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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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Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

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

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.

***

“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.

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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

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***

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 

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).

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.

First published on September 22, 2022

***

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   

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.

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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   

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.

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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.

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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.

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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).

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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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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

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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’.”
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“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.”
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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.
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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.

Featured image is from The Last Refuge

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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

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Have you heard of the book titled The Real Anthony Fauci by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.?

If not, it wouldn’t surprise me. Every major social media outlet banned it.

Bookstores and libraries boycotted it. And the mainstream media fought tooth and nail to make sure you didn’t learn about it. And when they couldn’t completely censor it, they wrote hit pieces against Robert Kennedy, Jr., himself!

Despite these vicious attacks, Kennedy’s book became a bestseller with more than 1,000,000 copies sold in less than a year! In fact, it rocketed to #1 on Amazon and landed on the bestseller lists of the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and Publisher’s Weekly!

Now Jeff Hays Films has turned this best-selling book into a spellbinding documentary. It’s called The Real Anthony Fauci: The Movie.

And you can watch it ENTIRELY FREE starting October 18th!

Click here to watch the film.

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The Rise and Fall of the Great Reset — Professor Arthur Noble

By Rodney Atkinson, October 19, 2022

The brainless leaders of the West have fallen headlong for the concealed totalitarianism of Klaus Schwab’s global takeover agenda. Only the word ‘world’ in the disingenuous description ‘World Economic Forum’ (WEF) is accurate but was clearly designed to present Schwab’s criminal global and globalist intentions in a deceptively positive light.

Think Twice Before Calling the Cops: The Deadly Cost of Police Welfare Checks

By John W. Whitehead and Nisha Whitehead, October 19, 2022

Think twice before you call the cops to carry out a welfare check on a loved one. Especially if you value that person’s life. Particularly if that person is disabled, mentally ill, elderly, autistic, hearing impaired, suffering from dementia, or might have a condition that hinders their ability to understand, communicate or immediately comply with an order.

What Is the EU?

By Dr. Vladislav B. Sotirović, October 19, 2022

The need to unite Europe grew understandably out of the devastation left behind after two catastrophic world wars. There is clear evidence, both in the successive European treaties themselves and in pronouncements by the would-be designers of Europe, that the European Union was intended from the outset as a gigantic confidence trick that would eventually hurtle the nations of Europe into economic, social, political, and religious union whether they liked it or not.

V-Safe Database Confirms COVID Jab Hazards

By Dr. Joseph Mercola, October 19, 2022

V-Safe, a database managed and monitored by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is a voluntary “after vaccination health checker” deployed to collect data on those who got the COVID jab. For the past 15 months, the Informed Consent Action Network (ICAN) have fought a legal battle to get the CDC to release the V-Safe data.

Demonstrations in Support of Recent Coup in Burkina Faso

By Abayomi Azikiwe, October 19, 2022

There have been two military coups in the West African state of Burkina Faso since January as attacks by rebel groupings are fueling anxiety over national security concerns.

America’s Diabolic Plan to Subjugate and Break Up Russia

By Chaitanya Davé, October 18, 2022

We in America are led to believe that the allied forces led by Dwight Eisenhower were major factors in the defeat of Hitler’s Nazi Germany. This is a blatant lie. It was Russia, who was mainly responsible for defeating Hitler’s Germany. Russia had lost 26 million soldiers in that war while America had lost 419,400. Russia was allied with Europe and America until the end of World War-II. Then how did Russia become the adversary and a foe?

Decline and Fall of Western Civilization. Philip Giraldi

By Philip Giraldi, October 18, 2022

Europe will surely sink or swim in the upcoming year or two as soaring energy costs wreck economies and force major dislocations, a fate perhaps to be shared by a level of government debt and spending combined with a loss of any national purpose that will together initiate an irreversible decline in the United States.

Organize Your Community in Response to the Global Assault. Partial Shutdown of the Economy, On the Edge of Nuclear War

By Emanuel Pastreich, October 18, 2022

The decision of the Russian Federation to annex the Donbas region of the Ukraine, combined with the decision of the Ukraine to apply for membership in NATO, and for elements in the United Nations and other intergovernmental organizations to support this haphazard, dangerous and thoughtless action, has brought us to the edge of nuclear war, or at least that it’s the impression we are given.

Time Magazine Is Right: Russia Isn’t as Isolated as Some in the West May Like to Think

By Andrew Korybko, October 18, 2022

Far from being “isolated”, close to half of humanity refused to condemn Russia during the latest UN vote, while the overwhelmingly vast majority of the global population is represented by governments that have defied the Golden Billion’s illegal sanctions.

Why Not Simply Abolish NATO?

By Prof Rodrigue Tremblay, October 18, 2022

As of now, it is a fact that the U.S. government and the American foreign affairs nomenklatura see NATO as an important tool of American foreign policy of intervention around the world. Since many American politicians do not anymore support de facto the United Nations as the supreme international organization devoted to maintaining peace in the world, a U.S.-controlled NATO would seem to be, in their eyes, a most attractive substitute to the United Nations for providing a legal front for their otherwise illegal offensive military undertakings around the world.

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“This should have never happened. We shouldn’t be living in a society where you call for help and be killed.”— Mother of Damian Daniels, who was shot by police during a wellness check

Think twice before you call the cops to carry out a welfare check on a loved one.

Especially if you value that person’s life.

Particularly if that person is disabled, mentally ill, elderly, autistic, hearing impaired, suffering from dementia, or might have a condition that hinders their ability to understand, communicate or immediately comply with an order.

According to an investigation by The Washington Post, cops sent out on welfare checks ended up shooting or killing the very people they were supposed to assist in at least 178 cases over the course of three years.

Image is from Davis Vanguard

Atatiana Jefferson was neither disabled, mentally ill, elderly, autistic, hearing impaired, suffering from dementia. The 28-year-old Fort Worth resident was merely awake at 2:30 am, playing video games with her 8-year-old nephew in a house with its lights on and the front door open.

A neighbor, noticing the lights and open door, asked police to do a welfare check on the household. Instead of announcing themselves at the front door, police crept quietly around the house. Hearing noises outside, Jefferson approached her bedroom window to investigate.

Seeing Jefferson through the window, police yelled, “Put your hands up! Show me your hands!” Within seconds of issuing that order and without identifying themselves, police fired a single shot. Jefferson died on the scene.

Atatiana Jefferson’s death is yet one more grim statistic to add to that growing list of Americans—unarmed, impaired or experiencing a mental health crisis—who have been killed by police trained in the worst-case scenario and thus ready to shoot first and ask questions later.

The officer who fired the shot claimed he did so because he perceived “a threat.”

Be warned: to the armed agents of the America police state, we are all potential threats.

At a time when growing numbers of unarmed people have been shot and killed for just standing a certain way, or moving a certain way, or holding something—anything—that police could misinterpret to be a gun, or igniting some trigger-centric fear in a police officer’s mind that has nothing to do with an actual threat to their safety, even the most benign encounters with police can have fatal consequences.

For those undergoing a mental health crisis or with special needs whose disabilities may not be immediately apparent, the dangers posed by these so-called wellness checks are even greater.

For example, Walter Wallace Jr.—a troubled 27-year-old black man with a criminal history and mental health issues—died in a hail of bullets fired by two police officers who clearly had not been adequately trained in how to de-escalate encounters with special needs individuals.

Wallace wasn’t unarmed—he was reportedly holding a knife when police confronted him—yet neither cop attempted to use non-lethal weapons on Wallace, who appeared to be in the midst of a mental health crisis. In fact, neither cop even possessed a taser. Wallace, fired upon fourteen times, was pronounced dead at the hospital.

Gay Plack, a 57-year-old Virginia woman with bipolar disorder, was killed after two police officers—sent to do a welfare check on her—entered her home uninvited, wandered through the house shouting her name, kicked open her locked bedroom door, discovered the terrified woman hiding in a dark bathroom and wielding a small axe, and four seconds later, shot her in the stomach.

Four seconds.

That’s all the time it took for the two police officers assigned to check on Plack to decide to use lethal force against her (both cops opened fire on the woman), rather than using non-lethal options (one cop had a Taser, which he made no attempt to use) or attempting to de-escalate the situation.

The police chief defended his officers’ actions, claiming they had “no other option” but to shoot the 5 foot 4 inch “woman with carpal tunnel syndrome who had to quit her job at a framing shop because her hand was too weak to use the machine that cut the mats.”

This is what happens when you indoctrinate the police into believing that their lives and their safety are paramount to anyone else’s: suddenly, everyone and everything else is a threat that must be neutralized or eliminated.

In light of the government’s ongoing efforts to predict who might pose a threat to public safety based on mental health sensor data (tracked by wearable data such as FitBits and Apple Watches and monitored by government agencies such as HARPA, the “Health Advanced Research Projects Agency”), encounters with the police could get even more deadly, especially if those involved have a mental illness or disability.

As Steve Silberman writes for The New York Times “Anyone who cares for someone with a developmental disability, as well as for disabled people themselves [lives] every day in fear that their behavior will be misconstrued as suspicious, intoxicated or hostile by law enforcement.”

Indeed, disabled individuals make up a third to half of all people killed by law enforcement officers. People of color are three times more likely to be killed by police than their white counterparts. If you’re black and disabled, you’re even more vulnerable.

A study by the Ruderman Family Foundation reports that “disabled individuals make up the majority of those killed in use-of-force cases that attract widespread attention. This is true both for cases deemed illegal or against policy and for those in which officers are ultimately fully exonerated… Many more disabled civilians experience non-lethal violence and abuse at the hands of law enforcement officers.”

For instance, Nancy Schrock called 911 for help after her husband, Tom, who suffered with mental health issues, started stalking around the backyard, upending chairs and screaming about demons. Several times before, police had transported Tom to the hospital, where he was medicated and sent home after 72 hours. This time, Tom was tasered twice. He collapsed, lost consciousness and died.

Image is from Post and Courier

In South Carolina, police tasered an 86-year-old grandfather reportedly in the early stages of dementia, while he was jogging backwards away from them. Now this happened after Albert Chatfield led police on a car chase, running red lights and turning randomly. However, at the point that police chose to shock the old man with electric charges, he was out of the car, on his feet, and outnumbered by police officers much younger than him.

In Georgia, campus police shot and killed a 21-year-old student who was suffering a mental health crisis. Scout Schultz was shot through the heart by campus police when he approached four of them late one night while holding a pocketknife, shouting “Shoot me!” Although police may have feared for their lives, the blade was still in its closed position.

In Oklahoma, police shot and killed a 35-year-old deaf man seen holding a two-foot metal pipe on his front porch (he used the pipe to fend off stray dogs while walking). Despite the fact that witnesses warned police that Magdiel Sanchez couldn’t hear—and thus comply—with their shouted orders to drop the pipe and get on the ground, police shot the man when he was about 15 feet away from them.

In Maryland, police (moonlighting as security guards) used extreme force to eject a 26-year-old man with Downs Syndrome and a low IQ from a movie theater after the man insisted on sitting through a second screening of a film. Autopsy results indicate that Ethan Saylor died of complications arising from asphyxiation, likely caused by a chokehold.

In Florida, police armed with assault rifles fired three shots at a 27-year-old nonverbal, autistic man who was sitting on the ground, playing with a toy truck. Police missed the autistic man and instead shot his behavioral therapist, Charles Kinsey, who had been trying to get him back to his group home. The therapist, bleeding from a gunshot wound, was then handcuffed and left lying face down on the ground for 20 minutes.

In Texas, police handcuffed, tasered and then used a baton to subdue a 7-year-old student who has severe ADHD and a mood disorder. With school counselors otherwise occupied, school officials called police and the child’s mother to assist after Yosio Lopez started banging his head on a wall. The police arrived first.

In New Mexico, police tasered, then opened fire on a 38-year-old homeless man who suffered from schizophrenia, all in an attempt to get James Boyd to leave a makeshift campsite. Boyd’s death provoked a wave of protests over heavy-handed law enforcement tactics.

In Ohio, police forcefully subdued a 37-year-old bipolar woman wearing only a nightgown in near-freezing temperatures who was neither armed, violent, intoxicated, nor suspected of criminal activity. After being slammed onto the sidewalk, handcuffed and left unconscious on the street, Tanisha Anderson died as a result of being restrained in a prone position.

And in North Carolina, a state trooper shot and killed a 29-year-old deaf motorist after he failed to pull over during a traffic stop. Daniel K. Harris was shot after exiting his car, allegedly because the trooper feared he might be reaching for a weapon.

These cases, and the hundreds—if not thousands—more that go undocumented every year speak to a crisis in policing when it comes to law enforcement’s failure to adequately assess, de-escalate and manage encounters with special needs or disabled individuals.

While the research is relatively scant, what has been happening is telling.

Over the course of six months, police shot and killed someone who was in mental crisis every 36 hours.

Among 124 police killings analyzed by The Washington Post in which mental illness appeared to be a factor, “They were overwhelmingly men, more than half of them white. Nine in 10 were armed with some kind of weapon, and most died close to home.”

But there were also important distinctions, reports the Post.

“This group was more likely to wield a weapon less lethal than a firearm. Six had toy guns; 3 in 10 carried a blade, such as a knife or a machete — weapons that rarely prove deadly to police officers. According to data maintained by the FBI and other organizations, only three officers have been killed with an edged weapon in the past decade. Nearly a dozen of the mentally distraught people killed were military veterans, many of them suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of their service, according to police or family members. Another was a former California Highway Patrol officer who had been forced into retirement after enduring a severe beating during a traffic stop that left him suffering from depression and PTSD. And in 45 cases, police were called to help someone get medical treatment, or after the person had tried and failed to get treatment on his own.”

The U.S. Supreme Court, as might be expected, has thus far continued to immunize police against charges of wrongdoing when it comes to use of force against those with a mental illness.

In a 2015 ruling, the Court declared that police could not be sued for forcing their way into a mentally ill woman’s room at a group home and shooting her five times when she advanced on them with a knife. The justices did not address whether police must take special precautions when arresting mentally ill individuals. (The Americans with Disabilities Act requires “reasonable accommodations” for people with mental illnesses, which in this case might have been less confrontational tactics.)

Where does this leave us?

For starters, we need better police training across the board, but especially when it comes to de-escalation tactics and crisis intervention.

A study by the National Institute of Mental Health found that Crisis Intervention Team-trained officers made fewer arrests, used less force, and connected more people with mental-health services than their non-trained peers.

As The Washington Post points out:

“Although new recruits typically spend nearly 60 hours learning to handle a gun, according to a recent survey by the Police Executive Research Forum, they receive only eight hours of training to de-escalate tense situations and eight hours learning strategies for handling the mentally ill. Otherwise, police are taught to employ tactics that tend to be counterproductive in such encounters, experts said. For example, most officers are trained to seize control when dealing with an armed suspect, often through stern, shouted commands. But yelling and pointing guns is ‘like pouring gasoline on a fire when you do that with the mentally ill,’ said Ron Honberg, policy director with the National Alliance on Mental Illness.”

Second, police need to learn how to slow confrontations down, instead of ramping up the tension (and the noise).

In Maryland, police recruits are now required to take a four-hour course in which they learn “de-escalation tactics” for dealing with disabled individuals: speak calmly, give space, be patient.

One officer in charge of the Los Angeles Police Department’s “mental response teams” suggests that instead of rushing to take someone into custody, police should try to slow things down and persuade the person to come with them.

Third, with all the questionable funds flowing to police departments these days, why not use some of those funds to establish what one disability-rights activist describes as “a 911-type number dedicated to handling mental-health emergencies, with community crisis-response teams at the ready rather than police officers.”

Increasingly, funds are being directed towards technologies that support predictive policing and behavioral and health surveillance. For instance, HARPA (a healthcare counterpart to the Pentagon’s research and development arm DARPA) would take the lead in identifying and targeting “signs” of mental illness or violent inclinations among the populace by using artificial intelligence to collect data from Apple Watches, Fitbits, Amazon Echo and Google Home.

It wouldn’t take much for these nascent predictive programs to give rise to healthcare versions of red flag gun laws, which allows the government to preemptively take action against individuals who may be perceived as potential threats. Where the problem arises is when you put the power to determine who is a potential danger in the hands of government agencies, the courts and the police.

In the end, while we need to make encounters with police officers safer for people with suffering from mental illness or with disabilities, what we really need—as I point out in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries—is to make encounters with police safer for all individuals all across the board.

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This article was originally published on The Rutherford Institute.

Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. His most recent books are the best-selling Battlefield America: The War on the American People, the award-winning A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, and a debut dystopian fiction novel, The Erik Blair Diaries. Whitehead can be contacted at [email protected].

