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“I cling like a miser to the freedom that disappears as soon as there is an excess of things.” – Albert Camus, Lyrical and Critical Essays.

Let me tell you a story about a haunted house and all the thoughts it evoked in me.

Do we believe we can save ourselves by saving things?

Or do our saved possessions come to possess their saviors?

Do those who save many things or hoard believe that there are pockets in shrouds?  Or do they collect things as a magical protection against the shroud?

These are questions that have preoccupied me for weeks as my wife and I have spent long and exhausting days cleaning out a friend’s house.  Many huge truckloads of possessions have been carted off to the dump. Thousands of documents have been shredded and thousands more taken to our house for further sorting. Other things have been donated to charity. This is what happens to people’s things; they disappear, never to be seen again, just as we do, eventually.

Tolstoy wrote a story – “How Much Land Does A Man Need’’ – that ends with the answer: a piece six feet long, enough for your grave.  As in this story, the devil always has the last laugh when your covetousness gets the best of you.  Yet so many people continue to collect in the vain hope that they are exceptions.  Ask almost anyone and they will reluctantly admit that they hoard to some degree.

In capitalist consumer societies, getting and spending and hoarding not only lays waste our powers, but it is done on the backs of the poor and destitute around the world.  It is a system built to inflame the worst human tendencies of acquisitiveness and indifference since it teaches that one never has enough of everything.  It denies the primal sympathy of human care for all humans as it teaches that if you surround yourself with enough things – have ten pair of shoes, twenty shirts, an attic filled with things in reserve – you will be safe from the fate of the majority of the world’s poor who have next to nothing. It is an insidious form of soul murder wherein one pulls the shades on the prison-house, counts one’s possessions, and shakes hands with the Devil.  And it is sadly common.

From attic to cellar to garage, every little cubbyhole, closet, and drawer in this relative’s house was filled with “saved” items.  Nothing was ever thrown away.  If you walked in the front door, you would never know that the occupants were compulsive keepers.  While there were plenty of knick-knacks in evidence like so many houses where the fear of emptiness rules (the emptiness that is the source of freedom and creativity), once you opened a drawer or closet, a secreted lunacy spilled out seriatim like circus clowns from a small car.  Like all clown shows, it was funny but far more frightening, as though all the saved objects were tinged with the fear of death and dissolution, were futile efforts to stop the flow of time and life by sticking a finger in a dike.

Let me begin with the bags.  Hidden in every corner and closet, there were bags stuffed in bags.  Big bags and little bags, hundreds if not thousands, used and unused, plastic, paper, cloth bags with price tags still on them.  The same was true for boxes, especially empty jewelry boxes.  Cardboard boxes that once held a little something, wooden boxes, cigar boxes, large cartons, boxes from every device ever purchased  – all seemingly being saved for some future use that would never come.  But the bags and boxes filled each other so that no emptiness could survive, although desolation seemed to cry out from within: “You can’t suffocate me.”

Tens of thousands of photographs and slides were squirreled into cabinets, closets, and their own file cabinets, each neatly marked with the date and place of their taking.  Time in a “bottle” from which one would never drink again – possessing the past in a vain attempt to stop time.  These photos were kept in places where their taker would never see them again but could find a weird comfort that they were saved somewhere in this vast collection.  Cold comfort by embalming time.

It so happens that while emptying the house, I was rereading the wonderful novel, Zorba The Greek, by Nikos Kazantzakis.  There is a passage in it where a woman has died, and while her corpse lies in her house, the villagers descend on her possessions like shrieking vultures on a carcass.

Old women, men, children went rushing through the doors, jumped through the open windows, over the fences and off the balcony, each carrying whatever he had been able to snatch – sauce pans, frying pans, mattresses, rabbits …. Some of them had taken doors or windows off their hinges and had put them on their backs. Mimiko had seized the two court shoes, tied on a piece of string and hung them round his neck – it looked as though Dame Hortense were going off astraddle on his shoulders and only her shoes were visible….

The avidity for things drives many people mad, to get and to keep stuff, to build walls around life so as to protect themselves from death. To consume so as not to be consumed.  Kazantzakis brilliantly makes this clear in the book.  Zorba, the Greek physical laborer and wild man, is different, for he knows that salvation lies in dispossession.  One day he encounters five little children begging in a village.  Their father has just been murdered.  “I don’t know why, divine inspiration I suppose, but I went up to them.”  He gives the children his basket of food and all his money.  He tells his interlocutor, a writer whom he calls “Boss,” a man whom Zorba accuses of not being able to cut the string that ties him to a life of living-death, that that was how he was rescued.

Rescued from my country, from priests, and from money. I began sifting things, sifting more and more things out. I lighten my burden that way. I – how shall I put it? – I find my own deliverance, I become a man.

In the jam-packed attic where there is little room to move with boxes and objects piled on top of each other, I found a large metal four-drawer file cabinet packed with files.  In one file folder there was a small purse filled with the following: four very old unmarked keys, six paper clips, two old unworkable watches, a bobby pin, a circular case that contained what looked like a piece of a human bone, a few old medallions, tweezers, four buttons, an eye screw, a safety pin, a nail, a screw, two ancient tiny photos, and a lock of human hair.  Similar objects were stored throughout the house in various containers, bags, boxes, the pockets of clothes, in old ancient furniture in the basement, on shelves, in cigar boxes, in desks, etc.  Old receipts for purchases made forty years ago, airline baggage tags, ticket stubs, school papers, jewelry hidden everywhere, old foreign and domestic coins, perhaps twenty-five old unworkable watches, clocks, radios, clothes and more clothes, more that anyone could ever have worn, scores of old pens and pencils, hand-written notes with no dates or any semblance of order or meaning, chaos and obsessive account-keeping hiding everywhere in contradictory forms shared by two people: one the neat freak and the other disorganized.  One dead and the other forced by fate to let her stuff go, to stand naked in the wind.

How does it help a person to record that they bought a toaster for $6.98 in 1957 or a bracelet for $20 in 1970 or that they called so-and-so some undated time in the past?  What good does it do to save vast correspondences documenting  your complaints, bitterness, and quarrels?  Or boxes upon boxes of Christmas cards received thirty years ago?  Or brochures and receipts from a trip taken long ago?  Old sports medals?  Scrapbooks?  Photos of long dead relatives no one wants?  Fashion designer shoes and coats and handbags hidden in a dusty attic where you don’t even know they are there.  An immigrant mother’s ancient sewing machine weighing seventy-five pounds and gathering dust in the cellar?

Nothing I could tell you can come close to picturing what we saw in this house.  It was overwhelming, horrifying, and weirdly fascinating.  And aside from the useful things that were donated to charity and some that were taken to the woman’s next dwelling, ninety percent was dumped in a landfill, soon to be buried.

In his brilliant novel Underworld, Don DeLillo writes about a guy named Brian who goes to visit a collector of old baseball paraphernalia – bats, balls, an old scoreboard, tapes of games, etc. – in a house where “a mood of mausoleum gloom” fills the air.  The man tells Brian:

There’s men in the coming years they’ll pay fortunes for these objects. Because this is desperation speaking …. Men come here to see my collection …. They come and they don’t want to leave. The phone rings, it’s the family – where is he? This is the fraternity of missing men.

Men and women hoarders, collectors, and keepers are lost children, trying desperately to secure themselves from death while losing themselves in the process.  In my friend’s house I found huge amounts of string and rope waiting to tie something up neatly someday.  That day never came.

Zorba tells the Boss, who insists he’s free, the following:

No, you’re not free. The string you’re tied to is perhaps no longer than other people’s. That’s all. You’re on a long piece of string, boss; you come and go and think you’re free, but you never cut the string in two. And when people don’t cut that string ….

It’s difficult, boss, very difficult. You need a touch of folly to do that; folly, d’you see? You have to risk everything! But you’ve got such a strong head, it’ll always get the better of you. A man’s head is like a grocer; it keeps accounts. I’ve paid so much and earned so much and that means a profit of this much or a loss of that much! The head’s a careful little shopkeeper; it never risks all it has, always keeps something in reserve. It never breaks the string. Ah, no! It hangs on tight to it, the bastard! If the string slips out of its grasp, the head, poor devil, is lost, finished! But if a man doesn’t break the string, tell me what flavor is left in life? The flavor of camomile, weak camomile tea! Nothing like rum – that makes you see life inside out.

On the way out the door on our final day cleaning the house, I found a beautiful boxed fountain pen on a windowsill.  I love pens since I am a writer.  This one shone brightly and seemed to speak to me: think of what you could write with me, it said so seductively.  I was sorely tempted, but knowing that I didn’t need another pen, I left it there, thinking that perhaps the next occupants of this house would write a different story and embrace Camus’ advice about an excess of things.

Perhaps.

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This article was originally published on the author’s blog site, Behind the Curtain.

Edward Curtin is a prominent author, researcher and sociologist based in Western Massachusetts. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). 

Featured image: Zero Waste Solution, Wareham, MA (PHOTO: DAVID RATCLIFFE)

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He is the author of Seeking the Truth in a Country of Lies

To order his book, click the cover page.

“Seeking Truth in a Country of Lies is a dazzling journey into the heart of many issues — political, philosophical, and personal — that should concern us all.  Ed Curtin has the touch of the poet and the eye of an eagle.” Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

“Edward Curtin puts our propaganda-stuffed heads in a guillotine, then in a flash takes us on a redemptive walk in the woods — from inferno to paradiso.  Walk with Ed and his friends — Daniel Berrigan, Albert Camus, George Orwell, and many others — through the darkest, most-firefly-filled woods on this earth.” James W. Douglass, author, JFK and the Unspeakable

“A powerful exposé of the CIA and our secret state… Curtin is a passionate long-time reform advocate; his stories will rouse your heart.” Oliver Stone, filmmaker, writer, and director

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

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***

“Every dead Russian and Ukrainian in this war, every family anywhere in the world that suffers the consequences of this war, every business that shuts down because of the economic damage this war is causing and the increased risk of nuclear annihilation, it’s all US Govt made.” Twitter @KimDotcom

Proxy War (def)– a war instigated by a major power which does not itself become involved.

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Ukrainian gains on the battlefield have been met by a widely-anticipated Russian escalation. On September 21, in a rare national address, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the mobilsation of 300,000 reservists who would be called to serve in the war in Ukraine.

In recent weeks, the Russian army has suffered a number of setbacks due to its lack of sufficient manpower in the battlespace. Simply put, the Russians did not have enough combat troops to carry out their mission or to defend the vast area that has recently been annexed by Moscow. Russia’s Special Military Operation was never designed to seize and occupy great swaths of Ukrainian territory. In essence, the SMO was a police operation aimed at locating and eliminating the Ukrainian forces that had been bombarding and killing ethnic Russians living in east Ukraine.

After numerous clashes with advancing NATO-trained battalions, it’s clear that Russia needs significant reinforcements to roll back Ukrainian forces and impose a security buffer around its new provinces. Russia’s critics see the under-staffing as an indication of military incompetence but, in fact, Moscow is merely adapting to a fluid situation in which both parties continue to raise the stakes. Here is an excerpt from a post by Big Serge at Substack that helps to clarify what’s going on:

Of all the phantasmagorical claims that have been made about the Russo-Ukrainian War, few are as difficult to believe as the claim that Russia intended to conquer Ukraine with fewer than 200,000 men. Indeed, a central truth of the war that observers simply must come to grasp with is the fact that the Russian army has been badly outnumbered from day one…. On paper, Russia has committed an expeditionary force of less than 200,000 men, though of course that full amount has not been on the frontline in active combat lately.

The light force deployment is related to Russia’s rather unique service model, which has combined “contract soldiers” – the professional core of the army – with a reservist pool that is generated with an annual conscription wave….The transition from a Soviet mobilization scheme to a smaller, leaner, professional ready force was part and parcel of Russia’s neoliberal austerity regime throughout much of the Putin years.

…. This Russian contract force can still accomplish a great deal, militarily speaking – it can destroy Ukrainian military installations, wreak havoc with artillery, bash its way into urban agglomerations in the Donbas, and destroy much of Ukraine’s indigenous war-making potential. It cannot, however, wage a multi-year continental war against an enemy which outnumbers it by at least four to one, and which is sustained with intelligence, command and control, and material which are beyond its immediate reach…

More force deployment is needed. Russia must transcend the neoliberal austerity army. It has the material capacity to mobilize the needed forces – it has many millions in its reservist pool, enormous inventories of equipment, and indigenous production capacity undergirded by the natural resources and production potential of the Eurasian bloc that has closed ranks around it. But remember – military mobilization is also political mobilization.” (“Politics By Other Means; Putin and Clausewitz”, Big Serge Thoughts, Substack)

Russia’s critics, of course, will dismiss this explanation as nonsense, even so, the calling up of 300,000 reservists shows that Putin’s generals realize they cannot achieve their strategic objectives with merely an “expeditionary force” but must adjust to changes on the ground. And that is precisely what they are doing; they are beefing up their forces at a time when Putin’s public approval rating is at an eye-watering 77%. So, while an earlier mobilization would have undoubtedly been met with widespread condemnation and rejection, the great majority of Russians now fully support the policy. Simply put, Putin has won the hearts and minds of the Russian people. He has convinced them that their country, traditions, culture and lives face an unprecedented existential threat. Here’s more from Big Serge:

Putin and those around him conceived of the Russo-Ukrainian War in existential terms from the very beginning. It is unlikely, however, that most Russians understood this….

What has happened in the months since February 24 is rather remarkable. The existential war for the Russian nation has been incarnated and made real for Russian citizens. Sanctions and anti-Russian propaganda – demonizing the entire nation as “orcs” – has rallied even initially skeptical Russians behind the war, and Putin’s approval rating has soared. A core western assumption, that Russians would turn on the government, has reversed. Videos showing the torture of Russian POWs by frothing Ukrainians, of Ukrainian soldiers calling Russian mothers to mockingly tell them their sons are dead, of Russian children killed by shelling in Donetsk, have served to validate Putin’s implicit claim that Ukraine is a demon possessed state that must be exorcised with high explosives… The government of Ukraine (in now deleted tweets) publicly claimed that Russians are prone to barbarism because they are a mongrel race with Asiatic blood mixing.” (Big Serge, Substack)

In short, the establishment media and political class have made Putin’s job easier for him by persuading even left-leaning Russians that the western nations –led by the US– despise all-things Russian and are determined to destroy their country and subjugate their people. Here’s Putin:

I want to underscore again that their insatiability and determination to preserve their unfettered dominance are the real causes of the hybrid war that the collective West is waging against Russia. They do not want us to be free; they want us to be a colony. They do not want equal cooperation; they want to loot. They do not want to see us a free society, but a mass of soulless slaves….I would like to remind you that in the past, ambitions of world domination have repeatedly shattered against the courage and resilience of our people. Russia will always be Russia. We will continue to defend our values and our Motherland.

We have never agreed to and will never agree to such political nationalism and racism. What else, if not racism, is the Russophobia being spread around the world? What, if not racism, is the West’s dogmatic conviction that its civilisation and neoliberal culture is an indisputable model for the entire world to follow?…

Today, we are fighting so that it would never occur to anyone that Russia, our people, our language, or our culture can be erased from history. Today, we need a united society, and this unification can only be based on sovereignty, freedom, creation, and justice. Our values ​​are humanity, mercy and compassion.” (Speech on the Accession of the New Regions to Russia, Vladimir Putin, Unz Review)

According to Putin, the collective west wants to plunder Russia, enslave its people, and create a colony whose wealth can be siphoned off by tyrannical bigots and foreign profiteers. The media’s relentless attack on Russian athletes, scholars, scientists, musicians and even businessmen has only reinforced the view among ordinary Russians that they have entered the crosshairs of a violent and out-of-control western coalition that intends to deliver the same lethal death-blow to Russia that they did to Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan and countless other nations. Putin’s soaring public approval ratings underscore the fact that most Russians think the threat is real and that the battle must be joined. Here’s more from Big Serge:

“Putin has … achieved his project of formal annexation of Ukraine’s old eastern rim. This has also legally transformed the war into an existential struggle. Further Ukrainian advances in the east are now, in the eyes of the Russian state, an assault on sovereign Russian territory and an attempt to destroy the integrity of the Russian state. Recent polling shows that a supermajority of Russians support defending these new territories at any cost.” (Substack)

The speed at which Putin annexed the four regions in Ukraine suggests that the real purpose of the action goes far beyond the expansion of Russia’s western border. The real reason Putin rushed through the measure was to fundamentally change the rules of engagement. Needless to say, a Special Military Operation is worlds apart from the defense of one’s own sovereign territory. In other words, the real purpose of the referendum was to indicate that “the gloves are off” and that Russia is going to respond to Ukraine’s attacks with unexpected ferocity. Here’s Serge again:

A political consensus for higher mobilization and greater intensity has been achieved. Now all that remains is the implementation of this consensus in the material world of fist and boot, bullet and shell, blood and iron.”

….. Russia is massing for a winter escalation and offensive, and is currently engaged in a calculated trade wherein they give up space in exchange for time and Ukrainian casualties.Russia continues to retreat where positions are either operationally compromised or faced with overwhelming Ukrainian numbers, but they are very careful to extract forces out of operational danger….

Russia will likely continue to pull back over the coming weeks, withdrawing units intact under their artillery and air umbrella, grinding down Ukrainian heavy equipment stocks and wearing away their manpower. Meanwhile, new equipment continues to congregate in Belgorod, Zaporizhia, and Crimea. My expectation remains the same: episodic Russian withdrawal until the front stabilizes roughly at the end of October, followed by an operational pause until the ground freezes, followed by escalation and a winter offensive by Russia once they have finished amassing sufficient units.

There is an eerie calm radiating from the Kremlin….. The disconnect between the Kremlin’s stoicism and the deterioration of the front are striking. Perhaps Putin and the entire Russian general staff really are criminally incompetent – perhaps the Russian reserves really are nothing but a bunch of drunks. Perhaps there is no plan.

Or perhaps, Russia’s sons will answer the call of the motherland again, as they did in 1709, in 1812, and in 1941.

As the wolves once more prowl at the door, the old bear rises again to fight.” (Big Serge, Substack)

Bottom line: Russia has now laid the groundwork for a broader and more violent conflict. 300,000 reservists have been called up, vast amounts of military hardware are being shipped to the front, and public opinion overwhelmingly supports the war-effort. All the signs point to a significant escalation in the fighting that will leave much of Ukraine in ruins while pushing Washington and Moscow closer to a direct confrontation.

Mearsheimer’s Chilling Prediction: “The Russians are going to turn Ukraine into rubble.” (2 minute video)

John Mearsheimer called it right in 2015 and he called it right again 7 months ago. Maybe the US Govt should hire him as a fire alarm. pic.twitter.com/8CvbMPyUO6

— Kim Dotcom (@KimDotcom) October 12, 2022

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This article was originally published on The Unz Review.

Michael Whitney is a renowned geopolitical and social analyst based in Washington State. He initiated his career as an independent citizen-journalist in 2002 with a commitment to honest journalism, social justice and World peace.

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

Featured image is from The Unz Review

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

Once the western media were full with the speculation that Boris Johnson will run for UK Premiership which he indeed announced – Boris pulled another trick.

Namely pulling out of the race.

Announced yesterday evening. Confirmed today all over the media.

This leaves the way free for his former close ally, Chancellor of the Exchequer, or Minister of Finance, Rishi Sunak, who is also currently the contest’s favorite.

According to RT of 24 October, in a statement released on Sunday evening, Johnson said on Sunday evening that he had cleared “the very high hurdle of 102 nominations” from MPs and could “indeed be back in Downing Street on Friday,” and would be “well placed” to bring his party a victory at the 2024 general election. “But in the course of the last days I have sadly come to the conclusion that this would simply not be the right thing to do. You can’t govern effectively unless you have a united party in parliament.”

This may be just another ruse of Johnson and the Tories, working hand in hand with Rushi Sunak, to continue the Globalist Agenda forced upon the world by the US-UK-NATO alliance in which the proxy war in Ukraine plays an important and deadly role.

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After just 6 weeks in Office, the UK Prime Minister Liz Truss – a Tory – quits. The shortest ever PM in British history. Rumors have it, that Boris Johnson, her immediate predecessor – may also be the favored candidate as her successor.

Could well be.

It would be a little-veiled game.

And as usual, no coincidence; not that Boris resigned, not that Liz Truss entered, nor that she resigned after only a short period. And it will not be coincidence if Boris is reelected – and stay as British PM up to or close to 5 years.

The opposition – Labor – would like to call for new General Elections, but they will be overruled by the Tories’ almost two thirds majority in Parliament.

Boris Johnson was ideal for the tandem Washington-London on a rampage intent on demolishing Europe via the Russian war with Ukraine. Johnson was the brain, Biden and his hintermen the executioners. And as they were working on dismembering Europe, they also were, with NATO aid, simultaneously attempting to crush Russia.

The illusion of arrogance has no limits.

Britain’s exit from the EU was no coincidence either, It was part of the plan – the plan to act relatively undisturbed outside the EU on the very EU’s destruction. They have Germans, who do the same from inside – Ms. Ursula von der Leyen, (unelected, but appointed) President of the European Commission, former German Defense Minister; and Olaf Scholz, Chancellor of Germany. Amon his many high-ranking former political positions, he was Vice Chancellor under Angela Merkel, Minister of Finance and Mayor of Hamburg.

They are both involved from within, destroying Europe economically and socially.

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Boris Johnson lost first popularity with the long-drawn-out EU-exit; then with his floppy handling of the “Covid crisis” – and a number of intended or not, other crises: An enormous budget deficit, a national debt of about 95% of GDP in 2022, the highest since 1960 (see this), an infamously decaying infrastructure throughout the country, as well as other plunders, including a sex-scandal of a senior lawmaker in Johnson’s Government.

When some 50 parliamentarians resigned within 48 hours in protest of the sex-scandal, Johnson resigned in July 2022, in what was considered a non-confidence manifestation.

British General Elections would have been due in January 2025, in a bit over two years. With Boris’ popularity in free fall, even within his own party, the Tories would have had next to no chance to win the elections. The Conservatives have currently about a 3 to 2 majority over Labor.

The British exit from the EU looks increasingly like the precursor to the plan currently being executed. Destroy Europe and “contain” Russia for the benefit of the big One World Order (OWO).

Remember – nothing is coincidence. It fits all into the Great Reset and, inter alia, into the UN Agenda 2030. The European Union, a block of 27 countries and half a billion population, would be too unwieldy to control, and does not fit into the OWO’s Command Center.

So, in response to the British crises earlier this year, better get Boris out and replace him temporarily with a “caretaker”. Ms. Liz Truss was a perfect fit for the scheme. She knew exactly what her role was, and she plaid it as good as she could.

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Ms. Truss knew what to do as an immediate measure to earn immediate countrywide critic, namely reducing taxes for the rich.

The British economy is in a sharp down-turn, losing in August 2022 unexpectedly 0.3% in output, driven by a sharp decline in manufacturing and a small contraction in services, according to the Office for National Statistics recent assessment. See this.

Ms. Truss also knew that under such somber circumstances, certain measures like tax cuts for the rich, are a no-go. She did it anyway – to draw the ire of the public and of her own Parliament, even her Tory colleagues.

Her then newly appointed finance minister, Jeremy Hunt, reversed the decision on the tax cuts for the rich and said that the government will prioritize help for the most vulnerable, referring also to the high inflation of 10.1% in September – and projected to rise further until the end of the year. A British recession is in the making.

With all that self-made circus, the time had come for Liz Truss to go. Most media and political analysts predicting on Wednesday 19 October, that her ouster or resignation was not even a “question of days, but of hours”.

Yesterday, 20 October, Liz Truss resigned, “as planned”, leaving the field open for the new – old PM, Boris Johnson. After the Liz Truss disaster, he has gained new popularity. A socio-psychological trick. A majority of Tories want him back. And since the Tories will be Kingmakers – again – Johnson’s re-election is almost assured.

See this.

That means, the Washington-London-NATO Trio will be intact again, and able to continue their war game – with economic catastrophes for Europe, and by and large the global north. The key players US, EU and Germany are well aware and play the self-destructive game, as long as they can – or as long as they are allowed to do so by their still slumbering populace.

The visible people on top are following orders, coming silently down through the WEF – instrument of the gigantic Financial-IT Complex (FITC), running the world. Up to end 2019, they did it more or less clandestinely. Since 2020, the beginning of the dictatorial worldwide implementation of the insane Covid fear – paralleled by the deadly vaxx tyranny – this Cult of the Riches has become increasingly visible, hiding behind just a thin “veil of shame”.

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If re-elected as PM, Boris and his party’s two third’s majority, would have a good chance to last through another 5 years. Enough time to drive the Elite’s Agenda forward. The proxy-war with Russia could be dragged on for several years – always with an “immediate threat” of turning nuclear. Initiated by Russia, of course.

The UN Agenda 2030 is in full implementation. All behind the curtain of war.

Nothing is coincidence. The dots connect. One just has to see them.

The media love to play right along with the propaganda song, keeping people around the (western) globe on their toes, diverted with fear from whatever else is going on behind the scene – in an attempt of completing the Great Cult Reset, including with the WEF’s planned 4^th Industrial Revolution (4IR), and the consequential transhumanization.

To 4IR and transhumanization is intimately linked the rapidly expanding construction of 5G-antennas throughout the western world. Both 4IR and transhumanization depend on a 5G seamless and flawless coverage. The antenna proliferation is hardly visible and even less talked about. Construction often happens at night.

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The duo, Biden – Johnson, representing the old but faltering British Empire, supported by an ever-expanding NATO, are hoping to prevail and reviving the Empire’s Dream back to reality.

It won’t happen. The Boris tactic of resigning to be re-elected is a clever ploy. But far from enough to face the dawning new world in the East – an era of collaboration and Peace – an era of cooperation and development. Development, as in seeking social balance and equity.

The future is in the East, where the sun rises. The East encompasses already about half the world’s population and a number of existing and emerging associations, like the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), the BRICS-plus, ASEAN, Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), and many more.

The British-American Empire is on its last leg. Never mind the last-ditch Biden-Johnson efforts with NATO backing. Their economy is fake and broke. The economy of the emerging East is solid and real.

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

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

The West Bank in Palestine Is Ready to Explode

By Steven Sahiounie, October 23, 2022

There is a battle brewing in the occupied West Bank of Palestine.  Thousands of Israeli occupation forces will be deployed to face a growing resistance force.  The ‘natives are restless’ and the Lions’ Den has mobilized to fight for their freedom and human rights.

A Political Solution for Assange: Jennifer Robinson at the National Press Club

By Dr. Binoy Kampmark, October 24, 2022

In addressing the Australian National Press Club, Robinson’s address, titled “Julian Assange, Free Speech and Democracy”, was a grand recapitulation of the political case against the WikiLeaks founder.  Followers of this ever darkening situation would not have found anything new.  The shock, rather, was how ignorant many remain about the chapters in this scandalous episode of persecution.

US Rehearses Dropping Nuclear Bombs in Europe

By Andre Damon, October 24, 2022

On Monday, the NATO military alliance will hold a training exercise, known as Steadfast Noon, in which US B-52 bombers and F-16 fighters will simulate dropping atomic bombs over Europe amid a deepening nuclear standoff with Russia.

‘The Real Anthony Fauci’ — The Movie

By Dr. Joseph Mercola, October 23, 2022

The book and the film reveal how Fauci turned the National Institutes of Health into an incubator for pharmaceutical products and essentially sold the entire country to the drug industry.

Ukraine Proper Already in 1654 Opted for Russia

By Dr. Vladislav B. Sotirović, October 23, 2022

The statehood of Ukraine like Ukrainian ethnolinguistic identity is one of the most problematic research topics. Ukraine herself has, in addition, extremely artificial state borders from very historical and political points of view. Even the name of the country and nation is very unusual and even unnatural as the Slavonic term “Ukraine” means in English “borderland” while “Ukrainians” are simply “people from borderland”.

Ukraine and Rules-based Fascism

By Kurt Nimmo, October 23, 2022

It is true the word “fascism” gets thrown a lot, often completely out of its definitional context. However, in the case of Ukraine, the word is applicable. Even a cursory look at the political and social landscape of Ukraine reveals the country—the most corrupt and poverty-stricken in Europe—has long practiced fascism, that is to say an authoritarian, racist, ultranationalist form of government and ideology.

US Economic War on China Threatens Global Microchip Industry

By Drago Bosnic, October 23, 2022

Ever since China emerged as an economic powerhouse in recent decades, the political West (particularly the United States) has been trying to curb its growth and development. With the world’s largest workforce and by far the most important production economy, China wields enormous power to affect economic trends on a planetary level.

Health Official Admits in Court That Millions of Canadians Have Been Experimented on with COVID Vaccines

By Rhoda Wilson, October 23, 2022

Court testimony reveals that Canada’s top health expert did not recommend a vaccine be a requirement before boarding a bus, train or plane. Even worse, the human trial for the Covid vaccine is now underway and millions of Canadians are part of the experiment.

Peace and Diplomacy Between the US and Russia or More Empire-building?

By Irwin Jerome, October 23, 2022

The US and its Western allies, with malevolent forethought, constantly try to totally negate or erode the sovereignty of nations for their own Empire’s endless expansion. One example of so many others one can cite, is the never-ending economic, political, ideological crisis in Haiti.

 

Kremlin: Putin Open to Talks on Ukraine From the Very Beginning

By Kyle Anzalone, October 23, 2022

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday that Putin appeared to be “much softer and more open to negotiations.” Ankara has been one of the few NATO members to try to retain some ties with Moscow. Erdogan led negotiations that nearly ended the war in Ukraine in its first months. In July, Turkey and the UN successfully mediated the grain export agreement between Kiev and Moscow.

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***

It was telling.  Of the mainstream Australian press gallery, only David Crowe of the Sydney Morning Herald turned up to listen to Jennifer Robinson, lawyer extraordinaire who has spent years representing Julian Assange.  Since 2019, that representation has taken an even more urgent note: to prevent the WikiLeaks founder from being extradited to the United States, where he faces 18 charges, 17 confected from the archaic Espionage Act of 1917.

In addressing the Australian National Press Club, Robinson’s address, titled “Julian Assange, Free Speech and Democracy”, was a grand recapitulation of the political case against the WikiLeaks founder.  Followers of this ever darkening situation would not have found anything new.  The shock, rather, was how ignorant many remain about the chapters in this scandalous episode of persecution.

Robinson’s address noted those blackening statements from media organisations and governments that Assange was paranoid and could leave the Ecuadorian embassy, his abode for seven years, at his own leisure.  Many were subsequently “surprised when Julian was served with a US extradition request.”  But this was exactly what WikiLeaks had been warning about for some ten years.

In the Belmarsh maximum security prison, where he has resided for 3.5 years, Assange’s health has declined further.  “Then last year, during a stressful court appeal hearing, Julian had a mini stroke.”  His ailing state did not convince a venal prosecution, tasked with “deriding the medical evidence of Julian’s severe depression and suicidal ideation”.

The matter of health plays into the issue of lengthy proceedings.  Should the High Court not grant leave to hear an appeal against the June decision by Home Secretary Priti Patel to order his extradition, processes through the UK Supreme Court and possibly the European Court of Human Rights could be activated.

The latter appeal, should it be required, would depend on the government of the day keeping Britain within the court’s jurisdiction.  “If our appeal fails, Julian will be extradited to the US – where his prison conditions will be at the whim of intelligence agencies which plotted to kill him.”  An unfair trial would follow, and any legal process citing the First Amendment culminating in a hearing before the US Supreme Court would take years.

The teeth in Robinson’s address lay in the urgency of political action.  Assange is suffering a form of legal and bureaucratic assassination, his life gradually quashed by briefs, reviews, bureaucrats and protocols.  “This case needs an urgent political solution.  Julian does not have another decade to wait for a legal fix.”

Acknowledging that her reference to the political avenue was unusual for a lawyer, Robinson noted how the language of due process and the rule of law had become ghoulish caricatures in what amounts to a form of punishment.  The law has been fashioned in an abusive way that sees a person being prosecuted for journalism in a hideously pioneering way.  Despite the UK-US Extradition Treaty’s prohibition of extradition for political offences, the US prosecution was making  much of the Espionage Act.  “Espionage,” stated Robinson, “is a political offence.”

The list of abuses in the prosecution is biblically lengthy.  Robinson gave her audience a summary of them: the fabrication of evidence via the Icelandic informant and convicted embezzler and paedophile Sigurdur “Siggi” Thordarson; the deliberate distortion of facts; the unlawful surveillance of Assange and his legal team and matters of medical treatment; “and the seizure of legally privileged material.”

Much ignorance about Assange and the implications of his persecution is no doubt willed.  Robinson’s reference to Nils Melzer, the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, was apt.  Here was a man initially sceptical about the torture complaint made by Assange and his team.  He had been convinced by the libel against the publisher’s reputation. “But in 2019, he agreed to read our complaint.  And what he read shocked him and forced him to confront his own prejudice.”

Melzer would subsequently observe that, in the course of two decades working “with victims of war, violence and political persecution, I have never seen a group of democratic States ganging up to deliberately isolate, demonise and abuse a single individual for such a long time and with so little regard for human dignity and the rule of law”.

The concern these days among the press darlings is not press freedoms closer to home, whether they be in Australia itself, or among its allies.  The egregious misconduct by Russian forces in the Ukraine War or China’s human rights record in Xinjiang are what counts.  Villainy lies elsewhere.

The obscene conduct by US authorities, whose officials contemplated abducting and murdering a publisher, is an inconvenient smudge of history best ignored for consumers of news down under.  The Albanese government, which has continued to extol the glory of the AUKUS security pact and swoon at prospects of a globalised NATO, has shelved any “political solution” regarding Assange, at least in any public context.  The US-Australian alliance is a shrine to worship at with reverential delusion, rather than question with informed scepticism.  The WikiLeaks founder did, after all, spoil the party.

On a cheerier note, those listening to Robinson’s address reflected a healthy political awareness about the tribulations facing a fellow Australian citizen.  The federal member for the seat of Kooyong, Dr. Monique Ryan, was present, as were Senators Peter Whish Wilson and David Shoebridge.  As Ryan subsequently tweeted, “An Australian punished by foreign states for acts of journalism?  Time for our government to act.”

https://mobile.twitter.com/Mon4Kooyong/status/1582642982468976641

Others were those who have been or continue to be targets of the national security state.  The long-suffering figure and target of the Australian security establishment, Bernard Collaery, put in an appearance, as did David McBride, who awaits trial for having exposed alleged atrocities of Australian special service personnel in Afghanistan.

Such individuals have made vital, oxygenating contributions to democratic accountability, of which WikiLeaks stands proud.  But any journalism that, as Robinson puts it, subjects “power to scrutiny, and holding it accountable”, is bound to incite the fury of the national security state.  Regarding Assange, will that fury win out?

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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: Lawyer Jennifer Robinson (Source: ECCHR)

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***

On Monday, the NATO military alliance will hold a training exercise, known as Steadfast Noon, in which US B-52 bombers and F-16 fighters will simulate dropping atomic bombs over Europe amid a deepening nuclear standoff with Russia.

The training exercise comes just ten days after US President Joe Biden warned of a nuclear “apocalypse,” saying the risk of nuclear war is the greatest since the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962.

“This is the exercise that practices NATO’s nuclear strike mission with dual-capable aircraft and the B61 tactical nuclear bombs the US deploys in Europe,” wrote Hans Kristensen of the Federation of American Scientists.

The aircraft will rehearse dropping B61 “tactical” thermonuclear bombs, each of which is up to 20 times more powerful than the weapon that destroyed Hiroshima in World War II, killing as many as 126,000 civilians.

While nuclear training exercises are usually presented as routine, nonthreatening, and not targeting any specific country, this year NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg made clear that the exercise is intended as a threat to Russia.

In a speech that mentioned Russia five times, Stoltenberg announced,

“Next week, NATO will hold its long-planned deterrence exercise, Steadfast Noon.” He added, “Russia knows that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.”

As of 2019, the United States had 150 “tactical” nuclear warheads stationed throughout Europe as part of the NATO nuclear arsenal, including in Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey.

On Sunday, one day ahead of the scheduled nuclear drill, China told its citizens living in Ukraine to evacuate the country, citing the “grave security situation.”

In June, the NATO alliance published a document pledging to “deliver the full range of forces” needed “for high-intensity, multi-domain warfighting against nuclear-armed peer-competitors.”

In announcing the Steadfast Noon exercise, NATO said the training flights include  “14 countries and up to 60 aircraft of various types, including fourth and fifth generation fighter jets, as well as surveillance and tanker aircraft.” It added that “US B-52 long-range bombers” will “fly from Minot Air Base in North Dakota” to take part in the exercise.

The flights will take place “over Belgium, which is hosting the exercise, as well as over the North Sea and the United Kingdom.”

NATO added, “No live weapons are used,” which is a relief because the weapons involved in the drill would irradiate several hundred square miles and disperse fallout in multiple countries.

On October 7, President Joe Biden said the world is at risk of nuclear “Armageddon,” implying that the rapid escalation of the war in Ukraine could lead to nuclear war between the United States and Russia.

“We have not faced the prospect of Armageddon since Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis,” Biden said.

Biden added that he did not think “there’s any such thing as the ability to easily (use) a tactical nuclear weapon and not end up with Armageddon.”

In February, he warned that sending offensive weaponry to Ukraine would trigger “World War III.” Since that time, the US has sent hundreds of armored vehicles, advanced long-range missile systems, and other high-end weapons to Ukraine.

In an article published last week in Politico, former CIA Director Leon Panetta wrote that the US intelligence agencies believe the odds of the war in Ukraine spiraling into a nuclear war are as high as one in four.

“Some intelligence analysts now believe that the probability of the use of tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine has risen from 1-5 percent at the start of the war to 20-25 percent today,” Panetta wrote.

On Friday, the Guardian reported that governments are making plans to prevent “panic” should the war in Ukraine escalate into a nuclear conflict. “West makes plans to avoid panic if Russia uses nuclear bomb in Ukraine” was the headline of its report, which cited an unnamed official as saying that governments are carrying out “prudent planning for a range of possible scenarios.”

The NATO nuclear exercise is set to occur at virtually the same time that Russia carries out its “grom” nuclear exercise. While NATO has been loudly announcing its nuclear bombing exercises, no similar announcement has come from Russia.

That has not, however, prevented NATO officials from vocally denouncing the as yet unannounced Russian exercise as a provocative escalation.

An unnamed US official told Reuters,

“Brandishing nuclear weapons to coerce the United States and its allies is irresponsible.”

He added,

“We think nuclear saber rattling is reckless and irresponsible. Russia may choose to play that game – but we won’t.” The US official said this just days before Washington planned to fly bombers to Europe to practice dropping nuclear bombs.

Josep Borrell, the EU’s foreign policy chief, last week threatened to “annihilate” the Russian military if nuclear weapons were used in Ukraine, saying, “Any nuclear attack against Ukraine will create an answer, not a nuclear answer, but such a powerful answer from the military side that the Russian Army will be annihilated.”

On October 7, the same day as Biden’s comment about nuclear Armageddon, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, at a meeting of an Australian think tank, called for NATO to carry out preemptive strikes on Russia to prevent the “possibility of Russia using nuclear weapons.”

“What should NATO do? Eliminate the possibility of Russia using nuclear weapons,” Zelensky said. “We need preventive strikes, so they know what will happen to them if they use nukes, and not the other way around.”

In this super-heated atmosphere, the US-led nuclear training exercise raises the prospect of a major miscalculation. It is a well-known fact that the annual NATO Able Archer exercise during the Cold War almost led to a full-scale nuclear war in 1983, when the leadership of the Soviet Union became convinced that the United States was actually going to launch a nuclear attack.

The night the world almost ended – BBC REEL

The Washington Post noted that Soviet bomber crews “were ordered to load nuclear bombs on one squadron of aircraft in each regiment, and aircraft were placed at ‘readiness 3,’ meaning a 30-minute alert.”

In February 2021, the Historian’s Office of the US State Department declassified a letter by S. Lieutenant General Leonard H. Perroots that made clear Soviet forces had responded to the US buildup by loading nuclear warheads onto their bombers, and that if the United States had responded in kind, it could have triggered a nuclear war.

After being publicly released, the Perroots memo was taken offline by the State Department and a judge ruled that it should be reclassified as secret.

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Featured image: A B-52 bomber releases a bomb during a training operation. (Source: WSWS)

---

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

by Michel Chossudovsky

Available to order from Global Research! 

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

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

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

Reviews

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

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

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

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***

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s book, “The Real Anthony Fauci,” became an immediate best-seller upon its release in 2021, and that despite Big Tech’s censoring of its advertising. Kennedy’s book has now been made into a movie

The book and the film reveal how Fauci turned the National Institutes of Health into an incubator for pharmaceutical products and essentially sold the entire country to the drug industry

The film explores “the carefully planned militarization and monetization of medicine that has left American health ailing and our democracy shattered,” and chronicles the troubling role of the dangerously concentrated mainstream media, which during COVID have seemingly morphed into full-blown propaganda centers

While the NIH and the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases are supposed to serve the public, the reality is that they’re partnered with private drug companies and act for their benefit. Both agencies own pharmaceutical patents that are then licensed to drug companies while the agencies themselves collect royalties on the sales. Fauci has personally filed patents on hundreds of new drugs his agency funded

Were it not for this symbiotic relationship with drug companies, the NIH/NIAID would not be working against public health and deceiving the public about drugs and vaccines

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Click here to watch the film.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s book, “The Real Anthony Fauci,” became an immediate best-seller upon its release in 2021, and that despite Big Tech’s censoring of its advertising. In it, Kennedy describes how Fauci turned the National Institutes of Health into an incubator for pharmaceutical products and essentially sold the entire country to the drug industry.

The book is an incredibly well-referenced record of Fauci’s history of decimating human health, and exposes him as a self-serving charlatan. Now, Kennedy’s book has been made into a nearly two-hour-long movie (above). You definitely won’t want to miss this one, especially if you didn’t read the book.

The Real Anthony Fauci

As explained by Kennedy in the film, the book was a product of his own “struggle to understand how the idealistic institutions our country built to safeguard both public health and democracy suddenly turned against artists, citizens and our values with such violence.”

The Kennedy family has been deeply involved in the American public health bureaucracy for 80 years, and even wrote many of the legal statutes that Fauci and others worked under. I enjoyed Kennedy’s last book, “American Values: Lessons I Learned From My Family¸” as it is an excellent review of his family’s legacy, and I highly recommended it if you were ever a fan of his dad and uncle.

Yet somehow, Kennedy notes, the drug industry managed to “systematically hollow out” the agencies that were supposed to regulate it, effectively “disabling the regulatory function and transforming them into sock puppets.”

In the book and the film, Kennedy explores “the carefully planned militarization and monetization of medicine that has left American health ailing and our democracy shattered.” He also chronicles “the troubling role of the dangerously concentrated mainstream media,” which during COVID have seemingly morphed into full-blown propaganda centers and nothing else.

Fauci’s Rise to Power

Fauci’s rise to power began in 1984. That year, the U.S. government declared that the National Cancer Institute had discovered the cause of AIDS, and Fauci became the director of the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), which is under the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

He quickly realized that by defining AIDS as an infectious disease, he could seize control over future AIDS research, including research to develop an AIDS vaccine. The NIAID was at that time floundering, as most infectious diseases had already been conquered. AIDS provided Fauci with a way to save the near-obsolete agency, while simultaneously benefiting his Big Pharma allies.

As noted in the film, while the NIAID’s and NIH’s job is to serve the public, the reality is that they’re partnered with private drug companies. They own pharmaceutical patents that are then licensed to drug companies while the agencies themselves collect royalties on the sales. Fauci has personally filed patents on hundreds of new drugs his agency funded.

While this intimate relationship with the drug industry is brushed off as a mere formality, it’s the very crux of the problem. Were it not for this symbiotic relationship, these agencies would not be working against public health and deceiving the public about drugs and vaccines.

The Parallels Between AIDS and COVID

The COVID propaganda, it turns out, has closely followed that of AIDS. AIDS was a new, lethal disease that you could have without being aware of it, and media scare stories about contracting AIDS from toilet seats fanned the flames of fear.

Government officials suggested suspending teachers and students with AIDS, and there were discussions about mandatory testing, reporting of AIDS cases and quarantining AIDS patients.

Similarly, COVID-19 has been portrayed as a viral infection that might not have any symptoms, and it’s been falsely claimed that it can spread via asymptomatic carriers. Mandatory testing, reporting and quarantining actually became everyday reality during COVID.

As it turns out, Fauci was largely responsible for spreading these fallacies in both cases. In the 1980s, he falsely suggested children and other family members could contract AIDS through regular household contact with an infected person. Likewise, he promoted the false idea of asymptomatic carriers of SARS-CoV-2.

Fauci, in the film, is described as a social engineer, because he “re-engineers how people think of human contact, touch, intimacy.” AIDS was such a terrifying disease, people had to avoid not just sex but all human contact. Ditto with COVID. Both AIDS and COVID were represented as Death, and having either marked you as a potential murderer, lest you isolate yourself.

Another noteworthy parallel is the use of the PCR test. People had to be tested using PCR to find out whether they had HIV. Kary Mullis, the inventor of the PCR technology, was outraged, as he knew the test could not be used to diagnose any infection of any kind.

He publicly spoke out against using PCR to diagnose HIV infection, and he spoke out against Fauci, personally, for insisting on its use. He repeatedly warned that you simply cannot use the PCR tests to diagnose clinical infection with viruses. Coincidentally, Mullis died in August 2019, mere months before the outbreak of COVID-19. In a 1980s interview, Mullis said:

“[Fauci] doesn’t know anything really about anything, and I’d say that to his face. The man thinks you can take a blood sample and stick it in an electron microscope, and if it’s got a virus in there, you’ll know it. He doesn’t understand electron microscopy and he doesn’t understand medicine, and should not be in a position like he’s in.”

What Really Causes AIDS?

The discovery of HIV, the human immunodeficiency virus, which was said to cause acquired immunodeficiency syndrome or AIDS, is a tumultuous story. The virus was initially discovered by Dr. Luc Montagnier, but Dr. Robert Gallo took credit for it.

After a contentious fight, the discovery was eventually credited to both. However, while Gallo and Fauci insisted the virus itself was the sole cause of AIDS, Montagnier believed other coinfections were required for AIDS to develop.

The film details how Fauci manipulated the science to explain away the anomaly of AIDS patients who tested negative for HIV. They had all the symptoms of AIDS, but no HIV infection. Fauci solved the problem by simply renaming the HIV-negative cases as “idiopathic CD4+ lymphocytopenia” (ICL).

Fauci’s Love Affair With Toxic Drugs

Analyzing Fauci’s role in the AIDS and COVID epidemics, it becomes clear he has a playbook, and he’s not creative enough to divert from it even slightly. He also has a penchant for overly toxic and lethal drugs, insisting on their use after research has established their lethality.

In the 1980s and ‘90s, his drug of choice for AIDS was AZT, a failed cancer drug with extreme toxicity. Despite that, Fauci recommended HIV-positive patients be offered the drug, even if they were healthy and asymptomatic. Many died from the side effects within a year or two.

At the same time, Fauci blocked the use of other treatments that showed significant promise, such as hyperthermia, vitamin C drips and ozone treatment, leaving patients with no alternatives other than AZT.

The same thing happened during COVID. Fauci championed remdesivir, a failed Ebola treatment with high lethality, making sure it was selected as the sole “standard of treatment” for COVID, while all other options were rejected, vilified and/or banned from use. This included readily available off-patent and inexpensive drugs like hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin, but also things like vitamin D. In the film, Kennedy says:

“My uncle and Terry Burn spent a lot of time with Fauci trying to persuade him to have a parallel track. Their proposal was to create a parallel track approval system that would allow community AIDS doctors to conduct clinical studies on off the shelf drugs that neither pharma nor NIAID, wanted to test.

AZT at that time was the most expensive drug in history. It would cost $10,000 for a year of treatment, and for that drug to function, Fauci had to make sure that there were no competitors in the marketplace.

Part of the strategy for the NIAID, Anthony Fauci and his partners at Burroughs Wellcome was to make sure that those drugs did not get FDA [Food and Drug Administration] approval, because it would have killed AZT.”

The film goes on to detail how AZT forever altered the drug approval system at the FDA, which previously had insisted on long-term verification of safety and efficacy. Most drugs had to be studied for 10 years before the FDA would consider approval. That ended with AZT.

No long-term animal studies were ever completed on the drug, and Fauci declared the human AZT trial a success and shut it down after just four months. Not surprisingly, this was nowhere near long enough to detect side effects. The FDA gave it the green light and Fauci shut down any dissenting experts.

Fauci’s Unethical Torture of Children

In the late 1980s, Fauci also helped arrange for drug companies to get access to orphaned children and children in foster homes in seven states. Children, including infants, many of whom were deemed HIV-positive using PCR, but also children who weren’t, were used as guinea pigs for experimental HIV and AIDS drugs.

Fauci, together with drug companies, sponsored these ghastly and unethical experiments. As explained by Mary Holland, president of Children’s Health Defense, if the children refused to swallow the drugs by mouth, they would put in a gastric tube and force-feed them the drugs.

Many of these children died. One grave in New York contains at least 80 children — all children of color. And, while laws were clearly broken, no punishment of any kind was ever meted out. Fauci and the drug companies clearly regarded these children as disposable, because they treated them as such. Medical experimentation was also taking place on mentally handicapped children living in state institutions for the intellectually disabled.

The 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act

In 1986, president Ronald Reagan signed into law the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act, which created a program for compensation of children injured by vaccines.

While the intention was to make vaccines safer, the law had the opposite effect, as it also gave blanket liability protection to the vaccine manufacturers. Freed from liability, vaccine makers became ever more reckless in their vaccine development. Safety doesn’t have to be a primary concern, as there’s no penalty for creating and selling a dangerous product. The COVID jabs are the just the latest and most glaring example of this.

Enter Gates

The film also details Fauci’s partnership with Bill Gates. As noted by Kennedy, the idea behind vaccines is not about providing a solution but about creating a permanent industry. Gates has spent over two decades building a vaccine market, and he clearly desires to monopolize the industry, just like he did with Microsoft. As noted by Dr. Robert Malone in the film:

“What he’s done is, [he’s] taken his toolkit that he developed in the pressure cooker of competition in the IT sector, and turned those same practices towards public health. [He] functionally has monopolized public health through his ‘philanthropic giving,’ that isn’t really philanthropy. It’s more of a screen behind which he has made other strategic investments that have produced a massive financial return.”

Gates has publicly admitted that vaccines are the most profitable investment he’s ever made, with a 20-to-1 return. In 2000, Fauci met with Gates, who asked to partner with the NIH in an agreement to vaccinate the entire population of the world with a battery of new vaccines.

In 2009, this agreement was rebranded as “The Decade of Vaccines,” the objective of which was to implement mandatory vaccinations for every adult and child on the planet by the year 2020 — the very year COVID spread around the world. Global vaccine mandates rolled out the following year, just one year behind schedule.

Gain-of-Function Research Under Fauci’s Watch

Fauci is responsible for an annual budget of about $6.1 billion. He gets another $1.6 billion from the military to do bioweapons research, which is where 68% of his $437,000 a year salary comes from. (Fauci is the highest-paid federal employee in the U.S. Second-highest is the U.S. president, at $400,000 a year.)

