invisible to us by their systematic exclusion from the dominant, corporatized media machine that presumed omniscience.

Most of us did not speak up in support of alternative views, and many of us tried to suppress them. When strong scientific voices like world-renowned Stanford professors John Ioannidis, Jay Bhattacharya, and Scott Atlas, or University of California San Francisco professors Vinay Prasad and Monica Gandhi, sounded the alarm on behalf of vulnerable communities, they faced severe censure by relentless mobs of critics and detractors in the scientific community—often not on the basis of fact but solely on the basis of differences in scientific opinion.

When former President Trump pointed out the downsides of intervention, he was dismissed publicly as a buffoon. And when Dr. Antony Fauci opposed Trump and became the hero of the public health community, we gave him our support to do and say what he wanted, even when he was wrong.

Trump was not remotely perfect, nor were the academic critics of consensus policy. But the scorn that we laid on them was a disaster for public trust in the pandemic response. Our approach alienated large segments of the population from what should have been a national, collaborative project.

And we paid the price. The rage of the those marginalized by the expert class exploded onto and dominated social media. Lacking the scientific lexicon to express their disagreement, many dissidents turned to conspiracy theories and a cottage industry of scientific contortionists to make their case against the expert class consensus that dominated the pandemic mainstream. Labeling this speech “misinformation” and blaming it on “scientific illiteracy” and “ignorance,” the government conspired with Big Tech to aggressively suppress it, erasing the valid political concerns of the government’s opponents.

And this despite the fact that pandemic policy was created by a razor-thin sliver of American society who anointed themselves to preside over the working class—members of academia, government, medicine, journalism, tech, and public health, who are highly educated and privileged. From the comfort of their privilege, this elite prizes paternalism, as opposed to average Americans who laud self-reliance and whose daily lives routinely demand that they reckon with risk. That many of our leaders neglected to consider the lived experience of those across the class divide is unconscionable.

Incomprehensible to us due to this class divide, we severely judged lockdown critics as lazy, backwards, even evil. We dismissed as “grifters” those who represented their interests. We believed “misinformation” energized the ignorant, and we refused to accept that such people simply had a different, valid point of view.

We crafted policy for the people without consulting them. If our public health officials had led with less hubris, the course of the pandemic in the United States might have had a very different outcome, with far fewer lost lives.

Instead, we have witnessed a massive and ongoing loss of life in America due to distrust of vaccines and the healthcare system; a massive concentration in wealth by already wealthy elites; a rise in suicides and gun violence especially among the poor; a near-doubling of the rate of depression and anxiety disorders especially among the young; a catastrophic loss of educational attainment among already disadvantaged children; and among those most vulnerable, a massive loss of trust in healthcare, science, scientific authorities, and political leaders more broadly.

My motivation for writing this is simple: It’s clear to me that for public trust to be restored in science, scientists should publicly discuss what went right and what went wrong during the pandemic, and where we could have done better.

It’s OK to be wrong and admit where one was wrong and what one learned. That’s a central part of the way science works. Yet I fear that many are too entrenched in groupthink—and too afraid to publicly take responsibility—to do this.

Solving these problems in the long term requires a greater commitment to pluralism and tolerance in our institutions, including the inclusion of critical if unpopular voices.

Intellectual elitism, credentialism, and classism must end. Restoring trust in public health—and our democracy—depends on it.

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Kevin Bass is an MD/PhD student at a medical school in Texas. He is in his 7th year.

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For some reason, The Washington Post lets John Bolton hold forth about China and North Korea:

Secretary of State Antony Blinken will travel to Beijing in early February to meet with his new Chinese counterpart, Qin Gang. Bilateral relations between their two countries are on shaky ground, so the agenda will be crowded.

This may seem an inopportune moment to propose North Korea as a central agenda item. But recent threatening actions from Pyongyang, including ballistic-missile testing and preparing for a seventh nuclear test, offer Blinken a good way to gauge Beijing’s sincerity about seeking Indo-Pacific peace and stability.

No other U.S. officials have done more to encourage North Korea’s nuclear weapons program than John Bolton. He has been called the “father” of their weapons program for good reason. Bolton is famous for opposing every nonproliferation and arms control agreement that has ever been negotiated or proposed, and he is responsible for killing more than a few of them, including the Agreed Framework with North Korea. His insistence on maximalist demands for North Korean disarmament at the Hanoi summit ensured the failure of the meeting and the collapse of direct talks. There is almost no one alive with less credibility to advise the U.S. on what to do about North Korea’s nuclear weapons than this man, but he somehow still gets to spout his usual hardline nonsense using one of the biggest platforms in the country.

Bolton’s op-ed is useful only in the sense that it restates and exposes some of the most flawed assumptions that have undergirded U.S. policy towards North Korea. The U.S. has erred repeatedly by exaggerating Chinese influence over North Korea and assuming that Beijing could compel North Korea into making major concessions. This is an error that Bolton himself has made many times, including during his stint as Trump’s National Security Advisor. Since leaving government, he has been banging this drum incessantly.

He keeps insisting that China could force North Korea to change, and he assumes that the only reason why China hasn’t done this is that it doesn’t want to. The possibility that China does not have the power that he credits them with never crosses his mind. Bolton badly misunderstands the relationship between China and North Korea and overstates China’s influence, and he does so at least partly so he can shift the blame for the failure of U.S. policy to China and use it as another excuse to whip up anti-Chinese sentiment.

Van Jackson explains what is wrong with this view in his new book, Pacific Power Paradox:

But it was entirely unrealistic—even ahistorical—to expect that China could use its leverage over North Korea to influence the Kim family’s decision-making. U.S. presidents going back to the 1960s had wrongly believed that either China or Russia could steer North Korean behavior. The truth was that nobody but the Kim regime determined North Korea’s course. It was a stubbornly independent country, and history had proved that China had no desire to bring too much pressure to bear on Pyongyang—not just because China feared problems on its border with North Korea if the Kim regime were to destabilize, but also because in a realpolitik kind of way, it has never made strategic sense to convert a neighboring country into an enemy if you can avoid it.[1]

All of this is lost on Bolton, who takes propaganda about the closeness of the relationship between Beijing and Pyongyang at face value and fantasizes that China could bring down the North Korean government at will if it wished it. He overrates how much power China has, and he holds them responsible for something beyond their control. Instead of facing up to the fact that North Korean disarmament is not possible, Bolton is on the hunt for a scapegoat for the mess that he helped to make.

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Note

[1] Jackson, Pacific Power Paradox: p. 118.

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***

In fulfillment of his solemn, constitutionally-enshrined obligation, the 43rd President of the United States, George W. Bush, on January 28, 2003, stood before the rostrum in the chambers of the United States Congress and addressed the American people.

“Mr. Speaker,” the President began, “Vice President Cheney, members of Congress, distinguished citizens and fellow citizens, every year, by law and by custom, we meet here to consider the state of the union. This year,” he intoned gravely, “we gather in this chamber deeply aware of decisive days that lie ahead.” The “decisive days” Bush spoke of dealt with the decision he had already made to invade Iraq, in violation of international law, for the purpose of removing the Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein, from power.

Regime change had been the cornerstone policy of the United States toward Iraq ever since Bush 43’s father, Bush 41 (George H. W. Bush) compared Saddam Hussein to Adolf Hitler and demanded Nuremberg-like justice for the crime of invading Kuwait. “Hitler revisited,” the elder Bush told a crowd at a Republican fundraiser in Dallas, Texas. “But remember: When Hitler’s war ended, there were the Nuremberg trials.”

American politicians, especially presidents seeking to take their country into war, cannot simply walk away from such statements. As such, even after driving the Iraqi Army out of Kuwait in February 1991, Bush could not rest so long as Saddam Hussein remained in power–the Middle East equivalent of Adolf Hitler had to go.

The Bush 41 administration put in place UN-backed sanctions on Iraq designed to strangle the nation’s economy and promote regime change from within. These sanctions were linked to Iraq’s obligation to be disarmed of its weapons of mass destruction capabilities, including long-range missiles and chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons programs. Until Iraq was certified as being disarmed by UN weapons inspectors, the sanctions would remain in place. But as Bush’s Secretary of State, James Baker, made clear, these sanctions would never be lifted until Saddam Hussein was removed from power. “We are not interested,” Baker said on May 20, 1991, “in seeing a relaxation of sanctions as long as Saddam Hussein is in power.”

Despite the sanctions, Saddam Hussein outlasted the administration of Bush 41. Bush’s successor, Bill Clinton, continued the policy of sanctioning Iraq, combining them with UN weapons inspections to undermine Saddam Hussein. In June 1996, the Clinton administration used the UN weapons inspections process as a front to mount a coup against Saddam. The effort failed, but not the policy. In 1998, Clinton signed the Iraqi Liberation Act, making regime change in Iraq an official policy of the United States.

Saddam outlasted the Clinton administration as well. But, when it came to implementing US regime change plans in Iraq, the third time proved to be the charm–Saddam’s fate was sealed when Bush 41’s son, George W. Bush, was elected president in 2001. While Clinton had failed to remove Saddam Hussein from power, he did succeed in killing the UN inspection effort to oversee the disarmament of Iraq, allowing the US to continue to claim Iraq was not complying with its obligation to disarm, and therefore justify the continuation of economic sanctions.

This is where the issue becomes personal. From 1991 until 1998, I served as one of the senior UN weapons inspectors in Iraq, overseeing Iraq’s disarmament. It was my inspection team that the CIA tried to use, in June 1996, to help launch a coup against Saddam, and it was the continued interference of the US in the work of my inspections teams that prompted my resignation from the UN in August 1998. A few months after I departed, the Clinton administration ordered UN weapons inspectors out of Iraq before initiating a bombing campaign, Operation Desert Fox.

“Most of the targets bombed during Operation Desert Fox had nothing to do with weapons manufacturing,” I wrote in my book, Frontier Justice, published in 2003. “Ninety-seven ‘strategic’ targets were struck during the seventy-two hour campaign; eighty-six were solely related to the security of Saddam Hussein–palaces, military barracks, security installations, intelligence schools, and headquarters. Without exception, every one of these sites had been subjected to UNSCOM inspectors (most of these inspections had been led by me), and their activities were well-known and certified as not being related to UNSCOM.”

I concluded by noting that

 “The purpose of Operation Desert Fox was clear to all familiar with these sites: Saddam Hussein, not Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, was the target.” Following these air strikes, the Iraqis kicked the UN inspectors out for good.

This, of course, was the goal of the US all along. Now, with a new administration in power, the US was seeking to use the uncertainty about the status of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction programs as leverage with the American people, and the world, in order to justify an invasion of Iraq to remove Saddam Hussein from power once and for all. By the fall of 2002, it was clear we were a nation heading for war.

I took this personally and decided to take action to prevent it. I went to Congress and tried to get the Senate Intelligence and Foreign Relations Committees to hold genuine hearings about Iraq. They refused. The only way to prevent the invasion was to get the inspectors back in to Iraq so they could demonstrate that the country was not a threat worthy of war, but the Iraqis were putting up so many preconditions that it just wasn’t going to happen.

I then decided to intervene as a private citizen. I met with Tariq Aziz, Saddam’s advisor and former Foreign Minister, in South Africa, and told him I needed to speak to Iraq’s National Assembly publicly, without my words being edited or vetted. That was the only way to have them let the inspectors back in. At first, Aziz said I was crazy. After two days of discussion, he agreed.

I spoke to the Iraqi National Assembly. For that alone, people have accused me of treason, even though in that speech, I cut the Iraqis no slack and held them accountable for the crimes they had committed. I warned them that they were about to be invaded and that their only option was to let the inspectors back in.

Having broadcast that, the Iraqi government had to deal with me. I met with the vice president, the foreign minister, the oil minister, and the president’s science advisor. Five days later, they convinced Saddam Hussein to let weapons inspectors back into Iraq without preconditions. I count this as one of the highlights of my life.

Unfortunately, it was not to be. Yes, UN inspectors returned, but their work was undermined at every turn by the US, which sought to discredit their findings. Now, on that fateful evening on January 28, 2003, the President stepped forward to complete the mission–to make a case for war on the basis of the threat posed by Iraq and its unaccounted-for WMD.

This was not a new debate. In fact, I had been trying to debunk this sort of argument ever since the US ordered UN weapons inspectors out of Iraq in December 1998. In June 2000, at the behest of Senator John Kerry, D-Massachusetts, and a critical member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, I had put my case down in writing, publishing a long article in Arms Control Today which was then distributed to every member of Congress. In 2001, I had made a documentary film, In Shifting Sands, in an effort to reach out to the American public about the truth regarding Iraqi WMD, the status of their disarmament, and the inadequacy of the US case for war.

Nonetheless, here was the President of the United States, taking advantage of his Constitutional obligation to inform Congress, promulgating a case for war built on a foundation of lies.

“Almost three months ago,” Bush declared, “the United Nations Security Council gave Saddam Hussein his final chance to disarm [note: this is after I helped convince Iraq to allow UN weapons inspectors to return without precondition]. He has shown instead utter contempt for the United Nations and for the opinion of the world.” Bush observed that Iraq had failed to cooperate with UN weapons inspectors, noting that “it was up to Iraq to show exactly where it is hiding its banned weapons, lay those weapons out for the world to see and destroy them as directed. Nothing like this has happened.”

Iraq had declared that it had no WMD left, and as such was in no position to show anyone where it was hiding non-existent weapons. In fact, the UN weapons inspectors, working in full cooperation with the Iraqi government, had debunked the intelligence provided by the US alleging Iraqi non-compliance. The US was operating on principles dating back to James Baker’s May 1991 declaration that sanctions would not be lifted until Saddam Hussein was removed from power.

The President went on to articulate specific claims about unaccounted-for anthrax and botulinum toxin biological agents. He made similar claims about Sarin, mustard and VX chemical weapons. “The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed in the 1990s that Saddam Hussein had an advanced nuclear weapons development program, had a design for a nuclear weapon and was working on five different methods of enriching uranium for a bomb,” the President said.

This was true – I was one of the inspectors at the center of tracking down Iraq’s nuclear weapons ambition. But then the President went on to utter 16 words that would go down in infamy: “The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.”

CIA Director George Tenet was later compelled to admit before Congress that “[t]hese 16 words should never have been included in the text written for the president.” As Tenet later noted, while the assertion regarding the existence of British intelligence was correct, the CIA itself did not have confidence in the report. “This [the existence of British intelligence] did not rise to the level of certainty which should be required for presidential speeches,” Tenet said, “and the CIA should have ensured that it was removed.”

The fact of the matter is that the entire case made by President Bush about Iraq was a lie, and the CIA was complicit in helping the President promulgate that lie. The sole purpose of this lie was to engender fear among Congress and the American people that Iraq, and especially its leader, Saddam Hussein, was a threat worthy of war.

‘Year after year,’ Bush intoned, ‘Saddam Hussein has gone to elaborate lengths, spent enormous sums, taken great risks to build and keep weapons of mass destruction. But why? The only possible explanation,” Bush said, answering his own question, “the only possible use he could have for those weapons, is to dominate, intimidate or attack.’

‘With nuclear arms or a full arsenal of chemical and biological weapons, Saddam Hussein could resume his ambitions of conquest in the Middle East and create deadly havoc in that region.

‘And this Congress and the American people must recognize another threat. Evidence from intelligence sources, secret communications and statements by people now in custody reveal that Saddam Hussein aids and protects terrorists, including members of Al Qaeda. Secretly, and without fingerprints, he could provide one of his hidden weapons to terrorists, or help them develop their own.

‘Before September the 11th, many in the world believed that Saddam Hussein could be contained. But chemical agents, lethal viruses and shadowy terrorist networks are not easily contained.

‘Imagine those 19 hijackers with other weapons and other plans, this time armed by Saddam Hussein. It would take one vial, one canister, one crate slipped into this country to bring a day of horror like none we have ever known.

We will do everything in our power, to make sure that that day never comes.’

The President then got down to the crux of his presentation on Iraq. “The United States will ask the UN Security Council to convene on February the 5th [2003] to consider the facts of Iraq’s ongoing defiance of the world. Secretary of State [Colin] Powell will present information and intelligence about Iraq’s illegal weapons programs, its attempts to hide those weapons from inspectors and its links to terrorist groups.”

The President stared into the camera, addressing the American people directly. “We will consult,” he said, “but let there be no misunderstanding: If Saddam Hussein does not fully disarm for the safety of our people, and for the peace of the world, we will lead a coalition to disarm him.”

I stared back at the television screen, sick to my stomach. The President’s speech was composed of lies. All lies.

I had expended every ounce of my energy trying in vain to debunk these lies, but to no avail. My country was on the verge of going to war on the basis of words I knew to be false, and there was nothing more I could do to prevent it.

*

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Scott Ritter is a former US Marine Corps intelligence officer and author of ‘Disarmament in the Time of Perestroika: Arms Control and the End of the Soviet Union.’ He served in the Soviet Union as an inspector implementing the INF Treaty, in General Schwarzkopf’s staff during the Gulf War, and from 1991-1998 as a UN weapons inspector. 

Featured image: U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell holding up vial of simulated anthrax at UN Security Council meeting as he makes the case for the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

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***

October 24, 2022, the FAA changed the EKG requirements necessary for pilots to fly — but not to make them safer

With no public announcement or explanation, the agency expanded the allowable range for PR, a measure of heart function

Widening this parameter means those with potential heart damage are now allowed to fly commercial aircraft, potentially putting passengers at risk, should they suffer a heart attack or other event while in the air

Evidence suggests that pilots’ worsening heart health is due to adverse effects of COVID-19 shots

An estimated 20% of pilots screened may have suffered heart damage due to COVID-19 shots, and the FAA may have been forced to widen the EKG parameters so pilots could continue to fly

*

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) requires first-class airline pilots to receive an electrocardiogram (EKG) starting at age 35, and continuing annually after age 40.¹ EKGs record the heart’s electrical activity to provide a measure of heart health and certain parameters must be met in order for pilots to be deemed fit to fly.

October 24, 2022, the FAA changed the EKG requirements necessary for pilots to fly — but not to make them safer. With no public announcement or explanation, the agency expanded the allowable range for the PR interval, a measure of heart function.²

Widening this parameter means those with potential heart damage, disease or injuries are now allowed to fly commercial aircraft, potentially putting passengers at risk, should they suffer a heart attack or other event while in the air. Why would the FAA make such a drastic and risky move without informing the public?