Nisha Whitehead is the Executive Director of The Rutherford Institute. Information about The Rutherford Institute is available at www.rutherford.org.

They are regular contributors to Global Research.

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The European Union (the EU) is officially characterized by a purposeful diffusion of political authority between supranational and intergovernmental institutions. Based on the idea of (quasi)shared leadership, it formally relies on a delicate institutional balance guarding declared equality between its ever more diverse members and managing potential and real tensions between the more and less populated and developed states. Such tensions are present in any federal construct and have been a key concern since the “original six” (EU6) founded the (West) European Coal and Steel Community (the ECSC) in 1951 (the Benelux, West Germany, France, and Italy).

The formal facts and official EU’s propaganda about itself is something that we all know and we agree that is an admirable and amazing concept, that all these different people (27 Member States today) from such colorful nations decided to live together with the main purpose of having a big and united community with trying to live in peace and comfort and to enjoy the developed medical and educational systems. It is all we always read in the press and see on TV, but there were no public releases about a single wrong or questionable decision or action taken by the EU.

So, what is more, interesting now: let’s have a look at some different opinions. I do not want to write about a “reality” because reality is such a subjective and questionable field, but I would like to draw the attention of a critical approach to the studies on the EU and European integration within the economic-political umbrella of the EU.

All theoreticians of the European unification within the umbrella of post-WWII (West)European Communities (today the EU) will stress four crucial points of the importance of this process:

1. It will bring to an end the millennial war-making between major European powers.
2. A unified Europe will anchor the world power system in a polycentric structure with its economic and technological might and its cultural and political influence (probably together with the rise of the Pacific states).
3. It will preclude the existence of any hegemonic superpower, despite the continuing military and technological pre-eminence of the USA.
4. European unification is significant as a source of institutional innovation that may yield some answers to the crisis of the nation-state.[i]

As a matter of very fact, European unification after WWII grew from the convergence of alternative visions, conflicting interests between nation-states, and between different economic and social actors. The very notion of Europe, as based on a (quasi) common identity, as highly, however, questionable. Nevertheless, the European identity, historically, was racially constructed against “the others”, the “barbarians” of different kinds and different origins (Arabs, Muslims, Turks, and today Russians), and the current process of unification is not different in this sense.

The unification was made from a succession of defensive political projects around some believed common interest (for instance, the Russian “threat” after the Cold War 1.0 and especially the 2014 Crimean crisis followed by the Russian humanitarian intervention in East Ukraine in 2022) among participating nation-states. The process of unification, therefore, was aimed at defending the participating countries against perceived “threats” in all of these cases, however, the final goal was primarily political but the means to reach this goal were, mainly, economic measures. As another matter of fact, from the very start of the process of European unification after WWII, NATO provided the necessary military umbrella.

Historically, the European debate about competing visions of the integration process after WWII was three-folded:

1. The technocrats who originated the blueprint of a united Europe (particularly the French Jean Monnet) dreamed of a federal state which practically meant the accumulation of considerable influence and power in the hands of the European central bureaucracy in Brussels, Strasburg, and Luxemburg.
2. The President Ch. De Gaulle (1958−1969) emphasized the opinion concerning the transfer of sovereignty to be known as intergovernmental and, therefore, it was placing the European wide-decisions in the hands of the Council of heads of executive powers from each Member State. De Gaulle tried to assert European independence vis-à-vis the USA and this is why France vetoed twice in 1963 and 1967 the British application to join the EEC considering that the UK’s close ties to the USA would jeopardize the European autonomous initiatives.
3. Indeed, the UK represented the third vision of European integration focusing on the development of a free trade area without conceding any significant political sovereignty. When Great Britain joined the EC (together with Ireland and Denmark) in 1973, after de Gaulle’s departure, this economic vision of the European integration (in fact, the EFTA) became predominant for about a decade.

Nevertheless, the original winning plan of Jean Monnet was from the very beginning to create a federal European supranational state – the United States of Europe into which will be merged the majority of the European nations including all the time extremely Eurosceptic Great Britain which finally left the EU on January 1^st, 2022 (the Brexit). This new superstate popularly called United Europe will have one Parliament, one Court of Justice, a single currency (the Euro), a single Government (today known as the European Council with its “Politbureau” the European Commission), single citizenship and one flag as the external attribute of the statehood.

That has been the plan all along. However, those who favor it knew well that the overwhelming majority of people from Europe would never sincerely accept European Unification in such a form. They would never willingly surrender their freedoms and national identities to become just a province of the European superstate as, in fact, a geopolitical project originally designed against the Soviet Union and its East European satellite states during the Cold War 1.0. So, what did the pro-European politicians in order to realize their geopolitical plan? They simply conspired to keep the truth from the people.

Now, the focal question became: What is the real truth behind the European Union?

The need to unite Europe grew understandably out of the devastation left behind after two catastrophic world wars. There is clear evidence, both in the successive European treaties themselves and in pronouncements by the would-be designers of Europe, that the European Union was intended from the outset as a gigantic confidence trick that would eventually hurtle the nations of Europe into economic, social, political, and religious union whether they liked it or not. The real nature of the final goal – a federal superstate like the United States of Europe – was deliberately concealed and distorted. It was to be released in small doses, to condition those who would never have accepted it until it would be too late for the whole process to be reversed or crucially changed.

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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.

Note

[i] Featherstone K., Radaelli C. M., The Politics of Europeanisation, N.Y.: Oxford University Press, 2003; Cini M.,European Union Politics, N.Y.: Oxford University Press, 2004.

Featured image is from the author

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V-Safe, a database managed and monitored by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is a voluntary “after vaccination health checker” deployed to collect data on those who got the COVID jab. For the past 15 months, the Informed Consent Action Network (ICAN) have fought a legal battle to get the CDC to release the V-Safe data

The V-Safe data confirms suspicions that the COVID jabs are dangerous in the extreme

Of the 10 million people enrolled in V-Safe, 7.7% (770,000 people) required medical care after getting the shot and 25% (2.5 million people) missed work or school or suffered a serious side effect that affected their day-to-day life

The V-Safe data also shows a massive immune reaction signal. Four million people — 40% — reported joint pain. Two million, or 20%, reported “moderate” joint pain and 400,000, 4%, classified the pain as “severe”

The formula the CDC uses to trigger a safety signal is seriously flawed, as the more dangerous a vaccine is, the less likely it is that a safety signal will be triggered. Still, even using that flawed formula, “death” meets all three safety signal criteria and should have been flagged, yet the CDC has taken no action. Congress has a duty to investigate the CDC’s failure to monitor safety

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In an October 4, 2022, Fox News interview, civil rights attorney Aaron Siri, legal counsel for the Informed Consent Action Network (ICAN), shared shocking V-Safe data obtained from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention after multiple legal demands.

For more than 15 months, the CDC fought to not release any of these data. ICAN had to file two lawsuits and multiple appeals to get the CDC to hand it over, and when you see the data, you understand why.

What Is V-Safe?

By now, many know about the existence of the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS), a publicly available database for vaccine adverse event reports, jointly managed by the CDC and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

V-Safe¹ is another database managed and monitored by the CDC. It’s a voluntary “after vaccination health checker” deployed to collect data on those who got the COVID jab.

Anyone in the United States can enroll in V-Safe, using their smartphone, after receiving any dose of COVID-19 vaccine. Parents can also enroll their underage children to keep tabs on health effects. During the first week after each dose, V-Safe will send you a daily text message asking for details on your health and well-being. After that, check-ins are sent out on an intermittent basis.

What Does V-Safe Show?

So, what does the V-Safe data, which the CDC was so reluctant to release, actually show? Are the COVID jabs as harmless as they’re claimed to be? Far from it.

As detailed by Siri, out of the 10 million people enrolled in V-Safe, 7.7% (770,000 people) required medical care after getting the shot and 25% (2.5 million people) missed work or school or suffered a serious side effect that affected their day-to-day life.

As noted by Siri, these numbers are extraordinary. One of the key messages we were given was that while COVID was not a significant threat to all people, getting the shot would limit the number of hospitalizations, deaths and days missed from work due to infection.

Well, we now see that 25% of those who got the shot ended up missing work or school because of the side effects, and 7.7% needed medical care. That’s staggering, and completely nullifies the CDC’s argument that everyone should get the shot, whether they’re in a high-risk category or not, and whether they’ve already had COVID-19 or not.

Massive Immune Reaction Signal

The V-Safe data also show a massive signal with regard to the jab causing an adverse immune reaction. Four million people, out of the 10 million — 40% — reported joint pain. Two million, or 20%, reported “moderate” joint pain and 400,000, or 4%, classified the pain as “severe.”

As noted by Siri, joint pain is often a sign of an immune reaction and could be cause for concern when it occurs after vaccination, especially when you consider that the shots were supposed to protect the elderly, who already tend to have joint problems.

The V-Safe database also reveals that even though fewer doses of Moderna were registered, it’s mRNA shot accounts for a larger portion of negative effects, compared to Pfizer’s jab.

ICAN has now built a searchable dashboard of this V-Safe data.² In the video below, Albert Benavides (who goes by the name Welcome the Eagle 88), an RCM expert, data analyst and auditor, provides a tour and overview of how to use the dashboard, including some of its strengths and weaknesses.

Why Did the CDC Fight to Keep V-Safe Data Hidden?

In an October 5, 2022, Substack article, Steve Kirsch commented on the V-Safe data dump:³

“V-Safe is a voluntary safety monitoring program put in place by the CDC to monitor adverse reactions after people take a vaccine. The V-Safe data shows that 33.1% of the people who got the vaccine suffered from a significant adverse event and 7.7% had to seek professional medical care.

These are extraordinary numbers. They clearly show the vaccines are unsafe, that the CDC deliberately hid this information from the American public, and that the drug companies falsified the data in the trials … the CDC is not protecting the American people. They are protecting the manufacturers of the vaccines.”

As noted by Kirsch, side effects could be either under- or overestimated in V-Safe, or both, as some might ignore V-Safe requests to answer questions, and others may only sign up or be incentivized to fill out the questionnaire if they suffer a problem.

Additionally, the options for reporting a side effect are predefined and very generic, so people might be experiencing effects that didn’t fit any of the predefined categories of injury. Importantly, death is not reportable to V-Safe, as dead people cannot use their phones. So, we have no way of knowing how many of these 10 million registered V-Safe users have died.

However, “Whether the rates in V-Safe is over-reported or under-reported is a red herring,” Kirsch says. “The issue that should concern everyone is the CDC concealed all the V-Safe data from everyone the entire time.”

In addition to spending taxpayer dollars to prevent the release of this information — which we have every right to — the CDC also stopped promoting use of V-Safe around May 2021, mere months into the COVID jab rollout. As noted by Kirsch, this was probably because “it became crystal clear that it was accumulating data that showed the vaccines were unsafe.”

CDC Ignored Clear ‘Death’ Signal

In an October 3, 2022, article,⁴ Kirsch also points out that the formula the CDC uses to trigger safety signals — described in its VAERS standard operating procedures manual⁵ — is “seriously flawed.” Could that be intentional as well?

In July 2021, Matthew Crawford published a three-part series^6,7,8 on how the CDC was hiding safety signals. In August 2021, Kirsch also informed the agency of these problems, but was, of course, ignored. Still, “even using their own flawed formula, ‘death’ should have triggered a signal,” he writes. Yet the CDC did not notify the public of what they’d found. Here’s an excerpt from Kirsch article:⁹

“If you want objective proof of total ineptitude by the CDC and the medical community in monitoring the safety of the COVID vaccines, this is the article you’ve been waiting for. We use their numbers and their own algorithm and show that it should have triggered a safety signal for ‘death.’

There is no way they can argue their way out of this one … We need look no further than the vaccine safety signal monitoring formula¹⁰ used by the CDC to prove our point …

The formula the CDC uses for generating safety signals is fundamentally flawed; a ‘bad’ vaccine with lots of adverse events will ‘mask’ large numbers of important safety signals … Let me summarize the key points for you in a nutshell:

PRR [proportional reporting ratio] is defined on page 16 in the CDC document¹¹ as follows …

A ‘safety signal’ is defined on page 16 in the CDC document as a PRR of at least 2, chi-squared statistic of at least 4, and 3 or more cases of the AE [adverse event] following receipt of the specific vaccine of interest. This is the famous ‘and clause.’ Here it is from the document:

Only someone who is incompetent or is deliberately trying to make the vaccines look safe would use the word ‘and‘ in the definition of a safety signal. Using ‘and’ means that if any one of the conditions isn’t satisfied, no safety signal will be generated. As noted below, the PRR will rarely trigger which virtually guarantees that most events generated by an unsafe vaccine will never get flagged.

The PRR value for the COVID vaccines will rarely exceed 1 because there are so many adverse events from the COVID vaccine because it is so dangerous (i.e., B in the formula is a huge number) so the numerator is always near zero. Hence, the ‘safety signal’ is rarely triggered because the vaccine is so dangerous.”

A Fictitious Example

Using a fictitious vaccine as the example, Kirsch goes on to explain how an exceptionally dangerous vaccine will fly under the radar and not get flagged, thanks to the CDC’s flawed formula:¹²

“Suppose we have the world’s most dangerous vaccine that causes adverse events in everyone who gets it and generates 25,000 different adverse events, and each adverse event has 1,000 instances.

That means that the numerator is 1,000/25,000,000 which is just 40 events per million reported events. Now let’s look at actuals for something like deaths. For all other vaccines, there are 6,200 deaths and 1 million adverse events total.

Since 40 per million is less than 6,200 deaths per million, we are not even close to generating a safety signal for deaths from our hypothetical vaccine which killed 1,000 people in a year … The point is that a dangerous vaccine can look very ‘safe’ using the PRR formula.”

Calculating Death Signal for COVID Jab

Next, Kirsch calculates the PRR (proportional reporting ratio) for death for the COVID jab, using VAERS data and the CDC’s definitions and formula.

As of December 31, 2019, there were 6,157 deaths and 918,717 adverse events total for all vaccines other than the COVID shot. As of September 23, 2022, there were 31,214 deaths and 1.4 million adverse events total for the COVID jabs. Here’s the formula as explained by Kirsch:¹³

“PRR = (31,214/1.4e6) / (6,157/918,717) = 3.32, which exceeds the required threshold of 2. In other words, the COVID vaccine is so deadly that even with all the adverse events generated by the vaccine, the death signal did not get drowned out!

But there is still the chi-square test. Chi-square test results were 18,549 for ‘death,’ which greatly exceeds the required threshold of 4. The CDC chi-square test is clearly satisfied for the COVID vaccine. Because the death signal is so huge, it even survived the PRR test.

This means that even using the CDCs own erroneous … formula, all three criteria were satisfied:

A safety signal should have been generated but wasn’t. Why not? … Does anyone care? Hundreds of thousands of American lives have been lost due to the inability of the CDC to deploy their own flawed safety signal analysis …

It’s been known since at least 2004 that using reporting odds ratio (ROR) is a better estimate of relative risk than PRR.¹⁴ I don’t know why the CDC doesn’t use it.”

CDC Cannot Claim It Didn’t Know

The CDC is responsible for monitoring both VAERS and V-Safe, and between these two databases, there’s no possible way they could ever say they didn’t know the shots were harming and killing millions of Americans.

The CDC also has access to other databases, including the Defense Medical Epidemiology Database (DMED), which (before it was intentionally altered¹⁵) showed massive increases in debilitating and lethal conditions, including a tripling of cancer cases.¹⁶

The findings in these databases have never been brought forward during any of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) meetings or the FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) meetings, at which members have repeatedly voted to authorize the jabs to people of all ages, including infants and pregnant women.

If the CDC was in fact monitoring these databases, as required, there’s simply no way they could have continued to authorize these shots based on the data. Is that why these data were never reviewed? Probably. ACIP and VRBPAC members, for whatever reason, simply didn’t want to know the truth. But the CDC has known all along, and there’s no excuse for not sharing and acting on that data.

Help Spread the Word

The media are ignoring all of this — the V-Safe data and the CDC’s failure to act on a clear safety signal (and the signal being death, of all things!), even when using a formula that was flawed from the start. So, spread the word. Everyone needs to know these facts. It’s not speculation, it’s the CDC’s own data.