While gain-of-function research has never provided a single scientific or medical breakthrough that has helped us respond to a pandemic, Fauci continued to do it because it was critical both to his salary and to the NIAID funding stream.

The bulk of the NIAID’s funding was intended to be used to study American health and to improve it, to eliminate infectious allergic diseases and autoimmune diseases. Instead, under Fauci’s watch, the chronic disease epidemic has exploded.

This, despite the fact that between Fauci, Gates and the U.K. Wellcome Trust, they control 63% of the global biomedical research through their funding. Over his career, Fauci alone has distributed more than $930 billion in research grants through the NIAID. You could say they control all of it, really, because they also have the capacity to dry up funding to projects they don’t want done.

Fauci, in all his years at the NIAID has allowed chronic diseases rates to skyrocket. He’s done less than nothing for public health. Instead, as explained in Kennedy’s book and film, his agency was turned into an incubator for the drug industry. As noted by Kennedy, Fauci “was the architect of agency capture within a public health agency.”

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***

 

The statehood of Ukraine like Ukrainian ethnolinguistic identity is one of the most problematic research topics. Ukraine herself has, in addition, extremely artificial state borders from very historical and political points of view. Even the name of the country and nation is very unusual and even unnatural as the Slavonic term “Ukraine” means in English “borderland” while “Ukrainians” are simply “people from borderland”. A focal question, therefore, became: How the country with such a name can be independent as the term “borderland” politically simply means the end land (like the German “mark” from the time of the Frankish Kingdom) of some country? Nevertheless, Ukrainian statehood has its own (short) historical background. 

The German occupation forces were those who have been the first to create and recognize a short-lived state’s independence of Ukraine in January 1918 during the time of their own inspired and supported anti-Russian Bolshevik Revolution of 1917−1921. As reoccupied by the Bolshevik Red Army, the eastern and southern parts of the present-day territory of (a Greater) Ukraine joined in 1922 the USSR as a separate Soviet Socialist Republic (without Crimea). According to the 1926 Soviet census of Crimea, the majority of its population were Russians (382.645).

The second largest ethnic group was the Tartars (179.094). Therefore, a Jew V. I. Lenin has to be considered the real historical father of Ukrainian statehood but also of contemporary nationhood. Ukraine was the most fertile agricultural Soviet republic but was particularly catastrophically affected by (Georgian) Stalin’s economic policy in the 1930s which neglected agricultural production in favor of the speed industrialization of the country. The result was a great famine (Holodomor) with around seven million people dead but the majority of them were of ethnic Russian origin. A territory of present-day Ukraine was devastated during WWII by the Nazi German occupation forces from 1941 to 1944 which have been supported by puppet and criminal groups around S. Bandera (1900−1959) under which genocide on Poles, Jews, and Russians was committed [on Stepan Bandera, see: Grzegorz Rossoliński-Liebe, Stepan Bandera: The Life and Afterlife of a Ukrainian Nationalist. Fascism, Genocide, and Cult, Stuttgart, ibidem, 2014]. For instance, the Ukrainian militia (12.000) directly participated in the 1942 holocaust of some 200.000 Volhynian Jews together with 140.000 German policemen. The Ukrainian mass killers learned their job from the Germans and applied their knowledge as well as on the Poles [Timothy Snyder, Tautų rekonstrukcija: Lieuva, Lenkija, Ukraina, Baltarusija 1569−1999, Vilnius: Mintis, 2009, 183].

After the war, J. V. Stalin, supported by the Ukrainian party cadre N. Khrushchev, deported about 300.000 Ukrainians from their homeland as they have been accused of collaborating with the Nazi regime during the war and participating in genocide done by S. Bandera’s armed nationalists.

However, after the war, the Ukrainians have been and directly rewarded by Moscow for their collaboration with the Germans and participation in S. Bandera’s organized genocide as the lands of Transcarpathia, littoral Moldova (Bessarabia), Polish Galicia, and part of Romania’s Bukovina in 1945 followed by Crimea in 1954 became annexed by the Soviet Socialist Republic of Ukraine.

These territories, which never have been part of any kind of Ukraine and overwhelmingly not populated by ethnolinguistic Ukrainians were included in Soviet Ukraine primarily due to the political activity by the strongest Ukrainian cadre in the USSR – N. Khrushchev, a person who inherited Stalin’s throne in Moscow in 1953. On this place, a parallel with Croatia is absolute: for the Croat committed genocide on the Serbs, Jews, and Roma by A. Pavelić’s regime (a Croat version of S. Bandera) during WWII on the territory of the Independent State of Croatia a post-war (the Socialist Republic of) Croatia was awarded by a Croat-Slovenian dictator of Yugoslavia J. B. Tito with the lands of Istria, Adriatic islands, and Dubrovnik – all of them never have been in any kind of the state of Croatia before WWII.

Gorbachev’s policy of deliberate dissolution of the USSR from the time of Reykjavik bilateral meeting with Ronald Reagan in 1988 caused a revival of the ethnic nationalism of the Ukrainians who proclaimed independence on August 24^th, 1991 (confirmed on a referendum on December 1^st, 1991 only by those who did not boycott it) in the wake of anti-Gorbachev’s military putsch in Moscow (mis)using the political situation of the paralyzed central government in the country. The state’s independence of Ukraine was proclaimed and later internationally recognized within the borders of a Greater Stalin-Khrushchev’s Ukraine with at least 20% of the ethnic Russian population living in a compact area in the eastern part of the country and as well as making a qualified (2/3) majority of Crimea’s population. The coming years saw the rifts with neighboring Russia with the main political task by Kiev to commit as much possible as to the Ukrainization (assimilation) of ethnic Russians (similar to the policy of the Croatization of ethnic Serbs in Croatia orchestrated by the neo-Nazi government in Zagreb led by Dr. Franjo Tuđman in the 1990s). At the same time, the Russian majority in Crimea constantly required the peninsula’s reunification with mother Russia but getting only an autonomous status within Ukraine – a country that they never considered as their natural-historical homeland.

The Russians of Ukraine were becoming more and more unsatisfied with the conditions in which they have been leaving from the time when in 1998−2001 the Ukrainian taxation system collapsed which meant that the central government in Kiev was not able to pay the salaries and pensions to its own citizens. A very weak Ukrainian state became, in fact, unable to function normally (“failed state”) and as a consequence, it did not have the power to prevent a series of politically motivated assassinations followed by popular protests which had been also very much inspired by the economic decline of the country [on the history of Ukraine and the Ukrainians, see more and compare with: Andrew Wilson, The Ukrainians: Unexpected Nation, New Heaven: Yale University Press, 2009; Serhii Plokhy, The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine, New York: Basic Books, 2015; Anna Reid, Borderland: A Journey Through the History of Ukraine, New York: Basic Books, 2015].

As a matter of fact, it has to be stressed that the Ukrainian historiography of their own history of the land and the people is extremely nationalistic and in very cases not objective like many other national historiographies. It is basically politically colored with the main task to present the Ukrainians as a natural ethnolinguistic nation who have been historically fighting to create a united independent national state and unjustifiably claiming certain territories to be ethnohistorical the “Ukrainian”. A typical example of a such tendency to rewrite the history of East Europe according to the nationalistic and politically correct framework is, for instance, the book by Serhy Jekelčyk on the birth of a modern Ukrainian nation in which, among other quasi-historical facts based on the self-interpreted events, is written that the USSR in 1939−1940 annexed from Poland and Romania the “West Ukrainian land” [Serhy Jekelčyk, Ukraina: Modernios nacijos gimimas, Vilnius: Baltos lankos, 2009, 17]. However, this “West Ukrainian land” never was part of any kind of Ukraine before WWII as Ukraine as a state or administrative province never existed before V. I. Lenin created a Soviet Socialist Republic of Ukraine (in 1923) within the USSR but at that time without the “West Ukrainian land” as it was not a part of the USSR. Moreover, the Ukrainians were either not leaving or being just a minority on this land which means that Ukraine even did not have ethnic rights over the biggest part of “West Ukraine”. Even today around half of Ukraine’s state’s territory is not populated by the Ukrainians as a majority of the population. Moreover, in some regions, there are no Ukrainians at all. Therefore, the cardinal question became: On which principles the Ukrainian borders are formed?

Another example of the Ukrainian historiographic nationalistic misleading, we can find in an academic brochure on Bukovina’s Metropolitan’s residence, published in 2007 by the National University of Chernivtsi. In the brochure is written that this university is “…one of the oldest classical universities of Ukraine” [The Architecturial Complex of Bukovynian Metropolitan’s Residence, Chernivtsi: Yuriy Fedkovych National University of Chernivtsi, 2007, 31] that is true only from the present-day rough political perspective but not and from a moral-historic point of view.

Namely, the university is located in North Bukovina which in 1775 the Habsburg Monarchy had obtained. The land was since 1786 administrated within the Chernivtsi district of Galicia and one hundred years after the affiliation of Bukovina to the monarchy, the Franz-Josephs-Universitätwas inaugurated on October 4^th, 1875 (the name day of the emperor). In other words, the university’s origin as a whole Bukovina has nothing to do with any kind of both historical Ukraine or/and ethnic Ukrainians as before 1940 it was outside of the administrative territory of Ukraine when the whole of North Bukovina on August 13^th, became annexed by the USSR according to the Hitler-Stalin Pact (or the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact) signed on August 23^rd, 1939 [Ibid.]. Therefore, two notorious bandits (one Nazi and another Bolshevik) decided to transfer North Bukovina to the USSR and the land became after WWII part of a Greater (Stalin’s) Ukrainian SSR. Nevertheless, while the Ukrainian nationalists claim that “Russia” (in fact anti-Russian USSR) occupied Ukraine, the annexation of the North Bukovina and other territories from Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Romania in 1940 is for them a legitimate act of historical justice done by the same “Russia” (i.e., the USSR). Here, we have to notice that according to the same pact, the territories of the independent states of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia are as well as annexed by the USSR that is considered by their historians and politicians as “occupation”, which means the (illegal) act of aggression that is breaking international law and legitimate order. Nevertheless, they never accused Ukraine of doing the same concerning occupied lands from its three western neighbors in 1940/1944 [see, for instance: Priit Raudkivi, Estonian History in Pictures, Tallinn: Eesti Instituut, 2004 (without numeration of the pages); Arūnas Gumuliauskas, Lietuvos istorija (1795−2009), Šiauliai: Lucilijus, 2010, 279−295].

Political assimilation of certain separate Slavonic ethnolinguistic groups in Ukraine was and is one of the standardized instruments for the creation and maintenance of the Ukrainian national identity in the 20^th century. The most brutal case is of the Ruthenians (Rusyns) who are simply proclaimed as historical Ukrainians known under such name till WWII. Their land, which was in the interwar period part of Czechoslovakia, that was annexed by the USSR at the end of WWII and included into a Greater Soviet Ukraine is simply renamed from Ruthenia into the Sub-Carpathian Ukraine. However, the Ruthenians and the Ukrainians are two separate Slavonic ethnolinguistic groups as such officially recognized, for example, in Serbia’s Autonomous Province of Vojvodina where the Ruthenian (Rusyn) language is even standardized and studied together with Ruthenian philology and literature at a separate department at the University of Novi Sad. Unfortunately, the Ruthenian position in Ukraine is even worst in comparison with the Kurdish position in Turkey as the process of Ruthenian assimilation is much speedier than that of the Kurdish case.

From the current perspective of the Ukrainian crisis and in general from the point of solving the “Ukrainian Question” it has to be noticed a very historical fact that a part of present-day East Ukraine became legally incorporated into the Russian Empire in 1654 as a consequence of the decision by the local hetman of Zaporozhian territory Bohdan Khmelnytsky (c. 1595−1657) based on a popular revolt against the Polish-Lithuanian (the Roman Catholic) occupation of Ukraine which broke out in 1648 [Alfredas Bumblauskas, Senosios Lietuvos istorija, 1009−1795, Vilnius: R. Paknio leidykla, 2007, 306; Jevgenij Anisimov, Rusijos istorija nuo Riuriko iki Putino: Žmonės. Įvykiai. Datos, Vilnius: Mokslo ir enciklopedijų leidybos centras, 2014, 185−186]. It means that the core of present-day Ukraine (Ukraine proper) voluntarily joined Russia, therefore escaping from the Roman Catholic Polish-Lithuanian oppression. Subsequently, B. Khmelnytsky’s ruled territory has to be considered from a historical point of view as the motherland of all present-day Ukraine – the motherland which already in 1654 chose Russia.

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Dr. Vladislav B. Sotirović is a Former university professor in Vilnius, Lithuania. He is a Research Fellow at the Center for Geostrategic Studies. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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General Mark Miley, the USG chief of staff at the Pentagon, has flatly stated that if Ukraine “falls,” the so-called “rules-based international order” will fall with it.

🇺🇸 🇺🇦 Chief of Staff of the United States General Mark Miley

"If Ukraine falls,the "rules-based international world order" will fall,that was established 80 years ago after the end of World War II." pic.twitter.com/nN5z1XCbF3

— Breaking News 🇷🇺🇷🇺🇷🇺 (@justobiz2124) October 21, 2022

It is true the word “fascism” gets thrown a lot, often completely out of its definitional context. However, in the case of Ukraine, the word is applicable. Even a cursory look at the political and social landscape of Ukraine reveals the country—the most corrupt and poverty-stricken in Europe—has long practiced fascism, that is to say an authoritarian, racist, ultranationalist form of government and ideology.

In essence, Miley is saying that the fate of the “rules-based international order” hinges on saving fascist Ukraine and its illegitimate government, installed in 2014 by a USG-sponsored coup. Every “elected” government put in place after the Maidan coup is in fact illegitimate.

Miley has underscored an effort by the national security state to retain Ukraine’s special role in undermining Russia, beginning with the Soviet Union following WWII and during the “Cold War,” itself a ruse to further build and strengthen the national security state (NSS) obsessed with world domination.

The CIA, the subversion apparatus of the NSS (the Pentagon being the muscle), has a long and sordid history of support for murderous Ukronazis and their particularly repulsive version of ultranationalism (organized torture, murder, and disappearance).

A declassified CIA document reveals details of Operation Belladonna and how, according to a summary by Red Street Journal,

[in 1946] the United States had already made contact with Ukrainian Nationalists that were keen to ally with the Americans against the USSR, primarily through influencing the development of the Ukrainian Supreme Liberation Council (UHVR). The subject discussed in the document was used to gather intelligence on the USSR and Soviet operations both at home and abroad.

The UHVR, an umbrella organization of Ukronazis and “anti-Soviet partisans,” included the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA). FOIA Research notes:

The OUN collaborated with the Germans right up from the Polish invasion in September 1939. In December 1939, the Gestapo trained Mykola Lebed and [Stepan] Bandera supporters in sabotage, guerrilla warfare and assassination techniques in Zakopane. Lebed personally supervised the torture and execution of Jews to harden his men.

For the CIA, it was irrelevant that the OUN-UPA carried out the Wołyń Massacre, the organized murder of 100,000 Poles and Jews, or OUN’s collaboration with the Nazis during Operation Barbarossa (the Nazi invasion, the largest in history, of Eastern Europe and Russia in 1942; estimated to have killed 5,000,000 Russians, Slavs, Jews, Poles, and others considered “Untermenschen”).

The psychopathy of Stepan Bandera and Andriy Melnyk was a good match for Abwehr, the German military intelligence service for the Reichswehr and the Wehrmacht, and later the CIA. In 1949, “the CIA decided, in partnership with the British MI6, to mount ‘joint’ operations with [OUN] to send agents into the Soviet Union,” operations that were disastrous failures.

Given the scale of Soviet penetration of [OUN and other ultranationalist groups], it could not be expected that such operations would benefit anybody but the KGB, and of course for the next four years or so CIA and MI6 suffered one disaster after another… resulting in many lost lives.

In 2016, the CIA declassified 3,800 documents providing “detailed proof that since 1953 the CIA operated two major programs intent on not only destabilizing Ukraine but Nazifying it with followers of the World War II Ukrainian Nazi leader Stepan Bandera,” writes Wayne Madsen.

In fact, the CIA ran a number of anti-Soviet operations in Ukraine. In addition to Operation Belladonna, mentioned above, there were a number of other operations, including Project Cartel (later Project Aerodynamic), Project Aebath, and others, several with long timelines.

As the CIA expanded its operations in Ukraine, additional projects came to light, Notably, Project AERODYNAMIC (formerly CARTEL, ANDROGEN, AECARTHAGE), which operated between the years of 1949-1970 before being reclassified under Project named QRDYNAMIC in 1970 and later PDDYNAMIC in 1974, and finally QRDYNAMIC/QRPLUMB (formerly AEBEEHIVE) as it operated until 1991.

There are thousands of documents that contain sensitive information regarding these project names and the activities involved. A treasure trove of United States history that seems to have gone under the radar of the mainstream press.

Indeed, a “mainstream press” the CIA had infiltrated in the 1950s under the direction of Cord Meyer.

A declassified CIA document from 1966 points out “the underlying objective [of Cartel/Aerodynamic] is ‘Nationalist flare-ups’ in widely scattered areas of the Soviet Union, particularly in Ukraine… As we can see, by the 1950s, the CIA had successfully established a network for counter intelligence with Ukrainian underground nationalists.”

The CIA used a number of acronyms or code names for participants in these operations. For instance, “Cartel-2” was a cryptonym for Mykola Lebed, a Ukrainian ultranationalist convicted and imprisoned for the assassination of Polish Interior Minister Bronisław Pieracki in 1934. In 2010, the Associated Press reported:

Declassified CIA files reveal that US intelligence officials went to great lengths to protect a Ukrainian fascist leader and suspected Nazi collaborator from prosecution after World War II and set him up in a New York office to wage covert war against the Soviet Union, according to a new report to Congress… The US government relocated Lebed to New York City in 1949, where he was safe from assassination, the report says. Through his CIA-funded organization, Prolog, he gathered intelligence on the Soviets into at least the late 1960s. In 1991, he was still considered a valuable asset to the agency, the report says.

Yaroslav Stetsko, Bandera’s second in command, denounced Marxism as a “practice by the Muscovite-Asiatic people with Jewish assistance, and that Moscow and the Jews are the carriers of the international ideas of the Bolsheviks.” His virulent antisemitism wasn’t a problem for the CIA or the USG.

Gerald Sussman writes for CovertAction Magazine:

The OUN, in particular the faction led by the German ally Stepan Bandera and his second in command, Yaroslav Stetsko, OUN-B, was a violently anti-semitic, anti-communist, and anti-Russian organization, which collaborated with the Nazi occupation and actively participated in the slaughter of millions of Poles, Ukrainian Jews, and ethnically Russian and Ukrainian communists in the region. Nonetheless, The Washington Post treated Stetsko as a national hero, a “lonely patriot.”

A friendly encounter between then vice president George H. W. Bush and Stetsko.

The CIA, of course, was not particularly interested in elevating Ukraine’s ultranationalists (that would occur much later, during the orchestrated Maidan coup of 2014). Instead, they were interested in exploiting Ukronazis to undermine the Soviet Union (a dismal failure).

It’s no secret the CIA recruited the Nazi Gehlen Organization after WWII. In the manufactured Cold War, the fact that many Nazis imported clandestinely into America, under Operation Paperclip, were serious war criminals did not make a difference to the CIA. Martin A. Lee writes Foreign Policy in Focus:

The CIA reports show that U.S. officials knew they were subsidizing numerous Third Reich veterans who had committed horrible crimes against humanity, but these atrocities were overlooked as the anti-Communist crusade acquired its own momentum. For Nazis who would otherwise have been charged with war crimes, signing on with American intelligence enabled them to avoid a prison term.

The same can be said for the CIA and USG’s activities in Ukraine. The inheritors of the genocidal religion of Stepan Bandera—mass murder, torture, ethnic cleansing—were artificially elevated to positions of power and influence by way of a USG-arranged coup.

The NSS needs an endless Cold War. It doesn’t matter Russia is no longer communist. Russia and China are perennial enemies of “rules-based” authoritarianism. General Miley, in the above video, has stated that the proxy war in Ukraine is essential, otherwise, the NSS will teeter and fall, which is, of course, pure balderdash.

It will not be reported in the New York Times or any other war propaganda outfit that the neoliberal order is rapidly crumbling and its “enemies” are building their own financial and transaction structures outside of the corrupt influence of the western “international order,” an order that coddles and exploits psychopaths in its doomed to fail effort to prop up its parasitical and violent system of domination.

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Ever since China emerged as an economic powerhouse in recent decades, the political West (particularly the United States) has been trying to curb its growth and development. With the world’s largest workforce and by far the most important production economy, China wields enormous power to affect economic trends on a planetary level.

However, just like any other country, it’s still part of a globalized system which is essentially a network of interdependent economies. This has resulted in accelerated growth around the world, but it also created the risk of economic butterfly effects, as what may seem like a mere hiccup in one industry could cause a ripple that has the potential of turning into a tsunami of economic problems. It seems this is precisely the direction we are headed to, as the US is targeting China’s microchip industry.

On October 7, US President Joe Biden announced additional restrictions on American companies selling semiconductors to China. The move also includes restrictions on US citizens working for Chinese microchip manufacturers. Given the importance of these technologies in our era, such actions can only be seen as a declaration of full-blown economic war.

The US clearly hopes this will either severely slow down or even halt China’s rise as a technological superpower. According to Bloomberg, the country’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) is already working with top microchip producers and is devising a joint plan of action to evaluate the damage and find solutions to maintain production. CEOs of major Chinese companies working in the sector have held a series of emergency meetings with the MIIT, including the executives from Yangtze Memory Technologies and Dawning Information Industry.

Western media claim that the Biden administration’s strategy to “paralyze China’s industrial capacity could be promising.” Allegedly, unnamed sources “familiar with the closed-door discussions between MIIT and CEOs of China’s top microchip manufacturers” claim there is “a lot of uncertainty on how to move forward.” For now, there had been no mention of possible countermeasures, as MIIT is said to believe there are no shortages and that domestic microchip needs will be met. The discussions supposedly revealed that some Chinese companies fear the US restrictions could harm the country’s plans to accelerate the development and production of its own advanced microchips, which could negatively affect China’s economic growth and in turn the global markets as well.

It appears that some companies are already in danger of directly being affected by the restrictions. Shanghai-based Biren Technology, specializing in artificial intelligence (AI), graphics rendering, high-performance general-purpose computing and other relevant services, initially planned to release a new graphics processing unit (GPU) and also “set a new record in global computing power.” However, as the company contracted the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) to produce its microchips using advanced 7-nanometer technology, there’s a risk that TSMC may halt the project due to US restrictions. At the moment, Biren Technology has no capacity to manufacture advanced GPUs on its own, which also endangers the company’s other projects.

Last week, US personnel pulled out of China’s Yangtze Memory Technologies, while Netherlands-based ASML Holding NV stopped shipments for Chinese microchip companies. Recent reports also indicate that Dawning Information, the country’s top supercomputers manufacturer, is trying to find alternatives to US-designed microchips. Rhodium Group China expert Jordan Schneider claims that the Biden administration’s restrictions are a “massive blow to CCP’s science and technology ambitions.” He also stated:

“Long story short, every advanced node semiconductor company is currently facing comprehensive supply cut-off, resignations from all American staff, and immediate operations paralysis. This is what annihilation looks like: China’s semiconductor manufacturing industry was reduced to zero overnight. Complete collapse. No chance of survival.”

Naturally, such doom-and-gloom statements should be taken with a grain of salt, as many Chinese corporations, such as Huawei, have already experienced US sanctions in previous years. Although these companies have suffered damage as a result of such actions, they managed to find alternatives and continued operating even under new conditions of a complete lack of access to US technologies. Still, the sanctions affected certain companies only, while the most recent restrictions are nationwide and are affecting all China-based manufacturers.

Advanced microchips are used in virtually every sector of any country’s production economy and China is certainly no exception. The Biden administration’s restrictions are most likely aimed not just against China’s economic growth, but also its rise as a military superpower, as fighter jets, missiles, drones and many other types of weapons require microchips. In addition, China’s recent dominance in AI research and development could also be in jeopardy.

Still, Beijing is certainly not without options and is yet to respond to America’s escalating belligerence. The US already proved to be vulnerable to counter-sanctions, as evidenced by the presence of key Chinese components in US weapons, including F-35 fighter jets.

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Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.

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Court testimony reveals that Canada’s top health expert did not recommend a vaccine be a requirement before boarding a bus, train or plane. Even worse, the human trial for the Covid vaccine is now underway and millions of Canadians are part of the experiment.

It’s an astounding revelation, according to lawyer Keith Wilson, who is representing former Newfoundland Premier Brian Peckford’s lawsuit against the federal government for what they describe as the most far-reaching breach of charter rights in Canadian history. It prevented six million people’s right to freedom of movement because of a ban against unvaccinated people from travelling on buses, trains and planes.

Wilson also recalled his cross-examination of Dr. Celia Lourenco, director general for Health Canada that approves vaccines. She argued that the vaccination approval process changed for the Covid vaccines. Until Covid, all vaccines were approved following animal trials and two human trial phases. But for the Covid vaccine, the human trials were skipped.

Dr. Lourenco confirmed under oath that the human trial is going on right now as data is being compiled with the general population and Canadians were not told of the risks, Wilson said. “That was a big one for us to get her to confirm that this is a huge experiment that’s going on.”

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The World’s in a Sorry State of Affairs

The on-going 75 year-long uprising in Palestine and Israel by dispossessed Palestinians, horribly treated no better than if they were inmates in a Nazi death camp, is a reflection of how the current War in Ukraine is so typical of a major proto-fascist shift going on everywhere in the Human Race’s tectonic plates. The tremors between the West & East in Ukraine, as well as everywhere else in the world, are head’s up warnings of the “Big One” that’s on its way. The cacophony of what all is happening is like the wailing groans, moans and shudders a torpedoed, mortally-wounded, ship makes as it breaks up in its slow descent into the abyss of a watery grave.

Israel’s terrorism against Palestinian people is the same quantitative violence being waged by the total military might of the U.S., NATO and their Western Ukrainian puppet regime against Russia and the Russian-speaking people of Eastern Ukraine. In fact, early on in the U.S.-instigated and manipulated war in Ukraine, President Zelensky himself stated as one of his dream objectives for Ukraine was to “become a Big Israel”, with its own police state to include having armed forces in “all institutions, supermarkets, cinemas, there will be people with weapons.”

In one way or the other, the same ideological forces constantly seek to destroy the sovereignty and democracy of people as well as whole countries, such as in: Haiti and Cuba in the Western Hemisphere; Ukraine in Eastern Europe; Syria and Yemen in the Middle East, as well as everywhere else in the world. The list to be cited is indeed a long, grim one. The objective, in all cases, is the eventual subjugation of all oppressed peoples until they’ve been turned into U.S. vassal states.

The US and its Western allies, with malevolent forethought, constantly try to totally negate or erode the sovereignty of nations for their own Empire’s endless expansion. One example of so many others one can cite, is the never-ending economic, political, ideological crisis in Haiti.

Another blatant example is how the oppressive, meddling Monroe doctrine of the United States is constantly at work, as it has been ever since the birth of the U.S, is its ever-attentive and quick to punish Western Hemisphere nations like Cuba and whomever others have ever dared to go their own way, political or ideologically; such as the punitive 60 year-old economic embargo ruthlessly waged by the U.S. against the Republic of Cuba since the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.

Its outrageous, but the world’s mainstream corporate press remains either dumbed down, brain dead, or totally bought out when it comes to speaking truth to power about all this. If it wasn’t so dismally sad and pathetic, it would be totally outrageous and unacceptable. So, what’s new!

Now, the $64,000 dollar question is, “When will Russia, the United States, and its NATO allies, finally reach that flashpoint moment of truth in Ukraine; when they, or some more malevolent Deep State ideological force behind them, decides it’s time to take the next colossal step of empire-building in Ukraine and against Mother Russia, and its “Geronimo! Bombs Away!”

The truth of the matter is that the United States and every other European Caucasian settler nation that ever re-formed itself in the New World was born and still remains in a constant state of empire-building aggression. First it was aggression against: the indigenous First Nations of the New World and everything in their natural world; then it was against Black Africans violently imported in chains to do all the back-breaking work of the ruling White imperialists who rushed to the New World to aggressively lay claim to whatever piece of it they could.

As time has moved on, these self-branded New World Americans have continued, with ever  more cleverly-devised laws and doctrines, like: the Monroe Doctrine; Manifest Destiny; Declaration of Independence, which really translates to mean a Declaration of Perpetual Expansionism and Subjugation; the more recent declaration of a Project for a New American Century, and; now an even newer 21^st Century, Madrid-NATO-Summit devised, Strategic Concept of U.S.-led Militarism that, so far, has emerged from out of the virtual World War in Ukraine. Still forever left unaddressed and unresolved, however, are the more critically-important human life crises, such as uncontrolled exponential population explosion and total Biosphere collapse. Both ultimate examples of Homo sapien’s on-going evolutionary savagery in the 21^st Century!

Glasnost, the Game of Soviet-American Peace and Diplomacy

“Glasnost The Game” is a strategy board game invented by Yiannis Laouris, a Cypriot neuroscientist, that depicts a modified political map of the Earth, divided into 166 territories, grouped into five continents. Players begin with ownership of 25 industries and 25 armies. Industries represent economic power, while armies are used to colonize/capture adjacent countries or apply political pressure in order for every player to reach the ultimate goal of disarmament. Players attempt to colonize territories from other players to do so. Though the game can still be purchased through Amazon.com or EBay.ca, the concept of Glasnost and Disarmament, in either game form or real life. is still a very, very long way from catching on.

In the Real Game of Life, It’s Who Throws the First Nuclear Sucker Punch

On October 7^th, Ukraine’s ultra-nationalist President Zelensky, once again appealed, “To the international community, as I did before February 24^th, that we need preventative strikes, so the Russians will know what will happen to them if they use nukes, and not the other way around.”

The U.S., NATO and Western Ukraine obviously continue to remain nuclear-poised, ready to utterly annihilate Eastern Ukraine and Russia the moment Russia makes the wrong move.

If Only America Had Another President Like Dwight Eisenhower in Charge

President Dwight ‘Ike’ Eisenhower, former General of the U.S. Army during WWII, once was referred to as “The Peace President’ because in 1953 he refused to use the Atomic Bomb during the Korean War. ‘Ike’, as he was familiarly called, is still fondly remembered for his many pronouncements about how to act or how not to react to the dangers of the nuclear age, and for his brave and courageous stand not to use the Bomb against the Koreans and Chinese.

Eisenhower believed the United States should never bankrupt itself to: finance the military; guard against the rise of the military-industrial complex, and; not allow the dominance of its bloated defense budget to become, as Eisenhower said, “the disgraceful theft of our children’s heritage, and future well-being”. ‘Ike’ once commented, “in the rocket age we must not fail to comprehend the grave implications of this growing complex to the very structure of American society.”

Eisenhower recognized any war with the Soviets or Chinese would be the end of civilization as human beings know it. When American politicians were discussing how to restructure the U.S. Dollar and economy after such a potential nuclear war, Eisenhower quipped, “Wait a minute, boys. We’re not going to be restructuring the dollar, we’re going to be grubbing for worms.”

During the Korean War, Ike refused to use the Atomic Bomb, even when the brilliant American General Douglas MacArthur of WWII fame in the Pacific believed he could swiftly end the Korean War with his controversial military ‘blitzkrieg’ strategy that he believed could have ended the war in a mere 10 days if he had been allowed to use the Atomic Bomb against China and North Korea. Macarthur prophetically warned in 1953 that unless China was decisively dealt with at that point, within 50 years time, China would become a serious threat to world peace and security. Within the context of war, MacArthur was absolutely spot on, but within the context of the survival of the human race he was absolutely dead wrong.

MacArthur’s radical Dr. Strangelove plan called for: 30 to 50 tactical atomic bombs to be dropped on the borders of the Yalu River between North Korea and China; then call on a half-million Chiang Kai-shek’s troops, sweetened with two U.S. Marine Divisions, to seal off Chinese reinforcements from assisting the North Koreans; further spreading a belt of radioactive cobalt to create a radioactive defense perimeter all along the Yalu with a life of 60 to 120 years that would have made it impassible for any invasion from the North for at least 60 years or more.

When asked about the fear of Russia coming to the Chinese and North Koreans defence, MacArthur declared, “Russia? It makes me laugh!” MacArthur pointed out the only way Russia could ever have moved troops, weapons and material to resupply them would have been along the then one-lone track of the Trans-Siberian railway that only led onto a peninsula to the sea.

In any case, General MacArthur’s military action plan was never carried out because of what he referred to as “The Great Betrayal” between the American and British governments who leaked his bold military plans to the Chinese and Russians before it ever happened and that was that.

Two good resources to better know what transpired back then, nearly 70 years ago, are:

• The Rutherford Institute :: DWIGHT EISENHOWER: THE PEACE PRESIDENT WHO REFUSED TO USE THE ATOMIC BOMB |
• Douglas MacArthur’s Plan to Win The Korean War – Warfare History Network

All Civil and World Wars Boil Down to Failures to Communicate, to Negotiate

Yet, sadly, now in the midst of an ever-escalating war in Ukraine, by yet other military and political madmen and their master war plans, Eisenhower’s forewarnings seem all but forgotten as the world continues to threaten to blow itself up.

Since the onset of the Civil war between Western and Eastern Ukraine, that, in modern times, began in earnest with the Western World’s fascist Maidan coup in 2014, proponents on all sides have argued in favor of using a pre-emptive nuclear sucker punch before the other side ever gets the chance. As the war in Ukraine continues, the palpable madness and insanity only continues to ramp up, while the contrary, level-headed, sober-minded political and military analysts in the world continue to be ridiculed, minimized, or relegated to the sidelines.

It’s important to keep in the back of one’s mind the age-old ‘pre-nuclear’ pattern of how dangerous nationalistic civil wars in history have invariably led to even greater, ‘world wars’ that ended up radically shaping the history of the entire human world. To name but a few: Caesar’s Civil War in 49 B.C.; Scottish ‘Wars of the Three Kingdoms’ (1639-1651) the English Civil Wars (1642-1651); the Peninsular War (part of Napoleon’s War of 1808-1814); the Balkan Civil War (1912-1913) that led to WWI; the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), that presaged World War II. Imagine what could ensue in this current civil war or others like it in these post-nuclear times.

Unfortunately, “Glasnost, The Game” has never caught on amongst the imperialist rulers of the world, especially the Americans and other leaders in the West. Long before the outbreak of the current Civil War in Ukraine, and ever since, the United States and its NATO allies have consistently refused to enter into any meaningful ceasefire, peace or disarmament negotiations with the Russians or Russian-speaking Eastern Ukrainians. Since long before the 2014 coup, U.S. and NATO have been methodically manipulating geo-political-military events in Ukraine because they recognize it as being the soft vulnerable underbelly of the Russian Empire and so the best way to finally ‘check mate’ Mother Russia herself.

A recent example of this glaring gap in the dialogue between them is the vote recently taken by the U.N. General Assembly that overwhelmingly voted (143-5, with 35 abstentions), calling the recent democratic vote of 93% of the four regions of Eastern Ukraine, who voted to become annexed by Russia, that the U.N. instead preferred to call, “a sham, conducted on occupied land amid warfare and displacement.”

But elections today, everywhere in the world, even so-called ‘democratic’ ones, are commonly negated wherever the will of the people is said to truly express itself. They don’t carry any weight anymore among the propagandists, especially those autocratic, authoritarian powers-that-be who don’t like the results, just as a majority of American voters still resolutely contend President Trump’s defeat at the polls was a stolen election. There simply exists today too much political propaganda, misinformation and disinformation to ever know what the real truth is about anything.

Glasnost, Perestroika and Monroe Doctrine Are Keys to Understanding the War

The reader should briefly consider some things about the history of Glasnost and Perestroika. Such as how both concepts continue to play an integral part in Ukraine’s evolution as an ideological, political, cultural entity, or how their related histories continue to play an integral part in the life of modern Russia as well as the Ukrainian State.

This is especially true given the current Civil War between Western and Eastern Ukraine. Especially in regard to the overwhelmingly and understandable results of the recent vote, as free and democratic as one can expect in the middle of a war, by the Russian-speaking people of Eastern Ukraine, who opted, for a multitude of political, cultural, economic and military reasons, to return back to Mother Russia, for her cultural sustenance and physical protection.

This means, regardless of the fact that 143 countries of the UN’s General Assembly may have rejected Russia’s annexation of four regions of Eastern Ukraine, doesn’t alter the fact that for the Ukrainian Army of Western Ukraine, and its NATO allies, to continue to militarily mount attacks against the much-hated Russian-speaking regions of Eastern Ukraine and Mother Russia herself, still must objectively be considered “Acts of War” in anyone’s books, even that of the United Nation’s own charter. It leaves unanswered the question, “who now and in the future will protect the human rights and welfare of the Russian-speaking Eastern Ukrainians seeking justice for themselves who, long before even WWII, have been very much hated because of their Russian heritage?

It also calls into question what the legal status will be in the future once the U.S. and its NATO Allied-proxy combatants decide to supply the Western Ukraine’s Army with tactical nuclear weaponry. If, or when, it happens it puts the legal status of the conflict in a whole different light.

War in Ukraine Is One Strand in the US’s Long Tapestry of Its Monroe Doctrine

The propaganda, misinformation and disinformation surrounding the war in Ukraine is so thick it can barely be cut with even the sharpest of journalistic knives. It’s truly mind-boggling. This writer hasn’t ever seen anything quite like it in his lifetime. It should be as frightening a wake-up call, to citizens of all ages in the world to grasp, before it’s too late, how and why the United States, as the Western World’s main instigator in the NATO-led proxy war in Ukraine, has become such an all-encompassing fascist dark force in this war.

The American Empire’s imperialist-corporate expansionism doesn’t rest, never has, never will. The reality of its still existent Monroe Doctrine, and “Project for a New American Century” codicil, are crystal-clear indicators of that fact.

It’s instructive to take a brief walk down the avenues of time to see exactly how the Monroe Doctrine, as a smothering, frustrating influence in the evolution of democratic, left-leaning social movements in the New World continues to threaten to expand all the more in the Old World. In the days of the old Soviet Union there always remained a dynamic counterbalancing force in the struggle between communistic, communalistic, progressive movements and those imperialistic, fascist-leaning, corporate movements more favored by the Americans and the United States.

Two Centuries of Brutal, Predatory, US-led Imperialism in the New World

A simple fact is that long before the United States was even formerly born as a nation in the New World, the imperialist European forces who first arrived, and later would form that so-called “shining city on the hill”, began importing, from the get-go, Black African slaves to the New World as its first financial, corporate, institutionalized enterprise that since has continued to expand in an endless multitude of forms that have made its much-hallowed Bill of Rights a mockery.

But all this came in the beginning with the blessings of Europe’s Catholic Pope and heads of other European religions, who all gave their blanket blessings as to why their faithful European Christian followers, and their descendants, had the right, forever more, in the eyes of God, to slaughter, enslave, divest and depose the New World’s First Nation peoples, as needed.

By 1823, while the U.S. was still only in its infancy, John Quincy Adams, an original signatory of the nation’s Declaration of Independence, who would go on to become the 6th President of the United States, signed the Monroe Doctrine, on behalf of President James Monroe and all the other imperial leaders of the United States, who had signed the young nation’s original Bill of Rights and its Declaration of Independence.

Furthermore, the Monroe Doctrine originally declared, as a primary principle of US policy, that, henceforth, any intervention by external powers in the politics of the America’s would be considered a potentially hostile act against the United States itself. Secondly, the America’s would forever remain distinctly separate spheres of influence and any effort by any other European power, besides itself, to control or influence sovereign states in the Western Hemisphere would be viewed as a very threat to US security. Thirdly, it further added that the United States in the Western Hemisphere would recognize and not interfere with any existing European colonies, nor meddle in the internal affairs of those European countries.

But it all was a grandiose lie from the outset. On all three counts, the inherent hypocrisy of the Monroe Doctrine and its tenets, as an integral part of American foreign policy, still exists and, unilaterally, is ruthlessly-enforced by the United States. The Cuban Nuclear Missile Crisis in 1962 is one poignant example, not to mention the innumerable times the United States has ruthlessly punished or unilaterally overthrown whatever democratic, leftist, revolutionary social movement that ever dared to question or challenge America’s dominant fascist corporate rule of law.

What since has emerged from the Monroe Doctrine, and its offspring, is a whole set of beliefs and mindsets that have made themselves known in whatever country of the America’s ever has had the temerity to challenge the hegemony of American exceptionalism. The US consistently has supported only those colonial right-wing governments opposed to whatever home-grown communistic, revolutionary social movement and its philosophy from ever gaining any meaningful ground in the America’s that might challenge the proverbial ‘American Dream’. The list of U.S.-supported, CIA-assisted, violent regime-changes of left-wing governments is long and reads like a horror story.

Cases in point: 1895: Armed revolt by Native Hawaiians tried to stop the U.S. unilateral annexation of Hawaii but were militarily put down and never allowed to vote on the annexation of their country; 1898: U.S. unilaterally claimed the Philippines, again without any vote by the people themselves, with the U.S. arrogantly claiming it as “a ceded territory”; 1898; U.S. military invaded Puerto Rico that had been granted “self-rule” by Spain. But the Treaty of Paris, under U.S. pressure, denied their self-rule and officially approved the cession of Puerto Rico to the U.S.; 1912: U.S, military occupation of Nicaragua during the Banana War sought to protect fascist U.S. Dell Monte corporate business interests over the people’s rights; 1947-1977: U.S. military supported and trained Paraguay’s right-wing military in counter-intelligence and counter-insurgency for its opposing communism more strongly than any other nation in the world; 1948: US supported Paraguay’s dictator Alfredo Stroessner and the regime change of its former left-wing government; 1954: CIA-assisted the U.S.-endorsed overthrow of Guatemala’s President Jacobo Arbenz; 1961: Dominion Republic’s dictator Rafael Trujillo, once he fell out of grace with his American political handlers was assassinated by conspirators sponsored by the CIA; 1962 to 2022: an on-going oppressive, punitive economic embargo has been waged against the Republic of Cuba; 1964: CIA-assisted right-wing failed coup d’etat of President Joao Goulart of Brazil; 1970: CIA-assisted right-wing coup of Chile’s President Salvadore Allende; 1971; CIA-assisted coup of Bolivian President Juan Jose Torres; 1976: CIA-assisted right-wing coup and overthrow of Argentina’s democratically-elected President Isabel Peron; 1989: U.S.-supported invasion of Panama in attempt to overthrow Manuel Noriega and imprison him once he had served his purpose for corporate America; 1990’s: CIA-backed death squads terrorized Haiti’s attempt to form democratic government; 2004: CIA-assisted bloody coup and forced removal of Haiti’s President Jean-Bertrand Aristead by the U.S. military who physically removed Aristead against his will from the America’s under U.S. military escort, exiling him to the Central African Republic and South Africa.

This is but a partial list of the brutal predations of U.S.-led imperialism that have not only gone on in the America’s since the birth of the United States, but throughout the world as it and its allies have continued to expand an ever-widening Monroe Doctrine-style imperialism into places like: the overthrow of the leftist government of Mossadegh in Iraq; the Taliban in Afghanistan, and; Gaddafi in Libya; while, each time, American and Western governments, banks and financial Wall Street institutions, have descended like vultures, to utterly cannibalize their national coffers.

It’s a truly ugly tale to tell, especially within the context of Manifest Destiny, as coined by advocates of the New World Order, who still deeply believe the United States is inevitably destined, by God himself, to forever expand its dominion and corporate brand of democracy and capitalism throughout the New & Old Worlds.

This same curious mindset of American philosophy is what also: led to the: Cold War Domino Theory, that, in turn, led: to the Vietnam War against the Vietnamese people and their Chinese allies; then led to the Cold War against the Soviet Union; then led to the Hot War against Russia in Ukraine and perhaps, in the near or not too distant future, even China over the tensions that continue to build in the South Pacific around Taiwan.

US Western Hemisphere Militarism Seeks to Expand into the Old World

The War in Ukraine speaks to a U.S. imperialist-run Western Hemisphere of The America’s, that continues to expand now into a NATO-dominated Eastern European-Eurasian world, with even greater, more far-reaching imperial goals and objectives for the future.

To know something about how the American Empire’s early objectives were originally laid out in the Monroe Doctrine is to begin to better understand what its new objectives now are in Ukraine and beyond, as has now been more clearly spelled out in the recent historic NATO Summit in Madrid, that seeks to further shore up US Militarism in the 21^st century and beyond with its new Strategic Concept that now has identified, as the key threat to Western Civilization’s interests and values being, as they always have been: the continued existence of Russia and China.

Noam Chomsky, one of the world’s pre-eminent Peace & War intellectuals, without mincing his words, recently modestly quipped, upon reading the conclusions of Madrid’s NATO Summit, “The Empire Doesn’t Rest!” A remarkable understatement, to say the least.

But what does the Human Race’s flashpoint moment of truth in Ukraine now mean? If a nuclear threat suddenly could turn into a calamitous slaughter, what will be the ultimate cost of lives lost, and who will have the stomach of another General MacArthur, to exact that cost with some Nuclear Sucker Punch, or ultimate tit-for-tat by a multitude of others that will surely follow?

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Jerome Irwin is a Canadian-American writer who, for decades, has sought to call world attention to problems of environmental degradation and unsustainability caused by a host of environmental-ecological-spiritual issues that exist between the conflicting world philosophies of indigenous and non-indigenous peoples.

All images in this article are from the author

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There is a battle brewing in the occupied West Bank of Palestine.  Thousands of Israeli occupation forces will be deployed to face a growing resistance force.  The ‘natives are restless’ and the Lions’ Den has mobilized to fight for their freedom and human rights.

500,000 illegal Jewish settlers now live in the West Bank in some 130 settlements.  Today, the Israeli forces said dozens of settlers ran through Hawara, near Nablus, throwing rocks at Palestinian cars. The settlers used pepper spray on the Israeli commander as well as another soldier and sprayed another two soldiers at a nearby checkpoint.  Settlers are allowed to intimidate Palestinians and destroy their property, while Palestinians are hunted down and killed by Israeli occupation forces.

The Palestinian youth have grown up under brutal military occupation and an apartheid state.  The resistance in Jenin, Nablus, and Hebron has inspired rebellion against sieges and attacks. The Palestinian people living under the iron hand of oppression are ready to fight the Israeli occupation and are frustrated with their leadership which is seen as collaborating with the Israelis in keeping the status quo firmly in place.  The resistance movement sees no benefit in maintaining the occupation and demands a dramatic change in their future.

The Palestinian youth reject the divisions among the factions in the politics of Palestine.  The recent unity deal in Algeria has given them hope that political parties can work together in brigades such as the Lions’ Den, which has fighters from Hamas, Fatah, and others fighting together for a single goal of freedom.

On October 11, an Israeli soldier was killed in an attack north of Nablus, and two other shooting attacks against Israeli forces took place in Beit Ummar, near Hebron, and in Sur Baher, a neighborhood in Jerusalem.

On October 14, Israeli forces killed 20-year-old Mateen Dabaya in a raid on the Jenin refugee camp. Dr. Abdallah Abu Teen, 43, rushed to the aid of Dabaya in front of the Jenin hospital and was also shot and killed by the Israelis in his attempt to give medical care to the injured young man. Two Palestinian paramedics and several civilians were also wounded in the attack by the Israelis at the entrance to the hospital.

On October 15, a Palestinian in his twenties was killed north of Ramallah, and Israeli forces raided Nablus and arrested a Palestinian man while continuing to impose movement restrictions on Palestinians in the West Bank, which is a hallmark of an apartheid state.

On October 16, Mohammad Turkman, 20, died of his wounds while in Israeli custody. He had been wounded and captured by Israeli forces in Jenin in late September.

On October 20, Mohammed Fadi Nuri, 16, died after being shot in the stomach last month by Israeli troops near the city of Ramallah.

The Shuafat refugee camp in Jerusalem is completely sealed in a siege by Israeli forces as a form of collective punishment following an attack there, and Israeli police announced that it arrested 50 Palestinians in Jerusalem recently.

Riyad Mansour, the representative of Palestine to the UN, has denounced attacks by Israeli occupation forces and called on the UN to comply with international law and Security Council resolutions. Mansour noted that Israeli forces and settler militias “are relentlessly harassing, intimidating and provoking the Palestinian people in a ruthless manner,” and condemned the new attack against the city of Jenin

The US enables Israel to remain an apartheid state

The United States of America, the champion of freedom and democracy, is currently sending billions of dollars worth of weapons to Ukraine to fight for democracy.  But, you won’t see the US sending a bullet to the Palestinians for their fight for democracy.  The US is also the champion of ‘double standards’.

According to the various international human rights groups, which are often cited by the US as evidence of war crimes and atrocities by American foes, the Jewish State of Israel is an apartheid state.  The US and her western liberal allies were the chief critics of the former apartheid state of South Africa, and the western criticism helped to fulfill the dreams of freedom and democracy in the land of Nelson Mandela.

The US is like a parent who allows Israel to continue self-destructive behavior.  Some parents of teenage drug addicts will buy drugs for their children to protect them from danger and arrest.  The parents are not willing to go through the tortuous procedure of rehab for the child, so they minimize the danger and make the drug addiction as safe as possible. This is known as enabling, and this is the role the US has chosen for itself in its relationship with Israel and Palestine.  On the one hand, the US claims to support the democratic aspirations of all peoples but is unwilling to stand up to Israeli policies of racism, collective punishment, blockades, imprisonment without trial or legal aid, and other crimes perpetrated against the Palestinian people under occupation.  The enabling stance of the US is destructive for both the US and the Palestinians, as the reputation of America suffers from global ridicule and shame.

Palestinian unity deal

Arab unity might be too much to ask for, but Palestinian unity has been agreed on in Algeria.  Hamas, Fattah, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the PLO, and others signed the deal brokered by Algerian President Abdulmajeed Tabboune.  This deal resolves a 15-year political dispute among the various factions and looks forward to new elections.

“Jenin has demonstrated to the [Palestinian] leaders meeting in Algeria that national unity is built in the field,” Palestinian prime minister Mohammad Shtayyeh said.

Why is the west bank resisting?

The Palestinian Authority has lost control in Nablus and Jenin the West Bank.  The Palestinians view their leadership as an extension of Israeli control and oppression.  The Lions’ Den in Nablus has claimed responsibility for the latest resistance operations against Israeli occupation forces.

On October 16, the Jenin Brigade announced they will support the Lions’ Den in their resistance to occupation, and this has raised the prospect of increased Israeli raids on Jenin and Nablus.

Benny Gantz, Israeli Defense Minister, trivialized the threat of the Lions’ Den when he made statements on how his occupation forces will capture and eliminate the members.  Israel has depended on the divisions among the Palestinian factions. However, Israel has never before faced a unified force of motivated youth who are willing to die for freedom and a chance to create a new future for themselves and their families. Revolutions occasionally succeed.

According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, over 170 Palestinians were killed in the West Bank and Gaza, since the beginning of 2022, making this year the deadliest since 2015.