COVID Shots May Have Damaged Pilots’ Hearts

On an EKG, a normal PR interval measures 0.12 to 0.2 seconds.³ If the PR interval is shorter or longer than this, it can be indicative of a problem. According to Steve Kirsch, executive director of the Vaccine Safety Research Foundation, the FAA widened the acceptable EKG parameters from a PR max of 0.2 to 0.3, and potentially even higher. He says:⁴

“They didn’t widen the range by a little. They widened it by a lot. It was done after the vaccine rollout. This is extraordinary. They did it hoping nobody would notice. It worked for a while. Nobody caught it. But you can’t hide these things for long. This is a tacit admission from the U.S. government that the COVID vaccine has damaged the hearts of our pilots. Not just a few pilots. A lot of pilots and a lot of damage.”

Kirsch gives five reasons why he’s confident these widened parameters were necessary due to the widespread heart damage pilots — and the U.S. public — experienced due to COVID-19 shots. According to Kirsch:⁵

“I believe it is because they knew if they kept the original range, too many pilots would have to be grounded. That would be extremely problematic; commercial aviation in the US would be severely disrupted. And why did they do that quietly without notifying the public or the mainstream media?

I’m pretty sure they won’t tell me, so I’ll speculate: it’s because they didn’t want anyone to know. In other words, the COVID vaccine has seriously injured a lot of pilots and the FAA knows it and said nothing because that would tip off the country that the vaccines are unsafe. And you aren’t allowed to do that.”

Five Clues COVID Shots Are Likely to Blame

Five factors suggest that pilots’ worsening heart health is due to COVID-19 shots, and not COVID-19. As noted by Kirsch, they include:⁶

1. The change in EKG parameters was made quietly. “If it was COVID, you can be public. But the vaccine is supposed to be safe.”
2. The timing of the change in October 2022, which is later than it would have been if COVID-19 were to blame. “If it was due to COVID, it would have happened well before now. They can make changes every month.”
3. The widespread injuries. “The vaccine creates far more injury to the heart than COVID.” For instance, an Israeli study of adults who did not get a COVID-19 shot but did get COVID-19 found the infection was not associated with myocarditis or pericarditis.⁷
4. Anecdotal reports from cardiologists about heart damage began post-shot.
5. Many sudden deaths have been reported post-shot.

Kirsch estimates that 20% of pilots screened may have suffered heart damage due to COVID-19 shots, based on an upcoming study set to be published in The Epoch Times. A Thailand study also revealed “cardiovascular manifestations” including rapid heartbeat (tachycardia), palpitation and myopericarditis in 29.24% of adolescents who’d received an mRNA COVID-19 shot.⁸

“But kids are indestructible so a 30% injury rate in kids translates into a higher rate for adults,” Kirsch says, adding:⁹

“Bottom line: The most logical conclusion is that the FAA knows the hearts of our nation’s pilots have been injured by the COVID vaccine that they were coerced into taking, the number of pilots affected is huge, the cardiac damage is extensive, and passenger safety is being compromised by the lowering of the standards to enable pilots to fly.

The right thing would be for the FAA to come clean and admit to the American public that the COVID vaccine has injured 20% or more of the pilots (based on their limited EKG screening), but I doubt that they will ever do that.”

Pilot Has Heart Attack After Shot

In May 2022, The Epoch Times reported the case of Robert Snow, a pilot for American Airlines with 31 years of experience flying commercially and seven years as a pilot in the U.S. Air Force.¹⁰ Snow does not have coronary disease, but he suffered a cardiac arrest about six minutes after landing a plane he flew from Denver to Dallas Fort Worth.

According to the news outlet, “He believes that his cardiac arrest is connected to the Johnson & Johnson COVID vaccine he was forced to take in order to keep his job on November 4, 2021, even though he already had natural immunity from previously contracting the virus.” And he’s not the only one with that suspicion. Snow told The Epoch Times:¹¹

“I would just tell you that there are other pilots out there that have had concerns, not just pilots, also because it was an employee mandate. So we have flight attendants, we have mechanics, we have dispatchers, we have gate agents, you name it.

Of course, for pilots, we consider that a safety-sensitive job so we’re a little bit more concerned from the standpoint of aviation safety; but yes, I have received calls from other pilots and other communications stating that they have concerns but because of the nature of this, they’re afraid to come forward.”

Dr. Peter McCullough is a cardiologist, internist and epidemiologist and the chief scientific officer of The Wellness Company.¹² He also is one of the most published cardiologists in America, with over 1,000 publications and 660 citations in the National Library of Medicine, and is a recipient of the Simon Dack Award from the American College of Cardiology and the International Vicenza Award in Critical Care Nephrology for his scholarship and research.

He told The Epoch Times “there is no other explanation” for Snow’s cardiac arrest. “The MRI pattern is consistent. Indeed, it may have been vaccine-induced myocarditis …”¹³

McCullough also spoke with Joshua Yoder, an airline pilot and cofounder of U.S. Freedom Flyers, which formed to help pilots and other transportation industry employees oppose federal shot mandates.

Yoder’s group has received hundreds of reports from pilots who have suffered adverse events from COVID-19 shots, including chest pains, myocarditis and pericarditis. McCullough told Yoder that if every pilot who’d received a COVID-19 shot received a health screening, about 30% would fail due to shot-induced injuries.¹⁴

Doctors Call on FAA to Flag Pilots Who Received COVID Shots

McCullough, along with pathologist Dr. Ryan Cole, Robert Kennedy Jr. and others, sent a letter to the FAA December 15, 2021, calling on the agency to medically flag all pilots who received a COVID-19 shot and, within four weeks, have them undergo thorough medical reexaminations to include:¹⁵

• D-Dimer tests to check for blood clotting problems
• Troponin tests to check for Troponin in the blood, which is a protein released when the heart muscle has been damaged
• EKG analysis to check electrical signals that determine cardiac health
• Cardiac MRI
• PULS test to determine heart health

Adding cardiac MRI to pilots’ screening is “critical,” the letter said, explaining:¹⁶

“A recent study showed that using only ECG [EKG] results and symptoms to screen patients resulted in a 7.4 underdiagnosing of actual myocarditis, while the PULS test is also critical as a study published … showed that ‘MRNA COVID vaccines dramatically increase … inflammatory markers’ and that the risk of acute coronary syndrome more than doubled in those vaccinated …

… leading the authors to conclude that ‘the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines dramatically increase inflammation … on the endothelium and T cell infiltration of cardiac muscle, and may account for the observations of increased thrombosis, cardiomyopathy, and other vascular events following vaccination.”

Will the US Federal Air Surgeon Investigate?

January 21, 2023, Kirsch spoke with the FAA’s federal air surgeon, Dr. Susan Northrup. She said she was aware of Snow’s case, but no one from the FAA had reached out to investigate the near-miss tragedy. Kirsch also emailed Northrup the names and contact information for several shot-injured pilots. Further, he noted:¹⁷

“More importantly, in that email, I also invited her to host a public roundtable at the FAA inviting people on both sides of the ‘safe and effective’ narrative so that the FAA could learn the truth. I just talked to Senator Ron Johnson and I can assure you that he’d be DELIGHTED to help her assemble a roundtable of doctors on both sides of the narrative to brief top FAA officials on the risks of these vaccines.

And I offered to publish her revised statement to the public so we can get the truth out that the vaccines are NOT safe and are disabling pilots. Here’s the kicker. The corruption at the FAA runs deep. Did you know that nobody at the FAA has ever called Bob Snow? How can the FAA investigate this incident without ever even talking to the pilot?”

At this point, Northrup has been duly informed of the very real potential that COVID-19 shots could be making it unsafe for jabbed pilots to fly. But then, she was probably already aware. Her husband, John Hyle, a pilot, refused the jab due to safety concerns. Whether or not a real investigation will happen, however, remains to be seen. Kirsch added:¹⁸

“So it’s not just a few ‘anti-vaxxers’ spreading ‘misinformation.’ Susan clearly realizes that intelligent people she clearly respects have legitimate concerns that cause them to refuse to take the shot. The narrative is falling apart.

We need public transparency on all of the things above. And we need it now before lives are lost. We’ve had a couple of close calls. The FAA needs to be proactive about this, not REACTIVE after a crash happens. What do you think will happen next?”

FAA Broke Its Own Rule Letting Pilots Fly After COVID Shots

In its Guide for Aviation Medical Examiners, the FAA states that aviation medical examiners should not issue medical certificates to pilots who’ve taken drugs the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved less than 12 months prior:¹⁹

“The FAA generally requires at least one-year of post-marketing experience with a new drug before consideration for aeromedical certification purposes. This observation period allows time for uncommon, but aeromedically significant, adverse effects to manifest themselves.”

Now, the FAA states pilots can resume flying just 48 hours after receiving a COVID-19 shot.²⁰ Leigh Dundas, an attorney who was the primary author of the FAA letter, told The Epoch Times:²¹

“The Federal Aviation Agency is charged with ensuring the safety of the flying public. Instead, as we speak the FAA, as well as the commercial airline companies, are acting in contravention of their own federal aviation regulations and associated guidance which tells medical examiners to NOT issue medical certifications to pilots using non-FDA approved products.

… The title of the section I’m talking about literally says ‘Do Not Issue — Do Not Fly’ and then instructs medical examiners to ‘not issue’ medical certifications to pilots using products that the FDA ‘approved less than 12 months ago’ …

The pilots are flying with products which are not even recently approved — in violation of the above wording — they are flying with injections in their bodies which were NEVER approved by the FDA at all (as no COVID vaccine which is commercially available in the U.S. has received FDA approval).”

It’s Not Only Pilots Whose Hearts Are Damaged

While the implications of commercial airline pilots flying with shot-induced heart damage raises significant safety concerns, it’s not only pilots who are affected. Any person who received a COVID-19 shot could face similar risks. As Kirsch noted:²²

“At a more conservative 20% injury rate, we are looking at 50M Americans with heart damage caused by the jab. As more studies are done, it’s going to be crystal clear why so many people are dying suddenly, especially kids. It’s also going to explain why nursing homes have lost up to 33% of their residents in 12 months where before they were losing only 1 or 2% a year.

… Confidence in the CDC and the medical community should hit rock bottom after it is revealed how extensive the damage caused by these vaccines is. The fact that … the FAA quietly changed their EKG guidance should at least open your mind to the possibility that I might be right. This narrative is going to start falling apart at an accelerated rate.”

*

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Notes

¹ FAA, Guide for Aviation Medical Examiners

^{2, 4, 5, 6, 9, 22} Substack, Steve Kirsch’s newsletter January 17, 2023

³ Helio, PR Interval

⁷ J Clin Med. 2022 Apr; 11(8): 2219

⁸ Trop. Med. Infect. Dis. 2022, 7(8), 196; doi: 10.3390/tropicalmed7080196

^10, 11, 13 The Epoch Times May 23, 2022

¹² Dr. Peter A. McCullough

¹⁴ Truth Unmuted April 27, 2022

^15, 16 Letter to the FAA From Dr. Peter McCullough, others December 15, 2021, Page 2

^17, 18 Substack, Steve Kirsch’s newsletter January 21, 2023

¹⁹ FAA, Guide for Aviation Medical Examiners, Pharmaceuticals (Therapeutic Medications) Do Not Issue – Do Not Fly

²⁰ FAA, FAQs on Use of COVID-19 Vaccines by Pilots and Air Traffic Controllers

²¹ The Epoch Times December 28, 2021

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***

It must also be borne in mind, there is credible evidence that proves many ministers and senior civil servants also knew.

Smearing and suspending Andrew Bridgen pales into insignificance when the public, police and all MP’s find out the above two senior government ministers knew, but did nothing. We have to ask, why didn’t they stop the vaccines when they knew about harm, injury and death they were causing?

The truth has to be exposed and those trying to expose it protected and supported. This the tip of an enormous iceberg. There is so much more.

In June 2021 evidence was provided to Nadhim Zahawi MP – ‘vaccine minister’ at his constituency office in Stratford Upon Avon and acknowledged by him. The evidence was referencing Dr Bryam Bridle a consultant working on the COVID vaccines. Dr Bridle sent out a worldwide public warning demanding the vaccines are stopped immediately because the spike protein is not staying at the injection site. They are attacking the main organs, causing heart attacks and in particular and of huge concern damaging the lining of the uterus and the ovaries.

Within a few hours of him receiving this damning evidence Zahawi went live on national television saying the vaccine uptake is excellent and for everyone to keep taking them. No reference was made to the concerns of Dr Bridle. The reason he went on national TV is because a live video on Facebook that very same day was made and went viral. It was made by retired PC Mark Sexton, who delivered and referred to the evidence in person, by hand, to Zahawi’s Secretary. Emails detailing the evidence were also sent by Sexton and acknowledged.

In September 2021 a meeting took place at Number 1 Birdcage Walk in Westminster. At this meeting there were sixteen world renowned experts, ten in the room and the remainder on a Zoom conference call. Virologists, immunologists, medical doctors including one GP, professors, a barrister, two lawyers, and a funeral director. Andrew Bridgen MP was due to be at the meeting but had to pull out at short notice for personal reasons. The meeting took place and Sir Graham Brady was there in person. For two hours solid Brady heard damning testimony and irrefutable evidence from these experts about the harm, injury and death the vaccines are causing. Individually and as a collective they all demanded the cessation/pausing of the vaccines.

Sir Graham agreed he would get answers to the very serious questions the experts were raising. It was agreed the group would provide Brady with a list of questions and he would get answers from Parliament and get back to them. This was Brady’s suggestion.

Two of the doctors spent three days putting together sixty seven very important questions that needed answering. The questions were sent to Brady by Sexton as instructed and duly acknowledged. Despite numerous requests for answers Brady never provided any answers to these questions; in fact Brady from then on ignored all correspondence.

Three days later there was a full news article in MSM that Sir Graham Brady met a number of ‘anti- vaxers’ at a location in London.

Of huge significance, on the day of the meeting in September 2021 on leaving and walking back to Parliament, Brady was joined by Mark Sexton. Sexton organised and chaired the meeting.

Sexton advised Brady that, if the public were to find out about the damage the vaccines were causing with the full knowledge of government there would be riots and serious disorder on the streets of the U.K. Brady’s response – “We thought that would have happened by now.”

Also in June 2021, Nadhim Zahawi made contact with Warwickshire Police to make a complaint of harassment believed to be against Sexton. No criminal complaint was raised. However, it was no coincidence that in June 2021 Sexton made a criminal complaint to Warwickshire police of “Misconduct in public office” against Nadhim Zahawi. The reason cited was that Zahawi knew of the harms and death the vaccines were causing but ignored the evidence allowing the harm, injury and death to continue.

Witness statements were provided to Detective Superintendent Peter Hill at Warwickshire Police that fully supported Sexton’s allegations. Statements came from Dr Mike Yeadon, former Vice- President of Pfizer UK for seventeen years, Dr Tess Lawrie an independent medical researcher, lawyer Clare Wills Harrison and Dr Tee. Their expert evidence in statement form was damning and cause for the deepest concern. The evidence was ignored by Detective Superintendent Peter Hill. He refused to contact the above expert witnesses or discuss their evidence. Hill decided there was no evidence to support a criminal complaint.

Warwickshire police then put out an internal email to all staff about how to deal with Sexton if he entered any Warwickshire Police station. Sexton was seen as a nuisance, an ‘anti-vaxer’ and someone who had clearly ‘lost the plot’. Bear in mind that Sexton’s former employer was Warwickshire Police. All further correspondence to Warwickshire police has been ignored.

Nadhim Zahawi was provided with extra police security and reassurances. Why? Sexton was no threat; he was always smart, polite, professional and at no point threatening in person or via email. Videos show this very clearly.

In December 2021, two lawyers, a GP and a retired police officer attended Hammersmith police station and made a criminal complaint against the MHRA and the GMC. The evidence was damning. A crime number was issued. This criminal investigation became public knowledge and it went viral, with significant interest and input from dozens of countries from around the world.

Some persons in those countries were wishing to replicate the criminal complaint in order to stop their governments continuing to harm their people.

Hammersmith CID provided the above four with an electronic drop box to submit the evidence. Over a two month period tens of thousands of documents, links, peer reviewed papers, videos, statements, witness details and dozens of testimonies from world experts were provided for Hammersmith CID. A further twenty one offences were identified, fifteen offenders were named that included government ministers, civil servants, media bosses and senior serving police officers.

The evidence submitted was so vast, irrefutable and damning, two detectives at Hammersmith CID said on the 5th of January 2022 that it was so big an investigation and too big for The Metropolitan Police, that it would need to be dealt with by outside agencies (MI5/6, Special Branch, National Crime Squad etc.)

In February 2022 after two months of the so called police investigation, it was shut down. Deputy Assistant Commissioner Jane Connors and Detective Superintendent Tor Garnett decided there was no evidence of criminality.

However,

1. No world experts were contacted nor spoken to, despite many of them being acknowledged by Superintendent Jon Simpson assistant to Commissioner Cressida Dick. He in turn forwarded all correspondence to the team of detectives at Hammersmith police station.

2. Approximately four hundred witness and victim statements were obtained and provided to the ‘Met’ by lawyer Lois Bayliss. These statements included NHS and care home whistleblowers and three GP’s. Not one of these witnesses or victims were contacted or spoken to by the Met police.

3. An independent, fully documented forensic report detailing the toxic contents of the vaccine vials was provided to the Metropolitan police and ignored.

4. The four original informants were never spoken to or required to discuss the evidence at any time with any Hammersmith detective.

5. None of the identified and named offenders were contacted or spoken to by Hammersmith CID. The Metropolitan police have knowingly perverted the course of justice to protect the named offenders that include Boris Johnson, ‘Matt’ Hancock, Nadhim Zahawi, Chris Whitty, Patrick Valance, Graham Brady, June Raine, Cressida Dick to name but a few.

Complaints made to The Metropolitan Police and Warwickshire police have been ignored. Complaints made to the IOPC (independent office of police conduct) have been made, accepted, reference numbers issued, but also ignored.

Evidence has been submitted to and acknowledged by,

Baroness Hallett chair of the independent investigation into the government’s handling of COVID -19.
The Mayor of London Sadiq Khan.
The police federation of England and Wales.
The police federation for the Metropolitan police.
UK Health Security Agency

National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, NHS Yellow card scheme.
Association of Police and Crime Commissioners.
Hugo Keith senior barrister.
Theresa Coffey health minister.
West Midlands Police, West Yorkshire Police, Suffolk Police, Avon and Somerset police, Dorset Police, Hampshire Police, Leicestershire Police, Northumbria police, Cumbria police, North Wales Police, South Wales Police, Staffordshire Police, Merseyside Police, Greater Manchester Police.
Plus all other police forces throughout the U.K.