The CDC needs to explain why they spent our tax dollars to fight the release of the V-Safe data for 15 months, and why they didn’t halt the shots when a “death” signal was evident. The mainstream press, members of Congress, the medical community and Universities also need to explain why they refuse to investigate these CDC data. To that end, here are a few suggestions for how you can help:

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Notes

¹ CDC V-Safe

² ICANdecide.org V-Safe Database

³ Steve Kirsch Substack October 5, 2022

^{4, 9, 12, 13} Steve Kirsch Substack October 3, 2022

^5, 10, 11 CDC VAERS Standard Operating Procedures January 29, 2021

⁶ Rounding the Earth Newsletter Part 1

⁷ Rounding the Earth Newsletter Part 2

⁸ Rounding the Earth Newsletter Part 3

¹⁴ Pharmacoepidemiol Drug Safety August 2004; 13(8): 519-523

¹⁵ WISPolitics February 10, 2022

¹⁶ Steve Kirsch Substack February 5, 2022 DMED

Featured image is from Children’s Health Defense

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There have been two military coups in the West African state of Burkina Faso since January as attacks by rebel groupings are fueling anxiety over national security concerns.

The latest putsch was led by Capt. Ibrahim Traore, who with his fellow officers, deposed Col. Paul Henri Damiba on September 30.

Traore cited the failure of the Damiba administration to curb a jihadist insurgency which has destabilized large swaths of territory inside the country since 2015. France, the former colonial power in what was then known as Upper Volta, has military forces in Burkina Faso ostensibly to protect the interests of Paris and the local government.

However, in Burkina Faso and other former French colonies in West Africa, demonstrations have surfaced over the last year demanding the withdrawal of military units and diplomatic personnel from Paris. During the United Nations General Assembly in September, the interim Prime Minister of neighboring Mali, denounced French involvement in his country while accusing the administration of President Emmanuel Macron of attempts to utilize mercenaries from Ivory Coast to overthrow the military regime in the capital of Bamako.

After the recent change of government in the capital of Ouagadougou, the French embassy and other institutions were violently attacked by Burkinabe youth carrying their national flags along with that of Russia. These incidents are a reflection of the strain relations between Paris and the African continent.

These political developments on the African continent should not be a surprise to any serious observers in the current period. A legacy of enslavement and colonialism continues to hamper the capacity of the continent to gain its appropriate position within the broader context of world affairs.

Burkina Faso since its independence in 1960 has been subjected to the presence of economic and military interests from Paris. Other states within the Sahel and broader West Africa region have been targeted for destabilization for decades.

Since the formation of the United States Africa Command (AFRICOM) and its French counterpart consisting of the Foreign Legion and Operation Barkhane, the social situation throughout many areas within the West Africa region has deteriorated. Guinea-Conakry, also a former colony of France, has undergone persistent turmoil since the military overthrow of the founding Democratic Party (PDG), once headed by President Ahmed Sekou Toure from 1958-1984.

Guinean administrations since 1984 have abandoned the PDG’s concept of the African Democratic Revolution, Pan-Africanism and Socialism. Yet, the living conditions of the people have not benefited from this shift to the right in regard to domestic and foreign policy.

Mali also underwent a revolutionary experiment in popular democracy and socialist orientation under the first post-colonial administration of President Modibo Keita who ruled the country from 1960-1968, when he was deposed in a military coup. Mali in modern times has undergone two military coups since 2020. Plagued by the same rebel insurgencies as neighboring Burkina Faso, Niger, Cameroon, Chad and Nigeria, military and intelligence assistance from the U.S. and France have only resulted in the lessening of the capacity of these states to address their own security concerns.

Imperialist Research Centers and Continuing Military Interference in Africa

Western think tanks which serve to rationalize imperialist foreign policy in Africa and other geo-political regions are attempting to attribute the dramatic shifts towards the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China as it relates to economic and security issues to some nefarious tactics utilized by Moscow and Beijing. These centers of imperialist strategic planning can never own up to the abysmal failure of neo-colonialism in Africa which has maintained the continent in a dependent status within the world economic system.

The International Crisis Group (ICG) provides one such example of the dishonest justification for the growing antagonism even among military forces within West Africa. Their position closely aligns itself with the U.S. Department when spokesperson Vedant Patel said:

“We have spoken clearly about the destabilizing impact of both rampant disinformation but also the Wagner Group’s activities globally. Countries where the group has been deployed find themselves weaker and less secure, and we’ve seen that in a number of cases in Africa alone.”

Nonetheless, the Russian-based military services company Wagner has only been operational on the continent for the last few years. This can easily be compared with the centuries of interference and destabilization efforts by the collective imperialism of the western capitalist countries in Europe and North America.

This same State Department official conveniently ignored the impact of AFRICOM and Operation Barkhane in West Africa. Many of the officers which have staged coups in West Africa over the last decade had close ties with Washington and Paris through military training colleges and joint maneuvers with the Pentagon, the European Union (EU) Forces, NATO and the French Foreign Legion.

This same article cited above also quotes the ICG deputy director for Africa, Rinaldo Depagne, as saying in response to the question as to whether Russia played a role in the recent changes in governance in West Africa:

“This is very difficult to say and to prove. But Russia is certainly closer to now cut a deal with Burkina than ever and certainly that Russia was with president – former President Damiba, and this for several reasons. First one is President Traore’s statement. And President Traore, eight days ago, said that it could solicit diversified military assistance without naming Russia, but everyone was thinking about Russia. Second reason, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of Wagner PMC Enterprise, offered to work with Traore. Third reason, we have now a legal act, and according to this act, the president negotiates and ratifies international treaties himself. So, it opened the door for him to decide whether he will work with Russia or not.”

Such viewpoints are being articulated in conjunction with the failed attempts by the State Department and the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs to coax African governments into taking a position in support of NATO in the Russian special military operation in Ukraine. U.S. President Joe Biden has invited African Union (AU) heads-of-state to attend a White House summit in December in the aftermath of the Russia-Africa gathering in Ethiopia in November.

Interestingly enough, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba was forced to cut short a trip to Africa following Russian missile strikes across his country beginning on October 10. Kuleba had proposed a Ukraine-Africa summit as well.

An earlier attempt by the U.S.-backed President Volodymyr Zelensky to address the AU only garnered two attendees. On a mass level there has been noticeable solidarity with the Russian Federation as it relates to the Ukraine situation. Even outside of the West Africa region, in states such as Ethiopia and South Africa, two of the largest economies and population groups within the AU, youth have held demonstrations where Russian flags were flown.

However, the reality of racial discrimination and brutality displayed by Ukrainian authorities during the early days of the Russian intervention has not left the minds of African governments and their people. African students studying in Ukraine during February and March of 2022, reported numerous incidents of beatings, denials of admission to public places and transportation facilities, among other problems.

Since these incidents, the western corporate and government-controlled media outlets have attempted to erase these horrible occurrences from the minds of African people and the world community. The openly Nazi militias and political organizations which have existed in Ukraine for decades are ignored in the diplomatic language and media accounts of events inside the country.

Lessons for the Peace and Antiwar Groupings within the Imperialist States

Those mainstream peace and antiwar organizations in Western Europe and North America have taken a political line quite similar to the U.S. State Department. The Russian Federation are viewed as aggressors while the threat of fascism and NATO expansion is largely ignored.

This undoubtedly is related to the fact that there is a Democratic administration in the White House with an evenly split Senate and slight majority within the House of Representatives. Although this political configuration in the U.S. has not delivered on the promises made during the 2020 campaigns which committed to social spending to alleviate poverty along with voting rights, a lessening of police brutality and women’s equality, what is actually transpiring is the worsening plight of African Americans through police brutality, institutional racism and benign neglect.

Women in the U.S. no longer have a legal right to their reproductive freedom while the rapid accelerating rates of inflation in the key sectors of the economy is disproportionately impacting the impoverished, nationally oppressed and other marginalized groups. The Biden administration has failed to stem inflation while the Federal Reserve Bank has induced a global recession sending shockwaves of uncertainty among both the ruling class and the majority working and oppressed peoples on a global scale.

The western-based social justice and peace organizations would be served well to study developments in Africa, Latin America and Asia. Rather than viewing their interests as inextricably linked to the capitalist class dominated by finance capital and imperialist militarism, the declining standards of living in the West can only be addressed through the international solidarity of the people to end all wars and exploitation by the ruling class.

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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: Mali solidarity demonstration for Russian cooperation (Source: Abayomi Azikiwe)

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

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***

“The ‘Great Reset’ was introduced by the ‘World Economic Forum’, which is tightly coupled to the United Nations and the World Health Organisation.

Their agenda is to implement a global type of totalitarianism based on technocratic and trans-humanist ideologies. Part of that plan also includes re-engineering and controlling all life forms, including humans. […] While the outward expression of technocracy will appear as totalitarianism, the control centre is not an individual. Rather than a single person ruling by decree, technocracy relies on control through technology and algorithm. This is a very important difference. In short, there will be no individual to blame or hold accountable. The ‘dictator’ is an algorithm.”¹

“The Great Reset […] is not a conspiracy theory; it is an open, avowed, and planned project, and it is well underway. But because capitalism with Chinese characteristics or corporate-socialist statism lacks free markets and depends on the absence of free will and individual liberty, it is, ironically, “unsustainable”.²

A global conspiracy in disguise to promote totalitarianism

The brainless leaders of the West have fallen headlong for the concealed totalitarianism of Klaus Schwab’s global takeover agenda. Only the word ‘world’ in the disingenuous description ‘World Economic Forum’ (WEF) is accurate but was clearly designed to present Schwab’s criminal global and globalist intentions in a deceptively positive light. The two other concepts – ‘economic’ and ‘forum’ – are deliberately misleading and are falsifications of fact.

The WEF is not an exclusively or even a strictly ‘economic’ organisation at all: it promotes quack ‘economics’ as a means of ultimately enforcing Schwab’s Nazi-inspired absolutist politics by stealth. Nor is the WEF a ‘forum’: the purpose of a genuine ‘forum’ in the original meaning of the word is a meeting for democratic debate, but the sole purpose of the WEF is to implement its own agenda, which permits no discussion, no argument, and no challenge to its predetermined purpose as an instrument of implementing its programme for absolutist global dictatorship.

The adherents of that select group of self-professing elites from around the world who come together at the WEF’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, are brainwashed victims of Schwab’s envisaged New World Order. They are really conspiring to control the direction of society and politics worldwide. The WEF is a conspiracy in practice, not just a conspiracy theory. That is the open admission of its Founder and Executive Chairman Klaus Schwab in his welcoming remarks at the WEF’s 2022 meeting:

“Let’s also be clear: The future is not just happening. The future is built by us – a powerful community as you here in this room. We have the means to improve the state of the world, but two conditions are necessary. The first one is that we act all as stakeholders of larger communities, that we serve not only our self-interest, but we serve the community. That’s what we call ‘stakeholder responsibility’. And second, that we collaborate. This is the reason why you find many opportunities here during the meeting to engage in very action- and impact-oriented initiatives to make progress related to specific issues on the global agenda.”³

The Great Reset, described by the Gatestone Institute as “a blueprint for destroying freedom, innovation, and prosperity,⁴ calls on a huge global network of thousands of global leaders from business, politics and civil society. They share variants of the Davos philosophy and are supported by a vast income from corporate membership fees. The WEF also has a youth wing called the ‘Global Shapers Community’: 9,655 ‘shapers’ work from 428 ‘hubs’ in 148 different countries to infiltrate politics and promote Schwab’s evil nonsense. On 29 August 2022 the US House of Representatives at long last introduced a ‘Defund Davos’ Bill (HR8748) which will follow Trump’s previous efforts to deny the use of taxpayer funding to support the WEF.⁵

Nazi credentials, Nazi affinities

Klaus Schwab, the stupendously arrogant, self-important charlatan who calls himself the ‘Executive Chairman’ of the WEF, made an absolutely astonishing statement at the annual meeting of 23 May 2022. In a glowing tribute to Ukraine’s Nazi allied President Volodymyr Zelensky, who was the WEF’s ‘guest of honour’ (!) and the main speaker during his international tour to solicit weapons for fighting Russia, Schwab said that Zelensky (a man who gives awards to avowed Nazis, imprisons opposition leaders and bans parties) is supported by “all of Europe and the international order”.⁶ There was not a single cheep of protest or dissent from the almost 2,500 leaders present drawn from politics, business, civil society and the media.⁷

Instead, Zelensky, whose speech had omitted mentioning any reference to the crimes that nationalist extremists had committed in his country, or the fact that he had breached the Minsk Agreements which were intended to achieve a peaceful solution to the Ukraine conflict, received a standing ovation after having in effect virtually thanked Ukraine’s Nazis for their crimes by simply describing them as “volunteers”.⁸

Zelensky and Schwab are two of a pathological political kind. Rodney Atkinson has exposed Zelensky’s intrinsic Nazism in two very important articles on his ‘Freenations’ website;⁹ I have repeatedly drawn attention to a photograph of Zelensky proudly holding up a Nazi T-shirt adorned with a large Swastika and symbols of the German Wolfsangel; and ‘The True Reporter’ website has similarly asked why some photographs of Zelensky show him wearing the Nazi Iron Cross.¹⁰ Yet there are ignorant and simple-minded people – a few Christian pastors and editors of Christian newspapers among them – who have not done their research and who dismiss such overwhelming evidence of Zelensky’s Nazi credentials as fake or because they are sympathetic to him and do not want to recognise the truth.

On 15 July 2021 the Ardara Press published a detailed study of the hidden Nazi past of Klaus Schwab’s family company, Escher Wyss, which amongst other barbarities exploited slave labour and Allied prisoners of war and manufactured key nuclear bomb-making technologies for Adolf Hitler.¹¹ Two days later the study was highlighted by the Christian website ‘Grandmageri’. The author recalls that the company was protected not only by Hitler himself, but by Switzerland, Britain and America, making Schwab a criminal foreign meddler in every sense. Hitler called Escher Wyss “a national socialist [i.e., Nazi] model company”. The Ardara study also mentions that CIA archive documents reveal that the Swiss engineering companies Escher-Wyss and Sulzer were being directed by the US Department of Energy and the State Department, and the author asks: “Do we really want a triple-agent lying spy running the “Great Reset” and “Build Back Better?”¹² Biden, Johnson and Trudeau have all used the WEF concept ‘Build back better’ when demonstrating their support for Zelensky and Ukrainian Nazism. The World Economic Forum is just a long-winded way of saying fascism.

Horrendously, the WEF has even called on governments, health officials and “humans” around the globe to consider the “rational” (!) arguments for implanting microchips in children’s brains.

Schwab insists that the idea of implanting a “tracking chip in your child” isn’t “scary”, arguing that chips “form part of a natural evolution that wearables once underwent” and that children will even grow to see them as “accessories” that will eventually be “considered a fashion item”.¹⁴ YouTube has produced a revealing video in which this evil plan for control of the human brain is discussed.¹⁵

‘Agenda ID2020’

The fundamental pillar of the Great Reset is a horrendous plan called ‘Agenda ID2020’,¹⁶ which is a blueprint for resetting the world in line with the objectives of the super-rich. Aided by the methods of the ‘Big Tech’ platforms, it promotes the idea of a massive population reduction. Agenda ID2020 was designed by Microsoft billionaire and Bilderberg member Bill Gates, who has donated hundreds of millions of dollars to reduce the world population by the use of vaccines. This is no figment of anyone’s imagination: read Gates’ own words:

“The world today has 6.8 billion people… that’s headed up to about 9 billion. Now if we do a really great job on new vaccines, health care, reproductive health services, we could lower that by perhaps 10 or 15 percent.”¹⁷

This damning statement by Gates echoes the Nazis’ eugenics programme, which never disappeared but merely faded into the background for a few decades.

Agenda ID2020 is backed by the World Health Organisation (WHO), the Rockefeller Foundation, Accenture, and the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI), which is now simply called the Vaccine Alliance. GAVI is also a creation of Gates from 2001 and has its headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, significantly next door to the World Health Organisation. These organisations collaborate collectively in promoting Schwab’s planned New World Order.

Immeasurable and lasting damage has already been done to the health, economies and freedoms of the world’s nations by what has been called the WEF’s “gathering of psychopaths trying to play God”;¹⁸ but their end may now be nigh following a Swiss referendum held on 7 March 2021, which blocked a proposed law intended to create a legal basis for an electronic identity system based on Agenda ID2020. The overall rejection rate was 64.4% (in some Cantons up to 70.7%)¹⁹ and was a massive blow to the World Economic Forum’s evil project. It will be interesting to see whether Schwab and his supporters will now be ousted from Davos, just as Hungary expelled billionaire globalist George Soros in 2019 for his “subversion politics” against the country and what the Jerusalem Post described as his “campaign of global chaos”.²⁰

The WEF is part of the West’s failing anti-Russia conspiracy

The WEF’s official slogan reads “Committed to improving the State of the World”, but the Davos meetings have done absolutely nothing to achieve such a goal. Schwab has never made any suggestion of how peace might be achieved in a pointless war that has killed many thousands of innocent people – many more Ukrainians than Russians. Instead of accepting the Putin-Lavrov proposals for peace negotiations, it was clear that the hidden (or perhaps not so hidden) agenda was to continue and escalate the war. As Peter Koening pointed out in a recent New Eastern Outlook article: “The applause [following Zelenski’s belligerent tone and demand at WEF 2022 for more killing-power from the West] was like enhancing the propagated and truly indoctrinated hatred for Russia within the Forum and around the world.”²³

Thus the WEF 2022 finally exposed its true geopolitical credentials by formally announcing that it had “severed all relations with the Russian Government and President Vladimir Putin” and “scrubbed Putin from the WEF website”,²⁴ making it nothing but a mouthpiece for US-NATO propaganda and aggression. Hence, apart from vastly increasing corporatism or economic fascism, the WEF’s Great Reset is also aimed at destroying Russia – and China – and recovering the dwindling hegemony of the Western nations as they rapidly lose their global leadership in an increasingly multipolar world.