UK embassy move proposed

Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Cardinal Vincent Nichols, Archbishop of Westminster, have both expressed concern over the proposed UK embassy move from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.  Liz Truss, the embattled British Prime Minister, proposed the idea in her meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid last month.

Pope Francis, the UK churches, and the 13 denominations of Christians in Jerusalem have always maintained a position supporting a UN resolution for a two-state solution between Israel and Palestine firstly, and secondly a final status of Jerusalem to be decided afterward. Previously the Christians of Jerusalem stated concern over moving embassies to Jerusalem,

“We are certain that such steps will yield increased hatred, conflict, violence and suffering in Jerusalem and the Holy Land, moving us farther from the goal of unity and deeper toward destructive division.”

Truss has wanted to follow in the footsteps of President Trump who defied international law when he shifted the US embassy to Jerusalem. The Truss plan was first suggested in her letter to the Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI), a pro-Israel lobby group, similar to the pro-Trump AIPAC in the US.

Australia reverses its position on embassy move

Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong has announced Australia has reversed its recognition of West Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

Wong also told reporters that

“the Australian government remains committed to a two-state solution in which Israel and a future Palestinian state can coexist in peace and security within internationally recognized borders. We will not support an approach that undermines this prospect.”

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

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The European Union is giving Ukraine €5 billion in exceptional macrofinancial assistance. Another 9 billion has been provided by the EU-sponsored fundraising campaign. However, this is not enough to cover the budget hole; Zelenski is immediately asking for another 55 billion euros. The US and EU have already donated 100 billion euros in military supplies to Kiev.

Add to that billions more spent by the EU on training and arming Ukrainian forces, plus those spent for the same purpose by individual EU countries. In the U.S., a bill is passing in the Senate that allows the Pentagon to purchase, without specific congressional authorization, huge quantities of weapons for Ukraine directly from the war industries-a colossal business for the military industrial complex, which will further increase its profits with NATO’s Ten-Year Plan to arm Ukraine by repurposing its war industry.

These huge funds, coming directly and indirectly from our pockets, serve to fuel the war in the heart of Europe. The risks are growing. The NATO nuclear war exercise directed against Russia is taking place in Europe: 14 countries are participating under U.S. command with 60 aircraft, including F-35 nuclear attack fighters, including Italian ones, which will soon be armed with the new U.S. B61-12 nuclear bombs, and U.S. B-52 strategic bombers armed with nuclear cruise missiles.

At the same time, the most important strategic report released in recent days by the White House-“U.S. National Security Strategy”-leaves no doubt about Washington’s pursued goal: “Around the world, the need for American leadership is greater than ever. Our armed forces are the strongest the world has ever known. America will not hesitate to use force when necessary to defend our national interests.”

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This article was originally published on byoblu.

Manlio Dinucci, award winning author, geopolitical analyst and geographer, Pisa, Italy. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).

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Accounting for all the myriad ways Liz Truss leaves Britain worse off would take longer than the amount of time she spent inside Number 10.

Her brief tenure has been characterised by an exhilaratingly rapid pace of record-breaking, from establishing an unprecedented Labour lead in the polls to presiding over the highest rates of inflation in 40 years, to driving the pound down to its lowest-ever level against the dollar, and culminating in her resignation as the shortest-serving prime minister in UK history.

The story of the Free Enterprise Group (FEG) – the neo-Thatcherite Tory faction founded by Liz Truss in 2011 and closely associated with Tufton Street think tanks such as the Institute for Economic Affairs (IEA) – makes for satisfying schadenfreude. A decade after a gaggle of newly elected Tory MPs, among them Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng, co-authored ‘Britannia Unchained’, which outlined the FEG’s vision for the country, the group’s internal politicking saw them slowly ascend to the head of the table.

Twelve long-time supporters of the FEG would occupy cabinet positions in Truss’s government, with Kwarteng, Thérèse Coffey and Nadhim Zahawi rewarded with some of the choice senior roles. The head of IEA’s public policy openly and gleefully boasted about dictating the political course. At last, it was time for them to realise the hyper-neoliberal Britain they’d dreamed about for so long, one which could boast of the bare minimum in taxation, regulation and public spending.

Their vision promptly dissolved on contact with reality, immediately tanking the economy and coming to a humiliating and abrupt halt to the experiment after all of 44 days. Their hubris might make for an enjoyable bit of political theatre, but beyond the spectacle, the consequences of Truss’ fleeting premiership cannot be neatly undone.

Though the pound began to rally against the dollar almost instantly after her resignation, the damage caused by Trussonomics, which led to a collapse in gilt government prices, has only thrown fuel on the raging fire of the cost of living crisis. Britain is by no means alone in facing such crises – particularly in the wake of various economic and supply chain shocks resulting from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – but economists have begun to refer to the upshot of Truss’ response as a ‘moron risk premium’. The UK has become a cautionary tale in how to exacerbate an already perilous economic situation.

The Bank of England had to pledge that it was prepared to spend up to £5bn a day over 13 days (to a total of £65bn) in an attempt to prevent various pension funds from going under. It is now expected to raise interest rates from 0.25% to 5% by early 2023, with the Resolution Foundation anticipating that five million households could face an average annual mortgage bill increase of £5,100.

Many homeowners may be forced to sell up. But since lenders responded to the mini-budget by withdrawing 1,700 products (roughly 40% of the market) before reintroducing 900 of them at far higher prices, eligible buyers might be in much shorter supply. As well as exposing mortgage-owners to a much higher risk of defaulting (the bank has already warned of increases in the coming months) this could have a severe short-term effect on renters, too, should these rising costs be passed on by landlords. A sharp increase in people being unable to afford rent and mortgages – particularly as other living costs simultaneously soar in tandem – has the potential to not only lead to a large spike in homelessness, but to collapse the property market; a market with which many pension funds are also inextricably linked.

There is a potential that interest rates might not be raised in line with market expectations to avoid such a scenario, but this carries a risk of higher inflation, which has already climbed to 10.1% under Truss – the highest in 40 years. Annual food prices have risen by almost 15%, the highest rise since 1980, which has certainly not been helped by the weakening of the pound leading to significantly increased import costs.

The true impact of spiralling energy costs hasn’t been truly felt yet, given we are only in October and winter hasn’t really drawn in. Consumers being battered on numerous fronts of essential costs (housing, fuel, food) are likely to make spending cutbacks, meaning many employers could see a significant downturn in business. This – when combined with a business’s own increases in energy and supply costs – might have disastrous consequences for its staff, whether in depressed wages or cutbacks. Losses in earnings beget losses in spending power begets more losses in earnings. Truss’ ‘Growth Plan’ ostensibly sought to prevent a recession, but looks only to have made one more inevitable, and more sharply felt.

It would be unfair to lay blame for all of these scenarios squarely at the feet of Liz Truss. She is a symptom, rather than a direct cause, of our current situation – and of an ideology that has for decades been busy organising the economy in a precarious way for the benefit of all those she last month sought to hand tax cuts to. In just 44 days, Truss has given us all a glimpse of what that 40+ year political project could look like if allowed to be taken to its logical conclusion.

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***

A Kremlin spokesperson said Russian President Vladimir Putin has been open to talks over Ukraine since the war began. Meanwhile, America’s top diplomat claimed there has been “no evidence” Moscow wishes to engage in diplomacy.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday that Putin appeared to be “much softer and more open to negotiations.” Ankara has been one of the few NATO members to try to retain some ties with Moscow. Erdogan led negotiations that nearly ended the war in Ukraine in its first months. In July, Turkey and the UN successfully mediated the grain export agreement between Kiev and Moscow.

Responding to the Turkish leader’s remarks, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. Peskov said “Putin, in fact, has been open to talks from the very beginning. The president has repeatedly said so himself.” Moscow attempted to initiate talks with NATO prior to Russia invading Ukraine, he added.

Peskov pointed out the Kremlin was agreeable to a document produced by representatives from Kiev and Moscow. The Russian news agency TASS, quoted Peskov saying

“Putin was open to talks when the text of the document between Russian and Ukrainian negotiators was actually agreed upon. So here, in this respect, nothing has changed.”

In March, Ankara hosted talks with negotiators from both Moscow and Kiev. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and former US official Fiona Hill have separately confirmed that the broad outlines of a deal was reached. Several sources have reported that then-UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson traveled to Kiev and told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky not to pursue the agreement.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken argues that Russia is to blame for the lack of progress in negotiations. “We have seen no evidence of that in this moment. On the contrary, we see Russia doubling and tripling down on its aggression,” America’s top diplomat said at a press conference with his French counterpart.

Peskov added that current diplomacy is being stifled by a new statute signed by Zelensky. “The Ukrainian side has enshrined not continuing talks with Russia. That is, the Ukrainian law now prohibits any negotiations,” the Kremlin spokesperson said. On October 4, Zelensky signed a decree that barred talks with Putin’s government. “We are ready for a dialogue with Russia, but with another president of Russia,” the Ukrainian leader said.

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Kyle Anzalone is the opinion editor of Antiwar.com, news editor of the Libertarian Institute, and co-host of Conflicts of Interest.

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***

“When militarism is addressed as a psychosocial disease, the absurd irrationality of its symptoms is clearly exposed.”

These words are from a 1992 essay by N. Arther Coulter published in a journal called Medicine and War. Who would have guessed? They’re as relevant now as they were three decades ago.

God bless Armageddon.

As war wreaks hell in Ukraine—and the threat of a nuclear confrontation between superpowers continues to intensify—NATO is in the process of prepping for the end of the world. It’s an annual two-week training event called Steadfast Noon—a nuclear practice run that gives European flight crews a chance to practice loading and dropping “non-strategic” nuclear bombs. Russia is expected to conduct its own annual nuclear drill, known as Grom (that is, Thunder), soon as well.

I can’t read about this without summoning what I call “the big why?” from deep within. Endless resources are devoted annually to nuclear deterrence, a.k.a., the big bluff: “If you mess with me, you’re gonna get it.” The point, allegedly, is to prevent war, which is absolutely paradoxical in a global political system based on the psychosocial disease of militarism, i.e., the pursuit of national interest and the maintenance of safety primarily via force and violence.

No matter that this is the nuclear age, that force and violence could—oh so easily—go too far and wreak horror on everyone. The preparation for nuclear war continues unabated, while the voices of opposition remain merely cries from the political margins. There’s no actual “debate” here, just a lot of powerless anguish, or so it seems.

For instance, two years ago an open letter, signed by 56 former political leaders (including former prime ministers) of 20 NATO countries, as well as Japan and South Korea, was released to the world, pleading to current NATO countries—to all the nuclear-armed nations—to sign the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which the U.N. passed in 2017 by a vote of 122-1. The nations represented by the letter’s signatories have, of course, totally ignored the treaty, which was ratified last year, making nuclear weapons technically “illegal,” which seems to mean nothing at all.

The letter concludes thus: “With close to 14,000 nuclear weapons located at dozens of sites across the globe and on submarines patrolling the oceans at all times, the capacity for destruction is beyond our imagination. All responsible leaders must act now to ensure that the horrors of 1945 are never repeated. Sooner or later, our luck will run out—unless we act. The nuclear weapon ban treaty provides the foundation for a more secure world, free from this ultimate menace. We must embrace it now and work to bring others on board. There is no cure for a nuclear war. Prevention is our only option.”

Stunning words! They were signed by former leaders of the following countries: Albania, Belgium, Canada, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain and Turkey.

They also wrote: “. . .we appeal to current leaders to advance disarmament before it is too late.”

“We appeal . . .?” And suddenly the whole letter crawled back into the political margins. These were former prime ministers, former defense ministers, speaking the deepest possible political truth, but seemingly they had no more power to bring about the change—global nuclear disarmament—than I do.

Behind the formal language was a simple plea: “Come on, guys. Nuclear militarism doesn’t work. You know it as well as we do.” But nothing has changed. Perhaps only when you’re no longer in power do you become free of the psychosocial disease of militarism. And thus “nuclear deterrence,” along with enormous, bloated military budgets, remains the way of the developed world.

Militarism—including nuclear militarism—remains the way of the world, accompanied by an enormous shrug. This being the case, it strikes me as appropriate to revisit fifteen seconds in the life of Stanislav Petrov, a lieutenant colonel of the Soviet Air Defense Forces, who, on Sept. 26, 1983, essentially saved the world from nuclear war.

He was on duty at the command center outside Moscow where nuclear threat was monitored. Several hours into his shift that morning, the alarm went off. Oh my God! Computers immediately warned that the U.S. had just launched five ICBMs at the Soviet Union.

“For fifteen seconds, we were in a state of shock,” he later said. These were fifteen seconds in which the fate of humanity—your fate, my fate—were up for grabs. As the New York Times noted, this was a deeply tense period of the Cold War. Three weeks earlier, the Soviet Union had shot down a Korean Air Lines commercial flight flying over Soviet territory, killing all 269 people on board. And President Reagan had recently declared that the Soviet Union was an “evil empire” and refused to freeze the arms race. Uh oh.

According to protocol, Petrov should have reported the alert up the military chain of command, with nuclear retaliation the likely result. But the computer warning seemed odd. It indicated that only five missiles had been launched, which made no sense. Why so few? In those fifteen seconds, as he recovered from his shock and pulled himself together, he studied the flashing maps. His gut instinct was: no, this isn’t real. It’s a false alarm. The Times wrote:

“As the tension in the command center rose—as many as 200 pairs of eyes were trained on Colonel Petrov—he made the decision to report the alert as a system malfunction.”

And yes, his gut instinct proved accurate. Some clarity and sanity well down the military chain of command kept the world out of nuclear war. That time.

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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Robert Koehler is an award-winning, Chicago-based journalist and nationally syndicated writer. Koehler has been the recipient of multiple awards for writing and journalism from organizations including the National Newspaper Association, Suburban Newspapers of America, and the Chicago Headline Club.  He’s a regular contributor to such high-profile websites as Common Dreams and the Huffington Post. Eschewing political labels, Koehler considers himself a “peace journalist. He has been an editor at Tribune Media Services and a reporter, columnist and copy desk chief at Lerner Newspapers, a chain of neighborhood and suburban newspapers in the Chicago area. Koehler launched his column in 1999. Born in Detroit and raised in suburban Dearborn, Koehler has lived in Chicago since 1976. He earned a master’s degree in creative writing from Columbia College and has taught writing at both the college and high school levels. Koehler is a widower and single parent. He explores both conditions at great depth in his writing. His book, “Courage Grows Strong at the Wound” (2016). Contact him or visit his website at commonwonders.com.

Featured image is from ICAN/Aude Catimel

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

by Michel Chossudovsky

Available to order from Global Research! 

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

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

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

Reviews

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

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

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

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***

The most obvious explanation to the mysterious air dash of the UK Defence Minister Ben Wallace to Washington on Tuesday could be that he was canvassing for the support of the Biden Administration for his pitch to succeed Liz Truss as Britain’s next prime minister. But another plausible explanation can be that the secret, hurried trip marked a defining moment in the conflict in Ukraine, which is showing all signs of turning into a full-fledged war. 

To be sure, the Biden team cannot but be worried that London is drifting into chaos and the Conservative Party’s faction leaders scurry around like headless chicken looking for a substitute to Truss who stepped down on Thursday. 

The British economy is disintegrating and the Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt anticipates that a cut on the defence budget is inevitable. That is to say, the Deep State’s fun and frolic in Kiev is no longer affordable. The UK is heading for hard times, the rubric of Global Britain looks delusional. 

Enter President Biden. The reports from Moscow suggest that Russians have hard intelligence to the effect that Washington has demanded from President Zelensky some spectacular performance on the battlefield as the midterms in the US on November 8 is round the corner. 

That adds to the enigmatic comment by a second defence minister in London James Heappey that the conversations that Wallace would be having in Washington were “beyond belief,” hinting that particularly sensitive and serious issues were on the agenda.  

Indeed, after arrival in Washington, Wallace headed straight for the White House to meet up with National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, Biden’s point person for the Ukraine war. A White House readout said the two officials “exchanged views on shared national security interests, including Ukraine.  They underscored their commitment to continue providing Ukraine with security assistance as it defends itself against Russian aggression.” 

As British politics descends to skulduggery that will extend into months, the US will be a stakeholder. Historically, since the World War 2, Britain led the US from the rear in critical  situations involving Russia. 

Indeed, Biden issued a rare statement on Truss’ exit, which stated that the US and the UK “are strong Allies and enduring friends — and that fact will never change.” He thanked her “for her partnership on a range of issues including holding Russia accountable for its war against Ukraine.” Biden underscored that “We will continue our close cooperation with the U.K. government as we work together to meet the global challenges our nations face.” 

Biden has sent a powerful message to Britain’s political class signalling that he expects them to come up with a new prime minister who will faithfully adhere to the compass set by Boris Johnson on Ukraine. In immediate terms, what does it signal for the Anglo-American project in Kherson? Will it go ahead? That is the big question. 

The situation in Kherson is assuming the nature of a large-scale military confrontation, as Zelensky is throwing everything into it in an attempt to wrest control of the strategic Kherson city, which has been under Russian control since March, before the midterms in the US. 

At a press conference in Moscow on Tuesday, Army general Sergei Surovikin, the newly-appointed theatre commander for Ukraine operations, conceded that there was a danger of the Ukrainian forces advancing toward Kherson city. 

To quote the general,

“A difficult situation has arisen. The enemy deliberately bombards infrastructure and residential buildings in Kherson. The Antonovsky Bridge and the dam of the Kakhovskaya hydroelectric power station were damaged by HIMARS missiles, traffic there was stopped. 

“As a result, the supply of food in the city is difficult, there are certain problems with the water and electricity supply. All this greatly complicates the lives of citizens, but also poses a direct threat to their lives. 

“The NATO leadership of the Ukrainian armed forces has long been demanding offensive operations against Kherson from the Kiev regime, regardless of casualties… We have data on the possibility that the regime in Kiev will use prohibited methods of war in the area of the city of Kherson — preparation for a big missile attack on the Kakhovskaya hydroelectric dam, massive and indiscriminate missile and artillery attacks on the city…

“In these circumstances, our top priority is to preserve the life and health of citizens. Therefore, the Russian army will first of all ensure the safe, already announced departure of the population according to the resettlement program being prepared by the Russian government. Our further plans and actions regarding the city of Kherson itself will depend on the current military-tactical situation. I repeat, it is already very difficult today. [Emphasis added.]

“In any case, as I said, we will start from the need to protect the lives of civilians and our military as much as possible. We will act consciously and in a timely manner, without excluding difficult decisions.” [Emphasis added.] 

The full interview of Gen. Sergey Surovikin to Russian media is below:

The Kremlin thinking gets echoed in a public appeal by the head of the Kherson region Vladimir Saldo where he explained that the evacuation of civilians was not only for people’s safety but also for the operational freedom of the military:

“Dear compatriots, I want to say again that our army has very strong capabilities to repel any attack. But in order for our military to work quietly and not to think that civilians are behind their backs, you MUST get out of these neighbourhoods I mentioned and allow the military to do its job properly, with fewer casualties for the civilians. Our cause is just and we are sure we will win!” 

The message here is that the Russian military is prepared to expand the scope of the conflict in Kherson, if need arises. There has been talk about a massive Russian offensive circa mid-November. The new security measures announced by Putin this week and the establishment of a special coordination council headed by Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin to support the needs of Russia’s Armed Forces imply that time future is being put on a war footing.

Significantly, Gen. Surovikin said at one point in his press conference:

“The enemy does not give up trying to attack the positions of the Russian troops. This concerns, first of all, the directions Kupyansk (Kharkov oblast), Krasnolimansky (Donetsk oblast) and Mykolaiv-Krivoy Rog (neighbouring Kherson oblast.) Our enemy is a criminal regime that is killing the citizens of Ukraine. We are one people with Ukrainians and we wish Ukraine to become a state independent of the West and NATO, friendly to Russia… [Emphasis added.]

“The Ukrainian regime is trying to break through our defences. To this end, the AFU is pulling all available reserves to the front lines. These are mainly territorial defense forces that have not completed full training. In fact, the Ukrainian leadership is condemning them to destruction.” 

Then, he added,

“We have a different strategy. The Commander-in-Chief [President Putin] has already talked about this. We don’t aim for high advance figures, we take care of every soldier and methodically “grind” the advancing enemy. This not only limits our losses, but also significantly reduces the number of civilian casualties.” 

That is to say, specifically, the set parameters of the special military operations with focus on “demilitarisation” and “denazification” remain unchanged while also aiming at the replacement of Zelensky’s regime. 

Russia will be keenly watching the profound political crisis developing in Europe, of which the paroxysms in Britain are an early harbinger, which could erode the rock-like UK support for Zelensky, as the western capability and interest to bankroll the Ukrainian economy and fuel the military conflict may also be on the wane. 

Nonetheless, Surovikin did not take to hyperbole but instead chose to communicate directly, realistically. He echoed Putin’s priority to take all necessary measures and resources in accordance with the operational and tactical situation at the front with the supreme objective of saving the lives of Russian soldiers and local civilians. 

The general conveyed the impression that the Russian command is ready for every development of the situation in Kherson — both tactical withdrawal and heavy city fighting. 

In political terms, with the UK bogged down in a domestic quagmire, Biden has the option to shift to diplomacy. This is “Biden’s war” now. He is about to script his presidential legacy as the fifth of the 14 American presidents in office since World War II to “own” a war — after Harry Truman, Lyndon Johnson, George HW Bush and George W. Bush.

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Featured image is from The Libertarian Institute

L’Unione Europea sta dando all’Ucraina 5 miliardi di euro di assistenza macrofinanziaria eccezionale. Altri 9 miliardi sono stati forniti dalla campagna di raccolta fondi promossa dalla UE. Non bastano però a coprire il buco di bilancio: Zelenski chiede immediatamente altri 55 miliardi di euro. USA e EU hanno giù donato a Kiev 100 miliardi di euro di forniture militari. Si aggiungono altri miliardi spesi dalla UE per l’addestramento e armamento delle forze ucraine, più quelli spesi allo stesso scopo da singoli paesi della EU. Negli Stati Uniti sta passando al Senato una legge che consente al Pentagono di acquistare, senza specifica autorizzazione del Congresso, enormi quantità di armi per l’Ucraina direttamente dalle industrie belliche: un business colossale per il complesso militare industriale, che accrescerà ulteriormente i suoi profitti con il Piano decennale della NATO di armare l’Ucraina riconvertendo la sua industria bellica.

Questi enormi fondi, provenienti direttamente e indirettamente dalle nostre tasche, servono ad alimentare la guerra nel cuore dell’Europa. I rischi sono crescenti. Si sta svolgendo in Europa l’esercitazione NATO di guerra nucleare diretta contro la Russia: vi partecipano sotto comando USA 14 Paesi con 60 aerei, tra cui i caccia F-35 da attacco nucleare, compresi quelli italiani, che tra poco saranno armati delle nuove bombe nucleari USA B61-12, e i bombardieri strategici B-52 degli Stati Uniti armati di missili nucleari da crociera.

Contemporaneamente, il più importante rapporto strategico pubblicato in questi giorni dalla Casa Bianca – “Strategia per la sicurezza nazionale degli Stati Uniti d’America” – non lascia dubbi sul fine perseguito da Washington: “In tutto il mondo, il bisogno della leadership americana è più grande che mai.  Le nostre forze armate sono le più forti che il mondo abbia mai conosciuto. L’America non esiterà a usare la forza quando sarà necessario per difendere i nostri interessi nazionali”.

Manlio Dinucci

 

 

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First published on July 8, 2021

***

Below are excerpts of the Spanish Team’s research report on Graphene Oxide with links to the full document.

Background

Mr. Ricardo Delgado Martin requests PROVISION OF RESEARCH SERVICES to the UAL named: “DETECTION OF GRAPHENE IN AQUEOUS SUSPENSION SAMPLE”

• On 06/10/2021 1 vial was received by courier, labeled with the following text:
  • “COMIRNATY™ .Sterile concentrate. COVID-19 mRNA. 6 doses after dilution.
  • Discard date / time: PAA165994.LOT / EXP: EY3014 08/2021 ”
• Origin and traceability: unknown
• State of conservation: refrigerated
• Maintenance during the study: refrigerated
• Coding of the problem sample to be analyzed: RD1

Preliminary observations of the test sample RD1

Description:

• Sealed vial, with rubber and aluminum cap intact, of 2 ml capacity, containing a 0.45 ml cloudy aqueous suspension.
• RNA extraction and quantification is performed
• Presence of uncharacterized nanometric microbiology is observed, visible at 600X in optical microscope

Click screenshot above to access full document in English

Sample processing

1. Dilution in 0.9% sterile physiological saline (0.45 ml + 1.2 ml)

2. Polarity fractionation: 1.2 ml hexane + 120 ul of RD1 sample

3. Extraction of hydrophilic phase

4. Extraction and quantification of RNA in the sample

5. Electron and optical microscopy of aqueous phase

Preliminary analysis: extraction and quantification of Rna in the sample

1. RNA extraction: Kit https://www.fishersci.es/shop/products/ambion-purelink-rna-mini-kit-7/10307963

2. Quantification of total UV absorbance in spectrophotometer NanoDrop™ https://www.thermofisher.com/order/catalog/product/ND-2000#/ND-2000

3. Specific quantification of Rna by fluorescence QUBIT2.0: https://www.thermofisher.com/es/es/home/references/newsletters-and-journals/bioprobes-journalof-cell-biology-applications/bioprobes-issues-2011/bioprobes-64-april-2011/the-qubit-2-0 fluorometer-april- 2011.html

UV absorption spectrum of the aqueous phase of the RD1 sample (Nanodrop team)

Maximum absorption of SAMPLE RD1 (260-270 nm)

• RNA. It presents usual maximums at 260 nm. Total concentration estimated by QUBIT2.0 fluorometry: 6 ng / ul
• The spectrum reveals the presence of a high quantity of substances or substances other than Rna with maximum absorption in the same region, with a total estimated at 747 ng / ul (uncalibrated estimate)
• Reduced graphene oxide (RGO) has absorption maxima at 270 nm, compatible with the spectrum obtained (Thema et al, 2013. Journal of Chemistry ID 150536)
• The maximum absorption obtained DOES NOT ALLOW TO DISCARD the presence of graphene in the sample. The minimum amount of RNA detected by QUBIT2.0 only explains a residual percentage of the total UV absorption of the sample.

OBJECTIVE: Microscopic identification of graphene derivatives

METHODOLOGY:

1. Imaging in optical and electron microscopy

2. Comparison with literature images and reduced graphene oxide standard sample

TRANSMISSION ELECTRON MICROSCOPY (TEM)

Electron microscope JEM-2100Plus

Voltage: 200 kV

Resolution 0.14 nm

Magnification up to x1,200,000

TRANSMISSION ELECTRON MICROSCOPY (TEM)

Electron microscopy (TEM) is commonly used to image graphene nanomaterials. It has become a fairly standard and easy to use instrument that is capable of imaging individual layered graphene sheets.

Conclusions and Recommendations

1. Microscopic study of the sample provides strong evidence for the probable presence of graphene derivatives, although microscopy does not provide conclusive evidence. The definitive identification of graphene, oxidized graphene (GO) or reduced oxidized graphene (rGO) in the RD1 sample requires the STRUCTURAL CHARACTERIZATION through the analysis of specific spectral standard sample comparable to those published in literature and those obtained from the standard sample, obtained with spectroscopic techniques such as XPS, EDS, NMR, FTIR or Raman, among others.

2. The analyzes in this report correspond to ONE SINGLE SAMPLE, limited in total volume available for processing. It is therefore necessary to carry out a significant sampling of similar vials to draw conclusions that can be generalized to comparable samples, recording origin, traceability and quality control during storage and transport prior to analysis.

Read the full report here.

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***

.

There is ample evidence that the so-called Covid-19 mRNA vaccine is a killer vaccine.

A mass movement against the Covid mandate is unfolding Worldwide.

***

Below is the Important statement by Doctors for Covid Ethics (D4CE).

This statement must be endorsed Worldwide.

First published on 21 July 2021, latest update 3 April 2022

Urgent Open Letter For The Information Of:

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Featured image is from Children’s Health Defense

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***

Introduction

For centuries, Koreans have been asking the Almighty to bless them with a true leader who would provide daily necessities, hope for the future, courage to fight for the justice and self- respect and self confidence.

During the 500-year of Choseon dynasty, kings could not perform properly their duty as national leaders because of the corruption of the “Yang-ban” (aristocrats). 

King Kojong, the last king of the Choseon dynasty was a failure, because he could not prevent Lee Wan-yong from selling Korea to Japan for his own political and financial greed.

During the 35-year Japanese colonial rule, Korea was governed by pro-Japan Korean bureaucrats who collaborated with Japanese for the oppression of Koreans. 

After 1945, Korea was ruled, for 62 years, by former pro-Japan collaborators and their descendents who regarded the rest of the Korean people as enemies and who were more concerned with their own interests than with those of the rest of the Korean population. 

There are also a great number of Japanese who remained in Korea, adopted Korean names to keep their wealth cumulated during the 35-year Japanese occupation. This group is one of the key elements of the pro-Japan corrupted conservative South Koreans. In other words, these Japanese have been an integral part of the pro-Japan conservative government.

Moon Jae-in came along and, for Koreans, he was the true national leader they had been waiting for so long. He came in order to give  the country to back to the people, a country which was stolen by the corrupted pro-Japan conservative forces in South Korea.

President Moon has left his office on May 9, 2022.  I thought that it is right time to discuss what and how he has accomplished his historical tasks.

As the legacy of President Moon, I would point out the following achievements:

• Fight against the corruption culture
• Fight against the COVID-19 Virus

Social Reform

• New Economic System
• Crisis Management
• North-South Relations
• The Northern Policy and the Southern Policy
• Korea-Japan Relations
• Unfinished Task of President Moon Jae-in

Fight against the Corruption Culture

Before we discuss the corruption culture, we should remember its historical background.

In 1948, South Korea was deeply divided between the pro-Japan conservative South Koreans (PJCSK) and the pro-Korea liberal South Koreans (PKLSK).

The PJCSK was composed of those Koreans who had collaborated with the Japanese colonial government (the traitors), those Japanese who remained in Korea after WWII by adopting Koreans names, the descendents of these two core groups and other groups. I will elaborate the composition of the PJCSK later.

On the other hand, the PKLSK was composed of those Koreans who fought against the Japanese and the vast majority of Koreans who suffered from humiliation, oppression and exploitation by the Japanese. The leader of the PKLSK was Kim Gu who was president of the Korean Provisional Government fighting against the Japanese in China and Manchuria.

The PJCSK were able to win the election in 1948 by not only assassinating Kim Gu but also arresting most of the PKLSK leaders and rigging the election. Sygnman Rhee became the first post-war Korean president and formed a government run by the traitors and the Japanese who remained in Korea

On the other hand, in North Korea, under the leadership of Kim Il-sung, the traitors were executed and there were few Japanese remained by fear of execution. The core of the North Korean society was composed of those who fought with arms against Japan.

You may wonder how come the traitors could become members of the government.

To understand this, we have to go back to 1945, the year of the establishment of the American military government. Being ignorant of Korea and Korean history, the military government hired the traitors who were around and who had experience in running the government.

Thus, important positions of the government including the police were given to collaborators. This was how the collaborators (traitors) were not punished, while, in other countries including France, the traitors were severely punished.

The military government left in 1948 and the presidential election was coming. The PKLSK revolted and organized a committee to identify the traitors and succeeded in making a part of the list of traitors. But, the traitors, under the leadership Syngman Rhee, destroyed the list. Thus, the collaborators were not punished.

Coming back to the question of corruption culture, it is important to understand the psychic of the traitors. These traitors knew that they were enemies of most of the Koreans. They knew that, to survive, they had to keep power. They knew also that they would never be elected through normal democratic political process. Under these circumstances, it was necessary to grab power by force and eliminate those who opposed them.

This explains the police dictatorship of Syngman Rhee, the military dictatorship of Generals Park Chung-hee and Chun Doo-whan, rigged election of Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye.

There was another important means of survival for the PJCSK, the money and the corruption. To survive, the traitors have formed community which cumulated, through illegal or immoral ways, enormous wealth. To increase and protect their wealth, they have developed what I call “corruption community” and “corruption culture.”

The corruption community is a very solid organization. At the core, we have the descendents of Lee Wan Yong and his friends, who were knighted by the Japanese emperor in 1929 for their efforts for the annexation of Korea to Japan in 1910. At the core, we find also large corporations, namely, the Chaebols.

The modus operandi of the corruption community is essentially based on the corrupted relations between politicians and the business corporations. The role of the politicians is to provide privileges including all sorts of permits, policy loans, grants, tax allowances and illegal and immoral land ownership. On the other hands, the role of corporations is to provide bribes and other forms of illegal or immoral money to the politicians.

There are the secondary groups around the core group including bureaucrats, business dealers, families of the core group and a host of other groups including academics, NGOs and others.

There are two institutions which are vital for the survival and the expansion of the corruption community, namely the media and the judiciary system.

The role of media is to hide, justify and protect wrong doings of the corruption community in exchange of bribe money. In Korea, at present, perhaps 90% of mainstream media is an integral part of the corruption community.

On the other hand, the role of the judiciary system is to identify the dissidents, fabricate all sorts of crimes to imprison them on the one hand; on the other, overlook the crimes of the members of the corruption community.

Most of the key positions in the police, the court and the office of prosecutors are occupied by the member of the corruption community or supporters of the corruption community.

The source of the power of the corruption community is, of course, the money. The core members of the community cumulated their wealth during the Japanese occupation and continue to do so for last 70 years since WWII through bribes and embezzlement of public money.

There is a well known investigative media, Newstapa, which has investigated the living conditions of known traitors. No less than 43% live in Gangnam area which is the richest district in Seoul. The most scandalous finding is that they own land of 400,000 km^2, which is 30.8 time the area of Seoul city of 13,000 km^2..  This gives some idea of how rich they are. By law, this land must be returned to the state, but only 3% has been returned.

The investigation has also revealed some interesting sides of 1,117 descendents of these traitors. As many as 33% went to the Korean Ivy league universities, the SKY universities (Seoul National University, Yonsei University and Koryo University).

No less than 27% have studies abroad. The interesting aspect is that they prefer career in business. In fact, 32% are in businesses. This is understandable, for they are eager to hide their identity, which is difficult to do in civil service.

Nobody knows how much wealth the corruption community of the PJCSK has cumulated for 70 years. Some estimates claim hundreds of billions of USD. In fact, it could be trillions of dollars. This immense wealth has allowed the corruption community to keep power and continue to stack up more wealth. In a way, the fight against corruption is the war against money, which is quasi impossible to win.

One of the most challenging tasks faced by President Moon Jae-in was the fight against the deep rooted corruption culture in South Korea. The corruption culture has been developed, refined and strengthened by the PJCSK who ruled South Korea for 62 years since 1948.

But, the PKLSK did not remain idle. They fought back risking death against the leaders of PJCSK and they were successful in making the end of PJCSK presidency shameful.

President Syngman Rhee (1948-1960) was kicked out of his presidential office by students for corruption and police dictatorship.

President General Park Chung-hee (1962-1979) took power through coup d’état. He was the worst kind of human right violator, military dictator, immoral sexual aggressor and abuser of power. He was assassinated in 1979 by his CIA director. But, he played important role for Korea’s economic take-off.

President General Chun Doo-han (1980-1987) was sentenced to death, later commuted but imprisoned for coup d’état, corruption, human right violation and embezzlement of public funds.

President Rho Tae-woo (1987-1992) was imprisoned for corruption embezzlement of public money.

President Lee Myung-bak (2008-2013) was in prison for corruption, embezzlement of public money and abuse of power.

President Park Geun-hye (2013-2017) was impeached and sentenced to imprisonment for 25 years for corruption, abuse of power and her incapacity to govern. But, in 2022 she was freed due to her health condition.

All these presidents were pro-Japan conservative presidents. This shows how deep and wide the corruption culture developed by the pro-Japan conservatives.

As soon as President Moon Jae-in took power, he declared the war against the corruption culture and applied the following measures.

First, the key positions of the Moon government were filled by those individuals who fought against the corrupted conservative government and spent years in prison.

President Moon has spent much of his life to defend, as human right lawyer, those who were oppressed and abused by the conservative government. He himself was imprisoned for having defended the victims of the conservative government.

The amazing thing is that, in the progressive government of Moon, there has been no single case of corruption among the cabinet members and presidential advisors. This is amazing; this shows how clean the government of Moon was.

Second, he modified the law on CIA (now National Intelligence Services-NIS) so that it will limit itself to the management of foreign intelligence and that it should not gather information on citizens.

Third, as pointed above, the Moon’s government imprisoned the two conservative presidents (Lee Myong-bak and Park Geun-hye) for their abuse of power and corruption.

Fourth, he imprisoned a great number of high ranking civil servants for abuse of power and corruption.

Fifth, he modified the laws on government’s subsidies so that the subsidy- recipients cannot embezzle the subsidy funds.

Sixth, he has fought for the reform of the judiciary system with some success. For instance, he was able to establish a mechanism allowing the investigation of high ranking public servants (Corruption Investigation Office for the High-Ranking Officials-공수처). But, it was just beginning of the long and hard process of cleaning the corrupted lake of bureaucracy.

However, President Moon has provided a strong moral and political support of the people devoted to the reform of the judiciary system.

Fight against the COVID-19 Virus

The world has admired Korea’s remarkable success in its fight against the COVID-19 virus. Such success is attributable to the following factors: rapid government reaction to the outburst of the virus, the government reliance on science and technology, inspiring leadership of President Moon Jae-in, citizens’ deep trust in the president Moon and his government and voluntary cooperation of the people.

On January 20, 2020, a woman affected by COVID-19 virus from China was discovered.

On January 27, 2020, the government reacted immediately. A special meeting was held in Seoul Train Station to discuss the proper measure.

On January 30, 2020, the inter-ministry task force was formed. On February 4, 2020, the first test kit appeared and by the end of February, as many as 10,000 test kits became available. This shows the rapidity with which the government acted.

One episode shows to what extent President Moon respected science and experts in public health. By the end of February 2020, most of the countries blocked the entry of people. President suggested to the director of the Korean Disease Control Prevention Agency (KDCPA-질병관리청) to let the people to come in. But the KCDCPA director said “no” and President agreed.

President Moon was one of the very few national leaders who really loved and cared for the people. I am one of those who believe that the most important qualification of a national leader is the love of people.

On February 2, 2020, President Moon visited Daegu, the city which was the most infected city due to the deliberate refusal of test by a politically motivated religious entity, Shinchonzi. Daegu city needed 1,000,000 masks. President Moon mobilized the whole government including the military to get the masks. He got these masks for the citizens of Daegu city.

What surprised the world was the fact that Korea had the general election in April, 2020 despite the persistent spread of the virus. Some other countries tried the same with no success. This was possible in Korea, because the people loved the president and they had trust in the president.

Moreover, President Moon was much concerned for the infected people of the world. By March, 2020, President Moon had 50 calls from the heads of states for help. For instance, the President of France, Emmanuel Macron called for help on March 24, 2020. President Donald Trump called President Moon to ask for masks which Korea could not provide. Instead, Korea sent 300,000 test kits for which President Trump was very grateful.

Under President Moon’s leadership, Korea sent masks and test kits to 170 countries free of charge in case of developing countries. He sent masks to veterans of the Korea war and their families.

Another achievement of President Moon was the non-confinement of business firms allowing the continuation of business activities, although limited. As a result, the economic performance of Korea was the best in the world.

The growth rate of GDP of developed countries in 2020was as follow: the U.S. (-3.4%), UK (-6.3%), France (-8.1%), Germany (-0.4%), Japan (-6.0%), Korea (-0.3%).

The superior performance of Korea in the anti-Coronavirus war was reflected in the casualties of the Pandemic.

As of June 2020, the death rate (number of death per number of infected): The U.S. (1.2%), UK (0.8%), France (0.5%), Germany (0.5%), Canada (1.1%), Japan (0.3%) and Korea (0.1%).

On the other hand, the number of death per 100,000 people was as follow: the U.S. (306.35), UK (264.66), France (229.32), Germany (167.80), Canada (108.0) and South Korea (47.41).

These data show how the government of Moon Jae-in had such a surprising success both in the anti-virus war and the promotion of economic growth.

Social Reform

For President Moon, social reform was very important for two reasons.

First, it is the sacred responsibility of the state to assure the economic, social and cultural rights recognized by the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) of 1948. These rights are the access to a decent life and the state should provide such decent life to all citizens, at least, provide conditions conducive to these rights. The best way to achieve social reform is fair income distribution.

Second, the fair distribution of income is difficult to assure under the present neoliberal economic system. Under this system, the power of large corporations is greater than that of the government and therefore, the income distribution is more determined by the large corporation than by the government.

Now, in neoliberal economic system, the corporation has to make profit. To make profit, the corporation must reduce the labour cost. To reduce labour cost, the corporations rely on labour cost-saving technology including robots and artificial intelligence on the one hand and, on the other, restrict the role of labour unions. This has led to the concentration of income and wealth in the hands of business leaders.

Moreover, the income and the wealth tend to be concentrated in the hands of decreasing number of business leaders. This is due to intense competition. As competition continues, the number of winners decreases. As a result, the income and the wealth tend to be concentrated in the hands of further decreasing number of winners.

This trend is dramatically observed in Korea. For instance, in the period between 2107 and 2021, the asset share of the top 1% of households had rose from 23.2% to 25.4%.

In the same period, the wealth of the top 20% rose from USD 7.04 million to USD 9.6million, while the wealth of the bottom 20% de decreased from USD 54,000 to USD 39.200.

In other words, the wealth of the top 20 rose by 37.1%, while the wealth of the bottom 20% fell by 21.8%.

However, as far as income distribution is concerned, due to President Moon’s social reform, it has shown some improvement.

One of the popular indictors of the inequality of income distribution is the Gini coefficient. It varies from 0 to 100. The higher the Gini, the more unequal income distribution becomes in favour of the rich. Conversely, the lower the Gini, the more equal income distribution becomes in favour of the poor.

In Korea, between 2017 and 2021, the Gini coefficient of income distribution fell from 35 to 33. This is a sharp contrast to the Gini for asset distribution; it remained at 57. In short, President Moon was not able to affect the lopsided asset distribution, although he did better for the distribution of income.

Table 1 shows some of the measures taken by President Moon for the promotion of welfare of workers. In this table, we see two objectives of these measures, namely the increase of worker income and the improvement of the workers’ life quality.

The minimum wage increased from USD 5.26 in 2016 to USD 5.90 in 2021, a modest increase of 12.2%. The original idea was to increase it to USD 9.0 but it appeared to be too early to do so.

The farm household annual income rose in the same period from USD 29,900 to 35,100, an increase of 17.4%.

Table 1. Welfare of Workers, 2016 and 2021

The annual amount of allowance for workers’ children increased from USD 2.4 billion to 3.9 billion, a rise of 62.5%.

One thing which attracts our attention is the narrowing gap between the wage of workers who work for small and medium companies (SMEs) and the wage of large company workers. In 2016, the wage at the SMEs was as low as 61.9% of wages paid by large companies. But, in 2021, wage paid by SMEs became 74.4% of wage paid by large companies. So, the gap narrowed by 20.2%

One interesting aspect is the decreasing poverty rate of workers which fell from 23.5% to 16.0%. This is indeed a great surprise.

In the same Table 1, we see also a number of measures which have improved the quality of life or lessened the cost of living.

For instance, the annual number of work hours fell from 2,031 hours to 1,925 hours or a fall of 5.2%. As a result, the leisure hours available per day was made to rise from 3.6 hours to 4.2 hours, an increase of 16.7%.The number of employment insurance adherence rose by 14.2%.

Thus, President Moon has made important contribution to the welfare of the workers and farmers.

Table 2 below gives us an idea on the improvement of the welfare of minority groups.

First of all, what strikes us is the sharp fall in the poverty rate of children and the elderly. The poverty rate of children decreased by 35.5% in the period, 2016-2021, while that of the elderly fell by 10.8%. The amount of the basic pension rose from USD 159.3 to USD 237.5 per month, an increase of 49.2%. This is indeed a surprise for all.

Table 2. Welfare of Minority Groups, 2016 and 2021

The medical cost coverage paid by cancer patients fell by 22.8%. The overall medical coverage ratio increase from 62.5% to 65.3%, an increase of 4.5%.

On the other hand, the number of beneficiary of nursing homes increased dramatically from 799,000 to 1,207,000 a jump of 51.1%.

The monthly allowance for war veterans rose from USD 171.8 to USD 275.8, an improvement of as much as 60.5%. What is more impressive is the increase in monthly payment for soldiers in active duty from USD 168.8 to USD 528.1, an increase of 212.9%.

All these measures have certainly led to more money to spend and strengthen the domestic demand for goods and services thus contributing to the growth of the economy.

President Moon was much concerned with the safety of the people. For instance, the annual number of death by traffic accidents came down from 4,292 cases to 2,900 cases, a decrease of 32.4%.

Moreover, the number of persons whom a safety-related civil servant has to look after fell from 5,637 to 3,957, a fall of 29.8%.

New Economic System 

For last four decades, the Korean economic system has been the regime of neo-liberal economic system.

Korea needed a new economic system based on the development of SMEs, better integration of the SMEs into the Chaebol-led production chain, diversification of products to be exported and the expansion of export market including the ASEAN countries and the Northern countries.

In Korea, there are 6.6 million SMEs in 2018. They account for as much as 99% of the number of enterprises, create more than 80% of jobs, account for 20% of GDP .and 18% of exports.

President Moon promoted the Bureau of SMEs to the status of Ministry of Small and Medium Venture Enterprises (SMVEs) with a competent minister Park Young-sun to run it.

Table 3 shows President’s strategy of structural change in exports as well as the promotion of SMEs’ exports.

In the period, 2016-2021, the overall exports rose by 6.6%, but, SMES’ exports increased by 9.3%.

The exports of weapons had an increase of 133.3%. Korea is becoming a significant weapon exporter.

Table 3. Exports, 2016 and 2021

It is to note that the exports of bio and future cars including electric cars rose by 7.6 times and 14 times, respectively. I may add that the exports of cultural products (contents) increased by 35.2%.

As we will see below, another interesting aspect is the success of President Moon’s Southern policy and Northern policy. The exports to the ASEAN countries roe by 53%, while the exports to Northern countries including Central Asian countries increased by as much as 95.8%.

Crisis Management

President Moon showed also his remarkable leadership in his handling of the crisis of the shipping industry and the trade war with Japan.

The 2010s were bad decade for Korean shipping industry which creates 20,000 jobs. But, the shipping industry was losing its global market due to bad management and increasing competition.

The bankruptcy of Hanzin Sipping in February 2017 created panic in the ocean going shipping industry, which was a vital element for the Korean manufacturing industry. This was a crisis.

The shipping industry was not able to cope with the crisis. Under such circumstance, strong government leadership was needed. President Moon provided this leadership. He created the Korean Ocean Business Corporation which was a financial corporation funded by three state banks including the Korea Development Bank, the Export and Import Bank and the Korea Asset management Corporation. These banks provided USD 5.3 billion in accordance with 5-year planning.

This fund was invested in three shipbuilders, namely, the Hyundai Heavy Industries, the Daewoo Shipbuilding & Maritime Engineering and the Samsung Heavy Industries. The success of this planning was symbolized by the construction of the largest NLG shipping ship, HMM Hanul of 16,000 TEU.(Twenty-foot Equivalent Unit).

To be frank, President Moon took a gamble but this gamble was the winner. This shows his courage and wisdom of handling a major crisis.

The plan was a big success. The amount of shipping capacity rose from 500,000 TEU in 2019 to 1,500,000 TEU by 2030.

There is another legacy of President Moon. During the Pacific War (1941-1945), several hundred thousand Koreans were taken by force to be sent to work like slaves in Japanese mines and factories in Japan under less than sub-human living conditions. The victims have appealed to the Japanese court for compensation with no success.

But, on October 30, 2018, the Supreme Court of Korea ordered the responsible Japanese companies, the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, the Sumimoto Metal & Steal and the Nippon Steal to make compensation payment to the victims.. But they refused.

Shinzo Abe, the Japanese Prime Minister, then, declared trade war against Korea in July 1, 2019 by ordering the restriction of exports chemical products vital to the production of smart phones, TV sets and especially semiconductors which were the key items of Korea’ exports. To make matter worse, on August 2, 2021, Abe put Korea out of the “White List” which provided special advantage to the exports of the listed countries.

This was a crisis and Abe knew it. The pro-Japan conservative media and politicians argued that Korea should give in and forget about the compensation payment to the victims of labour slavery.

But, President Moon declared August 7, 2021:”We will never surrender to Japan”.

Korea retaliated by putting Japan out of Korean white list on September 18, 2019. The position taken by President Moon inspired the Korean population by boycotting the purchase of Japanese goods. For instance, the sales of Japanese cars dropped by 57% in 2021; the sale of Japanese beer had free fall of 97%; the volume of Korean tourists going to Japan fell by 90%. In short, in Korea, the government and the people fought together against Japan.

Moreover, President Moon encouraged SMEs to innovate and produce the controversial chemical products. No less than USD 5 billion was injected and, as a result, Korea’s trade dependency on Japan for intermediary goods fell from 33.5% in 2017 to 24.9% in 2021.

Korea won in its trade war against Japan. This was the beginning of the end of Japanese neo-colonialism of which Korean has been victim ever since 1945 I will come back to this issue later in this paper.

North-South Relations

One of the important legacies of President Moon is what he accomplished for the North-South relations.

Actually, his role in the promotion of friendly relations with the North began on May 28, 2017 in his Berlin declaration for inter-Korea economic cooperation.

However, his North Korea diplomacy began with his invitation of Kim Jung-un to the Pyong-chang Winter Olympics; this invitation took place on August 15, 2017.

In fact, early that month, North Korea expressed its interests in participating in the Winter Olympics. After the delicate diplomacy of Kim Yo-jung, sister of Kim Jung-un, the athletics of both Koreas entered into the opening ceremony by waving a flag of the Korea peninsula.

Moreover, the world had the opportunity to see the joint ice-hockey game which was beautiful to watch, because it demonstrated the potential of peace on the Korean peninsula.

The game looked like a prelude to reunification of one people who had been united for 5,000 years but separated for 70 years.

Right after the Winter Olympics, President Moon sent on March 3, 2018, a strong delegation led by the NSC advisor to Pyongyang where North Korea expressed its readiness to negotiate for the denuclearization.

Right after this, Mr.  Chung Eui-yong, National Security Director and Suh Hoon, Chief of the National Information Service (NIS) went to Washington to communicate Pyongyang’s intention. This was the opening of the series of summits which gave the world the hope of peace on the Korean peninsula.

North Korean Leader Kim Jong-un and Moon shake hands inside the Peace House. (Photo by Cheongwadae / Blue House, licensed under KOGL Type 1)

President Moon met Kim Jung-un met twice in Panmunjom (April 27, 2018 and May 26, 2018) and once in Pyongyang on September 18-20, 2018. These three summits have led to the demilitarization of the Western coast, the Eastern coast along with the Joint Security Area (JSA) in DMZ. It was agreed that as far as the two Koreans were concerned, the Korean War was over.