Every single police force, government minister, regulatory body, federation and civil servant is aware of the vast evidence of harm, injury and death as a result of the vaccines. All are also aware of the most serious crimes ever committed by government, all ignoring the evidence and allowing these crimes to continue unabated.

This is the tip of the iceberg; everything referred to above is fully documented and evidenced by more than one source.

The newspaper article re Sir Graham Brady meeting with so called anti-vaxers is attached. And so too is Dr Bryam Bridle’s article from the 2nd of June 2021 sounding the alarm. Also on the 10th of June 2021 there is a live video on Sexton’s Facebook page of him at Zahawi’s constituency office in Stratford Upon Avon. His Facebook is open to the public.

(Mention of the horrific evidence of the murder of the elderly in care homes using midazolam and morphine and not from COVID is not included.)

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Mark Sexton is a retired police constable.

Featured image is from Children’s Health Defense

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Thanks to the latest release of the “Twitter Files,” we now know without a doubt that the entire “Russia disinformation” racket was a massive disinformation campaign to undermine US elections and perhaps even push “regime change” inside the United States after Donald Trump was elected president in 2016.

Here is some background. In November, 2016, just after the election, the Washington Post published an article titled, “Russian propaganda effort helped spread ‘fake news’ during election, experts say.” The purpose of the article was to delegitimize the Trump presidency as a product of a Russian “disinformation” campaign.

“There is no way to know whether the Russian campaign proved decisive in electing Trump, but researchers portray it as part of a broadly effective strategy of sowing distrust in US democracy and its leaders,” wrote Craig Timberg. The implication was clear: a Russian operation elected Donald Trump, not the American people.

Among the “experts” it cited were an anonymous organization called “Prop Or Not,” which in its own words claimed to identify “more than 200 websites as peddlers of Russian propaganda during the election season, with combined audiences of at least 15 million Americans.”

The organization’s report was so preposterous that the Washington Post was later forced to issue a clarification, even though the Post provided a link to the report which falsely accused independent news outlets like Zero Hedge, Antiwar.com, and even my Ron Paul Institute as “Russian disinformation.”

The 2016 Washington Post article also featured “expert” Clint Watts, a former FBI counterintelligence officer who went on to found another outfit claiming to be hunting “Russian disinformation” in the US, the “Hamilton 68” project. That project was launched by the Alliance for Securing Democracy, a very well-funded organization containing a who’s who of top neocons like William Kristol, John Podesta, Michael McFaul, and many more.

Thanks to the latest release of the “Twitter Files,” Matt Taibbi reveals that the Hamilton 68 project, which claimed to monitor 600 “Russian disinformation” Twitter accounts, was a total hoax. While they refused to reveal which accounts they monitored and would not reveal their methodology, Twitter was able to use reverse-engineering to determine the 600-odd “Russian-connected” accounts. Twitter found that despite Hamilton’s claims, the vast majority of these “Russian” accounts were English-speaking. Of the Russian registered accounts – numbering just 36 out of 644 – most were employees of the Russian news outlet RT.

It was all a lie and the latest Twitter Files release confirms that even the “woke” pre-Musk Twitter employees could smell a rat. But the hoax served an important purpose. Hiding behind anonymity, this neocon organization was able to generate hundreds of media stories slandering and libeling perfectly legitimate organizations and individuals as “Russian agents.” It provided a very convenient way to demonize anyone who did not go along with the approved neocon narrative.

Twitter’s new owner, who has given us a look behind the curtain, put it best in a Tweet over the weekend: “An American group made false claims about Russian election interference to interfere with American elections.”

The whole “Russia disinformation” hoax was a shocking return to the McCarthyism of the 1950s and in some ways even worse. Making lists of American individuals and non-profits to be targeted and “cancelled” as being in the pay of foreigners is despicable. Such fraudulent actions have caused real-life damages that need to be addressed.

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Unnamed U.S. officials on Sunday confirmed suspicions that Israel was behind the weekend drone attack on a purported military facility in the Iranian city of Isfahan, heightening concerns that the far-right government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is gearing up for a broader assault on Iran as international nuclear talks remain at a standstill.

The New York Times reported that the drone attack—which Iran says it mostly thwarted—was “the work of the Mossad, Israel’s premier intelligence agency, according to senior intelligence officials who were familiar with the dialogue between Israel and the United States about the incident.”

“American officials quickly sent out word on Sunday morning that the United States was not responsible for the attack,” the Times noted. “One official confirmed that it had been conducted by Israel but did not have details about the target.”

The Times added that the “facility that was struck on Saturday was in the middle of the city and did not appear to be nuclear-related.”

The Wall Street Journal also reported Sunday that Israel carried out the attack, which was launched hours before U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in the Middle East for planned trips to Israel, Egypt, and the occupied West Bank.

Last week, CIA Director William Burns made an unannounced trip to Israel to discuss “Iran and other regional issues,” according to the Journal.

Jamal Abdi, president of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), said in a statement that he is “deeply concerned by the gathering clouds of war in the Middle East.”

“This latest act of sabotage conducted via a military attack inside Iran is a dangerous escalation and should be cause for concern for everyone who opposes war,” said Abdi. “War will only further empower the most violent and repressive forces inside Iran at the expense of ordinary Iranians demanding freedom, and will embolden reactionary elements in Iran, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the U.S.”

“It is vital that we call for all sides to exercise restraint and to prioritize non-military solutions to the tensions threatening the region.”

Israel’s latest attack inside Iran’s borders came after negotiations aimed at bringing the U.S. back into the Iran nuclear accord—which former President Donald Trump violated in 2018—hit a wall. President Joe Biden told a rallygoer in November that the Iran deal “is dead, but we’re not gonna announce it.”

Israel’s spy agency has made clear that a newly negotiated nuclear accord would not stop its attacks on Iran.

“Even if a nuclear deal is signed, it will not give Iran immunity from the Mossad operations,” Mossad chief David Barnea said in September. “We won’t take part in this charade and we don’t close our eyes to the proven truth.”

Earlier this month, Netanyahu—a longtime Iran hawk who has been making false predictions about Tehran’s supposed nuclear bomb ambitions for years—vowed to “act powerfully and openly on the international level against the return to the nuclear agreement.”

In the absence of a nuclear agreement, the Journal reported Sunday that the U.S. and Israel are looking for “new ways to contain” Iran, which condemned the Saturday attack as “cowardly.”

Citing the Journal‘s story, Trita Parsi of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft tweeted Sunday that “unlike before, when U.S. officials stayed silent or only confirmed Israel’s role in attacks on Iran days later, now U.S. officials immediately name Israel and appear to hint that it is part of a joint effort to ‘contain’ Iran.”

“War is clearly back on the agenda,” Parsi added.

Abdi of NIAC echoed that warning, arguing that “the Islamic Republic’s brutal crackdown against the Iranian people, its assistance in Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, and its rapidly expanding nuclear program freed from the restraints of the JCPOA have pushed tensions to a boiling point.”

“This, coupled with the rise of a hardline administration in Israel that appears determined to push the envelope militarily, an increasingly assertive Saudi royal family, and a U.S. that has been unable to turn the page on the Trump administration’s destabilizing Middle East policies, makes for an exceedingly volatile cocktail,” Abdi said. “For those of us who favor democracy, human rights, and peace, it is vital that we call for all sides to exercise restraint and to prioritize non-military solutions to the tensions threatening the region.”

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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Jake Johnson is a staff writer for Common Dreams.

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First published on GR on January 13.

In November 2022, the Air Force updated its safety rules for airlift of nuclear weapons to allow the C-17A Globemaster III aircraft to transport the new B61-12 nuclear bomb.

The update, accompanied by training and certification of the aircraft and crews, cleared the C-17A to transport the newest U.S. nuclear weapon to bases in the United States and Europe.

An updated USAF Instruction in November 2022 removed restrictions for C-17A transport of the new B61-12 nuclear bomb to bases in the United States and Europe.

The C-17As of the 62^nd Airlift Wing at Joint Base Lewis-McChord serve as the Prime Nuclear Airlift Force (PNAF), the only airlift wing that is authorized to transport the Air Force’s nuclear warheads.

The updated Air Force instruction does not, as inaccurately suggested by some, confirm that shipping of the weapons began in December. But it documents some of the preparations needed to do so.

Politico reported in October last year that the US had accelerated deployment of the B61-12 from Spring 2023 to December 2022. Two unnamed US officials said the US told NATO about the schedule in October.

But a senior Pentagon official subsequently dismissed the Politico report, saying “nothing has changed on the timeline. There is no speeding up because of any Ukraine crisis, the B61-12 is on the same schedule it’s always been on.”

Although the DOD official denied there had been a change in the schedule, he did not deny that transport would begin in December.

Two unarmed B61-12 trainers are loaded on a C-17A during an exercise at Joint Base Lewis-McChord AFB in April 2021. Image: U.S. Air Force.

The B61-12 production scheduled had slipped repeatedly. Initially, the plan was to begin full-scale production in early-2019. By September 2022, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) was still awaiting approval to begin full-scale production. Finally, in October 2022, NNSA confirmed to FAS that the B61-12 was in full-scale production.

The B61-12 is intended as an upgrade and eventual replacement for all current nuclear gravity bombs, including the B61-3, -4, -7, and probably eventually also the B61-11 and B83-1. To that end, it combines and improves upon various aspects of existing bombs: it uses a modified version of the B61-4 warhead with several lower- and medium-yield options (0.3-50 kilotons). It compensates for its smaller explosive yield (relative to the maximum yields of the B61-7 and -11) by including a guided tail-kit to increase accuracy, as well as a limited earth-penetration capability.

At this point in time, it is unknown if B61-12 shipments to Europe have begun. If not, it appears to be imminent. That said, deployment will probably not happen in one move but gradually spread to more and more bases depending on certification and construction at each base.

There are currently six active bases in five European countries with about 100 B61 bombs present in underground Weapons Storage and Security Systems (WS3) inside aircraft shelters. A seventh site in Germany (Ramstein Air Base) is active without weapons present and an eighth site – RAF Lakenheath – has recently been added to the list of WS3 sites being modernized. The revitalization of Lakenheath’s nuclear storage bunkers does not necessarily indicate that US nuclear weapons will return to UK soil, especially since as recently as December 2021, NATO’s Secretary General stated that “we have no plans of stationing any nuclear weapons in any other countries than we already have . . . ” However, the upgrade could be intended to increase NATO’s ability to redistribute the B61 bombs in times of heightened tensions, or to potentially move them out of Turkey in the future. In addition, four other sites have inactive (possibly mothballed) vaults (see map below).

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Featured image: C-17As of the 62nd Airlift Wing at Joint Base Lewis-McChord near Seattle have been cleared to transport new B61-12 nuclear bomb. (Source: Federation of American Scientists)

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The Williams Lake First Nation of British Columbia has announced discovery of another 66 sites which are possibly the graves of children on land of the St. Joseph Mission Residential School which closed in 1981. 93 suspected burial sites were previously announced. Control of the school passed from the Catholic Mission to the federal government in 1969. Approximately two thousand “anomalies” or possible graves have been detected by earth scanning instruments. Historical records indicated the deaths of only sixteen of the attending children. Geophysical analysis has been applied to 34 hectares so far of the 782 hectares to be assessed.

In response to a class action suit brought by 325 First Nations, the Trudeau government (awaiting court approval) has awarded a 2.8 billion dollar settlement, for a Trust which will attempt to repair damages caused by residential schooling. Funding to recompense individual damages was previously provided under the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement, approved by all parties in 2006 and Canada’s courts in 2007, costing the government $1.9 billion. An additional 27 million dollars was provided in 2021 to investigate unmarked graves.

There’s still a problem with this way of proceeding with historical crimes that have contravened the Convention on Genocide. Paying off damaged survivors of a genocide without addressing through the law the atrocities committed, suggests pay-offs as a business expense for the worst crimes known to humankind. But genocide isn’t simply an intentional crime against in this case Indigenous people, it’s a crime against society. As a crime against humanity, its acts are not acceptable which society states by applying its legal system. Most of those directly responsible for the crimes of residential schools have passed away.

The challenge of a future which will not be at the service of these crimes of the past, or allow further crimes to protect the established colonial cultures, might be to identify and adjudicate the actual crimes committed, both under domestic law and the Convention on Genocide which has no statute of limitations. Does it seem ridiculous to apply the full force of international law to clerics and government administrators who furthered the crimes of residential schooling? This possibility is rigorously avoided by the government, Canada’s left wing and right wing, and all Canadian media and alternative media.

Without confronting genocide under law, ie. at court, there is little to discourage its continuation. Nightslantern.ca has noted about 50 informal genocide warnings for Indigenous peoples in Canada since 2005. To note one recent specific case: the Sipekne’katik First Nation.

In 2020 attempts were made to shut down the independent lobstering of the Sipekne’katik. The Nation’s boats were harassed on the water, one burned at the dock, gear was stolen. Then a warehouse of its harvest was burned to the ground by a mob of commercial fishermen, and the Band’s people threatened all in front of police and Department of Fisheries and Oceans personnel who were continually monitoring the First Nation for fisheries infractions. Terrorized by the crimes and threats against their people the community appealed to police, and the provincial and federal governments for help. The appeals were minimally answered leaving the Band’s community under threat for its safety.

These crimes, the terrorization of the Band, the damages to the Band’s fleet and gear, furthered commercial fishing interests in Nova Scotia, furthering control of a lucrative and powerful billion dollar lobstering industry.

Increasingly the Canadian media portrayed lobstering by the Sipekne’katik as illegal, in this way supporting commercial interests which in turn were supported by the actions of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. The DOF, police and Coast Guard continued to confiscate First Nation’s fishing gear and lobster traps and catch, as if these were illegal. The Sipekne’katik lobstering effort was an independent Indigenous fishery allowed by the Supreme Court Marshall decision in 1999 which however was followed by an unsettled legal ambivalence the government has relied on to assert its control of Indigenous business, ie. the commercial season, the amounts of catch etc. (This is familiar ‘Indian management’ policy from the 1800s on the prairies when a Band’s food production was limited to consumption but its farmer’s were not allowed sell their produce).

Without protection of its legal rights to fish, without protection for the safety of its community from corporate interests and those relying on payment from commercial fishing, the Sipekne’katik Band had no recourse for its protection. The Band’s response was to register a complaint with the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD). The Government of Canada was legally bound to answer by July 14, 2021 but ignored the request until March 14th, 2022 and its explanation wasn’t released to the public. The Band limited lobstering to harvesting a “moderate livelihood” (a food, social ceremonial FSC license) which doesn’t allow commercial sale of the harvest.

Then in August of 2021 the self regulated Sipekne’katik treaty fishery opened its season, without DOF approval. Chief Michael Sacks saw this as an attempt to lift his community out of poverty. He was arrested by fisheries officers, then released and hassled. His gear was confiscated. The Band’s gear and traps were taken. In the past two years 7000 of the Band’s lobster traps were sabotaged, or confiscated by Canada’s Department of Fisheries without clear legal justification: on January 9th Nova Scotia Judge Tim Landry, threw out the arrests of three Sipekne’katik fishermen because the government prosecution hadn’t established a legal basis for their prosecution.

Chief Sacks has since been replaced by the community’s first woman chief, Michelle Glasgow. Last Spring the federal government gave the Sipekne’katik First Nation $326,700 for research on the site of the Maritimes residential school, Shubenacadie, which processed Indigenous students from 1930 to 1967, funded by the federal government and managed by the Catholic Church. Official histories of the school are usually accompanied by trauma warnings. Despite testimony to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and from school survivors no unmarked Indigenous graves have yet been identified.

Time passing mutes the community’s fear, and ignores the commercial fishermen’s quandary of having to support company interests, the source of their livelihoods, against the human and legal rights of the Indigenous people. The federal government is paying the Sipekne’katik community which is the second largest Mi’kmaq band in Nova Scotia, an allocation of 2.73 million dollars toward 20 housing units for some of the Band’s homeless, as part of a larger initiative to create housing across the North. The government is aware of the Band’s poverty in a lethal climate, yet deprives the Band’s industry a living. The pay off coincides with the deprivation of what were once legally assured Indigenous rights.

These rights are recognized by Canada’s Senate. In July 2022, a Senate report asked the Federal government A., to let the Mi’kmaq independent fishery move forward under its own rights, and B., for obvious reasons to transfer negotiations with the Indigenous fisheries from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, to Crown-Indigenous Relations. The Senate report affirmed the rights of the Indigenous bands to at least co-manage the fisheries, currently crippled by DOF laws and control. And the Senate report affirmed the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

There is a continual struggle within the national fabric of Canada, within the government, about righting the course of history toward the hope for justice. Consider Dr. Peter Henderson Bryce’s report in 1907 on the lethal health conditions of Residential Schools and his The Story of a National Crime: Being a Record of the Health Conditions of the Indians of Canada from 1904 to 1921, in 1922. Or the sound efforts of the 1996 Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, and the reluctant but gradual acceptance of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People. Against the good sense of the Senate report is a deeply entrenched network of privilege and profit serving corporate wealth, with no concern for the survival of any peoples.

The Senate report and the Sipekne’katik First Nation deserve the support of genocide prevention organizations such the Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies (MIGS), but with government funds MIGS hasn’t to my knowledge addressed any crimes against North America’s Indigenous people. It does properly address the Holocaust, issues affecting Rwanda, and many other areas prone to violations of human rights. Domestic considerations of genocide are dealt with more directly by former European colonies in South America. In Brazil former President Bolsonaro is under investigation for genocide in his treatment of the Yanomami Indians. In Peru sitting President Boluarte and at east five of her Ministers and former Ministers are under criminal investigation for allegations of genocide among other crimes, as a result of the murder by authorities of largely Indigenous and Mestizo worker-protesters. Here in Canada it’s an ongoing tension, eased by the sincere good intentions of so many Canadians, betrayed by political subservience to corporate profit.

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This article was originally published on the author’s blog site, nightslantern.ca.

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I received an email ostensibly from President Joe Biden the other morning which scared the hell out of me. It was the usual plea for money but the headline read “Philip, our work is far from over!” suggesting to me that the White House is seeking to do even more damage to the country in the months to come! In it, Joe claimed that he had created millions of jobs and expanded access to healthcare among other lesser achievements in his two-plus years in office. I must have somehow missed those benefits and was left wondering about the millions of illegal immigrants who have been pouring across our southern border as well as the avoidable war in Ukraine that is on the verge of going nuclear and the soaring interest rates and energy costs here at home.

And also here on the domestic front there is the declaration of de facto war against the so-called white supremacists who apparently seeking to overthrow our democracy by putting their feet up on Nancy Pelosi’s desk, presumably because they are angry and confused due to the fact that they lack melanin. And then there is the question of our democracy itself with corruption rearing its ugly head from both leading parties and the clear weaponization and exploitation of the powers granted to our national security apparatus to seek to criminally influence national elections.