Accordingly, the Great Reset is not a conspiracy theory, but a conspiracy in practice. Michael Rechtenwald of the Mises Institute, which is the world’s leading supporter of the ideas of liberty, puts it as follows and concludes that as “plans of a technocratic elite” it is “doomed to fail”:

“The Great Reset […] is not a conspiracy theory; it is an open, avowed, and planned project, and it is well underway. But because capitalism with Chinese characteristics or corporate-socialist statism lacks free markets and depends on the absence of free will and individual liberty, it is, ironically, ‘unsustainable’. The vast majority will not accept the Great Reset’s attempts to lock them away in an economic, governmental, and technological prison. Like earlier attempts at totalitarianism, the Great Reset is doomed to fail.”²⁵

The WEF’s planned New World Order demolished by Russia and China

Considering that America is rapidly accelerating into a police state ruled by Joe Biden and the Democrats, and that the European Union is also facing potential final collapse over its Covid-19 fiasco and the WEF-engineered energy crisis, the question now is: Who is left with the courage, the conviction, the strength and the ability to oppose the evil plans of the Great Reset which Klaus Schwab was so intent on reiterating to the world’s globalist elites at the 2021 Davos teleconference of the WEF? The answer is, of course: the very person who since 2015 has recognised, exposed and openly denounced the aims of Schwab and his duped followers – the bogeyman relentlessly misrepresented and systematically demonized by the West, namely Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Despite accelerating into global tyranny,²⁶ the Great Reset is destined to fail, though its promoters will desperately try to keep it alive for as long as possible. Putin was absolutely right when he mocked Schwab’s plans at the WEF’s 2020 meeting, which ironically had to be held online because of the Covid-19 pandemic. Putin told Schwab that his plans for a system of global government based on the ridiculous ideas of the Great Reset were not only “doomed to failure” but were also “counter to everything that modern leadership should be pursuing”.²⁷

When world leaders gathered at SPIEF 2022 (the St Petersburg Economic Forum), YouTube posted a further video headed “Russia and China just destroyed Klaus Schwab and the World Economic Forum”.²⁹

To paraphrase the main points of what Putin made absolutely clear in St Petersburg:

The era of the unipolar world, led by America and the WEF’s Great Reset, is over. The future world order, already in progress, will be formed by strong sovereign states. The rupture with the West is irreversible and definitive. No pressure from the West will change it. Russia has renewed its sovereignty. Reinforcement of political and economic sovereignty is an absolute priority. The EU has completely lost its political sovereignty: the current crisis shows the EU is not ready to play the role of an independent, sovereign actor; it is merely an ensemble of American vassals deprived of any politico-military sovereignty. Sovereignty cannot be partial: a country is either sovereign or a colony. Russia will invest in internal economic development and reorientation of trade towards nations independent of the US. The future world order, already in progress, will not be the one plotted by America and the WEF, but will be formed by strong sovereign states. It is a lesson that the godless West will be made to learn the hard way.

Archbishop Viganò exposes the WEF New World Order

The stupendous impudence of a man who presumes to arrogate to himself the role of creating a new global order in which “you will own nothing and you will be happy”³⁰ emerges from the content of Schwab’s absurd books The Fourth Industrial Revolution (2016), its successor Shaping the Future of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (2018), and most importantly his 110-page Covid-19: The Great Reset (2020). Sky News Australia’s host Rowan Deal called the WEF’s ideas “brazen”, “a terrifying coalition of big business and big tech”, and noted:

“What they should have added is ‘We the very rich men will own everything and be even happier’.”³¹

The Bible makes it clear that Jesus Christ, not a human being or a coalition of human beings as claimed by the drivel pontificated by Schwab, will “make all things new”. (Rev. 21:5) The contrast was underlined on 25 October 2020 by Carlo Maria Viganò, Archbishop of Ulpiana and former Apostolic Nuncio to the USA, who sent an Open Letter to President Donald Trump about the dangers of the so-called Great Reset and the progress of plans for implementing it.

Viganò is a man of deep insight into world affairs and a scathing critic of Pope Francis, whom he publicly called a “deceiver” and a “liar” and accused of turning the Roman Catholic Church into the “Synagogue of Satan”. Viganò is sometimes believed to be a convinced Protestant. He certainly preaches the Gospel faithfully. He had previously written to Trump on 7 June 2020 warning him that the plans of Klaus Schwab and the WEF for a Great Reset were a plot to “subdue humanity” and “destroy freedom”, and constituted “a global conspiracy against God and humanity”.

On 20 October 2020 a 47-minute video was live-streamed on YouTube2 in which Viganò issued his warning. Symbolically, the backdrop illustration to the video prominently showed images of Pope Francis, Joe Biden, Bill Gates and others, all of whom the Archbishop considers complicit in Schwab’s plans to implement the Great Reset.

The following transcript from Viganò’s call to action in an interview on the ‘Russian Faith’ website puts the Great Reset in its true Satanic perspective:

“If we observe the way in which the Great Reset and pandemic farce have been carried out, we notice that nothing of what has been done by the globalists has been inspired by good; on the contrary, we see that what inspires their criminal action is theological hatred of God the Creator and Saviour; what allows the spread of the planet-wide fraud is lies, blackmail, deceit, and corruption; everything for them begins and ends in the name of death, sickness, and terror. It is the infernal chaos opposed to the divine cosmos, disorder opposed to order, the good opposed to that which is evil. The mark of the Great Reset is the aversion of Satan to the wondrous work of Creation and even more to the miracle of the Redemption. ….. This gesture of the admirable humility of the Son of God contrasts with the proud and wicked cry of Lucifer.”³²

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Notes

1 Patrick Wood and Joseph Mercola: https://www.technocracy.news/wood-mercola-its-crucial-to-understand-what-were-up-against/. The Covid pandemic will be the subject of a separate study in its own right.

2 https://www.michaelrectenwald.com/great-reset-essays-interviews/what-is-the-great-reset

3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTfW-cchpYA

4 https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18825/great-reset-wef

5 https://thenationalpulse.com/2022/08/29/bill-introduced-to-block-wef-funding/

6 https://www.unz.com/pescobar/nato-vs-russia-what-happens-next/

7 For the full roster of WEF 2022 attendees see https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/meet-globalists-here-full-roster-davos-2022-attendees

8 https://en.news-front.info/2022/05/02/zelensky-thanked-the-ukrainian-nazis-for-their-crimes/

9 http://freenations.net/ukraines-institutionalised-nazism/; http://freenations.net/the-decadent-west-has-the-leaders-to-prove-it-new-york-times-signals-war-defeat%ef%bb%bf/

10 Photographs here: https://thetruereporter.com/why-is-zelensky-wearing-the-nazi-iron-cross/

11 https://adarapress.com/2021/07/15/exposed-klaus-schwabs-nazi-roots/

12 https://grandmageri422.me/2021/07/17/exposed-klaus-schwabs-nazi-roots-anyone-shocked/

14 https://slaynews.com/news/world-economic-forum-brain-implants-children/

15 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgFaBGxppvs

16 For ID2020 and the network of other collaborating organisations see fn. 1

17 https://www.lewrockwell.com/2021/02/gary-d-barnett/eugenics-is-alive-and-well-and-the-covid-19-scam-is-the-engine-for-accomplishing-depopulation/

18 https://vk.com/video273785430_456239742

19 https://tapnewswire.com/2021/03/digital-id-scheme-shot-down-by-swiss-voters-over-data-privacy-concerns/

20 https://www.jpost.com/opinion/our-world-soross-campaign-of-global-chaos-464770

21 https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/michael-yeadon-vaccine-death/

23 https://journal-neo.org/2022/06/03/the-world-economic-forum-s-wef-uncertain-conclusion/; Italics mine for emphasis

24 https://www.sott.net/article/465336-Klaus-Schwabs-World-Economic-Forum-cuts-off-all-relations-with-Russia-scrubs-Putin-from-WEF-website; Italics mine for emphasis

25 https://invesbrain.com/plans-of-a-technocratic-elite-the-great-reset-is-not-a-conspiracy-theory/; Italics mine for emphasis

26 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMHscEm1Uyc

27 See my article “The Globalists’ attack on America”, BCN 442

28 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=feWzzRB6EGk; Italics mine for emphasis

29 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPSgAxB85jU; Italics mine for emphasis

30https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcAO4-o_4Ug

31 Ibid.

32 https://russian-faith.com/opinion-video/vigano-satanic-great-reset-inevitable-so-divine-greatest-reset-video-transcript-n6188

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This Sunday, October 16, marks the 20th anniversary of the law that authorized the invasion of Iraq and as the result of growing bipartisan consensus, Congress may just be on the precipice of finally repealing this decades-old war authority.

History speaks strongly to the motivation for its repeal.

Congress passed the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq, or the Iraq AUMF, in response to a request from President George W. Bush in October 2002. Enacted 13 months after the 2001 AUMF, which was directed against those responsible for the 9/11 attacks, the Iraq AUMF was drafted for a very different purpose. Specifically, the resolution permitted the president to use armed forces as “necessary and appropriate” to “defend U.S. national security against the continuing threat posed by Iraq” and to “enforce all relevant Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq.”

The reference to such resolutions concerned the allegation that the Saddam Hussein regime was in breach of certain U.N. Security Council resolutions that prohibited the possession of weapons of mass destruction. A presidential commission concluded in 2005 that “not one bit” of the U.S. intelligence community’s assessment that the regime had begun producing nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons proved correct. Yet this false claim seems to have become a minor footnote in the historical record of the war that followed.

Saddam was quickly deposed and President Bush declared “Mission Accomplished” and an end to major combat operations on May 1, 2003. Despite this declaration, and the former Iraq leader’s execution in 2006, the fighting continued. By the time President Obama officially declared the Iraq War over and removed all U.S. troops from the country in December 2011, it was estimated that at least 126,000 Iraqi civilians had been killed, along with 4,500 U.S. service members. Thirty-two thousand more troops were wounded in the war, which cost taxpayers approximately $800 billion.

With the Iraq War having been officially over for nearly 11 years, it begs the question as to why, apart from being a matter of historical interest, the law that authorized it even merits discussion. Indeed, prior to the post-9/11 era, the anniversaries of statutory force authorizations or declarations of war have been seldom observed, let alone accompanied by calls for their repeal.

That’s because, historically speaking, the repeal of such instruments hasn’t been necessary to mark a final end to their use by the executive branch. Prior administrations generally accepted that the end of a conflict rendered the statue that authorized it obsolete. This was the case even when the enemy was the same. For example, President Roosevelt never attempted to rely on the 1917 declaration of war against Germany to justify war against Hitler’s Nazi regime 24 years later. Rather, he sought a fresh authorization from the body with the constitutional power to “declare war.”

This has not been the case for the Iraq AUMF. Despite Congress’s very clear intent for the resolution, as exhibited by both its text and legislative history, successive administrations have interpreted the Iraq AUMF far beyond its original purpose.

These expanding interpretations began in 2014, when President Obama authorized the deployment of troops to Iraq to fight ISIS. While the Obama administration asserted that the 2001 AUMF provided congressional consent to this new mission, it also claimed that the Iraq AUMF offered “an alternative statutory basis on which the president may rely for military action in Iraq.”

The Obama administration would later broaden this interpretation, stating in a December 2016 report that the 2002 law also applied to operations against ISIS in Syria. In a footnote of this report, the administration asserted that the Iraq AUMF “reinforces the authority for military operations against ISIL in Iraq and, to the extent necessary to achieve these purposes, elsewhere.”

In 2018, the Trump administration went even further, claiming that the Iraq AUMF sanctioned the use of force to address both “threats to, or stemming from, Iraq.” This significantly stretched the law’s breadth, enabling its potential use to justify military action against any number of regional threats to Iraq, whether by non-state group or nation state.

Acting on this latest reading, the Trump administration invoked the Iraq AUMF to justify the targeted killing of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani in January 2020, nearly 18 years after its passage. This justification was rejected by legal scholars. Congress responded by passing a resolution directing the cessation of hostilities against Iran. This resolution, which passed with bipartisan majorities in both chambers of Congress, was ultimately vetoed by President Trump.

Over the last few years, frustration has grown among an increasingly bipartisan majority in Congress over the executive branch’s usurpation of Congress’s constitutional power to decide if, when, and against whom, the United States goes to war.

While trepidation remains concerning how to approach the post-9/11 2001 AUMF, the Iraq AUMF is an entirely different story. The executive branch has confirmed that the Iraq AUMF is not needed for any current military operations. Its repeal would begin a long-overdue process of rebalancing the constitutional division on war powers, amounting to what many call “constitutional hygiene.” It would also prevent any further abuse of the law by an enterprising executive branch that has defined it more broadly and any lawmaker could have conceived in 2002.

This year, the House adopted an amendment from Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif) to repeal the Iraq AUMF as part of the annual defense policy bill, the National Defense Authorization Act. Senators Tim Kaine (D-Va.) and Todd Young (R-Ind.) have filed a corresponding amendment to the Senate NDAA, which mirrors their standalone bill that currently has 51 cosponsors, including 11 Republicans. The bill cleared the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in June, 2021, by a bipartisan vote of 14-8.

Significantly, repealing the Iraq AUMF has the backing of the Biden administration. In June 2021, the Biden White House issued a Statement of Administration Policy, stating unequivocally “The Administration supports the repeal of the 2002 AUMF.”

This effort is also supported by a wide variety of organizations that reflect the bipartisan congressional support, including veterans groups the American Legion and Concerned Veterans for America, as well as September 11 Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, whose members all lost loved ones in the 9/11 attacks. The endeavor also reflects the sentiment of the American people, with more than 80 percent of the public in favor of constraining the president’s war-making powers and increasing congressional oversight on the use of force.

On this 20th anniversary of the Iraq AUMF, it is important to reflect on the costs and consequences of this law. After years of bloodshed, billions of dollars spent, and the acquiescence of its constitutional war powers, Congress finally looks set to repeal this outdated war authorization. For a war-weary public, eager for their elected representatives to re-set constitutional checks and balances, the closure of this chapter couldn’t come soon enough.

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

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Bipartisan legislation introduced in the Senate would grant the Pentagon wartime procurement powers, allowing it to buy massive amounts high-priority munitions using multi-year contracts to help Ukraine fight Russia and to refill U.S. stockpiles.

The Senate Armed Services Committee’s chairman, Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., and ranking member, Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., proposed the legislation as an amendment to the annual defense authorization bill, which the Senate is expected to vote on in November. It was offered instead of the critical munitions acquisition fund that the Pentagon and some lawmakers sought for the same purposes, before Senate appropriators rejected it.

The amendment, the text of which was released last week, offers multi-year contracting authorities typically reserved for Navy vessels and major aircraft. As drafted, it would let the Pentagon lock in purchases of certain munitions made by Lockheed Martin, Raytheon Technologies, BAE Systems and Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace over fiscal 2023 and 2024, a step aimed at encouraging manufacturers to expand production lines for sought-after munitions.

The Pentagon would also be permitted to team with NATO to buy weapons for its members in mass quantities, and for Ukraine-related contracts, the legislation would ease several key legal restrictions on Pentagon procurement through fiscal 2024 ― a sign lawmakers see the war dragging on.

The intent of the legislation is to spur the Pentagon and industry to move more aggressively by removing bureaucratic barriers, with an eye not only on Russia but the potential for a confrontation with China over Taiwan, according to a senior congressional aide who spoke to Defense News on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak with the press.

“Whether you want to call it wartime contracting or emergency contracting, we can’t play around anymore,” the aide said. “We can’t pussyfoot around with minimum-sustaining-rate buys of these munitions. It’s hard to think of something as high on everybody’s list as buying a ton of munitions for the next few years, for our operational plans against China and continuing to supply Ukraine.”

If the language becomes law, the Department of Defense would be allowed to make non-competitive awards to arms manufacturers for Ukraine-related contracts, an idea spearheaded in legislation from Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., and 13 other senators.