In both Koreas, the hope of the reunification was rising. In Pyongyang, president Moon was greeted on September 19, 2018 by 150,000 North Koreans at the historical Mass games. President Moon declared “We have been united for 5,000 years but separated for 70 years. Let us reunite!”

It was a highly emotionally-charged declaration. Most of North Koreans who were there cried with hope of ending the nightmare of the separation imposed by foreign powers.

This hope was followed by the unexpected reaction of President Donald Trump of the U.S. who met Kim Jung-un three times: Singapore (June 12, 2018), Hanoi (February 27-28, 2019) and Panmunjom (DMZ) (June 30, 2019).

There were four items agreed upon at the Singapore summit which attract our attention, namely, new Pyongyang-Washington relations, lasting peace on the Korean peninsula, complete denuclearization and the recovery of POW/MIA remains.

None of these agreements was practical enough; they were mere statement of possibilities. But, the recovery and the repatriation of POW/MIA remains were done. Moreover, the joint military exercises were made less extensive and less threatening.

For the Hanoi summit, Kim Jung-un travelled six thousand kilo meters to show his sincerity of effectuating denuclearization. But, President Trump broke the Summit after having consulted a piece of paper presented by John Bolton who was known to be the most anti-peace in the Korean peninsula.

We do not know if President Trump was really interested in creating peace in the Korean peninsula. But, he came to Panmunjom on June 30, 2019 to shake hand with Kim Jung-un.

It is true that the Kim-Moon summits and the Kim-Trump summits have not been able to assure denuclearization despite the sincere wish of North Korea to exchange denuclearization with peace and economic development.

However, President Moon has left the following legacies.

First, through the mediation of President Moon, the world realized that Kim Jung-un was bona fide leader to whom one can talk and that North Koreans were normal people like any other people.

Second, the world saw that the blood and cultural bond of North-South was above ideology and politics.

Third, the North-South peace process and economic cooperation are feasible, if there were no outside interference.

Fourth, despite the failure of the denuclearization and persistence of sanctions, for three years, there were no nuclear tests or major missile launching until the Yoon Suk-yeol took over the power in May 2022.

Fifth, the only feasible way to assure peace on the Korean peninsula, promote North-South economic cooperation and eventual reunification of Koreas is to carry out the North-South peace process by Koreans without being unduly influenced by foreign powers.

Innovative Foreign Policy

Before President Moon took over the power in 2017, Korean foreign policy had been confined to relations with countries which were directly related to the issues of the Korean peninsula. It was the first time that Korea began to undertake diplomacy with countries which were far from the Korean peninsula and Korean affairs.

To be more precise, President Moon undertook actively his Northern policy and Southern Policy. For his Southern policy, he visited with a large delegation of business community to each of the ASEAN countries which were becoming more and more visible in international affairs. The objective was not only the trade promotion but also Korea’s active political leadership in South East Asian region.

Owing to President Moon’s productive diplomacy, as pointed above, Korea’s exports to the Asian countries rose from USD 134.6 billion in 2016 to USD 206.3 billion in 20201, an increase by 53.2%.

Moreover, President Moon was not only respected but also liked by the leaders of ASEAN countries. During the ASEAN Summit held in Busan on November 25, 2021, the Indonesian President, Joko Widodo, called President Moon as “hyung-nim” which is the affectionate way calling a respected person; it means “my elder brother”. This shows the warm leadership and the personal charm of President Moon.

For the first time in modern Korean history of foreign relations, President Moon actively pursued diplomatic relations with the Northern countries which are the center of the Eurasian Economic Community. President Moon visited each of the northern countries including Russia, Belarus, Mongol, Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, Rumania, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan. These countries will be at the centre of the largest economic bloc.

President Moon being aware of importance of these countries visited them and he was successful in promoting trade. As shown above, Korean exports to these countries rose from USD 7.2 billion in 2016 to USD 14.1 billion in 2021, an increase of 95.8%.

With President Moon, Korean diplomacy has become more autonomous and avoided being a mere cheer leader of the diplomacy of the U.S. or Japan.

The leadership of President Moon has allowed Korea to play significant leadership in international affairs.

In 2019, the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) promoted Korea from the status of “developing country” to the status of “developed country”.

It was the first time that UNCTAD promoted developing country to the status of developed country since it was established in 1963. Moreover, for last three years, Korea was invited as observer to G7 summit meetings.

There is no doubt that President Moon has shown us the courage and the wisdom of pursuing sovereign diplomacy without unduly hurting the interests of major powers which are involved in Korean affairs

Korea-Japan Relations

The history of Korea-Japan is long and bumpy at times. But, until the annexation of Korea to Japan in 1910, it had been relatively peaceful with exception of the 1590s marked by the invasion of Toyotomi Hideyoshis in Korea.

But, since the annexation of Korea in 1910, the Korea-Japan relations have been unstable, insecure and even hostile.

This paper is interested in discussing the two periods of Korea-Japan relations, the period of colonialism (1910-1945) and the period of neo-colonialism (1946-2022). To be more specific, my chief concern is with the impact of Japanese colonialism and its neo-colonialism  on the collective life in Korea.

There can be multitude impacts of the Japanese colonialism in Korea. But, the horrible impact was the danger of losing completely the identity of Korea and Koreans. The Japanese were trying to force Koreas to forget about Dan-gun (founder of Korea five thousand years ago), Korean names, Korean culture. They even wanted to replace the Korean trees with the Japanese trees. The Japanese wanted to become the master in the Korean peninsula well served by Korean slaves.

However, the impact which hurt Korea most was the fatal division of Koreans into two hostile camps, namely, pro-Japan camp who collaborated with the Japanese invaders and sold Korea for their personal wealth and might on the one hand and on the other, the anti-Japan camp including those who fought against the Japanese risking their lives.

The pro-Japan group camp led by Lee Wan-yong and high ranking politicians, military officers, newspaper owners and bureaucrats worked for the Japanese interests. By the way, Lee Wan-yong and 39 others were knighted in 1929 by the Japanese Emperor for giving Korea as a gift to the Emperor-God.

I call them “traitors” who collaborated with the Japanese in stealing houses, lands other precious assets belonging to Koreans, capturing teen age girls to be sent to the hellish military camp of “comfort women”, conscripting young Korean men to be sent to kill Korean patriots, forcing hundreds of thousands of Korean worker to die in Japanese mines and factories due to over work, hunger, disease and torture carried out by the Japanese masters.

This is the tragic legacy of the 35-year Japanese occupation in Korea.

The nightmare of Japanese brutal beastly aggression was over in 1945. At least, it was what Koreans thought. The Koreans were dancing and singing in the street to celebrate the freedom. Yes, Koreans were happy. But, soon, they had to face the dark clouds of fear and despair covering the peninsula and saddening their hearts.

Right from the beginning of the post-war era, the two groups had to fight to the end. Their hostile feelings were too strong and too deep to find conciliation.

The pro-Japan conservative South Koreans (PJCSK) being a minority group and hated by the pro-Korea liberal South Koreans (PKLSK) knew that, to survive, they had to take power.

Now, to take power, the PJCSK needed money. So, Park Chung-hee asked the help of Kishi Nobuske who was the most brutal racist and merciless ruler in Manchuria in the 1930s. He was maternal-side grandfather of former assassinated prime minster of Japan, Shinzo Abe. He was a A-Class war criminal but escaped hanging due to his utility to serve the U.S. interests.

Kishi Nobuske gave, in 1963, to Park Chun-hee as much as USD 66 million to create the first major political party in Korea, the Democratic Republican Party (DRP), which was given the role of making South Korea a neo-colony of Japan.

By neo-colonialism, I mean the state of colonialism without the coloniser country being present in the colonized country.

Since 1963, the political parties of the PJCSK changed many times the party name, probably, to hide their connection with Japan.

The post-war Korea-Japan relations were peaceful under the PJCSK government and rather frictional under the government of the PKLSK.

Since 1945, the PJCSK ruled South Korea for 62 years while the PKLSK governed South Korea for 15 years.

Under the rule of the PJCSK, the Korea-Japan relations have been the maintenance of the Japanese neo-colonialism, while the Korea-Japan relations under the PKLSK have been the fight against the Japanese neo-colonialism.

There are three kinds of neo-colonial relations between Korea and Japan: economic, political and security neo-colonial relations.

The economic neo-colonialism: From the beginning, Japan established the Korea-Japan production chain which made Korea economy dependent on the Japanese economy. In this arrangement, Korea imports high value-added input goods (intermediary goods) from Japan and exports final products produced by assembling the inputs to produce finished products.

Now, in the case of high tech product such as portable telephone, the value added of the assembling work is about 5% of the sale price.

For example, let us assume that Korea imports input goods from Japan by paying $95 and that it exports to Japan the finished product for $ 100.

Korea’s net gain is only $5, while the Japan’s surplus is $90. So, Korea’s trade deficit with Japan is $ 90.

Under this situation, it is impossible to have trade surplus with Japan. In fact, Korea has never had trade surplus with Japan since 1945.

It is true that despite the chronic trade deficit, the Japanese neo-colonialism has nevertheless contributed to the Han River Miracle.

But, to assure sustained and healthy economy, Korean economy should become more autonomous.

In fact, Korean economy has been becoming more and more independent from the Japanese economy. This trend has been enforced by President Moon Jae-in.

Under President Moon, Korea’s dependence on Japanese input goods fell from 30% to 23%. Korea’s dependence on Japan for total exports fell from 7.0% in 2012 tp 4.8% in 2018. Japan’s trade surplus (Korea’s deficit) fell from 2.49 trillion yen in 2017 to 1.33 trillion yen in 2020.

The political neo-colonialism: The Japanese political neo-colonialism refers to a situation in which Japanese political interests are promoted by the PJCSK. The political interests of Japan is the denial of war crime committed by Japan against Korea, especially the beastly collective rape of 200,000 Korean girls at the Japanese military camp of comfort women.

Shinzo Abe is notorious for his denial of Japanese war crimes.. What is difficult to swallow is the fact that Shinzo Abe denies the war crime of comfort women despite five prominent Japanese politicians’ admission of the crime and their apologies for the crime.

In 1992, Koichi Kato, the, chief cabinet secretary, stated this,

“Government has been involved in the establishment of comfort stations, the control of those who recruited comfort women, the construction and enforcement of comfort facilities, the management of comfort stations… and that the government wanted to express its sincere apology and remorse to all those who have suffered indescribable hardship, so called wartime comfort women.”

In 1993, Yohei Kono, former chief secretary of the prime minster office, made the following statement,

“The Japanese military was directly or indirectly involved in the establishment and management of comfort women. The recruitment of comfort women was entrusted mainly by private recruiters of the comfort women. In many cases, they were recruited against their will coercing. At times, administrative/military personnel took part in the recruitment. They lived in misery at comfort station under a coercive atmosphere.”

Thus, Kato and Kono made it crystal clear that the sub-human treatment of 200,000 young girls mostly from Korea was imposed not only by the military but also administration of Japan. What these two former chiefs of cabinet secretaries did was the proof of the hellish atrocity committed to the poor girls by Japan. Kato even offered an apology.

In 1995, Tomichi Murayama, former prime minister, said this,

“In the hope that no such mistakes made be in the future, I regret in spirit of humility these un-refutable facts of history and here once again my feeling of deep remorse and state my heartfelt apologies.”

In 2005, Junichiro Koizumi, former prime minster, made an apology,

“Sincerely facing these facts of history, I once again express my feeling of deep remorse and heartfelt apology.”

Both Murayama and Koizumi were highly respected prime ministers. In fact, Koizumi was Shinzo Abe’s boss.

Let us see what Shinzo Abe shad to say about the crime. In 2015, Shizo Abe said this,

“I bow my head deeply before the souls of all those who perished both at home and abroad. I express my feeling of profound grief and sincere condolence.”

This was not an apology for the war crime for the surviving victims of the beastly collective rapes.

Although Abe has never explained his rational reasons for such irrational behaviour, I argue that, for him, the admission of such crime is not compatible with the integrity of the Yamato race, the race of the Emperor-God. Therefore, he has taken out from the school history text book the crime against the comfort women so that the future generation can rule Asia again with no guilty feeling.

Now, to conquer Korea again, it is important to beautify Japan’s colonialism. Sinzo Abe wanted to tell Koreans that the annexation of Korea was beneficial for Koreans and the Japanese military cannot do commit such crime as the sex slavery of Korean girls.

Since Japan cannot convince the Koreans by itself, Japan has asked the PJCSK to do it for Japan. This is the political neo-colonialism.

Japan has been funding a lot of money to far-right research centers, academics, religious group and NGOs in Korea. These groups are a part of the PJCSK and they established a pro-Japan force in Korea called “New-Right”.

This pro-Japan group has made the PJCSK government of Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye to take out from the school history text books the crime story of comfort women and put emphasis on the goodness of the Japanese colonialism in Korea.

Fortunately, President Moon Jae-in has put back in the School history  text books the story of comfort women and the atrocity of the Japanese colonial power.

The security neo-colonialism: Finally, there is the security neo-colonialism.  Japan is fearful of the reunification of Koreas for unified Korea mean a serious threat to Japan’s security and its regional influence. The best way of preventing the reunification is the prevention of the North-South peace process.. In other words, the way of preventing the peace process is to sustain North-South tension.

Since the North-South relations are Korean internal problems, Japan has asked the PJCSK to demonize North Korea so that the North-South tension is kept. In fact, the PJCSK has been doing their best to maintain the North-South tension.

But, the governments of Kim Dae-jung (1098-2003) and Rho Moon-hyun (2003-2008) were able to begin the peace process.

President Moon Jae-in went even farther in the promotion of the peace process with North Korea. Thus, President Moon was able to stop security neo-colonialism from going any further.

Unfinished Tasks of President Moon Jae-in

Five years are an extremely short period of time to make major national reforms, but President Moon Jae-in has made game–changing reforms.

He has challenged the corruption culture which has been developed, refined and fortified over the past 70 years by the PJCSK.

He has shown to the world how a country can combat successfully the pandemic through science, people’s trust in the government, the president’s love of people and people’s mutual supports.

He has made decent social reform which is necessary not only for the justice, equality but also for prosperity.

He has established a new economic regime allowing the creation of jobs, the generation of income of the ordinary people through the development of SMEs and productive production chain in which the SMEs are well integrated with Chaebols.

He has shown his remarkable ability to handle crisis, namely, the shipping industry crisis and the crisis of trade war with Japan.

He has been able to establish the basis for the permanent peace on the Korean peninsula.

He has opened a new chapter of Korean foreign relations making it possible not only to promote trade but also enhance Korea’s international leadership.

He has liberated Korea from Japan’s economic, political and security neo-colonialism.

Thus, President Moon has done a lot for Korea and Koreans. He has done something no other presidents have done.

He has made major contribution to the transformation of Korea into a country deserving to be a country (nara-da-oon-nara-나라다운 나라).

Korea has been owned by the powerful and wealthy pro-Japan conservatives. The vast majority of South Koreans have been bystanders watching the fruit of their hard work and sacrifice flowing into the hand of the pro-Japan conservatives and they had to endure the “gap-jil” (harsh mistreatment of the weak by the strong).

President Moon has been successful in giving Korea back to its owners, the Korean people.

President Moon wanted to do more, much more for Korea and the Korean people whom he respected and loved. But, the deep rooted problems did not allow him to go further in given time of five years.

Former President Moon shakes hands with his successor Yoon Suk-yeol after Yoon’s inauguration, 10 May 2022. (Photo by Republic of Korea, licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0)

President Moon has shown that with proper policy and strong political will power, it is possible to make Korea a country for all, not just for the pro-Japan conservatives.

President Moon has shown that it is possible to make Korea a country of justice, equality and prosperity for all. But, there are problems which he could not solve. They are the problems of the judiciary system and the media.

It must be pointed out that the Korean prosecutor office is the most powerful and the most corrupted in the world. The prosecutor has the monopoly of criminal investigation right and indictment right. Recently, a law was adopted to limit the abuse of power by the prosecutors. But, under the new PJCSK government of Yoon Suk-yeol, the law is likely to ignored.

In most countries, the criminal investigation is performed by the police. Being powerful, the prosecutor is the best ally of the corruption community.

The prosecutor is mighty, because there is no operational mechanism to supervise them and bring them to the court.  To make matter even worse, many of the court judges are also member of the corruption community.

The prosecutor is the best profession for becoming millionaires in a few years.. The bribe money for not indicting the accused is very high. The amount of bribe money increases in function of the reduction of culpability recommended by the prosecutor.

In fact, the abuse of power by the prosecutor has been debated for long and by every government. Even some of the conservative lawmakers have tried to institute a legal mechanism to investigate and punish the prosecutors along with other high ranking bureaucrats and politician who are corrupted. This has been a reform which the people have been asking for decades.

Moon’s government has made the National Assembly to establish by law, on November 10, 2020, the Corruption Investigation Office for High- Ranking Officials (CIOHRO). This is one of many historical achievements of President Moon.

There is one reform which is even more difficult to reform. It is the reform of the media. We all expect from the media the production and the diffusion of information which is professional, objective, critical, unbiased useful for public policies designed to promote the welfare for all citizens.

Unfortunately, the Korean media do not have these virtues for the simple reason that for last 70 years they have been managed by the conservative governments. The conservative government’s media policy is to glorify the conservatives and demonize the progressives.

The core of the conservative media policy may be summarized.

First, it encourages the creation of small media outlets so that they depend on the conservative corruption community for their income.

Second, it sets up a mechanism of information coordination. The Chosen Ilbo, the Jung-ang Ilbo and the Tong-ah Ilbo (Cho-Jung-Tong) have the function of coordinating the production and the diffusion of information favourable to the corruption community and demonizing the opposition force.

Third, the main source of media income is the conservative corruption community, especially, the major Chaebols.

Fourth, illegal and immoral activities of the media are seldom punished because of the collusion between the conservative camp and the penal and judiciary system.

In fact, the media has been the most formidable enemy of the anti-corruption war of Moon-Jae-in. The reform of media has not yet begun. The government, if it is the progressive one, will have the colossal task of reforming the corrupted media.

To sum up, President Moon Jae-in has done a lot for Korea and Koreans to keep his promise of giving Korea back to its owners, the Korean people. He has been successful in doing just that.

He has given Korea back to Koreans. But, the new PJCSK government of Yoon Suk-yeol is trying hard to steal it again. That is what makes me worried and sad.

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Dr. Joseph H. Chung is professor of economics at Quebec University in Montreal (UQAM) and member of the Center of Research on Integration and Globalization (CEIM) of UQAM. He is Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).

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***

President Xi Jinping’s work report at the start of the 20^th Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) this past Sunday in Beijing contained not only a blueprint for the development of the civilization-state, but for the whole Global South.

Xi’s 1h45min speech actually delivered a shorter version of the full work report – see attached PDF – which gets into way more detail on an array of socio-political themes.

This was the culmination of a complex collective effort that went on for months. When he received the final text, Xi commented, revised and edited it.

In a nutshell, the CPC master plan is twofold:

finalize “socialist modernization” from 2020 to 2035; and build China – via peaceful modernization – as a modern socialist country that is “prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced, and harmonious” all the way to 2049, signaling the centenary of the foundation of the People’s Republic of China (PRC).

The central concept in the work report is peaceful modernization – and how to accomplish it. As Xi summarized,

“It contains elements that are common to the modernization processes of all countries, but it is more characterized by features that are unique to the Chinese context.”

Very much in tune with Confucian Chinese culture, “peaceful modernization” encapsulates a complete theoretical system. Of course there are multiple geoeconomic paths leading to modernization – according to the national conditions of any particular country. But for the Global South as a whole, what really matters is that the Chinese example completely breaks with the western TINA (“there is no alternative”) monopoly on modernization practice and theory.

Not to mention it breaks with the ideological straitjacket imposed on the Global South by the self-defined “golden billion” (of which the really “golden” barely reach 10 million). What the Chinese leadership is saying is that the Iranian model, the Ugandan model or the Bolivian model are all as valid as the Chinese experiment: what matters is pursuing an independent path towards development.

How to develop tech independence

The recent historical record shows how every nation trying to develop outside the Washington Consensus is terrorized at myriad hybrid war levels. This nation becomes a target of color revolutions, regime change, illegal sanctions, economic blockade, NATO sabotage or outright bombing and/invasion.

What China proposes echoes across the Global South because Beijing is the largest trade partner of no less than 140 nations, who can easily grasp concepts such as high-quality economic development and self-reliance in science and technology.

The report stressed the categorical imperative for China from now on: to speed up technology self-reliance as the Hegemon is going no holds barred to derail China tech, especially in the manufacturing of semiconductors.

In what amount to a sanctions package from Hell, the Hegemon is betting on crippling China’s drive to accelerate its tech independence in semiconductors and the equipment to produce them.

So China will need to engage in a national effort on semiconductor production. That necessity will be at the core of what the work report describes as a new development strategy, spurred by the tremendous challenge of achieving tech self-sufficiency. Essentially China will go for strengthening the public sector of the economy, with state companies forming the nucleus for a national system of tech innovation development.

‘Small fortresses with high walls’

On foreign policy, the work report is very clear: China is against any form of unilateralism as well as blocs and exclusive groups targeted against particular countries. Beijing refers to these blocs, such as NATO and AUKUS, as “small fortresses with high walls.”

This outlook is inscribed in the CPC’s emphasis on another categorical imperative: reforming the existing system of global governance, extremely unfair to the Global South. It’s always crucial to remember that China, as a civilization-state, considers itself simultaneously as a socialist country and the world’s leading developing nation.

The problem once again is Beijing’s belief in “safeguarding the international system with the UN at its core.” Most Global South players know how the Hegemon subjects the UN – and its voting mechanism – to all sorts of relentless pressure.

It’s enlightening to pay attention to the very few westerners that really know one or two things about China.

Martin Jacques, until recently a senior fellow at the Department of Politics and International Studies at Cambridge University, and author of arguably the best book in English on China’s development, is impressed by how China’s modernization happened in a context dominated by the west: “This was the key role of the CPC. It had to be planned. We can see how extraordinarily successful it has been.”

The implication is that by breaking the west-centric TINA model, Beijing has accumulated the tools to be able to assist Global South nations with their own models.

Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, is even more upbeat: “China will become a leader of innovation. I very much hope and count on China becoming a leader for innovation in sustainability.” That will contrast with a ‘dysfunctional’ American model turning protectionist even in business and investment.

Mikhail Delyagin, deputy chairman of the Russian State Duma Committee on Economic Policy, makes a crucial point, certainly noted by key Global South players: the CPC “was able to creatively adapt the Marxism of the 19th century and its experience of the 20th century to new requirements and implement eternal values with new methods. This is a very important and useful lesson for us.”

And that’s the added value of a model geared towards the national interest and not the exclusivist policies of Global Capital.

BRI or bust

Implied throughout the work report is the importance of the overarching concept of Chinese foreign policy: the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and its trade/connectivity corridors across Eurasia and Africa.

It was up to Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin to clarify where BRI is heading:

“BRI transcends the outdated mentality of geopolitical games, and created a new model of international cooperation. It is not an exclusive group that excludes other participants but an open and inclusive cooperation platform. It is not just China’s solo effort, but a symphony performed by all participating countries.”

BRI is inbuilt in the Chinese concept of “opening up.” It is also important to remember that BRI was launched by Xi nine years ago – in Central Asia (Astana) and then Southeast Asia (Jakarta). Beijing has earned from its mistakes, and keeps fine-tuning BRI in consultation with partners – from Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Malaysia to several African nations.

It is no wonder, that by August this year, China’s trade with countries participating in BRI had reached a whopping $12 trillion, and non-financial direct investment in those countries surpassed $140 billion.

Wang correctly points out that following BRI infrastructure investments, “East Africa and Cambodia have highways, Kazakhstan has [dry] ports for exports, the Maldives has its first cross-sea bridge and Laos has become a connected country from a landlocked one.”

Even under serious challenges, from zero-Covid to assorted sanctions and the breakdown of supply chains, the number of China-EU express cargo trains keeps going up; the China-Laos Railway and the Peljesac Bridge in Croatia are open for business; and work on the Jakarta-Bandung High-Speed Railway and the China-Thailand Railway is in progress.

Mackinder on crack

All over the extremely incandescent global chessboard, international relations are being completely reframed.

China – and key Eurasian players at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), BRICS+, and Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) – are all proposing peaceful development.

In contrast, the Hegemon imposes an avalanche of sanctions – not by accident the top three recipients are Eurasian powers Russia, Iran and China; lethal proxy wars (Ukraine); and every possible strand of hybrid war to prevent the end of its supremacy, which lasted barely seven and a half decades, a blip in historical terms.

The current dysfunction – physical, political, financial, cognitive – is reaching a climax. As Europe plunges into the abyss of largely self-inflicted devastation and darkness  – a neo-medievalism in woke register – an internally ravaged Empire resorts to plundering even its wealthy “allies”.

It’s as if we are all witnessing a Mackinder-on-crack scenario.

Halford Mackinder, of course, was the British geographer who developed the ‘Heartland Theory’ of geopolitics, heavily influencing US foreign policy during the Cold War: “Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland; Who rules the Heartland commands the World Island; Who rules the World Island commands the World.”

Russia spans 11 time zones and sits atop as much as one third of the world’s natural resources. A natural symbiosis between Europe and Russia is like a fact of life. But the EU oligarchy blew it.

It’s no wonder the Chinese leadership views the process with horror, because one of BRI’s essential planks is to facilitate seamless trade between China and Europe. As Russia’s connectivity corridor has been blocked by sanctions, China will be privileging corridors via West Asia.

Meanwhile, Russia is completing its pivot to the east. Russia’s enormous resources, combined with the manufacturing capability of China and East Asia as a whole, project a trade/connectivity sphere that goes even beyond BRI. That’s at the heart of the Russian concept of Greater Eurasia Partnership.

In another one of History’s unpredictable twists, Mackinder a century ago may have been essentially right about those controlling the Heartland/world island controlling the world. It doesn’t look like the controller will be the Hegemon, and much less its European vassals/slaves.

When the Chinese say they are against blocs, Eurasia and The West are the facto two blocs. Though not yet formally at war with each other, in reality they already are knee deep into Hybrid War territory.

Russia and Iran are on the frontline – militarily and in terms of absorbing non-stop pressure. Other important Global South players, quietly, try to either keep a low profile or, even more quietly, assist China and the others to make the multipolar world prevail economically.

As China proposes peaceful modernization, the hidden message of the work report is even starker. The Global South is facing a serious choice: choose either sovereignty – embodied in a multipolar world, peacefully modernizing – or outright vassalage.

*

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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

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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***

On 25 October 2001, less than 3 weeks after the United States launched an attack on Afghanistan, a very large majority in the US Congress passed the Patriot Act, which was promptly signed into law by president George W. Bush. This inflicted a blow upon America’s domestic legal structure by violating the US Constitution.

The Patriot Act enlarged the powers of the state for increased surveillance of its own citizens, to be conducted through the National Security Agency (NSA), an intelligence apparatus of the US Department of Defense. The Patriot Act formulated the new crime in America of “domestic terrorism”, and in such an expansive fashion that it could be used against any perceived civil misdemeanour.

The Patriot Act laid the groundwork for the de facto creation of a police state. The Pentagon, whose base of operations had centred on the military, was now focusing somewhat on internal issues in the American political system which was an infringement of US law, violating the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act. This legislation forbids the US Armed Forces from interfering within domestic political activities, unless the military has authorisation from the US Congress.

On 17 September 2002, president Bush announced the National Security Strategy of the United States. He declared that the “war on terror” could not be won by defensive methods, and that the US reserved the right to wage pre-emptive or preventive wars unilaterally, even if such actions were unprovoked and located on the other side of the world (Afghanistan, Iraq), including the right to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states.

This year Western media and politicians have repeatedly accused Russia of launching an “unprovoked invasion” of its Ukrainian neighbour, a region that for centuries had been part of Russia, an historical fact which is persistently overlooked in the West. Neither do they mention the roots of the Ukraine crisis: NATO’s continual expansion from the 1990s to rest upon the frontiers of Russia itself. The philosopher and analyst Alexander Dugin highlighted,

“From where the land leaves, the sea comes there. This is the law. Three Baltic territories were immediately included in NATO. The rest got in line”.

It was openly planned at NATO conferences to incorporate the former Soviet republics, the Ukraine and Georgia, into the military organisation. The NATO-armed and supported AFU have regularly bombarded areas like the Donbass, which has been under threat of a large-scale AFU ground assault. Over a number of years this has represented a severe provocation of Russia, discrediting Western allegations that the Russians launched an unprovoked military intervention.

It seems clear that Kiev and its NATO sponsors cannot be victorious in the conflict versus Russia, without access to the critically important areas that the AFU have retreated from. Michel Chossudovsky, a geostrategist and economist, wrote convincingly,

“In regards to the Ukraine War, Russia’s control of the Kerch Strait plays a key role. In recent developments (June 2022), Russia now controls the entire basin of the Sea of Azov. Ukraine has no maritime access to the Sea of Azov and Eastern Ukraine, nor does it have naval power in the Black Sea. Without a navy (and without an Air Force which was destroyed at the outset in late February), Ukraine is not in a position to win this war”.

Meanwhile, president Bush’s support of waging preventive wars had not been a recent phenomenon. It instead constitutes a traditional hallmark of imperial powers. Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, a prominent World War II German commander, wrote in his memoirs in 1946 that against the USSR the Wehrmacht from 1941 had launched “the preventive war which alone would suffice to halt the Bolshevik steamroller in its tracks, before Europe had succumbed to it”. Keitel maintained further that the USSR had made “preparations to attack us”.

Keitel’s claims are not true. Soviet Russia was not planning an offensive against Nazi Germany. The Soviet leader Joseph Stalin hoped, in reality, to delay war with the Third Reich for as long as necessary. Vyacheslav Molotov, the Soviet Foreign Minister, recalled how Stalin had strongly hinted, shortly after the Fall of France, that he wanted to put off war with the Germans until 1943 if possible, in order to give the Soviets more breathing space. Stalin was aware that a conflict with Nazi Germany was inevitable and entailed much risk. The Soviet Union and the Third Reich were the two strongest military powers in the world.

As Keitel indirectly referred to, the Soviet Army was lavishly equipped with weaponry in 1941, a rearmament policy which Moscow had correctly pursued because of the fear of war being unleashed on Soviet Russia, not only by the Germans; the Russians suspected too, with good reason, that the Western states would support a Nazi invasion of Russia, or participate in it alongside Germany. European nations like Spain, Italy, Romania and Croatia each sent forces to fight with the Nazis against Russia.

Very little American Lend-Lease aid was shipped to Russia in 1941, as the Red Army that year prevented the Germans from capturing Moscow and Leningrad, and in doing so turned the war around in Russia’s favour. US military hardware started to appear in modest amounts in Russia during 1942, only after the Red Army had overcome the worst of the Nazi onslaught.

There were crucial gaps in 1942, primarily during the autumn and early winter periods, when the US military assistance to Russia was significantly reduced, which prompted renewed suspicions in Moscow. During a 3 and a half month period in 1942, when the fighting was raging in the Caucasus and Stalingrad, less than 40 ships carrying Lend-Lease cargo entered the Russian ports of Murmansk and Arkhangelsk. This suggests the Americans had very mixed feelings about an alliance with Russia. Moreover, considerable amounts of US military equipment sent to Russia was of poor quality, like the P-40 fighter aircraft.

President Bush claimed in September 2002 that his administration was intent on “fighting terrorists and tyrants” wherever needed, actions which could only be achieved through military force. On 19 March 2003 the Bush White House, with the firm backing of the Tony Blair regime in London, sent the US Air Force to bomb the Iraqi capital Baghdad, and the following day a huge ground assault on Iraq began. Washington demanded that Saddam Hussein and his sons, Uday and Qusay, surrender and leave Iraq within 2 days. The Anglo-American invasion was initiated without the support of their key NATO allies, France and Germany, or the UN Security Council.

On 29 September 2006, following approval by the House of Representatives, the US Senate ratified the Military Commissions Act (MCA) by 65 votes against 35 as part of the “war on terror”; and president Bush then signed the MCA on 17 October 2006. It granted him with unprecedented powers in the history of the US. Washington could deny the right to habeas corpus for US citizens detained as “unlawful enemy combatants”, and not merely for those partaking in combat but also for people who “purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States”.

With the passing of the Military Commissions Act, those imprisoned in Afghanistan and sent to the Guantanamo Bay military prison could not appeal to the courts of justice in America. US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said before that “technically unlawful combatants do not have any rights under the Geneva Convention”.

The White House was bestowed with the power to detain indefinitely any American or foreign national, in the US and overseas, who was discovered in possession of material supporting activities against America; and the act sanctioned the use in prisons of torture (“enhanced interrogation techniques” [ETI]) relating to sleep and sensory deprivation, solitary confinement, waterboarding and forced medication.

US military personnel and CIA operatives were allowed to commit “enhanced interrogation techniques”, and the testimonies extracted under such circumstances were used in trials by military commissions. The Center for Constitutional Rights, headquartered in New York, felt the Military Commissions Act to be “a massive legislative assault on fundamental rights, including the right to habeas corpus – the right to challenge one’s detention in a court of law”.

Guantanamo received dozens of prisoners under the age of 18. For example sent to Guantanamo early in 2003 was Mohamed Jawad from Pakistan, who the Americans purported had thrown an explosive device at a US-owned military vehicle in Kabul, Afghanistan, which wounded 2 American soldiers and their interpreter. Jawad’s family insisted he was 12-years-old when arrested, while the Pentagon stated that Jawad’s age was about 17 according to a bone scan.

Jawad was not released from Guantanamo until nearly 7 years later in 2009. Erik R. Saar, a US Army sergeant based at Guantanamo, wrote that he “had to wonder about the wisdom of keeping kids so young in a place like Gitmo [Guantanamo]”. In 2008 there were 21 prisoners at Guantanamo below the age of 18.

The White House’s excuse when criticised for severe breaches of human rights in places like Guantanamo, located on the shores of south-eastern Cuba, is that since it is not officially part of the US, the area does not fall under the jurisdiction of America’s courts of justice or international law. The establishment of US control over Guantanamo, which is a major Cuban port, has allowed Washington to evade US law and the Geneva Convention.

The CIA established other secret prisons in NATO states such as Poland, Romania and Lithuania, and in the Middle East and Asia. Agents from the CIA and FBI along with other government officials could interrogate prisoners as they saw fit.

The Bush administration was advancing its military and political ambitions in the highly-prized Caucasus region. This led inevitably to rising tensions between Washington and Moscow. The US failed to respect the Kremlin’s legitimate concerns regarding a region that is on Russia’s doorstep, and which president Vladimir Putin believes to be within his country’s sphere of interest, as the Caucasus has been historically.

President Bush sent 200 military advisers to Georgia, and Russian officials, aware of the encroachment, complained to Washington about the presence of US troops on Georgian soil. The US established NATO’s Partnership for Peace Program (NATO-PfP) pertaining to the ex-Soviet republics, and the US military had been conducting exercises in the former territories of the Soviet Union since 1997.

Yet Bush’s government was aware that other means were needed to reach their goals, rather than solely armed persuasion. Interfering once more on the international scene was the liberal billionaire George Soros and his Open Society Institute, renamed Open Society Foundations in 2011. The policies of Soros and his Open Society groups are usually compatible with Washington, nor do they feel the need to always go about their business diplomatically, something which USAID at least keeps up the pretence of doing.

Soros’ Open Society groups have funnelled tens of millions of dollars into the former Soviet republics. In the autumn of 2003 alone, Soros poured $42 million into assisting the so-called Rose revolution in Georgia, which helped the US-friendly Mikheil Saakashvili to come to power in January 2004. Soros was involved too in the Ukrainian “Orange revolution”, that enabled the pro-Western Viktor Yushchenko to become president in Kiev in January 2005. The next month Yushchenko spoke of his desire to seek Ukrainian accession to NATO.

Also setting in motion the above color revolutions were American and European organisations like USAID, the Poland-America-Ukraine Cooperation Initiative, Freedom House, and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). These groups managed to sustain the electoral campaign of Yushchenko, which otherwise would probably have failed.

The color revolutions actually resembled something like coups d’etat, and drew similarities with the Anglo-American-led 1953 putsch in Iran. Here, the British MI6 and CIA had funded demonstrations and other unrest in the capital Tehran, in order to topple the Iranian prime minister Mohammad Mosaddegh and replace him with someone more obedient, the Shah as it turned out. Mosaddegh had put Iran’s precious oil reserves under state control.

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Shane Quinn obtained an honors journalism degree and he writes primarily on foreign affairs and historical subjects. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).

Sources

Wilhelm Keitel, The Memoirs of Field Marshal Keitel (William Kimber and Co. Limited; 1st edition, 1965)

Michel Chossudovsky, “The Kerch Strait and the Sea of Azov: Black Sea Geopolitics and Russia’s Control of Strategic Waterways”, Global Research, 12 October 2022

Robert Service, Stalin: A Biography (Pan; Reprints edition, 16 April 2010)

Alexander Dugin, “NWO And The Change Of The World Order”, Geopolitica, 10 October 2022

Chris Bellamy, Absolute War: Soviet Russia in the Second World War (Pan; Main Market edition, 21 Aug. 2009)

Guardian, “One of Guantanamo’s youngest inmates to sue US over seven lost years”, 28 August 2009

Washington Post, “The Prisoner Question”, 3 February 2002

Luiz Alberto Moniz Bandeira, The World Disorder: US Hegemony, Proxy Wars, Terrorism and Humanitarian Catastrophes (Springer; 1st ed., 4 Feb. 2019)

Guardian, “Ukraine seeks NATO relationship”, 22 February 2005

Luiz Alberto Moniz Bandeira, The Second Cold War: Geopolitics and the Strategic Dimensions of the USA (Springer; 1st ed., 23 June 2017)

Featured image: George W. Bush declares victory in Iraq War, USS Abraham Lincoln, San Diego, May 1, 2003

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History of the World War II

Operation Barbarossa, the Allied Firebombing of German Cities and Japan’s Early Conquests

By Shane Quinn

The first two chapters focus on German preparations as they geared up to launch their 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union, called Operation Barbarossa, which began eight decades ago. It was named after King Frederick Barbarossa, a Prussian emperor who in the 12th century had waged war against the Slavic peoples. Analysed also in the opening two chapters are the Soviet Union’s preparations for a conflict with Nazi Germany.

The remaining chapters focus for the large part on the fighting itself, as the Nazis and their Axis allies, the Romanians and Finns at first, swarmed across Soviet frontiers in the early hours of 22 June 1941. The German-led invasion of the USSR was the largest military offensive in history, consisting of almost four million invading troops. Its outcome would decide whether the post-World War II landscape comprised of an American-German dominated globe, or an American-Soviet dominated globe. The Nazi-Soviet war was, as a consequence, a crucial event in modern history and its result was felt for decades afterward and, indeed, to the present day.

Read the e-reader here.

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***

The real world is an idealist’s nightmare.

Nonetheless, idealism represents one of the purest and most admirable of human traits, provided that it is grounded in the pursuit of the Good.

As we come more and more to see unimaginable Evil enacted around us on a global scale – an evil manifested by wide-scale murder via biological weapons masquerading as vaccines that are now being pushed upon our children thanks to thoroughly corrupt and malicious institutions tasked with the goal of protecting us – we are more and more dependent upon groups of resistance. In fact, we will not be able to survive the onslaught without the strength and wiles of organized groups, lest we succumb one by single one.

In this context it seems imperative to explore some of the challenges, both practical and psychological, that beset groups, that vitiate them, siphon away their potential, and that render them ineffectual. If there was ever a time when we, who have perceived the reality of the genocidal and reductionist agenda of the Few against us, required unadulterated efficiency in our battle for survival, it is now.

When I speak of groups I am not referring to a mob whipped into froth and frenzy by a military leader (or a Facebook algorithm?), but a group whose members are united by a shared purpose, a common goal, a pressing mission.

I myself am currently a member of several Resistance groups whose goals overlap: a formal group of doctors (www.nzdsos.com), an informal group of local citizens in the Wellington region concerned about fundamental human rights, and a political group of aspirants seeking to effect change within the New Zealand parliament. Each of these entities has protested against the dictatorial position of the New Zealand government during the Corona War, and its anti-human and unscientific mandates, which have included lockdowns, masking, distancing, mass inoculation and a ‘vax apartheid’ system that split society asunder into two classes of citizens.

In the past I happened to be the leader of a relatively large group of psychiatrists in Philadelphia for nearly a decade. This experience informs my observations.

One: the self-interest of the individual member of a group is always paramount. Individuals sacrifice only when sacrifice is essential to their own survival, and very few will risk suffering any diminution of their own well-being for the ‘greater good’, no matter how good that greater good may be.

Two: most group members are content to delegate authority to a handful of others – for example, a Steering Committee or a Board of Trustees – as long as their own perceived well-being is not compromised.

Three: each individual group member possesses a formidable Ego, and some Egos are ‘more equal than others’, which inevitably leads to conflict. I have often observed that there is considerable competition for notoriety and fame, as well as personal advantage, among group leaders.

Four: nobody wants to give up money unless he or she feels they will get a return. Some, when they receive a return acquired as a result of group membership, may even be content to let their membership lapse. I recall very clearly an instance wherein a psychiatrist obtained a very good part-time job as a result of my group’s connections. Once this job was secured he stopped paying the modest annual dues that were a requirement of ongoing membership.

Is there, or has there ever been, an ideal group?

Perhaps.

And perhaps an example is a musical Chorus wherein each choral singer is devoted to the optimal execution of the composer’s musical ideas, an execution generally – but not necessarily – mediated intrepretively by a conductor.

I had the wonderful good fortune to have sung in a Chorus many years ago. It would have been unthinkable for a soprano or baritone to veer off into an individualistic expression that departed from the score and/or the conductor’s direction. All were united by an unremitting dedication to the fulfillment of the composer’s musical intentions, within an interpretive framework that was relatively narrow.

Because of the war that has been thrust upon us, battles are being waged on many fronts. Because of the uniqueness in scale and reach of this global war, most of us in the Resistance have had to react quickly and at times in scattershot fashion to the various and relentless offensives.

If we are to succeed in our battle against Globalist Hegemony, Total Surveillance, Universal Digital Identification and Universal Inoculation – in essence, slavery – we must form and battle in groups, groups whose missions must be exquisitely focused, the better to unite, and whose leaders must be dedicated to the ideal, at the expense of the personal.

If we are to win and to rescue our humanity from the assaults against liberty, autonomy and love, we must fight each in accordance with his or her abilities – some at the front, others in support from behind – but all with the least interference of Ego and self-aggrandizement.

This is, make no mistake, a tall and rather impossible order. But the stakes have never been higher and the time frame never narrower. The closer we may approximate this Ideal, the greater our chance of success.

May this selfless Force be with us.

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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.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from American Friends Service Committee

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***

“We believe that the Chinese and American people have the wisdom, the opportunity and capability to find a way for peaceful coexistence. But China will not allow others to bully it and the historic process of China’s national rejuvenation cannot be held back by anyone or any force,” said Sun Yeli, a Communist Party spokesman in Beijing on October 15.

The US has been committed to providing Taiwan with the means of defending itself, although it does not officially recognize the island as a country, while the US maintains diplomatic relations with Beijing.

With increased US rhetoric, including high level Congressional delegations visiting Taiwan, the tensions between the two superpowers is at fever-pitch.  Steven Sahiounie of MidEastDiscourse interviewed Ararat Kostanian to gain insight into the pressing issues between the US and China.

Ararat Kostanian is an expert on Middle Eastern studies and International Relations. He currently works as a Junior Fellow and a PhD candidate at the Institute of Oriental Studies, National Academy of Science of Armenia, and has published essays and articles on Political Islam, Turkey, the Syrian War, and the emergence of multipolar world and on Armenian foreign policy.

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Steven Sahiounie (SS): Chinese President Xi Jinping has addressed the Chinese Communist Party Congress, and is seeking his third term as leader. When he restated the opposition to Taiwan independence he received a great deal of applause in support of the position. The Biden administration has continued to support Taiwan in an increasingly threatening display of antagonism. In your opinion, how far will China go to prevent Taiwan independence?

Ararat Kostanian (AK):  The Chinese officials and the President of the People’s Republic of China Xi Jinping have mentioned repeatedly that China sees the reunification of Taiwan with the mainland as an evolutionary process that must be achieved under peaceful manners. And that concept does not belong to the Chinese government or country’s elite per se, but also a belief rooted in the Chinese population entirely. Moreover, it is necessary that the U.S. administration is performing a double standard on the Taiwan issue as well. While the U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and other senior officials have affirmed that the U.S. does not support Taiwan’s independence; conversely, an American senior official with a long history of anti-China rhetoric such as Nancy Pelosi, pays a visit to Taiwan that not only fueled the tension between the United States and China, but also the visit was meant to provoke China and drive the Chinese government to take military action by using force against Taiwan. Thus, Taiwan in the eyes of the American policy makers is a card to not only contain China and alienate its regional influence, but also a territory where a great conflict with China could occur.

The scenario played by the United States on the Taiwan is very similar to what is happening in Ukraine currently. Unfortunately, the United States is not acting as a mature and responsible superpower in such an uncertain global condition where pandemics and its negative impacts are not vanished, the social paranoias are rising, and the economic crisis is targeting the global middle class. The United States is continuing its old realist game by prioritizing to win the battle only by using military force and ignite wars in different parts of the world. It seems that for the United States it is preferable to be engaged or to create situations for catastrophic wars that will not benefit any side, rather than a peaceful emergence of a multipolar world which could bring an atmosphere of fair competition, peace, and institutional global order.

SS: Security was a major theme of the conference. President Xi Jinping put great emphasis of keeping China secure from threats. In an increasingly unpredictable world, what are the main threats China faces, and are they mainly foreign, or domestic?

AK:  One of the core elements for China in its path of development has been maintaining stability inside the country. For that reason, the Chinese officials has been repeating that China must have and perform harmony within the country and with the outside world, in order to achieve the modernization plan, set to bring China as one of the most advanced countries globally in many spheres. Currently, the security issue becomes more relevant as I have mentioned above, when the United States is willing to keep its supremacy and hegemony at all costs and the problem is that the United States will never tolerate a more powerful China that could have its influence over Asia in general and globally in particular. Reuters mentioned that Xi Jinping has used the world security 89 times in his report-speech this year, whereas it was 55 in 2017. Indeed, China is highly concerned about the accelerated tension by the Taiwanese from one side in urging to go for a full Independence and the provocative American foreign policy to draw in China into a military action that could be catastrophic for all countries in the region.

At the same time, the Chinese president had mentioned in his speech that China is ready for all scenarios, and they will respond if there will be any threat against China’s territorial integrity and any action against the reunification of Taiwan. Moreover, the People’s Liberation Army is in command. There is no domestic conflict in China, since in the last two decades China continues to provide rights to the ethnic and religious minorities and they have been fully integrated in the Han society. The only concern for Chinese government is the Uyghurs of Xinjiang that is being fueled by the United States again to create inner conflict in China and to reduce China’s development. Since the Chinese governments have done tremendous work in improving the Xinjiang province,

I believe that issue could be solved when Uyghurs give up their terror actions and reach to a conclusion with the Chinese authorities, instead of allying themselves with the United States or Turkey.  Thus, as we can see, even some domestic issues have geopolitical implications.

SS: President Xi Jinping spoke about the Chinese socialist economy, but also the need to develop the private sector, along with public ownership and encouraging the markets to play a role. What is your take on the near future of the Chinese economic developments?

AK:  It is indeed a unique case where China did not only maintain the socialist ideology, but also it has been able cautiously to implement some elements from liberal market system. In fact, that was the key component of China’s success. I believe the role in economy will be given further to the private sector, simply because the innovations and startups today are mainly managed and run by the private enterprises and in this sense the advancement in the private sector could be achieved in a faster mode. Moreover, giving opportunities to the private sector means that the middle class will have a greater chance to perform. In terms of China, the majority are in middle class category, and we all know well that the current crisis harmed the middle class at most.  In general, although nearly all the countries are affected from the situation created since the pandemic such as the bankruptcy of companies, the shift in petrol prices, the collapse of the healthcare systems etc., China is one of the few countries that maintained its economic growth. Furthermore, the current economic crises affected the One Belt One Road Initiative as well, since countries started to run a strategy that is based on national or local products. Although these obstacles have global shape. I believe China is capable of pursuing its development plan and generating its global megaproject to the end.

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

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

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First published in May 2022

***

 

 

 

 

On Sunday, the foreign policy blogs were abuzz with the news that Scott Ritter had done “an about-face in his assessment of the war”. It appears that the ex-Marine had examined recent developments in Ukraine and concluded that it’s going to be much harder for Russia to win than he had originally thought…

Naturally, the news of Ritter’s reversal sent shockwaves across the internet, especially among the people who follow events in Ukraine closely and who greatly admire his even-handed analysis. Some of these people clearly felt betrayed by Ritter’s comments and blasted him as a “concern troll” which refers to a person who feigns sympathy while actually feeling the opposite. This is a terrible way to treat a guy who’s devoted so much of his time to informing people about an issue of which they might know very little without his research. Besides, Ritter is no hypocrite. Quite the contrary.

It’s fair to say, however, that Ritter has probably been the most outspoken proponent of the “Russia is winning” theory, a hypothesis that runs counter to everything we read in the legacy media or see on the cable news channels. Unfortunately, Ritter’s views on the matter have changed dramatically, and that’s due almost entirely to developments on the ground. As Ritter candidly admits, “The military aid the west is providing to Ukraine is changing the dynamic and if Russia doesn’t find a way to address this meaningfully… the conflict will never end.”

That’s quite a turnaround from a statement he made just weeks earlier that, “Russia is winning the war, and winning it decisively.”

So, what changed? What are the so-called developments that led to Ritter’s volte-face?

Here are a few excerpts from the interview that triggered the fracas. Ritter was joined by Ray McGovern and host Garland Nixon on Saturday Morning Live. (The quotes are copied from video. I accept blame for any mistakes.)

Scott Ritter (start at 47:50 minute mark) — “The thing that frustrates me… is that, it was my assessment that it would be very hard for Ukraine to absorb this new equipment and material (Material– the additional lethal weapons that have recently been shipped to Ukraine) but the howitzers are already operating against Russia. (And) They are having an effect in the Kharkov region. Not all 90 of them, but they have several batteries in place that are being used.

How did this happen?