One might ask why I allow myself to be terrorized by emails from Joe and Kamala on a regular basis, but it is all part of my desire to keep an eye on both major parties and their antics. I also hear from the Republicans to include such dangerous creatures as Donald Trump himself and the execrable Senators Lindsey Graham, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio.

So if Joe is able to raise tons of money from his freak show constituents, what do we have to look forward to in the months remaining before the 2024 election? Well, the foreign policy front is looking particularly bad. The recent unfortunate decision to send a company of high maintenance Abrams tanks to Ukraine will not alter the probable outcome of the war and invites reciprocity from Russia. What will Joe do if Vladimir Putin uses his superior missile capability to destroy the tanks one by one as they are delivered, possibly killing US military advisers who are training the Ukrainians on their intricacies?

The Ukraine war is not unlike recent commitments in places like Afghanistan, Syria, Libya and Iraq where only essentially phony national security interests were contrived to support the military interventions against countries too weak to pose any real threat. The Taliban, Bashar al-Assad, Moammar Ghaddafi and Saddam Hussein did not actually threaten the United States or any vital interests and it required an airhead like Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to conjure up imagery of Iraqi nuclear devices delivered by huge transatlantic gliders and exploding over Washington to create a fiction to explain the raison d’etre for the war to the public. A couple of million lives and a few trillion dollars later the positive results obtained from all the interventions are somewhat hard to discern.

One might suggest that the problem with the United States stems from the belief that it is and should be the world’s hegemon based on some sort of manifest destiny that no one ever actually bothers to describe. The concept of a “rules based international order” governed by rules known only to Washington and special friends in places like London and Jerusalem has left much of the rest of the world scratching its collective head.

There is real danger that the United States, like the Bourbon Kings of France, never forgets anything but never learns anything either. Even though Americans gain absolutely nothing from their sacrifice, Joe Biden will no doubt continue as part of “our work is far from over” the extremely dangerous conflict in Ukraine “until Kiev wins” and Russia is presumably repulsed and weakened. If that does not take place by 2024, billions of dollars more will be dumped into the money hole and many more Ukrainians, Russians and quite like also Americans will die.

But even more dangerous than continuation of the status quo in Ukraine is the possible series of disasters deriving from commitments made by the White House with other foreign regimes that will inevitably lead to more national security policy disasters. I am thinking particularly of China/Taiwan and Israel versus much of the Middle East. One might also add tension with North Korea over its nuclear program.

There are reports that new Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy is planning a tripto Taiwan to assure that country’s leadership of unlimited US support against hypothetical Chinese aggression. In so doing, he is duplicating a visit made by his predecessor Nancy Pelosi in July 2022, which produced precisely what was not desired, i.e. aggressive countermoves by Beijing. US ability to deter China is in any event problematical and China is a major trading partner which manufactures a large percentage of the products that are sold on the US and European markets. Taiwan for its part does not particularly welcome a more aggressive American defense of what are its own interests, as such moves will only guarantee problems with Beijing. So where will it all go? Tell us Joe.

And then there is Israel. Israel’s new government, again headed by former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has shifted hard to the right, incorporating as it does the extremist settlers’ movement as well as parties that have spoken casually of forcing the Palestinians out and even of extermination if it comes to that. Half of Israelis are comfortable with the Arabs having minimal civil rights even if they are Israeli citizens and many accept the desirability of forced expatriation of the Palestinians to neighboring states like Jordan or Lebanon. Arab residents of Israel have only limited legal rights and, contrary to the Lobby’s constant assertion that Israel is a “democracy,” Israel in reality became an apartheid state by law when it in 2018 declared itself to be legally the nation state of the Jews with “exclusive right of self-determination.”

More recently Netanyahu has made clear exactly what his government stands for. In late December, he stated that “the Jewish people have an exclusive and inalienable right to all parts of the Land of Israel. The government will promote and develop the settlement of all parts of the Land of Israel.” He was explicitly including the West Bank and even Gaza, which have long been the presumed to be the possible territory of a future Palestinian state.

The wag-the-dog support of the new Israeli government’s extreme nationalism and racism combined is not good for Americans and is a formula for trouble yet the United States government has, if anything, fully embraced it. Both Biden and his ambassador in Israel Thomas Nides have praised the new regime. Washington has also recently deepened military ties with the Jewish state by moving it to a new position in CENTCOM that has elevated the relationship to the status of “full military partner” in terms of strategizing and planning. That definition is close to a commitment to a “full military alliance” that obligates the US to come to Israel’s defense if a war begins in the region, even if Israel starts it. The Pentagon has also for the first time participated in a large-scale joint military exercise which included a simulated attack on Iran.

So if you get an email from Joe Biden saying “our work far from over,” be warned! The “work” sounds like a lot more bloodshed and war forever. If you can find a place where you will likely not be impacted by a nuclear war breaking out, it might be best to move there right now. Otherwise, there could be some rough skating ahead. As I reported in an earlier article, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is warning that there is a definite shortage of fallout shelters in the United States, so be prepared to hunker down in your basement, if you are lucky enough to have one. Follow the instructions in your “nuclear detonation planning guide” then “Get inside, stay inside, and stay tuned.” Sage advice if you still have electricity and the tv and radio stations haven’t also been nuked. Thank you Joe Biden!

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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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It seems to be a case of little provision for so much supposed effect.  The debates, the squabbles, the to-and-fro about supplying Ukraine with tanks from Western arsenals has served to confirm one thing: this is an ever-broadening war between the West against Russia with Ukraine an experimental proxy convinced it will win through.  Efforts to limit the deepening conflict continue to be seen as the quailing sentiments of appeasers, the wobbly types who find democracy a less than lovable thing.

So far, promises have been made to ship the US M1A2 Abrams, Germany’s Leopard 2 and the UK’s Challenger.  Others have alluded to doing the same thing – including France regarding its Leclerc tanks – but tardiness fills the ranks, and logistics will make the provision of such weapons a long affair. Re-export licenses will have to be issued, notably regarding the Leopard 2; training Ukrainian tank crews will also need to be undertaken.

All in all, the picture is not as rosy as those in Kyiv think, despite the confident assessment from Ukraine’s Deputy Foreign Minister, Andriy Melnyk that his country’s defence forces would have access to “at least a hundred tanks” within three months.

The US tanks are, for the most part, still grounded in their country of origin, with their deployment potentially delayed for months, if not years.  Pentagon deputy spokesperson Sabrina Singh was frank in admitting that, “We just don’t have these tanks available in excess in our US stocks, which is why it is going to take months to transfer these M1A2 Abrams to Ukraine.” Singh, it should also be remembered, expressed the department’s view earlier this month that the tank was hardly suitable for Ukrainian needs, given how its jet turbine engine hungers for JP-8 jet fuel, unlike the diesel engine used by the Leopard and Challenger counterparts.

The engine is also rather tricky to maintain for crews, leaving it susceptible to blowing in the event of error.  No less an authority than the Pentagon press secretary US Air Force brigadier general Pat Ryder, admitted that the M-1 “is a complex weapons system that is challenging to maintain, as we’ve talked about.  That was true yesterday; it’s true today; it will be true in the future.”

There is also a backlog of orders for the tank.  The Lima facility in Ohio, operated by General Dynamics, is the only facility that assembles the Abrams.  It can produce a mere 12 tanks per month and must fulfill orders to supply 250 A2 tanks for Poland starting in 2025 to replace the same number of Soviet-era T-72 tanks Warsaw supplied to Kyiv last year. Taiwan also put in an order for 108 M1A2 tanks in 2019.  Even getting to work on the 31 units promised by the Biden administration for Ukraine looks to be ambitious.

The wrangling over supplying Ukraine with tanks has been an at times acrimonious affair.  This is hardly surprising.  European states have their own specific readings, however dark or cautious, about how to approach the supply issue.  The magic number being sought by Kyiv is 300.  After initial resistance, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz gave in to his peers, both in his coalition outside, to send a company of Leopard 2 tanks and permit countries with the same tanks in their inventories to supply them to Kyiv.  A fortnight of aggressive chatter at a number of venues, including Ramstein Air Base, pressing the flesh and breathing down various necks, saw a change of heart and, it has to be said, weak will on the part of the Chancellor.

It is impossible to see how the provision of such weapons, against a larger enemy with no evident sign of capitulation and determined to maintain the fight in the field, however slapdash and ailing, will be a “gamechanger”.  That word ought to be scrapped from any credible analysis, but we see it used repeatedly in the tabloid certitude of final victory.

There is Ed Arnold of the Royal United Services Institute, who is confident that this tank transfer “will make a real difference.”  But even Arnold attaches a few caveats, noting that much will depend on how Ukraine uses them.  “Do they put them straight into the fight as soon as they’re available?  Or do they integrate them into larger formations, train and rehearse those larger formations, and spend a bit more time integrating them into the way that they fight to then potentially use in the summer?”

Whatever the answer to such questions, this is a war that will yield no victors and will, in guaranteed fashion, make a mockery of victory.  And the only cruel reality here, short of needless oblivion through imbecilic error of judgment, is to get the warring parties to the table to reach an agreement that is bound to cause despair as much as relief.  It might, as unpalatable as it seems, require Ukraine to surrender a portion of devastated earth in the east.  The unthinkable will have to be entertained.

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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge.  He currently lectures at RMIT University. He is a regular contributor to Global Research and Asia-Pacific Research. Email: [email protected]

Featured image: A US Army Stryker armored vehicle (Source: Antiwar.com)

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“Never Again Is Now Global,” a five-part docuseries highlighting the parallels between Nazi Germany and global pandemic policies, will premier exclusively, for free on CHD.TV beginning Monday, Jan. 30, at 7 p.m. EST.

The Alliance for Human Research Protection, founded by Holocaust survivor and human rights activist Vera Sharav, produced the film and Sharav directed it.

Each one-hour episode focuses on recent testimonies by Holocaust survivors and their descendants who discuss comparisons between the early repressive stages under the Nazi regime that culminated in the Holocaust and global COVID-19 policies.

Individuals featured in the docuseries explain how Nazi interventions — including the suspension of freedoms, imposition of lockdowns, coerced medical procedures and identity passports — are similar to modern-day dictatorial constraints on citizens worldwide.

Unlike typical documentaries about the Holocaust that steer clear of identifying the financial and corporate sponsors behind the Nazis, “Never Again Is Now Global” exposes the financial interests that drove the Holocaust.

Survivors explain how modern-day companies, including General Motors, Ford Motor Company, IBM and conglomerates like IG Farben, secretly profiteered from slave labor camps and industrial genocide during the Nazi regime.

“Until now, anyone who has attempted to draw attention to or make even modest comparisons between the present-day pandemic schemes and the Nazi era has invited a barrage of angry, sustained criticism from financially compromised Holocaust gatekeepers and corporate news media,” Sharav said. “We made the film to change that.”

In addition to testimonials and insights from Holocaust survivors and their families, the series also includes comments and analyses by historians, professors, doctors, rabbis, activists and scientists — one of whom was Pfizer’s former vice president and chief scientist — from around the world.

The 32 participants in the series tell their stories, share their opinions and deliver this urgent message: Today’s false narrative, suspension of freedoms, medical dictates and violations of human rights are reminiscent of the Nazi playbook. This time, the repressive measures are not limited to Jews — today’s false narrative targets the entire global population.

As a young child, the Nazis deported Sharav to a concentration camp, from which she narrowly escaped with her life. She encourages people to watch the docuseries with an open mind.

“The Holocaust was only possible because of mass obedience to authority,” Sharav said. “Our survival rests on our willingness to resist oppressive, unlawful orders.”

Sharav added:

“Those who resisted — by falsifying their identity, by jumping off the trains to Auschwitz and joining the partisans — were more likely to survive than those who obeyed.”

During the docuseries, Sharav shares the story of her son Amikhai, who died from an adverse reaction to an allegedly “safe and effective” prescription drug doctors prescribed for him.

After her son’s death, Sharav became a full-time outspoken activist, founded the Alliance for Human Research Protection, a nonprofit organization whose “mission is to ensure that the moral right of voluntary medical decision-making is upheld,” and began to raise concerns about harmful medical practices and unethical medical experiments.

Never Again Is Now Global Trailer

Click here to watch the trailer.

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The Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) was established by Proclamation of the Hawaiian Kingdom Council of Regency on June 17, 2019, yet there has been no coverage in either the mainstream media or the alternative media. Most people are simply not aware that the Hawaiian Islands have been under a prolonged and illegal occupation by the United States since January 17, 1893.

What is the RCI, its mandate and its investigative authority? This brief article will attempt to answer these questions and, consequently, bring a broader awareness of the American occupation.

A simple Google search of Larsen v. Hawaiian Kingdom will reveal that the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) in The Hague, Netherlands, acknowledged the Hawaiian Kingdom to be a State or country and its government is the Council of Regency. This continued existence of the Hawaiian Kingdom as a country was not affected by the illegality or duration of the American occupation. The PCA was established in 1899 by the United States and other countries to resolve international disputes.

In 1999, arbitration proceedings were initiated at the PCA between a Hawaiian national and the government of the Hawaiian Kingdom—the Council of Regency. The dispute centered on the unlawful imposition of American laws over the territory of the Hawaiian Kingdom. At the PCA’s website, it states:

Lance Paul Larsen, a resident of Hawaii, brought a claim against the Hawaiian Kingdom by its Council of Regency (“Hawaiian Kingdom”) on the grounds that the Government of the Hawaiian Kingdom is in continual violation of: (a) its 1849 Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Navigation with the United States of America, as well as the principles of international law laid down in the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, 1969 and (b) the principles of international comity, for allowing the unlawful imposition of American municipal laws over the claimant’s person within the territorial jurisdiction of the Hawaiian Kingdom.

Larsen was not able to maintain his lawsuit without the participation of the United States, despite being formally invited by the parties, because it was the United States that caused the injury to him and not the Council of Regency. He was claiming the Council of Regency was liable for the injury by allowing the imposition of American laws, which the Council rejected. Consequently, the United States was a necessary third party.

Source: freehawaii.blogspot.com

However, for the Council of Regency, the significance of this case is the PCA’s acknowledgment of the Hawaiian Kingdom’s continued existence as a State before the arbitral tribunal was established. Before the PCA could form the arbitral tribunal to resolve the international dispute, Article 47 of the 1907 PCA Convention required that one of the parties had to be a State. The proceedings were initiated on November 8, 1999, and the arbitral tribunal was formed on June 9, 2000, which is after the PCA verified the Hawaiian Kingdom to be an existing State.

The United States, which is a contracting State to the 1907 PCA Convention and a member State of the PCA Administrative Council, did not object to these proceedings and even entered into an agreement with Larsen and the Council of Regency to have access to all records and pleadings of the case. This agreement was brokered by Phyllis Hamilton, Deputy Secretary General of the PCA, between the parties and the American Embassy in The Hague. For more information on this case, download the article “Backstory—Larsen v. Hawaiian Kingdom at the Permanent Court of Arbitration (1999-2001).”

In 2005, the United Nations at its World Summit adopted the principle of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) its populations from genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing. In 2009, the General Assembly reaffirmed the principle, and in 2021, the General Assembly passed a resolution on “The responsibility to protect and the prevention of genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.”

According to the International Committee of the Red Cross Study on Customary International Humanitarian Law, Rule 158 specifies that “States must investigate war crimes allegedly committed by their nationals or armed forces, or on their territory, and, if appropriate, prosecute the suspects. They must also investigate other war crimes over which they have jurisdiction and, if appropriate, prosecute the suspects.” This “rule that States must investigate war crimes and prosecute the suspects is set forth in numerous military manuals, with respect to grave breaches, but also more broadly with respect to war crimes in general.”

Picture of Queen Lili’uokalani, Hawai’i’s last queen, who was overthrown in a U.S. invasion on January 17, 1893. [Source: Hawai’i Archives]

While Larsen was not able to maintain his suit against the Council of Regency, it did bring to the attention of the international community the war crime of usurpation of sovereignty during military occupation. Usurpation of sovereignty during military occupation is the imposition of the laws and administrative policies of the Occupying State over the territory of the Occupied State. It was declared to be a war crime in the aftermath of the First World War by the Commission on Responsibilities in its 1919 report, to which the United States was a party.

In the annex of its 1919 report, the Commission charged that in Romania the German authorities had instituted German civil courts to try disputes between subjects of the Central Powers or between a subject of these powers and a Romanian, a neutral, or subjects of Germany’s enemies.” In Serbia, the Bulgarian authorities had “Proclaimed that the Serbian State no longer existed, and that Serbian territory had become Bulgarian.”

It listed several other war crimes committed by Bulgaria in occupied Serbia: “Serbian law, courts and administration ousted”; “Taxes collected under Bulgarian fiscal regime”; “Serbian currency suppressed”; “Public property removed or destroyed, including books, archives and MSS (e.g., from the National Library, the University Library, Serbian Legation at Sofia, French Consulate at Uskub).” It also charged that the German and Austrian authorities had committed several war crimes in Serbia: “The Austrians suspended many Serbian laws and substituted their own, especially in penal matters, in procedure, judicial organization, etc.”

The war crime of usurpation of sovereignty during military occupation was referred to by Judge Blair of the American Military Commission in a separate opinion in the Justice Case, that “This rule is incident to military occupation and was clearly intended to protect the inhabitants of any occupied territory against the unnecessary exercise of sovereignty by a military occupant.” Australia, Netherlands and China enacted laws making usurpation of sovereignty during military occupation a war crime. In the case of Australia, the Parliament enacted the Australian War Crimes Act in 1945 that included the war crime of usurpation of sovereignty during military occupation.

This war crime is also considered particular customary international law and binding on the Allied Powers of the First World War, whether they enacted a domestic law or not. The Treaty of Versailles listed these countries, which include the United States of America, Great Britain, France, Italy and Japan, principal Allied Powers and Associated Powers that include Australia, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, China, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, now known as Czech Republic, Ecuador, Greece, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Liberia, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Romania, South Africa, Thailand, and Uruguay.

In the Hawaiian situation, usurpation of sovereignty during military occupation serves as a source for the commission of other war crimes within the territory of the Hawaiian Kingdom, which includes the war crimes of compulsory enlistment, denationalization, pillage, destruction of property, deprivation of fair and regular trial, deporting civilians of the occupied territory, and transferring populations into an occupied territory. The reasoning for the prohibition of imposing extraterritorial prescriptions or measures of the occupying State is addressed by Professor Eyal Benvenisti:

The occupant may not surpass its limits under international law through extra­territorial prescriptions emanating from its national institutions: the legislature, government, and courts. The reason for this rule is, of course, the functional symmetry, with respect to the occupied territory, among the various lawmak­ing authorities of the occupying state. Without this symmetry, Article 43 could become meaningless as a constraint upon the occupant, since the occupation administration would then choose to operate through extraterritorial prescription of its national institutions.