The Inhofe-Reed amendment would also grant special emergency procurement authorities reserved for contingency operations and waive a requirement that contractors provide certified cost and pricing data, a safeguard intended to help ensure the Pentagon is paying reasonable prices.

Criticism from Capitol Hill

The move comes amid criticism from Capitol Hill and the defense industry that the Pentagon is moving too slowly. Of the $6 billion Congress appropriated this year to buy equipment for Ukraine, DoD has awarded $1.2 billion, and of $12.5 billion appropriated to replace U.S. stockpiles of weapons sent to Ukraine, just $1.5 billion has been awarded, the Pentagon said Sept. 20.

“This is an effort to speed up contracting,” said Mark Cancian, a defense budget analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “We’ve been hearing from industry, when we talk to them about this issue, that they want to see a demand signal. DoD has been saying the right things but they haven’t been providing that demand signal. And when you look at the amount of money actually obligated, it’s very low.”

One aim of the amendment is to signal to the defense industry that it’s time to restart or to re-energize dormant supply lines. Lockheed CEO Jim Taiclet said during a July earnings call that the Pentagon had yet to put the contracts in place or coordinate with industry to buy more supplies, a process that could take two to three years. “And I can tell you the clutch isn’t engaged yet,” Taiclet said.

While the legislation will likely be welcomed by the defense industry, Julia Gledhill, a defense analyst in the Center for Defense Information at the non-partisan watchdog group Project on Government Oversight, said Monday that Congress should leave protections against defense spending bloat in place.

“Ukraine aid shouldn’t be another way for contractors to nickel and dime the Pentagon, wasting taxpayer dollars and undermining the purpose of assistance: to support the Ukrainian people,” Gledhill said. “But the amendment further deteriorates already weak guardrails in place to prevent corporate price gouging of the military.”

Mobilizing munitions manufacturing

Concerned about constraints on the U.S. defense industrial base’s ability to produce munitions to resupply U.S. stocks transferred to Ukraine, Congress this year appropriated $600 million in Defense Production Act funding. Some of the money is to expand domestic capacity and invest in domestic production of strategic and critical materials.

The Senate Armed Services Committee authorized $2.7 billion for future munitions production when it advanced the FY23 NDAA in June. And while multi-year contract authorities could save the Defense Department money on munitions procurement over annual contracts, they could also add several billion dollars more per year in non-discretionary spending to the defense budget topline – an annual, contentious debate in Congress.

The House NDAA, which passed 329-101 in July, contains a more limited critical munitions acquisition fund offered as an amendment from the House Armed Services Committee’s chairman, Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash. That amendment would apply only to high-demand munitions transferred to Ukraine and its European neighbors.

The sheer volumes of weapons that the legislation authorizes contracts for equipment sent to Ukraine includes 750,000 XM1128 and XM1123 rounds for 155mm artillery; 1,000 M777 Howitzers; 700 M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems and 100,000 Guided Multiple Launch Rocket Systems.

But it extends far beyond what the U.S. needs to replenish stocks sent to Ukraine. For instance, it authorizes contracts to procure up to 20,000 Stinger anti-aircraft missiles and 25,000 Javelin anti-tank missiles. That far exceeds the approximately 1,400 Stingers and 5,500 Javelins that the U.S. has sent to Ukraine from its stocks.

“These numbers are much larger than just replenishing stocks,” said Cancian. “These are huge numbers. They are not driven by what we’ve given to Ukraine, but sort of related to what we’ve given to Ukraine.”

“This isn’t replacing what we’ve given them,” he added. “It’s building stockpiles for a major ground war in the future. This is not the list you would use for China. For China we’d have a very different list.”

The amendment also authorizes buying up to 30,000 AGM-114 Hellfire missiles; 36,000 AGM-179 Joint Air-to-Ground Missiles; 1,000 Harpoon missiles; 800 Naval Strike Missiles; and 10,000 Patriot Advanced Capability – 3 air defense system and 6,000 MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile Systems.

The proposed legislation also authorizes contracts for 20,000 AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air missiles, which Ukraine has not fired extensively – if at all. Britain announced last week that it would donate these AMRAAM rockets to Kyiv for its use in the Norwegian Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System, which the United States has pledged to provide in the future via the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative.

Co-production with NATO

To that end, the legislation aims to facilitate co-production of weapons systems with NATO allies. For example, the proposed legislation also authorizes sharing designs for the large-caliber cannon, which Cancian noted was developed by Britain.

In a separate provision that would allow bulk weapons purchases between the U.S. and NATO, the amendment would expand existing authorizations that cover NATO’s bulk purchases of logistics support items, like fuel, to cover acquisitions of any kind. The idea is that the U.S. and allies would be able to pool resources for artillery shells and other weapons and potentially save costs by buying together.

European countries are focused on boosting the defense industry’s production capacity to provide for countries future needs and to backfill stockpiles sent to Ukraine.

While U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was in Brussels last week, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that the alliance had decided to increase stockpiles of munitions and equipment ― and to speed up aid deliveries to Ukraine.

Because allies are digging deeper into their stocks to be able to provide more support to Ukraine, “it’s important that we also are able to ramp up production,” Stoltenberg said, adding that emerging NATO plans would provide industry with the long-term demand it need to boost production.

Austin led a meeting of Ukraine donor nations in Brussels where the defense chiefs discussed how to keep supplying Ukraine “in the difficult months and years ahead” and pushed to “galvanize our industrial bases to fire up production for the systems to defend Ukraine, even while meeting our own security needs.”

In Washington last week, the U.S. Defense Security Cooperation Agency’s director, James Hursch, projected U.S. arms sales would increase continuously over the next three years as the conflict fuels demand from Europe.

“They are drawing lessons from the conflict that we see today about the kinds of systems they need to have,” Hursch said, projecting demand for armored vehicles, precision fires and integrated missile defense systems.

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Joe Gould is the senior Pentagon reporter for Defense News, covering the intersection of national security policy, politics and the defense industry. He served previously as Congress reporter.

Bryant Harris is the Congress reporter for Defense News. He has covered U.S. foreign policy, national security, international affairs and politics in Washington since 2014. He has also written for Foreign Policy, Al-Monitor, Al Jazeera English and IPS News.

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The Black Alliance for Peace emphatically opposes the Biden administration’s draft resolution to the United Nations Security Council to call for the immediate deployment of a “multinational rapid action force” to Haiti. We have specifically asked two permanent members of the Security Council – the representatives of the People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation – to veto this resolution.

Western nations, led by the United States, and supported by Canada, the Dominican Republic, and the Caribbean Community, among others, are at the forefront of the push for another foreign military intervention in Haiti. Through a global public relations campaign, they are justifying invasion by pointing to a “humanitarian crisis” (including a new cholera outbreak) that has come about as a result of “gang violence.”

Yet by now, we should know that when it comes to Haiti, we cannot trust the words of Western politicians and the coverage of Western media. In the context of the current “crisis,” politicians and media have worked overtime to shape the discussion of Haiti by highlighting particular details – while ignoring important historical facts.

In the first instance, when calling for a military invasion of Haiti and promoting a narrative of crisis, the western media does not acknowledge that the current “government” in Haiti is unelected and unaccountable to Haitian people. It also fails to acknowledge that one core demand of the people is for authentic Haitian self-determination. Therefore, the last thing the Haitian people want is another “humanitarian” invasion and occupation by the US and the “Core Group.”

Second, rarely does the media mention that, along with the demand for self-determination, the nationwide protests of hundreds of thousands of Haitian people have also been against the massive economic distress caused by a sharp increase in the cost of living. This increase was a direct result of a major increase in the cost of fuel – an increase decreed by the puppet Prime Minister and dictated by the IMF.

Third, media coverage refuses to implicate the U.S., France, and Canada in the 2004 coup d’etat which removed the country’s popularly elected president, eventually leading to the current crisis.

Much of what we hear about Haiti today is a distortion – or outright fabrication – of Haiti’s social and political reality. Much of it lacks historical context, especially when it comes to the unrelenting meddling of the foreign agents and institutions, for understanding the Haitian situation. Much of it is based in a deep racism that presumes that Black people are ungovernable while resenting the implications of Haiti’s historical commitment to Black freedom.

As a response to distortions and deceptions surrounding Haiti, the Haiti/Americas Team of the Black Alliance for Peace has compiled a dossier of recent statements, essays, and articles which collectively demonstrate both the imperial origins of Haiti’s crisis and the racist justifications supporting it.

We want to be clear: The crisis of Haiti is a crisis of imperialism.

The Black Alliance for Peace, in alignment with the wishes of the Haitian masses and their supporters, absolutely stands against any foreign armed intervention in Haiti, and continues to demand an end to the unending meddling in Haitian affairs by the United States and Western powers.

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Abstract

To study the long-term effects of Fluoride toothpaste on human teeth, a two-month experiment has been carried out to simulate 47 years of exposure on a human tooth to Fluoride toothpaste under normal daily usage. Micro-cracks have shown up on both Enamel and Cementum surfaces, which is a sign of tooth degradation. While the Cementum surface has a much higher density of micro-crack networks. Cementum tends to get harmed by Fluoride more often than Enamel. This study does not include other factors such as chewing and the type of food residue stuck between teeth, which could potentially affect the tooth’s health even further.

Introduction

Our teeth are a crucial part of our body. We need them to be able to masticate our food into smaller pieces for easier digestion. When we masticate, sometimes small pieces of food can get stuck on our teeth. In order to clean our teeth, we will commonly brush our teeth around 2-3 times a day with toothpaste. Most commercial toothpastes (such as Crest^® or Colgate^®) we see in our supermarkets contain an ingredient known as Fluoride, with a typical percentage of 0.25%, while some brands contain up to 0.75% Fluoride. Prescription Dental toothpastes can contain 5 times more Fluoride than commercially available.

Although most Americans have positive associations with fluoride and envision tooth protection along with strong bones, fluoride is actually the by-product of industry and its toxicity was recognized at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution during the 1850’s, when iron and copper factories discharged it into the air and poisoned plants, animals, and people. The fluoride added to drinking water and toothpaste is a crude industrial waste product of the aluminum and fertilizer industries, and a substance toxic enough to be used as rat poison. [1]

Fluoride has been used in the US to treat drinking water and added to toothpaste, all of which started from a carefully planned marketing program that began before the Grand Rapids, Michigan, which became the first community to officially fluoridate its drinking water in 1945 [2]. The big hope for fluoride was its ability to immunize children’s developing teeth against cavities. Rates of dental caries were supposed to plummet in areas where water was treated, yet decades of experience and worldwide research have contradicted this expectation numerous times. Let alone overdosed fluoridation has been linked to Skeletal Fluorosis [3], Dental Fluorosis [4], Bone Fractures [5] [6], Fluoride Poisoning [7], Cancer [8] [9].

Since we are extremely concerned about the usage of Fluoride in the toothpaste commonly seen, an experiment has been planned to study the effect of Fluoride on human teeth under long term condition.

Materials & Methods

To figure out if fluoride contained in fluoride toothpaste is harmful to our teeth or not, an experiment of human tooth’s long-time exposure to fluoride toothpaste has been designed and carried out to monitor the change of tooth surface.

To simulate years’ usage of fluoride toothpaste on a human tooth, a real human tooth has been coated with prescription toothpaste for 2 months, which is equivalent to 47 years of exposure if 5 minutes of brushing with toothpaste per day is assumed as normal daily usage. The prescription toothpaste used here is Rising^® Denta 5000 Plus 1.1% Sodium Fluoride Prescription Dental Cream (5000 ppm Fluoride Plus Mild Cleaning System). The human tooth had been cleaned with distilled water and Acetone, and then recoated with this prescription toothpaste every day during the experiment before being stored inside a glass beaker. The tooth had been characterized by Optical Microscopy (OM) and Secondary Electronic Microscopy (SEM), before and after the experiment.

The outside of the human tooth is composed of two parts: crown covered by Enamel (Figure 1.) and root covered by Cementum (Figure 2.). The Enamel surface is smoother than Cementum. Micro-cell structures of 5~7 µm in diameter can be observed on Enamel, both in OM (Figure 1.) and SEM (Figure 3.)

Figure 1. Enamel on Crown, under Optical Microscope (OM) before the experiment.

Figure 2. Cementum on Root, under Optical Microscope (OM) before the experiment.

Figure 3. Enamel & Cementum, under Secondary Electronic Microscopy (SEM) before the experiment.

Results

After 2 months’ immersion of the human tooth in the Rising^® Denta 5000 Plus Fluoride toothpaste, the human tooth was washed clean and characterized with OM and SEM again to investigate any change on the tooth surface. The images taken are listed in the Figure 4 to 6 in the following. Notice that micro-cracks have been observed to appear on both Enamel and Cementum surfaces. Enamel surface started to show small groups of micro-cracks with stretching lengths of 50µm to 100µm (Figure 5.); while extensive micro-crack networks showed up on the surface of Cementum (Figure 6.). Obviously, the micro-crack density on the Cementum surface is a lot higher than the Enamel surface.

Discussion 

The micro-cracks that appeared on the human tooth should have made the tooth weaker and more brittle. The cause of micro-cracks is understandable since there is a possibility that the Fluoride ion in the toothpaste could react and even erode the Calcium in the tooth over a long period of time.

Figure 4. Enamel & Cementum, under Optical Microscope (OM) after 2months’ experiment; Specially, cementum has shown crack networks.

Figure 5. Enamel under Secondary Electronic Microscopy (SEM) after 2months’ experiment; Enamel started to show small groups of cracks.

Figure 6. Cementum under Secondary Electronic Microscopy (SEM) after 2 months’ experiment; Extensive micro-crack networks have shown up on the surface of the Cementum.

Conclusion

Fluoride is known to be a cancer-causing mineral that is commonly found in toothpaste and in some areas’ tap water. Fluoride can be possibly dangerous at high levels where it can weaken your bones and teeth. It can also be toxic to the brain and nerve cells with enough exposure to fluoride.

In a 2-month experimental study of the long-term effect of Fluoride toothpaste on human teeth, it is observed that micro-cracks have appeared on both Enamel and Cementum surfaces, which is a sign of tooth degradation. While Cementum surface has a much higher density of micro-crack networks, it seems that Cementum is more easily eroded by Fluoride than Enamel.

This study only investigated the effects of fluoride toothpaste on human teeth over a time interval (equivalent to 47 years’ exposure) and did not include other outside influences. Factors such as chewing and the nutrients of the food we eat are some other factors that can affect the tooth’s health even further. The PH value of food residues stuck between the teeth could be another factor to affect the pace of damage caused by Fluoride toothpaste to the teeth.

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Acknowledgement: The figure included were obtained with the help of Wei Zhou. The primary author is grateful for his help and guidance in using optical and scanning microscopy.

Sources

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/fluoride-toothpaste#what-is-fluoride

https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/myths/fluoridated-water-fact-sheet

Is Fluoridated Drinking Water Safe?

Notes

[1] Dr. Gary Null, “Fluoride: Killing Us Softly”, Global Research, March 03, 2018

[2] Joel Griffiths, “Fluoride: Commie Plot or Capitalist Ploy,” Covert Action, Fall 1992, Vol. 42, p. 30.

[3] BETTE HILEMAN, “Fluoridation of Water- Questions about health risks and benefits remain after more than 40 years”, Chemical and Engineering News, 8/1/88, p. 36.

[4] George Glasser, “Dental Fluorosis – A Legal Time Bomb!” Sarasota/Florida ECO Report, Vol. 5, No. 2, Feb. 1995, pp. 1-5.

[5] Christa Danielson et al., “Hip fractures and fluoridation in Utah’s elderly population,” JAMA, Vol. 268, Aug. 12, 1992, pp. 746-48.

[6] “Middletown, Maryland latest city to receive toxic spill of fluoride in their drinking water,” report by Truth About Fluoride, Inc., in Townsend Letter for Doctors, 10/15/94, p. 1124.

[7] Reprinted by M. Bevis, “Morbidity associated with ingestion/dialysis of community water fluoride,” CDC, Dental Div., 6/11/92, distributed by Safe Water Foundation of Texas.

[8] John Yiamouyiannis and Dean Burk, “Fluoridation of public water systems and cancer death rates in humans,” presented at the 57th annual meeting of the American Society of Biological Chemists, and published in Fluoride, Vol. 10, No. 3, 1977, pp. 102-103.

[9] Mark Lowey, “Scientists question health risks of fluoride,” Calgary Herald, Calgary, Alberta, Canada, Feb. 28, 1992; in Griffiths, op. cit., p. 66.

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***

We in America are led to believe that the allied forces led by Dwight Eisenhower were major factors in the defeat of Hitler’s Nazi Germany. This is a blatant lie.