And this is why I have radically changed my overall assessment, because I had been operating on the assumption that Russia would be able to interdict the vast majority of this equipment, but Russia has shown itself unable or unwilling to do this and– as a result– the Ukrainians are having meaningful impact on the battlefield. Not in the areas of main contention, like the Donbass, but on the periphery. This is why Russia has carried out tactical withdrawals north of Kharkov, because in order to match Ukraine’s best capabilities, Russia would have to divert resources from its main effort which Russia has decided not to do. So, they are re-configuring the battlefield. (trading land in different areas)…(“Saturday Morning Live with Scott Ritter and Ray McGovern, You Tube)

So, while Ritter’s sympathies have not changed in the slightest, it’s clear that his analysis has. At first, he didn’t think that the deluge of lethal weaponry would affect the outcome of the war. Now he’s not so sure. It’s a honest mistake but, still, he needed to ‘come clean’ and explain the factors that contributed to his U-turn. Here’s more from the same interview:

Scott Ritter– This is a transformative moment in the war, because what it means is that demilitarization is not taking place. For all the forces Russia is destroying in the east, Ukraine is rebuilding significant capability (in the west) I liken this to Moscow in December 1941, when the Germans were moving towards Moscow and the Russians just started throwing things at them., sacrificing everything to slow the German offensive. until General Winter and the combination of Siberian divisions gave them the ability to counterattack. The Germans were bled white and they were stopped and turned back. If Russia doesn’t change the calculation, then that is the trajectory we are heading on.,because 200,000 troops–however capable they may be, are only capable of doing so much. And the fighting that’s taking place right now –even though it is slaughtering Ukrainians– it isn’t cost free to the Russians. They’re losing equipment, they’re losing men, they’re losing material, and unless Putin mobilizes or transfers forces in, those aren’t being replaced. So, instead of having 200,000 online, Russia might have 180,000 men. And if you don’t think removing 20,000 men doesn’t change the options available to the Russian leadership, then you don’t know anything about war.”

So, I believe Russia is going to win in the east, they are grinding them down as we speak, they are slaughtering them; the amount of death and destruction that is being dealt to the Ukrainians is unimaginable, but I believe the Ukrainians are willing to take these losses in order to buy time to reconstitute a military that will challenge Russia Because unless Russia is willing to jump across the Dnieper River and head into western Ukraine where it can eliminate the strategic depth that the Ukrainians are being gifted by the Russians, then demilitarization of Ukraine is not going to take place. It can’t take place when tens of billions of dollars of equipment is pouring in and Russia is not able to interdict it. The fact that these advanced howitzers are operating on the front lines right now, shows there’s something wrong with the Russian methodology. And–unless they alter that methodology– I think we’re in for a very long summer.” (“Saturday Morning Live with Scott Ritter and Ray McGovern, You Tube)

It’s hard to grasp what Ritter is saying here. Is he actually suggesting that Putin expand the current “special operation” into a full-blown World War? At one point, he casually opines that Russia will have to mobilize 1 and a half million men (Note: Russia currently only has 200,000 in Ukraine) if they want to prevail in Ukraine and then move on to Finland. It’s impossible to tell by Ritter’s tone whether he is simply making an objective observation of ‘what is needed’ to succeed or if he is making an explicit recommendation that he thinks Russia’s High Command should consider. I can’t answer that. Here’s more from the interview:

Scott Ritter (5:20 mark)– “The idea that the Ukrainian military has been eliminated as an effective fighting force is a flawed concept, and unless Russia broadens its special military operation– probably to the point of changing it form a special military operation to a war which includes the totality of Ukrainian battle-space–(then) this is a conflict that is dangerously close to becoming unwinnable by Russia which means that while they can complete their objectives in the east with 200,000 troops, they aren’t able to prevent Ukraine from rearming and reequipping when Ukraine is being provided with tens of billions of dollars of equipment by NATO —Whenever you provide your enemy with “safe space” to rebuild military capability, you’re never going to win. …

Yes, Russia is winning in the east which is what they said their objective was all along. And they are accomplishing that. That is the special Military Operation. But now we’re talking about “war”, and I don’t think Russia has made that transition yet. This is a defacto proxy war between the west and Russia using Ukrainian forces as NATO’s sword. The object of this is to “bleed Russia dry”. And if Russia doesn’t change the dynamic, Russia will be bled dry.” Zelensky has indicated that he’s willing to mobilize a million people, at a time when the west is ready to provide the funding and equipment to turn those million men into a real military threat.

So, I see what has been happening in the last few weeks as being decisive.

The military aid the west is providing is changing the dynamic and if Russia doesn’t find a way to address this meaningfully, and to eliminate it as a military capability… then the conflict will never end.” (“Saturday Morning Live with Scott Ritter and Ray McGovern, You Tube)

There it is from the horse’s mouth. Readers will have to draw their own conclusions.

IMHO, Scott Ritter is gradually adjusting to the idea that the conflict in Ukraine is not a just regional skirmish between two quarrelsome neighbors, nor is it a proxy-war between NATO and Russia. No. Ukraine is the first phase of a broader plan for crushing Russia, collapsing its economy, removing its leaders, seizing its natural resources, splintering its territory, and projecting US power across Central Asia to the Pacific Rim. Ukraine is about hegemony, empire, and pure, unalloyed power. Most important, Ukraine is the first battle in a Third World War, a war that was concocted and launched by Washington to ensure another unchallenged century of American primacy.

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This article was originally published on The Unz Review.

Michael Whitney is a renowned geopolitical and social analyst based in Washington State. He initiated his career as an independent citizen-journalist in 2002 with a commitment to honest journalism, social justice and World peace.

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

Featured image is from TUR

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

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Visit and follow us on Instagram at @crg_globalresearch.

***

Today our thoughts are with Dr. Vladimir Zelenko, who passed away on June 30th, 2022 at age 48.

He was a powerful voice. His Legacy will Live.

Below is his outstanding analysis together with Dr. David Sorensen, first  published by Global Research on December 6, 2021

 

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Many People Fully Vaccinated for COVID Are Now Going Blind

Ethan Huff, October 17, 2022

The Rise and Fall of the Great Reset — Professor Arthur Noble

Prof. Arthur Noble, October 19, 2022

US Rejection of Moscow’s Offer for Peace Talks Is Utterly Inexcusable

Caitlin Johnstone, October 13, 2022

Biden Signs Executive Order Designed to Unleash “Transhumanist Hell” on America and the World

Leo Hohmann, October 17, 2022

“Shrink the World’s Population”: Secret 2009 Meeting of Billionaires “Good Club”

Prof Michel Chossudovsky, October 15, 2022

The US-Nazi Connection Since World War II: From Inspiring the Third Reich to Supporting the Neo-Nazis of Ukraine

Timothy Alexander Guzman, October 20, 2022

PfizerGate: Official Government Reports prove Hundreds of Thousands of People Are Dying Every Single Week Due to COVID-19 Vaccination

The Expose, October 9, 2022

U.S. Regime Now Applies Maximum Brutality to the Ukrainian People

Eric Zuesse, October 20, 2022

Some of Us Don’t Think the Russian Invasion Was “Aggression.” Here’s Why.

Mike Whitney, October 17, 2022

Vaccine Narrative Collapses as Harvard Study Shows Jab More Dangerous than COVID

Jonas Vesterberg, October 9, 2022

UK Documentary Exposes Lies Behind ‘Safe and Effective’ COVID Vaccine Narrative

Dr. Suzanne Burdick, October 18, 2022

Israeli Report: “The mRNA Experimental Vaccine from Pfizer Killed “About 40 Times More (Elderly) People Than the Disease Itself Would Have Killed” During a Recent Five-week Vaccination Period”

Dr. Paul Elias Alexander, October 7, 2022

America’s Diabolic Plan to Subjugate and Break Up Russia

Chaitanya Davé, October 18, 2022

Thousands More Children Die as EU Drags Out Europe-wide Investigation Into Why There’s Been an 8x Increase in Excess Deaths Among Children Since EMA Approved COVID Vaccine for Kids

The Expose, October 16, 2022

The Top Ten Creepiest and Most Dystopian Things Pushed by the World Economic Forum (WEF)

Vigilant Citizen, October 17, 2022

VIDEO: Man Made Destruction of the West: Something BIG is happening in Germany, the WEF Makes it Worse

Global Research News, October 14, 2022

U.S. Act of War against the European Union: President Biden Ordered the Terror Attack against Nord Stream. High Treason against the People of Europe

Prof Michel Chossudovsky, October 21, 2022

COVID-19 Vaccines: Proof of Lethality. Over One Thousand Scientific Studies

SUN, October 15, 2022

Digitization Is Humanity’s Demise. The “Smartphonization” of Humanity. The QR code is Everywhere

Peter Koenig, October 18, 2022

Video: Accused of “Covid Misinformation”, Dr Meryl Nass Fights for Her Medical License

Dr. Meryl Nass, October 15, 2022

US-NATO vs. Russia: The Weaponization of Western “Freedom and Democracy”

By Dragan Filipovic, October 20, 2022

During the signing ceremony on the accession to the Russian Federation of the four new regions on September 30^th president Vladimir Putin declared that a ‘revolutionary transformation of the world’ is underway and stated that there will be ‘no return to the old order’.

Irish MEPs Tell Truth to Power. The USG, EU, and Israel Are the Real Terrorists.

By Kurt Nimmo, October 21, 2022

In America, it is becoming increasingly dangerous to express opposition to the insanity of the national security state and its partners in the EU and Israel. Journalists in America are now disappeared, the same as they are in other authoritarian nations. If you doubt this, non-Google search “James Gordon Meeks.”

Ukraine’s “Neo-Nazi Summer Camp”. Military Training for Young Children

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, October 21, 2022

Unknown to most Americans, the US government is channeling financial support, weapons and training to a Neo-Nazi entity –which is part of The Ukraine National Guard– The Azov Battalion (Батальйон Азов). Canada and Britain have confirmed that they also are providing support to the National Guard.

Invalid COVID Data Drives Catastrophic Public Policies Globally

By Mark Taliano, October 20, 2022

As for the WHO which is the fountainhead of the global plandemic, even this institution of corruption, funded in large part by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, has admitted to the failings of the PCR tests.

“Humanitarian Interventions” and the 1994 Rwandan Genocide

By Dr. Vladislav B. Sotirović, October 20, 2022

By 1995 it had become clear that the (Western) international community’s experiment with multilateralism was under serious threat and, in fact, it failed in many cases like Rwanda, ex-Yugoslavia, Cyprus, etc. Nevertheless, continuing problems in different parts of the globe have meant that the OUN has had to remain committed to alleviating some of the worst atrocities.

What Was the Halloween Death Smog Disaster? And Other Questions Related to the Fluoridation Chemicals That Are Added to U.S. Water Supplies

By Jenny Miller, October 20, 2022

The fluoride products used in water fluoridation (sodium fluoride or fluorosilicic acid) are classified as hazardous waste products of the fertilizer, aluminum, and nuclear industries. They are even more toxic than naturally-occurring fluoride, since they contain other components, such as arsenic, lead, barium, and/or aluminum.

Russia’s Romance with Africa After Soviet Collapse

By Prof. Abdullahi Shehu, October 20, 2022

The collapse of the Soviet Union and the decades of the 90s seemed to have reversed the gains made in Africa-Soviet Relations and by extension, in Africa-Russia relations. Understandably, it was a period of politico-ideological downturn and harsh economic realities for Russia, the successor-nation to the Soviet Union.

French Labor Unrest Illustrates Worsening Economic Crisis Within the EU

By Abayomi Azikiwe, October 20, 2022

French workers affiliated with the General Confederation of Labor (CGT) held a “Day of Action” work stoppage on October 18. This action came on the heels of an oil workers strike which demanded a rise in salaries amid the escalating rate of inflation that has impacted people throughout the western capitalist states.

 

Martial Law in Russia’s Newly Reunified Novorossiya Region

By Andrew Korybko, October 20, 2022

President Putin just introduced martial law in Russia’s newly reunified Novorossiyan region along with ordering a “mid-level” response in the other ones bordering Ukraine that’ll give officials special authorities to ensure security there.

A Letter to a Relative on 27 June 2021″ About COVID in the Thick of the Corona War

By Dr. Emanuel Garcia, October 20, 2022

I think it is important to reflect upon the past from time to time, and I think that this letter of mine, to a close relative while in the thick of the Corona War, in mid-2021 is as relevant now as it was then. Here goes.

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This sort of criticism of US-EU-Israeli foreign policy would never be allowed in the USG Congress. Quite frankly, I am surprised the European Parliament didn’t cut the mic on MEPs Mick Wallace and Clare Daly.

There's something about the Irish 🔥 pic.twitter.com/8LY64wnNJb

— sarah (@sahouraxo) October 20, 2022

We rightly have a problem with Russia terrorising Ukrainians. Why have we no problem with #US #NATO terrorising people of #Afghanistan #Iraq #Libya ? Or no problem with US + #EU helping #Saudi #UAE terrorise #Yemen ? Why have we no problem with #Israel terrorising #Palestinians ? pic.twitter.com/qyfbRn70t5

— Mick Wallace (@wallacemick) October 19, 2022

Yes, indeed. The USG, EU, and Israel are the real terrorists. The historical record is clear, although largely ignored, especially here in America where it is now impossible to elect people speaking truth to power like Daly and Wallace.

In America, it is becoming increasingly dangerous to express opposition to the insanity of the national security state and its partners in the EU and Israel.

Journalists in America are now disappeared, the same as they are in other authoritarian nations. If you doubt this, non-Google search “James Gordon Meeks.”

Mr. Meeks, a national security reporter for ABC, has not been seen since the FBI raided his apartment in April.

Julian Assange is wasting away in Belmarsh prison for the crime of telling the world about the horrible deeds of the USG in Iraq and Afghanistan.

It is increasingly perilous to comment in public or social media on the manifest crimes of the USG and its junior partners in torture and mass murder.

Emmy-winning producer James Gordon Meek had his home raided by the FBI. His colleagues say they haven’t seen him since | @RollingStone #AssangePrecedenthttps://t.co/Fqxi9frYdU

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) October 20, 2022

It’s possible Mr. Meek, following the FBI raid, supposedly in search of classified documents on his laptop, is hiding out somewhere, keeping a low profile, afraid of the government and the FBI (the USG’s political police).

Then again, the case of Assange is demonstrative.

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Kurt Nimmo is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from Kurt Nimmo 

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First published on September 22, 2022

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For eight years, NATO has backed puppet rulers in Ukraine, funded attacks on Donbass, repeatedly violated the Minsk Treaties, outlawed the speaking of Russian in the Luhansk and Donetsk Republics, and has destroyed democratic opposition and free media in Ukraine, leaving it a one-party government, essentially owned and financed by the US and administrated by US operatives.

Not much subtlety there.

Yet, somehow, the US has managed to convince the people of the US and other Western countries that Russia is the bad boy, is out of control and must be stopped.

In spite of all the above, Russia remained stoic and sought continually to keep a lid on the situation. It did, however, state firmly that the “red line” would be if Ukraine were to go nuclear, becoming a direct threat to Moscow. That would not be tolerated.

Surely, this was a sober heads-up to any sensible country that the one thing that must not happen would be for Ukraine to go nuclear. After all, once that Pandora’s Box was opened, the last barrier to possible nuclear war would be crossed.

For eight years, Russia had been goaded again and again by the West, yet they did not take the bait. Then, in February of 2022, at the annual Munich Security Conference, the President of Ukraine announced his intent to make Ukraine a nuclear country.

Five days later, Russia invaded Ukraine. Immediately, the US propaganda arm went into operation, and for months, even as Ukraine was consistently losing the war, at every turn, the Western media renewed its claims that the war was turning; that Russia was faltering, and the heroes of Ukraine were beating back the Great Bear.

But all the above is old news. Why, at this juncture, should we be reviewing it?

Well, its continued significance is that NATO (or the US – they are virtually interchangeable at this point) has, from the beginning, behaved recklessly with the prospect of nuclear conflict.

Are they mad? Or are they so foolish as to think that they have some sort of “edge” in a nuclear conflict? Or do they see this as a game of one-upmanship in which the only important concern is which antagonist has the greater bluster?

We can only speculate as to the answer to this quandary. But, setting this aside, we should be questioning, a) what is the likelihood that the West would be so foolhardy as to actually push the button and, b) what would the outcome look like?

As to the first question, considering that it’s now becoming increasingly evident that the West have been misrepresenting the progress of the war; that the trained Azov forces are spent and replacements cannot be trained fast enough to go against the experienced Russian forces, the US is going to have to come up with another plan… and it will need to be something dramatic.

At this point, the one card they have not played is the nuke card.

They’ve claimed that the Russians have been either firing on or causing explosions in the Zaporizhzhya nuclear plant that they have held for some time. In essence, they’re being accused of bombing themselves in a facility that has long-since been taken.

At this point, not many listeners are buying this explanation. So, what do they have left in their toolbox?

I’ve long felt that, as an end-run, what the West might do would rely on an old favourite technique – a false flag attack. Create a narrative and videos of an attack on, say, Kiev by Russia with a small nuclear warhead. Then announce that the warhead had been fired, killing hundreds of thousands. Then let loose the pre-prepared media blitz and invoke Article 5, justifying nuclear warfare.

It just might turn the tide of sympathy. But it would also open a door that could not once again be closed.

For decades, both Russia and the US have had large numbers of nukes aimed at each other, with a system of timed releases. Once the first button is pushed, interrupting the progression is difficult.

So, as to that second question – “What would a nuclear war look like?” there are many studies, but the most illustrative one I’m familiar with was produced by Princeton.

It begins with a random single release in Eastern Europe and demonstrates the sizes and numbers of nuclear warheads, along with the release patterns.

It shows the trajectories and, in addition, shows diameters representing the degree of devastation by each missile.

The smaller nukes would cover all of Europe, leaving very little intact. Then the larger transatlantic nukes would take over – the state-of-the-art Sarmat missiles. Sarmat has the capacity to elude anti-missile defense systems. It travels at five times the speed of sound, weighs more than 200 tonnes and each one has multiple breakaway warheads.

The West has nothing like it.

So, what would the outcome be?

Well, each major US city would be targeted with multiple ICBMs, each big enough to destroy it. Most of the US would be carpeted with other ICBMs. The US would be destroyed within a few hours. An estimated 90 million people would be killed initially.

Those at ground zero would be vapourised. Those on the periphery of a bomb could escape if they were to get to concrete shelter very quickly. They would then need to remain sealed up for weeks, if not longer, until the majority of fallout had settled. It would be a gamble as to when exiting the building would be safe.

The northern border of the US would be destroyed, taking in Canadian border cities, such as Vancouver and Toronto. The southern border, with Mexico, would also go.

Next would be the movement of fallout.

As the video shows, those who live in or near a direct target would have no hope, but as can be seen, there are locations outside the US that are not targeted at all. Those locations that have no strategic advantage would not be targeted. So, if you were located in, say, Jamaica, you would not be hit, but, just as importantly, the Caribbean weather system – the trade winds – would carry any northern fallout away from you, as would the Gulf Stream.

Better still, the world is separated at the Equator by two weather systems that do not mix. Fallout in the north will be unlikely to travel to the south.

If you’re located in South America, there are very few likely targets. It’s unknown whether, say, Rio de Janeiro or Buenos Aires would be targets, but if not, South America may be the best place to be in the Western Hemisphere.

If anything, Europe and the Middle East would fare worse than North America.

Finally, there is the question of nuclear winter. No one can know whether this would last months or years and whether it would be localized or global.

Nuclear war is not a certainly, yet the West has been dangerously rattling sabres as though they are invincible and only others can be destroyed. This is quite false.

We cannot be certain that nuclear war will be undertaken, but if so, it will be quick. There will be no time to create an escape plan. You must already be in a location that you deem to be as safe as possible.

Editor’s Note: The US government is overextending itself by interfering in every corner of the globe. It’s all financed by massive amounts of money printing. However, the next financial crisis could end the whole charade soon.

The truth is, we’re on the cusp of a global economic crisis that could eclipse anything we’ve seen before. That’s exactly why New York Times best-selling author Doug Casey and his team just released a guide that explains what could come next and what you can do about it.

Click here to download the PDF now.

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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

Available to order from Global Research! 

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

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

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

Reviews

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

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

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

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In all history, there is no instance of a country having benefited from prolonged warfare. – Sun Tzu, ‘The Art of War’ 

The Four New Regions of the Russian Federation

During the signing ceremony on the accession to the Russian Federation of the four new regions on September 30^th president Vladimir Putin declared that a ‘revolutionary transformation of the world’ is underway and stated that there will be ‘no return to the old order’. As expected, his oration was largely ignored or distored by Western mainstream media:

“Our compatriots, our brothers and sisters in Ukraine who are part of our united people have seen with their own eyes what the ruling class of the so-called West have prepared for humanity as a whole. They have dropped their masks and shown what they are really made of.

When the Soviet Union collapsed, the West decided that the world and all of us would permanently accede to its dictates. In 1991, the West thought that Russia would never rise after such shocks and would fall to pieces on its own. This had almost happened. We remember the horrible 1990s, hungry, cold and hopeless. But Russia remained standing, revived, grew stronger and occupied its rightful place in the world.”

Signing ceremony for the accession of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics and the Zaporozhye and Kherson Regions at the Grand Kremlin Palace’s St George Hall

“Meanwhile, the West continued to look for another chance to strike a blow at us, to weaken and break up Russia… to set our peoples against each other and to condemn them to poverty and extinction. They cannot rest easy knowing that there is such a great country with this huge territory and its natural wealth, resources and people who cannot and will not do someone else’s bidding.

Western countries have been saying for centuries that they bring freedom and democracy to other nations. Nothing could be further from the truth. Instead of bringing democracy they suppressed and exploited, and instead of giving freedom they enslaved and oppressed. The unipolar world is inherently anti-democratic and unfree; it is false and hypocritical through and through.

Do we want to have in Russia, ‘Parent number one, parent number two and Parent number three’ instead of Mother and Father? Do we want our schools to impose on our children perversions that lead to degradation and extinction? Do we want to drum into their heads the idea that other genders exist besides Female and Male, and to offer them gender reassignment surgery? This is all unacceptable to us. We have a different future of our own.

Let me repeat that the dictatorship of the Western elites targets all societies, including the citizens of Western countries themselves. This is a challenge for us all. This complete renunciation of what it means to be human, the overthrow of faith and traditional values, and the suppression of freedom are coming to resemble the reverse of religion – pure Satanism. Exposing false messiahs, Jesus Christ preached in the Sermon on the Mount: “By their fruit ye shall know them.” These poisonous fruits are already obvious to people, and not only in our country but in all countries, including many people in the West itself.

The world has entered a period of a fundamental, revolutionary transformation. New centers of power are emerging. They represent the majority of the international community. They are ready not only to declare their interests but also to protect them. They see in multipolarity an opportunity to strengthen their sovereignty, which means gaining genuine freedom, historical prospects, and the right to their own independent, creative and distinctive forms of development, to a harmonious process.

There are many like-minded people in Europe and the United States, and we feel and see their support. An essentially emancipatory, anti-colonial movement against unipolar hegemony is taking shape in the most diverse countries and societies. Its power will only grow with time. It is this force that will determine our future geopolitical reality.“

“The destruction of the Western hegemony is irreversible,“ Putin concluded.

JFK’s Forgotten ‘Peace For All Time Speech’

President John F. Kennedy, under the influence of the Cuban Missile Crisis when the world was brought to the brink of annihilation, made an equally momentous speech at the American University on June 10, 1963:

“I have chosen this time and place to discuss a topic on which ignorance too often abounds and the truth is too rarely perceived – yet it is the most important topic on earth: world peace.

What kind of peace do I mean? What kind of peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war. Not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave.

I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living, the kind that enables men and nations to grow and to hope and to build a better life for their children – not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women – not merely peace in our time but peace for all time.”

“I speak of peace because of the new face of war. Total war makes no sense in an age when great powers can maintain large and relatively invulnerable nuclear forces and refuse to surrender without resort to those forces. It makes no sense in an age when a single nuclear weapon contains almost ten times the explosive force delivered by all the allied air forces in the Second World War. It makes no sense in an age when the deadly poisons produced by a nuclear exchange would be carried by wind and water and soil and seed to the far corners of the globe and to generations yet unborn.

Today the expenditure of billions of dollars every year on weapons acquired for the purpose of making sure we never need to use them is essential to keeping the peace. But surely the acquisition of such idle stockpiles – which can only destroy and never create – is not the only, much less the most efficient, means of assuring peace.

…wherever we are, we must all, in our daily lives, live up to the age-old faith that peace and freedom walk together. In too many of our cities today, the peace is not secure because the freedom is incomplete. It is the responsibility of the executive branch at all levels of government – local, State, and National – to provide and protect that freedom for all of our citizens by all means within their authority…

All this is not unrelated to world peace. ‘When a man’s ways please the Lord,’ the Scriptures tell us, ‘he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him.’ And is not peace… basically a matter of human rights – the right to live out our lives without fear of devastation…?

The United States, as the world knows, will never start a war. We do not want a war. We do not now expect a war. This generation of Americans has already had enough – more than enough – of war and hate and oppression. We shall be prepared if others wish it. We shall be alert to try to stop it. But we shall also do our part to build a world of peace where the weak are safe and the strong are just. We are not helpless before that task or hopeless of its success. Confident and unafraid, we labor on – not toward a strategy of annihilation but toward a strategy of peace.”

“Man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty and all forms of human life.” – JFK in his 1961 Inaugural Address

Rise and Fall of a Hegemon

Kennedy’s speech was quickly relegated to the memory hole after his assassination only five months later with his successor Lyndon B. Johnson quickly ramping up the war in Vietnam, chosing to ignore painful French colonial lessons there a decade earlier as well as president Charles de Gaulle’s warning that “…you will sink step by step into a bottomless military and political quagmire”. LBJ forged full steam ahead, using a false flag attack in the Gulf of Tonkin in August 1964 to commit a half a million U.S. troops to the jungles of Indochina.

An alleged North Vietnamese attack on the USS Madoxx was used as an excuse to ramp up the Vietnam war which ended up costing 58,220 American and over two million Vietnamese, Laotian and Cambodian lives

Even though it was done under the banner of ‘defending democracy and freedom’, it nevertheless gave the lie to JFK’s assertion that the United States would never start a war.

Shock and Awe on full display in Baghdad, March 2003 at the start of the war to rid the world of Saddam’s non-existent WMD’s; when the kinetic phase of a war is completed it is replaced by an economic shock and awe, when the target country’s economy is plundered

Former Austrian foreign minister Karin Kneissl concurs with Putin’s portrayal of the West’s exploitative colonial mindset:

“The era of the ‘Seven Sisters,’ a cartel of oil companies that divided up the oil market, came to an end (in the 1970’s). However, for US policymakers – at least, psychologically – this era still persists. ‘It’s our oil,’ is an expression I often hear uttered in Washington. Those voices were particularly loud during the illegal US-led 2003 invasion of Iraq. To really understand the core of the conflict in Ukraine – where a proxy war rages – one must break down the confrontation thus: The US and its European allies, who represent and back the global financial sector, are essentially engaged in a battle against the world’s energy sector. “ Kneissl wrote for the The Cradle on October 13^th.

Political Studies professor Radhika Desai lectures in the same vein:

“The conflict that the West calls Russia’s invasion of Ukraine… is not a conflict between Ukraine and Russia; it is a phase in the hybrid war that the West has been waging for decades against any country that chooses an economic path other than subordination to the United States. In its current phase, this war takes the form of a US-led NATO war over Ukraine. In this war, Ukraine is the terrain, and a pawn – one that can be sacrificed. This fact is hidden by wall-to-wall Western propaganda portraying Russian President Vladimir Putin as either mad or a devil hell-bent on recreating the Soviet Union. This pre-empts any questions about why Putin might be doing this, about the rationale for Russian actions.

The United States, having sought without success to dominate the world, wages this war to stall its historic decline, the loss of what remains of its power. This decline has accelerated in recent decades as neoliberalism turned its capitalist economic system unproductive, financialised, predatory, speculative, and ecologically destructive, massively diminishing Washington’s already dubious attractions to its allies around the world.“

With an annual budget approaching a trillion dollars, the U.S. military is far removed from its Hollywood image of a ‘mean, lean fighting machine‘, and has turned into a bloated dinosaur mired in monumental corruption. This was confirmed by no less an auhority than the former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld who, on September 10, 2001, revealed that Pentagon auditors found that 25% of the military budget could not be accounted for, and that $2.3 trillion were missing.

The very next day, however, the war on waste was overtaken by the ‘war on terror’ and everything was forgiven and forgotten. Business continued as usual.

The current decrepit state of the U.S. military is aply reflected in its dismal recruitment figures, with the army announcing on October 1^st that – despite offering sign-up bonuses of up to $50,000 – it had still managed to miss its enlistment target by 25%.

The most likely causes: one in three Americans are overweight or otherwise unfit, the Covid ‘vaccine’ mandates, and lastly, Pentagon’s advocacy of LGBTQ/transgender ideology which has become the centerpiece of Biden regime’s ‘numerous accomplishments’ but which a priori eliminates potential conservative and religious-minded candidates who usually form the backbone of the military.

After obligatory inoculations recruits must undergo doctrinal inculcation emphasizing ‘equity and minority rights’ prior to being unleashed to sow death and destruction in defense of human rights around the globe

The New Normal: ‘Drag Queens’ are now in charge of teaching biology to kids, including that 72 genders exist – according to polls, a third of Generation Z consider themselves ‘gender fluid’ – which is what Putin was referring to in his speech

Winner Takes All

“Ukraine’s Blitzkrieg Means That Russia Cannot Win The War,” runs a typical headline used by the mainstream media as it downplays Russia’s strategic success and amplifies the tactical setbacks in order to make it look like the war is turning into a quagmire for Putin.

This is something which geopolitical analyst Pepe Escobar takes issue with:

“ … in only 7 months, Russia annexed 120,000 km2 – or 22% of Ukrainian territory – that produces nearly 90% of GDP and has over 5 million citizens. Along the way, the allied forces basically destroyed the Ukrainian army, which they continue to do 24/7; billions of dollars of NATO equipment; accelerated the demise of most Western economies; and evaporated the notion of American hegemony…”

The U.S. military has shown itself incapable of beating a ragtag Taliban force in Afghanistan and does not stand a chance against Russia, as the military expert Scott Ritter confirmed in 2017:

“NATO would be totally outmatched in a conventional war with Russia… Today, NATO and American anti-armor weapons continue to play catch up to new innovations being fielded by the Russians. The Americans like to quantify the Russian Army as being ‘near peer’ in terms of its capabilities; the fact of the matter is that it is the U.S. and NATO armored forces that are ‘near peer’ to their Russian counterparts, and there are many more Russian tanks in Europe today than there are NATO and American.”

Instead of Russia running out of missiles and ammunition as is often claimed, it is the U.S. and NATO which have emptied out their warehouses and run out of weapons, as reported by CNBC:

“In the U.S. weapons industry, the normal production level for artillery rounds for the 155mm howitzer – a long-range heavy artillery weapon currently used on the battlefields of Ukraine – is about 30,000 rounds per year in peacetime. The Ukrainian soldiers… go through that amount in roughly two weeks.”

Pentagon is now looking for U.S. companies to build more shells, while new HIMARS systems promised to Ukraine won’t arrive for years.

The painful truth for NATO is that the decades-long offshoring of manufacturing to low-wage countries has left it with insufficient industrial capacity required to wage a protracted war against a ‘near-peer’ adversary.

All this is ignored by the Western media which, through sensationalistic headlines like “In Washington, Putin’s Nuclear Threats Stir Growing Alarm” and “Putin Prepared to Use Nuclear Weapons”, is creating the illusion that Russia is losing badly and will resort to anything to turn things around.

Former CIA director and retired general David Petraeus was thus interviewed by ABC News on October 2^nd and stated how Russia is “desperate after a string of setbacks” and then promised that if it used nuclear weapons, the US would destroy the Russian military in Ukraine and sink its naval fleet.

What Petraeus – better known for having lost both ‘surges’ in Iraq and Afghanistan – fails to mention is that the U.S. is the one nuclear superpower with a first strike policy which is defined as an “…attack on an enemy’s nuclear arsenal that effectively prevents retaliation against the attacker. A successful first strike would cripple enemy missiles that are ready to launch and prevent the opponent from readying others for a counterstrike by targeting the enemy’s nuclear stockpiles and launch facilities.”

Under this policy,

“The U.S. president has the auhority, without consulting anyone, to order a pre-emptive nuclear strike – not merely in retaliation… Our warheads could be launched in defense of allies, after the onset of a conventional war involving our troops… or in response to a bellicose threat posed by a nuclear state.”

On the other hand, Russia’s Basic Principles doctrine does not allow for unprovoked use of  nuclear weapons – tactical or strategic. In any case, Russia has absolutely no need to resort to tactical nukes as it possesses the most powerful conventional weapon in existence, nicknamed FOAB – Father of All Bombs – a thermobaric bomb with a blast yield of 44 tons TNT; more importantly, these weapons do not emit any radiation, as nuclear fallout would pose both an immediate and lingering threat to their troops as well as to local civilians – most of whom are expected to one day become loyal Russian citizens.

FOAB dropped from a Tu-160 bomber at the Opuk training range, Black Sea in 2016; this ordnance is designed to vaporize targets and collapse structures by igniting a fuel-air mixture in midair

 

Some 150 U.S. B61 nuclear bombs are located in six air bases throughout Europe

Warning from an American in Novorussia 

American Russel ‘Tex’ Bentley, who has been living in the Donbass for the past eight years, posted this warning on his Telegram channel – October 2, 2022:

Look – here is the most important thing about Liman – coming on the heels of the Bucha and Kharkov retreats and the disgraceful prisoner swap, it makes it look like Russia is losing. And that is a strategic fuckup. Because if Russia only looks like it’s losing, the US Nazis can and will detonate a tactical nuke on Ukrop soil and blame it on Russia, saying “The Rusians had to use nukes because they were losing.” And all the idiots in the world will believe it.

Then, US/NATO say “And now we have to respond in kind (with nukes) and they vaporize all 500,000 new Russian troops before they even get deployed. And of course, the “Russian decision making HQ in Ukraine” also gets nuked – my hometown, Donetsk.

The tactical nukes are already in Ukraine. The USA using a nuke false flag is absolutely not just possible but probable to the point of inevitability. They have the means, motive and opportunity, and a long history of false flags. In fact, it would be stupid to think they wouldn’t. And if Russia looks like it’s losing the conventional war, it makes the USA false flag more credible and more inevitable.

And then Russia nukes USA Navy ships in the Black Sea and Med, then USA bases in Germany and Poland, the US/NATO hits Sevastopol, Kaliningrad and Rostov. Then Russia hits Washington and USA hits Moscow, and it’s all over but the screaming and the crying for all of us.

And this is what is going to happen if Russia does not regain the military initiative and start winning the conventional war (if it still can) in the next couple of weeks.

As goes Donbass, so goes the world. And only an idiot cannot understand this. You have been warned. Again.

Artist Marina Abramovich and Jacob Rotschild posing in front of a painting titled ‘Satan Summoning His Legions’ by Thomas Lawrence at the Royal Academy of Arts; Lord Rotschild & Co. control most of the planet’s assets

High Noon for NATO, Midnight for Humanity?

NATO has on October 17^th launched ‘Steadfast Noon’,  its annual nuclear drills set to last until October 30^th which is taking place 600 miles from the Russian border with “14 countries and air forces from across NATO to exercise nuclear deterrence capabilities involving dozens of aircraft, including fourth and fifth generation fighter jets as well as surveillance and tanker aircraft,” as per the NATO press release.

As luck would have it, ‘Steadfast Noon’ will likely coincide with Moscow’s own annual nuclear drills dubbed ‘Grom’, when Russia tests its nuclear-capable bombers, submarines and missiles.

This is a Do-or-Die moment for the western hegemon which is not willing – or rather, cannot – back down under any circumstances. Conscious of its inability to win a conventional war against Russia, it will resort to any measure in order to win, even if it means setting the world ablaze.

The U.S. has managed to convince itself that it can emerge victorious from a pre-emptive nuclear war, but cannot afford be seen as the aggressor in the eyes of the global community; a ‘False Flag’ event is therefore set to be staged in Ukraine using a low-yield device for which Russia would quickly be blamed, triggering an immediate NATO response. As inadvertently confirmed by Ukrainian president Zelensky while addressing the Australian Lowy Institute on October 6^th, the scheme involves a ‘decapitation strike’ on Moscow against Putin and his Cabinet, after which the rest of the regime would collapse like a house of cards.

Assuredly, if this suicidal policy is ever applied outside a computer simulation, the world would have to concur with Mr. Putin’s assertion that the collective west is being run by satanists.

Sadly, that realization will have come too late to save humanity.

2017 Deagel.com forecast in which the U.S. is projected to lose two-thirds of its population by 2025; Deagel is a branch of the US military intelligence, preparing briefs for agencies such as the NSA, NATO, UN, and the World Bank. This forecast has been purged after the founder Edwin Deagel passed away in 2021

“There are decades where nothing happens; and then there are weeks where decades happen.” – Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

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

by Michel Chossudovsky

Available to order from Global Research! 

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

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

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

Reviews

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

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

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

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Why would anyone be opposed to water fluoridation? Doesn’t fluoride occur in the water naturally anyway?

The fluoride products used in water fluoridation (sodium fluoride or fluorosilicic acid) are classified as hazardous waste products of the fertilizer, aluminum, and nuclear industries. They are even more toxic than naturally-occurring fluoride, since they contain other components, such as arsenic, lead, barium, and/or aluminum. See this.

However, even naturally-occurring fluoride, in areas with high concentrations (over 1 ppm) has been found to have extremely adverse health effects. Even before additional fluoride is added, the level of natural fluoride in the water in many areas in the U.S. is already equal to the amount of naturally-occurring fluoride that has been found to cause skeletal fluorosis in other countries.

Studies done in India and China found skeletal fluorosis in areas containing naturally occurring fluoride as low as .7 ppm. (Gupta et al 2007, Skeletal fluorosis mimicking seronegative arthritis. Scandanavian Journal of Rheumatology 36(2):154–5.) That same amount, .7 pmm is the current amount recommended by the CDC to be added to community water supplies.

In addition to the natural fluoride in groundwater, most people are exposed to multiple sources of fluoride (pesticides in wine and food, tea, some ceramics, anti-depressants, antibiotics, pollution from manufacturing, soft drinks, Teflon pans, waterproof items, dental gels, mouthwash,  toothpaste etc.). They presumably are being exposed to well over the equivalent of 1 ppm before any fluoride is added to the water, however no industry or government testing has ever been done to find out how much fluoride the public is absorbing from all sources. This massive exposure to fluoride did not exist in the 1950’s, when fluoride was first introduced.

Don’t all advanced countries fluoridate their water? And hasn’t it been proven that countries that do fluoridate their water have better dental health than countries that don’t?

No. Fluoridation has been almost completely abolished in Europe. You can read statements from government officials in those countries about why they don’t add fluoridation chemicals to water here.

Statistics gathered by the World Health Organization do not show any difference in rates of dental caries in fluoridated vs. non fluoridated countries. (WHO Collaborating Center for Education, Training, and Research in Oral Health, Malmo Univ., Sweden, 2012.) Where fluoridation has been discontinued in communities like Canada, the former East Germany, Cuba and Finland, dental decay has not increased but rather has continued to decrease (Maupomé 2001; Kunzel & Fischer, 1997; Kunzel 2000; Seppa 2000).

In the U.S., the state of Kentucky, which has been fluoridating the longest, and has achieved almost complete fluoridation of its water supply, has the worst dental health of any state in the country. From an article appearing in the Lexington Herald Leader (10/14/09): “Governor Beshear said Kentucky led the nation in 2004 in terms of the number of people age 65 or older who had lost teeth. About 27 percent of Kentuckians of all ages had lost six or more teeth to decay or gum disease, compared with 18 percent in the rest of the nation.”

Yet, ‘In 2004, 99.6% of Kentucky’s public water systems were providing fluoridated water to their customers. This ranked Kentucky first among all states.” (Kentucky Epidemiologic Notes and Reports, Vol. 40. №8, Dept. of Public Health.)

Similar results were reported in Texas: “After 9 years and $3 million of adding fluoride, research shows tooth decay hasn’t dropped among the poorest of Bexar County’s children, it has only increased — up 13 percent this year.” (Conger J., 2011, San Antonio: Added to our drinking water: a chemical ‘more toxic than lead? ’KENS 5 News.)

A study of children in Canada comparing fluoridated vs. non-fluoridated communities showed dental caries decreased in non-fluoridated areas, stayed the same in fluoridated communities. See this.

Levels of tooth decay continued to decrease after Cuba ended fluoridation, see this.

These studies found no increase in tooth decay after fluoride was discontinued: Nature, British Medical Journal

In all countries listed in the links below, as in the U.S., dental disease continued to decline, whether or not the countries were fluoridated. These non-fluoridated countries had rates of dental problems lower than the U.S.—The Netherlands, the UK (10% of the country is fluoridated), Belgium, Sweden, Switzerland. These non-fluoridated countries had rates that were about the same as the US—Italy, Finland, Iceland, France. See this and this.

For the best article analyzing the research on fluoridation worldwide, see the article by John Colquhoun, DDS, Phd (former Chief Dental Officer of Auckland, NZ): Why I changed my mind about water fluoridation (Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 41 29–44 1997, University of Chicago Press). Colquhoun studied the effects of fluoridation around the world, with the intention of proving how beneficial it was, but discovered, to his astonishment, that people in countries using fluoridation had the worst teeth. He then began crusading to put an end to the practice. See this.

Since 2010, over 240 communities in North America have abolished (or voted to prevent) the practice of fluoridation.  (See www.fluoridealert.org for a constantly updated list).

Where did the idea of fluoridating the water come from?

Industrialists in the aluminum and nuclear industries were under fire because of the harmful effects of the fluoride waste products being emitted from their plants — animals and people were being sickened for miles around. See this.

They hired Edward Bernays, who was the inventor of mass public relations campaigns (Bernays also happened to be the nephew of Sigmund Freud) to convince the American people that putting toxic waste in our water supply was good for us.

Bernays had organized a successful campaign, on behalf of Lucky Strike cigarettes, to convince American women that smoking was both glamorous and liberating. He hired models to pose as debutantes in a march for women’s rights. When Bernays gave the signal, all the women lit up their cigarettes. Another successful propaganda campaign that he orchestrated was the overthrow of a democratically-elected government in Guatemala on behalf of United Fruit. The Nazis studied and made use of Bernays’ techniques for their propaganda programs. (A more in-depth discussion of Bernays’ role in the campaign to convince the public to accept fluoridation can be found in the video “The Fluoride Deception” at youtube.com, and the book with the same name by Christopher Bryson, Seven Stories Press).

For information describing the origin of water fluoridation as a way of disposing of industrial waste, see this.

OK, so maybe fluoridation hasn’t been proven to be effective in improving dental health, and its origins are sketchy, but what harm can it do to add it to our water supply?

First there is the cost factor. At a time when there is not enough money for schools, dental treatment for kids, support for the homeless and other basic community services, counties are spending millions of dollars to fluoridate the water. Even worse, fluoridation has been associated with increased rates of bone cancer, cardiac problems, diabetes, immune disorders, damage to the thyroid, increased bone fractures, hyperactivity, neurotoxicity, and decreased IQ:

Study showing higher rates of bone cancer in male children exposed to higher levels of fluoride, see this.

Study showing higher rate of bone fractures in women living in high fluoride areas compared to low fluoride areas. See this.

Study showing increased hyperactivity in children in fluoridated vs. non-fluoridated areas: see this.

Harvard meta-study showing significantly lower IQ in children living in high fluoride areas as opposed to low fluoride areas in China.

NIH/EPA study finding significantly lower IQ in children of mothers exposed to higher levels of fluoride.

Survey of scientific literature indicated a causal connection between fluoridation and bone damage (fluorosis, bone cancer, skeletal fluorosis). See this.

UK study which found the rate of hypothyroidism was double the rate in a fluoridated city as compared to  non-fluoridated city. See this.

Study finding patients with kidney problems cannot properly excrete fluoride. See this.

This comprehensive review of the medical literature (including documentation) indicates a long list of harmful health effects of fluoride and discussion of ethical concerns regarding its use. See this.

In 2016, a number of health, consumer, and environmental organizations (including Fluoride Action Network and Food and Water Watch) petitioned the EPA under the Toxic Substances Control Act, to eliminate fluoridation in drinking water due its neurotoxic effects at the level currently designated as safe by the U.S. government.  The petition identified 76 (out of a total of 85) human studies that found an association between cognitive decline and higher levels of fluoride in the water supply.

After the EPA rejected their petition, the groups sued the EPA in federal court in 2017.  A seven day trial was held in 2020, but the court has yet to issue a decision, as of Oct. 2022.  The next hearing on the case, after much re-scheduling, is scheduled for Oct. 26, 2022 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.  You can find a list of all the studies showing neurotoxic effects, and the groups’ arguments—that adding fluoridation chemicals to our water must be discontinued—here.

While adding hazardous waste to our water is not beneficial to anyone, it is particularly harmful to people with kidney disease (who can’t excrete it properly), infants (when mixed with formula it far exceeds the safe amount of fluoride), farmworkers (already exposed to fluoride in pesticides), tea drinkers, people taking anti-depressants, people with low thyroid, industrial workers who are exposed to high levels of fluoride at work, and those who have chemical sensitivities. Also adversely affected are people who drink lots of water such as diabetics, athletes, and manual laborers.  The Environmental Working Group has gone on record as opposing fluoridation as unsafe for many population groups. See this.

In addition to the previously listed ailments, fluoride in the water supply can cause a disfiguring condition called fluorosis or mottling of the teeth. Because black and Hispanic children are more susceptible to fluorosis, some civil rights organizations and leaders have come out against the practice.

On July 1, 2011, The League of Latin American Citizens, the largest Hispanic organization in the U.S. passed a resolution strongly opposing the practice of fluoridating water supplies, in part because of the disproportionate harmful effects on Hispanic members of the community. See this.

Numerous studies, including a national survey by the CDC, have found that black children suffer significantly higher rates of dental fluorosis than white children. (Martinez-Mier 2010; Beltran-Aguilar 2005; Kumar 2000, 1999; Williams 1990; Butler 1985; Russell 1962).

Not only do black children suffer higher rates of fluorosis, they suffer the most severe forms of the condition, which are marked by dark brown staining and deterioration of the enamel. Black civil rights leaders in Georgia campaigned against water fluoridation due its harmful effects on black children. (See Letter from Andrew Young to Chip Rogers, Senate Majority Leader, Georgia State Capitol, March 29, 2011.)

The Journal of the American Dental Association noted increased detrimental effects of fluoridation on low-income and/or malnourished children. See this.

Shouldn’t we leave it to the experts? Don’t they support water fluoridation?

Experts in many countries around the world concluded that the practice is harmful and supported its elimination. When the top water toxicologist in the Environmental Protection Agency, William Marcus, disclosed that the reports showing the safety of fluoridation had been doctored to hide its harmful effects, he was immediately fired. A judge later ordered him to be reinstated, since there was no basis for the firing other than his refusal to hide the facts.

Marcus’ union, which represents 1500 scientists and professionals who work for the EPA, came out with a strong position against fluoride as well, as have numerous other leading scientific, medical, judicial, and government experts. The story of William Marcus’ firing from, and re-instatement to, the EPA is documented in the movie “Fluoridegate,” which includes video interviews with him (available on youtube).

In Sept. 2017, an NIH/EPA 12-year study was released which validated the findings of previous human studies concerning the effects of fluoridation on children’s IQ.  This study found that when the exposure was prenatal, even very low doses of fluoride (e.g. that found in “optimally fluoridated communities”) resulted in lowered IQ.  (Bashash et al 2017).

Although dentists have been slow to keep up with the research on harmful effects of fluoridation, in 2017 the US-based International Association of Oral Medicine and Toxicology came out with a position opposing water fluoridation, with included 500 citations.  Their position paper has quotes from a long list of experts which discuss the dangers of fluoridation.  https://files.iaomt.org/wp-content/uploads/Fluoride-Position-Paper-Slideshow-Summary.pdf

It’s not like fluoride is actually poisonous is it?

The FDA requires a warning on all tubes of fluoride toothpaste — to immediately call Poison Control — in the event even a small amount of FL is swallowed. Fluoride is one of the main poisonous ingredients in Sarin nerve gas. See this.

According to the Material Safety Data Sheet for Mallinkrodt Chemicals, sodium fluoride is classified under “extreme danger,” and can be fatal if ingested.

Bizarrely, bottled “Nursery Water” for babies, which was being sold in grocery stores everywhere, has sodium fluoride added. Even the proponents of fluoridation acknowledge that it is toxic to give babies infant formula that has been mixed with fluoridated water.  See, for example, the Journal of American Dental Association recommendation to not use fluoridated water for infants receiving formula. See this.

The state of New Hampshire is unusual in that it specifically requires warnings about mixing fluoridated water with infant formula to be included in every water department statement sent to customers. In the unlikely event that all mothers nationwide were to be educated about the danger of giving fluoridated tap water mixed with formula to their babies, and they were able to afford buying cases of bottled water, this would add greatly to environmental pollution as a result of all the plastic being discarded in the landfill.

Until fluoridation of the water supply was introduced, the main use for fluoride was as a rat poison.

What was the “Halloween Death Smog Disaster”?

During the Halloween weekend in 1948, twenty people in and around Donora, PA died, and an estimated 6,000 were sickened, as a result of an accidental release of fumes from the Donora Zinc works. As Christopher Bryson describes in his book “The Fluoride Deception,” independent scientists who investigated concluded that fluoride emissions were the cause of the deaths. An almost identical industrial accident occurred in the Meuse Valley in Belgium, where 63 people died after a high release of fluoride emissions.

A Public Health Service report — heavily influenced by industry and cold war government leaders, who required the products of fluoride-producing industrial and nuclear plants — concluded that the deaths in Donora had been caused by the weather. The families of the dead were compensated less than $3000 each by U.S. Steel, the owner of the zinc plant, which did not admit any responsibility for the injuries and fatalities.

The head of the Public Health Service, Oscar Ewing, was a former lawyer for Alcoa Aluminum, an industry that would greatly profit as a result of selling its toxic waste for purposes of community fluoridation. It was he who wrote the introduction to the PHS report on Donora that attributed the deaths to weather conditions. Ewing announced nine months after the deadly disaster that the Public Health Service was reversing a long-held position and now was supporting adding fluoride to drinking water across the U.S.

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This article was originally published on Dissident Voice.

Jenny Miller is an activist and writer who lives in Northern CA. She has worked as a lobbyist, patient advocate, legislative assistant, editor, and dog walker.

Featured image is from EWG

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By 1995 it had become clear that the (Western) international community’s experiment with multilateralism was under serious threat and, in fact, it failed in many cases like Rwanda, ex-Yugoslavia, Cyprus, etc. Nevertheless, continuing problems in different parts of the globe have meant that the OUN has had to remain committed to alleviating some of the worst atrocities. Nonetheless, before the US/UK military intervention in Afghanistan in 2001, there was a growing belief that there were too few humanitarian interventions. However, the failure to prevent atrocities in Rwanda and ex-Yugoslavia served as a stain on the conscience of many in the international community – since then there has been the perception that there have been too many humanitarian interventions because of the controversial wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq were justified at least in part on humanitarian grounds.  

Simultaneously with the ongoing Rwandan genocide in 1994, the Tutsi RPF (Rwandan Patriotic Front) invaded Rwanda from Uganda and Burundi, occupied the capital Kigali, set up a new Government, and then chased the Hutu militias out of Rwanda. On assuming power in Rwanda, the RPF, led by the Tutsi Paul Kagame, intensified a program of widespread retribution killings of Hutu. Nevertheless, the Hutus have been in any case so terrified of what the Tutsi would do to them that they fled in the millions to neighboring Tanzania, Uganda, and particularly Zaire.