On March 22, 2022, the United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC) was made aware that the war crime of usurpation of sovereignty was and continues to be committed by the United States over the territory of the Hawaiian Kingdom, when the author, on behalf of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers and the American Association of Jurists both of which are NGOs with observer status to the HRC, delivered an oral statement.

The RCI was established in similar fashion to the United States proposal of establishing a Commission of Inquiry after the First World War “to consider generally the relative culpability of the authors of the war and also the question of their culpability as to the violations of the laws and customs of war committed during its course.”

In accordance with Hawaiian administrative precedence in addressing crises, the RCI was established by “virtue of the prerogative of the Crown provisionally vested in [the Council of Regency] in accordance with Article 33 of the 1864 Constitution, and to ensure a full and thorough investigation into the violations of international humanitarian law and human rights within the territorial jurisdiction of the Hawaiian Kingdom.” The author has been designated as Head of the Royal Commission, and Dr. Federico Lenzerini, Ph.D., as Deputy Head. Pursuant to Article 3—Composition of the Royal Commission, the Head of the Royal Commission has been authorized to seek “recognized experts in various fields.”

The RCI acquired legal opinions from the following experts in international law: on the subject of the continuity of the Hawaiian Kingdom under international law, Professor Matthew Craven from the University of London, SOAS, School of Law; on the subject of the elements of war crimes committed in the Hawaiian Kingdom since 1893, Professor William Schabas, Middlesex University London, School of Law; and on the subject of human rights violations in the Hawaiian Kingdom and the right of self-determination by the Hawaiian citizenry, Professor Federico Lenzerini, University of Siena, Italy, Department of Political and International Studies.

These experts, to include the Head of the Royal Commission, are the authors of chapters 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 of Part II of the Royal Commission’s eBook—The Royal Commission of Inquiry: Investigating War Crimes and Human Rights Violations Committed in the Hawaiian Kingdom.

According to Article 1(2) of the proclamation, “The purpose of the Royal Commission shall be to investigate the consequences of the United States’ belligerent occupation, including with regard to international law, humanitarian law and human rights, and the allegations of war crimes committed in that context. The geographical scope and time span of the investigation will be sufficiently broad and be determined by the head of the Royal Commission.”

The Royal Commission began by providing Preliminary Reports on various subjects relative to its mandate and its investigation of war crimes that meet the constituent elements of mens rea—criminal intent, and actus reus—the act or acts of committing the crime.

In mid-November of 2022, the RCI published its initial criminal and war criminal reports no. 22-0001, 22-0002, 22-0002-1, 22-0003, 22-0003-1, 22-0004, 22-0004-1, 22-0005, 22-0005-1, 22-0006, 22-0006-1, 22-0007, 22-0007-1, 22-0008 and 22-0009.

These reports identified senior leadership of the United States, the State of Hawai’i, and its Counties, which include President Joseph Biden and State of Hawai’i Governor David Ige, to be guilty of committing the war crimes of usurpation of sovereignty during military occupation, deprivation of fair and regular trial, and pillage. The RCI criminal reports provide the necessary evidence for the issuance of arrest warrants and prosecution by foreign countries.

Usurpation of sovereignty has not only victimized the civilian population in the Hawaiian Islands for more than a century, but it has also victimized the civilians of other countries that have visited the islands since 1898 who were unlawfully subjected to American municipal laws and administrative measures. These include State of Hawai’i sales tax on goods purchased in the islands but also taxes placed exclusively on tourists’ accommodations collected by the State of Hawai’i and the Counties.

The Counties have recently added 3% surcharges to the State of Hawai’i’s 10.25% transient accommodations tax. Added with the State of Hawai’i’s general excise tax of 4% in addition to the 0.5% County general excise tax surcharges, civilians who are visiting the islands will be paying a total of 17.75% to the occupying power. In addition, those civilians of foreign countries doing business in the Hawaiian Islands are also subjected to paying American duties on goods that are imported to the United States destined to Hawai’i. These duty rates are collected by the United States according to the United States Tariff Act of 1930, as amended, and the Trade Agreements Act of 1979.

The far reach of the victims of war crimes committed in the Hawaiian Islands includes civilians throughout the world in various countries.

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Dr. Keanu Sai is Head of the Royal Commission of Inquiry. He also served as lead Agent for the Hawaiian Kingdom in Larsen v. Hawaiian Kingdom at the Permanent Court of Arbitration from 1999-2001. Dr. Sai is also a faculty member at the University of Hawai‘i where he teaches political science and Hawaiian Studies in both undergraduate and graduate courses. Dr. Sai can be reached at https://hawaiiankingdom.org/blog/.

Featured image is from ahakanaka.com

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Western intentions to arm Estonia with the most modern types of conventional weapons which can target Saint Petersburg, as well as the installation of a medium-range anti-missile defence system, suggests that the Baltic country is wanting to challenge Russia despite its military barely even having enough professional soldiers to field a single battalion. At the same time, and just as provocative, Estonian authorities discussed an introduction of a 24 nautical mile coastal zone in the Gulf of Finland to limit the navigation of Russian ships.

It is demonstrated that Estonia is a highly active anti-Russian state that hopes its actions will receive Western tributes and rewards. However, in pursuing this goal, the Baltic country is going as far as wanting to break international law by restricting Russian shipping in waters it has a right to navigate through.

Moscow has repeatedly warned that attempts to deploy offensive NATO weapons will immediately provoke retaliatory steps. By Estonia wanting to place weapon systems that can target Russia’s second largest city, it cannot be discounted that the Russian military will deploy the Iskander system or another type of weapon to completely cover Estonia’s sea, land and air territory.

It is recalled that Lithuania attempted to blockade the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad in 2022 by stopping rail and road transportation and attempted to justify the action because of the EU’s sanctions regime. This quickly failed as a military and economic blockade can lead to a ‘casus belli’ – a reason for war, which would not insure Lithuania under NATO’s “mutual defence” article.

Larger European NATO countries are rotating their units, as well as military equipment, including aviation and F-16 fighter jets, in the Baltic countries. The Baltic countries are full of foreign soldiers and equipment as they themselves cannot ensure their own security despite implementing policies that are extremely provocative and hostile to Russia.

The Russian ambassador in Tallinn, Vladimir Lipayev, who disclosed that Western countries plan to supply Estonia with the most modern types of conventional weapons, also said that the Anglos had an interest in creating an anti-Russian outpost in the Baltic country in order to carry out economic, political, cultural and military pressure on Russia.

However, the Baltic countries are playing with fire as the Ukraine war has demonstrated that Russia is capable of demilitarizing hostile states. Even Ukraine, which has all the resources of the West behind it and the second largest army in Europe after Russia, is failing to stem back the tide of war and territorial loss.

With the Ukrainian military appearing to be on course for an imminent collapse in 2023, the US and UK are escalating tensions so that continuous conflict can drain Russia’s resources and attention. An internationalized effort to involve as many countries as possible in a confrontation with Russia only puts countries under a puppet status at risk of Russian retaliation, as Ukraine shows.

As said, if Estonia were to blockade Russian ships, it cannot be protected under NATO’s Article 5 as it initiated the hostility by breaking international law. Understandably, the leading countries of the EU do not want to be exposed to a Russian counterattack, which is why the Baltics and Poland are being used as cannon fodder instead – just as Ukraine currently is.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, a dividing line in the middle of the Gulf of Finland was agreed upon between Russia and newly independent Estonia. From this middle line, Finland and Estonia retreated three kilometres to allow Russia a six-kilometre channel for the free passage of Russian merchant and military fleets, thus actually making these international waters. In order to blockade Russia in the Gulf of Finland, it is necessary for Finland to implement the same policy. If Tallin unilaterally introduces such a zone in its territorial waters, then Russia has the option to use the Finnish part of the gulf.

For now, there is no indication that Finland plans to block Russian ships. If Finland and Estonia were to block Russian shipping, Moscow would have a strong case to appeal to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, something that would surely humiliate a country like Finland which likes to pride itself on supposedly adhering to international law very strictly.

Therefore, although the Estonian side may be enthusiastic in enforcing anti-Russian measures on the encouragement of Anglo countries, there is a likelihood that regional countries like Finland and Germany will not want a new front of tensions with Russia and will attempt to coerce the Baltic country to moderate its attitude.

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

Featured image is from OneWorld

Colossal Financial Pyramid: BlackRock and the WEF “Great Reset”

By F. William Engdahl, January 31, 2023

A virtually unregulated investment firm today exercises more political and financial influence than the Federal Reserve and most governments on this planet. The firm, BlackRock Inc., the world’s largest asset manager, invests a staggering $9 trillion in client funds worldwide, a sum more than double the annual GDP of the Federal Republic of Germany.

57 Top Scientists and Doctors Release Shocking Study on COVID Vaccines and Demand Immediate Stop to All Vaccinations

By Dr. Roxana Bruno, Dr. Peter McCullough, and et al., January 31, 2023

While we recognize the effort involved in development, production and emergency authorization of SARS-CoV-2 vaccines, we are concerned that risks have been minimized or ignored by health organizations and government authorities, despite calls for caution.

The COVID Pandemic and the mRNA Vaccine: What Is the Truth? Dr. Russell L. Blaylock

By Dr. Russell Blaylock, January 31, 2023

The media (TV, newspapers, magazines, etc), medical societies, state medical boards and the owners of social media have appointed themselves to be the sole source of information concerning this so-called “pandemic”.

“In a nuclear war the collateral damage would be the life of all humanity”. Fidel Castro

By Fidel Castro Ruz and Prof Michel Chossudovsky, January 30, 2023

A central concept put forth by Fidel Castro in the interview is the ‘Battle of Ideas”. The leader of the Cuban Revolution believes that only a far-reaching “Battle of Ideas” could  change the course of World history. The  objective is to prevent the unthinkable, a nuclear war which threatens to destroy life on earth.

Video: Why Nuclear War Is Planetary Death. Stephen Star Explains

By Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, January 30, 2023

For more than two decades US presidential administrations have been increasing the likelihood of nuclear war with Russia.  It began with Bill Clinton violating the word of the US government not to move NATO to Russia’s border.  Successive US presidents since have undone all the trust-building agreements achieved during the 20th century Cold War. 

New Zealand’s Modern-Day Dystopia. The Imposition of Medical Tyranny

By Timothy Alexander Guzman, January 30, 2023

There is an interesting correlation in New Zealand between banning Semi-Automatic Weapons, its Covid-19 lockdowns and now censorship of a popular news magazine called ‘New Dawn’ which seems like old times.  In other words, New Zealand has become a Nazi-inspired police state that took place before and during World War II that would have made Adolf Hitler extremely proud.

The Ultimatum of the West to Serbia. “The Basic Agreement” on Kosovo and Metohija

By Živadin Jovanović, January 30, 2023

If the wording of the ‘Basic Agreement’ presented by the western “Great Five” (EU, USA, Germany, France, Italy) on Kosovo and Metohija which has been circulated for a while in the Albanian media and as of January 20 in the Serbian social networks as well, is anywhere close to the authentic one, it cannot be viewed as any sort of an agreement — but rather as an ultimatum compelling Serbia to de facto recognize the enforced secession of her Province.

This Time It’s Different. Neither We Nor Our Allies Are Prepared to Fight All-out War with Russia, Regionally or Globally.

By Douglas Macgregor, January 30, 2023

Until it decided to confront Moscow with an existential military threat in Ukraine, Washington confined the use of American military power to conflicts that Americans could afford to lose, wars with weak opponents in the developing world from Saigon to Baghdad that did not present an existential threat to U.S. forces or American territory. This time—a proxy war with Russia—is different.

Sri Lanka Secures IMF Bailout Amid Global Debt Crisis

By Abayomi Azikiwe, January 30, 2023

The social and economic predicament that Sri Lanka finds itself is part of a recurring pattern for numerous countries and geopolitical regions throughout the world. In regard to developing states on the African continent, the governments of Zambia and Ghana have recently sought IMF bailout packages to address the unsustainable repayment obligations to largely western-based financial institutions.

FDA Advisers Vote to Replace Original COVID Vaccine with Bivalent Boosters Despite Lack of Clinical Trial Data

By Dr. Brenda Baletti, January 30, 2023

Advisers to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Thursday voted unanimously to replace the original Pfizer and Moderna primary series mRNA COVID-19 vaccines with the bivalent boosters designed to target Omicron variants.

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Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME) is urging the Canadian government to strongly condemn Israel’s plans for collective punishment against Palestinians, following a week of heightened violence sparked by Israeli aggression. Israel’s far-right government is preparing to punitively target the family members of a Palestinian attacker who killed 7 Israelis in an East Jerusalem settlement, which took place one day after a deadly Israeli military raid on the Jenin refugee camp which killed at least 10 Palestinians. CJPME warns that Israel’s plan for collective punishment is prohibited under international law, and that such oppressive measures will only inflame further violence.

“Canada must condemn Israel’s illegal plans to arrest and deport Palestinians whose only crime is being related to someone who committed an attack,” said Michael Bueckert, Vice President of CJPME. “This is not about justice but about taking out revenge on innocent people. Unfortunately, Israel appears to be using recent violence as a pretext to dispossess Palestinians from their homes and revoke their citizenship status,” added Bueckert. CJPME urges Canada to address the root causes of violence, which is Israel’s ongoing military occupation, colonization, and apartheid practices.

Last week, Israeli actions in the occupied West Bank sparked a wave of violence. On Thursday, January 26, Israeli occupation forces killed 10 Palestinians during a military raid in the Jenin refugee camp which was condemned by UN rights experts. Among those killed were 61-year old Majida Obaid and 2 children, Wasim Amjad Aref Abu Jaes (age 16) and Abdullah Marwan Juma’a Mousa (age 17). During the attack a community centre was destroyed, an ambulance was shot, and medical teams were prevented from accessing the wounded. The following day, a Palestinian shot and killed 7 Israelis, including 14-year-old Asher Natan, in the East Jerusalem settlement of Neveh Yaakov. Violence continued over the weekend, with a second shooting in East Jerusalem which injured 2 Israelis, and a wave of revenge attacks by Israeli settlers against Palestinian homes, vehicles and property across the occupied West Bank. A statement by Canadian foreign affairs minister Mélanie Joly condemned violence against civilians, including a reference to “recent events in Jenin,” but did not directly address Israeli actions.

In a retaliatory move, Israel’s security cabinet decided on Saturday to advance several measures that constitute collective punishment against the families of those who have committed attacks: these include the demolition of their homes, revoking their social security benefits, revoking their citizenship or residency rights, and deporting them. Collective punishment is prohibited under Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which states that “no protected person may be punished for an offence he or she has not personally committed.” CJPME further notes with alarm that Israel’s National Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, is a supporter of the fascist Kahanist movement and has frequently incited violence and racism against Palestinians, raising serious concerns about the likelihood of his security forces committing severe violence against Palestinians in the coming days.

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Important article first published on May 8, 2021

A group of 57 leading scientists, doctors and policy experts has released a report calling in to question the safety and efficacy of the current COVID-19 vaccines and are now calling for an immediate end to all vaccine programs. We urge you to read and share this damning report.

There are two certainties regarding the global distribution of Covid-19 vaccines. The first is that governments and the vast majority of the mainstream media are pushing with all their might to get these experimental drugs into as many people as possible. The second is that those who are willing to face the scorn that comes with asking serious questions about vaccines are critical players in our ongoing effort to spread the truth.

You can read an advanced copy of this manuscript in preprint below. It has been prepared by nearly five dozen highly respected doctors, scientists, and public policy experts from across the globe to be urgently sent to world leaders as well as all who are associated with the production and distribution of the various Covid-19 vaccines in circulation today.

-enVolve, May 8, 2021

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Original Source: Authorea

SARS-CoV-2 mass vaccination: Urgent questions on vaccine safety that demand answers from international health agencies, regulatory authorities, governments and vaccine developers

Abstract

Since the start of the COVID-19 outbreak, the race for testing new platforms designed to confer immunity against SARS-CoV-2, has been rampant and unprecedented, leading to emergency authorization of various vaccines. Despite progress on early multidrug therapy for COVID-19 patients, the current mandate is to immunize the world population as quickly as possible. The lack of thorough testing in animals prior to clinical trials, and authorization based on safety data generated during trials that lasted less than 3.5 months, raise questions regarding the safety of these vaccines. The recently identified role of SARS-CoV-2 glycoprotein Spike for inducing endothelial damage characteristic of COVID-19, even in absence of infection, is extremely relevant given that most of the authorized vaccines induce the production of Spike glycoprotein in the recipients. Given the high rate of occurrence of adverse effects, and the wide range of types of adverse effects that have been reported to date, as well as the potential for vaccine-driven disease enhancement, Th2-immunopathology, autoimmunity, and immune evasion, there is a need for a better understanding of the benefits and risks of mass vaccination, particularly in the groups that were excluded in the clinical trials. Despite calls for caution, the risks of SARS-CoV-2 vaccination have been minimized or ignored by health organizations and government authorities. We appeal to the need for a pluralistic dialogue in the context of health policies, emphasizing critical questions that require urgent answers if we wish to avoid a global erosion of public confidence in science and public health.

Introduction

Since COVID-19 was declared a pandemic in March 2020, over 150 million cases and 3 million deaths have been reported worldwide. Despite progress on early ambulatory, multidrug-therapy for high-risk patients, resulting in 85% reductions in COVID-19 hospitalization and death [1], the current paradigm for control is mass-vaccination. While we recognize the effort involved in development, production and emergency authorization of SARS-CoV-2 vaccines, we are concerned that risks have been minimized or ignored by health organizations and government authorities, despite calls for caution [2-8].

Vaccines for other coronaviruses have never been approved for humans, and data generated in the development of coronavirus vaccines designed to elicit neutralizing antibodies show that they may worsen COVID-19 disease via antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE) and Th2 immunopathology, regardless of the vaccine platform and delivery method [9-11]. Vaccine-driven disease enhancement in animals vaccinated against SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV is known to occur following viral challenge, and has been attributed to immune complexes and Fc-mediated viral capture by macrophages, which augment T-cell activation and inflammation [11-13].