It was Russia, who was mainly responsible for defeating Hitler’s Germany. Russia had lost 26 million soldiers in that war while America had lost 419,400. Russia was allied with Europe and America until the end of World War-II. Then how did Russia become the adversary and a foe?

On July 25, 1945, Harry Truman suddenly reversed the pro-UN  and anti-imperialistic foreign policies of his immediate predecessor, FDR, and set the U.S. government onto the path of America controlling the entire world, which meant, more than anything else, conquering the Soviet union—especially Russia—which had defeated Hitler—Both, FDR and Churchill had acknowledged at the time, but which was never said publicly and this historical fact became hidden by Operation Mockingbird after the war.

This was exactly opposite to what had been the central aim of FDR. It was for WW-II to be replaced by a new system of international law that would be produced and enforced by the U.N. getting rid of all imperialisms. FDR intended that after the war, he and Stalin would force the intensely imperialistic Churchill to accept this new anti-imperialistic reality, the U.N. would be a functioning global federal republic of all nations and sole source and enforcer of international laws, laws between nations. It was Truman, the cold warrior who created CIA in 1947 and NATO in 1949. The purpose being to dominate the world by any criminal means.

During World War-II, Russia was an important ally of USA and UK. As mentioned above, more than allied forces, it was Russia who defeated Hitler while losing millions of its soldiers. Yet, right after the war, Russia became an enemy, a boogeyman, created by Truman and supported by Churchill. Truman started the cold war. For what? Billions of dollars were spent in the unnecessary arms race rather than taking care of its citizens ever since. Truman even created the CIA and NATO, both hegemonic criminal organizations. Imagine how much better off and peaceful the world would have been if United States and United Kingdom had extended a hand of friendship to Russia? The criminals commit their crimes and go away while the world’s poor pay the price. That is the legacy of most American presidents with few exceptions ever since its birth.

Though Russia has done no harm to the United States, the United States had been planning to destroy Russia since the end of World War-II.

The Coup to install anti-Russian government in Ukraine was planned since June 2011.

Finally, U.S. was successful in carrying out the coup in Ukraine to overthrow the pro-Russian, democratically elected president Viktor Yanukovych and was replaced with pro-western, rabidly anti-Russian president Volodymyr Zelensky. The idea behind this coup was to make Ukraine anti-Russian so that it can be admitted into NATO. The chief objective to grab Ukraine has been to place America’s nuclear missiles on Russia’s border with Ukraine, only 5-minute flying time away from nuking Moscow. The idea behind being that if it is done that fast, then Russia’s command-and-control will be preemptively destroyed before Russia could launch retaliatory weapons.

Once Russia has been neutralized, it will be forced to obey  U.S. hegemony; will become a vassal state of the United States like the UK and other western European nations and then its vast resources will be made available for western powers to exploit and profit from.

U.S. and European countries view Russia, as Hitler did in 1941, as a vast arena for plunder. Through a combination of war and internal destabilization, these imperialist countries seek to instigate the breakup of Russia. Then, the U.S. will reign supreme amongst the nations of the world. This is the diabolical plan of the U.S. government.

There is another reason for the United States to fear and hate Russia. Washington derives its global power through its control and dominance of the U.S. dollar, as it has become the world’s reserve currency. This special status enables Washington to amass obscene deficits that do not in any way reflect America’s real productive capacity.

The U.S. dollar is the dominant currency used for most international trades since it replaced sterling in 1920s.Major commodities such as oil, gas, gold, base metals, and agricultural products are priced in and paid for, in dollars internationally. This has created huge global demand for the dollar, adding massive value to its worth, thus creating strong demand for US treasuries. This enables the United States’ federal government to print dollars by the trillions—creating money out of thin air—borrow without limit and spend with abandon.

The dollar dominance has afforded America great global power. But now, as never before, it is under threat as Russia, China and other countries are challenging the dollar hegemony.

Many countries have realized and are now seeking to ditch their dependance on the dollar as Washington has abused its status as issuer of the world’s reserve currency for decades.

Russia and China have drastically reduced their use of the dollar. About 90% of their bilateral trade was conducted in dollars in 2015, but since the start of US-China trade war, that has fallen to 46% and is rapidly declining further. Even US allies and friends, like Turkey and India, have begun trading in their respective national currencies when it suits them.

Since Ukraine-Russia War, the de-dollarization has picked up speed. For example, all the trade between Russia and India, worth billions of dollars, is now done in Rubbles and Rupees. Hence, this is the beginning of the end of dollar as the world’s reserve currency.

America’s growing use of severe sanctions against countries who do not obey its dictates, has fueled this trend as countries seek new ways of financing their trades without Washington’s ability to seize their money. “The U.S., by continuously using sanctions, is beginning to cut off its nose to spite its face,” said Anuradha Chenoy, formerly the dean of Jawaharlal Nehru’s School of international Studies in New Delhi.

This continued decline of the dollar as world’s reserve currency, the de-dollarization, and Russia-China alliance deeply worries the United States.

Any nation that does not obey Washington’s edicts and refuses to play the dollar game is met with a coup, a color revolution, a false flag, or brute military force. We saw that what Washington did in Iraq, Libya and many other nations that rejected dollar hegemony. But United States cannot directly attack Russia. So, this proxy war in Ukraine, using Ukrainian people as pawns to be sacrificed by thousands.

It is indeed a laughable matter to hear the US and NATO countries claiming that they are engaged in a “defense of democracy” and against “foreign aggression”. The Biden Administration’s claim that it is defending the sanctity of Ukraine’s national sovereignty against “foreign aggression”.

Just look at the countries invaded and/or bombed by the US in the last 30 years: Panama, Kuwait, Iraq, Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Sudan, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, Yemen, Pakistan, Libya, and Syria. Since World War-II, the United States has destroyed more than 50 democracies and/or democratic movements around the world.

To achieve this victory in World War-III, the U.S. government needs to deceive its population constantly like they did before invading Iraq in 2003 and the main-stream corporate media in America always is a happy partner to oblige.

That is why they have made Saddam, Gaddafi, Assad, Iran, or China into a demon. Now Putin has been made a boogeyman. To an astute observer who questions everything he or she sees on American TV or reads on mainstream newspapers, everything fits into a pattern. U.S. corporate media always toes the government line just like they did prior to Iraq invasion in 2003. Ever since Russia invaded Ukraine, all the mainstream news media are condemning Putin but none of them criticize U.S. policy towards Russia which led to the invasion in the first place.

There are massive protests, against higher gas prices in Germany and France. Thousands of people are protesting, asking the French government to get out of NATO. But nowhere we see this news being reported in American mainstream news-media. Total black out. “Censorship by Omission”, to quote veteran Australian journalist John Pilger. Unfortunately, most Americans believe in this massive propaganda. So, U.S. crimes around the world go on unabated.

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Chaitanya Davé is a chemist and chemical engineer and a successful businessman. Authored three books: CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY: A Shocking Record of US Crimes since 1776-2007, COLLAPSE: Civilization of the Brink-2010, Capitalism’s March of Destruction. Author of many articles on politics, history, and environment Founder and President of “Pragati”, a non-profit charity foundation helping the poor villagers of India, Nepal, Haiti, USA-homeless and other poor countries. He can be contacted at [email protected].

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***

In a time of economic uncertainty, climate crisis, and the necessity for peace and stability for people and planet, over 220 organizations join together in an international campaign to end the United State’s F-35 program. Citing “harm caused abroad, cost of the program to the taxpayer, inefficiencies and failures, the environmental impact of F-35s, and the effects training has on local communities” the large coalition of organizations are joined by Ben Cohen, Roger Waters, Noam Chomsky and others in signing a joint letter addressed to President Joe Biden and members of the United States congress.

“I joined over 200 organizations from around the world in calling on the U.S. government to end the disastrous F-35 fighter jet program because as a global community we need to drastically change our priorities.” Roger Waters, co-founder of Pink Floyd continued, “To the people in the countries the F-35 is sold to and produced in, it’s time we demand a reinvestment into life, not war.”

The organizations signed on to the demand represent human interest groups from the United States, Canada, Mexico, Paraguay, Germany, Spain, Kenya, and Switzerland. With the intention of the US to sell the F-35s to countries around the world, citizens from those countries push back on the program and those sales.

“This is of deep concern to many of us in the country,” explains Ruth Rohde, board member at the Arms Information Centre in Germany.

“Germany is looking to buy the F-35 to carry American nuclear weapons stationed here. Not only is this going to be a large, unnecessary financial burden but also sustains the disastrous, indefensible threat of nuclear war on and from German soil.”

The coalition points out in the letter that not only is the F-35 program an extension of dangerous militarism but the jets themselves have proven to be a money-draining and faulty piece of machinery. Even The Chair of the House Armed Services Committee, Rep. Adam Smith called the F-35 a “rathole.”

“The global community is fed-up with overpriced, underperforming weapon systems like the F-35. It’s a complete waste of tax-payer dollars that causes harm abroad and here at home in Vermont.” Ben Cohen, co-founder of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream and Vermont local continued, “The only people this project benefits are the executives at Lockheed Martin. Real security is knowing you can see a doctor when you’re sick, not a boondoggle fighter jet that can’t fly near thunderstorms.”

Cohen, along with many Vermont-based organizations represent the working-class families who unwillingly are subjected to the physically and mentally detrimental F-35 training program that terrorizes their neighborhoods. The noise caused by the F-35 hits 115 decibels which especially hurts and injures infants and children, the elderly, and the disabled. The F-35 has 300 to 600 takeoffs and landings a month. Madison, Wisconsin residents are the next on the list to be subjected to this violation of personal privacy.

The campaign to end the F-35 program is being spearheaded by CODEPINK: Women for Peace as part of their overall goal to end the war economy and create a stable and sustainable planet for all, not just a few.

“The F-35 program is a microcosm of the military industrial complex. Each year the U.S. government funnels massive amounts of money into the program while letting places in the U.S. go without clean water for months or years. Sustaining this program for any longer will have detrimental effects on human life and the earth.” Danaka Katovich, national co-director of CODEPINK.

The letter is being emailed to the White House and Congressional staffers this week as well as being hand delivered directly to select members of Congress.

The letter itself is just the beginning of the campaign. An international day of action is being planned for 2023 with thousands of people from four continents taking to the streets to stop President Biden from including the F-35 program in his defense budget proposal to be submitted to Congress for FY2024. Between now and the 2023 action, the 200+ organizations will be petitioning their elected officials and educating the public on the real life dangers and consequences of continuing the F-35 program.

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***

The Trilateral Commission is the gatekeeper of the modern technocracy movement, and technocracy is ground zero for the global totalitarian (beast) system. This organization was co-founded 50 years ago by David Rockefeller and Zbigniew Brzezinski. Trilateralists are the ones today who are pushing the war on carbon, the war on food and the coming world war between Russia-China and U.S.-NATO. Their overall agenda represents a war on humanity and, as such, receives inspiration from the very depths of hell.

Since the Carter Administration in the 1970s, members of the Trilateral Commission have dominated every president since, both Democrat and Republican, to establish their self-proclaimed goal of  a New International Economic Order. For all who think the Commission is over-the-hill, you need to get a grip on what is actually happening.

Here are the top 10 Trilaterals controlling Biden. (Trilateral Commission current or former members are in bold type.)

Joe Biden is surrounded by TEN current and former members of the Trilateral Commission. They have become like a personal guard and policy controllers for virtually everything that Biden has pursued since his inauguration. Since the Trilateral Commission membership is global – only one third are Americans – these 10 interlopers collectively represent the interests of the global hegemony that is trying to destroy America.

First, foreign policy is locked down by Secretary of State Tony Blinken and his Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman.

Then there is Biden’s National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan. The NSA is the gatekeeper of what reaches the president’s attention. During the Carter administration, Trilateral co-founder Zbigniew Brzezinski was the NSA.

Three of the most important ambassadorships are occupied by Trilaterals:

• Mark Brzezinski, U.S. Ambassador to Poland.

• Nicholas Burns, U.S. Ambassador to China (who also served in the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations).

• Ken Juster, U.S. Ambassador to India (who by the way also served in the Trump administration as deputy assistant to the president for International Economic Affairs).

China and India are the two most influential powerhouses of Technocracy in the world. And yes, Mark Brzezinski is the brother of MSNBC broadcaster Mika Brzezinski and son of the late Zbigniew Brzezinski. Are you surprised that Poland is currently in talks with the US about hosting nuclear weapons? Who do you suppose came up with that idea? The Brzezinski family was originally from Poland, so they have a deep history there (the Poles and Russians have a deep-seated hatred for each other going back centuries).

Domestic policy?

• Susan Rice, director of the Domestic Policy Council, is the dominant force who creates and oversees Biden’s domestic policy. Remember “Benghazi Sue”? She was President Obama’s National Security Advisor when the disastrous attack on Benghazi occurred in 2012 – then she infamously claimed the attack was over some totally idiotic video released in California.

Monetary policy?

• How about the vice-chairman of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, Lael Brainard, If Fed Chairman Jerome Powell seems a little confused and bewildered at times, she is right there as his right-hand policy-maker.

• David Lipton, first deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund, is there to coordinate global monetary policy.

Environmental policy?

• John Podesta has recently been appointed senior advisor to the president for Green Energy Innovation and Implementation. This means he is in charge of spending the $370 billion on green programs that was authorized by Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. Podesta was the original architect of environmental policy while serving in the Clinton administration. He also served as Hilary Clinton’s 2016 campaign manager.

To recap: foreign policy, domestic policy, environmental policy, and monetary policy are all dominated by current or former members of the Trilateral Commission. Cognitively challenged Joe Biden is nothing more that the home-boy puppet of this globalist cartel.

It’s time to stop seeing only what you think you know and start knowing what you can clearly see.

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***

My wife and I completed a cruise recently that started in Venice, visited islands and historic sites in the Eastern Mediterranean, and concluded in Rome after stops in Valletta, Palermo and Naples. There were inevitably good things and bad things in terms of how the shore excursions were programmed, more bad than good unfortunately, and the costs of the extras provided by the carrier seem to have skyrocketed in the developing post COVID era, apparently making up for the losses sustained in dry dock over the past three years.

Most of the passengers on our ship were American or Canadian, but there were also large numbers of Europeans and residents of Australia and New Zealand. Being at close quarters with the Europeans in particular provided an interesting opportunity to learn what is driving the Old World to self-destruct like lemmings diving suicidally off the Norwegian cliffs. As both my wife and I are functional in a number of European languages, it also provided a good opportunity to exchange views in a non-threatening way and even to eavesdrop on those nearby in the ship’s bars and restaurants when they were discussing political and social developments in their homelands. It was also interesting nevertheless to note how politics intruded into an otherwise a deliberately apolitical experience, with the ship hosting a parade-around-the-deck march to raise money for and celebrate the Ukrainian refugees. My wife and I did not participate.

The days spent in Venice before the cruise began were enlightening, not to mention perilous when I had my pocket picked at a crowded vaporetto stop outside the Accademia Museum. The Filipino waiters in our ship’s bar were quite amused to learn that a former CIA officer, who regularly called for “gin martini shaken not stirred,” had had his wallet taken, with one bright spark asking “uh, how many people have you killed?” When I was explaining that I had not killed anyone he interrupted to say that “They probably deserved it.”

On our first day in Venice, my wife and I noted immediately the large number of formerly highly prestigious shops that were closed in Piazza San Marco, the tourist center of the city which normally attracts top level clients at top level prices. The signs of economic decline were even more visible the farther away one moved away from San Marco, to include the closure of many restaurants and bars. Italy is struggling, which has led a sharp shift to the right in the recent election. So too Britain, Germany and France are all in trouble and not finding any solutions coming from the hapless band of conniving politicians that have recently been elected. A few more steps downwards and the whole house of cards appears poised to collapse.

Of course, some European politicians are following the easy and approved course endorsed by President Joe Biden, blaming the continent’s energy crisis on Vladimir Putin instead of on their own bureaucratic fumbling and failure to protect the interests of their fellow citizens. No European that we met was willing to acknowledge the obvious truth, i.e. that the Ukraine crisis was based on issues that were fully negotiable and the Russian intervention was avoidable. One retired German official whom we met was particularly prone to never speaking ill of any politician. Unless they are Russian or Chinese, that is. He informed us that NATO should make clear its objective to remove Putin because “the man is a fascist” who “wants to recreate the Soviet Union.” I demurred that Putin is a nationalist who has been provoked deliberately and there is a difference, but our interlocutor was quickly off on another track, stating that Joe Biden has “done some really good things.” When we recovered from the shock of such a ridiculous assertion, I mentioned the arrival of 1.3 million illegal immigrants in the US on Honest Joe’s watch plus his toying with nuclear war in support of no known American interest apart from spreading something called “democracy,” which the United States no longer has, while also vilifying political opponents as “domestic terrorists.” And there is also that little matter of sending billions to Ukraine so it can “win,” whatever that means, in order to weaken Russia while also warning of an impending event called “Armageddon.”