It is estimated that some up to 1.5 million Hutu civilians, plus the more or less intact civilian Government and army structure, including many of the most radical organizers of the Rwandan genocide, fled to East Zaire taking refuge status while as many as a million Hutus did the same in Tanzania. However, the refugee camps in Zaire soon have been turned into the centers of Hutu governance and anti-Tutsi political ambitions. Nevertheless, the horrors of the Tutsi-Hutu Rwandan civil war have continued for many years in East Zaire/Congo, complicated by underdevelopment, the lure of mineral wealth, territorial ambitions of the Rwandan Government, and the ineffectiveness of both Congolese authorities and the international community.

The Western international and external factors created chaos in Africa after the end of the Cold War 1.0 without seeing that, in many cases, African people must be held accountable for their lives on the continent. Whether it is genocide, enslavement, abuse of women, or political corruption, not only Africans but the international community in general and the Great Powers, in particular, must be in a position to prevent the crime like in Rwanda in 1994. The Rwandan genocide stands out as historically significant not only because of the huge number of killed civilians who were exterminated during only of hundred days but as well as because of the way both America and Europe responded to the atrocities. Despite the intelligence provided before the genocide started, and international news media coverage reflecting the true scale of violence as the genocide unfolded, unfortunately, all Western Governments refused to intervene. The OUN itself refused to allow its peacekeeping operation in Rwanda, under Canadian General Roméo Dallaire, to take positive and useful action to stop the killing. Further, there were bitter recriminations and enough blame to go around in the world for allowing the murders to continue.

Later, US President Bill Clinton went to Rwanda and apologized for the inaction of the US authorities during the genocide calling the failure to intervene in Rwanda the greatest regret of his presidency (the bombing of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1999 was probably for him his greatest success being in office). Following the Rwandan genocide and once the Tutsi RPF had gained control of most of the country, the French established a “safe zone” for Hutu refugees to flee to (Operation Turquoise).

Only by mid-July, over a million Hutus had fled to squalid camps in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (at that time Zaire). There, Hutu militias took control of the camps and launched attacks into Rwanda, and, therefore making it impossible for civilians (refugees) to return home. In the autumn of 1996, Tutsi-led Rwandan armed forces invaded several camps, forcing Hutu refugees either home or deeper into the Democratic Republic of the Congo and routing the Hutu militias that fled further westward into jungles. Consequently, the Hutu-Tutsi civil war became linked to politics in Zaire, which had been disintegrating politically and economically since the early 1990s and where dissatisfaction with long-time dictator Mobutu Sese Seko had grown.

Tutsi-related ethnic groups in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (Zaire), aided by the Rwandan Government, clashed with elements of Zaire’s army that tried to force them out of the country. By late October 1996, anti-Mobutu forces had formed under the command of Mobutu’s long-time foe, Laurent-Désiré Kabila whose rebels, aided by several African states and the USA, all angered by Mobutu’s support of rebels in their countries, started to move against him.

All of them have been seeking influence in Zaire with the intention to share Zaire’s natural resources, especially diamonds, timber, and tantalum – a metal that is vital in making cell (mobile) phones. East Zaire fell into rebel hands quickly. The Government of Zaire in the capital Kinshasa, long unable to exercise authority over both its own forces and the country’s huge hinterland, became no longer able to exercise sovereignty. By the spring of 1997, all Zaire’s major cities had fallen to Kabila’s forces while Mobutu fled, and Kabila declared himself president. In this year, Zaire became renamed the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

However, Kabila himself soon lost popularity owing to his authoritarian rule. He alienated his Rwandan and Ugandan allies by turning against them and Congo’s Tutsis as he sought to shore up his support among the Congolese. In mid-1998, Tutsis, aided by Rwanda and Uganda, moved against Kabila in a reply to what had happened two years earlier. Kabila, in turn, was aided by Angola, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Chad, and Sudan. Therefore, the initial conflict in which Rwandan militias of both Hutus and Tutsis had a significant impact had become a genuinely transnational war in which between 1998 and 2008, about seven million people died. Consequently, state failure has had tragic consequences, giving rise to bloody violence against civilians in front of the eyes of the (Western) international community which did simply nothing to stop the violence and mass killings of the civilians.

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Dr. Vladislav B. Sotirović is a Former university professor in Vilnius, Lithuania. He is a Research Fellow at the Center for Geostrategic Studies. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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Following the collapse of the USSR, a new wave of democratic change blew all over Africa. Old ideological friends of the Soviet Union changed camps in line with the changing political dynamics. Party models became transformed from single party to multiparty systems in Africa.

Interestingly, ideologues became transformed in favour of the capitalist-democratic model. The United States sub-committee on Foreign Relations in March 1998 commended Laurent Kabila of Democratic Republic of Congo, Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, Paul Kagame of Rwanda, Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia and Isaiah Afwerke of Eritrea as examples of the power of democracy in Africa. Incidentally, relations with Russia’s traditional friends and those with which it had diplomatic ties were at its lowest ebb. Many Russian missions in Africa were closed down; those unclosed were severely pruned down.

ln the case of Angola, for instance, where the USSR had made tremendous financial, material, technical and military investments, the Soviet-backed Cuban military and technical personnel were all withdrawn at short notice. Demand was made for the repayment of debts owed to Russia by African countries, including her traditional partners, at a seemingly odd time when Africa’s debt burden was unbearable. These measures facilitated a new romance between Africa and western partners the latter of which were all too eager to entrench themselves in the vacuum left behind by Soviet Union.

Old Music, New Dance

There are at least two specific commendable initiatives towards Africa designed by the government of H.E President Vladimir Putin to re-launch Russia into Africa’s geopolitical space. These initiatives, in my view, tally with the personality of H.E President Vladimir Putin who, as an agent of the former KGB (now FSB), saw the collapse of the Soviet Union as “the major geopolitical catastrophe of the century”. In this sense, a new partnership with Africa could be defined not in terms of ideology but by alternative economic and developmental options which give Africa competitive parity.

The two initiatives are: H.E President Vladimir Putin’s debt cancellation of twenty billion dollars ($20 billion) owed to Russia by African countries which, in his very own word “was not only a mark of generosity but also a manifestation of pragmatism”. In 2019, Russia held the first ever “Russia-Africa Summit” in Sochi in which it committed $12.5 billion in business deals, mainly in Arms and grains.

Analysts may be quick to interpret this as the usual trend, more in the fashion of United States-Africa, China-Africa, Japan-Africa, France-Africa summits, etc; but as observed by Landry Signé between 2005 and 2015, Africa’s trade with Russia grew by 185% a “reawakening” which commenced since 2000s.

Though this trade surge is worthy of note; the volume of trade between Russia and Africa was $14.5billion per annum in 2020. This figure however pales into insignificance when compared with China whose trade with Africa has attained the $165billion per annum during the same period and $254billion in 2021 even with its late-comer status in Africa. This is to say that the doubling of trade relations within the next five years between Africa and Russia as stated by Vladimir Putin in 2019 in Sochi is not only a vision in the right direction of growing Russia’s partnership with Africa, it is also a desirable imperative.

As argued by Emman El-Badawy in the article ‘Security, Soft Power and Regime Support: Spheres of Russian Influence in Africa,’ “two distinct, now common explanations, have emerged to explain Russia’s growing interest in Africa. The first argues that Russia is intent on rekindling old Soviet-era ties to the continent to extract resources in return for security assistance – a mutually beneficial yet opportunistic strategy that is, short term and transactional…

The alternative suggests that Putin considers Africa a so-called second frontier, after Eastern Europe for encircling Western Europe…” These reasons may sound strategic yet they remain largely speculative and conjectural. Understandably, the perceived geopolitical irrelevance of Africa by Russia has changed and new dynamics have beckoned on both sides of subsisting opportunities for increased collaboration between Africa and Russia. One clear thing therefore is that Africa-Russia relations are on the ascendancy again after the post-Soviet era of passivity and inaction.

Between 2015 and 2019, a total of 20 bilateral military cooperation agreements were signed between Russia and African states. Many Russian companies such as Lukoil, Gasprom, Rosatom and Restec are some of Russia’s energy and power industry which are actively engaged in Nigeria, Egypt, Angola, Algeria and Ethiopia. Here, it must be stressed that in 2018, “Nigerian oil and gas Exploration Company Oranto Petroleum announced that it would be cooperating with Russia’s largest oil producer, Rosneft to develop 21 oil assets across 17 African countries.”

Unfortunately, this has not materialized due to Rosneft’s lack of interest in doing business in Africa. Additionally, Russian Rosatom has signed nuclear energy agreements with 18 African countries including Nigeria, Egypt, Ethiopia and Rwanda to address the power needs of those countries.

In summarizing the Russian strategic policy interest in Africa and given the strong limitation of its current capability, according to Paul Stronski, one time Senior Analyst for Russian domestic politics for U.S State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research, “in many respects, Russia’s reemergence in Africa, is an earnest attempt to resume relations where they were left when the Soviet Union departed the scene.”

Continuing, Paul Stronski further argues that “the Horn of Africa represents an opportunity for Russia to secure a springboard for projecting power into the Red Sea, Gulf of Aden and the Persian Gulf. In sub-Saharan Africa, its priority is on exploiting new commercial opportunities and securing diplomatic support for its positions in multilateral institutions.”

The visible signs of Russian activities in Central African Republic, Mali, Libya and Angola lend incredulity to Stronki’s assertion judging from the concrete deliverables so far enjoyed from Africa-Russia relationships. For instance, when United States was unwilling to supply Nigeria arms in 2014 to execute the war against Boko Haram because of allegation of human rights violation, Nigeria was able to place an order for 12 attack helicopters from Russia. To my Russian friends, I say thank you. Thank you on behalf of H.E Muhammadu Buhari whom I represent. Thank you on behalf of the Nigerian people whom it is my privilege to serve in Russia.

Africa and Neo-Colonialism

Africa may have divested itself majorly from the vestiges of colonial bondage, yet the yoke of neocolonialism continues to bring new challenging shackles which erode the gains of Africa’s independence. As observed by Charles McKelvey (2017), the new struggle is characterized by “core peripheral economic relations that in essence is a continuation of the economic relations imposed by conquest and force during the colonial era… it is a rule through a figure-head bourgeoisie that inserts itself into the structures of economic penetration and exploitation benefiting itself at the expense of the majority of the people in the nation. It finds expression in economic and cultural imperialism, in conditional aid designed to exert influence or indirect control.”

Although Africa is not alone in this new malaise, its emphatic vulnerability is more reflected in Africa by the weaknesses of its institutions and the pervasive invasion of the world order that keeps it in perpetual economic subjugation to the global north. One of the famous speeches of Julius Nyerere, the former President of Tanzania on “Ujamaa” aptly captures this situation when he said that before independence, fifteen tons of our maize could buy us a car, today, we have to produce twenty-five tons of maize to buy the same brand of car.

It is in the light of the foregoing that an international trading system that guarantees equity and fairness needs to be revisited and renegotiated. In this context, I commend the shift of BRICS in its new method of doing business. This is just a beginning and not an end in the long and tortuous road to the route along which a new world order that will be based on equity, fairness and justice will go. There is no doubt that, that long road towards a desired equitable world order of which only a step has been taken by BRICS, will have series of dangerous rivers to cross in its journey to maturation. The visibility of and the potent challenge against the current world order by BRICS is indicative of the order’s waning influence and its global loss of appeal.

Understanding The Realities

Despite the tidal surge in the new Africa-Russia relations and given the strategic role played by the defunct Soviet Union, now succeeded by Russia, in the attainment of the independence of many African countries, both parties must accept the constraints posed on the former (Russia) by the new economic cum geopolitical realities. The acceptance of these new realities is important in order to properly assist in the management of Africa’s expectations from Russia particularly in the short term.

The first reality is that though Russia is the successor to the defunct Soviet Union, it is not a substitute for the latter, economically, materially, geopolitically and financially. Africa’s mindset must therefore change from that of aid-recipient nations to the one of competitive trading nations in which there must be value addition to its primary products.

Next, is that, as demonstrated in the recent sanctions imposed on Russia by the West, Africa holds a good prospect for the viability and profitability of Russian manufacturing companies desirous of relocating to Africa in order to capitalize on the advantage of cheap African labour. If the west is declaring fortunes as profits in Africa, Russian companies can also do so only if they agree and are willing to venture out. The booming young population of Africa and its vast reserve of natural and mineral resources provide the catalytic appeal for such profitable venture.

Arms Sales and African Security

A very important component in Russia-Africa relations is the supply of military equipment such as battle tanks, warships, fighter aircraft and combat helicopters. Others are small arms such as pistols and assault rifles like Kalshnikov AK-200 series. Russian soaring arms interest in Africa can briefly be summarized as follows: arms export from Russia to Africa, contributes about 35% of global arms export to the African region while China accounted for 17%. Others are United States (9.6%) and France (6.9%).

This increasing export of arms to the African continent by Russia could, however, in a sense, exacerbate insecurity and instability, as well as escalate the level of crimes and the proclivity to criminality. It is therefore in the strategic interest of Russia to critically be selective in its arms sales to African countries. Of particular worry and strategic concern to Africa is the “deployment of private Russian mercenary groups” as well as other private military groups in countries like Libya, Sudan, Mozambique and CAR. As noted by Paul Stronski, “guns have opened many more doors for the Kremlin in Africa than butter.”

Support for Africa’s democratic institutions and agencies will lead to a more stable Africa which is in Russia’s own overall long-term interest and positive image than immediate short term economic and financial gain.

Changing the Narratives

Although Russia, through the defunct Soviet Union, has had long-standing warm relations with Africa, particularly during the cold war era, today’s realities offer long-term opportunities which can be explored and exploited by both sides to advantage. An example is that with Africa’s bourgeoning young population and the increasing quality of that population through education, the exportation of Africa’s raw materials to Europe and by extension Russia is no longer a feasible and sustainable trajectory in any meaningful Africa-Russian long-term relations. As a viable alternative and sustainable option, I foresee an Africa which will demand more of Russian direct engagement in the extractive and manufacturing sectors.

Today, for instance, Nigeria offers Russia the advantage of that cheap and robust labour. Given Russia’s recent experience of sanctions by America and its western allies, a new model of doing business with Africa through investment has become, not only sustainable but also imperative. Perhaps, one of the sectors where this model of doing business can be symbiotically harnessed is in the field of agriculture and its value chain as a result of the steep rise in the large African market and the projected certainty of huge returns on investment in this sector.

Africa holds a sizeable amount of the world natural resources. However, as noted by Jideofor Adibe, “Russia – just like other major powers – also covets many of Africa’s raw materials and is creating joint projects and investments in order to access them. From the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the Central African Republic, Russian companies are scaling up their activities in the mining of resources such as coltan, cobalt, gold and diamonds.

In Zimbabwe, for instance, a joint venture between Russia’s JSC Afromet and Zimbabwe’s Pen East Ltd is developing one of the world’s largest deposits of platinum group metal”. Such example of Russia’s visibility in the collaboration and the exploitation of African natural resources can be extended to the development of vast mineral deposits in, for example, Nigeria. In this connection, contacts have been initiated with the Hon. Minister for Solid Mineral Development of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to initiate business with JSC Afromet so as to jointly explore and exploit the comparative advantage which Nigeria enjoys in its solid minerals.

Given the challenges which most African countries face in providing adequate power and energy, the number of Memoranda of Understanding (MOU) that Rosatom, Russia’s nuclear power company, has signed with at least fourteen African countries is welcoming news. What will be more significant, however, is the extent of the implementation of the MOUs since, by their very nature, the construction and operation of nuclear plants are ventures with prospects for deepening long-term relationship.

Recommendations for Future

The rapid intervention of Russian SPUTNIK V Vaccine in Africa during the severe COVID 19 period was a magnificent show of solidarity with Africa and its people and thus demonstrates the importance of such collaboration and partnership in the face of future pandemic or calamity. Nigeria, for example, remains ever prepared to collaborate with Russia to deepen scientific knowledge in the areas of research on pandemics, such as we have in COVID 19.

Although there is no doubt that Africa has benefitted immensely from its collaboration with Russia, politically, educationally, militarily, financially and security-wise, yet, much circumspection and delicate balancing needs to be done by Russia between its commercial interests of arms exports to Africa and the latter’s security concerns. Africa’s long-term sustainability, stability and development, are in the overall interest of both parties and the fulcrum of their relations. Nigeria, nevertheless, remains eternally grateful for Russia’s arms assistance whenever its sovereignty was challenged and Russia was called to come to its assistance.

Nigeria offers Russia the economic advantage of “produce in Africa and export elsewhere.” Such a model was effectively used by United States of America in China. For example, imagine how many Russian pharmaceutical companies Nigeria can cheaply and conveniently service with starch as the world largest producer of cassava, the derivative of which is starch?

Part of Africa’s inability to optimize its economic opportunities is as a result of low energy and power. The subsisting contracts signed between Russian energy and power companies such as Lukoil, Gazprom, Rosatom and Restec and Nigeria, Egypt, Angola, Algeria and Ethiopia etc to help solve the power needs in Africa are steps in the right direction. Similarly, Rosneft agreement with Nigerian oil and gas Exploration Company Oranto Petroleum to develop 21 oil assets across 17 African countries should now move beyond agreement into concrete deliverables. Furthermore, Rosatom’s nuclear energy agreements with 18 African countries, including Nigeria, Egypt, Ethiopia and Rwanda to address their energy and power concerns should be transformed into measurable results.

Additionally, the establishment of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), which is the largest of its kind in the world, provides Africa the unique opportunity of intra African trade and hence, empowers Africa’s own capacities and investments. In this respect, there has been increased agreement by African leaders for a common African currency so as to protect Africa from the associated shocks due to the vulnerabilities of commodity prices. Such common currency will give Africa better voice in international trade and will significantly enhance Africa-Russia trade, as well as global competitiveness for foreign investment.

Meanwhile, according to the World Bank projection, by 2050, Nigeria’s population will be about 400 million making it the third world’s largest. Such a huge market provides sufficient grounds now for strong and strategic partnership to meet the beneficial ends of Africa and Russia. A further step in this partnership could be the gravitation from BRICS to perhaps a larger partnership that includes Nigeria – BRINCS.

Africa has remained, for too long, an inconsequential pawn on the chessboard of political-power play where the wishes and aspirations of the African people hardly mattered. Like other regions of the world, Africa’s wishes and desires, expressed in the choice of its leaders through free, fair and credible-election processes remain sacrosanct. Imposition, super-imposition or subversion of this order, challenges the sovereignties of member nations, undermines its people and questions the commonality of our shared humanity.

It is in this context that Africa and indeed Nigeria desires to assiduously walk and work with the Russian Federation toward the realization of this noble objective of fairly, equitably and creditably electing, (not selecting) Africa’s leaders in accordance with the aspiration of the African people. This is going to be a long walk and a hard work in which Africa will be at the vanguard or driver’s seat, conscious that on its own hands, lies its destiny.

Africa is aware of the inextricable correlation between bad leadership and poverty. Undoubtedly, therefore, many elected African leaders have failed the litmus test of good governance through their primitive accumulation of illegal state wealth, by evidential demonstration of corruption, nepotism, ethnicism and tribalism. They have, by doing so, thwarted the critical aspirations of the African people by bequeathing unto them abject poverty and hopelessness.

Yet, the cherished values of the democratic principles under which those leaders were elected, provides for the method of their removal from office. In Nigeria, for example, the government of Goodluck Jonathan was voted out of power after a term in office despite his incumbency. Furthermore, the fact that some countries in Africa have recorded certain democratic successes translates to the fact that Africa’s problem is not the system but the operators of the system.

It is therefore hoped that Russia along with other powerful actors in the continent will continue to respect the integrity and sacrosanct nature of Africa’s political-leadership recruitment and change processes. Such respect provides the solid foundation on which the future stability, progress and development of Africa will be anchored. It also helps to build up the accumulated reservoir of the body of knowledge so required in Africa’s leadership recruitment process and electoral change.

In conclusion, I have attempted to summarize the context and content that shape Africa-Russia Relations. In that context and content, I have discussed Africa’s resonating past, the struggle against colonialism, the independence of African nations and the role of the then Soviet Union and, by extension, Russia, in that struggle as well as the subtle emergence of neocolonialism of the global north against the south. Part of the major essence of this lecture was to look at the past with a view to charting a course for the future, inhaling the fresh aroma of the beauty of the ‘rose’ in Africa-Russia relationship, weeding out the thorns of inconvenience on which Africa and Russia have marched and straighten any crooked path along which both have passed so as to arrive faster to the desired destination.

Doing so calls for an atmosphere of cordiality and frankness, commitment and re-dedication. Africa-Russia relation has been a warm one with Russia offering Africa a lot of assistance often, on ideological basis, during Africa’s decolonization struggle. The immediate post-Soviet era marked a period of aloofness and indifference to Africa. However, the ascendancy of Africa to relevance marked by the competition for Africa’s resources in what has been described as the “New Scramble” for Africa, has launched Russia as an indispensable part of Africa’s developmental equation.

While Africa cherishes the important MOUs and agreements Russia has with Africa through ROSATOM, GAZPROM, ROSNEFT, etc, there is need to translate such agreements and MOUs into concrete realities. Additionally, balancing of Russia’s commercial interests of arms sales to Africa will ensure that the latter enjoys relative stability and peace so vital for its own development.

Equally important, is that the constitutions of African countries remain sacrosanct with respect to the political-leadership recruitment process. The constitutions of member states of Africa also specify the methods of leadership change rather than create leaders in perpetuity. Respect for the constitutions of African countries provides the basis for leadership legitimacy and the foundation for enduring democracy and hope in institutions and authority.

It is important to end with a quote from Joseph Siegle, the Director of Research, African Centre for Strategic Studies, “building more mutually beneficial Africa relations depends on changes in both substance and process. Such a shift would require Russia to establish more conventional bilateral engagements with African institutions and not individuals. These initiatives would focus on strengthening trade, investment, technology transfer and educational exchanges. If transparently negotiated and equitably implemented, such Russian initiatives would be welcomed by many Africans.”

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Professor Abdullahi Shehu, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to the Russian Federation with concurrent accreditation to the Republic of Belarus.

Featured image is from the author

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***

Canadian liberal Prime-Minister Justin Trudeau surprised many with his ruthless suppression of the truckers protest in Ottawa last winter. But anyone who was surprised just hasn’t been paying attention.

Canada’s Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (2015-present) gained notoriety last year for activating the Emergencies Act for the very first time in Canadian history, which suspended the civil rights of the protesters and gave federal law enforcement the right to seize their bank accounts without a court order.

Trudeau’s conduct vis-à-vis the truckers unfortunately was not out of character for a man who has been called “Canada’s Barack Obama—meaning a vapid neoliberal politician who promotes a hollow identity politics that masks a fealty to corporate interests and support for imperial interventions across the globe.

While claiming to be advancing a “feminist foreign policy,” Trudeau supported misogynistic dictatorships in the Middle East, including Saudi Arabia to whom the Liberal government sold $14 billion in light armored vehicles.

In his first five years in office, Trudeau raised Canada’s military budget by $62 billion—with a pledge to increase military spending by 70% over a decade.

The 2022 budget provided an additional $8 billion in defense spending, and Trudeau has announced plans to spend $40 billion over the next two decades on upgrading the North American Aerospace Defence (NORAD) bilateral command with the U.S., which is seen as critical for waging war with Russia and China.

The modernization plans will facilitate Canada’s participation in the U.S. ballistic missile defense shield, which in spite of its name is aimed at making a nuclear war waged by U.S. imperialism “winnable.”

Trudeau is particularly subservient to Canadian mining interests, which operate about 4,000 mineral projects abroad that routinely destroy farmland, harm endangered species, contaminate drinking water, undermine Indigenous self-determination and spur violence and killings in the nearby communities.

Trudeau’s government subsidizes these mining companies, blocked prosecution of a particularly corrupt one [SNC-Lavalin], and waited years to establish an ombudsperson who lacked any power to compel testimony from mining executives.

House of Mirrors

Trudeau’s sorry foreign policy record is laid bare in Yves Engler’s book, House of Mirrors: Justin Trudeau’s Foreign Policy (Montreal: Black Rose Books, 2020).

Engler is known as the Noam Chomsky of Canada. He points out that Trudeau’s government released a defense policy that called for 605 more special forces, and established a plan for Canada’s acquisition of armed drones and for spending more than $100 billion on new fighter jets and ships.

Trudeau’s government meanwhile launched a multi-pronged effort to overthrow Nicolås Maduro’s socialist government in Venezuela, aligning with the most reactionary political forces in South America, targeting Cuba and recognizing Honduras’s narco-dictator Juan Orlando Hernández, who stole elections and is now facing a long prison sentence in the U.S.

Trudeau claimed that Canadian foreign policy was designed to uphold an international rules-based order; however, his administration violated international law by intervening in Syria without UN Security Council or Canadian legislative approval.

The unilateral sanctions that Canada adopted against Venezuela, Russia, Nicaragua and other countries—which had terrible human consequences—violated international law too since they were never legitimized by the World Trade Organization (WTO) or UN Security Council.

Canada’s open interference in Venezuela’s political affairs to recognize an obscure opposition politician, Juan Guaidó, was also illegal—as the UN Charter and Organization of American States (OAS) prohibit interfering in the internal affairs of another state.

Trudeau’s government additionally refused to join 122 countries in outlawing nuclear weapons and refused to ratify the UN’s Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment or Punishment—which would establish regular visits by monitors in places where human rights abuses are known to take place.

Canada under Trudeau’s leadership has further failed to sign a) the American Convention on Human Rights; b) the Basel Ban amendment, which tries to prohibit rich countries from exporting waste to poor countries; and c) the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, which seeks to standardize governance in oil, gas and mining resources.

Chrystia Freeland—Canada’s Hillary

If Trudeau is Canada’s Obama, then Chrystia Freeland is the country’s Hillary Clinton—a female hawk in a high position who is the power behind the throne.

A Harvard graduate and former journalist with the Financial Times, Freeland’s family was tied to the right-wing Ukrainian lobby—her grandfather Michael Chomiak wrote propaganda during World War II for the Nazis.

Freeland was promoted to the position of foreign minister in 2017 in large part because of “her strong U.S. contacts,” according to a declassified document.

In a major foreign policy address in 2017, Freeland said that Canada “required hard power” and a “readiness to fight wars to maintain the North American-led world order.” In the same speech, she praised the U.S.’s “outsized role in world affairs since World War II,” emphasizing that Canada was “grateful, to our neighbor for the outsized role it has played in the world.”

Freeland pushed for a particularly hard-line policy against Russia, accusing Russia baselessly â la Clinton of “meddling” in Canada’s 2019 election.

Calling “Russian military adventurism and expansion clear strategic threats to the liberal democratic world, including Canada,” Freeland rejected calls by Donald Trump to let Russia return to the G-7. She also pushed for sustaining sanctions, and for the expansion of Canada’s military presence on Russia’s doorstep, with the number of Canadian troops in Eastern Europe doubling in 2017.

Canada at the time began sending Canadian naval frigates into the Black Sea and increased its participation in NATO military exercises in countries bordering Russia. It has since sanctioned over 1,400 Russians as part of an economic war on Russia and regime change operation waged by NATO countries led by the U.S.

Super-Hawk on Ukraine

Canada’s role in the 2014 U.S.-backed coup in Ukraine, which triggered the political crisis leading to the current war, was underscored by the fact that opposition protesters backing the coup were camped in the Canadian embassy.

In 2017, Trudeau expanded the mandate of Canada’s military training mission and donated tens of millions of dollars in equipment to the Ukrainian military, which committed massive human rights violations in the Donetsk and Luhansk provinces whose people were demanding greater autonomy.

Justin Trudeau in 2016 photographed with Rada First Vice Chairman Andriy Parubiy on his right. Parubiy had a background with the far right and was accused of praising Adolf Hitler. [Source: ukrweekly.com]

Canada also funded and equipped Ukraine’s National Police, which was infiltrated by neo-Nazis, and trained members of the Azov Battalion.

Canada’s military attaché in Kyiv, Brian Irwin, meeting with members of the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion in 2018. [Source: twitter.com]

Since full-blown war with Russia began in February 2022, Trudeau’s government has secretly dispatched Canadian Special Forces and provided $626 million in military aid to Ukraine, including anti-tank weapons, precision-guided excalibur shells, and drone cameras.

The aid has been justified on the grounds that Ukraine was seemingly “at the forefront of the struggle between democracy and authoritarianism,” as Freeland put it, and that “modern Ukraine is the country where the struggle is ongoing and the future of the rules-based international order and genuine democracy in the world will be determined.”

Chrystia Freeland at “Stand with Ukraine” rally. [Source: cbc.ca]

However, Ukraine was far from a model democracy; the Zelensky government banned eleven opposition parties and ran a Phoenix style assassination program while Ukraine was ranked the most corrupt nation in Europe.

Much of the Canadian equipment going to Ukraine has been funneled through a Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) hub in Prestwick, Scotland, an airport that was once a transfer point for victims of CIA “extraordinary rendition.”

Trudeau recently vowed that Canada would assist Ukraine in “liberating” all its territories, including Crimea, home to Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.

His Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly also provocatively declared Canada’s support for Ukraine joining NATO—when the moment Ukraine joined NATO, it would invariably invoke NATO’s Article 5 under which all member states are obliged to defend any NATO member under attack.

Double Standards on Human Rights—South America

Trudeau’s and Freeland’s double standards on human rights were apparent in South America, where they followed the U.S. lead in characterizing Venezuela’s elected socialist leader, Nicolás Maduro, as a “brutal dictator” while embracing Michel Temer of Brazil who did not have any pretense of electoral legitimacy, Honduras’s narco-dictator, Juan Orlando Hernández, and right-wing oppositionist forces in Venezuela which carried out acts of terrorism.

Colombian President Iván Duque, a right winger who undercut Colombia’s peace accord, was another Trudeau favorite along with Jovenal Moïse, Haiti’s repressive ruler from 2017 to 2021 whom Trudeau’s government supported with police aid—as a reward perhaps for offering Canadian companies lucrative mining concessions.

In Nicaragua, Canada applied sanctions and backed a 2018 coup against Daniel Ortega, a leader of the Sandinista Revolution whose government had improved the people’s quality of life.

In 2019, Trudeau backed another coup in Bolivia against Evo Morales—a socialist who had stood up to foreign mining interests on behalf of Bolivia’s Indigenous population.

Trudeau and Freeland preferred Jeanine Áñez, a right-wing Christian fundamentalist who ordered the massacre of Morales’s supporters and was sentenced in June to ten years in prison after being convicted of terrorism and sedition.

Fealty to Israel

According to Engler, the Trudeau Liberals possess the most anti-Palestinian voting record of any recent Canadian government.

In an August 2018 Canadian Jewish News article, Montreal Liberal MP Anthony Housefather boasted about the Trudeau government’s anti-Palestinian voting record at the UN, writing: “We have voted against 87% of the resolutions singling out Israel for condemnation at the General Assembly versus 61% for the Harper government [Trudeau’s conservative predecessor], 19% for the Martin and Mulroney governments and 3% for the Chrétien governments. We have also supported 0% of these resolutions, compared to 23% support under Harper, 52% under Mulroney, 71% under Martin and 79% under Chrétien.”

When Trudeau’s government did provide some aid to the Palestinians, it supported the pro-Israeli Palestinian security apparatus that was designed to protect the corrupt Palestinian Authority (PA) from popular resistance to its compliance with Israeli settlement expansion in the West Bank.

Trudeau’s policies were not too surprising in considering that the chief fundraiser for Canada’s Liberal Party since 2013 was Stephen Bronfman, billionaire scion of an ardent Zionist family which had long connections to U.S. and Israeli intelligence.

Yet More Human Rights Double Standards

The Trudeau-led Liberals criticized Iran for human rights abuses, though they were silent about worse abuses in Saudi Arabia, which received large shipments of Canadian weaponry.

Trudeau’s government supported other repressive Gulf monarchies, including Kuwait and the UAE, which played a lead role, with the Saudis, in the genocidal assault on Yemen. It also sold weapons to Egypt and was silent about the massive human rights crimes committed by its dictator, Fatah al-Sisi.

Canada commanded NATO operations and sent Special Forces into Iraq that participated in an assault on Mosul, which was turned into rubble.

According to Engler, Canada’s Liberals have to date ploughed hundreds of millions of dollars—if not more than a billion—into Iraq, while also supporting U.S. missile strikes in Syria and jihadi-led opposition groups as part of U.S.-led regime-change operations there.

Needlessly Antagonizing China and North Korea

Canada’s Liberal-led government has gone along with the U.S. in provoking China, regularly deploying warships through waters that Beijing claimed in the South China Sea, Strait of Taiwan and East China Sea.

Trudeau’s government has also sought to bolster the U.S. campaign to isolate North Korea. Chrystia Freeland has claimed that “the dictatorship in North Korea…poses a clear strategic threat to the liberal democratic world, including Canada.” Freeland in turn endorsed Royal Canadian Navy surveillance missions and sanctions on North Korea that have caused severe hardship for the local population.

Buddies with Africa’s Most Ruthless Dictator

Trudeau’s favorite leader in Africa is Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame (1995-present), a cold-hearted killer who invaded and plundered the Congo twice, and triggered the 1994 Rwandan genocide by shooting down the airplane of then-Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana.

Kagame’s regime was so vile that his armed forces established open-air crematoria to dispose of the bodies of the legions of Hutu whom they killed.

Unperturbed, Trudeau was photographed with Kagame on at least four occasions at international summits in 2018 and 2019 where he affirmed the “importance of strong and growing bilateral relations” between Canada and Rwanda.

The reason for this strong bilateral relationship was geopolitical and economic: Kagame was a proxy of the U.S. which opened up Rwanda’s economy—and Congo’s—to foreign mining interests.

Corporate Liberal

Justin Trudeau may or may not be a nice guy.

When he became Prime Minister, he may or may not have set out to support dictators and regime change operations, or to ramp up military spending when Canadians were increasingly suffering from cutbacks in social services and heavy inequality.

Whatever his intentions when he started, the imperatives of power have led Trudeau into the moral abyss.

As Engler emphasizes, many of Trudeau’s policies have been driven by corporate interests which finance the Liberal Party.

Trudeau, for example, opposes a Socialist government in Venezuela that had tried to reign in gold extraction by Canadian mining corporations and threatened the interests of Scotia Bank, one of Canada’s biggest banks, which has many Canadian mining clients.

The Canadian military has meanwhile become increasingly integrated with the U.S. military, which has pressured Canada into spending more on its military.

Powerful lobbies in Canada like the right-wing Ukrainian lobby that Freeland is connected with, and the Israeli lobby, are further key determinants of Canadian foreign policy—like in the U.S.

For all the structural forces driving Canadian policy, Trudeau must shoulder a significant share of the blame for the gross injustices Canada has perpetrated around the world while he has been Prime Minister.

If he were a true leader, Trudeau would work to educate the public about the nefarious forces that warp government policy, and use his bully pulpit to stand up for what is right—which he is unwilling to do.

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Jeremy Kuzmarov is Managing Editor of CovertAction Magazine. He is the author of four books on U.S. foreign policy, including Obama’s Unending Wars (Clarity Press, 2019) and The Russians Are Coming, Again, with John Marciano (Monthly Review Press, 2018). He can be reached at: [email protected].

Featured image: Justin Trudeau: people.com; skull: fruugo.us; Collage courtesy of Steve Brown

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***

President Putin just introduced martial law in Russia’s newly reunified Novorossiyan region along with ordering a “mid-level” response in the other ones bordering Ukraine that’ll give officials special authorities to ensure security there. Is this “the right move at the right” time after Army General Sergey Surovikin made it clear on Tuesday evening that the outcome of Kiev’s ongoing counteroffensive against the first-mentioned part of his newly restored world power will greatly determine the Ukrainian Conflict’s military-strategic dynamics.

Everything is proceeding according to the trajectory that was forecast in late September pertaining to “Scenarios For The Ukrainian Conflict After Novorossiya’s Reunification With Russia”. The NATO-backed but Ukrainian-fronted invasion force that’s been gathering all along the 1,000-kilometer Line of Control (LOC) appears to be preparing itself for a major offensive across the entire front.

Russia’s plan to preemptively avert that from happening has been to implement a more muscular policy with respect to the special operation, to which end General Surovikin was appointed as commander of the entire mission and swiftly moved to wage his country’s version of “shock and awe”. Kiev also blundered by building up its forces along the northern border with Belarus, which was a massive miscalculation aimed at dividing Russia’s forces between that front and the Novorossiyan one but which only ultimately ended up dividing its own.

This inadvertent development paired with Russia destroying 30% of that crumbling former Soviet Republic’s power stations to create serious problems for the NATO-backed but Ukrainian-fronted invasion force behind the LOC. Instead of influencing them to cancel their planned offensive across the entire front, they appear to still be willing to go through with it despite the almost certainly suicidal outcome for their side. Nevertheless, since Kiev is now more desperate than it’s ever been since the latest phase of the conflict started eight months ago, there’s a high risk that it’ll go all out.

This greatly increases the danger to those several million civilians residing in Novorossiya, hence why President Putin prudently introduced martial law in their newly reunified regions in order to improve their security. It also explains why some civilians are being relocated from Kherson, especially after General Surovikin warned on Tuesday evening that Kiev might attack the nearby Kakhovka dam in order to flood the area, which could be carried out as vengeance to impede the predictable Russian counteroffensive that would follow Kiev’s almost certainly doomed-to-fail ongoing one.

Since Kiev has already attacked neighboring Russian regions like Belgorod and Crimea that were part of this civilization-state prior to 2014 or joined early that year respectively, it makes sense for President Putin to introduce the special security regime there that he also authorized on Wednesday. This leader of the Global Revolutionary Movement (GRM) evidently intended for his proactive moves to be comprehensive, which is why two complementary decisions were made at the same time. Ahead of what’s shaping up to be the most decisive battle of the conflict thus far, Russia isn’t taking any chances.

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This article was originally published on OneWorld.

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 regular contributor to Global Research.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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***

I think it is important to reflect upon the past from time to time, and I think that this letter of mine, to a close relative while in the thick of the Corona War, in mid-2021 is as relevant now as it was then. Here goes.

I want you to remember me years from now as a person who remained true to the principles he swore when he received his medical degree at the University of Pennsylvania in 1986: ‘at first do no harm’.  When this current insanity of the world passes, and I hope it passes soon, I don’t want to be among those who remained silent when good people were harmed irrevocably by this dangerous and unnecessary vaccine.  I don’t want to be among those who were afraid to stand up for basic medical principles.  I want you to remember me as a good man, a good person.

The rise of Nazism occurred because many people, doctors included, were afraid to oppose it.  We’re living in a Nazi-like era now where no dissent, no open discussion is even tolerated, and a vaccine that has already caused tens of thousands of deaths — in only the short time it has been out — and whose long-term effects are unknown because there have been no long-term studies and we are all guinea pigs — is being pushed for everybody, including kids here as young as 16.

The fatality rate of covid is that of a seasonal flu — look up Ioannnidis, an eminent Stanford epidemiologist.

Personally, I’m not afraid of covid or the flu, but I AM afraid of the misery and death and unnecessary suffering that will be caused by this so-called ‘vaccine’, afraid of the danger of the spike protein which this biological agent causes the body to manufacture — and I’m even more afraid of the silence and submission of people who are all too willing to believe in the benevolence of governments and pharmaceutical companies and all too willing to sacrifice basic unalienable human rights and liberties.

I’m attaching a list of questions which I recommend anybody and everybody to answer for themselves.  Feel free to share, discuss and most of all, to do your own research.

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Questions on COVID-19

The virus

1. Has the virus been isolated and grown in culture? How are we so sure of the sequence of its genome?
2. Is the virus more dangerous than other respiratory viruses (e.g., the seasonal flu), and how so?
3. Who are most likely to suffer serious symptoms from the virus? Who are least vulnerable?
4. Can serious symptoms be prevented by medications and other agents?
5. Is this virus the most lethal virus ever recorded?
6. Has there been a large increase in overall deaths from the virus over the past year? (excess mortality)
7. Can people who are not sick transmit the virus?
8. How many deaths have resulted with viral illness as the chief cause?
9. What has happened to the common seasonal flu?

The test for the virus

1. How does the laboratory test for covid work?
2. Is the test reliable? Have studies been conducted to prove its reliability/unreliability?
3. If someone tests ‘positive’ for covid but has no symptoms, should this person be considered a ‘case’?
4. If someone dies from a heart attack but is found to test positive for covid, should covid be assumed to be the cause of death?

Masks

1. Can masks prevent the transmission of respiratory viruses, and if so, which kind of masks? Have there been controlled studies on masks and their role in viral protection?
2. Are there negative aspects of mask-wearing? Can they contribute to illness?
3. What are the psychological aspects of mask wearing?

Lockdowns

1. Have any studies shown that lockdowns prevent the transmission of respiratory viruses?
2. Have healthy persons ever been quarantined before the covid outbreak?
3. Are there any negative consequences of lockdowns?
4. Have lockdowns affected the mental, physical and economic well-being of people?  If so, how? Have any studies been conducted to assess these effects?

Treating the virus

1. Are any medicines effective in treating the virus, and if so, which ones?
2. Can early (outpatient) treatment of patients with the virus prevent serious developments?
3. What are the roles of hydroxychloroquine, ivermectin, zinc, vitamin D, vitamin C, steroids in the treatment of the virus? Which studies support or negate their efficacy?
4. Why were doctors in some parts of the world prevented from prescribing agents like hydroxychloroquine during a ‘deadly’ pandemic?

The “vaccines”

1. What is in the injections (list of ingredients)?
2. What is their role — can they prevent infection and transmission of the virus? If not, what are they supposed to  do?
3. How is the Pfizer injection supposed to work?
4. Have the injections been as thoroughly tested as other vaccines?  Do they have adverse effects? Can they cause death?
5. Where can I find out information about adverse vaccine reactions in New Zealand, and also in the world?
6. Is a coronavirus vaccine necessary?
7. If someone has had the virus, why would they need a vaccine?
8. Are people testing positive for covid after they have been ‘vaccinated’ and if so, why?
9. What is informed consent?
10. Under the New Zealand Bill of Rights and the Nuremberg Code, medical intervention cannot be forced against a person’s will — yet the ‘vaccine’ is being made mandatory for employment in some areas? Is this lawful?
11. Are ‘vaccine passports’ being planned, can they be lawful?
12. If a person refuses the Pfizer injection, will he/she be jeopardising his/her job and other activities?
13. Can those who have received the Pfizer injection pose a health risk to others, and how?
14. Is the spike protein that is created by the Pfizer injection harmful, and if so, how? Where does it travel within the body?
15. How are the covid ‘vaccines’ different from previous vaccines (polio, measles, hepatitis, etc.)?

New Zealand

1. How many covid-related deaths have occurred in New Zealand?
2. How many hospitalisations due to covid have occurred in New Zealand?
3. How many people have tested positive for  covid in New Zealand?
4. How many people testing positive for covid have actually been sick?
5. Is there a health emergency in New Zealand?
6. How many people  have been adversely affected by the climate of viral fear, lockdowns, job losses, emotional upheaval, loss of liberties, etc.,  over the past year?

General

1. Why are the authorities not allowing full and open debate of medical questions and public health policy?
2. Why is anyone who expresses a different opinion from the governmental narrative considered a purveyor of ‘misinformation’ or ‘disinformation’?
3. Why are medical doctors who have voiced their opinions about the potential dangers of the Pfizer vaccine and other aspects of covid management under scrutiny by the Medical Council?
4. Why has such priority been given to  the ‘vaccine’ as the only solution to the viral problem? Why have there been few, if any, recommendations for healthy lifestyle, prevention and early treatment from our health authorities?
5. The Hippocratic Oath, which all doctors swear allegiance to when they obtain their medical degrees, states “First, do no harm (primum non nocere)” — is this foundational principle being ignored with the Pfizer injection rollout?

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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.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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“Lots of people don’t know what happened yesterday. To put it simply, Biden has forced all Americans working in China to pick between quitting their jobs and losing American citizenship. Every American executive and engineer working in China’s semiconductor manufacturing industry resigned yesterday, paralyzing Chinese manufacturing overnight. One round of sanctions from Biden did more damage than all four years of performative sanctioning under Trump. Although American semiconductor exporters had to apply for licenses during the Trump years, licenses were approved within a month.

With the new Biden sanctions, all American suppliers of IP blocks, components, and services departed overnight – thus cutting off all service [to China]. Long story short, every advanced node semiconductor company is currently facing comprehensive supply cut-off, resignations from all American staff, and immediate operations paralysis. This is what annihilation looks like: China’s semiconductor manufacturing industry was reduced to zero overnight. Complete collapse. No chance of survival.”

-Posted at Jordan Schneider’s Twitter account @jordanschnyc from a translated thread at @lidangzzz

The Biden administration intensified its war on China last week when it detonated a thermonuclear bomb at the heart of Beijing’s booming technology industry. In an effort to block China’s access to crucial semiconductor technology, Team Biden announced onerous new export rules aimed at a “comprehensive supply cut-off” of essential semiconductor technology which– according to one analyst– led to an “immediate operations paralysis.” The terror unleashed by the announcement was aptly summarized in a thread posted at Jordan Schneider’s Twitter account from a translated thread at @lidangzzz (See above quote)

Naturally, the Chinese government was blindsided by the draconian new rules which include “all Chinese advanced computing chip design companies”and will undoubtedly “ensure the elimination of all American products and technologies from the entire ecosystem.” The new sanctions regime will likely inflict significant damage on China’s thriving technology industry while causing considerable harm to US partners who were not consulted on the matter. But while the announcement was a complete surprise, it does fit with the much more extensive list of hostile US actions towards China in the last few months. Some of these include:

1. Multiple US delegations (Nancy Pelosi and other sitting Congressmen) traveled to Taiwan to challenge the One-China policy that has been the cornerstone for normal relations between the two countries for the last 40 years.
2. Two US warships sail through strait, BBC
3. US-India maneuvers on the India-China border
4. The Biden Administration’s persistent determination to provide South Korea with a lethal missile defence system that can be used for offensive purposes and which threatens Chinese security
5. The relentless strengthening of an “anti-China” coalition
6. Two U.S. carrier groups conduct exercises in South China Sea
7. And, now–according to the Financial Times– The EU is being urged to rethink its China policy

While in no way exhaustive, the list should give the reader some sense of the uptick in belligerence that is presently aimed at Beijing. Hectoring China has become a full-time job which is not entirely unexpected as US-China “containment” policy dates back as far as the Cold War. What’s different now –as Biden’s 2022 National Security Strategy indicates– is that the US sees itself in the midst of a “great power struggle” in which the primary enemy is China who is regarded as “the only competitor with both the intent and, increasingly, the capability to reshape the international order.” (NSS) In other words, the Biden administration is admitting that we are at war with China and that we must use any means necessary to prevail in that conflict. As foreign policy analyst Andre Damon recently noted, the NSS is not a strategy for the defense of the Republic but a “blueprint for World War 3”.

Indeed, so containment alone will no longer suffice. What is required is increasingly provocative actions that will help to isolate, vilify and, ultimately, weaken China so that it becomes a “responsible stakeholder” in the “rules-based system”. In other words, Biden seeks a compliant vassal who will click his heels and do as he is told.

Sound familiar?

Biden’s onerous new export rules fit perfectly within this broader strategy of persistent confrontation and hostility. It also jibes with the oft-repeated neoconservative view that there is “no hope of coexistence with China as long as the Communist Party governs the country.” So, once again, we can see that the administration’s attacks on China are not merely designed to “contain” Chinese development but are also aimed at regime change. We believe that the recent ratcheting up of Biden’s Tech War has nothing to do with national security concerns (like “still-emerging fields of artificial intelligence and quantum computing”) but is actually another desperate attempt to preserve Washington’s loosening grip on global power. Here’s how author Jon Bateman summed it up in an article at Foreign Policy Magazine:

“The Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) announced new… limits on the export to China of advanced semiconductors, chip-making equipment, and supercomputer components. The controls… reveal a single-minded focus on thwarting Chinese capabilities at a broad and fundamental level.... the primary damage to China will be economic, on a scale well out of proportion to Washington’s cited military and intelligence concerns….This shift portends even harsher U.S. measures to come, not only in advanced computing but also in other sectors (like biotech, manufacturing, and finance) deemed strategic. The pace and details are uncertain, but the strategic objective and political commitment are now clearer than ever. China’s technological rise will be slowed at any price.” (“Biden is Now All-In on Taking Out China”, Jon Bateman, Foreign Policy Magazine)

There it is in black and white. The US is going to do whatever it takes to preserve its top spot in the global order “come hell or high water.” And Bateman is right, there will undoubtedly be “even harsher U.S. measures to come, not only in advanced computing but also in other sectors (like biotech, manufacturing, and finance)” And that, of course, means more sanctions and tariffs, more disruption to vital supply-lines, and higher costs for everything. If you thought the war with Russia impacted energy prices, “You ain’t seen nothing yet!” Winding back 40 years of globalization is going to be an excruciating experience tantamount to major dental surgery absent the Novocain. This is from Reuters:

“The U.S. is scrambling to tackle unintended consequences of its new export curbs on China’s chip industry that could inadvertently harm the semiconductor supply chain, people familiar with the matter said….as of midnight Tuesday, vendors also could not support, service and send non-U.S. supplies to the China-based factories without licenses if U.S. companies or people are involved. As a result, even basic items like light bulbs, springs, and bolts that keep tools running may not have been able to be shipped until vendors are granted licenses. And without the minute-by-minute support the foundries need, they could begin shutting down, one source said...

The U.S. planned to review licenses for non-Chinese factories in China hit by the new restrictions on a case-by-case basis, but even if approved that could create delays in shipments. Licenses for Chinese chip factories were likely to be denied.” (“U.S. scrambles to prevent export curbs on China chips from disrupting supply chain“, Reuters)

See what I mean? More supply-line disruption means higher prices, more battered household budgets, and fewer American families able to scrape by on their shrinking wages. Does anyone in Washington think about these things before they set the wheels in motion? The Biden administration is so obsessed with containing China, it is willing to send US standards-of-living off a cliff while bringing the world even closer to nuclear annihilation. Here’s more background from an article at the Asia Times:

The US measures won’t affect China’s sensors, satellite surveillance, military guidance and other strategic systems because the vast majority of military applications use older chips that China can produce at home…..The new US restrictions won’t stop China’s 2,000 surface-to-ship and surface-to-surface missiles from targeting US aircraft carriers in the Western Pacific, or US air bases in Guam and Okinawa, and they won’t prevent China’s more than 1,000 interceptors from aiming long-range air-to-air missiles at US planes…

It will also elicit an all-out Chinese effort to replace American chip-making and design technology. CapEx and R&D will shrink drastically in the US semiconductor industry while China allocates a massive budget to the sector.

On a five- or ten-year horizon, America’s technological edge in semiconductor design and fabrication is likely to vanish. As capital budgets collapse in the Western semiconductor industry, the damage to the US and other Western economies is likely to be greater than the harm inflicted on China...an all-out US ban on chip sales to China would eliminate 37% of the revenue of US semiconductor companies, lead to … the loss of 15,000 to 40,000 highly skilled direct jobs in the US semiconductor industry.”..