In March 2020, vaccine immunologists and coronavirus experts assessed SARS-CoV-2 vaccine risks based on SARS-CoV-vaccine trials in animal models. The expert group concluded that ADE and immunopathology were a real concern, but stated that their risk was insufficient to delay clinical trials, although continued monitoring would be necessary [14]. While there is no clear evidence of the occurrence of ADE and vaccine-related immunopathology in volunteers immunized with SARS-CoV-2 vaccines [15], safety trials to date have not specifically addressed these serious adverse effects (SAE). Given that the follow-up of volunteers did not exceed 2-3.5 months after the second dose [16-19], it is unlikely such SAE would have been observed. Despite92 errors in reporting, it cannot be ignored that even accounting for the number of vaccines administered, according to the US Vaccine Adverse Effect Reporting System (VAERS), the number of deaths per million vaccine doses administered has increased more than 10-fold. We believe there is an urgent need for open scientific dialogue on vaccine safety in the context of large-scale immunization. In this paper, we describe some of the risks of mass vaccination in the context of phase 3 trial exclusion criteria and discuss the SAE reported in national and regional adverse effect registration systems. We highlight unanswered questions and draw attention to the need for a more cautious approach to mass vaccination.

SARS-CoV-2 phase 3 trial exclusion criteria

With few exceptions, SARS-CoV-2 vaccine trials excluded the elderly [16-19], making it impossible to identify the occurrence of post-vaccination eosinophilia and enhanced inflammation in elderly people. Studies of SARS-CoV vaccines showed that immunized elderly mice were at particularly high risk of life-threatening Th2 immunopathology [9,20]. Despite this evidence and the extremely limited data on safety and efficacy of SARS-CoV-2 vaccines in the elderly, mass-vaccination campaigns have focused on this age group from the start. Most trials also excluded pregnant and lactating volunteers, as well as those with chronic and serious conditions such as tuberculosis, hepatitis C, autoimmunity, coagulopathies, cancer, and immune suppression [16-29], although these recipients are now being offered the vaccine under the premise of safety.

Another criterion for exclusion from nearly all trials was prior exposure to SARS-CoV-2. This is unfortunate as it denied the opportunity of obtaining extremely relevant information concerning post-vaccination ADE in people that already have anti-SARS-Cov-2 antibodies. To the best of our knowledge, ADE is not being monitored systematically for any age or medical condition group currently being administered the vaccine. Moreover, despite a substantial proportion of the population already having antibodies [21], tests to determine SARS-CoV-2-antibody status prior to administration of the vaccine are not conducted routinely.

Will serious adverse effects from the SARS-CoV-2 vaccines go unnoticed?

COVID-19 encompasses a wide clinical spectrum, ranging from very mild to severe pulmonary pathology and fatal multi-organ disease with inflammatory, cardiovascular, and blood coagulation dysregulation [22-24]. In this sense, cases of vaccine-related ADE or immunopathology would be clinically-indistinguishable from severe COVID-19 [25]. Furthermore, even in the absence of SARS-CoV-2 virus, Spike glycoprotein alone causes endothelial damage and hypertension in vitro and in vivo in Syrian hamsters by down-regulating angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) and impairing mitochondrial function [26]. Although these findings need to be confirmed in humans, the implications of this finding are staggering, as all vaccines authorized for emergency use are based on the delivery or induction of Spike glycoprotein synthesis. In the case of mRNA vaccines and adenovirus-vectorized vaccines, not a single study has examined the duration of Spike production in humans following vaccination. Under the cautionary principle, it is parsimonious to consider vaccine-induced Spike synthesis could cause clinical signs of severe COVID-19, and erroneously be counted as new cases of SARS-CoV-2 infections. If so, the true adverse effects of the current global vaccination strategy may never be recognized unless studies specifically examine this question. There is already non-causal evidence of temporary or sustained increases138 in COVID-19 deaths following vaccination in some countries (Fig. 1) and in light of Spike’s pathogenicity, these deaths must be studied in depth to determine whether they are related to vaccination.

Unanticipated adverse reactions to SARS-CoV-2 vaccines

Another critical issue to consider given the global scale of SARS-CoV-2 vaccination is autoimmunity. SARS-CoV-2 has numerous immunogenic proteins, and all but one of its immunogenic epitopes have similarities to human proteins [27]. These may act as a source of antigens, leading to autoimmunity [28]. While it is true that the same effects could be observed during natural infection with SARS-CoV-2, vaccination is intended for most of the world population, while it is estimated that only 10% of the world population has been infected by SARS-CoV-2, according to Dr. Michael Ryan, head of emergencies at the World Health Organization. We have been unable to find evidence that any of the currently authorized vaccines screened and excluded homologous immunogenic epitopes to avoid potential autoimmunity due to pathogenic priming.

Some adverse reactions, including blood-clotting disorders, have already been reported in healthy and young vaccinated people. These cases led to the suspension or cancellation of the use of adenoviral vectorized ChAdOx1-nCov-19 and Janssen vaccinesin some countries. It has now been proposed that vaccination with ChAdOx1-nCov-19 can result in immune thrombotic thrombocytopenia (VITT) mediated by platelet-activating antibodies against Platelet factor-4, which clinically mimics autoimmune heparin-induced thrombocytopenia [29]. Unfortunately, the risk was overlooked when authorizing these vaccines, although adenovirus-induced thrombocytopenia has been known for more than a decade, and has been a consistent event with adenoviral vectors [30]. The risk of VITT would presumably be higher in those already at risk of blood clots, including women who use oral contraceptives [31], making it imperative for clinicians to advise their patients accordingly.

At the population level, there could also be vaccine-related impacts. SARS-CoV-2 is a fast-evolving RNA virus that has so far produced more than 40,000 variants [32,33] some of which affect the antigenic domain of Spike glycoprotein [34,35]. Given the high mutation rates, vaccine-induced synthesis of high levels of anti-SARS-CoV-2-Spike antibodies could theoretically lead to suboptimal responses against subsequent infections by other variants in vaccinated individuals [36], a phenomenon known as “original antigenic sin” [37] or antigenic priming [38]. It is unknown to what extent mutations that affect SARS-CoV-2 antigenicity will become fixed during viral evolution [39], but vaccines could plausibly act as selective forces driving variants with higher infectivity or transmissibility. Considering the high similarity between known SARS-CoV-2 variants, this scenario is unlikely [32,34] but if future variants were to differ more in key epitopes, the global vaccination strategy might have helped shape an even more dangerous virus. This risk has recently been brought to the attention of the WHO as an open letter [40].

Discussion

The risks outlined here are a major obstacle to continuing global SARS-CoV-2 vaccination. Evidence on the safety of all SARS-CoV-2 vaccines is needed before exposing more people to the184 risk of these experiments, since releasing a candidate vaccine without time to fully understand the resulting impact on health could lead to an exacerbation of the current global crisis [41]. Risk-stratification of vaccine recipients is essential. According to the UK government, people below 60 years of age have an extremely low risk of dying from COVID-191 187 . However, according to Eudravigillance, most of the serious adverse effects following SARS-CoV-2 vaccination occur in people aged 18-64. Of particular concern is the planned vaccination schedule for children aged 6 years and older in the United States and the UK. Dr. Anthony Fauci recently anticipated that teenagers across the country will be vaccinated in the autumn and younger children in early 2022, and the UK is awaiting trial results to commence vaccination of 11 million children under 18. There is a lack of scientific justification for subjecting healthy children to experimental vaccines, given that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that they have a 99.997% survival rate if infected with SARS-CoV-2. Not only is COVID-19 irrelevant as a threat to this age group, but there is no reliable evidence to support vaccine efficacy or effectiveness in this population or to rule out harmful side effects of these experimental vaccines. In this sense, when physicians advise patients on the elective administration of COVID-19 vaccination, there is a great need to better understand the benefits and risk of administration, particularly in understudied groups.

In conclusion, in the context of the rushed emergency-use-authorization of SARS-CoV-2 vaccines, and the current gaps in our understanding of their safety, the following questions must be raised:

• Is it known whether cross-reactive antibodies from previous coronavirus infections or vaccine206 induced antibodies may influence the risk of unintended pathogenesis following vaccination with COVID-19?
• Has the specific risk of ADE, immunopathology, autoimmunity, and serious adverse reactions been clearly disclosed to vaccine recipients to meet the medical ethics standard of patient understanding for informed consent? If not, what are the reasons, and how could it be implemented?
• What is the rationale for administering the vaccine to every individual when the risk of dying from COVID-19 is not equal across age groups and clinical conditions and when the phase 3 trials excluded the elderly, children and frequent specific conditions?
• What are the legal rights of patients if they are harmed by a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine? Who will cover the costs of medical treatment? If claims were to be settled with public money, has the public been made aware that the vaccine manufacturers have been granted immunity, and their responsibility to compensate those harmed by the vaccine has been transferred to the tax-payers?

In the context of these concerns, we propose halting mass-vaccination and opening an urgent pluralistic, critical, and scientifically-based dialogue on SARS-CoV-2 vaccination among scientists, medical doctors, international health agencies, regulatory authorities, governments, and vaccine developers. This is the only way to bridge the current gap between scientific evidence and public health policy regarding the SARS-CoV-2 vaccines. We are convinced that humanity deserves a deeper understanding of the risks than what is currently touted as the official position. An open scientific dialogue is urgent and indispensable to avoid erosion of public confidence in science and public health and to ensure that the WHO and national health authorities protect the interests of humanity during the current pandemic. Returning public health policy to evidence-based medicine, relying on a careful evaluation of the relevant scientific research, is urgent. It is imperative to follow the science.

Conflict of Interest Statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

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Notes on Authors

¹Epidemiólogos Argentinos Metadisciplinarios. República Argentina.

²Baylor University Medical Center. Dallas, Texas, USA.

³Monestir de Sant Benet de Montserrat, Montserrat, Spain

⁴INSERM U781 Hôpital Necker-Enfants Malades, Université Paris Descartes-Sorbonne Cité, Institut Imagine, Paris, France.

⁵School of Natural Sciences. Autonomous University of Querétaro, Querétaro, Mexico.

⁶Retired Professor of Medical Immunology. Universidad de Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico.

⁷Médicos por la Verdad Puerto Rico. Ashford Medical Center. San Juan, Puerto Rico.

⁸Retired Professor of Clinical Diagnostic Processes. University of Murcia, Murcia, Spain

⁹Urologist Hospital Comarcal de Monforte, University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain.

¹⁰Biólogos por la Verdad, Spain.

¹¹Retired Biologist. University of Barcelona. Specialized in Microbiology. Barcelona, Spain.

¹²Center for Integrative Medicine MICAEL (Medicina Integrativa Centro Antroposófico Educando en Libertad). Mendoza, República Argentina.

¹³Médicos por la Verdad Argentina. República Argentina. ´

¹⁴Médicos por la Verdad Uruguay. República Oriental del Uruguay.

¹⁵Médicos por la Libertad Chile. República de Chile.

¹⁶Physician, orthopedic specialist. República de Chile.

¹⁷Médicos por la Verdad Perú. República del Perú.

¹⁸Médicos por la Verdad Guatemala. República de Guatemala.

¹⁹Concepto Azul S.A. Ecuador.

²⁰Médicos por la Verdad Brasil. Brasil.

²¹Médicos por la Verdad Paraguay.

²²Médicos por la Costa Rica.

²³Médicos por la Verdad Bolivia.

²⁴Médicos por la Verdad El Salvador.

²⁵Correspondence: Karina Acevedo-Whitehouse, [email protected]

Sources

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-reported-sars-cov-2-deaths-in-england/covid-19-confirmed-deaths-in-england-report

Notes

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For more than two decades US presidential administrations have been increasing the likelihood of nuclear war with Russia.  It began with Bill Clinton violating the word of the US government not to move NATO to Russia’s border.  Successive US presidents since have undone all the trust-building agreements achieved during the 20th century Cold War. 

The provocations of Russia since the US overthrow of the Ukrainian government in 2014 have completely destroyed Russia’s trust of Washington.  The atomic scientists say it is 90 seconds before Midnight. I think it is one nano-second. We have reached the point where all it takes is one false alarm of incoming missiles.

You can see the triumph of evil in the deployment of weapons that if used will destroy life on Earth.  The prospect of their use has risen dramatically in the 21st century.

Democrat Hillary Clinton declared the President of Russia to be “the new Hitler.”  

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham called for President Putin’s assassination.  

Instead of keeping to President Putin’s Minsk Agreement to maintain peace in Ukraine, Washington used it to deceive President Putin while building a Ukrainian army with which to attack the Donbass republics.  

Instead of working with President Putin to create a mutual security pact, Washington provoked and widened the conflict in Ukraine in order to further enlarge NATO by bringing in Finland and Sweden, thus multiplying NATO’s presence on Russia’s border.  The US and NATO are now so heavily involved in the Ukraine conflict that the question is what does Washington do when the reinforced Russians overrun Ukraine’s defenses?  Do US and NATO soldiers rush to Ukraine’s rescue?

Only incompetent, irresponsible, and totally stupid, indeed, totally evil, US and European governments would think their prestige in Ukraine justifies nuclear war.  If the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, CIA, and US politicians had the least bit of intelligence they would understand that in today’s climate of preemptive nuclear strikes, nuclear weapons jeopardize America’s existence.  They do not protect us.

The notion that Russia or China want to rule us is insane.  It is the US that has the expansionist ideology and agenda of world hegemony.  The Russian and Chinese governments have their own problems and do not want those of a morally bankrupt country like the US where men marry men and women marry women and “doctors” mutilate the genitals of youngsters  in order to transgender them.

During the 20th century Cold War warning times were longer and the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction could be regarded as deterring nuclear attack. Today the hypersonic speeds of the Russian missiles and ability to unpredictably change trajectory in flight has changed the emphasis to preemptive strike.  It only takes one false warning to initiate nuclear Armageddon as there is no time to determine if the warning is false.

Everyone needs to understand that once Washington followed by Russia changed their war doctrines from no first use of nuclear weapons to preemptive attack, nuclear weapons ceased to be a deterrent.  The doctrine of preemptive attack guarantees their use if there is a single false alarm.  The American war planners responsible for this change should be immediately arrested, tried for crimes against humanity, and the doctrine repudiated.

 

Video: Steven Starr explains that nuclear war means planetary death

What we should be witnessing throughout the West is a campaign to destroy all nuclear weapons.  The weapons do not protect us.  They weapons endanger us.  To have weapons deployed that can only achieve your own total destruction is insane.

During the Cold War there were those who thought “better Red than dead.” Today the expansionist Communist ideology is dead.  It is the American neoconservatives who control US foreign policy who have the expansionist agenda of US hegemony.  It is insanity for the neoconservatives to believe that the US can exercise hegemony over Russia and China.

If we want to survive, we must immediately stop being insane.

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

Featured image: The world’s first nuclear explosion – the U.S. ‘Trinity’ atomic test in New Mexico, July 16, 1945. If a nuclear war breaks out today, the devastation caused by modern nuclear weapons would make Trinity’s power look small by comparison. Most life on Earth would likely be wiped out. | U.S. Department of Energy

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

by Michel Chossudovsky

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

Reviews

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

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

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

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Bang in the middle of the brouhaha over the decision by the US and its European allies to supply Abram and Leopard battle tanks to Ukraine, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov messaged to Washington on Thursday that arms control “cannot exist in isolation from military-political and geo-strategic realities” and, therefore, an understanding over “the parameters and principles of coexistence that would minimise the conflict potential” between Russia and the West is an absolute prerequisite of the situation. 

Ryabkov said Moscow does not reject to discuss arms control with Washington, but the US complicates a constructive dialogue. In a significant overture, peppered with caveats, he proposed that “The off-charts aggression of the US, who bid on inflicting a ‘strategic defeat’ on Russia in the total hybrid war, initiated against us, has made constructive and fruitful business ‘as usual’ on arms control with Washington almost impossible in principle. Of course, it does not mean that we refuse arms control itself. But this area cannot exist separately from military-political and geo-strategic reality.”

Ryabkov said it is necessary to achieve an understanding with the West [read Washington] to make “viable” decision in these areas. Ryabkov is Russian FO’s point person for relations with the US. His interview with Kommersant newspaper [in Russian] coincided with the arrival of the new American ambassador Lynne Tracy in Moscow on Thursday.

Customarily in diplomacy, a new envoy augurs a new beginning. And the Russian side is hoping that a productive conversation would be possible with the new envoy, the first lady ambassador to the Kremlin from America, on problematic aspects within Russian-US relations. 

On the other hand, Ambassador Tracy begins her tour soon after the announcements that the Western powers led by the US would be sending tanks to equip Ukrainian military, signifying a serious escalation of US-Russia tensions. 

In the western media narrative, the 31 Abram tanks and the Leopard tanks (totalling a hundred or so) are going to be a game changer in the Ukraine conflict. But Moscow has sized up the western move as more of an astute political manoeuvring,  necessitated by the recent military setbacks that Kiev suffered and the growing fears of a  crushing defeat if Russia launches a major offensive in the coming months.

Quite obviously, Moscow has taken note that it will take several months for the tanks to actually reach Ukraine and be deployed and several months of intensive training will be necessary for the Ukrainian personnel to be ready to handle the tanks. Tass news agency produced a handful of reports [here, here and  here] citing authoritative opinion by Russian military experts to the effect that Moscow has the capability to “burn” these western tanks. But Kremlin has refrained from making any threat of retaliation. 

In military terms, of course, 100-130 tanks make hardly any difference to the military balance in Ukraine, which is in Russia’s favour. The high probability is that Ukrainian military’s recent defeats may snowball into a rout once Moscow launches its expected grand offensive and give a knockout blow to the Ukrainian military.

The recent visit to Kiev by senior officials of the White House National Security Council and the US State Department, followed by a secret mission by the CIA chief William Burns, highlighted the criticality of the situation. Meanwhile, the long-standing power struggle between the Ukrainian security agencies and the intelligence has burst into the open in the recent weeks causing a purge of top officials who are closely associated with Zelensky. 

Moscow no longer trusts any promises from the Americans, given the long history — starting from former Secretary of State Jim Baker’s promise to Mikhail Gorbachev in 1989 not to expand the NATO eastward “by an inch” — of western betrayals and broken promises. 

The influential head of the Russian security council Nikolai Patrushev repeated yesterday that even if the active combat in Ukraine ceases, Moscow doesn’t think that there is going to be any let-up in the US’ proxy war against Russia. 

To quote Patrushev,

“Progress in the special military operation in Ukraine indicates that the United States and NATO intend to go ahead with efforts to prolong this military conflict and that they have already become participants in it.” Patrushev underscored that “even with the end of the hot phase of the conflict in Ukraine, the Anglo-Saxon world will not stop their proxy war against Russia and its allies.” 