I also spoke to a number of Italians about their recent election, in which conservative leader of the Fratelli d’Italia party Giorgia Meloni led a coalition that will likely make her the new Prime Minister by a comfortable margin. In the Western Media Meloni is regularly and inevitably linked to another former nationalist Italian leader, Benito Mussolini. The malaise of the people I spoke with over Italy’s decline was evident. They are watching everything move in the wrong direction, and, to their credit, few of them gave a rat’s ass over Ukraine. They did, however, react in their recent voting due to unelected European Union Commissioner Ursula von der Leyen, who, on the eve of the Italian elections, warned Italians that if they voted for the “wrong” i.e. conservative parties they would be punished. Asked about the surge of the right-wing political opposition, she threatened “we will see the result of the vote in Italy. If things go in a difficult direction — and I’ve spoken about Hungary and Poland — we have the tools.”

Beyond that, there did appear to be an age divide in terms of the Italian views relating to the voting and the likely new government. Younger voters several times said to me “It takes us back twenty years,” a reference to the more conservative politicians that prevailed at that time. Older voters, however, want the social disruption caused by the mass illegal immigration into the country and the accompanying Islamization to stop and they want protection for Italian jobs and businesses. Many of them mentioned the desire to preserve Italian and Catholic traditional culture. A retired school teacher also sagely observed that Italy should lead the charge in abolishing the European Parliament and getting rid of people like von der Leyen, as the European Union was designed as a free trade zone, not as a progressive dominated body empowered to pass laws and regulations impacting severely on the economies of member states.

Inevitably, Joe Biden denounced the Italian election results as a setback where “democracy is at stake” in order to convince US voter to cast their ballots for Democrats. He elaborated “You just saw what’s happened in Italy in that election. You’re seeing what’s happening around the world. And the reason I bother to say that is we can’t be sanguine about what’s happening here, either. I don’t want to exaggerate it, but I don’t want to understate it. And it’s the reason why I’m so concerned about and so interested in and so committed to seeing that the governors — Democratic governors — are elected.” The Biden comment, insulting to the Italians, was not much reported in the US media but was on the receiving end of a great deal of critical commentary in Italy. Several Italians I spoke to mentioned it disparagingly.

And given my own views on the usual very sensitive subject, I asked one Italian official with close ties to Fratelli d’Italia why Israel will be getting a pass from the new Prime Minister. Indeed, she, like her counterpart Liz Truss in Britain, embraces the close relationship with the Jewish state, forgiving its trespasses and crimes against humanity because it is expedient to do so. She also fully embraces the false narrative about Israel vs. the Palestinians. The official responded, with some candor, I thought, that Jews are not very numerous in modern Italy, but they tend to wield power considerably beyond their head count. They are very influential in the media and in some sectors of the economy, in particular, and it pays an ambitious politician to stay on their right side. I responded “Yes, it is the same everywhere, I am afraid.”

Shortly before our cruise ended, Joe Biden stuck his foot in his mouth yet again, and I was interested in hearing what the Europeans thought about the White House’s National Security Strategy – a congressionally mandated report supposedly outlining US security goals and foreign policy objectives, but which critic Jordan Schachtel describes as “…more unhinged than any of its predecessors. The NSS was once understood as a serious document compiling a list of actual threats to the nation. It now resembles a hyper-political Blue Anon fundraising mailer. Most of the items discussed in the supposed threat assessment have nothing to do with national security at all. And the things that are related to national security matters have major prioritization and politicization issues.”

In the document, the Biden administration has declared the intensifying competition with Beijing to be Washington’s biggest challenge and it boasts that “We must proactively shape the international order in line with our interests and values” before adding that “There is nothing beyond our capacity.” The document inevitably stressed the need for “constraining Russia,” and mentions that country 71 times. The Kremlin is described as an “immediate and persistent threat to international peace and stability… The United States will not allow Russia, or any power, to achieve its objectives through using, or threatening to use, nuclear weapons.” The US also has condemned Chinese business practices while simultaneously describing Russia as a “persistent threat” – can the US afford to have such adversaries turned into enemies, given its multiple domestic issues including out of control inflation and debt? Many Europeans are willing to let the US lead on such issues, but they also expressed concern that it would develop into a trade war at minimum and possibly much worse.

To our surprise, our German contact actually agreed that the President’s designation of not one but two major military and economic powers more-or-less as enemies is odd, not to mention seriously schizophrenic in that it contradicts other White House assertions about a global rules-based order based on cooperation. And Biden is taking no steps to mitigate his warlike talk, having already indicated that he will not meet with Putin in the upcoming G-20 summit in Indonesia in November. Can it be that because there is a US election coming up there will be another photo op of Joe flanked by Marines in front of Independence Hall bathed in red light and waving his tiny fist around?

I do not want to suggest that people who go on cruises are representative of anything beyond their demographic, i.e. moderately affluent and reasonably well educated by modern standards. But it is nevertheless interesting to observe how the Europeans generally are inclined to defer to what they know to be half-truths coming out of their governments. Europe will surely sink or swim in the upcoming year or two as soaring energy costs wreck economies and force major dislocations, a fate perhaps to be shared by a level of government debt and spending combined with a loss of any national purpose that will together initiate an irreversible decline in the United States.

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This article was originally published on The Unz Review.

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected].

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When an ugly power play marks the end of the career of a phenomenally successful politician, it presents a painful sight. From all accounts in the British press in the most recent weeks, it was clear that the night of the long knives was approaching for the most photogenic prime minister Great Britain and Northern Ireland ever produced — Liz Truss.

Enoch Powell, if I remember correctly, once said that the tragedy of most politicians is that they do not know when to quit public life before the sun starts descending westward on their career. Indeed, Truss invited upon herself such an ignominious end to her stunning political career. 

For, she should have known that in life, it’s more important to be aware of one’s weaknesses than strengths. But she was fired up by an overvaulting ambition to slip into the shoes of Margaret Thatcher, while it was crystal clear to anyone who watched her controversial visit to Moscow in February that Truss was perilously close to being exposed as an incompetent politician. Come to think of it, she eagerly sought an invitation from Moscow keenly seeking media headlines as a tough-talking diplomat even as the storms were gathering over Ukraine. 

But then, Truss probably believes that success and competence are not necessarily inter-related and politics is all about packaging and marketing — or, plain luck. She’s right in thinking so. Boris Johnson had his uses for her. But Truss ignored that Britain is not only sick but likely terminally ill, and only a politician with a magic wand can navigate the country out of its misery, and that she was not up to the task. 

The result is that within a month of her time as prime minister, Truss has proved that Elensky curse is real. If she wanted to abandon plans to scrap the scheduled increase in corporation tax from 19 to 25 percent, it was bad. But when she retracted, that was also bad. The political atmosphere  became sulphurous. 

Of course, a day is a long time in politics, but from the look of it, Truss is a burnt-out case and her days as prime minister are numbered. Attention has already turned to Rishi Sunak as her likely successor. Will that make any difference? 

Sunak bears an uncanny resemblance to Barack Obama — a voluble, charismatic, well-educated globalist, who would have acceptability with the country’s permanent establishment as someone who can be trusted not to upset the apple cart. But is that all that is needed to steer Britain out of crisis mode? 

A significant part of Britain’s travails today stems out of the West’s sanctions against Russia. According to a Sunday Telegraph report, by mid-April, British citizens were already militating against the sanctions due to rising prices, especially fuel price. The Guardian newspaper also reported that there would be inflationary pressure and economy will slow down in the UK following economic measures against Russia. 

“The shockwaves from the Russian invasion of Ukraine will cut UK living standards by £2,500 per household, lead to more persistent inflationary pressure and slow the economy to a standstill next year, economists fear,” the newspaper wrote in March. 

Market confidence has crashed, the value of the pound and government bonds is tanking and the Bank of England is restive, as investors fear that the British economy cannot possibly underwrite a £60 billion hit to public debt. 

On the other hand, public spending must be cut even at the risk of provoking a broader social explosion. But, how to find tens of billions of pounds of cuts in just three weeks? The sell-off of bonds and the fall in the pound prompted the Bank of England to raise interest rates more quickly than planned, which in turn sent mortgages soaring. 

The catch is, if Sunak is indeed brought in as PM, that will be the outcome of a palace coup and for the wrong reasons, especially his formidable manipulative skill in the corridors of power. Times wrote:  “Senior Conservatives are holding talks about replacing Liz Truss with a joint ticket of Rishi Sunak and Penny Mordaunt as part of a ‘coronation’ by MPs.”

“Around ‘20 to 30’ former ministers and senior backbenchers are attempting to find a way for a ‘council of elders’ to tell Truss to quit.” The coup is executed almost openly by the world’s banks and asset managers with the rising expectation that the new team might restore confidence in the UK economy — while, in reality, would satisfy the interests of the financial oligarchy. 

If the trick doesn’t work or if something goes seriously wrong, there is Plan B — a general election. The interesting part is that if the opposition Labour wins — as it well might with current polling figures showing that the Conservatives will be reduced to just 85 seats, down from 356, and their worst ever result by far — the interests of the financial oligarchy will remain utterly safe in the hands of Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, who can be trusted to subserve the global speculators and corporate boardrooms. After the overthrow of Jeremy Corbyn, there was a thorough purge of his flock of socialists. 

It is a dreary outcome. Recently, Al Jazeera featured a riveting report about the working of inner party democracy within the Labour, which shows “how the party’s bureaucrats, whose nominal function is to serve the interests of the party, attempted to undermine members supportive of Jeremy Corbyn,… Labour’s leader from 2015 to 2020,… the first unequivocally socialist leader of the party since the 1980s, (who) rode a wave of popular discontent against the political establishment, standing on a platform of public ownership of key industries, a strengthened welfare state, and an end to the austerity measures imposed by the Conservative government at that time.”  

Both in terms of the class war at home and Britain’s war against Russia and China abroad, no serious shift can be expected out of a regime change calibrated by the Deep State. The only silver lining is that Britain’s capacity to fuel the Ukraine war has drastically diminished as it fights its own battle for survival. With a 80,000-strong standing army — one-fourth the size of Eritrea’s —Britain was anyway punching far above its weight in Ukraine. 

The right thing to do is for the next UK prime minister to visit Washington without delay and prevail upon President Biden to end this senseless war in Ukraine and lift the sanctions against Russia, which bled the economies of the UK and other European allies. The heart of the matter is that Europe’s prosperity was built on the availability of cheap, reliable, energy supplies from Russia in huge volumes.

But it will be a dare-devil act — almost suicidal — for Sunak or any British politician to take on the Deep State. Will Sunak be up to it? Left to himself, he never sounded enthusiastic about the Ukraine war or the regime in Kiev. So, will the Deep State take chances? Indeed, that is precisely where the chances of Ben Wallace, the defence Secretary, would lie. A dark horse trotting down the path in the wilderness of British politics!

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***

The decision of the Russian Federation to annex the Donbas region of the Ukraine, combined with the decision of the Ukraine to apply for membership in NATO, and for elements in the United Nations and other intergovernmental organizations to support this haphazard, dangerous and thoughtless action, has brought us to the edge of nuclear war, or at least that it’s the impression we are given.

We will not know the true story for decades. And although we are being fed multiple false, or incomplete, narratives, it is entirely possible that the globalists intend to use the threat of nuclear war as a means to enforce a new form of totalitarian governance everywhere that goes far beyond the COVID19 reign of terror.

They may be cooperating with those who are branded as nationalists, or branded anti-globalists, cardboard messiahs like Trump or Putin, all working together to create a world on the edge, a world where anything goes.

Whatever performance the globalists and nationalists may put on to frighten us, the corporations and militaries around the world are playing footsie with each other: enemies at one level, silent partners at another.

They all know that once Russia and NATO move to a war economy, and a war command structure, the United States, and most every nation, will be drawn in and everything will be shut down.

At the same, Putin and Biden may be playing a game, and maybe their friends at the World Economic Forum told them that everything is under control. But once the military command system is put into play, it works like clockwork. Nuclear war may come in a few hours, even if the masterminds never intended it.

It may be a matter of days, weeks or months, but the system for governance, logistics, transportation, food and energy supplies, information (journalism) and education, medical treatment, even housing and clothing, will break down.

The last seventy years of easy living, of dependency on a money economy, of reliance on the Federal government and multinational corporations, has left most of us without the ability to produce food, clothing, furniture, or much of anything at all, on our own.

The current collapse, with or without world war, will be far worse than the fall of the Soviet Union.

Trust no one, but start to build relations of profound trust. Start with your family, extend a hand to your neighbors, and reach out bravely to like-minded people across the nation.

First and foremost, we must abandon all the false narratives about cardboard messiahs saving us that the corporate media has planted in our heads—and much of the alternative media that we rely on is also, ultimately, corporate.

We must rebuild the government from ground up. It is so corrupt, so broken, so contradictory, and so suicidal that in its present form it cannot lead us anywhere but towards the grave.

Putting a nice guy at the top, even if that were possible, will not stop this death march.

The only option is to create a legitimate government from the bottom up; we must start from your family members, from your neighbors, from your local government and only then work our way up. Once we control our own minds, our own families, and we are able to make our own decisions without being fed the mind-numbing trash, flavored conservative or progressive, called news, then we can build a real government, a real economy, and a real culture that grows from the people, and that has nothing to do with supercomputers or multinational investment banks.

This directive is meant to instruct you as to what you need to do now in coordination with the US Provisional Government so as to prepare for the initial shock and awe.

This directive is meant to start the process of organizing, beginning with your family, to create sustainable local communities that can supply food, water, housing, and other necessities in the face of systemic breakdown.

We will not be able to assist you during the initial stage; we can only offer directives. However, that approach is preferable as self-sufficiency is the only manner in which we can restore legitimate governance.

We will need entirely new systems that are run in a transparent manner by the people—with no global capital involved, for food production, water supply, energy supply, distribution, information and education, and housing.

Remember, there will not be a real government until you and your neighbors build one with your own hands. That “government” that you see out there today has become a criminal syndicate; it is not a government any more.

We have been offered a false choice by the bankers. They say we most chose between the government and the private sector. That false choice is the same in Washington and Paris, in Berlin and Moscow, in Tokyo and Beijing. That “private sector” means global capital, the banks and corporations, that run this broken system.

That is to say that the private sector is the same as the government but worse. The private sector is run by the rich in a totalitarian manner for their own benefit.

Rebuilding government means making it clear that the relationship must be between the government and the people, the community, to which the government is ultimately responsible.

What will happen next

A partial shutdown of the economy and of the functions of government, civil society and business is already in effect. That is only the beginning. Plans are in place for a complete shutdown, perhaps using the threat of nuclear war, or some other catastrophe, as an excuse to push through martial law, to isolate the citizens, to allow corporations to completely control all means of finance, production, distribution and sales, and to create complete dependency on government and on multinational corporations for the basics of life.

Basic principles

Attitude is essential. We must be spiritually and psychologically strong and we must overcome fear, irrational fear of the unknown. They will use hyped-up fear, terror, as the tool to control us—as they already have done with numerous fake school shootings, contrived racial attacks, and other incidents intended to convince us that the enemy is our neighbor who has different habits, and not the rich who wish to destroy us all. Divide, rule, and destroy is not just a strategy, it is now the only strategy.

We must quickly establish a healthy culture, which means overcoming the negative popular culture forced on us by the corporations, notably, the cult of the self, narcissism, the throw-away culture of consumption and waste, and the trap of emotional manipulation through gender and ethnic branding that is meant to destroy our personal autonomy.

That means a return to real values, real love, real family, and real responsibility to the community. It means moving away from the individual as the focus and embracing values like frugality and honesty.

We must look out for our families first as we prepare for a total systemic collapse. At the same time, we must have a strong sense of community so that we are ready to help each other, and to take risks for each other, when the situation demands it.

If we try to just save ourselves, we will not survive.

We need to identify who has what skills in our neighborhood, and what his or her role will be when the system breaks down.

Who has skills as a farmer, a doctor, a negotiator, a teacher, an organizer, a carpenter, a moral leader, etc.? Money is not the important factor in making these plans because money can very quickly have little value if the authority of public institutions dissolves, or if banks are shut down.

Having money in cash may be valuable, but it may be even better to buy things necessary for survival. Do so in coordination with others so we do not duplicate everything.