At worst, the damage to China’s economy is likely to be temporary… But the impact of the incipient depression in the Western semiconductor industry may well do permanent harm. (“China chip ban a US exercise in extreme self-harm”, Asia Times)

So, it could all backfire like the poorly thought-out sanctions on Russia that have thrust all Europe into an unprecedented energy crisis?

Yep, that’s what he’s saying. The new rules will cause China some short-term pain but—in the long run—they will only hurt American industry. It’s another classic example of ‘cutting off your nose to spite your face’, which appears to be Biden’s MO on a great number of issues.

It’s worth noting, that the Biden plan is another giant leap towards “de-globalization. (which is the reimposing of cross-border trade barriers in order to prevent further economic integration and lower costs.) For decades, business and political leaders have been touting the virtues of offshoring businesses and outsourcing jobs as if that was the true expression of God’s divine plan. But now that China’s growth threatens US global hegemony, foreign policy elites have done a quick 180. Now the globalization genie must be drawn-and-quartered and shoved back into his bottle so the West can preserve its primacy by effectively divorcing itself from the Chinese powerhouse.

By the way, “decoupling” is the new buzzword among foreign policy wonks. What the word implies is that the US must implement “some degree of technological separation from China, but shouldn’t go so far as to harm U.S. interests in the process.” In other words, Washington is on track to selectively terminate many areas of commerce with China while trying not to shoot itself in its own foot.

Good luck with that.

So, where is all of this heading, you ask?

To more conflict, more confrontation, higher prices, lower standards of living and, eventually, a disintegration of the prevailing order. That much is certain. The problem, of course, is that the China hawks now control the levers of power in Washington which means that the attacks on China will intensify, decoupling will accelerate, and a massively-destabilizing international crisis will soon follow.

The Biden administration is squandering American power on unilateral actions it cannot enforce and that will no have meaningful impact on China’s development. They’d be better off looking for ways to ease the transition to a new world, then pathetically trying to turn back the clock to the bygone “unipolar moment”.

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This article was originally published on The Unz Review.

 

Michael Whitney is a renowned geopolitical and social analyst based in Washington State. He initiated his career as an independent citizen-journalist in 2002 with a commitment to honest journalism, social justice and World peace.

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

Featured image is from Shutterstock

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French workers affiliated with the General Confederation of Labor (CGT) held a “Day of Action” work stoppage on October 18.

This action came on the heels of an oil workers strike which demanded a rise in salaries amid the escalating rate of inflation that has impacted people throughout the western capitalist states.

The CGT call drew the support of tens of thousands of union members and students who demonstrated in major cities such as Paris against the declining social conditions faced by workers. In addition to the work stoppages and marches, in some instances workers broke windows of major businesses which have come to symbolize the current crisis.

These events are part and parcel of a growing uncertainty among workers throughout the European Union (EU) and the UK where rising energy prices, the costs of rents and mortgages are driving millions into poverty. Since the beginning of the Russian special military operations in Ukraine, the relations between Moscow and the EU have worsened leading to a precipitous decline in the availability of natural gas and oil.

President Emmanuel Macron has continued to refrain from direct governmental interventions in wage disputes involving private corporations. The French-owned TotalEnergies and United States based Esso-ExxonMobil, the leading oil and natural gas producers in France, were the scene of a strike by workers demanding pay increases.

After the failure of the oil companies to grant a retroactive 10% salary increase beginning on January 1, union members began a blockade of fuel shipment from the refineries. As the situation severely impacted the availability of gasoline, the Macron government took legal action to break the blockade in order to ease the shortages in Paris and in other areas of northern France.

Workers at some of the depots were ordered under threat of imprisonment to allow the departure of fuel trucks. Government spokespersons have said that the unavailability of fuel had been reduced from shortages of 30% down to 25%.

Two of the major unions representing oil workers, the French Democratic Federation of Labor (CFDT) and the French Confederation of Management- General Confederation of Executives (CFE-CGC), agreed to the company proposals, which promised a 7% pay rise and a financial bonus. Dominique Convery, the CFE-CGC union coordinator at TotalEnergies was quoted as saying, “It can’t go on like this. We see what is happening in the country and we cannot remain insensitive to it.” See this.

Nonetheless, the CGT workers rejected the offer by the companies and continued to call for strike action. This more left-leaning trade union federation announced that it would hold out pending the granting of a 10% wage hike.

An article published by Le Monde on October 12 noted:

“Industrial action launched two weeks ago at France’s TotalEnergies and Esso-ExxonMobil fuel depots has paralyzed six out of seven sites in the country, leading to nationwide shortages. In order to put an end to the stalemate, the French government ordered ‘essential’ workers back to their posts on Wednesday, October 12, to unblock two Esso-ExxonMobil refineries. This rarely-used measure means that non-compliant workers could face prison time or a heavy fine…. The context is first and foremost one of inflation, which is fueling growing concern among employees about their purchasing power. But it is also that of a company, TotalEnergies, making huge profits, which are more a result of the windfall effect than the company’s talent at business. TotalEnergies’ good results generated €10.9 billion in profits in the first half of 2022 and the company recently paid its shareholders a €2.62 billion dividend advance.”

On October 13, the CGT representing civil servants and railway workers voted to enter the industrial actions by calling for a strike on October 18. Although some media outlets such as Le Monde claimed that the call for a general strike did not receive the support which had been anticipated, the response was significant enough to cause major disruptions in the education, medical services and transportation sectors.

The October 18 strike drew the support of opposition parties in France as well. Macron has been accused of favoring the wealthy and ignoring the plight of the working class.

France and the European Union Energy Crisis Fuels Inflation

Even though the rate of inflation in France has remained lower than in other EU states, the UK and the United States, people are facing economic hardships related to a number of factors which have surfaced since the early months of 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic brought about unprecedented pressures on the public health systems and the labor market.

Millions of workers were idled in Western Europe and the United Kingdom (UK) in response to the pandemic. EU governments and the UK were forced to implement aid packages for private corporations and workers amid the drastic decline in productivity along with household incomes.

Beginning on February 24, 2022, the Russian special military operations in Ukraine were accompanied by the draconian sanctions imposed on Moscow at the aegis of the administration of President Joe Biden in the U.S. These sanctions have not been able to bring down the Russian Federation’s economy and society. In fact, Russia has reported trade surpluses over the last few months.

During October, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC+) met and agreed along with the Russian Federation to reduce the supply of oil production by 2 million barrels per day. Inside the U.S., President Biden announced on October 19 the release of several million more barrels of oil from the strategic petroleum reserves. Biden had met with the Saudi Arabia leadership earlier in the year in an effort to coax the monarchy into maintaining oil production at levels which would be beneficial to the U.S. capitalist system.

Nonetheless, Saudi Arabia and other OPEC states joined with Moscow in the reduction of production and trade. Biden’s only response was to say that his administration is re-evaluating their relations with the Saudi government.

Moscow has cut off the supply of natural gas to several dependent EU member-states in an effort to punish these governments which are also members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). French President Macron travelled to the former colony of Algeria recently in North Africa to negotiate an increase in the supply of natural gas. Macron said prior to his visit to Algiers that it would be a “cold winter” in Europe this year.

Reuters press agency reported during early October that:

“European Union leaders will ask the EU’s executive arm on Friday (Oct. 7) to work out how to tackle soaring inflation through a cap on gas prices in a bid to address the root cause of the EU’s problems, draft conclusions of the summit showed. The call for an EU gas price cap, which Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Hungary and Denmark have opposed, comes as the 27-nation EU is scrambling for a joint response to the unfolding cost-of-living crisis, caused by the collapse of Russian gas deliveries in retaliation for the EU’s support for Ukraine.”

In Britain, which voted in 2016 to exit the EU, the newly-installed Conservative Party government of Liz Truss failed miserably in their efforts to stabilize the national economy. Truss initially called for massive tax cuts for the rich claiming that these measures would facilitate economic growth.

However, the initiatives created panic within the financial markets in the UK and beyond. The British pound sank in value while the Bank of England (the central bank) purchased large volumes of treasury bonds aimed at preventing a total economic collapse.

Prime Minister Truss soon fired her Chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, who was blamed for the disastrous economic policy. On October 19, the Home Secretary for the British government Suella Braverman, charged with national security, resigned while attacking the administration of Truss.

The following day on October 20, Truss announced her own resignation after spending only six weeks in office. Conservative Party leaders within parliament will have to select yet another prime minister, the fifth in the last six years. Members of Parliament within the Labor Party and other opposition forces are calling for a general election. The Conservatives in recent opinion polls have been trailing Labor by more than 30 percentage points.

A Crisis of Governance within the Capitalist States

These developments within the EU and UK are mirrored somewhat in the U.S. The Biden administration has failed on its mandate to bring economic and social relief to workers and oppressed peoples who were responsible for his ascendancy during the 2020 contentious elections. Biden’s approval rating has declined significantly as the economic crisis worsens inside the country.

Early voting has already begun in the U.S. for the midterm elections on November 8. Some political researchers are saying that the Democratic Party could lose control of the House of Representatives imperiling even further the presidential authority of Biden.

Biden has continued to pledge military equipment, advisors and other assistance to the failed war drive in Ukraine. His lackluster policy decisions have not made a dent in the declining living standards of people within the U.S.

At present the economic situation in the capitalist countries is being aggravated by an overall crisis of governance. The workers and oppressed within these states must begin to look at socialist-oriented transformative policies which could address inflation, imperialist war and the monumental redistribution of wealth needed to empower the majority within society.

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

Featured image: French CGT unions confront oil companies over pay hike (Source: Abayomi Azikiwe)

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Recently, a video produced by what appears to be an anonymous source, documents news reports of ‘1,000 Athletes Collapsing, Dying, Heart Problems, Blood Clots – March 2021 To June 2022.’

Fitness enthusiast, author and bodybuilding champion Doug Brignole died suddenly on October 13 after offering to be “a test” case for the safety of experimental COVID-19 gene-based vaccines on April 4, 2021.

In the comment thread of one of his own Facebook posts, in which he promoted uptake of the controversial injections, the former Mr. America and Mr. Universe wrote:

Those of you who think the vaccine kills people can use me as a test. If I die, you were right. If I don’t die, and have no ill effects, you were wrong, and should admit it (at least to yourselves).

RIP Doug Brignole. It doesn’t have to be this way if the public would come together and say no to unethical injections with proven risk. pic.twitter.com/1w5FPyXOTb

— Tyler Hagen (@JTylerHagen) October 15, 2022

According to multiple reports, the 62-year-old Brignole was scheduled to appear at the Amateur Athletic Union Mr. Universe competition in Las Vegas on October 22, indicating his death was sudden and unexpected.

While the tragedy of the fitness expert’s ironic statement and subsequent death 18 months later has received lots of attention on social media, it highlights what has been an ongoing trend of athletes collapsing, dying and suffering serious heart and blood complications since the introduction of experimental mRNA gene therapy injections marketed as “COVID-19 vaccines.”

Last November, Dr. Michael Yeadon began sounding the alarm about the compounding increase of athletes collapsing or even dying on the field after their age group’s reception of the injections.

In April, One America Network reported that more than 769 athletes had collapsed on the field during a game between March 2021 and March 2022. The average age of these athletes was 23.

And more recently, a video produced by what appears to be an anonymous source, documents news reports of “1,000 Athletes Collapsing, Dying, Heart Problems, Blood Clots – March 2021 To June 2022.”

Another source called Real Science, whose authors expressly desire to remain anonymous, complements the above video compilation with a documented list of 1,429 athletes who suffered cardiac arrests and other serious health issues, including 975 deaths, since the COVID-19 vaccine roll-out around January 1, 2021.

But evidence for significantly increased death rates is not limited to the sphere of athletics.

Death spikes resulting from COVID gene-based vaccines corroborated by many sources

Last January, Scott Davison, the president of OneAmerica insurance in Indianapolis, called attention to the industry’s 40% increase in 2021 third-quarter death rates, which were the highest the company has “seen in the history of the business.”

“Just to give you an idea of how bad that is, a three-sigma or a one-in-200-year catastrophe would be 10% increase over pre-pandemic,” he said. “So, 40% is just unheard of.”

Soon after this revelation, former entrepreneur-turned-journalist Steve Kirsch crunched the numbers and provided an extensive argument for why these excess non-COVID-related deaths were most likely caused by the COVID vaccines. The MIT graduate explained such a catastrophe would only happen by pure chance every 2.8e32 years, which is “basically never.”

“In other words, the event that happened [to bring this about] is not a statistical ‘fluke.’ Something caused a very big change,” he said.

The significant increases in deaths are also corroborated by a January 2022 report issued by the Society of Actuaries Research Institute (SOA) showing excess life insurance death claims spiked 37.7% in the third quarter of 2021 over a pre-pandemic baseline (2017-2019). That figure included an approximate 50-50 split between claims related to COVID-19 and those caused by other factors.

In addition, Andreas Schöfbeck, a board member of German health insurer BKK ProVita, issued a letter in February that he sent to government authorities indicating “a very considerable under-recording of suspected cases of vaccination side effects after [patients] received the [COVID-19] vaccine.”

According to his company’s internal data, around 4%-5% of the vaccinated were under medical treatment for side effects,” he wrote, a rate about 10 times higher than the German government had been reporting.

Furthermore, in June, records obtained from the Michigan Department of Insurance and Financial Services showed that Lincoln National Life Insurance Company paid out 163% more in death benefits for working clients ages 18 to 64 in 2021 over the previous pandemic year of 2020.

In the United States, while the Centers for Disease Control’s passive Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) received only around 150 annual death reports before 2021, it currently shows 1,437,273 reports of adverse events after COVID vaccines administered between Dec. 14, 2020, and October 7, 2022. This data includes a total 31,470 reports of deaths and 261,738 serious injuries, which include 58,847 reports of permanent disabilities.

And like the findings of BKK ProVita, there’s plenty of evidence that this is just the “tip of the iceberg” considering a 2010 Harvard-executed study commissioned by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) found that “fewer than 1% of vaccine adverse events are reported” in VAERS.

Another study commissioned by vaccine manufacturer Connaught Laboratories calculated a “fifty-fold underreporting of adverse events” is likely.

With experimental COVID-19 gene-based vaccine campaigns being largely implemented in 2021, including the extensive employer and educational mandates being imposed upon the population, U.S. military personnel and their families have reportedly experienced spike increases over a five-year baseline in neurological diseases (1,048% increase), high blood pressure (2,281%), heart attacks (at least 269%), pulmonary blood clots (467%), and cancer (296%).

Medical doctors and scientists predicted sharp death increases after vaccine distribution

In fact, as early as March 2021, board-certified pathologist Dr. Ryan Cole reported that he was seeing a massive “uptick” in various autoimmune diseases and cancers in patients who had been COVID-vaccinated.

“Since January [2021], in the laboratory, I’m seeing a 20-times increase of endometrial cancers over what I see on an annual basis,” he said.

For many doctors who have examined these experimental COVID-19 injections, the increased death rates are not surprising.

Geert Vanden Bossche, a former senior officer of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, drew significant attention in March 2021 when he issued an open letter and video warning of a “global catastrophe without equal” due to experimental COVID-19 vaccination programs.

Around the same time, Yeadon, who is a former Pfizer vice president and chief scientist for allergy and respiratory, stated, “If someone wished to harm or kill a significant proportion of the world’s population over the next few years, the systems being put in place right now will enable it.”

“It’s my considered view that it is entirely possible that this [system of widespread gene-based vaccination] will be used for massive-scale depopulation,” he said.

Others have said that these shots are a “technology designed to poison people,” and Dr. Shankara Chetty of South Africa concluded that the purpose of the pandemic and vaccine campaigns is to “control and kill off a large proportion of our population without anyone suspecting that we were poisoned.”

Furthermore,

“the deaths that are meant to follow the vaccinations will never be able to be pinned on the poison. They will be too diverse, there will be too many, and they will be in too broad a timeframe for us to understand that we have been poisoned.”

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Featured image: Doug Brignole (Source: Facebook via LifeSiteNews)

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Palestinian businessman Munib Al Masri has drawn up a 300-page dossier of Britain’s abuses of Palestinians during the post-World War II mandate, which lasted until 1948. His objective is to extract from Britain an apology for harsh treatment and atrocities against Palestinians in order to secure belated accountability for Britain’s behaviour during its 31-year rule. Masri plans to submit the dossier to the British authorities in coming months. The British Ministry of Defence has told the BBC it is aware of charges against UK armed forces and evidence presented would be “reviewed thoroughly”. Since much of the evidence has been in the archives of the Imperial War Museum in London, it should have been reviewed long ago.

Two distinguished international lawyers, Luis Moreno Ocampo, former prosecutor at the International Criminal Court, and Ben Emmerson, former UN special rapporteur on human rights and terrorism, have carried out an independent review of the evidence collected by Masri, 88, and his team. This includes descriptions of arbitrary killings, beatings, torture, home demolitions, detention without trial, and the use of human shields. These practices were carried out within the British army’s rules of engagement, which define the limits of actions against civilians or under orders from senior officers.

In an interview with the BBC, Emmerson said there is evidence of “shocking crimes committed by certain elements of the British Mandatory forces systematically on the Palestinian population”. He said that some of them are of such enormous gravity that they would have been regarded even then as breaches of customary international law. These days, they could be classified as crimes against humanity and war crimes.

One example cited by the BBC took place during the summer of 1939, when soldiers of the Black Watch regiment rounded up 150 men in the village of Halhoul near Khalil (Hebron) where they were imprisoned in wire cages. Although the men were farmers rather than partisans, they were crowded together for two weeks during the hottest season of the year. Thirteen died of dehydration and one was shot dead while trying to escape.

British troops in Palestine in 1917 (Source: Socialist Worker)

A second example was the treatment meted out to the village of Bassa in 1938, where the Royal Ulster Rifles machine gunned and torched homes before rounding up men and put them on a bus which was driven over a landmine that exploded, killing everyone.

The British also aided the underground Zionist forces to wage war against Palestinians. While serving as an intelligence officer in Palestine during this period Orde Wingate, a committed Zionist, trained night patrols in Jewish colonies to raid Palestinian villages and defend against Palestinian partisan attacks.  During World War II, Wingate made his name by organising a commando grouping dubbed the “Chindits”, which conducted guerrilla operations against the Japanese in Burma. This effort made Wingate a heroic commander although the “chindits” were mainly a sideshow in the Burma campaign, according to an Indian air force officer who served as an official war correspondent in the Arakan.

The British also used a system of daily pacification, Professor Matthew Hughes told the BBC that was “fundamental, cumulative and attritional in wearing down the Palestinians” such as “restrictions on movement, curfews, seizure of property or crops as punitive measures, arbitrary detention and using forced labour to build roads and military bases… The whole country became something of a prison,” said Hughes, author of “Britain’s Pacification of Palestine.”

These policies where part and parcel of the campaign to crush the 1936-1939 Palestinian rebellion against the British effort to build a national home for Jews in Palestine, rendering the indigenous owners of the country homeless, stateless and without a national identity.

The Masri documentation includes testimony by British soldiers and administrators, material from the War Museum and Palestinian survivors and their descendents. Masri is himself a survivor. In 1944, Masri, then a boy of ten, was shot and wounded by British troops. He told the BBC that Britain’s actions “affected me a lot because I saw how people were harassed..we had no protection whatsoever and nobody to defend us”. Then, as now, the Palestinians were on their own against their occupiers.

Born in Nablus in 1934, Masri travelled to the US in 1952 to study petroleum geology at the University of Texas. When he returned to Jordan, he established a profitable firm to develop regional energy resource. This has grown into the Palestinian Development and Investment Company (Padico), which deals in telecoms, banking, construction and agriculture. He rules his business empire from his mansion on a hilltop outside the West Bank city of Nablus. As that city, along with Jenin, is the centre of the new Palestinian intifada of despair, Masri has a first-class seat in the deadly drama that is unfolding.

Israel has adopted the entire gamut of British repressive measures to contain and tame Palestinians in occupied East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza. So far, this year in the West Bank and East Jerusalem 120 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli army raiders, 100 since 18 Israelis and one foreigner were killed in attacks by Palestinians last spring.  This is the highest number of Palestinian fatalities since 2015. Israel has also detained 5,300, including 111 women, and 620 minors. Of the total, 1,610 have been put in administrative detention without charges and without trial — a favourite British practice.

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Opening a column with statistics and dates may not be the best way to get your attention, but these three statistics and single date are important, so please take note:

• The median age in the US is 38.5 years.
• The median age in Russia is 39.8 years.
• The median age worldwide is 31 years.

The Cold War ended, more or less, with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, 31 years ago.

To put it a different way, half of humanity and close to half of Americans and Russians in general can’t remember the days of “Mutual Assured Destruction.”

Put simply, MAD was a situation in which at least two world powers (the US and the USSR) possessed enough nuclear weapons, in enough locations, to ensure that if one of the two decided to go nuclear on the other, both countries (and likely the world) would be reduced to lifeless, radioactive wastelands.

Those of us who came to adulthood before 1991 grew up in constant knowledge of our own prospective annihilation on, at most, a few minutes’ notice.

It wasn’t a good feeling.

On the other hand, I guess it worked. We’re still here, anyway.

Lately, there’s been a lot of talk about the possibility of “limited” nuclear war using “tactical” weapons. That talk is based in speculation that Vladimir Putin might resort to a nuclear strike in Ukraine. Whether that speculation is really warranted is an interesting question and one I can’t answer for you, since I don’t work at the Kremlin.

What’s far more dangerous than that speculation is additional speculation over what the response from other nuclear powers would be if the Ukraine war DID “go nuclear,” even in a small way.

The problem with nukes is that the genie is out of the bottle. They’ve been around since 1945 and used twice (Hiroshima and Nagasaki). They’re not going to get un-invented, nor are the regimes which possess them likely to give them up (we should work toward that, but don’t bet the ranch on it happening).

That being the case, the notion that hey, maybe we could live with nukes being used here and there, in very special cases, by very special regimes, and just pile on some more sanctions or throw a non-nuclear cruise missile or two at the rogue state to express displeasure, is madness … which is the opposite of MADness.

The way — the  ONLY way — to get through this crisis or any other without popping the cork on Armageddon is for every regime decision-maker  in the world to know, down in their guts, beyond a shadow of  doubt, that if they use nukes, nukes will be used on them.

Even that might not work, but it’s the only thing that ever HAS worked.

If any one regime goes nuclear, even in a small way, and gets away with it, every other nuclear power on earth will consider itself free to do the same, and sooner or later it will exercise that option.

There must not be a third time.

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Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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

by Michel Chossudovsky

Available to order from Global Research! 

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

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

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

Reviews

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

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

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

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***

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has indicated that if Republicans retake control of the House in next month’s midterm elections, the GOP will likely oppose sending more aid to Ukraine in its war with Russia, the Washington Post reports.

The US has authorized upward of $60 billion in aid to Ukraine, along with over $18.2 billion in security assistance given since January 2021. In May, the Senate voted to finalize over $40 billion in new military and humanitarian assistance – a package which many Republican lawmakers voted against. On Friday, an additional $725 million in security assistance was announced – including more ammunition for HIMARS rockets, precision-guided artillery rounds, antitank weapons and Humvees, according to the Pentagon.

“There’s the things [the Biden administration] is not doing domestically,” McCarthy told Punchbowl News. “Not doing the border, and people begin to weigh that. Ukraine is important, but at the same time, it can’t be the only thing they do, and it can’t be a blank check.”

McCarthys comments come days after the latest NYT/Siena college poll reveals that just 2% of likely voters think the war in Ukraine is the most important issue facing the country, while 44% think the economy and inflation are the two two issues. Of the 2% that said Ukraine, 3% voted for Biden in 2020 and 1% voted Trump.

Pushback

Notwithstanding GOP war hawks like Mitch McConnell (R-KY), McCarthy isn’t the only Republican who’s publicly opposed more Ukraine aid.

“I do think that we have to get to a point, and this is where we do disagree, we’ve got to stop the money spigot to Ukraine eventually,” said J.D. Vance, the venture capitalist and author who’s in a close race for a US Senate seat in Ohio, adding that he wants “the Ukrainians to be successful,” but not through more US funding.

“We cannot fund a long-term military conflict that I think ultimately has diminishing returns for our own country,” he told ABC, adding “I think we’re at the point where we’ve given enough money in Ukraine, I really do. … The Europeans need to step up. And frankly, if the Ukrainians and the Europeans, more importantly, knew that America wasn’t going to foot the bill, they might actually step up.”

Meanwhile, Arizona Republican Senate nominee Blake Masters said in May that the money would be better spent securing the southern border with a wall.

“Under Joe Biden, it’s always America last,” he said in a video. “Let’s be clear about what this means. It means no cease-fire. It means another foreign war where we pay for everything. Many more thousands of people will die. There’s no resolution, no end in sight. The risk of course is that a proxy war can escalate into an all-out nuclear war between nuclear powers.”

Nevada Republican Senate nominee Adam Laxalt tweeted in May that the $40 billion U.S. aid to Ukraine was a “shockingly abhorrent proposal.” -WaPo

After McCarthy’s comments, outgoing never-Trump RINO Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) tweeted “What in the absolute bloody hell is happening to @GOPLeader,” while Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT), who sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, warned that if the GOP wins back the house, Ukraine aid would be in jeopardy.

“I just see a freight train coming, and that is Trump and his operation turning against aid for Ukraine,” he told MSNBC. “House Republicans, if they were to take the majority, being preternaturally against anything Joe Biden is for — including the war in Ukraine — and there being a real crisis where the House Republican majority would refuse to support additional aid to Ukraine.”

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***

As it pertains to the American public, Ukraine’s response to the Russian invasion can be summed up with two words: “Zelensky demands.”

To date, Washington elites and their politicians have been happy to provide – at public expense – lining their own pockets in the process.

As of this writing, US aid for Ukraine has reached approximately $67.5 billion, a figure greater than Russia’s entire 2021 military budget. According to the State Department, this support includes $15.2 billion in direct military assistance. The support comes although 60-70 percent of lethal aid never reaches the front lines, according to a now-redacted CBS interview with on-the-ground activists.

Not only is the American taxpayer supporting much of the Ukrainian military, it is also supporting the Ukrainian government. The same working class Americans who were deemed “nonessential” in 2020 – who saw their businesses shuttered and burned down – now have to pay entitlement programs both at home and in Ukraine.

As of September 30, 2022, the US has provided $13 billion in “direct budget support,” which is ostensibly used;

…to pay government salaries, meet pension obligations, maintain hospitals and schools, and protect critical infrastructure[,] support continuity operations at the national, regional, and local levels, support for [sic] the health sector, agricultural production, civil society, [and enable] programs to hold Russia and its forces accountable for their actions in Ukraine.

Although American taxpayers have already matched Russia’s 2021 military budget, Ukrainian president Volodomyr Zelensky only demands more. During an October 4 phone call, President Biden reviewed Washington’s latest $625 million dole to Zelensky. It includes, inter alia, 4 additional High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), 16 155mm Howitzers, 75,000 155 mm artillery rounds, 500 precision-guided 155mm artillery rounds, 16 105mm Howitzers, 30,000 120 mm mortar rounds, and 200 MaxxPro Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicles.

This latest boon notwithstanding, in the same phone call, Zelensky urged Biden to provide Ukraine with air defense systems that will be used to shoot down Russian planes. Par for the course, Washington elites will provide the weapons systems and have even expedited their shipment per Zelensky’s demand.

Much like Washington’s response to COVID-19, a no-holds-barred approach to Ukraine is so widely supported, it is a foregone conclusion. Despite this, some Republicans have valiantly opposed this rampant and provocative spending. Notable dissenters are: Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MS), Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), Rep. Marjorie Taylor-Greene (R-GA), and Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL).

Republicans like Taylor-Greene, Gaetz, and Hawley understand the cost of empire: endless warfare, a decaying home front, and a beclowned international reputation. They understand that a war between the US and Russia will be unlike anything Americans have ever experienced. Although they cloak their condemnation of war with Russia in criticism of “weak Joe Biden,” they understand it is the West that provoked this conflict and seeks to prolong it “to the last Ukrainian.” They know that the conflict – even if it remains by-proxy – is a cost war-weary working class Americans do not want and cannot afford.

They must, then, realize that the same Washington elites waxing American fat off the Ukraine conflict are cultivating Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen as a Zelensky in-waiting.

Although US military aid to Taiwan traditionally comes by way of arms sales, that may soon change. Senators Bob Menendez (D-NJ) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) have introduced the Taiwan Policy Act – a piece of legislation that would radically overhaul Sino-American relations.

In short, “the Taiwan Policy Act would give Taiwan $6.5 billion in military aid, give the island the benefits of being a ‘major non-NATO ally,’ expedite arms sales to Taipei, and require sanction in the event of Chinese aggression.” The bill would also authorize up to $2 billion in loans to Taiwan.

On September 14, the bill passed the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Rather than passing it as a standalone piece of legislation, the bill’s supporters currently seek to incorporate “much” of the bill into the $817 billion 2023 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

Thankfully, on Monday, it was revealed that the diplomatic language applying sanctions against China and designating Taiwan as a “major non-NATO ally,” was removed from the NDAA version of the Taiwan Policy Act. However, this latest NDAA version would almost double the $6.5 billion in direct military aid originally proposed, bringing the grand total to $10 billion.

A final vote on the modified NDAA is expected after the November midterm elections.

As above noted, the Taiwan Policy Act was introduced in the Senate on June 16, 2022 by Senators Bob Menendez and Lindsey Graham. Both Menendez and Graham are ardent supporters of Ukraine and Zelensky.

Graham met with Zelensky in July to hand deliver a plaque of his proposed Senate resolution to designate Russia as a State Sponsor of Terrorism. Since the Russian invasion, Graham has made regular appearances on Fox News whipping up lethal aid for Ukraine while calling for regime change in Moscow.

Menendez, as Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has spearheaded Washington’s Ukraine support. In January, he began and continues to lead the comprehensive US sanctions campaign against Russia. In March, Menendez lambasted Congressional Republicans, mainly Senator Rick Scott (R-FL), for undermining Ukraine aid. In May, Menendez, among others, introduced a Senate resolution approving the bids of Finland and Sweden to join NATO (something Josh Hawley correctly opposed).

On June 23 Menendez specifically invoked the 75th anniversary of the Marshall Plan to stoke support for Ukraine. The problem with this comparison is that the Marshall Plan came after WWII, not during it. At this point in time, a similar plan would only further involve the US in a conflict with Russia.

Republicans opposing US support for Ukraine should take note that both Menendez and Graham have repeatedly met with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen to pledge American support for Taiwan. In their latest visit on April 15, 2022, president Ing-wen called Lindsey Graham a “pillar of strength for Taiwan in the US Congress” and dubbed Menendez one of Taiwan’s “staunchest friends.”

In his meeting remarks, Graham likened US support for Ukraine to its support for Taiwan, saying:

[a]s we’re here today to show our support for Taiwan, all of us have our hearts broken regarding the people of Ukraine…I just want to let you know that, while we’ve been watching the Ukraine on television, while it has broken our hearts, the American people understand how important you are to us…So here’s my promise to the Taiwanese people: We’re going to start making China pay a greater price for what they’re doing all over the world. The support for Putin must come with a price. The never-ending cyberattacks on your economy and your people by the Communist Chinese need to come with a price.

Menendez echoed Graham’s sentiment in his own remarks, shedding light on Washington’s Ukrainian plans for Taiwan:

…I am proud to be back to reaffirm our rock-solid relationship with Taiwan…So you have a high-level delegation whose attention could be brought any place in the world – and for which many of our colleagues are right now in Europe, dealing with the challenges of Ukraine – but we understand that here in Taiwan, here in this region – this is where the future is. [Emphasis added].

Menendez followed up these remarks with an op-ed in The New York Times, stating:

Vladimir Putin’s brutal attack on his Ukrainian neighbors has sparked global outrage – and forged unprecedented unity – among the democratic nations of the world. Not so with Xi Jinping, the hypernationalist president of the People’s Republic of China. Rather, he is no doubt taking notes and learning lessons from Russia’s unprovoked attack on Ukraine to apply to his plans for Taiwan. The United States and our partners in the international community need to do the same to develop and put in place a new and more resilient strategy for Taiwan while there is still time.

These remarks should terrify working class Americans. Essentially, Menendez is proposing a redoubling of military support for Taiwan – the same “preventive policy” which played a large role in provoking Putin to invade Ukraine. We simply cannot afford it.

The above-named Congressional Republicans were right to oppose aid to Ukraine. For those same reasons, they should oppose adding Tsai Ing-wen to the same dole as the entitled and ungrateful Zelensky. Like Rand Paul, they should oppose the Taiwan Policy Act in all its forms.

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Featured image: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky seen earlier this year. (Ukrainian Presidential Press Service)

U.S. Regime Now Applies Maximum Brutality to the Ukrainian People

By Eric Zuesse, October 20, 2022

The lowest of the low in warfare is to send to the battlefront poorly trained troops and to have trailing behind them troops whose function is to shoot to kill any of those frontline poorly trained troops who try to retreat.

Pakistan in Search of Freedom and Security

By Mahboob A. Khawaja, October 20, 2022

The Pakistani ruling elite and the Generals are not open to reason and accountability. They cannot realize the imperatives of hopes and expectations of a new generation of educated and morally and intellectually competent people.

Ukrainian Military Chief Photographed with Far-right Nazi Paraphernalia

By Jason Melanovski, October 20, 2022

Ukraine’s Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, has been photographed several times in recent weeks while wearing or displaying photos and symbols associated with the far right and even neo-Nazism.

EU Foreign Policy Chief Calls ‘Europe a garden, the world a jungle’

By Drago Bosnic, October 20, 2022

On October 13, during the inauguration ceremony of the European Diplomatic Academy in Bruges, Belgium, the European Union’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell stated that “Europe is a garden” while the (rest of the) “world is a jungle”. The remark can hardly be described as anything else but racist, given the colonialist legacy of the political West.

The Truth About ‘Trans’ – Neutralising the Powers of Creation

By Julian Rose, October 20, 2022

The creation of the Sexes is inseparable from the creation of the Universe. All of life depends upon the duality and complementarity of male/female. It is fundamental to existence itself. Does anyone think that a light bulb will illuminate without a positive and negative current to create the necessary friction?

Is China a Communist or a Capitalist Country?

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, October 20, 2022

In the 1980s, the consensus among Leftists was that China was a socialist country. Debating the restoration of capitalism in China in Leftist circles was a taboo. Forty years later, sectors of the Left continue to portray China as a Communist country, despite ample evidence to the contrary.

The Rockefeller Way: The Family’s Covert ‘Climate Change’ Plan

By The Energy & Environmental Legal Institute, October 19, 2022

The Rockefellers are arguably the wealthiest and most powerful family in the history of the United States. For more than 100 years, they have shaped and directed America’s economic, financial, political, and public policy while simultaneously amassing one of the largest family empires in the modern era.

Putin Warns NATO Against ‘Global Catastrophe’

By Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, October 19, 2022

A limited intervention is Putin’s intent.  As I have made clear for some time, I think Putin is delusional.  The evidence is conclusive that Washington has widened the conflict and that the conflict is no longer limited except in Putin’s mind. 

How Incarceration Impacts Prisoners and Their Families’ Mental Health

By Sophia Young, October 20, 2022

Numerous studies have shown that the experience of incarceration can lead to a wealth of mental health problems, including depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In addition, the stigma and shame associated with being incarcerated can make it difficult for individuals to reintegrate into society following their release, further exacerbating mental health issues.

Biden’s Gamble to Take Control of Europe’s Destiny. LNG Corporations and Washington “Work Hand in Glove” to Destabilize Europe’s Energy Market

By Azhar Azam, October 20, 2022

The Russian invasion of Ukraine provided a tremendous opportunity to the Biden administration to dominate Europe and the American fossil fuel industry that was “licking its lips” to hit the jackpot from the looming energy crisis. Since the outset of the war, the liquefied natural gas (LNG) corporations and Washington worked hand in glove to steal the European wallets of the European states and raise their dependence on the US.

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***

Incarceration may be a judicial and rectification process for the criminals and convicts, but when in prison, their and their families’ mental health is severely impacted.

The effects of incarceration on mental health are far-reaching and can be devastating for both those incarcerated as well as their families.

Numerous studies have shown that the experience of incarceration can lead to a wealth of mental health problems, including depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In addition, the stigma and shame associated with being incarcerated can make it difficult for individuals to reintegrate into society following their release, further exacerbating mental health issues.

For family members, the effects of incarceration can be just as profound. The loss of a loved one in prison can lead to feelings of grief, isolation, and anger. In some cases, family members may also experience financial hardship as a result of their loved one’s incarceration.

The toll that incarceration takes on mental health is significant and should not be underestimated. Although the United States incarceration rate has fallen in recent years, it’s clear that more work needs to be done to address the issue—more than 1.8 million Americans were incarcerated as of 2021.

With a better understanding of the effects of incarceration on mental health, we can begin to develop policies and programs that will help reduce its negative impact. In this article, we’ll explore the mental health effects of incarceration, both for those incarcerated and their families.

How incarceration affects prisoners’ mental health

Civilians face many stressors that can lead to mental health problems. For prisoners, these stressors are often magnified.

If you believe that offenders deserve punishment, then you may view these mental health problems as part of the natural consequences that come with breaking the law. But this is not an accurate or helpful way to think about the issue.

The reality is that most prisoners are not hardened criminals; instead, they are people who have made mistakes and are doing their best to rehabilitate themselves. The last thing we should be doing is compounding their problems by subjecting them to an environment that is known to cause mental health issues.

Incarceration can cause mental health problems for several reasons

First, prisoners are typically cut off from their support systems, which can lead to feelings of isolation and loneliness. Staying in touch with a loved one in jail is rife with challenges, both logistical and financial. And even if prisoners can maintain contact, the experience of being incarcerated can be so traumatic that it’s difficult for them to discuss it with their loved ones.

Second, the living conditions in many prisons are deplorable, with overcrowding, poor sanitation, and inadequate access to medical care being common complaints. Even if they’re not facing direct violence, prisoners may constantly feel on edge, leading to anxiety and stress.

Third, the routine of prison life is often monotonous and lacking in stimulation, which can lead to boredom and depression. For many prisoners, the days blend together, leaving them feeling hopeless and trapped.

Fourth, prisoners are routinely subjected to degrading and humiliating treatment, which can inflict serious psychological damage. In some cases, prisoners may be verbally abused, physically assaulted, or sexually victimized by other inmates or prison staff—leading to PTSD, anxiety, and depression.

Finally, the stigma of being incarcerated can follow prisoners long after they’re released, making it difficult for them to find employment or housing. Despite technically paying their debt to society, they often find themselves ostracized and alone on the outside. Many prisoners end up returning to the same old habits that got them incarcerated in the first place, perpetuating the cycle of crime and punishment.

How incarceration impacts families’ mental health

Aside from the prisoners themselves, no one is more affected by incarceration than their families. The loss of a loved one to prison can lead to a wide range of negative emotions, including grief, isolation, and anger.

In addition, family members often suffer financially when a loved one is incarcerated. In some cases, they may be responsible for paying the prisoner’s court-related fees. They may also have to shoulder the burden of maintaining the household on a single income. And if the prisoner is the primary caretaker, the family may need to find childcare or pay for other expenses related to their absence.

The mental health effects of incarceration don’t end there. Children with a parent in prison are more likely to experience symptoms of anxiety and depression. They may also have difficulty in school, both academically and socially. And the trauma of having a parent incarcerated can leave them at risk of developing PTSD later in life.

What can be done to help?

The cycle of incarceration and mental illness can seem impossible to break. Too often, we view prisoners as criminals and forget that they’re human beings with real emotions and needs. We need to remember that most prisoners will eventually be released back into society, so it’s in our best interest to help them rehabilitate while they’re incarcerated.

This means providing prisoners with access to mental health services, including therapy and medication. It also means improving the living conditions in prisons and ensuring that prisoners are treated with dignity and respect. Finally, it means breaking the stigma of incarceration by investing in programs that help ex-prisoners reintegrate into society.

Only by working together can we hope to break the cycle of incarceration and mental illness. But if we’re willing to put in the effort, we can make a difference in the lives of prisoners and their families.

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The Facts Search for Meanings

People and nations once colonized by the European Empires remain colonized in thoughts, behavior and practices for ever. Pakistan is no exception in contemporary global affairs. Its systems of political governance, public institutions, legal systems and delivery of services if any to public are a replica of the British colonial systems.

The concept of national freedom and sovereignty was written on paper with dried ink and the masses unable to understand why there was no planned movement for nation-building with new public institutions, new systems of political governance, new and educated leadership to make the future happen out of planned ideas and ideals of the Pakistan Freedom Movement.

Today, the nation is crippled with catastrophic events of floods, insecurity and socio-economic and political exploitation.

The Pakistani ruling elite and the Generals are not open to reason and accountability. They cannot realize the imperatives of hopes and expectations of a new generation of educated and morally and intellectually competent people.

Future belongs to the new generation of educated people, not to the naive and obsolete Generals. They view “power” and “Pakistan” as their own property. The authoritarian leaders played with its destiny and future without being questioned. They are the wrong people, with wrong thinking and doing the wrong things. If there was any fair system of accountability, some of the Generals and accomplice politicians could well have faced firing squads for their crimes against the nation. Pakistan is continuously being incapacitated so much so that we lost one of our best neighbor friends – China. We, the People aspire for friendly relationships with all nations – America, the EU, Russia and China and others.

The established forces of evil and destruction are within Pakistan, not outside. Imperial doctrines of governance and control of people led to moral and intellectual decadence, repression, tyranny, conflicts and socio-economic and political miseries.

An elected legitimate government of PM Imran Khan was hurriedly dismissed by military intervention and a hoax legal judgment which violated the constitution. How can you restore normalcy in a rigged and naïve political culture of systematic corruption?

The quest for political change lacks the existence of public institutions to sustain reasoned politics, educated and intelligent leaders and proactive visions for change and adaptability to a critical future-making. The dream of a Progressive Pakistan was lost by conspiratorial Generals and accomplice wealthy landlords dating back to British colonialism.

The Generals and affluent landlords were the product of elusive manifestations rooted in longing to the British colonialism, not to Islamic thoughts and values. A snapshot of critical moment in time and history unfolds dark imagery of political governance and military coups. During the 75 years after the British Raj, Pakistan was morally, politically and intellectually dehumanized by FIVE military coups.

All coups were individualistic, conspiratorial and defied the aims and purposes of the national freedom movement. The Generals and ZA Bhutto conspired to lose East Pakistan, and India was allowed to occupy Kashmir, and we continued to lose more in socio-economic and political domains because of the dishonesty and failed leadership of Bhuttos, Sharifs and the Generals. These monsters stole billions and billions to own palaces in UK, France and Spain. The Thinking People of New Generation of Pakistanis view the Bhuttos, Zardari, Sharifs and Musharaf –  all in one slot – the most corrupt, crime riddled people who will never come to terms with reason and honesty to reflect on their own wrongdoings. They never imagined–how the present and future generations will remember them? Military generals do not build the nation or its socio-economic and political infrastructures, principles, values and standards or anything to do with future-making.  Their one-track mental microscope cannot imagine prevalent injustice, corruption and calamities unleashed by those that they collaborated to put into power.

The Nation Needs Soul-Searching

If the Generals and accomplice politicians were to realize the tensions of reasoned possibilities for a “progressive Pakistan”, they should have abandoned the primitive and redundant longings and be adaptable to change and participation of new age educated and honest people.

Most dreadful tragedies were orchestrated by design and dishonest figures. They played with its destiny and broke it as they were never part of the freedom movement and no relationship to the ideals of Pakistan.  The country was defeated by India in 1971 war as a part of conspiracy by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and General Yahya Khan. Altaf Qureshi (Editor, Urdu Digest) wrote “Skoote –Dahaka Say Purdah Uttha Hey” (1972), in which he described the details how Bhutto and Yahya Khan betrayed Pakistan and stabbed the nation and deserved firing squads but were not held accountable for their crimes. Are the Pakistanis still living in any rational denials of their own chapter of history?  (See “British Colonialism and How India and Pakistan Lost Freedom.” Global Research.org: 1/01/2022). ZA Bhutto sought help from Mrs. Indira Gandhi (PM of India) and agreed to defeat and surrender of Pakistan at Dhaka to become the next President, Martial Law administrator and chief minister. Ayub Khan had ousted him as a minister because of his conspiracy to defeat Pakistan in 1965.

Ms. Benzair Bhutto and her mother Nusrat Bhutto were alleged to be involved in the killing of General Zia ul Haq and 12 Pakistani Generals and 100 of others in a C-130 Bahawalpur plane crash, August 1988, and when she became PM, they traded-in lists of Sikh and Kashmiri freedom fighters with Indian PM Rajiv Gandhi (Lahore meeting), and thousands of them were targeted and killed by Indian security forces. Ms. Benazir Bhutto and Asif Zardari were indicted by a Swiss court on $60M money laundering crime but they still returned to political power.

Nawaz Sharif hijacked the PIA plane with General Musharraf on board and 265 or so passengers returning from Sri Lanka and wanted it to go to India. He was also involved in money laundering and twice dismissed on corruption charges, still became PM a third time. Sharifs, Ms. Bhutto and Zardari stole billions of dollars from the national treasury to buy properties in London, Paris and Spain. Ms. Bhutto and Zardari owned a palace in Dubai worth approximately $10B, and Sharif brothers have several apartment complex in London valued at $30B to $40B. Why can’t this stolen wealth be recovered to help the flood victims of Pakistan?  Why should Pakistan beg to foreign masters for$28B flood aid? In a highly corrupt culture of politics, no one dares to ask such rational questions. According to George W. Bush, General Musharraf and 12 other Generals were gifted with $2B to – “Pakistani Generals are paid” to do the job, wrote the NYT (07/2007) during the war in Afghanistan. No wonder, how Musharraf bought a $1.4 M villa in London’s suburb and allowed a retired US General to monitor the Pakistan’s nuclear arsenals. Pakistanis NEED soul-searching to realize the gravity of political corruption, national security and how the nation continued to flop in a global context.

Pakistan in search of Navigational Change

Young generations are disillusioned and are increasingly leaving Pakistan to Western countries. The brain-drain problem afflicts Pakistan adversely in socio-economic and political future-making as old and former subservient of British legacy run the country. With new generation migration, Pakistan is fast losing its best talents and energies for the present and future. In 2019, this author offered Imran Khan a logical plan for sustainable change (“Pakistan: How to change political culture of corruption and rebuild the future” Media Monitors Network, USA,2019). Most of his associates were uneducated and former loyalists of the current political opposition parties. None of them had any knowledge or experience in critical thinking, strategic planning and change or future-making. Why did Khan waste almost four years in fantasy of New Pakistan and failed to live up to his imagination. What Bruce Riedel, Brooking Institute, USA (“Battle for the Soul of Pakistan” ) former Obama’s advisor said a decade earlier, is now repeated by President Joe Biden, “most dangerous nation in the world.”

The recent floods ravaged Pakistan and devastated millions of poor masses and it was happening frequently but no one took any planned steps to protect life and habitats. There is an irresistible manifestation of new age, educated leadership to safeguard the nation, its freedom and security. But Pakistan is obsessed with political cynicism and corruption. Reason and revulsion will not restore normalcy but a moral reformatory revolution could save the future of the beleaguered nation. At the edge of reason, the turbulent Pakistan desperately needs new and honest people of educated generation to plan and reconstruct political change. Imran Khan if allowed to contest national elections has a challenge to THINK and plan for a navigational change and sustainable future-making. Pakistan urgently needs a savior, a person of proactive vision, honesty to pursue a navigational change for future-making; not Shahbaz Sharif, not Bhutto or the few Generals. The solution must come from the critical thinking hubs of the new educated generation – the intelligent Pakistanis to facilitate hope and optimism for a sustainable future of the beleaguered nation. You may find it relevant to see: “Pakistan- Leaders or Criminals” Uncommon Thought Journal, USA 2014. Under the present chaotic affairs, a new Government of National Unity should be formed under a non-partisan and non-political leader of moral and intellectual integrity for a period of two years; a New Constitution for a Presidential form of government should be framed with new public institutions under leadership of new generation of educated and honest people; and then a new election could give meaning and clarity to the purpose of democracy and to transform the ideals of a progressive legitimate functional democracy.  The Need is desperate for the Pakistani nation to think critically and see the mirror.  We ask the retired and conscientious Generals to come out and launch a peaceful march for political change and democratic stability. We ask the Ulemas / Islamic scholars to hold public protests and symbolic funerals of the corrupt leaders. What We, the people are rationalizing could be ridiculed by thugs and indicted criminals currently in power. But on the contrary those enriched with knowledge, logic of honesty and planned change for future-making will view it critically and seriously a genuine and timely pursuit negating fanaticism to ensure the national freedom, security and sovereignty of a stable Pakistan.

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Dr. Mahboob A. Khawaja specializes in international affairs-global security, peace and conflict resolution with keen interests in Islamic-Western comparative cultures and civilizations, and author of several publications including the latest: One Humanity and the Remaking of Global Peace, Security and Conflict Resolution. Lambert Academic Publications, Germany, 12/2019. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

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The lowest of the low in warfare is to send to the battlefront poorly trained troops and to have trailing behind them troops whose function is to shoot to kill any of those frontline poorly trained troops who try to retreat. That is what the United States command (the “NATO command” as Russia calls it — though Ukraine isn’t a member of NATO, and all of the top-command decisions for Ukraine’s forces in this war are now being made by the U.S. Government and by no one else) of Ukraine’s war with Russia on the battlefields of Ukraine has ordered, and what Ukraine’s forces now are doing especially in the region of Kherson in Ukraine’s south.

There will be hell to pay for this by Ukraine’s President Volodmyr Zelensky when this war is over. He has become so desperate to stay in charge so that he allows this to happen to his people instead of his surrendering in order to save them from the double destitution of having warfare being imposed upon them now not only by the enemy’s forces — which is what happens in ANY war — but ALSO by ‘their own’ forces (who are actually being led by a foreign power — the U.S. Government). Before the U.S. coup in Ukraine in February 2014, the vast majority of Ukrainians considered NATO to be Ukraine’s enemy, but that switched to “friend” immediately afterward. What will be their opinion of NATO after this war is over and Ukraine’s total crackdown on its press is no longer in force? (The U.S. also has a press crackdown, but it is far milder. For example, a Google search for the pair “Ministry of Defense” and “Russia” brings up the “Ministry of Defense of Ukraine” but NOT of Russia. And though the Ministry of Defense of Russia is, in fact, live online, all that one sees of it in the United States is “403 Forbidden”, with no explanation as to whom is “forbidding” it, but that “whom” is the U.S. regime itself, acting through its various agencies, including Google — as is indicated in this and this.)

Joe Biden sits safe in his White House commandeering Ukraine to his own designs, while destroying it for the residents there.

Zelensky, for his part, is trapped, because if he were to lose the assistance that he is getting from America, he would be overthrown and torn apart by Ukrainians. For him to say no to Uncle Sam now would mean his own demise and his ending up in the history-books as having been not only a failed leader but also an evil one (which he is in any case, for his ruling on behalf of the United States, but the victor in any war always gets to write those books, and, so, ONLY by Uncle Sam’s winning its Ukrainian war against Russia will Zelensky have any remaining hope of surviving, either physically or reputationally).