Patrushev said,

“Today’s events in Ukraine are a result of years-long preparations by the US for a hybrid war against Russia and an attempt to prevent the emergence of a multipolar world.” 

Patrushev is one of Putin’s closest aides with an association that harks back to their career in the Soviet KGB. Clearly,  just when its strategy of “grinding” the Ukrainian forces is succeeding, why should Moscow dither on its tracks?

This is where DFM Ryabkov’s interview yesterday with Kommersant become a useful signpost. Ryabkov in effect signals that the door is still open for negotiations with the US. Interestingly, he pointed out that “most successful decisions in the field of arms control coincided or were associated with periods of detente or specific political projects” and were characterised historically by “fairly balanced attitude of the parties to each other’s obvious ‘red lines’ in the field of security.”

Indeed, Ryabkov ruled out any “unilateral concessions” by Russia in matters of national security and stressed that the fundamental contradictions will need to be addressed first.

The good part is that there is growing realisation among sections of the elite in Washington also that the US cannot win the proxy war in Ukraine. Coupled with this are the complexities of the US domestic politics, the latest being the issue of classified documents that creates uncertainty for Biden’s re-election bid.

Arguably, the spectre that is haunting the Biden Administration is that the military defeat combined with the political tensions within the Ukrainian government could very well lead to the collapse of the Zelensky regime and a meltdown of the country’s state apparatus. And all this while the Russian forces, estimated to be in the region of 600,000, are gathering at the gates. 

Conceivably, the Biden Administration’s top priority at this juncture will be to prevent Moscow from launching the big military offensive so as to gain some respite to revamp the battered Ukrainian military, equip it with advanced weaponry and restore a modicum of military balance in order for the fighting to resume after a pause. 

But, just when its strategy of “grinding” the Ukrainian forces is succeeding, why should Moscow dither on its tracks? In fact, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said earlier today that “tensions are really escalating” following Washington’s decision regarding tanks and the reported ongoing discussions in western capitals regarding supply of F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine.

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A shadowy Army unit secretly spied on British citizens who criticised the Government’s Covid lockdown policies, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.

Military operatives in the UK’s ‘information warfare’ brigade were part of a sinister operation that targeted politicians and high-profile journalists who raised doubts about the official pandemic response.

They compiled dossiers on public figures such as ex-Minister David Davis, who questioned the modelling behind alarming death toll predictions, as well as journalists such as Peter Hitchens and Toby Young. Their dissenting views were then reported back to No 10.

Documents obtained by the civil liberties group Big Brother Watch, and shared exclusively with this newspaper, exposed the work of Government cells such as the Counter Disinformation Unit, based in the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, and the Rapid Response Unit in the Cabinet Office.

But the most secretive is the MoD’s 77th Brigade, which deploys ‘non-lethal engagement and legitimate non-military levers as a means to adapt behaviours of adversaries’.

According to a whistleblower who worked for the brigade during the lockdowns, the unit strayed far beyond its remit of targeting foreign powers.

Click here to read the full article on Daily Mail Online.

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Officially, Corona is hardly an issue anymore, and in most countries most “hygiene measures” are now no longer in force. For the elite of the World Economic Forum (WEF) who had gathered in Davos, however, the Great Reset is far from over. Rather, the impression is that WEF boss Klaus Schwab and his guests are already busy planning for the next “pandemic”.

In a round of talks at the WEF, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair advocated the need for digital recording of vaccination status. He announced “coming vaccines” that would consist of multiple injections.

Literally, Blair said:

“You have to know who is vaccinated and who is not. Some of the coming vaccines are going to require multiple injections, so, also for public health reasons in general, but specifically for a pandemic, for vaccines, you have to have a proper digital infrastructure, and a lot of countries, in fact most countries, don’t have that infrastructure.”

Blair’s demand is particularly explosive against the background that the World Health Organization (WHO) is currently pushing ahead with the complete digitization of worldwide patient files anyway without much fanfare. The new classification system ICD-11 has been in use at the World Health Organization (WHO) since January 2022, replacing the previous version ICD-10.

According to WHO information, it includes around 17 000 codes for injuries, diseases and causes of death, which are underpinned by more than 120 000 codeable terms. By using code combinations, “more than 1,6 million clinical situations” could now be coded.

And, for the first time, in accordance with Blair’s demand in Davos, the vaccination status will also be recorded and codified. There are three codes for this: Z28.310 for “Unvaccinated against Covid-19”, Z28.311 for “Partially vaccinated against Covid-19” and Z28.39 for “Other under-immunization”.

In the US, the federal agency Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) has already introduced the WHO digital diagnosis code for Covid vaccine-free.

Since January 2023 it has been available for almost all medical practices and hospitals. In Germany, the two program versions IDC-10 and IDC-11 can still be used in parallel for a transitional period of five years. “Until the ICD-11 is introduced in Germany, encryption will continue according to ICD-10,” the German government announced.

This means that the digital vaccination status, which became the central tool for movement control during the “pandemic”, is by no means off the table. The WHO’s global patient classification system IDC-11 will take over its function in the future.

Non-stop jabs

In an interview, the multi-billionaire Bill Gates meanwhile explained that the current “vaccines” neither prevent the infection nor work against new variants or protect vulnerable groups.

Gates spoke to the Lowy Institute, an Australian think tank, and admitted that “Covid vaccinations” do not prevent infection, do not work against new variants, and neither do they protect vulnerable groups.

In the video in which Gates explained that it was necessary to fix “the three problems of vaccines”. According to the financial backer of the Covid scam, these are: “Current [Covid] vaccines are not anti-infectious. They are not broad. So when new variants appear, you lose protection and they have a very short duration of action, especially in the people who matter, namely the elderly […].”

Gates used this as an excuse to introduce more jabs. The notion of unending shots was confirmed by a bombshell report in which a Pfizer director admitted that his company was experimenting with mutating viruses in order to sell more vaccines.

Pfizer Director of Research and Development, Strategic Operations – mRNA Scientific Planner Jordon Trishton Walker, was caught on undercover video admitting that the company was experimenting with Covid virus mutations. His admissions were recorded by Project Veritas.

Footage released by Project Veritas showed the moment Pfizer Director of Research and Development, Strategic Operations – mRNA Scientific Planner Jordon Trishton Walker spilled the beans. According to the Pfizer executive, “either way, it’s going to be a cash cow, Covid is going to be a cash cow for us for a while going forward – like obviously”.

This astonishing conversation provides evidence of the true nature of pharmaceutical companies who are destroying the health of citizens for profit and control.

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Belgian psychologist Mattias Desmet published his book The Psychology of Totalitarianism in June 2022. The book brings attention to the need to understand our own psychology in this time of global crisis. It outlines the process of mass formation by which the masses find themselves to be hypnotized members of a totalitarian state. It also provides ideas about the evolution of scientific thought and how that evolution has led to an over-estimation of certainty and an oversimplification of living systems.

Overall, Desmet’s book is an ambitious work that focuses initially on his assessment of the evolution of mankind’s “mechanistic worldview,” particularly since The Enlightenment. Basing his concepts on the work of others including philosopher Hannah Arendt and the social psychologist Gustav Le Bon, Desmet describes how it is this mechanistic worldview that sets the stage for a totalitarian state. This comes across as a call to step away from blind belief in scientific “fact” and toward a more harmonious resonating with a deeper understanding of the world.

Although Desmet’s larger thesis would benefit from more detailed support, the process of mass formation as described in the book rings true, particularly in terms of what people have experienced with the “coronavirus crisis.” The Covid crimes exposed the fact that many individuals in our society can be led to throw away everything they have always valued, including freedom and health, in order to gain security from an innocuous threat.

Studying the development of mass formation is therefore a very important component of understanding human psychology in our time.

Part I – Science and Its Psychological Effects

According to Desmet’s perspective, a mechanistic worldview brought society into a psychological condition that “degenerated into dogma and blind belief.” He notes that man has always had a mechanistic worldview, citing that Greeks invented the word atom. But the Enlightenment caused this to become dominant as people moved away from religion and toward science, with its extensive use of numbers, to represent theories and facts.

Desmet describes how the use of measured values to represent scientific fact in fields such as chemistry and physics has not caused a lot of trouble psychologically. However, problems studied in psychology and medicine cannot be so easily reduced to a matter of simple numbers. That’s because with all numbers there is an uncertainty that leaves an unexplained remainder. Desmet says that this remainder, the difference between the model and reality, is the living component of systems otherwise thought to be dead. When studying living systems, equating numbers with precise facts is wrong.

Arendt suggested that the difference or remainder that is left after describing living systems is vitally important. Without it, she says, humans are reduced to atomized subjects. In other words, we begin to see ourselves and each other as objects. Desmet says the remainder is “the essence of the object, its living component.” The atomization of life leads to an inability to distinguish facts from fiction and ultimately to the problem of totalitarianism.

“The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction and the distinction between true and false no longer exist.” — Hannah Arendt

Objectifying involves simplifying and, as we simplify our concepts of other people and ourselves, we lose a lot of understanding. Desmet’s text focuses on numbers but it seems clear that words are misunderstood in the same ways. Desmet notes that the use of symbols can lead to the same problems and it’s evident that images should be included in the mix. These objects of our minds—numbers, words, symbols, and images—can be further oversimplified as we compare them and frame them in dualistic or binary ways.

According to Desmet’s theory, we build a false worldview by using numbers to represent aspects of the human condition, like thoughts and feelings, physiological health, or group identity. This leads to an increase in the superficiality of our understanding of the world, and the opportunities for being dangerously wrong, that such a worldview allows. He writes,

“The almost irresistible illusion that numbers represent facts ensures that most people become increasingly convinced that their own fiction is reality.”

Desmet further suggests that,

“Something in this narrative causes man to become isolated from his fellow man, and from nature. Something in it causes man to stop resonating with the world around him. Something in it turns human beings into atomized subjects. It is precisely this atomized subject that, according to Hannah Arendt, is the elementary building block of the totalitarian state.”

Science has itself become objectified through simplification. In the last few years, we have seen an increasing number of people speaking of how “Science” tells them they are right in whatever position they hold despite the fact that they either don’t know the actual science behind the subject or don’t know much about science at all. Science has in many ways become a religion practiced by people who put all of their faith in a generalized, objectified view of what they believe science represents. Those who do not agree with their view of science, whether it be “The Right,” or “anti-vaxxers,” or “super spreaders,” are the problem that needs to be solved. As we saw with the Covid crimes, the hypnotized are easily led to believe that wrong thinkers need to be controlled, by force if necessary.

Desmet goes on to describe how the mechanistic worldview has proven insufficient for understanding our world, citing examples from Chaos Theory and Quantum Mechanics. He makes the point that patterns arise from physical and mathematical phenomena that are not seen or predicted in our simplified views of them. As a statistician, Desmet should know this well.

He describes the Lorenz strange attractor in which the rate of change of three variables related to a moving water wheel are graphed over time, revealing a pattern that has been used to demonstrate sensitive dependence on initial conditions (i.e. the butterfly effect).

“We cannot predict the specific behaviors of the waterwheel (at least not in its chaotic phase), but we can learn the principles by which it behaves and learn to sense the sublime aesthetic figures hidden beneath the chaotic surface of those behaviors. Hence, there is no rational predictability, but there is a certain degree of intuitive predictability.”

Part II – Mass Formation and Totalitarianism

Desmet did not invent the term mass formation, which was used by Freud and others long before him. His main contributions to the subject are in providing:

• a more through description of mass formation as mass hypnosis
• his distinction between dictatorships, which are driven by fear, and totalitarian states, which are driven by the mass formation process
• his application of the mass formation process to the coronavirus crisis

As stated above, the book describes the “insidious process” of mass formation by starting with the evolution of mankind’s mechanistic worldview. Desmet couples with that a description of how we learn words and numbers as children.

Desmet states that we learn words and numbers to understand, and gain the approval of, The Other (e.g. our mother). Over time we learn that words and numbers cannot have definite meaning. This apparently is an early indication to us that mechanistic thinking is not sufficient for full understanding of our world. This learning either leads to isolation and anxiety through the fear of being left behind, or an appreciation for our own creativity and new ways to develop.

More commonly isolation and anxiety develop, initiating to the process of mass formation, the five primary states of which are as follows.

1. Isolation and loneliness
2. A lack of meaning in life
3. Free-floating anxiety, which is not image bound. At this stage a person doesn’t know what they are anxious about.
4. Free-floating frustration and aggression
5. The appearance of a suggestive story, provided by “Leaders,” that establishes an object or image on which the anxiety can be focused

Desmet does not describe the exact cause and effect between each of these states, and certainly not the mechanism of action between each. But humans are social creatures and therefore it makes sense that removing social interactions (isolation and loneliness) leads to a lack of meaning in life and to anxiety. It also makes sense that long term anxiety leads to frustration and aggression that can be exploited.

Complicating this scenario is the fact that we cannot know our exact thoughts and feelings or the reasons for many of our decisions. This is because, as Timothy D. Wilson describes in his book Strangers to Ourselves: Discovering the Adaptive Unconscious, due to the inaccessibility of the unconscious mind we have a very limited understanding of our own personalities, thoughts, and feelings and therefore also a limited understanding of our decision making. We understand things unconsciously as well as consciously, and our unconscious drives a lot of our decision making, which could explain how we can go through the multi-stage process of mass formation without being aware of it.

Nonetheless, Desmet emphasizes several important aspects of mass formation and of individuals affected by it. He states that mass formation is like hypnosis but the hypnotist (the Leader) may also be hypnotized. This, Desmet says, is an example of the banality of evil.

Those individuals who are hypnotized by mass formation exhibit the following otherwise inexplicable tendencies.

• They believe in the Leader’s story not because it’s true but because it creates a new social bond. This bond is not between individuals but between the individual and the collective.
• They act as if the rest of reality, apart from the story that relieves their anxiety, no longer exists.
• They must at all times show that they submit to the interest of the collective by performing self-destructive, symbolic (ritualistic) behaviors
• They have radical intolerance of dissenting voices
• Destroying dissenters becomes critical to them
• They lose interest in everything they value without noticing it, and are thereby willing to give up everything they value
• The most educated are the most vulnerable to mass formation

Readers will likely remember the experiments of Stanley Milgram, documented in his fine book Obedience to Authority. Milgram found that a majority of people from all walks of life, men and women, can be made to obey authority figures against their own better judgment and values, even to the extent of causing great psychological and physical harm to others. As Milgram summarized,

“Ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process. Moral factors can be shunted aside with relative ease by a calculated restructuring of the informational and social field.”

Desmet emphasizes several characteristics of Leaders involved in a mass formation process and, in doing so, leaves the reader confused. He writes that Leaders who “convey the story are usually in the grip of the story as well.” He says that the reason Leaders can be so fooled by their own story is that they possess a “morbid ideological drive.” In other words, Leaders believe in the ideology but not the discourse. This point of the book needs to be clarified and better supported. Do the Leaders bring forth the story? Are they also hypnotized by the story but simultaneously they don’t believe the discourse? This appears to be a contradiction.

This contradiction grows larger in Chapter 8, with a discussion of conspiracy. In this chapter, Desmet somewhat ironically atomizes subjects who consider the possibility of conspiracy, reducing them to “confused spectators” who engage in “conspiracy thinking.”

He writes that mass formation “should be understood in terms of mass psychology rather than malicious, intentional deception (i.e., a conspiracy).” He gives a few very simplified examples of conspiracy thinking including the fictitious Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the highly dubious QAnon diversion, and suspicions of Russian control of U.S. elections.

The common definition of a conspiracy is “a secret plan by a group to do something unlawful or harmful.” Desmet adds that there must be a conscious intent on the part of the conspirators. In an argument we might see in a “fact-checking” article, he further claims that interpretation of phenomena in terms of a conspiracy is something of a coping mechanism that,

“reduces the enormous complexity of the phenomenon to a simple frame of reference: All anxiety is linked to one object (a group of people who intentionally deceives, the supposed ‘elite’) and thereby becomes mentally manageable… As such, in a certain sense, conspiracy thinking—the thinking that reduces all world events to one big conspiracy—fulfills the same function as mass formation. As with mass formation, conspiracy theorizing fills humans with a kind of enthusiasm.”

Of course, many people have found the opposite to be true. Suggesting that phenomena like the Covid crimes are the result of a conspiracy among rich, powerful people to achieve extraordinary gains at the expense of others is quite reasonable. That’s because the behavior and history of the rich and powerful people involved has exhibited a similar pattern throughout their lives and the results have brought them extraordinary gains. A conspiracy of the powerful is also the simplest explanation although in reality it instills greater fear instead of enthusiasm.

However, if we get past the atomization of complex phenomena like “conspiracy thinkers” and conspiracies we see the enormous complexity of those phenomena and the very reasonable response to the reality of something like the coronavirus crisis. With the coronavirus crisis, it is obvious that the stages of mass formation were intentionally brought upon the masses by the Leaders—and it was intentional.

• Isolation and loneliness were intentionally created through lockdowns, masking, and nonsensical mandates. This was a process of dehumanization, causing anxiety.
• Anxiety was stoked through the continuous reporting of deaths and “cases” of infection. The deaths were highly exaggerated through misuse of assignment of death, as Desmet concedes, and the “cases” were also highly exaggerated through false positive testing and mis-assignment of patients’ primary condition.
• Frustration and aggression toward those who would not comply with mandates was driven by propaganda. Those who were not willing to submit to “the interest of the collective” were ostracized, demonized, and censored.

In the minds of many dissenters all of this was clearly part of a design implemented by those who control politicians and corporate media as well as transnational entities like the WEF and WHO. Although these Leaders might well be hypnotized by ideology, as Desmet suggests, they have also clearly been engaging in a conspiracy that has resulted in the greatest transfer of wealth in history as well as the greatest opportunity for a small few to control the global population indefinitely. Interestingly, the one reason why the Covid crimes do not meet the definition of a conspiracy is that they have largely not been secret. Through published plans, exercises, and interviews of the Leaders involved, the agenda of which the coronavirus crisis is a part has been transparent.

Desmet’s treatment of conspiracy reminds us of a similar approach taken by Naomi Klein in her otherwise excellent book, The Shock Doctrine. After going to great lengths to describe what can only be called a long-term conspiracy to economically exploit (and torture) a string of entire nations, Klein adds a small disclaimer section near the end of the book, saying, “No conspiracies required.” It’s a bit like reading the Bible and struggling through a new section at the end claiming, “No deities required.” Both Klein and Desmet may be experiencing psychological dissonance when it comes to the idea of conspiracy, or it could be that they were asked to include such disclaimers as a condition for publication.

In terms of the Leaders intent, some of Desmet’s misunderstanding and contradictions on this point can be resolved through a better understanding of history. For example, a long-term conspiracy to terrorize the population of Europe was designed and implemented in Desmet’s own country of Belgium. Operation Gladio is but one example of many throughout history in which secret, intentional plans to cause harm and deceive the public have been planned or carried out by Leaders. Desmet cites an example himself when he writes of the Holocaust:

“At a certain level there was also an intentional plan” behind the Nazi crimes. “There were approximately five people who neatly and systematically prepared the entire Holocaust destruction apparatus and they managed to make all the rest of the system cooperate with it in total blindness for a long time.”

Therefore, it is difficult to see the development of mass formation in the context of the coronavirus crisis as being without intent. And we must let authors like Desmet and Klein find their own way in correcting contradictions and reaching a better understanding.

Part III – Beyond the Mechanistic Worldview

In the book’s final section, Desmet returns to Chaos Theory and to an assessment of how science and spirituality (or religion) can coexist as part of a less atomized way of moving forward.

He states that Quantum Mechanics and Chaos Theory “initiate the reverse momentum necessary to move away from the dead mechanistic worldview and (back) toward vitalism.” Citing physicist Max Planck, he writes, “Science eventually arrives where religion once started, in a personal contact with the Unnameable.”

This reference, as well as other parts of Desmet’s book, is reflective of the ancient wisdom found in Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching. The mechanistic worldview is described there in the first chapter where it says, “name is the mother of the ten thousand things.” Although this naming is natural, we are later warned, “when names proliferate, it’s time to stop. If you know when to stop, you’re in no danger.” The inability to stop naming (i.e. objectifying) leads to anxiety driven by oversimplification and false comparisons, the atomization and targeting of people, and a general misunderstanding of the world within and around us. Moreover, excessive objectifying is an insult to the basic truth that “being and non-being arise together” perpetually.

In terms of the cure, referring to anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss, Desmet proposes that we must develop “a science that does not allow itself to be blinded by mechanistic ideology but which pushes the rational analysis of reality to the maximum, to the absolute limit of the rationally knowable, to the point where reason transcends itself.”

Desmet further writes that,

“The antidote to totalitarianism lies in an attitude to life that is not blinded by a rational understanding of superficial manifestations of life and that seeks to be connected with the principles and figures that are hidden beneath those manifestations.” He calls for humanity to “vibrate in resonance with ultimate knowledge.”

These recommendations are, by nature of the problem, a bit ethereal and a follow-up volume that describes practical ways to correct the mechanistic worldview is needed.  Perhaps a closer study of the Tao Te Ching would be helpful in this regard. It recommends to “abide in the kernel not the husk, in the fruit not the flower.”

In interviews, Desmet has called for dissenters to keep speaking out and he promotes non-violent resistance. He proposes that a parallel structure can be developed to oppose the state, although again without providing detail on how that might occur.

In summary, it is essential that people begin learning more about their own psychology and The Psychology of Totalitarianism is an important contribution to that effort. Considering our limited access to the unconscious, and the fact that many of us will obey authority to devastating ends, understanding the psychological processes that lead to totalitarianism is a vital need.

In this important book, Desmet describes the problem of a mechanistic worldview and how that leads to misunderstandings and superficiality in human thought. He also describes the process of mass formation and how this process is reflected in the ongoing coronavirus crisis. The processes Desmet describes may not be entirely fleshed out but discussion of them is likely to lead to a more truthful representation of psychological risks that continue to be exploited.

Understanding our own psychology is crucial at this time because it is being used against us in many ways. Through an extraordinary rise in propaganda and deception, and an extraordinary rise in self-deception, people are being manipulated toward ends that are entirely against their own interests. Anticipating that the evolution of manipulative powers has not reached its peak, it becomes imperative that humanity learn about its own psychology as quickly as possible.

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There is an interesting correlation in New Zealand between banning Semi-Automatic Weapons, its Covid-19 lockdowns and now censorship of a popular news magazine called ‘New Dawn’ which seems like old times.  In other words, New Zealand has become a Nazi-inspired police state that took place before and during World War II that would have made Adolf Hitler extremely proud. 

New Zealand imposed a ban on basically all semi-automatic weapons after what was considered a terrorist attack known as the Christchurch Mosque shootings.  What was strange about the mosque attack was that the video was deemed illegal and that anyone who viewed or downloaded the video would be prosecuted.  Why is it illegal to watch a video based on one of the most devastating terror attacks in New Zealand’s history?  Maybe the authorities did not want the public to see the video because they might have concluded that the massacre was an obvious false flag operation in order to ban ordinary citizens from having legal firearms in their possession, and maybe it was the start of a censorship regime to ban alternative news organizations from exposing globalist plans, government corruption and its constant lies on the safety of the Covid-19 vaccines.  On March 20, 2019, Reuters published ‘New Zealand bans military type semi-automatic weapons used in mosque massacre’ reported that “New Zealand will ban military-style semi-automatic and assault rifles under tough new gun laws following the killing of 50 people in its worst mass shooting, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said on Thursday.”  The report mentions how many firearms are owned by law-abiding citizens:

New Zealand, a country of fewer than 5 million people, has an estimated 1.2-1.5 million firearms, about 13,500 of them MSSA-type weapons.  Most farmers own guns while hunting of deer, pigs and goats is popular. Gun clubs and shooting ranges dot the country.

That has created a powerful lobby that has thwarted previous attempts to tighten gun laws.  Federated Farmers, which represent thousands of farmers, said it supported the new laws.  “This will not be popular among some of our members but … we believe this is the only practicable solution,” a group spokesman, Miles Anderson, said in a statement

Why do I believe it was a false-flag operation?  Author T.J. Coles made the case in New Dawn magazine’s Special Issue Vol.16 No.6 in an article titled ‘The Strange Story of Brenton Tarrant’ describes Tarrant’s background as making a fortune on cryptocurrencies to his travels around the world including Latin America, Europe, North Korea and even Ukraine.  While he was in Ukraine, Coles said that the “Elements of the neo-Nazi Ukrainian outfit, the National Defense Organization (Carpathian Sich), reportedly translated Tarrant’s white supremacist manifesto, The Great Replacement.”  Tarrant supposedly sent copies of his manifesto to government officials in New Zealand and the media.  Roughly twenty minutes before the shooting, “Tarrant (or purported) posted on the online forum 8chan of his plan to livestream the massacre.”  The description of the shooting was as follows:

It was reported that at approximately 1:40pm local time, Tarrant entered Al Noor Mosque, shooting 42 people dead.  Upon leaving, Tarrant allegedly shot another person on the pavement before driving to the Linwood Mosque, at which point the livestream reportedly cut

The police arrested Tarrant before he could continue his plan to “shoot” more worshippers at the Ashburton Mosque.  Coles explains the events that led New Zealand authorities to ban the murder video:

Social media took unprecedented, coordinated steps of suppressing uploads of the murder video.  Within hours, the global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism had found 800 different versions of the video.  The videos are horribly pixelated for the usually high-quality GoPro.  They show piles of corpses before Tarrant had even entered certain areas of the mosque.  The movements of the people depicted are impossibly fast

Coles asked a legit question, “Was the massacre a real event conducted by special forces, but the video fake and designed to make look like a single killer?” He continued “With the exception of the worshipper who allegedly said to Tarrant, “Welcome brother,” no facial identities, other than Tarrant’s, can be discerned.”  Coles connected all the dots which all leads to a conspiratorial fact, and the first dot is Stephen Millar who was arrested “unarmed” outside of Papanui high school wearing combat fatigues but here is where the story becomes strange, “But the Daily Mail reported: Police “released [Millar] who had taken a gun as protection when he went to pick up his kids from school.”  This leads to another connecting dot as described by Coles:

One of the Noor Mosque survivors, Adrian Wright, said that he used his Navy training to tackle Tarrant.  Wright turns out to be a deck officer who had worked for private maritime security companies.  The presence of a maritime security expert sets the pattern continued in the Bærum  Mosque shooting [Norway], allegedly by Phillip Manshaus, whose massacre was reportedly prevented by a worshipper, Mohammed Rafiq, who happens to be an ex-Pakistani Air Force serviceman.  All very strange    

According to an article published on stuff.co.nz ‘After terrorist horror, chief censor opens up: ‘The world can be a very brutal and cruel place’ New Zealand’s Chief Censor David Shanks said that the massacre at the Christchurch Mosque was “probably the most harmful media event ever inflicted on the people of one nation.”  And just like that, they made it illegal to watch the video.

A False-Flag and Then Comes the Weapons Ban

It seems that the government used the Christchurch Mosque shootings to ban semi-automatic weapons and other firearms so that the law-abiding citizens of New Zealand cannot defend themselves against a future tyrannical government under the watchful eye of the World Economic Forum (WEF).  The events leading to what I call “The Plandemic” is uncanny.  Following the weapons ban, the unthinkable happened, one of the deadliest diseases known to man, Covid-19 but I must emphasis that Thank God for a 100% cotton facemask that saved humanity, (of course I’m being sarcastic) so they enforced the use of facemasks or what I like call ‘face diapers and social distancing rules followed by government directed “lockdowns” and the people of New Zealand were basically defenseless.  Then as Covid-19 spread, the authorities announced those who tested positive (from the inaccurate RT-PCR testing kits) for Covid-19 would be placed in “Hotel Quarantines” or what should be rightly called “concentration camps.’ As reported on August 13^th, 2020, by Yahoo News ‘Coronavirus: New Zealand’s extraordinary quarantine step as outbreak grows’:

New Zealand will put all positive cases of coronavirus in the country into hotel quarantine.  There are now 36 cases of the virus in New Zealand with 13 in Auckland alone.  Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said on Thursday she expected that cluster to grow.

Ms Ardern added the cluster of cases was “serious but being dealt with in an urgent but calm and methodological way”.  Health Director-General Dr Ashley Bloomfield told reporters on Thursday all cases of COVID-19 were “to be managed in a quarantine facility”

Censorship in New Zealand: New Dawn magazine Banned in Major Bookstores

In 2020, the New Zealand government-imposed internet censorship legislation which has afforded them the power to censor so-called “dangerous content”, but a public backlash came about, and the authorities canceled the legislative law.  However, the New Zealand government wanted to create an institution to study and pinpoint anything they deem disinformation, misinformation or what we normally call propaganda and that’s where organizations such as ‘The Disinformation Project’ which is obviously a government-funded entity comes in.  One of the magazines that is currently targeted for censorship that they eventually want banned in all bookstores and elsewhere in New Zealand is called New Dawn magazine.  Another article by Stuff.co.nz based on the The Disinformation Project ‘Whitcoulls stocks magazine peddling mosque terror attack conspiracy’ claimed that “Nationwide bookstore Whitcoulls is selling a magazine peddling a number of anti-vax conspiracies and insinuating the Christchurch mosque terror attack was a “false flag” operation.”  The article said that “one issue features a two-page article about the Christchurch mosque gunman, suggesting he wasn’t the perpetrator of the 2019 terror attack that claimed the lives of 51 Muslim worshippers” but Kate Hannah, the director of The Disinformation Project or who I would call the lead chief advisor for censorship “said some of the commentary in New Dawn was borderline in legality.”

Kate Hannah is the director of The Disinformation Project, which is a Principal Investigator with Te Pūnaha Matatini, a think-tank based in Aotearoa New Zealand Centre for research for complex systems which is “funded by the Tertiary Education Commission and hosted by the University of Auckland”, in other words, they are funded by government entities.  Hannah is also a PhD candidate at the Centre for Science and Society at Te Herenga Waka which is based in Victoria University of Wellington. Te Pūnaha Matatini is described as a place where “the meeting place of many faces” where they bring together “researchers from tertiary institutions, government institutes, private sector organisations and marae communities from throughout Aotearoa New Zealand.”  However, an independent journalist by the name of Chantelle asked a question on what Hannah called the “Disinformation Dozen” and who funded The Disinformation Project.  Chantelle made a point followed by a question:

I’ve spent the last year talking to a lot of people obviously that are against the mandates and asking their perspective, and seeing a different perspective, to just the government narrative and its really interesting and I have to say there is a deep, deep, deep difference between what the government was saying about people and their true intentions and I think personally, to me when I’ve met tens of thousands of these people, the number one thing that people kept coming back to is that the government kept not giving people information and letting them make up their own minds up and giving them accurate information to the widest extent and not allowing different points of view.  Which means that it polarized people.  And an example of this is, we have official information acts that show that Jacinda Ardern openly lied to everybody in New Zealand and the media when she said, we’re not considering vaccine passes, and she had already been briefed on what the pass would look like. So, if people see this information, then they see the government lying to them. And obviously that just extends wider questions around what else they possibly be lying about?  And if it’s about health.  Why are we not looking at things like healthier eating? Why are we not lowering GST on these items? Why are we not encouraging people to get outside? These are the types of questions people have.  Why are we not talking about treatments, it’s just vaccines?  I think the whole community has a lot of questions, and rather than answering them, they’re told that they are stupid or irrelevant.  I know the Maori community…. “

Then Hannah interjects and asks, “So what’s your questions Chantelle”? Chantelle asked “So, I am concerned, that I think we are seeing government propaganda, continuously, and it’s only following a certain narrative.  Do you think the government has done an accurate job of representing all sides of this argument and giving people enough depth in enough studies?”

Hannah then said, “I’m not the government, sadly.”  Chantelle responded, “you’re funded by the government though.”  Hannah then sarcastically said, “Am I? Who are you funded by Chantelle? “Honestly, Independent citizens” Chantelle replied.  Kate Hannah’s response was an obvious lie when she claimed, “So am I, at the moment I’m funded mainly by my husband actually to be completely honest.  You’ve got to do, what you’ve got to do.” Well, ok, I guess her husband pays the salaries of the other researchers and probably pays the rent as well.  Later in the video, Hannah abruptly ended her speech by denying Chantelle’s mate, a scientist who was raising his hand to ask a question and Hannah said “umm, probably not keen to take questions from Chantelle’s mate to be perfectly honest.”  The video of the confrontation was produced by Operation People, and it is called ‘Why did she run away? Watch as Kate Hannah is questioned about her government funded research’ View the full video here.

So, we know Kate Hannah and The Disinformation Project is an arm of the government’s censorship regime.

Not only the government’s censorship is a major problem for the people of New Zealand, let’s just say, adding insult to injury, the new Prime Minister, Chris Hipkins made a statement back in July 2021 on those who were unvaccinated and said that the government will start basically hunting down individuals and force them to take the Covid-19 jab.  “I think early next year we’ll be in the phase of chasing out people who haven’t come forward to get their vaccination, or missed their bookings and so on” and that “I want every New Zealander to come forward, but human behavior suggests that there will be some people that we actually have to really go out and look for, and some of that may spill into next year….”

The New Zealand Government is Imposing Medical Tyranny  

The New Zealand government has become a de-facto medical police state.  They have banned citizens from legally owning firearms, they have censured the alternative media and free speech, and they have implemented a medical tyranny that will attempt to enforce mandates on its citizens to take dangerous, life-threatening Covid-19 vaccines, it sounds like Nazi-Germany reborn.  What comes next?  Unmarked vans with government thugs dressed in black uniforms that will kidnap activists on the street and forcibly place them in “Hotel Quarantine camps”?  Will they go door-to-door forcing vaccines on the unvaccinated?

New Zealand seems to be the shining example for the WEF, and their ridicules plans for the rest of the world.  The people of New Zealand are starting to wake up to the scam and that is why the government banned citizens from owning firearms, censored the alternative media because they understand that once the people know the truth, there is no turning back.

The government of New Zealand and their WEF handlers are concerned with alternative news sources such as ‘New Dawn’ magazine currently sold in some bookstores and online that exposes the facts on the Christchurch shootings, on the real dangers of Covid-19 vaccines and other important news stories such as how the US and its Western partners support the Nazis in Ukraine.  It’s obvious that the establishment is losing the information war and that’s why they fund The Disinformation Project as some sort of legitimate institution to censor real news that the public needs to stay informed.  The world needs to pay close attention to what is happening to New Zealand.  The people of New Zealand ae victims of the Globalist cabal who want total control over humanity.  Let’s support the freedom fighters of New Zealand, help New Dawn magazine get the word out.

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Timothy Alexander Guzman writes on his own blog site, Silent Crow News, where this article was originally published. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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Živadin Jovanović is President of the Belgrade Forum for a World of Equals. He is a regular contributor to Global Research. 

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

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The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday that Israel was behind an overnight drone inside Iran that targeted a military facility in the city of Isfahan.

Iranian authorities said three small quadcopter drones targeted a munitions factory in Isfahan and that its air defenses shot down one drone. The other two exploded above the building, causing minor damage but no casualties.

The Journal report cited unnamed US officials and people familiar with the operation, who said the attack came as the US and Israel “look for new ways to contain Tehran’s nuclear and military ambitions.”

The report said the attack took place next to a facility owned by the Iran Space Research Center, which has been sanctioned by the US for allegedly being involved in Iran’s ballistic missile program. Iran has yet to attribute blame for the incident, but Israel has a history of launching similar covert attacks using small quadcopter drones inside the Islamic Republic.

In May 2022, an Israeli drone attack targeted an Iranian military facility outside of Tehran, killing one engineer. About one year earlier, in June 2021, an Iranian nuclear facility was hit in an Israeli drone attack, resulting in damage to cameras belonging to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

The report said the incident marks the first attack inside Iran under the new Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu, although he has overseen plenty of covert operations inside Iran under previous governments he led. The attack came as the US and Israel are stepping up joint military coordination and just concluded their largest-ever joint exercise, which was seen as a major provocation toward Iran.

The US and Israel have been discussing ways to counter Iran’s growing military relationship with Russia. CIA Director William Burns made an unannounced visit to Israel last week to discuss Iran, among other issues. The US wants to disrupt Iranian military supplies to Russia, although Tehran insists it hasn’t provided drones to Moscow since the invasion of Ukraine.

At this point, it’s not clear if the drone attack was related to the war in Ukraine, but Mykhailo Podolyak, an advisor to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, made a point to comment on the incident. “Explosive night in Iran,” he wrote on Twitter. “[Ukraine] did try to warn you.” Podolyak previously called for the “liquidation” of Iranian facilities that produce weapons.

Israel has rebuffed requests to send weapons to Ukraine and wants to avoid raising tensions with Moscow. Israel frequently launches airstrikes in Syria and has an understanding with Russia over the operations, although Moscow occasionally calls for Israeli attacks on the country to end.

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Dave DeCamp is the news editor of Antiwar.com, follow him on Twitter @decampdave.

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