There should be two parts of our response which must undertaken simultaneously. First there must be an immediate response to the shutdown: stockpiling food and supplies, purchasing tools and objects with real value, and forming plans with friends and neighbors for how we can pool resources, reduce waste, change habits, and form a community quickly.

Second, we need a long-term program for sustainable agriculture, creating local manufacturing, and forming communities that are self-sufficient, communities wherein the means of production, distribution and consumption are controlled by the people in a democratic manner, much in the sense envisioned in the United States at the time of the signing of the Constitution. When everything else collapses, those local groups will become everything.

Self-sufficiency over months and years will require a major shift in our thinking about ourselves and our community. They will take time and careful planning. That part is not simply about surviving on food you have hoarded. Hoarding in itself will not protect you if everyone is a hoarder. We need a community.

The biggest challenge will be talking with your family about the crisis honestly and making a plan together. If you can do that, you are already halfway to the solution.

Next, snap out of denial! Overcome your shyness and start to discuss these matters seriously with your neighbors. The culture fed to us by television and movies encourages in us an obsession with personal needs and discourages the building a community. This poisonous culture must be exposed and driven out.

What you need to know:

The SAT test never asks you how to make water potable, how to create your own compost for your garden, which local plants are edible, or how to raise chickens. That is no accident. The multinational corporations want you to be dependent on what they supply and lacking in self-sufficiency. They are counting on this crash to bring you to your knees.

There are various manuals that can be bought, or downloaded, that can teach you how to compost, to farm, to raise animals, to purify water, to build your own home or furniture, to sew clothes, etc. Get these materials and study them. See how you can reduce your expenses through self-sufficiency rather than scrambling to get more money.

Money may disappear, or it may be reduced to digital currencies that can be cancelled, or made conditional, at any time. Barter and trust are critical to create economies that are not dependent on money. Eventually we can establish our own revolutionary currency based on real value.

We have been suckered into dependency on fossil fuels that are destructive to the environment through a long process over one hundred years. Reducing the use of energy, unnecessary travel, and other wasteful behavior can be transformative. Sharing resources, and working to create water mills, install good old fashioned wind mills, set up solar energy (and the best form of solar energy is using the sun to grow plants we eat), and manual labor will make us stronger and more independent.

That means learning new skills—actually old skills—and it means rejecting the growth cult. Build houses that will last for a hundred years, weave pants that will last for fifty years, and you will find that we do not need that much, that we are free for the first time. Teach yourself and your children to read, and to talk about the deep truths in the great books, and you will be liberated.

We must create our own logistics and distribution systems that are independent of the current import, logistics, distribution, sales monopoly run by multinational corporations. Breaking the control of global finance on what we buy is critical for survival.

We need to create our own networks to get out reliable news and analysis to family, friends, and neighbors. If necessary it can be done by word of mouth, printed documents, even hand-written notes. In some cases, the internet can be an effective medium, but increasingly the Internet is not our friend and if there is no electricity, there will be no Internet.

We need to teach our own children, and our neighbors’ children, and to teach ourselves, through a new educational system that is based in science and in ethical principles that go beyond the culture of narcissism.

Local governance based on the Constitution, and the great moral teachings of the past, one that involves citizens gathering to resolve difficult issues through meaningful debate and transparent policy proposals, will be critical.

We must deal with difficult questions like ownership. Obviously the land bought up by multinational corporations with fake money does not belong to them. But we must have a consistent policy concerning how that land is owned and administered, how it is farmed and how the food produced is shared. The banks and corporations clearly do not have any legitimate claim of ownership but we must set up logical and just definitions of what possession means to avoid chaos.

That process will require us to face the massive class conflicts that haunt our country, conflicts between us, conflicts and contradictions that have been covered over with identity politics by the left and with the hyping issues like illegal immigration by the right.

The problem of security

The fake declaration that a nuclear war has started may be accompanied by the use of 5G, or robots and drones, to attack citizens. These are real threats from within and we must be prepared.

The dangers of a shock and awe attack meant to completely demoralize and confuse us are high—but every one of these threats can be responded to if we are level headed, organized and committed to the cause.

It is a sad fact of history that we are always preparing to fight the last war. This next war will play out according to unfamiliar rules. The principles of war, however, are unchanging.

Safety first! But it is a mistake to start swinging your sword if you do not know who your enemy is.

Our enemies have gone to great length to cover their tracks, to hide behind those cardboard messiahs.

Let us start with our food, our water, our soil, and our air.

We will need to establish our own systems to assess the quality of air, of soil, of food, and of water, without relying on corporate or government controlled organizations. We must defend the quality of air and water because they are essential to life and they are under attack.

At the beginning, we cannot shoot down the planes engaged in geoengineering; we cannot stop low-orbit military satellites.

Yet, do not despair!

If we build up our network from the bottom up, one based on mutual support and mutual respect, eventually we will be able to reach to the heavens.

We must take down all the 5G towers that are used to assault our bodies, and our minds, using electromagnetic radiation. As those 5G networks are supposedly private property owned by Verizon, ATT, or others, this operation requires preparation. We need to explain to citizens, and to anyone who asks, or who challenges us, why the money used to build those towers was fake and why the organizations running 5G networks are criminal syndicates working to destroy us.

Such arguments will be difficult at first, but I have complete confidence that as things get worse, those arguments will eventually carry the day. Go forth with confidence.

Attacks by drones and robots are also entirely possible, especially if martial law is declared in response to a nuclear war, real or fabricated. There are ways to defend ourselves against these weapons, and to dismantle them. The first step is to talk with each other honestly and to start brainstorming.

The military, the intelligence community, and the police

It is a sad fact that the collapse of our civilization, and the profound corruption that has spread through all parts of the body politic, have rendered the organizations that are supposed to be concerned with safety and security as criminal syndicates that use their authority and supposed legitimacy to push through projects that benefit the few by destroying us.

Many an honest military officer, or police officer, has been destroyed in secret by the globalists, or forced to do terrible things in response to horrible threats.

The situation seems overwhelming, but it is far from hopeless. We have faced such challenges before in human history and once a serious discussion starts outside of banal consumer culture, real leaders with real solutions will emerge.

We have complete faith that a way forward will become manifest once we know the truth and that truth sets us free.

If you are a member of the police, of the military, or of intelligence, a man or woman who has a conscience, who cares about the Constitution and the rule of law, who is concerned about whether your children will survive, please allow me to make a suggestion.

Look around and see if you can identify others who have similar concerns. See if you can form a space in which you can speak with colleagues honestly, and assess what is going on accurately, a space wherein you can discuss what needs to be done. If you can create such a space, you have made tremendous progress.

Do not be concerned about whether it is two people, or a hundred people. Numbers are not important at this moment.

If you must take action that seems ineffective, do not be discouraged. Every single act of resistance, every effort to dismantle the rule of our nation by global capital, makes a real difference, even if it is not immediately visible.

Your historic contributions may not be recognized for decades. That is how history works. Those seeking immediate fame and glory are not to be trusted.

We must work for the country, for our children, but also for the children of others.

Your training in security matters is not so valuable in a government run by billionaires. You are slated for destruction sooner or later. There can be no doubt about that.

But among the citizens, your understanding could be a matter of life and death. You are desperately needed by the nation.

Finally, the United States of America is founded on the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. If the government rejects that contract between the people and the institutions empowered to use force, to effect the economy, then it is no longer a “government” but rather a criminal syndicate. If we are loyal to the people, follow the word and the spirit of the Constitution, are ethical in accord with natural law, we are the government, even if we are but a handful of people.

Our influence will expand exponentially as the crisis enters the next stage.

Back to the citizens of our nation.

Please contact the United States Provisional Government at any time if you have questions or suggestions. You are the ones who will lead and I have complete confidence that real leaders will emerge. They will not come from Harvard or Google. They may come from humble backgrounds, but they will be remarkable in every sense. What happens to me is totally, totally unimportant.

The United States Provisional Government is not here to offer you a service. That undemocratic concept of government as a service was promoted by corporations as a means of enslaving us.

We are here to help you organize into a community that will serve the role of governance from the ground up. The age of dependency on the Federal Government and on multinational corporations is over.

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This article was originally published on US Provisional Government.

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

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from Countercurrents

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***

What is called OPEC⁺, that is the 13 members of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) together with 11 other petroleum exporting countries led by Russia, decided on October 5 to cut their oil production by 2 million barrels per day, starting from November. The US had been pressing OPEC not to take this decision. There had been hectic lobbying by the US to prevent this outcome, and several visits by top US officials to Saudi Arabia, including even by President Joe Biden, to press home the point. And yet OPEC decided otherwise; not surprisingly, this decision has been called in the western media “a slap on Biden’s face”.

The reason why the Americans were so keen to prevent a cut in OPEC output is three-fold: first, the consequent rise in world oil prices will exacerbate inflation in the US and elsewhere, leading to a pervasive rise in interest rates to counter it; this will further enhance the threat of a recession including in the US economy. Secondly, even leaving aside these effects that would take time to materialise, the rise in energy prices will have the immediate effect of hurting and hence annoying American consumers, which will have an adverse impact on the Democratic Party’s electoral prospects in the coming November elections to the Congress and the Senate in that country. Thirdly, there is the fear that any output contraction by OPEC will help Russia by increasing its oil revenue; and the US does not want such an increase because it defeats the very purpose of the sanctions that have been imposed on Russia in the wake of the Ukraine war.

So serious is the last of these considerations that the US officials visiting Saudi Arabia had been posing the issue as one where that country had to choose between America and Russia. And the OPEC decision to cut output has been seen as having a geopolitical significance, involving a cooling off in US-Saudi Arabia relationship.

The fact that a cut in oil output will help Russia is not in doubt. Indeed it will help Russia more than any other country. This is because several countries in OPEC⁺ have not been producing their full quota of oil. This group includes not only Nigeria and Angola, which have not made adequate investments in the past to boost their oil output, but also Russia, which has been producing less than its quota owing to the sanctions. The decision to reduce output by 2 million barrels a day, which will mean a reduction in the production quotas for all the participant countries, will still leave the Russian quota above what it currently produces. Russia therefore will not be cutting any output because of this decision. On the other hand, the ensuing rise in world oil prices will benefit Russia, so that its oil revenue will not just go up, but go up the most among all the major oil producing countries. For the US which has been spearheading the drive to impose sanctions on Russia to bring it to its knees, this represents a clear setback.

Why then did the OPEC decide to cut output? The argument they put forward for the cut is ironically analogous to the very argument that the metropolitan countries advance against the cut. The metropolitan countries’ argument states that the cut would aggravate inflation and hence lead to a rise in interest rates and herald a serious recession; OPEC’s argument is that the rise in interest rates that is occurring will cause a recession that will lower the demand for oil and hence its price, to forestall which there must be a cut in oil output. OPEC’s idea in short is to stabilise the world oil price in the face of the looming recession.

Typically when there is a reduction in demand for primary commodities but supplies do not fall as much, there is a fall in the prices. During the Great Depression of the 1930s for instance there was a sharp fall in the prices of primary commodities relative to manufactured goods, so that the terms of trade worsened for primary commodities, including for agricultural products. As a result, the peasantry everywhere, including in India, had got into debt; and this distress of the peasantry had radicalised it into participating actively in the anti-colonial struggle.

This fall in prices when there is a fall in demand with supply remaining unchanged is called “price adjustment”. As against this, when there is a fall in demand for a primary commodity, supply can be correspondingly reduced and prices kept unchanged, which is called “quantity adjustment”. What the OPEC is attempting is quantity adjustment in the oil market, while what the Americans want from them is price adjustment.

Of the two kinds of adjustment in primary commodity markets, quantity adjustment is likely to be much better from the point of view of the producers. An example will make this clear. Suppose demand falls by 10 per cent; if supply is also reduced by 10 per cent, with the price remaining unchanged, then the revenue of the producers falls by 10 per cent. But if the supply remains unchanged but the price is allowed to fall, the fall in price will be more than 10 per cent to keep demand unchanged (which is the same as saying that the demand for primary commodities is price-“inelastic”). Suppose the price falls by 20 per cent; in that case the revenue would have fallen by 20 per cent as well.

Price adjustment therefore would have brought in less revenue than quantity adjustment; in addition it would also have meant more costs than in the case of quantity adjustment, because there have been no output cuts. For both these reasons price adjustment is the worse option for producers.

OPEC’s decision therefore is not the product of any malicious intent, or any desire to cock a snook at the US, but makes perfect sense from their point of view. Of course, the fact that they have been able to stand up to the pressure being exerted by the US to keep output unchanged, is a sign of the changing times, of the challenge to US hegemony that is emerging even among countries that were its staunchest allies till the other day.

It is true that crude oil prices have been coming down of late. The price of Brent Crude, for instance, which was $120 per barrel in June this year, had come down to well below $100 by the time the OPEC decision was made. But then, it would be asked, would this decision not raise the inflation rate? Significantly, during the period of accelerating inflation, the corporate profit margins, including of the manufacturers of petro-products, have been increasing. Now, if crude oil prices rise, and this rise is merely “passed on”, then profit-margins remain unchanged and the ensuing inflation can be said to have been caused by the rise in crude prices. But if profit-margins also rise, then it is corporate greed, and not the rise in crude prices, that constitutes the immediate cause behind the inflation.

The fact that corporate greed has been the proximate factor behind the current upsurge in inflation in the metropolitan capitalism has been quite widely recognised. In fact in Britain there was a strong demand for raising taxes on oil companies that was articulated even by the centrist Liberal Democrats; but the then Prime Minister Boris Johnson turned it down.

What the US would like is a situation in which the rise in interest rate that is supposed to counter inflation via a reduction in aggregate demand works through two channels, not just one: first, by causing unemployment so that the workers’ bargaining strength is weakened to a degree where they cannot defend themselves against inflation through a corresponding rise in money wages; and second, by reducing primary commodity prices, especially oil that is so important for consumers, so that the consumer price-index is kept in check.

The idea in short is to control inflation in the metropolis at the expense of the workers and the primary commodity producers. What is never on the agenda is any reduction of, or even control over, the rising corporate profit-margins that constitute the proximate reason for the inflation. An output cut by oil producers prevents the working of the second of the above channels by preventing a price-fall in crude oil.

The US has announced that in November there would be a release of 10 million barrels of oil from American reserves to counter any price effects of the OPEC decision. That may take care of the November elections in America; but after November, even the American consumers will be further squeezed by the unfolding crisis.

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Far from being “isolated”, close to half of humanity refused to condemn Russia during the latest UN vote, while the overwhelmingly vast majority of the global population is represented by governments that have defied the Golden Billion’s illegal sanctions.

The US-led Western Mainstream Media (MSM) is slowly but surely recalibrating its weaponized anti-Russian information warfare narrative a bit closer to reality in response to the latest UN vote against that newly restored world power, which discredited claims of its so-called “isolation”.

Time Magazine, which can’t reasonably be accused by anyone as so-called “Russian propaganda”, just headlined a piece declaring that “A New U.N. Vote Shows Russia Isn’t as Isolated as the West May Like to Think”. This statement in and of itself openly defies the official position of the US Government (USG), thus representing a major shift in the public narrative at home.

This reputable outlet, at least in terms of how it’s regarded among average Westerners, correctly argued that their observation is based upon the fact that “nearly half of the global population” didn’t vote against Russia at the UN earlier this month. They also added that even among those that did, “not all votes in favor of the resolution should be seen as a sign of full support for Ukraine”, with Hungary and Saudi Arabia being accused by Time of tacitly supporting Moscow. Pressing that point, the magazine cited an expert who reminded readers that “Not all the countries that voted in favor of the resolution necessarily are doing so because they are then going to apply any serious pressure on Russia.”

These objectively existing and easily verifiable facts are crucial for people in the US-led West’s Golden Billion to keep in mind since that New Cold War bloc’s elite are actively trying to manipulate them. They want their citizens to support these elite’s radical anti-Russian policies that are being promulgated at the publicly acknowledged expense of their people’s socio-economic interests, or at the very least be deterred from peacefully protesting against them like what happened in Prague in early September. To that end, they’ve spun the false narrative that Russia is “isolated” as a result of these selfsame socio-economically counterproductive policies, hence the need to supposedly stay the course.

In reality, the basis upon which the Western elite’s claims rest with respect to demanding that their people indefinitely sacrifice their socio-economic standards in supposed support of Kiev is nothing but a deliberate misportrayal of the facts. Far from being “isolated”, close to half of humanity refused to condemn Russia during the latest UN vote, while the overwhelmingly vast majority of the global population is represented by governments that have defied the Golden Billion’s illegal sanctions. That just goes to show that those elite are lying to their people in order to manipulate them into passively accepting their imposition of socio-economically counterproductive policies for self-interested ends.

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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.

Featured image is from OneWorld

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