Vladimir Putin had offered Biden a deal on December 17th, to stop America’s further expansion of NATO, in return for which there would be peace between Russia and The West (the U.S. Government and its vassal-nations or ‘allies’), but on January 7th, Biden (through his NATO) said no to that; and the only question remaining then was: When will Russia strike to neutralize Ukraine in order to prevent U.S. missiles from being posted in Ukraine about 300 miles away from Moscow (a five-minute missile-flight-time away from The Kremlin)? On February 24th, we got Russia’s answer: his “special military operation.”

And, now, things have come to this. At some point, either Biden or Putin will have to yield to the other. If Biden wins, then U.S. missiles becoming posted just five minutes away from The Kremlin (which is far too close for Russia to be able to launch its retaliatory missiles before Russia’s central command has been eliminated by a blitz American nuclear first-strike) will be only a matter of “when?” instead any longer of “if?”

However, if Putin wins, then America’s empire won’t be able to reach the all-encompassing global hegemony that has been its aim ever since 25 July 1945; and this Century, the 21st, will see the replacement of the international U.S.-and-allied dictatorship (America’s growing empire ever since 1945) by international leadership from Asia, and especially from Russia and China.

Both Russia and China have already made clear their condemnations of all empires, the very principle of empire, which is supremacism; and, so, they already are on record committed not to replacing existing empires, but instead as FDR was before Truman replaced him: to ending all empires and strengthening the U.N., so as to terminate imperialism itself.

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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.

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Ukraine’s Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, has been photographed several times in recent weeks while wearing or displaying photos and symbols associated with the far right and even neo-Nazism.

Zaluzhnyi’s twitter post in which he is shown wearing a bracelet with far-right insignia. [Photo: WSWS]

In one photo widely circulated on Twitter which was Zaluzhnyi’s own account posted, he can be seen walking with a gun while wearing a bracelet adorned with far-right symbols, including one symbol resembling a Nazi swastika. The bracelet is sold as a “Viking” bracelet in Ukraine and contains a number of symbols that are associated with Norse mythology and employed by far right and neo-Nazi movements worldwide.

The “Viking” bracelet Zaluzhnyi was wearing. [Photo: WSWS]

In another photo, Zaluzhnyi is shown standing in a military office with several other soldiers in front of a desk adorned with busts of OUN-B leaders and Nazi-collaborators Stepan Bandera and Roman Shukhevych. Photos of both Shukhevych and Bandera are prominently hanging on the wall in the background. A separate photo taken in Zaluzhnyi’s office also has a bust of Bandera displayed on a table against a wall.

Zaluzhnyi with soldiers in an office, decorated with busts and portraits of Stepan Bandera and other Ukrainian fascists. [Photo: WSWS]

Supporters of the NATO-backed proxy war in Ukraine on Twitter and Western media outlets such as France24 have attempted to whitewash Zaluzhnyi’s choices of decoration by pointing out that the swastika on the bracelet is not as prominent as it appears in Zaluzhnyi’s Twitter photo. Zaluzhnyi has been depicted as a heroic figure in the Western pro-imperialist press and has even recently appeared on the cover of Time magazine. To acknowledge the role of far-right forces within Ukraine is tantamount to heresy within the corporate press, since it would expose the real character of the imperialist-backed war in Ukraine.

However, the bracelet, combined with the far-right paraphernalia openly displayed in Ukrainian military offices leaves no doubt that Zaluzhnyi is supportive of the use of far-right symbols and the veneration of Ukrainian World War II Nazi collaborators within the Ukrainian military.

The photos also clearly demonstrate the extent to which the far-right, rather than being merely a marginal element, is in fact closely linked to the highest levels of Ukrainian government and military, which themselves are in constant contact with the Biden administration.

On the same day that Zaluzhnyi posted the photo of himself wearing the far-right bracelet, he also revealed that he had just spoken with United States General Mark Milley, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. According to Zaluzhnyi, he and Milley “match[ed] our clocks regarding the level of supply of the Ukrainian military with weapons and material.”

The photos of Zaluzhnyi associating himself openly with far-right figures and symbology also appeared on the same day that Azov Battalion fighters recently released by Moscow revealed that Azov’s Commander Denis Prokopenko had been in contact with both Zaluzhnyi and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky while being trapped within the Azovstal factory in Mariupol. According to Azov Major Bohdan Krotevych, “The whole operation of our exit was agreed to with government leadership. It was a tough operation.”

Zaluzhnyi was first appointed to his post as Commander in Chief by Zelensky in July 2021 and immediately displayed a predilection towards military escalation with Russia. In September of 2021, Zaluzhnyi permitted Ukrainian forces to open fire on Donbass separatists without having to consult first with military leadership. Later, in October of 2021, Zaluzhnyi ordered the first use of Turkish-supplied Bayraktar drones in a strike against separatist forces in Donbass. The attack drew a sharp rebuke from Moscow as the use of “foreign unmanned aerial vehicles” was clearly banned under the Minsk peace accord.

In November of 2021, Zaluzhniy made his support for the far-right public when appointed former Right Sector leader Dmytro Yarosh as his advisor. Yarosh previously led the Right Sector’s paramilitary formation the Ukrainian Volunteer Corps and played a leading role in carrying out Kiev’s war against the breakaway Donbass regions after the regular Ukrainian Armed Forces suffered from mass desertions and defeats. Zaluzhniy later refused to reveal the details of Yarosh’s role of advisor or of his dismissal from the post in December 2021 and it is still unclear exactly what role Yarosh played.

More recently, the city of Dnipro renamed one of its major streets after Stepan Bandera after the Mayor of the city promised Yarosh he would honor Bandera in the largely Russian-speaking city when the right time came. In September, Yarosh posted to Facebook that Ukraine should make territorial claims on several Russian regions and cities such as Belgorod, Kuban, Voronezh and continue the war into Russia to capture “Ukrainian lands.”

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***

The Russian invasion of Ukraine provided a tremendous opportunity to the Biden administration to dominate Europe and the American fossil fuel industry that was “licking its lips” to hit the jackpot from the looming energy crisis. Since the outset of the war, the liquefied natural gas (LNG) corporations and Washington worked hand in glove to steal the European wallets of the European states and raise their dependence on the US.

In a hasty letter to Joe Biden on February 25, the country’s energy group, LNG Allies, sought the US president’s public support for ramping up domestic gas and oil production to support the allies abroad. It urged him to instruct the US Department of Energy (DOE) to immediately approve pending LNG export licenses and direct the independent Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) act within six months.

Within three weeks, the DOE issued two long-term orders to authorize 0.72 billion cubic feet per day (bcf/d) of LNG exports from Corpus Christi and Sabrina Pass in Texas and Louisiana to any country including Europe. A month later, the Department authorized two more long-term orders of 0.5 bcf/d of LNG exports from Golden Pass LNG and Magnolia LNG, operating in the same states.

America’s LNG export capacity is set to grow by a combined 5.7 bcf/d as three export projects – Golden Pass LNG, Plaquemines LNG and Corpus Christi Stage III – begin construction but they will not be operational before 2025. Meanwhile, ordinary Americans should be braced for the “severe impacts” of domestic gas diversion from the US in the form of high energy bills.

In a public façade, the influential gas industry wanted the Biden administration to use America’s strategic assets to help keep prices low, support international allies and move more natural gas to domestic consumers. Yet in effect, none of them cared for inflation-beaten Americans as the FERC in May approved three natural gas and LNG projects to push the country’s energy exports.

The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) claimed the authorization improved the domestic natural gas infrastructure in those areas; the alliance between the gas industry and the White House to sell high-priced LNG and lock Europe dependence was clearly visible notwithstanding the action raised the heating bills of American households.

Prior to the Moscow-Kyiv war, America was already trying to dethrone Russia. Leveraging its vast influence in the continent, the US in 2021 finally managed to displace Russia and Qatar to become Europe’s largest source of LNG. This was despite the LNG imports of 13 European Union (EU) countries saw a drop of 4% from the previous year to 80 billion cubic meters (bcm), according to the European Commission (EC).

The US was already ratcheting up its LNG shipments to Europe. Per the DOE’s LNG Monthly, Washington almost doubled its LNG exports to the European Union (EU-27) and the UK from 3.4 bcf/d in November 2021 to 6.5 bcf/d in January 2022, the most shipped to Europe in a month. In January, the EC data showed a surge of 44% in the EU LNG imports from America. For 2021, the US LNG exports were estimated at more than 22 bcm with a projected value of €12 billion.

Once the war broke out, the US was best placed to ship more LNG to Europe at inflated prices. The continent is on track to refill its low natural gas inventories by switching to LNG (and coal) but at a price estimated to be more than 10 times higher than the historical average. So too the US emerged the world’s largest LNG exporter in the first half of 2022 on the back of increased LNG prices in Europe and now has the much greater room to maneuver to influence the European policies.

In March, Biden pledged to provide the EU, which bought 155 bcm of natural gas from the Kremlin in 2021, at least 15 bcm of more LNG to wean its dependence off Russia. Yet there’s a catch: the US gamble to replenish the European gas stocks with 50 bcm of further LNG by at least 2030 and take control of the continent’s destiny is a bridge too far.

According to the Refinitiv data, Washington by June had almost tripled its LNG shipments, 39 bcm of LNG, to Brussels; the expensive purchases elevates threats of economic recession in Europe that is gripped by rampant inflation, energy price spike and sluggish growth. As the US LNG is pollution-intensive over production by fracking, a technology broadly banned in the EU, a supply of 50 bcm of additional American LNG every year through the decade exposes the transatlantic commitment to climate change.

Since 2016 when the US began to export LNG, the Gulf of Mexico has been a key hub for LNG shipments abroad, most of which heads to Europe. The FERC approved several construction projects including in Texas and Louisiana; these export plants are a “lose-lose proposition” for the communities in the region, Europe and the climate for they emit large amounts of greenhouse gases with floods and hurricanes making 40% of the population across the coastline vulnerable.

Phlegmatic about Americans’ health and climate pledges, the Biden administration is rather keen to cement its status as the world’ top fossil fuel exporter on purpose: to deepen Europe’s dependence on the US. Bringing Tehran on the global market should help Brussels yet Washington is ascertaining Europeans do not heave a sigh of relief and are in need of America “even more” next year when the Russian oil flows are dried up.

Increasing Europe’s reliance on the US economy, military and culture is invariably a top American priority. Analyses that characterize the US empire as “humane” and scare the continent of America’s ability to wage war anywhere, invade any country at will and fight multiple wars simultaneously are part of a grand strategy to prevent the European economy from taking over the US and suppress its pursuit of strategic autonomy, let alone sovereignty.

The Biden administration’s gluttony to heighten the European strategic dependence on the US through a close and well-coordinated nexus between the White House and the gas industry puts America’s climate change promises on the back burner and delivers a free opportunity to itself to openly exploit the Ukraine war and elbow out Europe off the track of its strategic and economic autonomy.

But the strategy is facing a strong backlash at home where expected sharp price hikes in electricity and heating bills ahead of a harsh winter will test the inflation-battered Americans, whose raging response may be reflected in the November midterms. Europe too is feeling the pinch of the US economic pillage as the European leaders question the “great friendship.”

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Azhar Azam is a private professional and writes on geopolitical issues and regional conflicts.

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***

On October 13, during the inauguration ceremony of the European Diplomatic Academy in Bruges, Belgium, the European Union’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell stated that “Europe is a garden” while the (rest of the) “world is a jungle”. The remark can hardly be described as anything else but racist, given the colonialist legacy of the political West. Worse yet, the very fact that Borrell was addressing an audience of the EU’s future diplomatic elite makes the statement even more concerning.

“Europe is a garden,” Borrell stated as part of a broader topic of building alliances to avoid conflicts and tensions with other powers and nations. “Most of the rest of the world is a jungle, and the jungle could invade the garden,” he added.

Either not realizing or caring about the gravity of his remarks, Borrell continued expanding this “garden/jungle” analogy.

“We have built a garden. Everything works. It is the best combination of political freedom, economic prosperity and social cohesion that humankind has been able to build – the three things together,” he continued.

He went on to describe the “garden” in ways that were especially offensive towards anyone not just outside of Europe, but the EU as well.

“The rest of the world [is] not exactly a garden… The gardeners should take care of it, but they will not protect the garden by building walls. A nice small garden surrounded by high walls in order to prevent the jungle from coming in is not going to be a solution. Because the jungle has a strong growth capacity, and the wall will never be high enough in order to protect the garden,” Borrell stated. “The gardeners have to go to the jungle. Europeans have to be much more engaged with the rest of the world. Otherwise, the rest of the world will invade us, by different ways and means,” he concluded.

Although Borrell probably realized that the speech was at least “problematic” and thus made an attempt to ease the rhetoric, this only backfired, as it was still supremacist, at the very least. The analogy can only be seen from the perspective of those who are allegedly “civilized” and the supposed “barbarians” waiting outside. Anyone outside of the “garden” would have no other logical choice but to come to such a conclusion. As previously mentioned, the fact that the future diplomatic elite of the EU was listening to “guidelines” like these doesn’t bode well for the bloc’s foreign policy in the upcoming decades. Naturally, showing such blatant disrespect by viewing the world as a collection of “barbarians” will certainly do no good for the relations between Brussels and the rest of the planet.

Expectedly, many other diplomats and world leaders criticized Borrell’s statements, including Nasser Bin Hassan Al-Shaikh, the Director-General of Dubai’s Department of Finance, who rightfully called the remarks a display of imperialism and racism. Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova also condemned the statement: “The ‘garden’ was built by Europe due to the barbaric attitude to the plundering of the ‘jungle’.”

It should be noted that this is certainly not the first time that high-ranking officials from the political West are giving such statements. In mid-April, during an address at the Atlantic Council, United States Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen stated that anyone who refused to follow anti-Russian policies is essentially a “fence sitter”. Needless to say, this effectively included approximately 80% of the world’s population, as the vast majority of countries refused to take sides in the ongoing NATO encroachment on Russia’s western borders, which provoked Moscow’s reaction in Ukraine.

Those who suffered (and continue to suffer) under the jackboot of Western neoliberal “freedom and democracy” are precisely the countries Borrell called the “jungle”. This is particularly true for the Global South, the most exploited part of the world, which has been subjected to exploitation by the “garden”. With its invasions, (neo)colonialism, currency dominance, etc. the “garden” has been destroying much of the world for centuries.

During the (First) Cold War, it was precisely Russia that was instrumental in the liberation of the Global South. The superpower invested massive amounts of resources to help these countries. Unfortunately, after 1991, Western (neo)colonial overlords returned in full force. But, this time, it was “different”. The masters were bringing “freedom and democracy”, yet another euphemism for colonialism.

In addition, the world should make no mistake that the “garden” treats other Europeans no better than the world itself. NATO bombed and dismantled European nations as well, such as Serbia/Yugoslavia before it went on to destroy countless other countries around the world. Although the “garden” has been suffering one humiliating defeat after another in the last nearly 10 years, as evidenced by the failed invasion of Syria, the failed takeover of Crimea and the defeat in Donbass, the botched invasion of Venezuela, the humiliating defeat in Afghanistan and the ongoing defeat in Ukraine, the damage inflicted is still quite severe.

If the world is indeed a “jungle”, it’s in such a state only thanks to the sheer magnitude and scale of death and destruction brought upon by the “garden”. And even if it was the case that the “jungle” wanted to take revenge for approximately half a millennium of brutal crimes of the “garden”, who could blame it?

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Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.

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The creation of the Sexes is inseparable from the creation of the Universe. All of life depends upon the duality and complementarity of male/female. It is fundamental to existence itself. Does anyone think that a light bulb will illuminate without a positive and negative current to create the necessary friction?

To remove this fundamental duality from the biological composition of human life is to nullify the creative spark of existence itself. It must be right at the head of the list of crimes against humanity.

Those who promote the sterilisation of the human race follow the same path as those who have already sterilised a large portion of the natural diversity of the planet, via industrial pharmaceutically controlled ‘farming’.

Bees and other insects that cross pollinate the male and female plant kingdoms – and therefore fertilise the fruits that follow – are a threatened species. Almost wiped-out by industrialist’s addiction to playing God with toxic anti-life weaponry.

This attack on ‘cross fertilisation’ has now moved-on to become a direct attack on ‘fertilisation’ per se. It includes an attempt to deny children the guidance necessary to enable them to avoid being trapped into sexually crippling themselves, thereby deleting their ability to grow-up as whole creative human beings.

It would appear that the prerogative of some is to understand ‘freedom’ as the right to escape from the biological integrity of one’s bodily existence. Which, in effect, means to escape from the inherent wisdom of one’s Creator. And the means to this end?  To render one’s biological condition ‘neuter’; an abstract notion coming from outside the laws of nature.

This notion, that it is both possible and desirable to be neither boy nor girl, neither male nor female, but something undefined in between can only have come about through a deeply perverse and purposeful top-down indoctrination process.

Well, we know something about this. In 1969, at a gathering of pediatricians in Pitsburg USA, a certain doctor Richard Day stood-up and communicated a remarkable polemic about the future of humanity which he asked the attendant doctors not to take notes about. However one doctor, Lawrence Dunegan, defied this call and managed to jot-down the basic story.

What he recorded is now a famous document which accurately described the precise plans/agenda of The New World Order cabal for the years ahead. One of Dr Day’s key statements was “We are going to make boys and girls the same.”

Making boys and girls the same is a process emanating from the Transhuman school now being promoted as part of The Great Reset of the World Economic Forum and its director Klaus Schwab.

The Great Reset will ‘re-set’ the sex of humankind to be ‘sexless’. Or to persuade males to become females and females to become males. Its aim is to contribute to depopulation goals by ensuring that no more procreation is possible for anyone other than the elite cabal who are to retain the privilege of having children via physical intercourse.

This ‘re-set’ has already been pronounced by Schwab’s leading advisor, Israeli Professor Yuval Noah Harari, who recently stated outright “We will create non organic humans, we will do better than God.” This view is not unique to Harari, having recently re-emerged via the thinking and writing of futurist and ‘singularity’ exponent Ray Kurzweil.

The promotion of a ‘Trans species’ is giving us a view of the darkest territory of the mind. The mind of the Luciferian/Masonic initiate.  This is the agenda for the deliberate dehumanisation of human kind. And it is now going public because its initiators clearly believe they can ‘reset’ the social, moral and ethical map of the world. This includes the social, ethical and spiritual evolution of humanity.

Dispensing with the laws of the Universe and replacing them with a goal of biological sterility, is an agenda coming from ‘the other side’. By this I mean, coming from the reversed consciousness of the despisers of humanity. Demonic forces.

But Schwab’s team has worked-out a way of selling this bleak future under the guise of offering ‘freedom’ to youth to do the cool/fashionable thing of the era, to become LGBT ‘non-biological’ in the name of exercising choice at an age when one has no basis for exercising such a choice.

At a point when one is entering the age of puberty one has one’s first sense of the vastness of human potential. A profoundly important and often unsettling moment in all our lives. A time of discovering what it means to be male and female and how society expects one to behave. At this time in life it is quite easy to be enticed into a self harming mode, out of an irrational urge to be nonconformist.

Many parents of such youth seem devoid of any will or instinct to direct their offspring along a road of health and sanity. While doctors and physicians offer the disfiguring surgery and debilitating drugs as though they were a routine medical procedure, exhibiting no ethical or moral fibre to resist the horror of what the Cabal expects of them – or the fees involved in performing the mutations.

The children, for they are such, think they are making this decision; but their unformed minds have been poisoned and stolen from them just at the point when they are at their most vulnerable and open. The psychological development of many is already disturbed and distorted by constant use of ‘must have’ mobile phones, the use of which their seemingly oblivious parents have failed to control.

One has an inescapable sense that the apocalypse is not the future, but the present. A whole raft of humanity is allowing itself to become a vector for a programmed descent into a torture chamber devised and run by the princes of darkness.

A number of those on the brink of being operated on have been persuaded not to go ahead, thank God. Some have spoken-out and said how hugely relieved they are that they were helped and saved from the tragic sterile journey which lay in wait for them. One can only hope that their testimonies are heard by others too confused to know which way to turn. By teachers and councillors whose professions are supposed to be founded on responsible counceling of the young.

How could anyone with a heart and a modicum of self respect possibly withdraw their guidance from highly vulnerable young people drifting and frightened within the present sea of abject confusion and corruption?

The New World Order is the father of The Great Reset. It is a prison camp run by soulless entities who resemble humans.

Each step of its manifestation is composed of a seemingly high ideal:

• ‘a universal vaccine’ for all ‘pandemics’. 
• ‘Zero carbon’ to end ‘global warming’.
• ‘Laboratory food’ to end ‘environmental exploitation’. 
• ‘A digital currency’ to prevent ‘fraud’.
• A ‘central electromagnetic surveillance system’ to ‘watch over’ all areas of one’s life.
• A ‘microchip under the skin’ for ‘convenient’ banking/shopping operations.

And now ‘Trans’ people, to prove the fact that it’s you’re ‘right’ to decide your sex, and not God’s. God, after all, might have got it wrong.

The creation of a non biological human race is absolutely central to the Transhumanist agenda. It is readily admitted as such by Klaus Schwab and Yuval Noah Harari. They genuinely believe that they – and their artificial intelligence engineers – can ‘do a better job than God’.

The supposed ‘removal of pain’ is a further component of this exercise. Much of society is already conditioned to to feel it can’t live without convenience and is increasingly averse to any form of hardship. In this ‘you can have everything’ supermarket of life, pain, hardship and creative effort can all be averted by a pill, an operation or a vaccination to neutralise the offending part of one’s DNA.

Aldous Huxley warned of this some eighty years ago. Most ignored that warning and are still ignoring it, pathologically conditioned as they are by the spellbinding techniques of the psychopaths that run the show.

So don’t ever laugh-off that which goes under the title ‘Trans’. Don’t think you’re going to be a ‘liberal free thinker’ by going along with the covert and overt destruction of the Divine Masculine and the Divine Feminine.

Offer instead profound thanks for the genius that brought such duality into existence, and join the resistance with all those who have learned to recognise just how deeply cunning and manipulative is the Saturnian cult that is out to capture the life force of our planet’s beloved children.

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Julian Rose is an early pioneer of UK organic farming, writer, international activist, entrepreneur and holistic teacher.  He is President of The International Coalition to Protect the Polish Countryside and Co-founder of the Hardwick Alliance for Real Ecology HARE. His latest book ‘Overcoming the Robotic Mind – Why Humanity Must Come Through’ is strongly recommended reading for this time: see www.julianrose.info. 

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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***

 

 

 

Sports stars are often adored like dumb show animals, suitably pretty, happily disposed to the cause they are paid for.  For the FIFA Men’s World Cup being held in Qatar next month, football can count on the face of former English star David Beckham as its prized animal.  This month, the principle-free player signed a 10-year contract worth £150 million to be the state’s culture and tourism ambassador.

For a Gulf state with an appalling human rights record, be it in terms of mistreating migrant workers, discriminating against women and criminalising homosexuality, this was quite a coup.  In a promotional advert wearily lasting 30 minutes, Beckham happily does what he is paid to do.  “People in Qatar are very proud of their culture,” he states.  Tacky observations abound.  “The modern and traditional fused to create something really special.”  The video also gives him a chance to strut any number of fashion labels.

In Blighty, this did not go down too well, at least in some quarters of chat land.  The breakfast talk circuit lit up with claims from Good Morning Britain presenter Robert Rinder that Beckham’s conduct had put “money before morals”.  (When was it different?)  “There should be basic requirements before you are entitled to [host such tournaments] and that’s not just about LGBTQ.  It’s about the 6,500 workers who died, it’s about the fact that Beckham’s daughter Harper would not be able to continue with her education [if she was Qatari] without the permission of a male relative.”

Fine stuff indeed, except that the organisation behind football, FIFA, was never one to quibble about the ethics and governing principles of the host nations.  The perennial hope of its officials is that moral ill-temper eventually cools off and loses interest.  Once the ball starts to move, the ethicists go on leave.  The fans, television networks and dignitaries will turn up, wolf down and guzzle what’s on offer.

Beckham, for his part, is playing the role of a cultural trainee, a vessel keen to be filled with the profound revelations of his hosts.  “David believes,” the insufferable Sun reports, “in Qatar’s commitment to progress and that the World Cup – the first to be held in the Arab world – can effect significant positive change.”  Not only did he believe “in the power of football to bridge differences but, crucially, has seen the progress on issues that matter.”

The paper also reports that the former player consulted his wife, Victoria, before signing the contract, which is about as banal as you can get.  The only thing of interest there is that Victoria was a member of The Spice Girls, who “famously sung about ‘girl power’”.

What, then, has been done in terms of actual protest?  At the coal face – or, in this case, the stadium face – are the workers who have every right to demand their wages and to protest maltreatment that has been a habitual feature of the kafala system.  It is them who face to lose the most.

Strikes have taken place protesting wage theft or the late payment of wages.  More are scheduled to take place. These tend to come in stages, with workers initially refusing to leave their accommodation and go to work, followed by protests on the street, sometimes in front of government buildings or the headquarters of the relevant company.

Human Rights Watch has noted the retaliation of the Qatari authorities to such measures.  A number of those participating in a strike that took place on August 14 were detained and returned – voluntarily, of course.  They had violated “Qatar’s public security laws”.

Other forms of protest are not quite so convincing.  Some seem to resemble a form of crude marketing, a case of booming self-promotion.  Instead of glossy, Qatar standard bearer Beckham, Denmark prefers the most modest of objections.  Their team uniforms will go monochrome.  The manufacturer, Hummel, offers a choice of three.  One is black.  “The colour of mourning,” we are told by the company.  “We support the Danish national team all the way, but that isn’t the same as supporting Qatar as a host nation.”

On its Instagram account, the company expressed its wish to “send a dual message”.  The kits were inspired by Euro 92, when Denmark won the European Football Championship, and a desire to “protest against Qatar and its human rights record.”  In a scarcely credible assertion, Hummel did not wish “to be visible during a tournament that has cost thousands of people their lives.”  Only, they will be, in the form of supplying kit to the Danish national team.

The response from the bombastically named Qatar Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy fumed at Hummel’s measures, disputing the assertion that “this tournament has cost thousands of people their lives.”  The Committee also rejected “the trivialising (of) our genuine commitment to protect the health and safety of the 30,000 workers who built FIFA World Cup stadiums and other tournament projects.”

Committee members need not worry.  Whatever the grumbling, attendance from country teams is bound to be comprehensive and complete.  Gone are the days when the sporting boycott, albeit unevenly applied, was used.  In its modern iteration, such protest, as sports columnist Cathal Kelly observes, is mightily nuanced and ineffectual.  “You don’t like how something is done?  Then find a way to turn a sad situation into an opportunity for self-aggrandizement.”

Kelly, after discussing the Danish example, notes the even more feeble response from Dutch manager Frank de Boer.  The Dutch team, de Boer promises, will wear “One Love” rainbow armbands during the matches.  “This is the biggest statement we can make.”  This does little to remove the stigma of complicity and collaboration: after the disagreement, the show continues as hypocrisy reigns in majesty.

Having done their bit to express stroppy disagreement, the Danish team and other competitors will still grace the stadia built in near-slave labour conditions; participate in activities supported by conditions tantamount to much the same; and enjoy the receptions and hospitality of a state with a brutal penal system.  The games will still be broadcast, the stream of revenue uninterrupted.  As with church attendees happy to part with a coin donation after a service, all can leave happy that a troubled conscience can rest as the world continues along its dark, unchanging way.

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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: This is the logo owned by FIFA for 2022 FIFA World Cup. (Licensed under Fair Use)

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***

Western leaders hopefully have “enough intelligence” to avoid a direct military confrontation with Russia, Vladimir Putin said. See this.

This report shows that the length of time taken by the limited operation in Donbass has not limited the conflict but greatly expanded it by giving the West plenty of time to get thoroughly involved.  Yet from his most recent statements Putin intends to insist on a limited conflict. 

This insistence explains what Putin means when he says it is necessary to understand what one means by the word “defeat” in the context of the Ukraine crisis.  Putin is saying that he has no intention of defeating Ukraine.  His aim is limited to driving Ukraine’s forces out of Donbass.  In other words, this is not a Russian invasion of Ukraine.  It is a police action in Donbass.  That it is a limited police action and not an invasion of Ukraine is why the Kremlin had no ready reserves and had to call a limited mobilization to have enough soldiers to finish the job.

A limited intervention is Putin’s intent.  As I have made clear for some time, I think Putin is delusional.  The evidence is conclusive that Washington has widened the conflict and that the conflict is no longer limited except in Putin’s mind. 

So the West is fighting a real war while Putin confines Russia’s participation in the war to a limited police action.  Putin’s recent statement that there is no need for any further Russian attacks on Western Ukraine’s infrastructure proves that he does not see Russia fighting a real war.  This sounds like a denial of the reality on Putin’s part.  As I see it, Putin’s position invites more provocations and more war-widening. The inability of the Kremlin to put a strong foot down is leading to wider conflict.

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

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***

Gifts from the Fire: American Ceramics from the Collection of Martin Eidelberg, is worth a visit, at a minimum to appreciate the five pieces (four vases and a pitcher) from the hands of George E. Ohr (1857-1918), the self-proclaimed “Mad Potter of Biloxi.” While there are other pieces that capture the eye – the extraordinary glazes, and incandescent surfaces of Adelaide Also Robineau’s Three Vases (1905) come to mind – Ohr’s work is the jewel of the show.

His pottery was the most advanced, rebellious, fruitful, and original of its time – and there is little wonder Ohr is now regarded as prefiguring “modern art movements as diverse as Dada and Abstract Expressionism.” 

His use of traditionally functional forms that he then transformed into something completely afunctional (if not dysfunctional), was genuinely avant-garde. His deformed, abject, and unusable pots defied prevailing norms of order and beauty; pitchers and bowls could not do what was traditionally expected of them. “Their distorted shapes seem to provoke existing canons of beauty, while at the same time creating a strange new beauty of their own.”

“When I discovered the potter’s wheel,” Ohr recalled “I felt it all over like a wild duck in water.” While his early wares were characterized by Victorian ornamentation, Ohr soon began to manipulate traditional ceramic shapes into more sculptural, less utilitarian forms and apply boldly irregular glazes. He was nothing if not a master of the entire ceramic process: from digging the clay to marketing his wares. Part of what distinguishes Ohr and places him on a higher tier relative to contemporaries is that his pottery excels as pottery. That is, for Ohr, the ceramist creates shapes the way a poet creates verses. “My creations…” he would insist, “have an intrinsic value,” as shape.  His ceramics are not simply a vehicle for something else; not merely a ceramic canvas for a painting, molding or design. Or even a glaze. Ohr would create “some of the most original and remarkable patinas in the history of American pottery” – and although Ohr labored hard over his glazes, he would also emphasize that he was first and foremost, “a shape creator and maker.”

Image: Vase ca. 1897–1900 (Source: The MET)

In the exhibited pieces, we get a sense of the techniques and decorative motifs that Ohr introduced into art pottery. For example, crumpling, which makes the pot look as though it were falling or sagging, collapsing on itself, melting. A wonderful example of this is Ohr’s Vase (1897-1900), a piece that also highlights how impossibly thin Ohr manipulated his pottery. The unconventional surface of Vase is another marvel, with its glazed over blisters and intricate mottling, an exacting process “meticulously controlled” by the artist. It is yet another example of Ohr embracing features that would ordinarily be regarded as an accident, or mistake, and making it a valuable part of the ceramist’s repertoire.

Ohr also made use of ruffling, twisting, tubing and surface snakes. There are two examples of such snakes on display: including Vase (1897-900), with its curlicue “ears” for handles, and a mouth-like serpent near the base; and the strange, erotically charged and wonderfully twisted Pitcher (1896) with its delicately curling lips, and serpent extending upward from the base of the handle to the mouth. These snakes, so evocative of the snakes and serpents of Chinese vases, are not meant as realistic renditions. They tend to either encircle the pot once or, as in the case here, rest atop a curvature in the form. We also find Ohr using long, thin, snake-like handles on two vases, both of which reveal just how serenely elegant, impeccably balanced, and graceful his pottery could be.

Ohr remains timely because his work remains radical – its rebelliousness, its hooliganism (to use a word borrowed from the painter Adrien Ghenie) is still palpable. Clement Greenberg famously argued that the essence of modernism lies “in the use of the characteristic methods of a discipline to criticize the discipline itself, not in order to subvert it but in order to entrench it more firmly in its area of competence.”

This made Kant the quintessential, or the first real modernist thinker, because “he was the first to criticize the means itself of criticism.” Manet became the Kant of modernist painting – that is, the first to create “[m]odernist pictures by virtue of the frankness with which they declared the flat surfaces on which they were painted.” By extension, George Ohr is likewise the first modern ceramist. He subjects pottery to the same critical self-evaluation; reassessing its conditions of possibility not in terms of what can satisfy a practical interest, but solely in terms of the medium itself, the possibilities inherent within this material stuff, this clay.

That it should have taken somewhat longer for ceramics to come into its own is perhaps understandable given its close association with utilitarian objects, and hence its exclusion from the realm of fine art. With Ohr, ceramics unequivocally declares its autonomy, and its indifference to functionality, if not outright opposition. For the first time, pottery is about pottery, and not about what use that, at least in principle, could be made of it. Ohr is the father of modernist ceramics – precisely in Greenberg’s sense: Ohr turns ceramics back upon itself. Ceramics is now a process of critical self-reflection: he uses the traditional methods of ceramics to criticize the discipline itself, precisely to clarify and enrich ceramics’ special province, namely, shape.

Largely ignored during his lifetime, George Ohr produced some of the most advanced and daring ceramics of the nineteenth century. His pottery would seem to confirm Baudelaire’s suggestion that “strangeness forms an integral part of beauty.” One of the important features of his work is that he does not turn his back on the ugly, the grotesque, the deformed. With Ohr, the work of art is explicitly rendered an abject and misshapen thing. In Pottery, Politics, Art (2003) Richard Mohr writes: “[Ohr’s] rending and splattering… suggest a deeper signification…The theme is that of abjection.” This affinity for the rejected, the refuse, for what would ordinarily be judged as irredeemably flawed, and without value, is also, for Ohr, the outspoken socialist, a kind of metaphor for solidarity with the marginalized or subjugated groups of society, those that are brutalized and damaged by an inhumane system.

Gifts from the Fire: American Ceramics from the Collection of Martin Eidelberg will be on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New York City, through October 30, 2022.

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Sam Ben-Meir is an assistant adjunct professor of philosophy at City University of New York, College of Technology. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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***

There are signs that Turkey and Syria may be ready to repair their relationship after a decade of conflict has divided the two neighbors.

Turkish media Hurriyet reported on September 16 that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had expressed a wish to meet Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. According to Reuters on September 15, Hakan Fidan, head of Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization, had met multiple times with his counterpart, Syrian National Security Bureau Chairman Ali Mamlouk, in Damascus in recent weeks, according to four sources.

Mikhail Bogdanov, the Russian Foreign Minister, said on September 19, that Moscow is willing to organize a meeting between Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad and Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu.

Steven Sahiounie of MidEastDiscourse interviewed Alptekin Dursunoğlu to gain insight into what might be happening between Damascus and Ankara. 

Dursunoğlu has written

“Strategic Alliance the Story of Turkey-Israel Relations” (2000), “4 World Wars and the Middle East” (2005),”Batting Zero in Syria” (2012), “Proxy War in Syria” (2014), “The Middle East of the New Ottoman” (2016), and is currently writing “The Lost Narrative of the Resistance”.

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Steven Sahiounie (SS): We have recently seen the Turkish leadership attempting to approach the Damascus government, even though Turkey was one of the main supporters of the US-NATO attack on Syria for ‘regime change’.  In your opinion, why does Turkey want to repair their relationship with Syria?

Alptekin Dursunoğlu (AD):  Turkey’s reversal stance is not limited to Syria. Turkey also reversed its stance against Egypt, the Emirates, the Saudis, and Israel. The Erdogan regime explains its efforts to improve relations with these countries with Turkey’s economic, political or regional strategic interests. However, the main reason for the “normalization” trend with Syria seems to be related to the interests of the AKP, not Turkey’s. There is a serious economic crisis in Turkey before the elections and the majority of the people think that the Syrian refugees are causing a decrease in their share of the shrinking economic cake. Some opposition parties also claim that Syrian refugees share the income of the people. They blame the AKP, which brought Syrian refugees to Turkey, for the current economic crisis.

Although it is a newly established party and does not say anything about any problem other than refugees, the racist Victory Party (Zafer Partisi) was the 6th party in the polls conducted in September. It is an important indicator that voters who said they would vote for the Victory Party in the next election also stated that in the previous election, 14% voted for AKP, 24% for CHP, 17% for Good Party (İyi Parti), and 9% for MHP. This social support that the Victory Party gained only through propaganda against Syrian refugees led other parties to turn their election propaganda into sending refugees back.

You are right, the armed groups in Syria have received the greatest support from the Erdogan regime since the beginning of the war. Except for the permission of the Syrian state, no foreign country has a military presence in Syria, apart from the United States and Turkey. Turkey appoints administrators and bureaucrats to the regions it controls in Syria, and opens institutions like its own land there. It pays the armed groups and uses them against the Syrian state. Although Turkey considers the armed groups that control Idlib as terrorists, it uses its bilateral relations with Russia to prevent a military operation that will bring Idlib under Syrian control.

Considering all these realities, it is difficult to see the Erdogan regime’s steps towards rapprochement with Damascus as steps in line with the common interests of the two states. Yes, it is in the interest of the two states that Turkey establishes good relations with Syria; but this was true not only now, but also ten years ago. Thus, there is no reason to believe that the Erdogan regime, which has set Syria on fire for ten years, will come closer to Damascus before the elections considering the two countries’ common interests. However, there is a realistic reason to establish propaganda superiority against opposition parties with the rhetoric “I am normalizing with Damascus, I will send the refugees back” in the elections.

SS: We have heard media reports that the AKP ruling party of the Turkish government ordered the Syrian opposition to leave Turkey by the end of 2022.  In your view, are these reports correct?

AD: The only source of this news is Sputnik Arabic service. It is a little hard to believe this news unless there is confirmation from the Syrian opposition or the MIT on this issue. Because Turkey’s expulsion of the Syrian opposition from the country may be the last step in normalizing relations with Damascus. There is no credibility in Turkey’s dismissal of the Syrian dissidents, even though there has not been even official public communication between the two sides and there is no agreement yet. However, it is clear that the opposition, who reacted negatively to Turkey’s steps towards rapprochement with Damascus, angered the Turkish authorities. MİT may have given harsh warnings to the Syrian opposition. They may have been asked to make statements that were not opposed to Ankara’s steps towards rapprochement with Damascus, but expelling them from the country does not seem to be a credible claim at all.

SS: After sending thousands of Radical Islamic terrorists to Syria through Turkey, how will Turkish President Erdogan be able to get rid of those terrorists?

AD: Of course, there is no such salvation. I think this is the main reason why Turkey insists on not allowing it, even though it is in Ankara’s interest at least as much as Damascus’s for Syria to regain its territorial integrity. At the moment, there is no foreign presence in Syria that Damascus does not want, other than America and Turkey. Syria’s territorial integrity is not in America’s interest. On the other hand, its military presence in Syria and its support for armed groups do not impose a financial burden on the United States. Because America plunders Syria’s oil and grain and both make money from oil and grain smuggling and fund the armed groups it supports.

However, the same is not true for Turkey. Turkey is feeding more than 4 million refugees scattered all over the country. In Kilis and Antakya, the refugee population has exceeded the local population. Turkey pays salaries to the personnel it employs and the armed groups it supports in the regions it controls in Syria from its own budget. Turkey meets the needs of the refugees it keeps here to prevent them from coming to Turkey. On the other hand, Turkey’s presence on Syrian territory does not bring security to Turkey, on the contrary, it gives the United States an excuse to protect Syrian Kurds. The PKK and its components, which Turkey considers terrorists, are bordering Turkey under American auspices. Because of all these, it is in Turkey’s interest, both economically and in terms of security, that Syria regains its territorial integrity and Ankara’s normalization with Damascus.

However, Turkey cannot achieve this normalization, which is in its own interest; because it does not know what to do with the thousands of armed militants and tens of thousands of family members that it has armed and used against Syria for ten years. Let’s assume that with the normalization trend with Syria, they are forgiven and accepted by Damascus. Well, what about the tens of thousands of “terrorists” in Idlib, who are on Turkey’s own terrorist list? For example, members of the Turkistan Islamic Party, both Syrian and non-Arab, and militants from the Caucasus formed a population of nearly 10,000 in Idlib. There is no choice but to kill them all or to be accepted by Syria, Turkey, Russia, or China. All of these options are next to impossible. When Turkey set fire to Syria in 2012, it thought it would only be a little affected by the smoke in its neighbor, and that the smoke would be temporary. But now Turkey is suffocating from the smoke of the fire it lit.

SS: Presently, there are heavy battles in the north of Syria between Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, formerly Jibhat al-Nusra, and other Radical Islamic terrorist groups.  In your opinion, has Turkey played a role in the divisions between the armed groups?

AD: I do not think that any military development in Idlib and the regions under Turkey’s control can take place without the knowledge and approval of Turkey.

SS: The AKP, the ruling party in Turkey, is aligned with the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood, and have begun dialog with Damascus, and President Erdogan has said he is willing to meet with President Assad.  In your opinion, does this mean that Qatar, which is also aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood ideology, will also attempt to reach out to Damascus?

AD: Turkey had fought with Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the Emirates over the Brotherhood and Qatar. The Brotherhood is now trashed, and Qatar has made peace with the Saudi axis, thus paving the way for Turkey to normalize with Egypt, the Saudis, and the Emirates. Ankara also has economic and mafia reasons for getting closer to the Saudis and Emiratis; however, Turkey had a partnership with Qatar in relations with these three countries. If Ankara’s rapprochement with Damascus is merely Erdogan’s electoral maneuver, Qatar may not accompany it.

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

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President Xi Jinping’s 1h45min speech at the opening of the 20^th Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing was an absorbing exercise of recent past informing near future. All of Asia and all of the Global South should carefully examine it.

The Great Hall was lavishly adorned with bright red banners. A giant slogan hanging in the back of the hall read, “Long Live our great, glorious and correct party”.

Another one, below, functioned like a summary of the whole report:

“Hold high the great flag of socialism with Chinese characteristics, fully implement Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, carry forward the great founding spirit of the party, and unite and struggle to fully build a modern socialist country and to fully promote the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.”

True to tradition, the report outlined the CPC’s achievements over the past 5 years and China’s strategy for the next 5 – and beyond. Xi foresees “fierce storms” ahead, domestic and foreign. The report was equally significant for what was not spelled out, or left subtly implied.

Every member of the CPC’s Central Committee had already been briefed about the report – and approved it. They will spend this week in Beijing studying the fine print and will vote to adopt it on Saturday. Then a new CPC Central Committee will be announced, and a new Politburo Standing Committee – the 7 that really rule – will be formally endorsed.

This new leadership line-up will clarify the new generation faces that will be working very close to Xi, as well as who will succeed Li Keqiang as the new Prime Minister: he has finished his two terms and, according to the constitution, must step down.

There are also 2,296 delegates present at the Great Hall representing the CPC’s over 96 million members. They are not mere spectators: at the plenary session that ended last week, they analyzed in-depth every major issue, and prepared for the National Congress. They do vote on party resolutions – even as those resolutions are decided by the top leadership, and behind closed doors.

The key takeaways

Xi contends that in these past 5 years the CPC strategically advanced China while “correctly” (Party terminology) responding to all foreign challenges. Particularly key achievements include poverty alleviation, the normalization of Hong Kong, and progress in diplomacy and national defense.

It’s quite telling that Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who was sitting in the second row, behind the current Standing Committee members, never took his eyes off Xi, while others were reading a copy of the report on their desk.

Compared to the achievements, success of the Xi-ordered Zero-Covid policy remains highly debatable. Xi stressed that it has protected people’s lives. What he could not possibly say is that the premise of his policy is to treat Covid and its variants as a U.S. bioweapon directed against China. That is, a serious matter of national security that trumps any other consideration, even the Chinese economy.

Zero-Covid hit production and the job market extremely hard, and virtually isolated China from the outside world. Just a glaring example: Shanghai’s district governments are still planning for zero-Covid on a timescale of two years. Zero-Covid will not go away anytime soon.

A serious consequence is that the Chinese economy will most certainly grow this year by less than 3% – well below the official target of “around 5,5%”.

Now let’s look at some of the Xi report’s highlights.

Taiwan: Beijing has started “a great struggle against separatism and foreign interference” on Taiwan.

Hong Kong: It is now “administered by patriots, making it a better place.” In Hong Kong there was “a major transition from chaos to order.” Correct: the 2019 color revolution nearly destroyed a major global trade/finance center.

Poverty alleviation: Xi hailed it as one of three “major events” of the past decade along with the CPC’s centenary and socialism with Chinese characteristics entering a “new era”. Poverty alleviation is the core of one of the CPC’s “two centenary goals.”

Opening up: China has become “a major trading partner and a major destination for foreign investment.” That’s Xi refuting the notion that China has grown more autarchic. China will not engage in any kind of “expansionism” while opening up to the outside world. The basic state policy remains: economic globalization. But – he didn’t say it – “with Chinese characteristics”.

“Self-revolution”: Xi introduced a new concept. “Self-revolution” will allow China to escape a historical cycle leading to a downturn. And “this ensures the party will never change.” So it’s the CPC or bust.

Marxism: definitely remains as one of the fundamental guiding principles. Xi stressed, “We owe the success of our party and socialism with Chinese characteristics to Marxism and how China has managed to adapt it.”

Risks: that was the speech’s recurrent theme. Risks will keep interfering with those crucial “two centenary goals”. Number one goal was reached last year, at the CPC’s 100^th anniversary, when China reached the status of a “moderately prosperous society” in all respects (xiaokang, in Chinese). Number two goal should be reached at the centenary of the People’s Republic of China in 2049: to “build a modern socialist country that is prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced and harmonious.”

Development: the focus will be on “high-quality development”, including resilience of supply chains and the “dual circulation” economic strategy: expansion of domestic demand in parallel to foreign investment (mostly centered on BRI projects). That will be China’s top priority. So in theory any reforms will privilege a combination of “socialist market economy” and high-level opening, mixing the creation of more domestic demand with supply-side structural reform. Translation: “Dual-circulation” on steroids.

“Whole-process democracy”: that was the other new concept introduced by Xi. Translates as “democracy that works”, as in rejuvenating the Chinese nation under – what else – the CPC’s absolute leadership: “We need to ensure that people can exercise their powers through the People’s Congress system.”

Socialist culture: Xi said it’s absolutely essential “to influence young people”. The CPC must exercise ideological control and make sure the media fosters a generation of young people “who are influenced by traditional culture, patriotism and socialism”, thus benefitting “social stability”. The “China story” must go everywhere, presenting a China that is “credible and respectable”. That certainly applies to Chinese diplomacy, even the “Wolf Warriors”.

“Sinicise religion”: Beijing will continue its drive to “Sinicise religion”, as in “proactively” adapting “religion and the socialist society”. This campaign was introduced in 2015, meaning for instance that Islam and Christianity must be under CPC control and in line with Chinese culture.

The Taiwan pledge

Now we reach the themes that completely obsess the decaying Hegemon: the connection between China’s national interests and how they affect the civilization-state’s role in international relations.

National security: “National security is the foundation of national rejuvenation, and social stability is a prerequisite of national strength.”

The military: the PLA’s equipment, technology and strategic capability will be strengthened. It goes without saying that means total CPC control over the military.

“One country, two systems”: It has proven to be “the best institutional mechanism for Hong Kong and Macau and must be adhered to in the long term”. Both “enjoy high autonomy” and are “administered by patriots.” Xi promised to better integrate both into national strategies.

Taiwan reunification: Xi made a pledge to complete the reunification of China. Translation: return Taiwan to the motherland. That was met with a torrent of applause, leading to the key message, addressed simultaneously to the Chinese nation and “foreign interference” forces: “We will not renounce the use of force and will take all necessary measures to stop all separatist movements.” The bottom line: “The resolution of the Taiwan issue is a matter for the Chinese people themselves, to be decided by the Chinese people.”

It’s also quite telling that Xi did not even mention Xinjiang by name: only by implication, when he stressed that China must strengthen the unity of all ethnic groups. Xinjiang for Xi and the leadership mean industrialization of the Far West and a crucial node in BRI: not the object of an imperial demonization campaign. They know that the CIA destabilization tactics used in Tibet for decades did not work in Xinjiang.

Shelter from the storm

Now let’s unpack some of the variables affecting the very tough years ahead for the CPC.

When Xi mentioned “fierce storms ahead”, that’s what he thinks about 24/7: Xi is convinced the USSR collapsed because the Hegemon did everything to undermine it. He won’t allow a similar process to derail China.

In the short term, the “storm” may refer to the latest round of the no holds barred American war on Chinese technology – not to mention free trade: cutting China off from buying or manufacturing chips and components for supercomputers.

It’s fair to consider Beijing keeps the focus long-term, betting that most of the world, especially the Global South, will move away from the U.S. high tech supply chain and prefer the Chinese market. As the Chinese increasingly become self sufficient, U.S. tech firms will end up losing world markets, economies of scale, and competitiveness.

Xi also did not mention the U.S. by name. Everyone in the leadership – especially the new Politburo – is aware of how Washington wants to

“decouple” from China in every possible way and will continue to provocatively deploy every possible strand of hybrid war.

Xi did not enter into details during his speech, but it’s clear the driving force going forward will be technological innovation linked to a global vision. That’s where BRI comes in, again – as the privileged field of application for these tech breakthroughs.

Only this way we can understand how Zhu Guangyao, a former vice minister of finance, may be sure that per capita GDP in China in 2035 would at least double the numbers in 2019 and reach $20,000.

The challenge for Xi and the new Politburo right away is to fix China’s structural economic imbalance. And pumping up debt-financed “investment” all over again won’t work.

So bets can be made that Xi’s third term – to be confirmed later this week – will have to concentrate on rigorous planning and monitoring of implementation, much more than during his previous bold, ambitious, abrasive but sometimes disconnected years. The Politburo will have to pay way more attention to technical considerations. Xi will have to delegate more serious policymaking autonomy to a bunch of competent technocrats.

Otherwise, we will be back to that startling observation by then Premier Wen Jiabao in 2007: China’s economy is “unstable, unbalanced, uncoordinated and ultimately unsustainable”. That’s exactly where the Hegemon wants it to be.

As it stands, things are far from gloomy. The National Development and Reform Commission states that compared to the rest of the world, China’s consumer inflation is only “marginal”; the job market is steady; and international payments are stable.

Xi’s work report and pledges may also be seen as turning the usual Anglo-American geopolitical suspects – Mackinder, Mahan, Spykman, Brzezinski – upside down.

The China-Russia strategic partnership has no time to lose with global hegemonic games; what drives them is that sooner rather than later they will be ruling the Heartland – the world island – and beyond, with allies from the Rimland, and from Africa to Latin America, all participating in a new form of globalization. Certainly with Chinese characteristics; but most of all, pan-Eurasian characteristics. The final countdown is already on.

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This article was originally published on Strategic Culture Foundation.

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 Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity