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Throughout your lifetime, you or someone you trusted has unwittingly given up many aspects of your biometric and other personal data so that your digital identity can be created. Over time, this digital identity is being progressively defined and is replacing your actual physical, intellectual, emotional and spiritual identity. What you are allowed to do, and not do, will increasingly depend on your technological identity rather than your moral character, intellectual and/or physical abilities, your emotional suitability, religious beliefs and the many other attributes that define your unique personality.

Starting with your birth certificate, which identifies your name, birth date and birth location, as well as parenting, an endless series of details about your personal life has been accumulated and stored, sometimes with your knowledge and consent. Far more often it has been done without either.

Do you remember having your photo taken for a student and/or employee identity card, your vehicle license and/or a passport? Do you remember being finger and/or palm-printed, submitting to an iris scan, agreeing to a recording of your voice, offering data for ‘two-factor’ authentication, and requesting an ancestry search by submitting a sample of your DNA? Most often you had no choice: It was ‘legally required’. Other times, you were probably offered something in return, such as admission to an educational institution, ‘secure’ access to an account or information you wanted. But whatever other price you paid, you also paid an ‘identity cost’.

Moreover, none of that information has ceased to exist and there is a lot more interest in it now than there was when you, or someone, innocently agreed to tender it all those years ago. And it is being added to all of the time with information you have surrendered or that has been obtained about you, up until this morning. In addition, it will be added to by information gathered about you tomorrow.

Your bank account(s), academic and employment records, health records (including vaccination record), legal record (including traffic violations), internet search history, and any other information compiled by or submitted to a government authority, corporation or other entity has been recorded, compiled and systematically stored in data banks of which you have never even heard. And they are being used to generate your ‘social credit score’ which, depending on the country in which you live, is already or will be soon, used to determine what you can, and cannot, do.

In addition, facial recognition technology is vastly expanding the capacity of the surveillance state, and those corporations and entities that work with it, to identify and track you. And it is doing this already in the most obvious places such as on the street and in shopping centres. See, for example, ‘Microsoft partners with banks to introduce facial recognition: More invasive technology’.

Sometimes, an apparently desirable application is used as a trojan horse to have it introduced even more widely. See ‘Australian clubs call for facial recognition tech to watch drinkers and gamblers: More privacy invasion’.

Beyond that, of course, existing technologies already enable many aspects of your unique identity to be imitated precisely. Think you voice is unique? Not once they clone it so they can present some technological imitation as your voice. See ‘Voice Cloning for Content Creators’.

And you are no doubt well aware of simple ways that photos of you can be replicated. Or altered by ‘photoshopping’, to put you in an entirely different context or location.

Does this matter?

This has all been done, fundamentally, so that one day soon now you can be locked in the technological prison that is being created around you. This technological prison, being promoted under the guise of ‘smart cities’, is being built around you as cities are converted to ‘smart’ by installing 5G and the other technologies necessary for comprehensive surveillance and control. But the Saudis are building a ‘smart city’ in the desert too. You can watch their promotional video here: Neom.

Despite the positive spin endlessly put on these projects by governments and corporations – see ‘Smart cities: The cities of the future’ – the fundamental outcome is that you will require a digital ID to do those particular things that the elite has decided you will be allowed to do. And you won’t be able to do anything else. This is usually called ‘slavery’ except that, in this new technological world, virtually all of the slaves will be transhuman with no independent will of their own.

How has this happened?

In a report published by the World Economic Forum in 2016, the authors wrote ‘Consistent with the World Economic Forum’s mission of applying a multi‐stakeholder approach to address issues of global impact, the creation of this report involved extensive outreach and dialogue with the financial services community, innovation community, technology community, academia and the public sector…. The mandate of this project was to explore digital identity and understand the role that Financial Institutions should play in building a global standard for digital identity. Identity is a critical topic in Financial Services today. Current identity systems are limiting Fintech innovation (as) well as secure and efficient service delivery in Financial Services and society more broadly. Digital identity is widely recognized as the next step in identity systems. However, while many efforts are underway to solve parts of the identity challenge and create true digital identity, there is a need for a concerted and coordinated effort to build a truly transformational digital identity system.’

See ‘A Blueprint for Digital Identity: The Role of Financial Institutions in Building Digital Identity’.

Screenshot from WEF

By 2018, another report by the World Economic Forum was proclaiming ‘Our identity is, literally, who we are, and as the digital technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution advance, our identity is increasingly digital. This digital identity determines what products, services and information we can access – or, conversely, what is closed off to us.’

See ‘Identity in a Digital World: A new chapter in the social contract’.

But one primary motivation for their interest in digital identity was reported in a World Economic Forum article in August 2022. Citing research conducted by the consultancy Cebr – see ‘The digital trust index’ – the World Economic Forum noted that ‘our global digital economy can unleash trillions of dollars of opportunities. But if we don’t know for certain who we are interacting with online, we cannot have trust. Digital identity must therefore be the foundational element to our digital economy….’ Moreover, according to the WEF: ‘Consumers also told us they would trust banks and financial services firms the most to create and maintain an identity system.’

See ‘Digital trust: How to unleash the trillion-dollar opportunity for our global economy’.

Of course, the World Economic Forum is not the only institution planning our digital identity prison. In a 2019 report, the United Nations stated ‘We recommend that by 2030, every adult should have affordable access to digital networks, as well as digitally-enabled financial and health services, as a means to make a substantial contribution to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.’

See ‘The Age of Digital Interdependence’.

In addition, that long-standing bastion of economic exploitation known as the World Bank has had a long-running involvement in digitizing identity, publishing a report on the subject in 2017 which was updated in 2021 and, unsurprisingly, linked to its notion of ‘sustainable development’: ‘Every person has the right to participate fully in their society and economy and to be recognized as a person before the law. Yet, as many as 1 billion people across the world do not have basic proof of identity, which is essential for protecting their rights and enabling access to services and opportunities.’

See ‘Principles on Identification for Sustainable Development: Toward the Digital Age’.

This report goes on to outline a set of ten principles – universal access, accuracy, security, privacy… – to guide the nature of digital identity, in various categories, that sound wonderful.

But fundamental issues are left unaddressed.

Why the rights to participation in society and the economy, and recognition before the law, suddenly requires ‘basic proof of identity’ and is ‘essential for protecting their rights and enabling access to services and opportunities’ is not explained. Nor is it explained why those same rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 – on which the world has so spectacularly failed to deliver since that time (and particularly for those billions of people marginalized by the global capitalist economy) – will now be magically delivered by a digitized identity.

As is often the case, the delusional rhetoric sounds good despite being a vast distance from the truth.

But the World Bank continues its rhetoric in a more recent report: ‘Vulnerable and marginalized groups are often the least likely to have proof of their identity, but also the most in need of the protection and services linked to identification.’

See ‘Principles on Identification for Sustainable Development: Toward the Digital Age’.

Moreover, according to the World Bank, experience has supposedly ‘shown that there are key actions countries can take to unlock their own paradigm shift towards building digital ID and G2P [government-to-person] payments ecosystems that empower people and support sustainable development outcomes’.

See ‘Identification for Development (ID4D) and Digitalizing G2P Payments (G2Px) Annual Report 2021’.

Really? How does this happen?

Of course, the documents go on to outline why identity is important to access certain rights and services – banking, voting, owning property, particular transactions… – but do not specify why a digital version of identity is necessary. A sleight of hand made necessary by the complete absence of any genuine reason for moving beyond long-accepted means of establishing identity, where they are appropriately useful.

Beyond international organizations such as these, major Non-Government Organizations including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Rockefeller Foundation, as well as corporations, are predictably behind the moves to digitize identity for reasons explained in the ID2020 Manifesto. For example, as Peggy Johnson of Microsoft Corporation noted: ‘… it’s exciting to imagine a world where safe and secure digital identities are possible, providing everyone with an essential building block to every right and opportunity they deserve.’

See ‘ID2020’ and ‘ID2020 Manifesto’.

Again, why rights and opportunities, theoretically long-ago enshrined in a multitude of human rights laws, should now somehow be accessed through a digitized identity is, obviously, not explained.

With such a predatory list of sponsors – the World Economic Forum, World Bank, United Nations, major corporations, particular NGOs – clearly endorsing digital identity and the complete absence from any consultation process of those of us who might identify (not digitally, of course) as ‘ordinary’ people, it is obvious why those who understand the rapidly advancing technocratic agenda have issued a multitude of warnings about participating in the ongoing efforts to digitize your identity.

What, precisely, is at stake?

Your identity itself. Your freedom. Your privacy. Your human rights generally, including the right to choose what you eat and how you obtain it. And everything else that matters to you. Gone forever, if this global push is successful.

Let me explain this in a little more detail.

All over the world, countries have been implementing processes to digitize the identities of their citizens. Here, for example, are progress reports on what is happening in Nigeria and Greece: ‘Nigeria will be a testing ground for Microsoft’s digital ID tech’ and ‘Greece rolls out digital “wallet” for citizens; ID and driving license now on phone’.

Beyond this, did you know that people in Australia started getting microchipped in 2016? See ‘Australia Has Started Microchipping People’ and ‘Australia Becomes World’s Most Microchipped Nation’.

But other countries, like Sweden, are not far behind. See ‘Thousands of Swedish people are swapping ID cards for microchips’.

And while digitizing your identity in this way might appear to be technologically savvy and even more convenient – after all, opening a door without a key is a pretty slick move hey? – the problem is that once your identity is linked to other more important functions, control of your life is soon easily taken from you.

As John Adams noted in a recent interview by Martin North, once you link a microchipped identity with the soon-to-be-introduced Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC), the Central Bank can simply reprogram your personal chip (or the chips of millions of people) to prevent you from engaging in a particular type of commerce if you do not comply with whatever mandatory requirements are in force at the time. Beyond this, of course, what else will the chip be used to control? Do you know? Watch ‘Australia’s banks want you MICROCHIPPED!’

And what if, as planned, your identity chip is linked to your driver’s licence and your car? How far do you think you will be able to travel from home? To go shopping for food? To travel to work? Will you be allowed to go on holiday?

Beyond these simple examples, what if your digital identity is linked to your health records (including vaccination status), your legal records, and anything else they decide to add – such as carbon credits – so that you can be given a ‘social credit score’? Perhaps you will be deemed unsuitable to be a parent and have your children taken away.

But the answers to these questions, as well as others, are already known and you can watch a fuller explanation of just how securely you are already locked in this digital ID prison in this video presentation by technology expert Aman Jabbi – see ‘Facial Recognition: Digital ID or Digital Dictatorship?’ – who spells it out in gruesome detail.

By the end of 2022, there will be more than twenty billion data collection (not just simple surveillance) cameras (of many types) in the world keeping track of the nearly eight billion people on Earth. As Jabbi observes: Under the guise of privacy, security and convenience, ‘We are being monitored everywhere and all the time’ by the ‘Internet of Eyes and Ears’ linked to artificial intelligence and a vast array of technological devices, such as smart street poles and lights which gather data via facial recognition cameras and environmental sensors, display digital signage, use speakers to instruct the immediate population how to behave, include ‘drone charging stations’ because drones ‘are going to be the new aerial police’ with everything wirelessly connected to each other and the Internet of Things (IoT). This comprehensive network will be used to collect your data and control your behaviour, including by use of LED (light-emitting diode) incapacitators (which Jabbi calls ‘puke guns’) which emit high-intensity beams of different frequencies that can make you vomit or inflict other forms of behavioural control. In short, behavioural compliance will be enforced not by human guards, but by artificial intelligence and electromagnetic weapons.

The digital identity they say is a new chapter in the social contract. It’s a social contract that nobody signed up for and nobody wants. But they are… going to force this on us.

Every entity, person, device and thing is going to have a digital identity and once you sign on to a digital identity, the only way you can access healthcare or your bank finances, ability to travel, ability to access the internet, to go to social platforms or do anything in your life, to buy food, you need a digital identity. And how will that digital identity be authenticated? Through your face. So your face is the key to unlocking access to life.

And this key is going to be linked to a new type of financial system which is going to be a combination of carbon credits, your social credits or social score… ‘reputation capital’, and then of course your status with respect to vaccines and boosters…. And if you don’t have enough carbon score and you don’t have enough social score or you haven’t taken your latest booster, your face will not be able to unlock your digital identity and therefore you cannot access stuff.

You’ll be locked out of the whole new matrix system. And this is what they call central bank digital currencies (CBDCs)….

This is essentially the key to understanding what sort of a new world that is going to be upon us once the final switches are turned on….

Your digital identity is really a digital prison and your face is used to unlock the digital prison if you behave well….

And how are they going to implement this? There is a new protocol called ‘Zero Trust in Cyber Security’… so by default we are going from a world of implicit ‘allow’ to default ‘deny’.

So as an example, when you log into your computer you type in a password… and you have access to your browser, your files, your applications but now this zero trust is about ‘default deny’ which means ‘we don’t trust you and for everything you need to do you’ll be denied initially until you can prove that you’re trustworthy’ and that trust will come from face recognition and from digital identity. (If you want to read more about ‘digital trust’, here is the Callsign report: ‘The digital trust index’.)

Beyond the above, by using ‘geofencing’ (both digitally and geographically), your access to everything, including who you can contact, how you can travel and how far, what media you can access or book you can read… can be controlled through your digital identity. ‘So the goal is to lockdown humanity in these smart cities and not allow them to move anywhere…. So the digital identity is inside the Trojan horse of security and privacy. I can’t stress this enough…. And this will result in total control of humans because people will comply in order to unlock access to life.’ In addition, ‘they can even be monitoring the emotional state of a child and the algorithms can decide whether child abuse is happening at home and then they can come for the children, which they will.’

Jabbi also points out that in late April 2022, the World Economic Forum and the United Nations took over the internet which means that, soon enough, ‘If you don’t accept a digital ID, you cannot get onto the internet and you cannot open your phone’. And he emphasizes that ‘Banning facial recognition means nothing because neither your government, nor your state or local officials are doing facial recognition so banning it is pointless because facial recognition is going to be done in the cloud on Amazon and Google servers with artificial intelligence algorithms, with cameras installed by private companies on public lands which are now owned by private corporations.’

Apart from Aman Jabbi, other scholars have also thoughtfully researched what is happening regarding digital identity and how it relates to other features of the overall elite plan.

After exhaustive research leading to their extensive report ‘Paving a Digital Road to Hell? A Primer on the Role of the World Bank and Global Networks in Promoting Digital ID’, scholars at the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at the New York University School of Law concluded as follows in relation to digital ID:

As outlined in this primer, and as many of our partners and colleagues have documented, the World Bank and a wider network of global actors are promoting a specific model of digital ID. This model privileges economic identity, is disconnected from legal status, and steers attention away from civil registration. Contrary to the human rights and inclusive development language used to promote this vision of digital ID, this model threatens a range of fundamental rights, from the right to social security to the right to privacy. The purported benefits remain mostly unsubstantiated in the absence of serious baseline studies, cost-benefit and value for money analyses, and impact assessments. Meanwhile, researching and revealing the impacts of these systems has mostly been outsourced to an already overburdened and under-resourced community of human rights organizations, advocates, scholars, journalists, and other civil society actors.

The report includes three recommendations for addressing concerns about digital ID, given the transformational nature of the change intended: 1. detailed investigation and research, consideration (particularly of possible harms and their mitigation), cost-benefit analysis and impact assessments; 2. thorough discussion in democratic fora based on detailed knowledge of plans, actors involved in the scheme and roles played by foreign governments and international organizations; and 3. engagement of all stakeholders, including us, not just ‘technical experts’ in the deliberations.

Researcher Lynn Corey has also written an insightful four-part series of reports which are published on her website and as a book. In the second report – see ‘The Global Landscape on Vaccine ID Passports Part 2: How Your Digital Identity is Moving to The Blockchain for Full Control Over Humans’ – Corey identifies key players driving the long-term plan that is currently being implemented, particularly noting the importance of central banks but also other key elite agencies such as the World Economic Forum and United Nations. Their aim is to institute ‘complete digital control… over the world and all human beings’ and Corey observes that different agents ‘have their areas of expertise when it comes to building the digital identities, which is the key to making this all happen.’

Investigative journalist Jesse Smith bluntly observes:

With the evidence being provided openly, there is little reason to doubt that humanity is being ushered into a new era of surveillance and control through digital ID systems. This effort is being pushed by governments, banks, multinational corporations, and global governance organizations like the World Health Organization, World Trade Organization, and the United Nations.

But digital IDs only represent one aspect of the digital revolution….

A whole world is being created to enslave us in a perpetual digital panopticon including the metaverse, digital currency (CBDCs), mass surveillance, AI and biometrics, and body implants while blockchain technology records everything we do.

See ‘The Global Digital ID Surveillance Plan Accelerates – Urgent Resistance Needed’.

Beyond these scholars and organizations, there are other fine analysts who have explained why digital ID promises to inflict great harm on humanity. You can watch, for example, the excellent video report by James Corbett: ‘The Global Digital ID Prison’ and read the critique by Derrick Broze ‘Exposing The “Digital ID Is A Human Right” Scam’.

These and other scholars, such as Peter Koenig – see ‘Digital Identity – Absolute and Total Control via the QR Code: Open Letter to the Swiss Federal Council’ – have also explained why there is zero intention to meaningfully engage ‘ordinary people’ in consideration of the plan: The explicit intention is to impose it on us.

In addition, we also have the experience of India to consider, as documented in the report ‘Busting the Dangerous Myths of Big ID Programs: Cautionary Lessons From India’ which offers this summary before going on to expose how India’s digital ID system, introduced some years ago, has spectacularly failed to deliver gains for ‘ordinary’ people in twelve key areas, noting that ‘ID systems often promise a technological solution for a political problem’.

Around the world, the quickly expanding ‘Big ID’ industry has driven the adoption of centralized digital identity programs that severely undermine human rights. Governments, companies, and international agencies sell the idea of implementing a Big ID project as the silver bullet for solving a host of problems…. without ever presenting evidence that these tools will actually be effective at meeting people’s needs.… Aadhaar, India’s flagship Big ID project, is a clear example of this approach. Despite all the positive propaganda in its favor, Aadhaar has had a disastrous impact.

Despite the solidly documented negative experiences in relation to digitized identity and the many expert warnings against it, a range of powerful elite agents has a comprehensive program to impose this technocratic nightmare upon us. Consequently, it will require many people resisting strategically if it is to be defeated.

But if you remain sceptical of the risks and dangers of the technological world being constructed to imprison us, any time spent reading such books as the following should inspire you to consider ways to defend your true identity and, wherever possible, erase the existing elements of your digital identity, among many other responses: Shoshana Zuboff’s The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power, John W. Whitehead’s Battlefield America: The War on the American People, Derrick Broze’s How to Opt-Out of the Technocratic State as well as the several books on technocracy written by Patrick Wood and his articles posted on his website ‘Technocracy News and Trends’.

The bottom line is simple: Every time you submit to participation in some technological convenience, you  give up some control over your own life. And there is no easy way to reclaim it, assuming that you even can.

What can we do about this?

First, remember that despite the rhetoric to which we are routinely subjected about digital identity and other aspects of the elite’s technological prison (benignly labeled measures to enhance our ‘privacy, security and convenience’), the vast range of inconsistencies, illogical arguments and ongoing efforts to kill or enslave us – see ‘The Final Battle for Humanity: It Is “Now or Never” in the Long War against Homo Sapiens’ – are functions of elite insanity. See ‘The Global Elite is Insane Revisited’ with further detail in ‘Why Violence?’ and ‘Fearless Psychology and Fearful Psychology: Principles and Practice’.

This does not mean that we do not face a profound threat. We do. But it means that we cannot rely on reason or thoughtfulness alone to get us out of this mess: You cannot reason with insanity. And because the Global Elite controls international and national political processes, the global economy and legal systems, efforts to seek redress through those channels must fail.

See ‘The Elite Coup to Kill or Enslave Us: Why Can’t Governments, Legal Actions and Protests Stop Them?’

Moreover, if we are going to defeat this long-planned, complex and multifaceted threat, we must defeat its foundational components, not delude ourselves that we can defeat it one threat at a time or even by choosing those threats we think are the worst and addressing those first.

This is because the elite program, whatever its flaws and inconsistencies, as well as its potential for technological failure at times, is deeply integrated so we must direct our efforts at preventing or halting those foundational components of it that make everything else possible. This is why random acts of resistance will achieve nothing. Effective resistance requires the focused exercise of our power. In simple terms, we must be ‘strategic’.

If you are interested in being strategic in your resistance to the ‘Great Reset’ and its related agendas, you are welcome to participate in the ‘We Are Human, We Are Free’ campaign which identifies a list of 30 strategic goals for doing so.

In addition and more simply, you can download a one-page flyer that identifies a short series of crucial nonviolent actions that anyone can take. This flyer, now available in 20 languages (Chinese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Spanish & Slovak) with several more languages in the pipeline, can be downloaded from here:

‘The 7 Days Campaign to Resist the Great Reset’.

If this strategic resistance to the ‘Great Reset’ (and related agendas) appeals to you, consider joining the ‘We Are Human, We Are Free’ Telegram group (with a link accessible from the website).

And if you want to organize a mass mobilization, such as a rally, at least make sure that one or more of any team of organizers and/or speakers is responsible for inviting people to participate in this campaign and that some people at the event are designated to hand out the one-page flyer about the campaign.

If you like, you can also watch, share and/or organize to show, a short video about the campaign here:

‘We Are Human, We Are Free’ video.

Finally, while the timeframe for this to make any difference is now in doubt, if you want to raise children who are powerfully able to investigate, analyze and act, you are welcome to make

‘My Promise to Children’.

Conclusion

Resisting the digitization of your identity is an important element of effective resistance to the Elite’s ‘Great Reset’ program.

While there are some elements of this that are very difficult to avoid, such as facial recognition cameras that are virtually everywhere, it certainly includes not signing up for a digital identity or participating unthinkingly in those programs, such as using a QR code, getting a ‘vaccine passport’ or willingly submitting to efforts to palm-print or microchip you, that are linked to it.

But, as I have already noted, just resisting digitization of your identity is not enough.

We must strategically resist the foundational components of the Elite program.

The alternatives are death or slavery.

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Robert J. Burrowes has a lifetime commitment to understanding and ending human violence. He has done extensive research since 1966 in an effort to understand why human beings are violent and has been a nonviolent activist since 1981. He is the author of ‘Why Violence?’ His email address is [email protected] and his website is here.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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Michel Chossudovsky reviews in detail how this insidious project “destroys people’s lives”. He provides a comprehensive analysis of everything you need to know about the “pandemic” — from the medical dimensions to the economic and social repercussions, political underpinnings, and mental and psychological impacts.

“My objective as an author is to inform people worldwide and refute the official narrative which has been used as a justification to destabilize the economic and social fabric of entire countries, followed by the imposition of the “deadly” COVID-19 “vaccine”. This crisis affects humanity in its entirety: almost 8 billion people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings and our children worldwide. Truth is a powerful instrument.”

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

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This Catalogue contains 30 arguments for the abolition of NATO. Each argument is based on rational peace research analysis, in contrast to the fact-resistant propaganda that NATO and mainstream politics and media promote about the ’defensive’ peace alliance.

The Catalogue is based on the democratic assumption that diverse perceptions and concepts can exist – for instance, about what peace is – and that this hugely influential Western organisation is not sacrosanct and shall, therefore, not be exempt from critical analysis.

While set up in 1949, NATO passed its ”best before” date long ago. The alliance of 30 members and 40 partners has not been able to create the peace that is its overarching goal according to its founding treaty. Indeed, NATO violates that treaty on a daily basis.

Instead, with its expansion over the last 30 years, it has contributed to making the world a less peaceful place. The Ukraine tragedy – for which both NATO and Russia are responsible – speaks volumes about that sorry state of affairs in Europe but also beyond it.

Europe is now in the Second Cold War thanks to all major parties’ adherence to the primacy of weapons in deterrence mode instead of common security thinking and intelligent conflict-resolution as a road to peace. One by one, all the opportunities for a new European peace structure that arose when the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact dissolved have been squandered.

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Most people focus on the violence – the war – in Ukraine. Undoubtedly, Russia is responsible for that and for violating international law. But what we should focus much more on is the underlying conflict. Violence always manifests itself and grows out of conflicts, conflicts that have been ignored, mismanaged, escalated, or provoked. NATO and its three-decades-long expansion, its presence in Ukraine since 1991 and its insistence – no matter the warning and the objective risks – to get Ukraine into NATO is the underlying conflict. NATO must take responsibility for that.

Because, as the Catalogue also argues, there were alternatives. But they were deliberately ignored.

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Focus on conflict analysis and conflict understanding – and not on the violence – is the key to peace: What is the issue or problem that stands between the parties – not who is evil or guilty and should be punished?

The focus on violence and who is to blame is psychologically understandable – but for true, professional peace-makers, it is a waste of time and usually contributes to justifying more violence.

When the violence has died down, and a sustainable solution is found, legal processes may deal with guilt and crimes, but so may also new arrangements, truth commissions, forgiveness and reconciliation. These methods are all within our human capacity but – tragically – almost never found in security politics. NATO promotes none of them.

The fact is that we know more about the causes of violence and war than about the causes of peace. But that must not serve as an excuse for continuing the wrong conflict- and violence-promoting policies.

That said, there is enough research on the causes of violence reduction and peace for us to say that they are not what NATO promotes.

Its fundamental principles of deterrence, (forward) defence and its reliance on first-use of nuclear weapons will never lead to real peace, but they have brought us closer to war, including nuclear war.

*

NATO’s intellectual foundation concerning security and peace appears in inverse proportion to its military and political power.

Much of this report can be seen as a critical discussion of the alliance’s way of thinking – of its security Groupthink. It questions, even debunks, NATO’s conceptual and theoretical underpinnings and shows how out of date, contradictory and peace-preventing they are.

NATO defends them on its homepage in its conspicuously self-righteous propaganda piece called ”Setting the Record Straight” from July 2022. Part of it is fake, part of it convenient omissions – a cover-up for issues about NATO policies that ought now to be pushed up to the top of the international discourse about humanity’s future.

In addition, NATO employs a cover-up disinformation trick typical of our times. Instead of meeting criticism with an open mind and in a sound democratic spirit, it says that ”Since Russia began its aggressive actions against Ukraine, Russian officials have accused NATO of a series of threats and hostile actions.” Not so! Many of the points have been raised for years by intellectuals, diplomats, alternative media and civil society organisations, including TFF.

But tie them to Russia and – hocus pocus – critiques of the alliance are all implicitly transformed into Putin Verstehers, Putin lovers or “pro-Russian.”

That in itself indicates NATO’s intellectual level. A few billion people around the world do not subscribe to NATO’s so-called peace goal or the way it seeks to go about it. The present author, a professional peace and conflict researcher with 40+ years of experience in theory and on-the-ground work, is one of them.

It is perfectly possible to be critical of NATO’s activities without being categorised as guilty by fake association with its adversaries.

If not, NATO seems to have become a sort of secularised religion in a time when things are otherwise falling apart. Sacrosanct – for which reason all criticism equals ungodliness. This Catalogue discusses that interpretation too, and NATO Believers may see that as ’ungodly.’

Instead of conducting serious research and using scenario techniques to decide its policies, NATO merely makes postulates – about others, about its policies and how others ought to interpret it – favourably. NATO doesn’t seek to convince by rational analyses and arguments. NATO issues strategies, planning papers and summit minutes that are filled with postulates and serve as NATO scriptures.

Western mainstream media reports it all. Not a critical thought to be seen anywhere. They are members of the congregation.

For people who are not already NATO Believers, members of that congregation, NATO’s threat postulates appear to serve only one purpose, namely to support the imperial full-spectrum global dominance of the US and some alliance members and partners and legitimise NATO’s further armament, i.e. the Military-Industrial-Media-Academic Complex (MIMAC).

The overall goal for NATO has not been the security and peace of Ukraine, Russia and NATO Europe. It’s been to prevent Russia from being Ukraine’s partner and feel secure and to possess Ukraine fully. No compromise, no creative thinking about Ukraine as a cooperative project, no respect for public opinion in Ukraine. No idea about common security for all.

If you are not a NATO Believer, you’ll find ample evidence that Russia’s legitimate concerns have been ignored for about 30 years.

Promises indeed given to Russia in 1989-90 have been broken, even after Gorbachev and the Soviet Union had accepted that East and West Germany not only would be unified but also became a full member of NATO with no discussion of the nuclear weapons in Europe. It all happened on US and NATO’s premises while giving money to Russia – then on its knees – to force it to accept the fait accompli.

Furthermore – and what few know about – NATO has turned down all Soviet/Russian requests to become a member.

NATO’s argument that it respects all countries’ fundamental right to choose its own path, also when it comes to security arrangements, is simply fake. NATO woos prospective members in many ways, from an early moment (Ukraine since 1991), discussions about alternatives to NATO membership are non-existent.

At no point between 1991 and the end of 2021 was there any majority for NATO membership among the Ukrainian people, only among an elite, President Poroshenko’s in particular. When NATO decided in 2008 to make Ukraine a member, half of the Ukrainians were opposed to Ukraine’s membership in NATO, while fewer than one-fourth of Ukrainian people supported the Euro-Atlantic integration. So, whose right to freely choose? They – like all other new NATO members – were never granted a referendum.

*

The table of content that follows offers the 30 arguments categorised in seven themes – see the headlines A to G.

By way of ending this summary, let’s point out that NATO’s resource consumption – 12 times larger than Russia’s and increasing further – is out of place in a world struggling with saving humanity in record time before it is too late. The 2% of GDP goal for NATO’s future-secured militarism is intellectual bonkers.

NATO postulates who and what threatens it. It doesn’t explore opportunities for compromise or cooperation and does explain or argue. It exaggerates these threats to achieve even more superiority in what are fundamentally a-symmetric conflicts.

NATO is called ’defensive’ everywhere. It reveals that nobody knows the difference between offensiveness and defensiveness, a basic distinction in security discourses. It is pure public relations propagated by media people who are better at taking orders than reading books.

One thing is that NATO cannot and will not respect the new Nuclear Ban Treaty. Another is that its argument is that as long as nuclear weapons exist, it will remain a nuclear alliance. Think through the logic of that once more!

It’s easy to criticise. However, a doctor should move through diagnosis and prognosis and get to treatment – and not just criticise the patient for the disease. So Arguments 23-25 illustrate what could have been done instead to deal with Ukraine so that both Ukraine, Russia and NATO could have lived much more happily – and peacefully – than they do now.

NATO did have alternatives and could have done things differently. If securing peace had been the goal.

The final theme about NATO’s future draws up the gathering dark clouds, the alliance’s past and future cracks, and how ill-prepared it is for the world order change that takes place in the eyes of everybody else but the NATO Believers. It also argues that the Western knee-jerk, emotionalist and hateful and disproportionate reaction to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will prove extremely counterproductive for these countries themselves and for NATO as well as accelerate the relative decline of the West.

Click here to read the full catalogue.

*

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Last week, President Biden announced he is creating a new program forgiving 10,000 dollars of student loan debt for those with income under 125,000 dollars a year. The amount rises to 20,000 dollars for borrowers who are Pell Grant recipients. Biden flip-flopped on the issue as he previously denied that the president has the authority to create a new student loan debt forgiveness program. He now claims a 2003 law allowing the Education Department to waive or modify provisions of federal student financial assistance programs to help students affected by war, other military operations, or a national emergency gives him the authority. Biden says debt forgiveness is necessary because of a continuing covid national emergency.

It seems odd that Biden would claim covid is a national emergency when even the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has stopped recommending lockdowns, masks, and “social distancing.” A broad student loan forgiveness program also does not seem to fit the purpose of this statute, which was to provide student loan forgiveness for military personal, first responders, and others engaged in fighting the “war on terror.” Another basis offered for the president having the power to cancel the loans is a provision in the 1965 Higher Education Act that gives the Education Department limited authority to modify or forgive student loan debt. Given the Supreme Court’s recent decision narrowing the scope of a federal agency’s ability to unilaterally enact major new policies based on limited grants of authority, it is a definite possibility that the courts will overturn the student loan forgiveness program.

If the courts uphold the president’s action, then as many of 43 million Americans could have significant amounts, or even all, of their student debt forgiven. Of course, the debt does not go away; instead, the “forgiven” debt will simply be added to the national debt to be paid by the taxpayers either in the form of direct taxes or the hidden inflation tax. Thus, these loans will be paid off in part by taxpayers who did not go to college, paid their own way through school, or have already paid off their student loans. Since those with college degrees tend to earn more over time than those without them, this program redistributes wealth from lower to higher income Americans.

The student loan forgiveness will add between 300 and 500 billion dollars to the national debt. This is a greater increase in debt than the supposed “deficit reduction,” which consists of tax increase and expanding the IRS, contained in the phony Inflation Reduction Act.

President Biden also announced he is extending the student loans payment moratorium through the end of the year. “Temporary” federal benefits are rarely, if ever, truly temporary. When the time comes for the moratorium to expire, Congress will almost certainly extend it in response to pressure from constituents who benefit from the program, which includes colleges and universities in Congress members’ states and districts. The expectation that more student loan debt will be forgiven will also encourage more students to take out loans and will give colleges a new incentive to raise their tuition. This will raise the cost of the student loan and loan forgiveness programs.

Increasing debt caused by expanding student loans and loan forgiveness will increase pressure on the Federal Reserve to keep interest rates low, leading to continued price inflation and an eventual major economic crisis. A step in avoiding this and reversing course is convincing a critical mass of people to understand that the welfare-warfare state and the fiat money system that underlies it are impractical and immoral.

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In yet another sign that the covid vaccination agenda of globalist institutions did not do quite as well as they had originally hoped, the Rockefeller Foundation has revealed that it (along with other non-profits) has been pumping millions of dollars into a behavioral science project meant to figure out why large groups of people around the world refuse to take the jab.

The “Mercury Project” is a collective of behavioral scientists formed by the Social Science Research Council (SSRC), a non-profit group which receives considerable funding from globalist organizations and governments.  The stated goals of the project are rather non-specific, using ambiguous language and mission statements.  However, the root intentions appear to be focused on using behavioral psychology and mass psychology elements to understand the global resistance to the recent covid compliance efforts.

Mercury groups will be deployed in multiple nations and regions and will study vaccine refusal and the medical “disinformation” that leads to it.  They are operating with the intent to tailor vaccination narratives to fit different ethnic and political backgrounds, looking for the key to the gates of each cultural kingdom and convincing them to take the jab.

The Rockefeller Foundation and the SSRC note:

“Following the characterization of inaccurate health information by the U.S. Surgeon General as an “urgent threat,” and by the World Health Organization as an “infodemic,” the SSRC issued a call for proposals to counter the growing global threats posed by public health mis- and disinformation and low Covid-19 vaccination rates, and received nearly 200 submissions from around the world.

…With Covid-19 prevalent and rapidly evolving everywhere, there is a pressing need to identify interventions with the potential to increase vaccination take-up.”

The SSRC and the Mercury Project are not only receiving funding from foundations, but also government based institutions.  In June of 2022 the Mercury Project received another $20 million from the National Science Foundation, which claims to be an “independent” agency of the United States government.  Meaning, fabricating effective covid propaganda is becoming a money train for the small groups of behavioral researchers and psychologists that jump onboard.

The purpose of the NSF partnership with the Mercury Project is outlined on the SSRC website:

“This innovative partnership will support research teams seeking to evaluate online or offline interventions to increase Covid-19 vaccination demand and other positive health behaviors, including by targeting the producers and/or consumers of inaccurate health information and/or by increasing confidence in reliable health information.”

The Mercury Project lists these bullet points as their focus:

“Funded projects will provide evidence about what works–and doesn’t–in specific places and for specific groups to increase Covid-19 vaccination take-up, including what is feasible on the ground and has the potential to be cost-effective at scale. Each of the 12 teams will have access to findings from the other teams while exploring interventions including, but not limited to:

Conducting literacy training for secondary school students in partnership with local authorities to help students identify Covid-19 vaccine misinformation.

Equipping trusted messengers with communication strategies to increase Covid-19 vaccination demand.

Using social networks to share tailored, community-developed messaging to increase Covid-19 vaccination demand.”

In other words, their focus is propaganda, propaganda and propaganda.  The very basis of the existence of the Mercury Project presupposes that individuals cannot be trusted to make up their own minds about the information they are exposed to, and that they must be molded to accept the mainstream narrative.  It also presupposes that mainstream or establishment information is always trustworthy and unbiased.

The widespread non-compliance against covid vaccination mandates despite extensive government pressure is perhaps one of the most underappreciated events of the past century.  It is likely the reason why political elites and the corporate media went from a non-stop fear campaign against the public to almost no mention of covid within a matter of weeks.  It was as if the populace was being put through two years of waterboarding and then one day the torture simply stopped without explanation.

If vaccine passport laws had been implemented through western nations on the scale that governments and globalists were demanding, then the last vestiges of personal freedom would now be erased permanently.  All individual rights would become privileges granted by authorities and contingent on your submission to whatever covid booster shots or medical procedures happen to be in vogue at the time.  Think about it:  If they had gotten what they wanted, the west would look exactly like China does right now, or worse, with no economic participation without an up-to-date covid pass.

And, the threat still lingers.  Why the Mercury Project feels the need to compose vaccine propaganda for a virus with a mere 0.23% median Infection Fatality Rate is not explained.  And, if vaccination numbers from agencies like the CDC are accurate, then the population has already achieved herd immunity anyway (perhaps their numbers are not accurate?).  Why are globalist groups so obsessed with 100% vaccination for covid?  This is never explained.

They will say it’s all about saving lives, but if only 0.23% of people on average are at risk regardless of whether they are vaccinated or not, then public health is not really a believable explanation.  It would seem that the Mercury Project’s purpose is more about influencing people to vaccinate despite the science rather than in the name of science.

*

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Michel Chossudovsky reviews in detail how this insidious project “destroys people’s lives”. He provides a comprehensive analysis of everything you need to know about the “pandemic” — from the medical dimensions to the economic and social repercussions, political underpinnings, and mental and psychological impacts.

“My objective as an author is to inform people worldwide and refute the official narrative which has been used as a justification to destabilize the economic and social fabric of entire countries, followed by the imposition of the “deadly” COVID-19 “vaccine”. This crisis affects humanity in its entirety: almost 8 billion people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings and our children worldwide. Truth is a powerful instrument.”

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***

Europe could continue scrambling for gas supply for a number of winters due to low gas flows from Russia, according to the chief executive officer of supermajor Shell.

“It may well be that we will have a number of winters where we have to somehow find solutions,” Shell’s top executive Ben van Beurden said at a conference in Norway on Monday, as carried by Reuters.

Gas and power prices in Europe were setting fresh records every day of the past week, as natural gas supply from Russia continues to be limited ahead of the winter.

Energy prices in Europe have been smashing records after Russia’s Gazprom said on August 19 that it would halt all deliveries via Nord Stream to Germany for three days between August 31 and September 2. This announcement raised renewed concerns that supply via the pipeline could be further cut or halted altogether after the three-day unplanned maintenance at the end of August.

Soaring energy prices are fueling inflation and adding to the burden on households and industries across Europe.

In France, year-ahead power prices surged as much as 13% on Friday alone, to $1,003 (1,000 euro) per megawatt-hour for the first time ever, per Bloomberg’s estimates. French power prices have now soared tenfold over the past year.

Apart from rallying gas and power prices in the rest of Europe, France’s electricity supply is constrained by outages at some of its nuclear power plants.

In Germany, year-ahead electricity prices also hit a record of $843 (840 euro) per MWh on Friday, surging by 50% last week alone.

Last week, Europe’s benchmark gas prices at the Dutch TTF hub surged by 40% amid fears of a winter crunch in supplies.

This week, early on Monday the benchmark gas price slumped by 16% in early trade in Amsterdam, after Germany said its gas storage sites were filling at a faster pace than previously thought. According to data from Gas Infrastructure Europe, the EU gas storage was over 79% full as of August 28, with Germany’s storage at nearly 83% full.

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Tsvetana is a writer for Oilprice.com with over a decade of experience writing for news outlets such as iNVEZZ and SeeNews. 

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***

Why this site is allowed to operate is a good question. But you can access it easily, and even donate money to help the “cause,” if you are sympathetic to Nazis and think that assassinating people for their opinions is a wholesome way to support Ukraine.

Here is Roger Waters’ profile:

Roger Waters’ profile on Myrotvorets. [Source: Photo Courtesy of Deborah Armstrong]

The co-founder of Pink Floyd is known for his support of imprisoned WikiLeaks creator Julian Assange, and for his opposition to imperialism and war, as well as for his awesome music, loved by millions around the world. 

[See Below]

***

I have written about the Ukrainian hit list known as Mirotvorets, or “Peacekeeper,” twice before. The first time was in an article about internet censorship, and the second time was when a 13-year-old Ukrainian girl, Faina Savenkova, was added to the list for publicly speaking out against Kyiv’s bloody war on Russian-speaking civilians in the eastern part of Ukraine, a region known as the Donbas.

Screen shot of Faina Savenkova’s profile on Myrotvorets. [Source: Photo courtesy of Deborah Armstrong]

Myrotvorets is a database which lists thousands of journalists, activists, and anyone else who is declared an “Enemy of Ukraine.” Their personal information is published, such as the addresses of their homes, phone numbers and bank account numbers; anything that can help them be easily located. When the people on this list are murdered, like Italian journalist Andrea Rocchelli was, the word ЛИКВИДИРОВАН, “LIQUIDATED,” written in Ukrainian, is stamped across their picture in big red letters.

And, as of today, Darya Dugina, who was killed in a car bomb explosion in Moscow on Saturday, appears as “liquidated” on the website, adding more credibility to Russia’s assertion that she was assassinated by a Ukrainian nationalist who rented an apartment in the building where Darya lived in order to surveil her prior to her killing. It is believed that she was killed because her father, Alexander Dugin, was referred to as “Putin’s brain” and “Putin’s spiritual guide” in Western media, though these claims are really just more speculation.

Italian journalist Andrea Rocchelli is listed as “liquidated” on Mirotvorets site. [Source: Photo courtesy of Deborah Armstrong]

Darya Dugina, Russian war correspondent, is listed as “liquidated” on Mirotvorets site.

It seems that almost anyone can be added to this kill list. Even Henry Kissinger’s name is on the list despite his long history of Russophobia. But since he dared to air his concerns about how the U.S. is teetering toward war with Russia and China, Kissinger, who once suggested dropping nuclear bombs on Moscow, is now declared an “Enemy of Ukraine.”

Kissinger’s Myrotvorets profile. [Source: Photo courtesy of Deborah Armstrong]

Really, so many people have been added to this list that it has now become a badge of honor among those opposed to Ukraine’s regime, when they are included on the Myrotvorets site.

Filmmaker Igor Lopatonok is targeted by Myrotvorets because of a film he worked on with Oliver Stone. [Source: Photo courtesy of Deborah Armstrong]

Why this site is allowed to operate is a good question. But you can access it easily, and even donate money to help the “cause,” if you are sympathetic to Nazis and think that assassinating people for their opinions is a wholesome way to support Ukraine.

Here is Roger Waters’ profile:

Roger Waters’ profile on Myrotvorets. [Source: Photo Courtesy of Deborah Armstrong]

The co-founder of Pink Floyd is known for his support of imprisoned WikiLeaks creator Julian Assange, and for his opposition to imperialism and war, as well as for his awesome music, loved by millions around the world.

Waters recently referred on CNN to Joe Biden as a “war criminal” and said that Biden is “fueling the fire in Ukraine.”

“This war,” the musician stated, “is basically about the action and reaction of NATO pushing right up to the Russian border, which they promised they wouldn’t do when [Mikhail] Gorbachev negotiated the withdrawal of the USSR from the whole of Eastern Europe.”

Waters also said that Crimea belongs to Russia, because the majority of people living on the peninsula are Russian.

The rock star’s views have outraged the pro-NATO crowd and their Nazi friends, as well as the social justice warriors who froth at the mouth in support of whatever the mainstream media declare to be the “current thing.” Waters, who has always been something of a dissident and anti-war, the way all rock stars used to be when rock and roll was still real, is attacked mercilessly by the “woke” crowd, who are intolerant of all who are not in lockstep with their views.

Source: Photo courtesy of Deborah Armstrong

Social justice warriors to the rescue! Roger Waters is smeared for his dissident views. An investigation by the Russian Foundation to Battle Injustice reveals the names of the individuals, corporations and government entities which are believed to be the “organizers, sponsors and curators of the Ukrainian nationalist website.” While Myrotvorets is easily accessible to anyone who likes that sort of thing, this Russian human rights organization is blocked on major social media platforms like Facebook.

Some of the faces behind Myrotvorets named by the Foundation to Battle Injustice. [Source: fondfbr.ru]

Investigators say that the hit list, which was created in 2014, is supervised by the public organization “Myrotvorets Center,” which is headed by Roman Zaitsev, a former employee of Ukrainian Special Services, and by the public organization, “People’s Rear,” headed by George Tuka, a Ukrainian politician. The site is also controlled by the Security Service of Ukraine and was created on the initiative of Anton Gerashchenko, the adviser to Ukraine’s Minister of Internal Affairs. Gerashchenko faces charges of terrorism in the Russian Federation for his creation of the hit list.

In its early days, Myrotvorets published the names of so-called “Russian separatists” (residents of eastern Ukraine) who opposed the Maidan coup and believed it was economically unwise to break off relations with Russia. But later on, the site began publishing the personal data of public figures, journalists, activists and even children.

Myrotvorets became infamous following the murders of two Ukrainian public figures in 2015, whose private information was published on the website. Oles Buzina, a 45-year-old writer and journalist, and Oleg Kalashnikov, a 52-year-old deputy of the Ukrainian parliament, were killed just a few days after the publication of their home addresses.

In May 2016, Myrotvorets publicized the personal data of more than 4,500 journalists and media representatives from around the world who had received permission to work in the territory of Donbas. Investigators say that Myrotvorets’ administrators hacked the database of the Ministry of State Security of the Donetsk People’s Republic and gathered the phone numbers, email addresses and home addresses of foreign journalists whom Myrotvorets accuses of “collaborating with terrorists” because they are covering the war from territories not under Ukrainian control.

The journalists began receiving threatening phone calls and emails and experienced an increase in cyber-bullying and harassment on social networks. The government of Ukraine issued a statement that it had found no violations of the law in Myrotvorets’ actions, even though the human rights organization, “Committee to Protect Journalists,” condemned the site’s doxing of thousands of journalists working in eastern Ukraine.

The U.S. State Department confirmed that the Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs was connected to the website, and acknowledged the publication of the journalists’ personal data, but the U.S. government has taken no action to block the website, although many Russian websites and alternative news media have been blocked by social media giants for publishing information about the war in Ukraine which does not line up with official narratives.

What’s more, there are companies in the U.S. which cooperate with Mirotvorets and provide the website with information.

Analysis of Mirotvorets’ network protocol. [Source: fondfbr.ru]

An analysis of the site’s network protocol by the Foundation to Battle Injustice found that the database uses the technological services of a company in California. And, if you look at the main page of Myrotvorets, you will see the address “Langley, the CIA headquarters in Virginia.” There are posts on the site from accounts that have names of Western intelligence agencies: CIA, FBI, NATO, MI5, NSA.

Who are these people, really? [Source: fondfbr.ru]

Andrew Weisburd, an American intelligence analyst, publicly announced his cooperation with the Ukrainian government in January 2015, around the time when Myrotvorets began publishing the personal data of journalists. Weisburd stated, “I’m just trying to do my part to help make bad things happen to bad people who are in the service of the Kremlin. And for the record, I’m not an army of one. I’m more like a one-man intelligence service.”

According to George Eliason, an investigative journalist who has been living in the Donbas for several years and writes for Consortium News, Joel Harding is another American who was involved with the creation of Myrotvorets. Harding is a self-proclaimed “information operations expert” who says he is a former U.S. Army intelligence officer and that he was a senior adviser at NATO. Harding developed a cyber-support strategy to oust Russian media from the Ukrainian information field and, according to Eliason, he wanted to control what news and information Ukrainians have access to on social networks, the internet and television.

According to Eliason and confirmed by a number of Foundation sources, the head of Bellingcat, Eliot Higgins, trained Ukrainians to find people on social media and add their data to Mirotvorets. Bellingcat, a Netherlands-based international investigative and research contractor, gets financial support from non-profit organizations and individuals associated with British and American intelligence, according to a number of independent investigations. Higgins, a citizen of the UK, served as a senior researcher at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab.

The Foundation to Battle Injustice says it has evidence that a Bellingcat “operator,” Aric Toler, has personally trained Ukrainian nationalists to search for people’s personal information and enter it into the Myrotvorets database.

Foundation investigators also say they have sources and evidence connecting a group of cyber-activists known as “Ukrainian Cyberalyans” to Myrotvorets, and the group is accused of participating in attacks on Russian government and news websites, including the Russian Ministry of Defense, as far back as 2016. The intelligence data gathered from hacking those websites was reportedly handed to Ukrainian police and special services. Investigators believe that the “Cyberalyans” worked under the leadership of Dmytro Zolotukhin, a Ukrainian media expert.

A group of programmers, which the Foundation says was involved in the creation of Mirotvorets, has been collecting regular donations to bolster Ukraine’s participation in the “information war” since 2020. Their names are Artem Karpinsky, Andrey Baranovich, Alexander Galushchenko and Andriy Pereveziy. Though the programmers say they only received a few thousand dollars, data on transactions related to the group’s crypto wallets indicate the receipt of more than $100,000, according to Foundation investigators.

Under the guise of crowdfunding, investigators say, Myrotvorets receives considerable financial assistance from anonymous donors in the West. Virtually anyone can donate to the site, but the site’s most likely sponsors are Ukrainian nationalists living abroad and people associated with Western intelligence agencies who have enormous amounts of taxpayer money at their disposal.

The Foundation to Battle Injustice vows to continue its investigation of Myrotvorets until the website is finally removed.

Meanwhile, I’ll be rocking out to Pink Floyd.

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This article was previously published at medium.com and The Grayzone Project

Deborah Armstrong currently writes about geopolitics with an emphasis on Russia. She previously worked in local TV news in the United States where she won two regional Emmy Awards. In the early 1990’s, Deborah lived in the Soviet Union during its final days and worked as a television consultant at Leningrad Television.

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***

The White House denied reports that it had evacuated the US Embassy in Baghdad on Monday and called for calm as violence threatened to further destabilize an already tense situation in Iraq.

Riots and protests rocked the Iraqi capital after Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr said he was stepping away from politics, leading to clashes between his supporters and those of Iran-backed groups.

Videos quickly spread across social media showing diplomats being driven away from the Green Zone.

But Washington denied it had whisked away any of its staff or diplomats.

“Reports of an Embassy evacuation are false. Ensuring the safety of US government personnel, US citizens, and the security of our facilities remains our highest priority,” a White House official said in a statement.

Asked about the violence, the official called the events “disturbing” and warned that Monday’s developments could lead to further violence. “Iraq’s security, stability, and sovereignty should not be put at risk.”

The official repeated previous comments by US officials and the international community.

“Now is the time for dialogue, not escalated confrontation,” the official said. “We join the call by parties across the Iraqi political spectrum to remain calm, abstain from violence, and resolve their political differences through a peaceful process guided by the Iraqi constitution.”

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European Union countries are in a state of emergency “due to Covid” – see this Statement by unelected European Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen.

Accent is on “unelected”. Because the elected European Parliament, has hardly any teeth in the decision-making process of the European Union. Why is this not more often debated, or brought to the open? Or is it, but it doesn’t get media coverage – thus, it becomes simply a rule by habit and attrition. People are getting used to the growing dictatorship of the EU monster, controlling and coercing close to 500 million people.

Madame Von der Leyen is also a Member of the Board of Trustees of the World Economic Forum (WEF); see this.

Why is this important?

The Nuremberg Codex, like any Human Rights Law, any law that infringes on the Great Reset and the UN Agenda 2030, are disabled in times of National Emergencies.

For the significance of the Nuremberg Code, see this.

That is why every government is getting away with murder, literally with murder.

Injecting deadly poisons into human bodies, under the pretext of “covid vaccinations” are medical trials. They are to determine, what toxic substances have the greatest effects on the human body and under what circumstances. They are medical trials without human consent.

Other violations of the Nuremberg Codex are the Cult-inspired showering of lies, fear and other psychological instruments to keep the people “down”, in check, and easily manipulable. So, they will be afraid not to do the bidding of their governments, or if necessary – increasingly the case – of the military-supported dictatorial rules, often sanitary rules, falsely justified for health protection.

When in fact just the contrary is true: these rules negatively affect people’s health and wellbeing – wearing of masks, social distancing, lockdowns, working from home as a means of separating people from each other – breaking up society. These are measures provenly affecting human health in negative ways.

All these infractions are punishable under the Nuremberg Codex.

It is cleverly done with the state of emergency; the Global North has elegantly sanctioned the most heinous crimes on humanity – organized eugenics, and the consequential submission of the survivors – that history has ever known. The Third Reich under Hitler, carried out massive eugenics’ programs on people of all races with physical and mental illnesses. But Hitler’s atrocities, while horrendous, are small fry compared to what the eugenists are doing today to the world population.

And we are only at the beginning.

The Great Reset, the UN Agenda 2030 and the 2010 Rockefeller Report are talking about a ten-year period, the decade of 2020-2030. Or, as WHO declared already in 2014, “The twenties will be the decade of vaccination.”

The atrocities of the Hitler Regime were judged by the Nuremberg trials, carried out from Nov 20, 1945 – Oct 1, 1946.

On the basis of these Nuremberg trials, the Nuremberg Codex came into existence.

It forbids any medical and psychological trials on humans without their previous consent. “Consent” means that the person(s), who is(are) being administered such medical trials must understand and be conscious about what these trials are and what they may cause.

 

This has not been the case with the Covid measures, imposed on humanity since the onset of “Covid-19” at the beginning of 2020, but especially since 11 March 2020, when the Director General of WHO, Dr. Tedros, declared Covid-19 a pandemic.

“The World Health Organization declared the outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern on 30 January 2020 [83 PCR positive cases outside China], and a pandemic on 11 March 2020 [44,279 cases outside China for a population of 6.4 billion].”

See this for details on the WHO Press Conference of 11 March 2020, when the apparent worldwide covid dead count was insignificant, as compared to other mass diseases. This is reflected by this statement by DG Tedros, “There are now more than 118,000 cases [including China] in 114 countries, and 4,291 people have lost their lives.”

With this, under the guidance of the World Economic Forum (WEF), WHO gave the green light for the unelected European Commission (EC) to declare a Health Emergency, which was to be followed by all EU members. The Global North which also includes the United States, Canada, Australia, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea all followed the same “rule”. They declared a Health state of emergency, thereby wiping out the “Rule of Law”, as we know it.

The new “rule” (state of emergency) was quietly passed, either through countries’ parliaments or by decree. This event was not published, nor covered by the media. Therefore, most of the public does not know, that they are living in a state of emergency which, by its nature, disables all Rule of Law – and in most cases suspends the country’s Constitution.

In Switzerland the state of emergency has been installed until mid-2031, well covering the UN Agenda 2030, easily extendable, if necessary.

That is why any legal basis to apply the Nuremberg Codex – as well as any other law that counters the nefarious objectives of the dark Cult-Elite – has been wiped out in anticipation, by declaring Covid as a health emergency. Anti-globalization moves, as well as actions to preserve national sovereignty and local autonomies, can be shamelessly oppressed by military power.

Therefore, and in expectation of riots further down the road, starting possibly this fall with artificially created food and energy shortages – grave infractions on the Nuremberg Codex – the military of many EU countries, especially Germany and France, are preparing for urban warfare, to stem against potential riots. See this.

We may talk about legal actions against the eugenists, the deadly perpetrators on human society – it won’t happen. No judge is going to touch a Nuremberg Codex case, or any case that may contradict the Cult’s agenda. The judges’ and lawyers’ lives might be in danger.

What to do about it?

First, inform as many people as possible of their condition – that they live in a state of emergency, when legality as we know it, has little or no meaning. In extreme cases, the police can break into your home, without explanation, and search, harass or even arrest you, whatever is convenient.

This is not said to create fear. To the contrary, informed citizens know how to prepare for “worst case scenarios”.

Second, we have to organize; think-alike people have to find each other – organize in groups or communities of togetherness – as in resistance, non-violent resistance.

Third, we must never lose hope, never give up, and never hate “them”, as hate fosters negative vibes, keeps us “down” on their level and they feed on our negative energy.

Sounds esoteric? Maybe. But you are welcome to read up on a quantum science, hidden in the western world, but omnipresent in the east, in eastern philosophies, i.e., Hinduism and Buddhism.

Be always conscious that not only are we many and they are few, but we strive for the sun, for the light – and light will overcome darkness.

*

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.

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

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

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***

“The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane and intolerable.”—H. L. Mencken

***

The American kleptocracy (a government ruled by thieves) continues to suck the American people down a rabbit hole into a parallel universe in which the Constitution is meaningless, the government is all-powerful, and the citizenry is powerless to defend itself against government agents who steal, spy, lie, plunder, kill, abuse and generally inflict mayhem and sow madness on everyone and everything in their sphere.

Think about it.

Almost every tyranny being perpetrated by the U.S. government against the citizenry—purportedly to keep us safe and the nation secure—has come about as a result of some threat manufactured in one way or another by our own government.

Cyberwarfare. Terrorism. Bio-chemical attacks. The nuclear arms race. Surveillance. The drug wars. Domestic extremism. The COVID-19 pandemic.

In almost every instance, the U.S. government (often spearheaded by the FBI) has in its typical Machiavellian fashion sown the seeds of terror domestically and internationally in order to expand its own totalitarian powers.

Who is the biggest black market buyer and stockpiler of cyberweapons (weaponized malware that can be used to hack into computer systems, spy on citizens, and destabilize vast computer networks)? The U.S. government.

Who is the largest weapons manufacturer and exporter in the world, such that they are literally arming the world? The U.S. government.

Which country has a history of secretly testing out dangerous weapons and technologies on its own citizens? The U.S. government.

Which country has conducted secret experiments on an unsuspecting populace—citizens and noncitizens alike—making healthy people sick by spraying them with chemicals, injecting them with infectious diseases and exposing them to airborne toxins? The U.S. government.

What country has a pattern and practice of entrapment that involves targeting vulnerable individuals, feeding them with the propaganda, know-how and weapons intended to turn them into terrorists, and then arresting them as part of an elaborately orchestrated counterterrorism sting? The U.S. government.

Are you getting the picture yet?

The U.S. government isn’t protecting us from terrorism.

The U.S. government is creating the terror. It is, in fact, the source of the terror.

Consider that this very same government has taken every bit of technology sold to us as being in our best interests—GPS devices, surveillance, nonlethal weapons, etc.—and used it against us, to track, control and trap us.

So why is the government doing this? Money, power and total domination.

We’re not dealing with a government that exists to serve its people, protect their liberties and ensure their happiness. Rather, these are the diabolical machinations of a make-works program carried out on an epic scale whose only purpose is to keep the powers-that-be permanently (and profitably) employed.

Case in point: the FBI.

The government’s henchmen have become the embodiment of how power, once acquired, can be so easily corrupted and abused. Indeed, far from being tough on crime, FBI agents are also among the nation’s most notorious lawbreakers.

Whether the FBI is planting undercover agents in churches, synagogues and mosques; issuing fake emergency letters to gain access to Americans’ phone records; using intimidation tactics to silence Americans who are critical of the government, or persuading impressionable individuals to plot acts of terror and then entrapping them, the overall impression of the nation’s secret police force is that of a well-dressed thug, flexing its muscles and doing the boss’ dirty work.

It’s a diabolical plot with far-reaching consequences for every segment of the population, no matter what one’s political leanings.

As Rozina Ali writes for The New York Times Magazine, “The government’s approach to counterterrorism erodes constitutional protections for everyone, by blurring the lines between speech and action and by broadening the scope of who is classified as a threat.”

This is not an agency that appears to understand, let alone respect, the limits of the Constitution.

For instance, the FBI has been secretly carrying out an entrapment scheme in which it used a front company, ANOM, to sell purportedly hack-proof phones to organized crime syndicates and then used those phones to spy on them as they planned illegal drug shipments, plotted robberies and put out contracts for killings using those boobytrapped phones.

All told, the FBI intercepted 27 million messages over the course of 18 months.

What this means is that the FBI was also illegally spying on individuals using those encrypted phones who may not have been involved in any criminal activity whatsoever.

Even reading a newspaper article is now enough to get you flagged for surveillance by the FBI. The agency served a subpoena on USA Today / Gannett to provide the internet addresses and mobile phone information for everyone who read a news story online on a particular day and time about the deadly shooting of FBI agents.

This is the danger of allowing the government to carry out widespread surveillance, sting and entrapment operations using dubious tactics that sidestep the rule of law: “we the people” become suspects and potential criminals, while government agents, empowered to fight crime using all means at their disposal, become indistinguishable from the corrupt forces they seek to vanquish.

To go after terrorists, they become terrorists. To go after drug smugglers, they become drug smugglers. To go after thieves, they become thieves.

It’s hard to say whether we’re dealing with a kleptocracy (a government ruled by thieves), a kakistocracy (a government run by unprincipled career politicians, corporations and thieves that panders to the worst vices in our nature and has little regard for the rights of American citizens), or if we’ve gone straight to an idiocracy.

This certainly isn’t a constitutional republic, however.

Some days, it feels like the government is running its own crime syndicate complete with mob rule and mafia-style justice.

In addition to creating certain crimes in order to then “solve” them, the FBI—the government’s law enforcement agency—also gives certain informants permission to break the law, “including everything from buying and selling illegal drugs to bribing government officials and plotting robberies,” in exchange for their cooperation on other fronts.

USA Today estimates that government agents have authorized criminals to engage in as many as 15 crimes a day (5600 crimes a year). Some of these informants are getting paid astronomical sums: one particularly unsavory fellow, later arrested for attempting to run over a police officer, was actually paid $85,000 for his help laying the trap for an entrapment scheme.

In addition to procedural misconduct, trespassing, enabling criminal activity, and damaging private property, the FBI’s laundry list of crimes against the American people includes surveillance, disinformation, blackmail, entrapment, intimidation tactics, and harassment.

For example, the Associated Press lodged a complaint with the Dept. of Justice after learning that FBI agents created a fake AP news story and emailed it, along with a clickable link, to a bomb threat suspect in order to implant tracking technology onto his computer and identify his location. Lambasting the agency, AP attorney Karen Kaiser railed, “The FBI may have intended this false story as a trap for only one person. However, the individual could easily have reposted this story to social networks, distributing to thousands of people, under our name, what was essentially a piece of government disinformation.”

Then again, to those familiar with COINTELPRO, an FBI program created to “disrupt, misdirect, discredit, and neutralize” groups and individuals the government considers politically objectionable, it should come as no surprise that the agency has mastered the art of government disinformation.

The FBI has been particularly criticized in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks for targeting vulnerable individuals and not only luring them into fake terror plots but actually equipping them with the organization, money, weapons and motivation to carry out the plots—entrapment—and then jailing them for their so-called terrorist plotting. This is what the FBI characterizes as “forward leaning—preventative—prosecutions.”

Another fallout from 9/11, National Security Letters, one of the many illicit powers authorized by the USA Patriot Act, allows the FBI to secretly demand that banks, phone companies, and other businesses provide them with customer information and not disclose the demands. An internal audit of the agency found that the FBI practice of issuing tens of thousands of NSLs every year for sensitive information such as phone and financial records, often in non-emergency cases, is riddled with widespread violations.

The FBI’s surveillance capabilities, on a par with the National Security Agency, boast a nasty collection of spy tools ranging from Stingray devices that can track the location of cell phones to Triggerfish devices which allow agents to eavesdrop on phone calls.

In one case, the FBI actually managed to remotely reprogram a “suspect’s” wireless internet card so that it would send “real-time cell-site location data to Verizon, which forwarded the data to the FBI.”

The FBI has also repeatedly sought to expand its invasive hacking powers to allow agents to hack into any computer, anywhere in the world.

Indeed, for years now, the U.S. government has been creating what one intelligence insider referred to as a cyber-army capable of offensive attacks. As part of this cyberweapons programs, government agencies such as the NSA have been stockpiling all kinds of nasty malware, viruses and hacking tools that can “steal financial account passwords, turn an iPhone into a listening device, or, in the case of Stuxnet, sabotage a nuclear facility.”

In fact, the NSA was responsible for the threat posed by the “WannaCry” or “Wanna Decryptor” malware worm which—as a result of hackers accessing the government’s arsenal—hijacked more than 57,000 computers and crippled health care, communications infrastructure, logistics, and government entities in more than 70 countries.

Mind you, the government was repeatedly warned about the dangers of using criminal tactics to wage its own cyberwars. It was warned about the consequences of blowback should its cyberweapons get into the wrong hands.

The government chose to ignore the warnings.

That’s exactly how the 9/11 attacks unfolded.

First, the government helped to create the menace that was al-Qaida and then, when bin Laden had left the nation reeling in shock (despite countless warnings that fell on tone-deaf ears), it demanded—and was given—immense new powers in the form of the USA Patriot Act in order to fight the very danger it had created.

This has become the shadow government’s modus operandi regardless of which party controls the White House: the government creates a menace—knowing full well the ramifications such a danger might pose to the public—then without ever owning up to the part it played in unleashing that particular menace on an unsuspecting populace, it demands additional powers in order to protect “we the people” from the threat.

Yet the powers-that-be don’t really want us to feel safe.

They want us cowering and afraid and willing to relinquish every last one of our freedoms in exchange for their phantom promises of security.

As a result, it’s the American people who pay the price for the government’s insatiable greed and quest for power.

Suffice it to say that when and if a true history of the United States is ever written, it will not only track the rise of the American police state but it will also chart the decline of freedom in America: how a nation that once abided by the rule of law and held the government accountable for its actions has steadily devolved into a police state where justice is one-sided, a corporate elite runs the show, representative government is a mockery, police are extensions of the military, surveillance is rampant, privacy is extinct, and the law is little more than a tool for the government to browbeat the people into compliance.

Somewhere over the course of the past 240-plus years, democracy has given way to kleptocracy, and representative government has been rejected in favor of rule by career politicians, corporations and thieves—individuals and entities with little regard for the rights of American citizens.

This dissolution of that sacred covenant between the citizenry and the government—establishing “we the people” as the masters and the government as the servant—didn’t happen overnight. It didn’t happen because of one particular incident or one particular president. It is a process, one that began long ago and continues in the present day, aided and abetted by politicians who have mastered the polarizing art of how to “divide and conquer.”

As I point out in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, our freedoms have become casualties in an all-out war on the American people.

*

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.

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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***

In a March address to the U.S. Congress which earned him a standing ovation, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, fashioning his country’s struggle against the Russians as one of good versus evil, echoed some of the rhetoric of British wartime leader Winston Churchill.

The ranking Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Michael McCaul of Texas, told Fox News subsequently that Zelensky was “the Churchill of our times”—a claim repeated by former President George W. Bush.

Zelensky is actually nothing like the Churchill of popular legend who stood up to Hitler—he is the one who provoked the war with Russia and trampled on democracy by banning eleven opposition parties and kidnapping and executing political dissidents.

The idolatry of Churchill, however, is even more grotesque than that of Zelensky.

As political activist Tariq Ali reminds us in his book Winston Churchill: His Times, His Crimes(London: Verso, 2022), Churchill was a zealous supporter of British imperialism and oversaw a man-made famine in Bengal that resulted in millions of deaths.

Churchill further a) deployed British troops in Vietnam-like quagmires in Greece and Russia following the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution; b) helped coordinate the suppression of a miners strike in South Wales and general strike in London in 1926; and c) oversaw the suppression of an Irish Catholic uprising.

Henry Wallace, the U.S. Vice President from 1941 to 1945 who envisioned a world order free of colonization, wrote in his diary that “the notion of Anglo-Saxon superiority inherent in Churchill’s approach [was] offensive to many of the nations of the world, as well as a number of people in the United States.” Wallace said that when he met him, Churchill was very frank about his views: “He said, why be apologetic about Anglo-Saxon superiority, that we are superior, that we had the common heritage which had been worked out over centuries in England and had been perfected by our constitution. He himself was half-American [and] felt he was called on as a result to serve the function of uniting the two great Anglo-Saxon civilizations in order to confer the benefit of freedom on the rest of the world.”^[1]

Nostalgia for Empire and the Churchill Cult

In the 1970s, the British public welcomed critical interpretation of Churchill’s life.

Howard Brenton’s 1974 The Churchill Play, which opened under Richard Eyre’s direction at Nottingham Playhouse to warm audience applause, included a scene from Churchill’s funeral, where a Marine carrying his coffin says: “We’ve never forgiven him in Wales. He sent soldiers against us, the bloody man. Sent soldiers against Welsh mining men in 1910….He was our enemy. We hated his guts. The fat English upper-class gut of the man. When they had the collection, for the statue in front of parliament…All over Wales town and county councils would not collect…”

When a Private responded: “But e’won the war ‘E did that, ‘E did that,’ the Marine responded: ‘People won the war. He just got pissed with Stalin….’”

This kind of critical presentation got drowned out by a renewed jingoism during the 1982 Falkland/Malvinas Islands war in which Britain tried to secure the islands off Argentina.^[2]

The rebirth of Churchillism was part of the propaganda needed to secure acceptance of that conflict—just as it is now necessary to secure public support for Western intervention in the Middle East and in Ukraine.

A Child of Empire

A child of the Victorian era, Churchill was born in 1874 when Britain was by far the world’s dominant empire. He spent his early formative years in a colonial setting in Ireland where his grandfather was viceroy. Churchill’s father, Lord Randolph, was a Tory Member of Parliament (MP). Neglected by him and his mother, young Winston found solace in toy soldiers and played out tales of his ancestor John Churchill—the first Duke of Marlborough—who helped lead England’s Glorious Revolution.

At school, Winston was not a high achiever. In 1893, while celebrating his elevation to cadet at Sandhurst, the elite military academy, Lord Randolph wrote him a scathing letter stating:

“Never have I received a really good report of your conduct in your work from any master or tutor you had from time to time to do with. Always behind hand, never advancing in your class, incessant complaints of total want of application….With all the efforts that have been made to make your life easy and agreeable and your work neither oppressive nor distasteful, this is the grand result that you come up among the 2^nd rate and 3^rd rate class who are only good for commissions in a cavalry regiment…I no longer attach the slightest weight to anything you may say about your own acquirements and exploits. Make this position indelibly impressed on your mind, that if your conduct and action at Sandhurst is similar to what it has been in the other establishments in which it has sought vainly to impart to you some education. Then that my responsibility for you is over.”^[3]

From this moment on, proving his father wrong proved to be Winston’s main goal in life.

Cheerleader for Imperial Wars

In 1895, Churchill obtained leave from his regiment to become a military observer and then reported on the Spanish-Cuban War with a bias toward the Spanish who were trying to retain their last colonial holdings in South America.

Churchill underplayed the immense suffering of the Cuban people under Spain’s scorched-earth policies that had been modeled after General William Tecumseh Sherman’s tactics en route to Atlanta during the U.S. Civil War.

On his return from Cuba in 1896, Churchill went to Sudan where he witnessed the British victory over native forces at the Battle of Omdurman, which he described as “the last link in the long chain of those spectacular conflicts whose vivid and majestic splendor has done so much to invest war with glamor.”^[4]

The battle was not so glamorous for the Sudanese, however, who lost 10,000 men and had 5,000 more taken prisoner.

Battle of Omdurman and the British conquest of Sudan. [Source: commons.wikimedia.org]

Churchill filed similarly upbeat reports for The Morning Post about the Boer War in South Africa (1899-1902) that was fought between Dutch and British settlers who wanted to access South Africa’s gold mines and other mineral wealth.

Churchill captured a popular audience with the story of his daring escape from Boer [descendants of the Dutch] captivity. In his assessment, the Boers were “the most humane people where the white men were concerned; to the Boer mind, the destruction of a white man’s life, even in war, was a lamentable and shocking event.” The story was different, however, for the Kaffirs, a derogatory term Churchill used for Blacks.^[5]

“The Wicked Chancellor”

Capitalizing on his fame as a war correspondent, Churchill was elected as a Tory MP in 1900 in Northwest Manchester and then defected to the Liberal Party and became Home Secretary, a Cabinet position in which he developed a reputation for aggressively stifling the efforts of the working class to organize itself.

Churchill became particularly hated in South Wales where he called in military troops to help crush a miners strike in September 1910 that became known as the Tonypandy riots. Even in the Second World War, people in local cinemas heckled news images of him there.

Churchill was equally hated in Glasgow, Scotland, where in January 1919 he ordered the deployment of the British Army to avert more labor unrest.

Appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer during the late 1920s, Churchill opposed social reforms that would have benefited the poor while promoting ideas advanced by top bankers—backed by Montague Norman, Governor of the Bank of England—who wanted to prevent any drift of the British Empire.

Police blocking streets during Tonypandy riots. [Source: wikipedia.org]

Famed economist John Maynard Keynes dubbed Churchill “The Wicked Chancellor.” Keynes published a pamphlet demonstrating the fallacy of his economic policies and the injustice that they entailed for workers.^[6]

During the 1926 General Strike in England—a display of working class militancy precipitated by wage reductions—Churchill launched a newspaper that branded the strikers as “Bolshevik-inspired agitators” intent on creating a “Soviet of Trade Unions that would take over the economic and political life of the country.”

Churchill in turn helped to organize blackleg labor, or scabs via far-right organizations, including the fascist League of St. George, and boasted later of helping to break the strike.^[7]

Churchill and the Great War

As First Lord of the Admiralty, Churchill was a gung-ho supporter of British participation in the Great War that cost the lives of more than 880,000 young British men. Churchill presided over a military debacle when he orchestrated the opening of a naval front in the Dardanelles to seize Constantinople and deal a death blow to the Ottoman Empire, which had joined the Central Powers.

Source: mideastcartoonhistory.com

The first step was a military assault on Gallipoli, which resulted in the slaughter of thousands of British troops and devolved into a stalemate just as bloody and pointless as that on the Western front.

Churchill has long been at the center of conspiracy theories surrounding the sinking of the Lusitania—a passenger liner carrying almost 160 Americans, 128 of whom died—which provided a pretext for U.S. intervention in the Great War.

According to historian Colin Simpson, Churchill, as First Lord of the Admiralty, sent the Lusitania into German waters without its escort, H.M.S. Juno, which was pulled back, in order to maximize moral outrage at the German U-boat offensive that sunk the ship and to provoke U.S. military intervention that could ensure an allied victory.^[8]

Churchill at the time had been working in the secret Room 40 in an old Admiralty building in central London, the center of a covert operation run by Churchill that was monitoring and decoding German naval radio messages. Clearly, he knew all about the extreme danger the German U-boats posed to the Lusitania, though did nothing to protect the liner and its passengers—quite the opposite.

Ireland

Rehabilitated after his demotion following the Dardanelles disaster, Churchill served as Secretary of War during the Irish War of Independence (1919-1921). On March 25, 1920, Churchill dispatched the notorious “Black and Tans,” paramilitaries attached to the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) who served as a torture and death squad.

Earlier, Churchill had denounced the Irish Republican Army (IRA) as a “gang of squalid murderers.” He praised the police and British troops whom he said were compelled to “fight enemies who could not be easily identified because they could blend into the population without a trace”—always a problem for imperial states confronting a popular resistance.^[9]

In negotiations, Churchill helped to ensure a compromise favored by Britain which divided Ireland, split Sinn Fein (IRA political branch), helped institutionalize discrimination against the Irish-Catholic minority, and blocked the emergence of radical political parties.

War on Russia

Churchill’s hostility to left-wing ideology was evident in his zealous support for the overthrow of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia at its inception. His colleague Lloyd George was concerned that Churchill’s Russia obsession was “upsetting his balance.”

Vowing to “strangle the Bolshevik baby in its crib,” Churchill proclaimed that “of all the tyrannies, the Bolshevik tyranny is the worst…the most destructive, the most degrading and…far worse than German militarism.”^[10]

Under Churchill’s direction as Secretary of War, the British sent 15,000 troops to support ex-czarist officers in “one of the most ill-conceived and poorly planned campaigns of the twentieth century,” as historian Damien Wright put it. “It achieved little other than the loss of life and maiming of hundreds of soldiers, sailors and airmen who had already given so much during four years of war on the Western front and in other theatres.”

Many of the White army units backed by the British defected to the Bolsheviks whose Red Army was organized, efficient and motivated under the leadership of Leon Trotsky. On more than one occasion, “White Russian troops mutinied and murdered their British officers before going over to the enemy. Corruption and inefficiency from the lowest and highest levels of leadership plagued the White Russian forces.”^[11]

Source: britannica.com

Churchill was most livid that the War Office had barred British troops from using poison gas. He wrote to the chief of the Imperial General Staff on January 25, 1919: “What is the reason for this injunction given at Archangel? Because an enemy who has perpetrated every conceivable barbarity is at present unable, through his ignorance, to manufacture poisoned gas, is that any reason why our troops should be prevented from taking full advantage of their weapons?”

Support for Fascism

Churchill’s hostility to Russian Bolshevism and organized labor resulted in his support for European fascists who crushed the political left in their countries. As late as 1938, he defended Adolf Hitler whom he said he admired for his success in “restoring Germany to the most powerful position in Europe,” and ensuring that it was “no longer prostrate at the feet of the victors [of World War I].”^[12]

In 1927, five years after the fascists took over in Italy, Churchill went to meet Mussolini—whom he called “the Roman genius”—and said that, “if I had been an Italian, I am sure I would have been wholeheartedly with you from the start to finish in your triumphant struggle against the bestial appetites and passions of Leninism.”^[13]

A decade later, following the outbreak of a civil war in Spain between fascist forces led by General Franco and a coalition of communists, anarchists and liberal republicans, Churchill proclaimed: “I will not pretend that, if I had to choose between Communism and Nazi-ism, I would choose Communism.”^[14]

Churchill admitted that Franco’s gangs in Spain “regularly shoot a proportion of their prisoners taken in arms,” but insisted this was not comparable to what he called the “tortures and fiendish outrages in the lowest pit of human degradation” committed by Republicans.” There, he concluded, “it would be a mistake alike in truth and wisdom for British public opinion to rate both sides at the same level.”^[15]

Tyrant and Butcher

Churchill’s support for fascists extended past the Second World War. In post-war Greece, he backed the royalist elite that had collaborated with the Nazis against the Greek Left.

Tariq Ali points out that Churchill is still remembered today in Greece as a “tyrant and butcher.” He is the one who instructed General Ronald Scobie to treat Athens as a “colonial city,” and to neutralize and destroy EAM-ELAS (left-wing groups) bands approaching the city.

Churchill said: “We have to hold and dominate Athens. It would be a great thing for you to succeed in this without bloodshed if possible, but also with bloodshed if necessary.”^[16] Which there was.

British soldier Chris Barker, interviewed for a 1986 Channel 4 documentary, said: “I thought we’d come to liberate the Greeks, but within what seemed to be a short space of time, we were actually killing them. And, more to the point, British chaps were dying in a cause that I couldn’t quite understand. This was the source of the outrage.”^[17]

Bengal Famine

More outrage has been legitimately directed at Churchill for his role in the 1943 Bengal famine in India, which resulted in three million deaths.

At the peak of the famine, rain levels were actually above average, meaning it had resulted from bad public policies—a combination of wartime inflation, speculative buying and panic hoarding, which pushed the price of food out of the reach of poor Bengalis.

The famine was exacerbated by the decisions of Churchill’s wartime cabinet, which was warned repeatedly that the exhaustive use of Indian resources for the war effort could result in famine, but opted to continue exporting rice from India to elsewhere in the British Empire.

Churchill himself blamed the famine on the fact that Indians were “breeding like rabbits,” and asked how, if the shortages were so bad, his nemesis Mahatma Gandhi was still alive.

The Times They Are a-Changin’

Churchill’s imperialist views and contempt for the working class live on today among his heirs and in the halls of power in Washington and London.

Winston would no doubt approve their championing of NATO expansion and a new cold and potentially hot war with Russia; and recolonization of Africa.

The geopolitical winds nevertheless are beginning to shift. That pro-imperialist views are no longer in fashion throughout society was evident in the spraying of Churchill’s statue in London’s Parliament Square with paint during anti-capitalist demonstrations in 2000 and painting of the slogan “Churchill was a Racist” by Black Lives Matter activists on one of his busts in 2020.

The emperor, as they say, has no clothes, but the question lingers as to what new icons and heroes will replace him after the revolution is consummated and the era of Anglo-American global domination ends.

*

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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].

Notes

1. Tariq Ali, Winston Churchill: His Times, His Crimes (London: Verso, 2022), 398. 

2. Ali, Winston Churchill, 6. 
3. Ali, Winston Churchill, 21. 
4. Ali, Winston Churchill, 45. 
5. Ali, Winston Churchill, 53. 
6. Ali, Winston Churchill, 167. 
7. Ali, Winston Churchill, 170, 171. 
8. See Colin Simpson, The Lusitania: A Shocking Second-By-Second Account of the Single Most Important Event in the Outbreak of World War I (New York: Ballantine Books, 1972), 118, 119, 120.
9. Ali, Winston Churchill, 124. 
10. Ali, Winston Churchill, 154. 
11. Ali, Winston Churchill, 155. 
12. Ali, Winston Churchill, 189, 190. 
13. Ali, Winston Churchill, 184. 
14. Ali, Winston Churchill, 196, 197. 
15. Ali, Winston Churchill, 201. 
16. Ali, Winston Churchill, 318. 

17. Idem. 

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***

Since the beginning of the Russian special military operation in neighboring Ukraine, the United States and the European Union (EU) have imposed unprecedented economic sanctions against Moscow.

These draconian measures were designed to bring about a complete collapse of the Russian economy through the blocking of financial transactions and the withdrawal of multinational corporations conducting business in the country. However, the opposite has taken place since February 24 with the value of the ruble increasing and the realization of a trade surplus which has provided adequate resources to maintain stability.

EU countries are quite concerned about the availability of natural gas to those countries which are heavily dependent on Russian supplies. Although France is in a better position than other EU states and Ukraine, Macron traveled to the former North African colony of Algeria during August 25-28 to negotiate a 50% increase in natural gas supplies.

Relations between the two states have been under tremendous strain over the last several years as a result of issues involving immigration as well as erroneous and insulting statements by Macron related to Algerian history. Although the Macron visit could be interpreted as a somewhat rapprochement between Paris and Algiers, obviously the enhancement of natural gas supplies was the underlying reason behind the trip.

Algeria is already a major source of natural gas, holding 159 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of proven reserves, ranking 11th in the world. In regard to production, the country is ranked as 5th internationally.

Algeria natural gas reserves for 2021 (Source: Abayomi Azikiwe)

 

Nonetheless, as it relates to consumption, Algeria ranks as 26th in the world. Therefore, there is a huge surplus of natural gas for export to other states and geopolitical regions. On a yearly basis the country has proven reserves 109.1 times its annual consumption.

Engie SA is one of the leading firms based in France specializing in energy transition, electricity generation and distribution, natural gas, nuclear, renewables and petroleum. The company supplies electricity to 27 countries on the European continent and 48 other states around the world.

Having been created in 2008, Engie SA is the result of a merger between Gaz de France and Suez. France has a long history of colonial occupation and exploitation in Africa since the Universal Suez Canal Company, the parent of Suez, was formed in 1858 to construct the Suez Canal in Egypt. Today Engie SA employs over 158,000 workers across the world with revenues of 60.6 Euros.

The CEO of Engie SA was part of the delegation led by Macron to Algeria. During his visit, Macron attempted to connect with the government of President Abdelmadjid Tebboune along with the ordinary working people of the country.

According to a report on the French delegation’s activities in Algeria, the Financial Post noted:

“Engie Chief Executive Officer Catherine Macgregor, who was part of Macron’s delegation, met with Algeria’s energy minister and the head of state-run Sonatrach, Europe 1 reported. France gets about 8% of its gas from Algeria, it said.  An Engie spokesman confirmed ongoing talks but declined to give details about the nature or timing of any new agreement. Algeria is Europe’s biggest gas supplier after Russia and Norway, including to France, and it has discovered new reservoirs that have drawn growing interest. The Algerian government recently signed deals with Italy for increased gas shipments.”

Macron Warns of Cold Winter in Europe

The economic problems which have developed since the Russian intervention in Ukraine has resulted in serious uncertainty throughout the EU region. Leaders of the European Commission are echoing the fears of several heads-of-state over the social impact of the decline in Russian supplies of natural gas.

Macron spoke on this crisis prior to his visit to Algeria. EU officials are encouraging household consumers of natural gas and electricity to voluntarily limit their usage in order to avoid a major energy shortage.

In a meeting with ministers at the Elysee Palace, Macron stated that:

“What we are currently living through is a kind of major tipping point or a great upheaval … we are living the end of what could have seemed an era of abundance … the end of the abundance of products of technologies that seemed always available … the end of the abundance of land and materials including water.”

However, Macron was criticized by various political interests in France for his remarks. Working class people throughout the country have already suffered the reduction in salaries and benefits which had been earned through decades of struggle by trade unions and student movements.

Such comments could portend much for additional austerity measures in order to pay for the NATO proxy war against Russia in Ukraine. With the rate of inflation in the energy sector increasing at a rapid pace, the costs of the aggressive military posture of Washington and its NATO allies will result in a further decline in real wages and living conditions for working and impoverished people.

Philippe Martinez, the Secretary General of the French Confederation of Labor (CGT) responded to Macron comments emphasizing:

“When we talk about the end of abundance, I think of the millions of unemployed, the millions of those in a precarious situation. For many French people, times are already hard, sacrifices have already been made.”

These issues are coming to the fore in the major capitalist states throughout the world. All across Europe, leaders are preparing for the increase in energy prices. In the United Kingdom, which has withdrawn from the EU, inflation will have to be addressed in the short-term.

In an article published by the China Global Television Network (CGTN) it observes:

“With anger growing over privatized utilities companies profiting while consumers foot the bill for the global energy crisis, many Britons are turning to direct action to push the government to respond adequately. British grassroots group ‘Don’t Pay UK’ is calling for people to boycott energy bills from October 1, while the trade union-backed ‘Enough is Enough’ campaign kicked off a series of rallies and actions in mid-August calling for pay rises, rent caps, cheaper energy and food, and taxes on the rich.”

Will France’s Deal with Algeria Make a Difference?

Some analysts have stated that the efforts by the French government and energy industry cannot resolve the short-term supply issues. Prices will continue to rise and remain elevated for agricultural goods, natural gas, electricity and petroleum products.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is utilizing the country’s vast energy resources as a weapon geared towards forcing the EU states to pressure the Ukraine government to negotiate a resolution to the current war. The administration of President Joe Biden, which instigated the war, has prevented Kiev from resolving its differences with Moscow through diplomatic means.

Biden and the U.S. Congress have continued to allocate billions of dollars to continue the war against the Russian Federation. Moscow has been identified along with the People’s Republic of China as strategic competitors and adversaries to Washington and Wall Street’s global hegemonic policies.

The Middle East Institute (MEI) in a report about the European energy crisis pointed out:

“Further increases in gas supplies from Algeria — at least of any substantial amount — will require boosting the output of the producing fields, which could be producing at or near maximum capacity given the increases registered in recent years. Otherwise, Algeria is looking at years of investment in exploration and new production. In terms of unconventional or shale gas potential, some estimates place Algeria’s shale gas reserves at about 20,000 bcm — a good long-term prospect, but not something that can be tapped in time to affect Europe’s current gas supply structure. However, developing these reserves will require a substantial overhaul of the industry’s investment framework and a broader political, economic, and industry vision that has so far been absent.”

Algeria natural gas reserves map (Source: Abayomi Azikiwe)

These considerations are important and raises the question as to whether Macron’s visit to Algeria was designed more so to deal with the current political situation in France. Within all the imperialist states, the workers and oppressed are experiencing the worst aspects of the inflationary spirals.

In the long term, as far as the masses of people are concerned, the solution lies within the abolition of private control of natural resources, particularly within the energy fields. In this way there could be effective price controls enacted along with an emphasis on peaceful coexistence as opposed to imperialist war.

*

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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: Algeria President Abdelmadjid Tebboune holds talks with French counterpart Emmanuel Macron (Source: Abayomi Azikiwe)

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***

Guest is Jeannette Bahr, a graduate biomathematician, been in science and research for 20 years and in the health care for 30 years. Formerly a scientist at the University Medicine Greifswald (UMG).

This session is about what she experienced when she raised concerns while working at the Greifswald University Medical Center.

She pointed out inconsistencies in the PCR tests used and criticized the lack of validation of laboratory results. She also views the modeling of the virus sequence stated critically:

“RNA code of SARS-CoV-2 is based on computer simulation using algorithms/ mathematical models.”

• Conducted an independent analysis of the mRNA vaccine licensure trials that greatly concerned her and led her to express her concern for human health to the public. As a result, she was given extraordinary notice of termination by the UMG.

*

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Featured image is a screenshot from the video

---

Pages: 164, 15 Chapters

Price: $11.50 

Purchase directly from the Global Research Online Store!

Michel Chossudovsky reviews in detail how this insidious project “destroys people’s lives”. He provides a comprehensive analysis of everything you need to know about the “pandemic” — from the medical dimensions to the economic and social repercussions, political underpinnings, and mental and psychological impacts.

“My objective as an author is to inform people worldwide and refute the official narrative which has been used as a justification to destabilize the economic and social fabric of entire countries, followed by the imposition of the “deadly” COVID-19 “vaccine”. This crisis affects humanity in its entirety: almost 8 billion people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings and our children worldwide. Truth is a powerful instrument.”

Six Months Into Ukraine’s Collapse, the World Has Changed Forever

By Pepe Escobar, August 30, 2022

Six months after the start of the Special Military Operation (SMO) by Russia in Ukraine, the geopolitical tectonic plates of the 21^st century have been dislocated at astonishing speed and depth – with immense historical repercussions already at hand.

Russia, Iran and Azerbaijan Deepen Cooperation to Bypass Western Sanctions

By Ahmed Adel, August 30, 2022

Russia, Iran and Azerbaijan signed a memorandum in Tehran on August 22 to simplify transit routes, improve business relations between the three countries, and develop logistics towards the European continent. The signing of the memorandum is an important step towards the anticipated “North-South” international transport corridor, which offers a shorter alternative to the Suez Canal route.

COVID-19 Vaccines and Informed Consent

By John Allison and Dr. Robert Malone, August 29, 2022

Most Americans have long assumed that they have a fundamental right to make decisions about their own bodily health and the medical treatments they receive. Informed consent is the ethical and legal principle by which that fundamental right is enforceable. To be able to give informed consent a person needs to be informed about the risks and benefits of, and alternatives to the proposed treatment.

Ignorant and Stupid Politicians Committed to Nuclear War: The Unthinkable: “Money and Mistakes” Are the Driving Force Behind World History

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, August 29, 2022

Nuclear War is part of  British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss’ campaign for the Conservative Party leadership. She spoke at a Conservative party event in Birmingham, The host of the event John Pienaar asked her if she would give the order “to unleash nuclear weapons” from Trident.

Towards a “Long War”, No Diplomatic Solution in Sight: Biden to Name a US Military Operation for Ukraine

By Kelley Beaucar Vlahos, August 29, 2022

Two things that point to the notion that Washington is supporting a long war in Ukraine, and truly doesn’t think there will be a diplomatic solution or cessation of violence there anytime soon: one, the $3 billion in recently announced military transfers is a “multi-year military investment” including weapons that won’t be available via defense contractors for at least three years.

Macron Insulted Africans’ Intelligence by Claiming That Multipolar Powers Manipulate Them

By Andrew Korybko, August 29, 2022

The shameless ethno-nationalist supremacy associated with his hateful remark will result in Africans doubling down on their anti-imperialist and Pan-Africanism activism since no self-respecting person would ever capitulate in the face of such blatantly racist pressure and thus voluntarily submit themselves to being dominated by their abuser.

Impressions of Donald Trump. Celebrity Culture, Political Theater and Propaganda

By Edward Curtin, August 29, 2022

Neurosis to a greater or lesser degree is the norm in western industrialized societies. Drawing on this fact is the key to effective propaganda. It is well known that neurotics always return to the place they are running away from.  It’s a circle game of frustration in which being frustrated is actually the “solution,” because the real problems cannot be faced.  The Donald Trump phenomenon is an example of this on a social level.

Julian Assange Submits His Perfected Grounds of Appeal

By Don’t Extradite Assange, August 29, 2022

The Perfected Grounds of Appeal concerning the Secretary of State for the Home Department (SSHD) include arguments that Home Secretary Priti Patel erred in her decision to approve the extradition order on grounds of specialty and because the request itself violates Article 4 of the US-UK Extradition Treaty.

‘Unknown Cause’ Is the Top Cause of Death in Canada!

By Mark S. Schwendau, August 29, 2022

An unusual story surfaced in Alberta, Canada, last month which is just now starting to gain traction around the world. Canadian doctors and a civil liberties lawyer in the Canadian province of Alberta are raising concerns about a growing trend of deaths labeled as “unknown causes” after an unprecedented increase in such deaths was recorded in 2021.

Palestine: The Shocking Myth of a ‘Land with No People for a People with No Land!’

By Hans Stehling, August 29, 2022

Palestine – the shocking myth of a ‘land with no people for a people with no land!’ In fact, now a land occupied by 8m foreign migrants from Russia, France, America, North Africa, Iran & Yemen whilst 4m indigenous Muslim Arabs are trapped in their own country encircled by a 9m high wall built by the invaders and/or subject to a 15 year economic blockade.

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

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***

Six months after the start of the Special Military Operation (SMO) by Russia in Ukraine, the geopolitical tectonic plates of the 21^st century have been dislocated at astonishing speed and depth – with immense historical repercussions already at hand.

To paraphrase T.S. Eliot, this is the way the (new) world begins, not with a whimper but a bang.

The cold-blooded assassination of Darya Dugina – terrorism at the gates of Moscow – may have fatefully coincided with the six-month intersection point, but will do nothing to change the dynamics of the current, work-in-progress, historical shift.

Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) appeared to have cracked the case in a little over 24 hours, designating the perpetrator as a neo-Nazi Azov operative instrumentalized by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) – itself a mere tool of the CIA/MI6 combo that de facto rules Kiev.

The Azov operative is just a patsy. The FSB will never reveal in public the intel it has amassed on those that issued the orders, and how they will be dealt with.

One Ilya Ponomaryov, an anti-Kremlin minor character granted Ukrainian citizenship, boasted he was in contact with the outfit that prepared the hit on the Dugin family. No one took him seriously.

What is manifestly serious, however, is how oligarchy-connected organized crime factions in Russia would have a motive to eliminate Alexander Dugin, the Christian Orthodox nationalist philosopher who, according to them, may have influenced the Kremlin’s pivot to Asia (he didn’t).

These organized crime factions blamed Dugin for a concerted Kremlin offensive against the disproportional power of Jewish oligarchs in Russia. So these actors would have both the motive and the local know-how to mount such a coup.

If that’s the case, it potentially spells out a Mossad-linked operation – especially given the serious schism in Moscow’s recent relations with Tel Aviv. What’s certain is that the FSB will keep their cards very close to their chest – and retribution will be swift, precise and invisible.

The straw that broke the camel’s back

Instead of delivering a serious blow to Russia’s psyche that could impact the dynamics of its operations in Ukraine, the assassination of Darya Dugina only exposed the perpetrators as tawdry killers who have exhausted their options.

An IED cannot kill a philosopher – or his daughter. In an essential essay, Dugin himself explained how the real war – Russia against the US-led collective west – is a war of ideas. An existential war.

Dugin correctly defines the US as a “thalassocracy,” heir to “Britannia rules the waves.” Yet now the geopolitical tectonic plates are spelling out a new order: The Return of the Heartland.

Russian President Vladimir Putin himself first spelled it out at the Munich Security Conference in 2007. China’s Xi Jinping put it into action by launching the New Silk Roads in 2013. The Empire struck back with Maidan in 2014. Russia counter-attacked by coming to the aid of Syria in 2015.

The Empire doubled down on Ukraine, with NATO weaponizing it non-stop for eight years. At the end of 2021, Moscow invited Washington for a serious dialogue on “indivisibility of security” in Europe. That was dismissed with a non-response response.

Moscow took no time to assess that a dangerous US-led trifecta was instead in the works: an imminent Kiev blitzkrieg against Donbass; Ukraine flirting with acquiring nuclear weapons; and the work of US bioweapon labs. That was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

A consistent analysis of Putin’s public interventions these past few months reveals that the Kremlin – as well as Security Council Yoda Nikolai Patrushev – fully realize how the politico/media talking heads and shock troops of the collective west are directed by the rulers of Finance Capitalism.

As a direct consequence, they also realize how western public opinion is absolutely clueless, Plato cave-style, totally captive to the ruling financial class, who cannot tolerate any alternative narrative.

So Putin, Patrushev, and their peers will never presume that a senile teleprompter reader in the White House or a cokehead comedian in Kiev “rule” anything.

As the US rules global pop culture, it is fitting to borrow from what Walter White/Heisenberg, an average American channeling his inner bad, states in Breaking Bad: “I’m in the Empire business.” And the Empire business is to exercise raw power, maintained with ruthlessness, by all means necessary.

Russia broke that spell. But Moscow’s strategy is way more sophisticated than leveling Kiev with hypersonic weapons, something that could have been done at any moment, starting six months ago.

Instead, what Moscow is doing is talking to virtually the entire Global South, bilaterally or to groups of actors, explaining how the world-system is changing right before our eyes, with the key actors of the future configured as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), BRICS+, the Greater Eurasia Partnership.

And what we see is vast swathes of the Global South – or 85 percent of the world’s population – slowly but surely becoming ready to engage in expelling the finance capitalists from their national horizons, and ultimately taking them down: a long, tortuous battle that will imply multiple setbacks.

The facts on the ground

On the ground in soon-to-be rump Ukraine, Khinzal hypersonic weapons launched from Tu-22M3 bombers or Mig-31 interceptors  will continue to be employed.

Piles of HIMARS will continue to be captured. TOS 1A Heavy Flamethrowers will keep sending invitations to the gates of hell. Crimean Air Defense will continue to intercept all sorts of small drones with IEDs attached. Terrorism by local SBU cells will eventually be smashed.

Using essentially a phenomenal artillery barrage – cheap and mass-produced – Russia will annex Donbass, very valuable in terms of land, natural resources and industrial power. And then on to Nikolaev, Odessa, and Kharkov.

Geoeconomically, Russia can afford to sell its oil with fat discounts to any Global South customer, not to mention strategic partners China and India. Cost of extraction reaches a maximum of $15 per barrel, with a national budget based on $40-45 for a barrel of Urals, whose market value today is almost double that.

A new Russian benchmark is imminent, as well as oil in rubles following the wildly successful gas for rubles scheme.

The assassination of Darya Dugina provoked endless speculation about the Kremlin and the Ministry of Defense finally breaking their discipline. That’s not going to happen. Russian advances along the enormous 1,800-mile battle front are relentless, highly systematic, and deeply invested in a Greater Strategic Picture.

A key vector is whether Russia stands a chance of winning the information war with the west. That will never happen inside NATO’s realm – even as success after success is unfolding across the Global South.

As Glenn Diesen has masterfully demonstrated in his latest book, Russophobia, the collective west is viscerally impervious to admitting any social, cultural, historical merits by Russia.

They have already catapulted themselves into the irrationality stratosphere: the grinding down and de facto demilitarization of the imperial proxy army in Ukraine is driving the Empire’s handlers and its vassals literally nuts.

But the Global South should never lose sight of the ‘Empire business.’ That industry excels in producing chaos and plunder, always supported by extortion, bribery of local elites, and assassinations on the cheap. Every trick in the Divide and Rule book should be expected at any moment. Never underestimate a bitter, wounded, deeply humiliated, declining Empire.

Fasten your seat belts for more of this tense dynamic for the remainder of the decade.

But before that, all along the watchtower, get ready for the arrival of General Winter, whose riders are fast approaching. When the winds begin to howl, Europe will be freezing in the dead of dark nights, lit up occasionally by its finance capitalists puffing on fat cigars.

*

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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.

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***

Russia, Iran and Azerbaijan signed a memorandum in Tehran on August 22 to simplify transit routes, improve business relations between the three countries, and develop logistics towards the European continent. The signing of the memorandum is an important step towards the anticipated “North-South” international transport corridor, which offers a shorter alternative to the Suez Canal route. Compared to the sea route through the Suez Canal, the distance is reduced by about two times, which will lower the cost of transportation by about 30% and save time.

The North-South corridor is a multimodal network of maritime, rail and road transport between Russia and India, with a shipping hub in Iran. The corridor is not subject to sanctions imposed against Russia and Iran as the West allows it to rival China’s Belt and Road Initiative. None-the-less, the North-South corridor is not under the influence of Western countries and is a purely Eurasian project.

This corridor will not only be a global artery that further integrates these countries and their economies, but will act as a geopolitical tool to strengthen a multipolar world order. It is predicted that up to 30 million tons of goods will be transported through the corridor every year and will help these countries bypass sanctions.

Source: InfoBrics

The memorandum is important for Russia’s bilateral trade with Azerbaijan and Iran, as well as connecting with Persian Gulf countries, India and even Southeast Asia. With Russia now the most sanctioned country in the world and closed off from European ports for Russian ships, along with the impossibility of obtaining goods from Western Europe, Moscow’s Eastward pivot has been established. In this way, the creation of alternative transport routes is important for Russia’s economic interests.

By signing the memorandum, the three states initiated a process of creating a common corridor for the delivery of various goods and started creating a single logistics and customs window for smooth, stable and fast delivery of goods. This will improve logistics between countries and Russia is anticipated to start receiving South and Southeast Asian products that are much more cost effective compared to their Western counterparts.

For Russia, this is a big project which will bring in billions of dollars in revenues and seriously strengthen its geopolitical position. Given that Azerbaijan has tense relations with Iran and Russia over the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh, the signing of such a memorandum also creates common interests between the three countries, which will have the potential to moderate Baku’s aggressive nature.

Last year, the trade exchange between Russia and Iran increased by more than 81% and reached $4.1 billion; with India it increased by 62.7% and amounted to almost $4.5 billion; and, by 12.1% with Azerbaijan. Although impressive, it is expected that trade exchange will skyrocket with the North-South corridor.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov recently stated that Russia and Iran plan to stop using dollars in mutual trade transactions. Commenting on Western sanctions, he pointed out that the two countries have the opportunity to build strong cooperation that will minimize the consequences of sanctions. According to him, Iran has lived under sanctions for a long time but adapted well to this economic difficulty, thus allowing Iranians to live a relatively normal life.

As Russia is increasingly using national currencies in trade with other countries, the addition of a new trade artery allows the financially besieged country to completely bypass the West in transportation and trade, thus rendering sanctions useless. This is despite European leaders demanding their citizens make more sacrifices to their quality of life for the sake of economically attacking Russia with little success.

The US has long used the hegemony of the dollar as the world’s de facto currency to target and sanction countries outside of its control. As the entire world system is changing, the tendency for the value of the dollar as a world currency is gradually weakening.

At the same time though, the West views China as a greater enemy to its dominance in the long-term, and as the BRI comes to more prominence, perhaps Europe will have to begrudgingly accept the North-South corridor as a viable alternative. This remains conjecture for now though, and what is certain is that the corridor will be another step forward in weakening the West’s hegemony over the globe.

*

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Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.

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***

 

 

 

 

 

Liz Truss is set to declare China as a ‘threat’ to national security if she becomes Prime Minister next week, it has emerged.

The Tory leadership favourite is poised to give China a similar status to Russia, as part of a rethink of Britain’s foreign policy, should she enter Downing Street.

As part of last year’s ‘integrated review’, Russia was described as an ‘acute threat’ to UK security.

It has been reported that Ms Truss will classify China in the same terms if she replaces Boris Johnson in Number 10.

The Foreign Secretary’s move to refocus on the threat posed by Beijing was hailed by her supporters.

Her leadership campaign is being backed by some of China’s fiercest critics in the House of Commons, such as former Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith and Tom Tugendhat, the chair of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee.

But Lord Ricketts, a former national security adviser, suggested a more ‘nuanced’ position was needed in relation to China, in contrast to Britain’s stance with Russia.

According to The Times, Ms Truss’s tougher line on China will come as part of an attempt to clamp down on Treasury efforts to strengthen economic cooperation with Beijing.

Last month, it was claimed Ms Truss’s rival for the Tory leadership, Rishi Sunak, had been close to signing a new economic agreement with China when he was Chancellor.

During her leadership campaign, Ms Truss has already vowed to update last year’s integrated review – with a renewed focus on China and Russia – should she become PM.

A Truss campaign source told the newspaper: ‘Liz has toughened the UK’s stance on Beijing since becoming foreign secretary and would continue to take a hawkish stance as PM.

‘She’s been active in calling out China’s economic coercion, working with G7 and other allies to mobilise investment into low and middle-income countries as a counter to China’s Belt and Road initiative.’

In the 2021 integrated review of Britain’s security, defence, development and foreign policy, Russia was declared to be ‘the most acute threat to our security’.

By contrast, China was described as providing a ‘systemic challenge’ to the UK’s security, prosperity and values.

‘We will continue to pursue a positive trade and investment relationship with China, while ensuring our national security and values are protected,’ the review added.

‘We will also cooperate with China in tackling transnational challenges such as climate change.’

Conor Burns, a minister in the Northern Ireland Office and a supporter of Ms Truss, said that reclassifying China as a ‘threat’ was ‘the right thing to say’.

‘I think it’s characteristic of Liz that she speaks as she finds,’ he told BBC Radio 4’s Westminster Hour last night.

‘That was always my experience of her at the Department for International Trade.

‘She wasn’t one for rushing off to sign trade agreements or declaring “golden age” of relationships with China while she was there.

‘She was very hard-nosed and hard-headed.’

But, while Lord Ricketts agreed that Beijing posed ‘the real threat for the next generation’, he warned a more ‘nuanced’ approach was needed.

The crossbench peer, who served as David Cameron’s national security adviser in Downing Street, said: ‘China is the real threat for the next generation. Russia is the short-term immediate crisis. But it’s quite right to focus on China.

‘Somehow we have to manage to bring together being very vigilant on security, very tough on human rights, but also maintaining a capacity to trade with what is, after all, one of the largest and most vigorous markets in the world.

‘So it’s a complicated mix that we have to put together. I’m not sure declaring it as a threat is quite the most nuanced way of doing it.

‘But she [Ms Truss] is quite right to be focussing on China as a big issue.’

While he was PM, Mr Cameron used a 2015 state visit to London by Chinese President Xi Jinping to hail a ‘golden era’ in relations between the two countries.

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By way of introduction, this substack is written by Mr. Allison (JD). Mr Allison read my lawsuit against the Washington Post and was deeply offended by how the Washington Post has defamed me. So much so, that he wrote to my attorney with the his research/analysis regarding the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines and informed consent. The review of the literature is so outstanding, that I asked if I could share it here.

This analysis is long – 53 pages long. It is Mr. Allison’s analysis – not mine, the analysis and opinions in this article are his alone.

I have only published the top level analysis (6 pages) here. The rest of the document, which is extensively referenced can be found here.

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COVID-19 Vaccines and Informed Consent

By John Allison, J.D. Updated July 18, 2022

Introduction

Most Americans have long assumed that they have a fundamental right to make decisions about their own bodily health and the medical treatments they receive. Informed consent is the ethical and legal principle by which that fundamental right is enforceable. To be able to give informed consent a person needs to be informed about the risks and benefits of, and alternatives to the proposed treatment.

The fundamental right to informed consent is particularly important with respect to the COVID-19 vaccines which are available in the United States pursuant to Emergency Use Authorizations (EUAs). Under the federal EUA statute, people are entitled to be informed about their right to accept or refuse administration of these vaccines, the consequences (if any) of refusing vaccination, and the benefits and risks of alternatives to the vaccines. The manufacturers of EUA vaccines, and the people and organizations administering them, are immune from liability suits. People who suffer severe adverse effects after receiving a COVID-19 vaccine will not be able to recover compensation, for their monetary and emotional distress damages, from the vaccine manufacturers or from the people who vaccinated them. Similarly, the family members of people who die after receiving a COVID-19 vaccine will not be able to recover compensation for their loss.

Qualifications and Experience

I am a retired lawyer, licensed to practice in Washington State and the District of Columbia, with extensive private law firm and in-house experience. Most of my law practice was devoted to the litigation of cases involving medical, toxicological, industrial hygiene and product safety issues. In my in-house role I was Assistant General Counsel in the legal department of a Fortune 100 company with overall responsibility for product liability, environmental and commercial litigation. I was also the lawyer for the company’s Medical Department, including Corporate Toxicology, Epidemiology and Product Responsibility.

This memorandum presents the results of research I performed and my opinions based on that research. This memorandum is not intended to give legal advice. People who want legal advice on the issues raised in this memorandum should consult with a lawyer licensed to practice in their jurisdiction.

Opinions

Based on the results of my research to date, I have arrived at the following opinions with respect to the COVID-19 vaccines currently authorized or approved for use in the United States:

1. Government misinformation about the safety and effectiveness of the COVID- 19 vaccines, censorship of credible scientific and medical information about the risks of death and serious adverse effects of the COVID-19 vaccines, and vaccination coercion, are depriving people of their ability to give informed consent to vaccination. Unless the limited effectiveness of the vaccines and the risks of death and serious adverse effects described in this memorandum are disclosed to people before they are vaccinated, informed consent has not been obtained.

2. Safe and effective drugs on the market for many years, such as ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine, have been proven by reputable doctors to be successful in the early treatment of COVID-19. If those affordable drugs had been allowed to be more widely used in the United States before people needed to be hospitalized, many tens of thousands of people who died from COVID-19 would probably be alive today.

3. The COVID-19 vaccines authorized or approved for use in United States do not meet established criteria for establishing their short-term and long-term safety and efficacy. Serious safety signals – red flags – about these vaccines have been ignored, and continue to be ignored, by the FDA and the CDC. The EUAs for the Pfizer-BioNTech, the Moderna and the Johnson & Johnson/Janssen COVID-19 vaccines, and the FDA’s approval of Pfizer’s Comirnaty vaccine and Moderna’s Spikevax vaccine, should be revoked. All of these vaccines should be taken off the market immediately.

• SARS-CoV-2 is the coronavirus that causes COVID-19. Distinctive spike proteins on the surface of the virus enable the virus to penetrate cells and cause infection. The spike proteins mutate, producing the Delta variant which became the dominant form of the virus by the middle of 2021. Continuing mutations of the spike protein produced the Omicron variant which became the dominant form of the virus by the end of 2021. We are now dealing with sub- variants of Omicron.
• The first confirmed case of COVID-19 in the United States was reported in mid-January, 2020. The pandemic spread. COVID-19 vaccines were not available until the middle of December 2020 when the FDA granted emergency use authorization for the Pfizer- BioNTech and the Moderna vaccines. In February 2021 the FDA granted emergency use authorization for the Johnson & Johnson/Janssen vaccine. Early in 2021 these vaccines became widely available in the United States and mass vaccination programs began. By the middle of 2021 millions of Americans, including workers in many different occupations, were fully vaccinated.
• The COVID-19 vaccines do not produce immunity to COVID-19 because they are not designed to trigger an immune response to the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Instead, the vaccines are designed to trigger an immune response to the spike proteins on the surface of the original virus.
• A number of studies demonstrate that the vaccines do not prevent infection or transmission of COVID-19. Fully vaccinated people can become infected and can also spread the SARS-CoV-2 virus to other vaccinated people and to unvaccinated people.
• According to data on the CDC website, in the United States there were 385,670 deaths attributed to COVID-19 in 2020, before the vaccines were widely available. In 2021, when vaccines were widely available and mass vaccination campaigns took place, there were 463,210 deaths attributed to COVID-19 – an increase of 20.1%.
• When the Delta and later the Omicron variants became the dominant form of the virus, government studies in different countries show that most COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths occur among fully vaccinated people.
• Now that the Omicron variant is the dominant form of SARS-CoV-2, the effectiveness of the mRNA vaccines (Pfizer and Moderna) diminishes significantly over just a few months. According to a Danish study, which has not yet been peer reviewed, vaccinated people, more than 90 days after vaccination, are more likely than unvaccinated people to be infected by Omicron.
• The COVID-19 vaccines contain genetic instructions that cause the body to produce enormous numbers of SARS-CoV-2 spike proteins in order to provoke an immune response to the spike proteins. Unfortunately, it turns out that the spike proteins, themselves, are toxic to cells. For example, endothelial cells line the inside of arteries to make blood flow smoothly. Damage to the endothelial cells caused by spike proteins increases the potential for microscopic blood clots to form. Those microscopic blood clots can travel to the lungs, increasing the risk of developing arterial hypertension which is a serious progressive condition that overtaxes and weakens the heart. There is no known cure for that condition.
• In the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines manufactured by Pfizer and Moderna the genetic instructions that cause the body to produce spike proteins are encapsulated in lipid nanoparticles. A preclinical study on laboratory animals conducted by Pfizer shows that the lipid nanoparticles and mRNA genetic instructions enter the bloodstream and accumulate in several organs, including the spleen, bone marrow, liver and adrenal glands, and concentrate in the ovaries. The body then starts producing spike proteins wherever the mRNA genetic instructions happen to land.
• A number of serious medical conditions have been associated with the COVID-19 vaccines, including blood clotting disorders, cardiac emergencies, myocarditis, Guillain-Barré Syndrome, autoimmune disease, spontaneous miscarriages, nervous system disorders and female infertility.
• The COVID-19 vaccines also interfere with the natural immune system, making a person more susceptible to viral infections and cancer. This may explain why most COVID-19 symptomatic infections, hospitalizations and deaths are now occurring among fully vaccinated people.
• A recent laboratory study in Sweden indicates that the Pfizer- BioNtech COVID-19 vaccine is able to enter a human liver cell line where it is reverse transcribed into DNA within a matter of hours. As a result, the possibility that the COVID-19 vaccines affect DNA cannot be ruled out.
• The mRNA COVID-19 vaccines also contain problematic ingredients. Both the Pfizer and the Moderna vaccines contain polyethylene glycol (PEG) as an active ingredient. An Expert Panel assessing the safety of PEG recommended against using PEG in ointments applied to damaged skin because some burn patients treated with a PEG-based antimicrobial cream experienced renal tubular necrosis and died of kidney failure. The PEG used in the Moderna vaccine matches the description of a PEG product manufactured by Sinopeg, a company in China. According to the Sinopeg website, that product is for “research use only.” The Moderna vaccine also contains a lipid known by the trade name SM-102. The Pfizer vaccine also contains a lipid known by the trade name ALC-0315. According to the safety information on the website of Cayman Chemical Company, which manufactures SM- 102 and ALC-0315, both of those products are “for research use – Not for human or veterinary diagnostic or therapeutic use.” Yet, in the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, PEG, SM-102 and ALC-0315 are being directly injected into people’s bodies.
• Because no long-term clinical studies were performed, there is no way of knowing whether or not vaccinated people will suffer severe adverse side effects in the future. This is a significant concern, since the vaccines increase the potential for developing cardiovascular disease and autoimmune disease, which can both take months or years to develop.
• In 1990 the government established the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) which is co-managed by the CDC and the FDA. It is intended to be a national early warning system to detect possible safety problems with vaccines in the United States. The number of serious adverse events and deaths that have been reported in VAERS for the COVID-19 vaccines is many times greater than the serious adverse events and deaths reported in VAERS for all other vaccines combined. As of July 1, 2022 more than 29,200 deaths, and more than 212,600 serious injuries, following administration of one of the COVID-19 vaccines have been reported in VAERS. Yet the CDC and the FDA continue to ignore these serious safety signals.
• In contrast, in 1976 the federal government conducted a mass vaccination campaign against the swine flu. After roughly 25% of the population in the United States had been vaccinated, the government terminated the vaccination program due to reports of 25 deaths and 550 cases of Guillain-Barré Syndrome following vaccination.
• According to a mortality analysis by the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, 98.9% of all the people in the United States with a confirmed case of COVID-19 survived the disease. Most COVID-19 deaths occurred in elderly people who were in poor health with multiple comorbidities.
• The Society of Actuaries collected and analyzed claims data from twenty life insurance companies that provide group term coverage in the United States, representing roughly 90% of the employer-based group term life insurance industry. All-cause mortality data for the pandemic period (April 1, 2020 through September 30, 2021) was compared to all cause mortality data for the baseline period (2017 through 2019). The analysis reveals a dramatic spike in deaths from all causes during the third quarter of 2021 (July 1 through September 30). During that quarter, excess mortality for all policyholders was more than 30% above baseline. The spike in deaths was even more dramatic for working-age people. Excess mortality for people ages 25 to 34 was 81% above baseline, excess mortality for people ages 35 to 44 was 117% above baseline, excess mortality for people ages 45 to 54 was 108% above baseline, and excess mortality for people ages 55 to 64 was 70% above baseline. The dramatic increase in deaths from all causes during the third quarter of 2021, particularly among working age people, undermines the claim that the COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective…

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I encourage everyone to to read more of this analysis by Mr. Allison. It will be well worth your time.

Again, thank you – Mr. Allison, for allowing me to share this analysis here.

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Two things that point to the notion that Washington is supporting a long war in Ukraine, and truly doesn’t think there will be a diplomatic solution or cessation of violence there anytime soon: one, the $3 billion in recently announced military transfers is a “multi-year military investment” including weapons that won’t be available via defense contractors for at least three years.

Secondly, a little nugget dropped on us Wednesday night: Biden plans on “naming ” the U.S. military assistance mission in Ukraine and making it a separate command with its own general. You know, like Operation Desert Storm, Operation Gothic Serpent, Operation Uphold Democracy, or Operation Unified Protector. We can expect the name, when it comes, will be heavy on the righteous benefactor angle, softer on the sword. But it is nevertheless a military operation, and that carries with it some practical, and serious implications. From WSJ:

The naming of the operation formally recognizes the U.S. effort within the military, akin to how the Pentagon dubbed the missions in Iraq and Afghanistan Operation Iraqi Freedom, Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Freedom’s Sentinel. The naming of the training and assistance is significant bureaucratically, as it typically entails long-term, dedicated funding and the possibility of special pay, ribbons and awards for service members participating in the effort. The selection of a general, expected to be a two- or three-star, reflects the creation of a c

ommand responsible to coordinate the effort, a shift from the largely ad hoc effort to provide training and assistance to the Ukrainians for years.

This does not seem like a formula for bringing the war to a swift end.

This seems like an all-too familiar set up for a “long hard slog.” Ukraine may be in the driver’s seat today, but the West, which most certainly includes the hawkish UK foreign policy elite, appears to be more interested in seeing this through as this era’s Soviet-Afghan war, or the U.S. war in Afghanistan itself, which took two decades before Washington finally threw up its hands and walked away.

Russia, for its part, just announced a plan to expand its military forces, signaling its own commitment to the long war.

Rather than putting energy into getting both sides into a position where they can begin talking about a ceasefire and some sort of negotiated settlement, Washington is naming a new command. If this is not acknowledging a deeper level of U.S. military involvement, what is it? And if so, why shouldn’t the American people be wary?

“This move could signal to other actors in the conflict — particularly the Ukrainian and Russian governments — that the United States is planning on getting significantly more directly involved in the war itself. That of course could lead to the war being prolonged and raise the risk of escalation between the United States, NATO, and a nuclear-armed Russia,” says Dan Caldwell, senior advisor to Concerned Veterans of America.

“Putting a name on an operation is far more significant than merely coming up with a catchy tagline. It confers an intent to provide long term, sustained, and expensive support to one side of a war that we are not fighting,” adds (Ret.) Lt. Col. Daniel Davis, senior fellow and military expert at Defense Priorities. It’s curious, he added, “especially as the United States is suffering its highest inflation in four decades, recently saw record-high gasoline prices, and as many experts warn a recession may hit this winter.”

Caldwell suggests this could allow the Pentagon to carve out a protected fund for the war. “Establishing a formal, named-mission or military task-force specifically for Ukraine could further open the door to moving funding for the war in Ukraine to the Overseas Contingency Operations budget, which is essentially the Pentagon’s slush fund. That could be one of the primary motivations here – the Pentagon wants a steady stream of funding from a source that Congress has shown a lack of willingness to properly oversee.”

That concern, and for the trajectory overall, should trigger lawmakers’ radars, because whether they want it or not, they bear a role, said Davis.

“If there is to be any long-term and costly diversion of American resources to support someone else’s unwinnable fight, the U.S. Congress must weigh in and the people of our country must have a chance to make their opinions known. But no matter what, it’s not up to the White House and Pentagon alone to decide what this country does and doesn’t support long term.”

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A federal appeals court in New Orleans can extend anti-discrimination law’s reach into the workplace in a case involving a religious challenge to a health-care company’s Covid-19 vaccine mandate.

The US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit will hear oral argument Monday in a bid by former workers at Caris Life Sciences Inc. and Caris MPI Inc. to block the company’s vaccination requirement. A district court in Texas denied the workers’ request for a preliminary injunction in 2021.

The workers rely on the Fifth Circuit’s February decision that allowed two United Airlines Inc. employees to seek a court order under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act to halt the airline’s Covid-19 shot policy, which put unvaccinated employees on unpaid leave.

The Fifth Circuit’s consideration of the Caris case gives it the chance to codify its groundbreaking decision in Sambrano v. United Airlines—which was unpublished, meaning it’s not binding precedent and applies only to the dispute at hand—by adopting its reasoning in a published opinion. The facts of the Caris case also open the door for the court to build on Sambrano to broaden when a worker can get a preliminary injunction to halt alleged discrimination.

“This case could show whether Sambrano was good for one ticket only or if it opened up a new world of remedies for Title VII,” said Sean Marotta, an appellate attorney at the management-side firm Hogan Lovells.

Sambrano identified an “extraordinary and rare” injury that can’t be fixed by winning money damages, reinstatement, or other remedies that come with prevailing on a Title VII claim. The United workers faced “ongoing coercion” to give up their religious beliefs and comply with company policy, which is an irreparable harm that justifies a preliminary injunction, the decision said.

Sambrano also permitted the United workers to seek immediate court relief even though they failed to exhaust their administrative remedies with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission or equivalent state agency. That’s typically required before workers sue under Title VII and other federal anti-discrimination laws.

The workers suing Caris don’t need to win for the Fifth Circuit to endorse Sambrano, said Sachin Pandya, a law professor at the University of Connecticut. The court could adopt that unpublished ruling’s reasoning in a published opinion, even if it decides the workers didn’t show they suffered an irreparable injury, he said.

No Employment Action

Sambrano describes Title VII coercion as a harm distinct from a firing, suspension, or other adverse employment action normally required for a Title VII claim. The court called it “antecedent to, independent from, and exogenous to any adverse employment action.”

That notion of coercion is similar to harassment or a hostile work environment for religious beliefs, said Orly Lobel, a law professor and director of the University of San Diego’s Center for Employment & Law Policy.

It’s also like a “dignitary harm,” said Angela Morrison, a law professor at Texas A&M University and former EEOC lawyer. Courts don’t recognize damage to a worker’s dignity as an actionable injury on its own, although the concept underlies compensatory damages for emotional distress and other non-economic harms, she said.

Yet it’s difficult to imagine a Sambrano-type coercion claim that centers on gender, race, or other characteristics protected by Title VII, Morrison said, such as a transgender worker who’s required to use a bathroom that doesn’t fit their gender identity, or a person required to cut their hair in conflict with their racial identity that would be actionable under a state CROWN Act.

“It seems like something that’s tailored for religious discrimination and only religious discrimination,” Morrison added.

The workers suing Caris appeared to emphasize the religious nature of their claim by making references in their opening brief to “the devil,” “sublime deception by the Prince of Darkness” and “the father of lies,” quoting from a 540-year-old book called “On Witchcraft,” and citing the Bible. They oppose getting inoculated against Covid-19 because they believe fetal tissue was used to make or test the vaccines.

‘Loss of One’s Soul’

The workers suing Caris drew a favorable three-judge panel to hear their religious coercion argument: Judges Edith Jones, a Reagan appointee, as well as James Ho and Cory Wilson, both Trump appointees.

Ho has vocally supported blocking United’s vaccine policy in Sambrano. He dissented from the Fifth Circuit’s 2021 decision denying an injunction pending appeal in the case, saying a person who gets the jab despite religious objections “will have to wrestle with self-doubt—questioning whether he has lived up to the calling of his faith.”

Ho doubled-down in an opinion concurring with the full Fifth Circuit’s Aug. 19 decision not to review Sambrano, calling its irreparable injury analysis a “relatively straightforward matter to defend.”

“To millions of people of faith—including the members of the Supreme Court—it’s painfully obvious that there’s no way to calculate damages to compensate for the loss of one’s soul,” he wrote.

Jones sat on the three-judge panel that temporarily blocked the Biden administration’s Covid-19 shot-or-test mandate in 2021. That panel characterized vaccine mandates as potentially infringing on the liberty of workers forced to choose between their “job(s) and their jab(s)”—a phrase echoed in the former Caris workers’ opening brief.

Leave v. Termination

The workers suing Caris were fired, while the United workers in Sambrano were put on unpaid leave.

The former Caris employees argue there’s “no difference” between unpaid leave and termination because the harm alleged is the employer coercing them to “compromise their religious beliefs.”

“Furthermore, once coerced into taking the vaccine, it cannot be undone,” the workers said. “No court order can remove the vaccine from his or her body or undo any spiritual, mental, or physical damages that results.”

But Sambrano dealt specifically with ongoing coercion to find irreparable harm, Caris noted in its brief. The decision made clear that alleging a past action likely wouldn’t meet Fifth Circuit standards for irreparable injury, the company said.

Courts regularly sign off on employers threatening termination and firing workers who refuse or can’t tolerate health and safety standards based on religious or health-based objections, Caris said.

Regardless, Sambrano is unpublished and has no precedential value, the company said.

Caris’ lawyer, Sherry Travers of Littler Mendelson PC, and the workers’ attorney, Joseph Lanza of Vethan Law Firm PC, didn’t respond to requests for comment on the case.

The case is Woodruff v. Caris MPI, 5th Cir., No. 21-11249, Oral argument 8/29/22.

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The shameless ethno-nationalist supremacy associated with his hateful remark will result in Africans doubling down on their anti-imperialist and Pan-Africanism activism since no self-respecting person would ever capitulate in the face of such blatantly racist pressure and thus voluntarily submit themselves to being dominated by their abuser.

French President Macron claimed during his latest trip to Algeria that “Many of the (information) networks that are covertly pushed (in Africa) – … by Turkey… by Russia… by China – have an enemy: France.” This was a supreme insult to all Africans’ intelligence since it channeled the discredited racist trope that they’re supposedly so stupid as to be easily manipulated by multipolar powers. Instead of acknowledging the genuinely grassroots and politically legitimate reasons why many Africans are actively rebelling against French influence in its self-proclaimed “sphere of influence” in so-called “Françafrique” like Turkiye’s Foreign Ministry suggested that he do, Macron chose to once again spew unsubstantiated smears similar in spirit to those malicious ones that it earlier made against Mali.

The reality is that the global systemic transition to multipolarity that unprecedentedly accelerated since the latest US-provoked phase of the Ukrainian Conflict has served to inspire the entire BRICS-led Global South to push back against the US-led West’s Golden Billion at this pivotal moment in the New Cold War between those two polar opposite models of socio-economic and political development. Moreover, many Africans felt emboldened to further intensify their efforts after President Putin unveiled his global revolutionary manifesto in late July that was followed shortly thereafter by Foreign Minister Lavrov pledging that Russia will help Africa fully complete its decolonization processes ahead of his successful trip to the continent.

“Africa’s Role In The New Cold War” is destined to be that of a major battleground between the Golden Billion and the Global South precisely because its people refuse to be subjugated any longer by the former after having ruthlessly been exploited by them for half a millennium. France, which is among the most powerful of the Golden Billion’s hegemons in Africa and even surpasses the US’ influence in some parts of the continent, isn’t even hiding its neo-colonial intentions anymore after Macron ripped off his mask and started insulting Africans’ intelligence in the extremely racist way that he just did. The so-called “battle for hearts and minds” has already been won by the Global South’s multipolar Great Powers like Russia and China, who are helping to liberate all African countries with no strings attached.

They’d never dare disrespect their partners, let alone in the crude way that Macron just did, especially because they themselves have been victimized by similar forms of verbal abuse. Africans are well aware not only of those two and others’ proud anti-colonial histories, but also of just how sincerely they respect all others in contrast to the behavior exemplified by Western leaders like the French one and his peers. Macron’s racist insult of all Africans’ intelligence isn’t just rude, but also suggests that the Golden Billion is done “playing nice” after having abandoned all pretenses of their faux “politeness” that they unconvincingly attempted to practice in the past. As Western “thought leaders” never tire of reminding everyone, “might makes right” in their eyes, hence why they’re now sowing chaos across Africa.

This isn’t speculation either but documented fact after Mali recently accused France of supporting those Al Qaeda-connected terrorists that declared war on its Russian partner in late June and then the joint US- and Egyptian-led but TPLF-driven Hybrid War of Terror on Ethiopia resumed shortly thereafter on the other side of the continent. In fact, that second-mentioned conflict that first went hot in November 2020 after years of multilateral planning can be seen in hindsight as the new template that the West and its regional vassals like Egypt are employing since it was hatched as punishment for Ethiopia’s principled neutrality in the New Cold War between the US-led West’s Golden Billion and the BRICS-led Global South. It therefore follows that similarly multipolar states like Mali and others will be punished too.

Macron made a major mistake though by letting his mask slip after spewing his racist innuendo about Africans supposedly lacking the intelligence to not be manipulated by foreign powers. The shameless ethno-nationalist supremacy associated with his hateful remark will result in Africans doubling down on their anti-imperialist and Pan-Africanism activism since no self-respecting person would ever capitulate in the face of such blatantly racist pressure and thus voluntarily submit themselves to being dominated by their abuser. Far from helping the Golden Billion’s hegemonic cause like his twisted mind imagined that his crude insult would supposedly do, the French leader’s public embrace of racist tropes against Africans will only serve to accelerate the decline of the US-led West’s hegemony over that continent.

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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 frequent contributor to Global Research.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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Neurosis to a greater or lesser degree is the norm in western industrialized societies. Drawing on this fact is the key to effective propaganda. It is well known that neurotics always return to the place they are running away from.  It’s a circle game of frustration in which being frustrated is actually the “solution,” because the real problems cannot be faced.  The Donald Trump phenomenon is an example of this on a social level.

Everybody knows that Trump is loved or hated in equal measure.  And everyone knows he dominates the minds of those who love or hate him, just as the media endlessly focuses on him in a way that only very obtuse people would fail to analyze.  The media made Trump and he is their gold mine and the key to the effective propaganda they run for their masters in high finance and the intelligence agencies.  Although his image seems big and bold and brazen, it is like an Impressionist painting that, as the art critic John Berger writes in “The Eyes of Claude Monet,” “… is painted in such a way that you are compelled to recognize that it is no longer there …. You cannot enter an Impressionist painting; instead it extracts your memories.  In a sense it is more active than you – the passive viewer is being born; what you receive is taken from what happens between you and it.  No more within it.”

Like Trump, the impression is fugitive, here and gone, vague and precise.  It’s meaning is fleeting.  Mutation and flux and the evanescence of appearances are its essence.  As with Trump, nothing is really clear, although many claim it is.  Monet was painting at a time (the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries) when, due to technological and economic changes, an old world was dissolving into the modern.  Jump a century or more and we have Trump and the electronic media where vagueness and flux rule perceptions.

Celebrity Culture

For Trump is a product of celebrity culture that has come to dominate our world that reminds you that the world of the past has become a reality television show and all the talk about the good old days is an illusion and that we are now living in a society where experience has been reduced to meaningless and ephemeral gestures. The politicians of all stripes play ghosts.

America will never be great again, for it is corrupted to the core and the mass media present it in images that have no bearing on reality. This is something neurotics cannot face, so they still follow the circle game played by the media and fight political battles that are exercises in frustration.  But it keeps them busy.  Like a sports fan whose favorite team has just lost a game or had a losing season, there is always tomorrow, next season, or the upcoming election.

Before Donald Trump emerged on the national scene with his 2015 announcement that he was running for the presidency, he was known as a wealthy real estate operator who had often declared bankruptcy and a comical reality-television host with a strange hairdo.  In short, he was a wealthy celebrity with huge mansions who cavorted with the rich and famous, including former President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton, among many others.

How such a billionaire celebrity could ever have become president and have such a large following among the white working class – the “deplorables” in Hillary Clinton’s elitist lingo – has its roots in the transformation of American culture from the late 1950s to today when illusion and performance have replaced any semblance of reality.

Boorstin, Postman, and Gabler

Daniel Boorstin described this transformation in its early days in his brilliant book, The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America (1962).  He dissected the radical change taking place whereby images and manufactured pseudo-events – “however planned, contrived, or distorted – have become more vivid, more attractive, more impressive, and more persuasive than reality itself.”  What I describe as neurotic circling, Boorstin called tautologies.  In this new theatrical world of mirrors, people imitate themselves by looking into the mirror of themselves imitating the famous people of all stripes: actors, politicians (excuse the repetition), celebrities, et al.  Boorstin writes:

Our very efforts to debunk celebrities, to prove (whether by critical journalistic biographies or by vulgar ‘confidential’ magazines) that they are unworthy of our admiration, are like efforts to get ‘behind the scenes’ in the making of other pseudo-events.  They are self-defeating.  They increase our interest in the fabrication …. The hat, the rabbit, and the magician are all equally news.

Thirty years after The Image, Neil Postman added to this critique by showing how the new computer technology was tyrannizing over all human values and ways of knowing.  In Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology, he showed how the ecology of technology, wherein “One significant change generates total change,” creates a totally new world where cultural and personal coherence become nearly impossible.  In a Technopoly where technology and technique rule over all life, any sense of truth dissolves like soap bubbles.  “That it why it is possible to say almost anything without contradiction provided you begin your utterance with the words ‘A study has shown … ‘or “Scientists now tell us that … ‘”  Scientism and gibberish blend with technological tricks to create an electronic digital society where, in Boorstin’s words, “the news behind the news” – or the creation of the illusions – becomes the most interesting news of all, even as its debunking is a tautology like the definition of a celebrity: Someone who is known for being known.

Finally, in 1998 Neal Gabler put the finishing touches on these developments with his book, Life: The Movie: How Entertainment Conquered Reality.  Drawing on Boorstin and Postman, he argued that in the United States life itself had become an ongoing movie in which the manipulation of reality and real life melodramas, the movies and the new information technologies, had melded into a cultural transformation so profound that it marked the end of traditional values and/or the start of a brave new world.  When fiction replaced facts and everything became entertainment in a technological kaleidoscope, “life itself was gradually becoming a medium all its own, like television, radio, print, and film, and that all of us were becoming at once performance artists in and audience for a grand, ongoing show…”  The traditional media turned from some semblance of reporting actual news to become conveyors of “lifies” (a predecessor of “selfies”) – a flood of entertainments taken from soap-operatic events hyped to the teeth – while theatrical techniques were applied  to politics, religion, war, etc., and everything became show business, including the presidency and the national sitcom of political reporting.

Political Theater and Propaganda

This is the context for Trump’s rise to prominence.  It makes clear that he is not an aberration but part of a long development that gave us the acting president Ronald Reagan and all the presidential performers who have followed.  One could say, if Trump never existed, he would have to be invented, which of course he has been, as was Bush, Clinton, Bush II, Obama, and Biden.  Is it surprising that the Ukrainian president Zelensky is a comedic television and movie actor?  Performers such as these follow their Director’s orders.

Furthermore, all these developments omit the crucial part played by government propaganda apparatuses in conjunction with the media and technology conglomerates.  The growth of such massive propaganda is entwined with all these cultural changes, although it is not the primary focus of the three books mentioned.  When all these threads are woven together, we arrive at our current situation  – a vast tapestry of lies.

There are various schools of thought on the Trump phenomenon, and most say more about the thinkers than their thoughts.  I am referring to Trump’s rise to prominence, his 2016 election, his presidency, and all that continues to transpire around him in 2022 and into the future.  (And although Trump will be an old man in 2024 – the same age that Biden is today – you can be assured he will be garnering the headlines then.)

Monet Paints Trump

These diverse impressions of what it all means fall into at least four categories, which I will sketch as I see them.

Trump supporters seemingly came out of nowhere in 2016, but this is false.  If anything, they have been smoldering for many decades and their complaints have been mounting for many good reasons. In 1969, Pete Hamill, the New York journalist, wrote an article for New York Magazine called “The Revolt of the White Lower Middle Class.”  He said:

They call my people the White Lower Middle Class these days.  It is an ugly, ice-cold phrase, the result, I suppose, of the missionary zeal of those sociologists who still think you can place human beings on charts. It most certainly does not sound like a description of people on the edge of open, sustained and possibly violent revolt. And yet, that is the case. All over New York tonight, in places like Inwood, South Brooklyn, Corona, East Flatbush, and Bay Ridge, men are standing around saloons talking of their grievances, and even more darkly about possible remedies. Their grievances are real and deep; their remedies could blow this city apart.

The White Lower Middle Class?  Say that magic phrase at a cocktail party on the Upper East Side of Manhattan and monstrous images arise from the American demonology. Here comes the murderous rabble: fat, well-fed, bigoted, ignorant, an army of beer-soaked Irishmen, violence-loving Italians, hate-filled Poles. Lithuanians and Hungarians (they are never referred to as Americans) …. Sometimes these brutes are referred to as ‘the ethnics’ or ‘the blue-collar’ types. But the bureaucratic, sociological phrase is White Lower Middle Class. Nobody calls it the Working Class anymore.

He went on to quote various white working-class New Yorkers, their quiet bitterness, their ignorant racism fueled by a media that emphasizes “the politics of theatre, its seeming inability to ever explain what is happening behind the photographed image,” which results in a superficial understanding of what is really behind their frustrated complaints that they too are victims of the system and are not respected.  In an article ostensibly about New Yorkers, Hamill explained where such anger came from, not to justify misdirected racism or ignorance of how things actually work in this country.  Update his account, and you have a good portion of Trump’s followers today. His description is just as apt today: “The working-class white man is actually in revolt against taxes, joyless work, the double standards and short memories of professional politicians, hypocrisy and what he considers the debasement of the American dream.”

The perplexing thing, only explained by the rise of celebrity culture, the Internet, and the dumbing-down of the general public, is how Trump, a billionaire reality-TV buffoon could garner their devoted allegiance.  A man so different from them, many of whom come from states with large rural populations and Trump a quintessential New Yorker who probably never got his hands in the earth.  Of course he said many of the things they were desperate to hear about making the U.S.A. great again, no foreign entanglements, etc., many appealing things after they spent so many years hearing the politicians talk the same jive talk about invading this country and that and fighting Russia to the death. His message appealed to many. They bought his spiel as if he would save them; a claim that all politicians use, but he was touching the suppressed underbelly of the American delusion.  An upper class politician talking about, among others things, class matters.

Then there is the liberal counterpoint to Trump, which is essentially the Democratic Party’s interpretation that Trump represents a shocking neo-fascist resurrection of the historically racist, isolationist strain in American history. This position is ironically consonant with the extremist 1950s claims of Senator Joseph McCarthy and his ilk – Nixon and Trump’s lawyer friend Roy Cohn, who represented McCarthy – who claimed there were communists under every bed and the Russians (U.S.S.R.) were coming to seize our liberties.  The accusations against Trump, being led by The New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, etc., are that he is a Russian-connected operative, a stooge, and that he is intent on undermining American democracy and establishing an American totalitarianism; that he stole the 2016 election with the help of Russia; and that he always has been in cahoots with Vladimir Putin.  The liberals who hold this assessment of Trump, what some critics call “Trump derangement syndrome,” are as devoted to their assessments as are Trump’s supporters.  Both groups look to Trump as an angel or devil; he transfixes both in equal measure.

Aside from those who see Trump as a savior or Satan, there are various other opinions of him that cross ideological divides.  Most are equivocal, at best.  Some leftists admire him for his less belligerent stance toward Russia and understand the totally debunked Russia-gate accusations against him and the impeachment proceedings as confirmation of his sincerity, although they do not endorse some of his other positions.  Others view him as the personification of the rise of neo-fascist, far-right Christian fundamentalism, while also seeing Biden and the Democrats as perfidious fools leading the country to disaster.  Some conservatives like aspects of his agenda, as do a small number of libertarians, but they remain very wary. There are many variations on these opinions with most falling somewhere between a rock and a hard place.  A sort of pox on both contestants in the electoral game, but most are based on the presupposition that the show must go on, even as both sides claim electoral fraud when their side loses.  This is the frame within which impressions of Trump and his opponents are formed.

Rarely is it considered – and this is the take of a tiny minority – that with the rise of celebrity culture, pseudo-events, image-making, and the vast, sophisticated, electronic, intelligence, propaganda apparatus, that Donald Trump is not the impressions he gives off but a creation of hidden forces manipulating reality to an unimaginable extent.  That Trump is not the arch-enemy of Biden or Clinton or any Democrat, but that he is a partner in a great game of deception in which the good guys and bad guys play their parts for the Great Director.  It is worth remembering what Barbara Honegger, who was present in the West Wing of the White House in February 1981, overheard that day:

We’ll know our disinformation is complete when everything the American public believes is false.  – William J. Casey, CIA Director

It is also worth considering a different version of the point the psychologist James Hillman and the writer Michael Ventura raised with their book We’ve Had a Hundred Years of Psychotherapy and the World’s Getting Worse.  People might ask themselves if over the past fifty or five years their lives have gotten better or worse under all the American presidents, including Biden and Trump.  The answer is obvious. Therefore, maybe it is time to imagine the most extreme possibility: That Casey’s statement has come to fruition.

It is not just painters and comedians who do impressions.

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

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

Featured image is by Gage Skidmore

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

To order his book, click the cover page.

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

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

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

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Today, Friday 26 August 2022, Julian Assange filed his Perfected Grounds of Appeal before the High Court of Justice Administrative Court. The Respondents are the Government of the United States and the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Priti Patel.

The Perfected Grounds of Appeal contain the arguments on which Julian Assange intends to challenge District Judge Vanessa Baraitser’s decision of 4 January 2021, and introduces significant new evidence that has developed since that ruling.

The Perfected Grounds of Appeal concerning the United States Government include the following points:

• Julian Assange is being prosecuted and punished for his political opinions (s.81(a) of the Extradition Act);
• Julian Assange is being prosecuted for protected speech (Article 10)
• The request itself violates the US-UK Extradition Treaty and International law because it is for political offences;
• The US Government has misrepresented the core facts of the case to the British courts; and
• The extradition request and its surrounding circumstances constitute an abuse of process.

The Perfected Grounds of Appeal concerning the Secretary of State for the Home Department (SSHD) include arguments that Home Secretary Priti Patel erred in her decision to approve the extradition order on grounds of specialty and because the request itself violates Article 4 of the US-UK Extradition Treaty.

Background

4 January 2021: Westminster Magistrates Court discharges (throws out) the US extradition request against Julian Assange. District judge Vanessa Baraitser rules that extradition is barred under the 2003 Extradition Act because it is “oppressive” (s.91). The United States Government appeals.

27-28 October 2021: US appeal hearing before the High Court Appeal. Julian Assange suffers a transient ischemic attack (TIA) on the first day.

10 December 2021: The decision to discharge the extradition request is overturned by the High Court due to the United States Government issuing so-called ‘diplomatic assurances’ to the UK Government. The High Court rejects the United States Government’s arguments that the district judge erred in her findings.

14 March 2022: The Supreme Court refuses Julian Assange permission to appeal the High Court’s decision. The case is sent back to the Magistrates’ Court with instruction to issue the extradition order.

20 April 2022: The Magistrate issues the extradition order, which is sent to Home Secretary Priti Patel for approval.

17 June 2022: Home Secretary Priti Patel approves the extradition order to extradite Julian Assange to the United States.

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China has deployed two huge drones to seed clouds in the southwestern province of Sichuan where a historic drought has affected hydropower production.

The move comes amid a record heatwave that has engulfed swathes of China, covering almost half of the country, according to its National Climate Center. The situation is particularly pronounced in Sichuan, a major hydropower producer that supplies cities like Jiangsu and Shanghai, which are more than 1,000 miles away.

To improve the situation, the two drones deployed on Thursday will eventually cover an area in Sichuan spanning 2,317 square miles, according to state-owned CCTV. The cloud seeding operation will be carried out until Monday.

Communist Party-owned People’s Daily also reported the news.

China on Thursday used its self-developed Wing Loong-2H UAV to assist fight against drought in SW China’s Sichuan. The drone ignited 20 silver iodide flame bars during its 4-hour flight to create "artificial rain" for the drought-hit region. pic.twitter.com/BhMkuWm0GW

— People's Daily, China (@PDChina) August 26, 2022

The extreme weather, which has persisted for over 70 days, is starting to weigh on China’s industrial activity and economic growth.

Since the start of August, hydropower plants in Sichuan have been operating below 50% of their regular capacity, China’s Caixin media outlet reported on Tuesday. This has led to power cuts in Sichuan, leading auto giant Toyota and Apple supplier Foxconn to suspend operations.

The dry weather has also damaged crops and could hurt the fall harvest, thus sending China to compete for exports from the international markets and driving up already high food prices.

Even though the drought appears severe, it’s still better than last year, when power cuts were more widespread, noted ING’s chief economist for Greater China, Iris Pang.

“We have yet to see factory suspension in key cities, which is a relief to the government as the economy is already weak,” Pang wrote in a Thursday note, estimating the power shortage to have impacted around 1% of China’s GDP so far.

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Featured image: Dusk on Chang Jiang (Yangtze) Licensed under CC BY 2.0

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An unusual story surfaced in Alberta, Canada, last month which is just now starting to gain traction around the world. Canadian doctors and a civil liberties lawyer in the Canadian province of Alberta are raising concerns about a growing trend of deaths labeled as “unknown causes” after an unprecedented increase in such deaths was recorded in 2021.

This new category on autopsy reports and death records now tops ‘Covid-19,’ which was added to Alberta’s death tally in 2020. A study looking at excess deaths in Alberta was quietly released in March in the International Journal of Infectious Diseases

That study found the “Top 10 Causes of Death in 2021” by the Government of Alberta were as follows:

1. ill-defined and unknown causes (3,362)
2. Dementia (2,135)
3. Covid-19 (1,950)
4. Chronic ischemic heart disease (1,939)
5. Malignant neoplasms of trachea, bronchus, and lung (1,552)
6. Acute myocardial infarction (1,075)
7. Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease ( 1,028)
8. Diabetes mellitus (728)
9. Stroke (612)
10. Accidental poisoning by and exposure to drugs and other substances (604)

The unknown causes of death category began appearing on the list in 2019. There is no record of it appearing before that year which is most odd. “I think it’s probably multifactorial, so there are probably many things playing into that,” said Dr. Daniel Gregson, an associate professor in the Cumming School of Medicine at the University of Calgary. He specializes in infectious diseases and microbiology.

Dr. Gregson believes those factors include a lack of resources to determine the cause of death in certain cases, delayed access to healthcare services, and post-Covid-19 complications.

“We have this impression of surviving Covid, and that’s the end of it, and that’s not necessarily true,” Dr. Gregson told CTV News.

Dr. Gregson noted a large study out of the U.S. which found that people with Covid-19 are at a higher risk of heart disease, stroke, pulmonary embolism, and death than those who were not infected.

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Palestine – the shocking myth of a ‘land with no people for a people with no land!’ In fact, now a land occupied by 8m foreign migrants from Russia, France, America, North Africa, Iran & Yemen whilst 4m indigenous Muslim Arabs are trapped in their own country encircled by a 9m high wall built by the invaders and/or subject to a 15 year economic blockade.

The unproven story of the exodus of the inhabitants of a Hebrew settlement around Jerusalem possibly 3,500 years ago needs to be taken in context. At that time the Aboriginal tribes of Australia, for instance, had been in existence already for many thousands of years. They are now a small minority. The indigenous peoples of Florida lived in what is now known as the State of Florida for more than thousands of years before the time of first contact with Europeans. There are still wandering around Africa the various, so called ‘Lost Tribes of Israel”

There have been many ancient tribes and peoples, all with their own history, stories, myths, traditions and culture. But in only one instance, has one of these ancient tribes been successful in reclaiming their ancient land and ejecting and violently dispossessing those people who followed them – often many thousands of years subsequently.

How did they manage such an apparently outrageous act that denied natural justice and the rights of man? The answer is complex but lies within the historiography, stories and fables handed down from generation to generation and enhanced or corrupted with the passing of generations. 3,500 years ago, in Palestine, there were numerous peoples and tribes, each with their own beliefs, culture and ceremony by which they communicated with their various gods and/or idols. Each people tried to enhance their land holdings and assets by killing those of other tribes – all competing for advantage in a simple but violent world where land and food were the only criteria for prolonging life.

From 3,500 BCE to the time of the Christian era, there were many, many peoples who either invaded or lived in Palestine, they included among others: Nomads, Palestinians, Canaanites, Egyptians, Philistines, Israelites, Assyrians, Benjamites, Judeans, Hellenes, Babylonians, Persians, Byzantines, Maccabeans, Hasmoneans and, of course, the Romans – although not necessarily a complete list or in that chronological order. Palestine was a lawless, violent, bellicose land – each tribe, and each family, vying for superiority by war and internecine conflict. Murder and sexual violence were commonplace. It was not a place of moral behaviour or justice as we understand it – more a place and a time of the survival of the strongest. For most, it was a short, brutal life of perhaps four or five decades long, although some did survive to the biblical age of three score years and ten. But not many.

Food and sex, tribe, culture and family being the dominate forces of life. Violence, land and strength were everything. But all that gradually changed with the coming of the Christian Era, followed by the Muslim faith, seven centuries later. By this time, the various tribes of Judah had been dispersed. That was maybe over 2000 years ago. How then, was it possible for the claimed descendants of just one of those many itinerant people/tribes of Palestine, in the 20th Century, to suddenly decide they wanted to return to the land of their – and many other, ancestors, and to eject and dispossess the now existing indigenous people?

The answer seems to be that there is a claim that the land of Palestine was given to the tribe of Judah, to have and to hold in perpetuity. Such was a gift by a benevolent, biblical God. Why? Nobody knows! No one else was given a hunk of land in Palestine or indeed anywhere else. This seems to have been a one-off gift for reasons unknown. Of course, there is no proof whatsoever that God made any such gift. But it’s a very convenient story if you have no title deeds.

Perhaps I could claim ownership of Hyde Park, in London, because it was given to me. The price? No price – it’s a gift, in perpetuity. Enjoy! Mazeltov!

Prince Charles and the Royals? Oh, put them in Osbourne House, they’ll like it there!

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Featured image: A sign stating ‘Danger, demolition. Entry is prohibited’ was placed by Israeli authorities on top of the rubble of the Khalialehs’ houses (MEE\Sondus Ewies)

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Shell has paid no tax whatsoever on its British oil and gas production last year – instead it received £100 million from the taxpayer. This was revealed in a report published by the company last week.

The response from Kerry McCarthy, the Labour party shadow minister for climate change, was fierce. “Oil and gas giants,” she fumed, “have been paid huge amounts from the public purse under the uniquely generous tax regime the Tories have created for them.”

She’s right. This is a scandal of British government. The Tory Party is deeply complicit with fossil-fuel interests, and many ministerial snouts have been seen in oil-industrial troughs. At first sight, McCarthy’s accusation seemed a slam dunk.

Consumption

But then Shell responded. The “tax relief framework” which they so lavishly enjoy had been installed by “Conservative and Labour governments, to provide the oil and gas industry with long-term investment clarity.” McCarthy herself acted as enforcer – assistant whip – for the most recent of those Labour governments.

We should ask, then: has Labour indeed undergone a genuine conversion? Will our grandchildren recount tales of Sir Keir who waged brave battle against the gas giants who had impoverished the common folk and spread flood and drought across the lands? Or will Labour continue to kowtow, in the tradition of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown?

The most neglected – but for the planetary future most significant  – fact about the Blair-Brown governments of 1997-2010 is that they increased the share of fossil fuels in Britain’s energy mix.

Energy consumption by source can be measured in different ways. The Our World in Data research team based at Oxford University draw on two data sets.

In one, the share of fossil fuels in Britain’s energy consumption was 88.59 percent in 1997 rising to 89.69 percent in 2010. In the other, the share was 88.75 percent in 1997 and 90.68 percent in 2010. Either way, fossil fuels grew as a proportion of energy use.

Unprofitable

This was no accident. The Blair-Brown governments made little attempt to boost renewables. They slashed grants for household solar and wind installation and sought to water down the renewables targets being drawn up by the European Commission.

Even the Confederation of British Industry, the business leaders’ organisation, attacked the Brown government for its footdragging on emissions reduction.

The upshot: Britain remained hooked on fossil fuels, with all the consequences in terms of cost and poverty, air pollution, and global heating.

It was inexcusable. Knowledge of climate change and even the potential for feedback-fuelled runaway warming were widely understood from around 1985, and certainly from 1992. We knew back then what horrors would lie ahead if governments fail to take radical action.

While the Blair-Brown government did impose windfall taxes on North Sea oil and gas, in the same moment they raised the amount that the companies could claim in tax relief on development capital expenditure from a quarter to 100 percent, and they abolished royalties on North Sea oil to encourage drilling in otherwise unprofitable fields.

Political

They dished out colossal subsidies to the oil and gas industries—higher than in the other European states—and to the coal firms too.

On climate change, the talk was of partnership with the oil industry but the government danced to its tunes. A notable example was Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS).

Brown and his energy and climate change secretary Ed Miliband lapped up the idea that CCS was viable, even though it is far more expensive and polluting than renewables. In 2006 Brown promised that government would help its oil industry partners establish CCS projects along the North Sea coast. These would “reduce emissions from gas and coal power stations by up to 90 percent.” It never happened.

On home insulation, Brown’s government considered a windfall tax on the oil and gas companies to fund home insulation. The idea was supported by two-thirds of the population, but, after meeting with energy company executives, Brown ruled it out.

Labour’s boosterism for oil and gas was not just on the production side, but consumption too. Overseeing soaring costs in public transport (see graph), they ensured a growing dependence on private cars.

In air travel we saw a similar story. From 1997 to 2006 passenger numbers rose by over five per cent on average every year. Again, this was politically driven.

Rivals

Such was the collusion between the Blair-Brown governments and the aviation industry that in 2009, following government approval of Heathrow expansion, MPs demanded a Commons investigation into the “revolving door” between government and the Heathrow operator BAA. A “huge number of people in government,” noted one MP, are “connected with BAA.”

The revolving door to the aviation lobby extended beyond BAA and Heathrow. Kerry McCarthy herself, prior to joining the Brown government, was a director of Luton Airport.

But the best-known—indeed, notorious—revolving door was with the oil industry. Although the Tory-oil nexus is stronger still, Labour under Blair was a devoted accomplice.

Blair was a personal chum of the BP director John Browne, whom he ennobled, together with former BP chairman David Simon. So many BP executives were drafted onto government committees during his terms in office that rivals referred to the firm as Blair Petroleum.

Projection

It was in part to serve BP and Shell that Blair and Brown sent British forces to invade Iraq, and Blair personally cashed in on the invasion through payments from a firm that was awarded oil concessions in Iraqi Kurdistan.

Brown, for his part, affects to distract from his blood-stained hands with sermonising – including over the Ukraine war. Given that Russia’s invasion is in every salient respect comparable to Britain’s of Iraq, including the role of fossil fuels in its motivation, that Brown is now calling for Vladimir Putin to be arraigned before an international tribunal is the very definition of neurotic projection.

Neoliberal

To return to our opening question: has Labour under Starmer sought to break with this past? On the contrary, the project is to reaffirm it.

Labour, says Starmer, should be very proud of Blair’s record in government. His own campaign for the leadership was funded by motor industry chiefs. He champions CCS, a technology with no discernible purpose other than to funnel funds to oil companies and delay the transition from fossil fuels.

He has discarded the Corbynite commitment to a Green New Deal as well as Corbyn-era and TUC-backed plans to nationalise parts of the energy industry. And he called for draconian action against climate activists from the Just Stop Oil campaign group. All this is music to the oil and gas giants’ ears.

Starmer regards his plan to levy a windfall tax on the North Sea industries as “radical, bold and ambitious.” It is nothing of the sort. His playbook is that of Blair and Brown: an occasional windfall tax but rule out any nationalisation.

Windfall taxes on North Sea oil were imposed by Margaret Thatcher too. For her, as for Blair and Brown, they represented a wrinkle within what was, overall, a neoliberal and extremely hydrocarbon-friendly fiscal regime.

This is the model Starmer is following today. Sir Starmer will not stand up to the oil and gas giants: that war is for others to wage.

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Gareth Dale teaches politics at Brunel University, and many of his articles appear on its website. He tweets at @Gareth_Dale.

Featured image: Starmer as Director of Public Prosecutions speaking at Chatham House in 2013 (By Chatham House, licensed under CC BY 2.0)

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What is the chain of command that planned and implemented the attack against Dugin and his daughter Daria, the US Los Angeles Times indirectly reveals: “Since 2015, the CIA has been training Ukrainian intelligence agents in a secret facility in the United States”. Already in December 2021, in Grandangolo journalist Daria Platonova reported: “The security services announced that they had identified 106 Ukrainian agents who were preparing attacks and massacres in 37 regions of Russia. In addition to the constant tension on the political and media level, today we also have to deal with actions of terrorist groups in our country, fortunately, neutralized in time.” In this background, it remains an unanswered question on how it was possible that Daria’s car, on which the remote-controlled bomb has been installed, remained in an unattended parking lot with non-functioning cameras until  evening.

Maya Nogradi (Wide Angle director, and editor)  shares an exciting testimony with us about her friend Daria. What emerges is the figure of a young journalist and geopolitical analyst who played an increasingly significant role both in Russia and on the international stage. These and other elements deduced that Daria was not simply the victim of an attack directed against her father, but also the primary target of the attack.

In June Grandangolo  this year, in a report on  St. Petersburg International Economic Forum she summarized its meaning as follows:

“The de-dollarization process involves the whole world. The United States and its European satellites will inevitably lose the global hybrid war they have unleashed”.

This is why the Italian and international mainstream accused her of “hatred of the West”. 

Daria was one of the main voices of that multipolar world that the West considers a threat to its dominance and fights by all means. This is the root cause of the disastrous crisis that is hitting Europe following the unprecedented increase in the price of gas due to the speculative mechanisms of big finance.

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This article was originally published on byoblu.

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

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On 27 October 2021, China’s Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN Geng Shuang made an unexpected statement about Turkey and its role in Syria at a UN Security Council Briefing on Syria.

Shuang blamed Turkey for “illegally invading northeastern Syria” and “cutting off the water supply service from the Alouk water station” which is located in Al-Hasakah and is a critical water source for nearly 600,000 residents.

Shuang’s accusation mirrored what the Syrian government has been complaining about for decades, and some Kurdish groups in recent years. The water source disputes between Turkey on the one hand, and Syria, Iraq (and more recently Iran) on the other, have been one of the most pressing security problems in this part of West Asia.

A history of dispute

In 1923, Allied powers and the newly-established Republic of Turkey signed the Lausanne Peace Treaty. Included in the Treaty is a clause on the Euphrates and Kuveyk Rivers and a provision that Turkey must consult neighboring Iraq before undertaking any hydraulic works.

However, the problem arose with the Turkish Keban Dam project in 1964. As a result of the hydroelectric dam’s construction – the first major one to be built on the Euphrates – both Iraq and Syria raised concerns about the river’s water levels diminishing.

Later, in 1976, three countries cut a deal on the Karakaya Dam project, and Turkey agreed to release 500 cubic meters per second of water from the Euphrates. But during the 1990s, Iraq and Syria claimed that this volume was not sufficient and asked Turkey to raise the water volume to 700 cubic meter per second.

The Turkish mega irrigation and hydraulic energy project, Southeastern Anatolia Project (Turkish acronym, GAP), is still plaguing both countries. Turkey began the project in the 1970s with 19 hydraulic power plants (14 of them on the Euphrates), and in the 1990s it transformed into a largely political project, affecting the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and Syria.

In 1990, for a whole month, Turkey held back the waters of the Euphrates to fill the Atatürk Dam. Baghdad and Damascus reacted sharply to the action, accusing Ankara for using the water of the Euphrates for political purposes.

Turkey’s position on the Euphrates and the Tigris is that these rivers are “transboundary,” meaning that they are rivers that cross at least one political border. Therefore, Ankara sees the two rivers as a uniform basin and part of its sovereignty.

Iraq and Syria, on the other hand, view the two rivers as “international” and separate entities. Seeking a diplomatic solution, Turkey tried to alleviate the political backlash in the 1980s by establishing joint committees with Iraq and Syria to deal with the issue.

Weaponization of water

Turkey consistently rejects the claim that it has been using the water sources as a political weapon. However, there are some gaping holes in this narrative.

After a joint security agreement with Syria, former Turkish Foreign Minister Hikmet Çetin insisted that Turkey’s commitments were conditional on Syria’s loyalty to the agreement.

In 1987, then-President Turgut Ozal threatened Damascus with severing access to the Euphrates if the latter continued to support the PKK, which Ankara, along with the US and the EU, consider a terrorist organization.

In one case, the absurdity prevailed. Adopting the legal doctrine of absolute territorial sovereignty, the then-Turkish President, Süleyman Demirel declared that “Turkey’s resources are Turkey’s. The oil resources are theirs (Arabs’). We do not say we share their oil resources; and they cannot say they share our water resources.”

More than just water

According to a 2002 report by a fact-finding mission for Turkey’s Ilisu Dam, contrary to Turkish claims that it was providing 500 cubic meter per second of water to its neighbors, Jarablus River’s water flow decreased to around 300 cubic meter per second.

Although Turkey rejects the claim that it controls the waters of the Euphrates and the Tigris at the expense of Iraq and Syria, the problem between the riparian states doesn’t just concern water levels and access.

Disposal of industrial and municipal waste into the rivers is one of the main complaints of downstream nations such as Iraq and Syria. Salinity in both the Euphrates and the Tigris has significantly increased in the 2000s.

According to a 2013 UN report, total dissolved solids (TDS) was about 300 parts per million (ppm) at Atatürk Dam on the Euphrates, and it increased to 600 ppm at the Syrian–Iraqi borders – much higher than the recommended TDS concentration for irrigation use.

After the Syrian War

Today, Syrian water sources can be divided along three areas of control: under the Syrian government, Turkish-backed jihadist factions, and the US-backed “autonomous government.”

In May 2014, Ankara began to gradually reduce the flow of Euphrates water over six days. The result was a reduction of 1.6 billion cubic meters in Lake Assad and the nearby hydroelectric power station, cutting back on its operation of eight turbines down to three.

Turkish academic Ozkan Gokcan has pointed out that the UN, the Syrian government, and the Kurdish factions have blamed Turkey for holding back the waters of the Euphrates. According to Gokcan, one aspect of decreasing water levels is related to soaring temperatures.

However, he thinks that the water problem is clearly also a political tool in Turkey’s hands. “An important milestone in this regard was the SDF’s control of the Teshrin Dam in 2015. The taking of Teshrin Dam has a symbolic meaning,” he claims, due to the Kurdish-led Syrian Defense Force’s (SDF) success on the western bank of the Euphrates. Turkey for its part drew a “red line” on the SDF’s ability to cross the western bank of the Euphrates.

Lebanese researcher Mohamad Hasan Sweidan says that Turkey has geopolitical goals in Syria and is trying to control the cities that border the two states. “Weakening the Syrian government is one of the main goals of Turkey in Syria, and Syria is dependent on the Euphrates for irrigation and potable water,” Sweidan argues.

Sweidan suggests another reason: “Today, Turkey is a rising power in the region, which makes it in constant need to consolidate its economic, military and demographic position. This creates a growing need to enhance the infrastructure and sustainable energy supply in the country, in order to serve its growing economy and population.”

Israeli interests

 On 4 March, 2004, Israel and Turkey signed an agreement whereby Turkey would sell the water of the Manavgat River to Israel. Welcoming the development, Israel’s then Undersecretary at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Yoav Biran said “This is not just an economic deal. It has strategic, political and diplomatic significance. For the first time, a country sells water to another country.” The sale of Turkish water to Israel, however, failed.

Irrigation and water sources are key security elements for the Zionist ideology. The Zionist delegation to the post-WWI Versailles peace conference (1919-1920) lobbied in favor of including the entire watershed of the Jordan and Yarmouk rivers within the borders of the proposed national home for Jews in Palestine. The Zionist leaders also demanded the lower section of the Litani River in southern Lebanon.

As agriculture and the control of watercourses are critical for the survival of the state of Israel, water and politics inevitably merged with geopolitics. Equally, controlling the water sources as an occupying entity is critical for Israel.

Former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon once claimed that the Six-Day War did not start in 1967, but began two and a half years earlier, when Israel made a decision to act against the diversion of the Jordan River (after the Arab League initiated The Headwater Diversion Plan).

The recent improvement in diplomatic ties between Israel and Turkey gives rise to their possible joint efforts to ensure Syria remains a weak state, deprived of basic resources.

According to Sweidan, Turkish and Israeli interests converge in Syria. “Although no material evidence is found on the collusion between the two parties, taking a look at the history of the relation between Israel and Turkey, their ambitions and goals in the region, and their interests in Syria and its resources, one can suggest their [logical] collusion,” he claims.

Gokcan agrees that while tangible evidence of collusion between Israel and Turkey on water issues falls short, “when we look at the current situation, Turkey and Israel already have a say in the water sources that feed the Syrian lands by reducing the waters of the Euphrates and by keeping the Golan Heights under occupation.”

“Therefore, the collusion is not something hidden,” he adds.

Water as a pillar of national security

Other than the economy, the most heated domestic issue in Turkey is the refugee question. Both the government and the opposition now openly discuss the repatriation of Syrian refugees back to their country.

But it seems that natural causes such as drought, and Turkey’s water policy, complicate the issue.

According to a report by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, “since April/May 2021, the humanitarian situation in northeastern Aleppo as well as Deir Ezzor, Al-Hasakah and Al-Raqqa Governorates has deteriorated further due to significantly reduced water availability and access.”

Water sources have become a lifeline for national integrity, too. A potential Turkish military operation in the Tal Rifaat region could critically impact the supply of water Aleppo, Syria’s largest industrial city. Turkish officials claim that capturing Tal Rifaat would facilitate the return of the Syrian refugees.

Gokcan stresses that the water sources are national security assets in West Asia: “It is quite possible that there will be more water-related tensions and conflicts between Middle Eastern states in the near term”.

As Turkey’s ambitious goals towards the region and water scarcity continue, we are likely to see more conflicts – and even wars – emerge over water sources.

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The news that made the headline today is that the Biden Administration may have inched closer to restarting the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran. Meanwhile, it escaped attention that Iran’s oil minister Javad Owji said just a day earlier in Tehran following a meeting with Igor Levitin, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s senior aide, that the two countries have finalised their talks on “gas purchase and swap” and a contract is going to be signed in Moscow. 

Owji disclosed that Iran and Russia are negotiating a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for developing another 14 Iranian oil and gas fields in addition to the seven for which contracts already exist as decided in July in an earlier MoU, according to which Russia agreed to invest $40 billion in Iran’s petroleum industry. The highlights of the July MoU included the development of Iran’s Kish and North Pars gas fields and six oil fields and completion of LNG projects — and, importantly, swap of gas and petroleum products, and construction of gas transfer pipelines. 

Owji added that the Iran-Russia joint economic commission will meet in Moscow within the next two months to continue their discussions on the expansion of cooperation in the energy, transport, trade, amongst other areas. 

A western narrative has gained ground that  Russia opposes the Iran-US nuclear deal, since Iran will be replacing Russian oil in the lucrative European market and in the process drive down the high oil price too by flooding the world market with its increased up oil production, which would erode Moscow’s income out of oil exports, the mainstay of its economy. 

In reality, though, there is no contradiction here as far as Iran and Russia are concerned. The expert opinion uniformly is that this is far from a situation that Iran completely replaces Russian oil from the global energy market. Conceivably, Iran could add as much as 900,000 barrels a day of production within three months of sanctions being eased, and potentially pump near its full capacity of about 3.7 million barrels per day within six months. 

According to Goldman Sachs, even if a deal were agreed, Iran would take around 12 months to fully ramp up its oil production. The bank also estimates Iran would increase its output to 3.7 million barrels a day, but exports would likely take several months to pick up. At best, Iran’s return to the market will have a temporary effect in the near term, because a part of Iran’s oil is already available in the market. 

Hidden charms of oil swap

There are three key factors playing out here. First, expectations need to be tempered, considering that the understanding between Russia and Iran is at an all-time high level today and it is hard to see Tehran challenging Russia’s core interests in the current geopolitical conditions — leave alone,  collaborating with a western enterprise.        

Iran understands that any significant improvement in its relations with Europe or the US will be a long haul, while on the other hand, the shelf life of a nuclear deal may turn out to be limited, since all bets are off in US politics beyond 2024. For European energy market too, the present time is a period of transition to green energy. 

Given these parameters, Iran is rapidly stepping up its economic cooperation with Russia, with energy and transportation being two main hubs. Iran announced on Tuesday that the rial-ruble payment system has begun working and is being handled by the Russian Central Bank’s Mir system. Last month, Tehran Stock Exchange launched rial-ruble trading. The strategic intention, clearly, is to bypass the US-dominant global financial system. 

Secondly, there is a strong possibility that Iran could step up oil exports to Europe via a “swap” mechanism with Russia. A swap arrangement is quite viable whereby Russian oil meets the needs of Iran’s northern Caspian regions while Iran exports (on Russia’s behalf) the surplus oil freed from meeting its internal demands. Russian and Iranian officials have been fleshing out the idea of a “swap” arrangement. 

Now, since their payment system is out of the SWIFT and dollar trade, outsiders will be left guessing about any Russian-Iranian swap deal. The EU is in no position to spurn Iranian oil. Again, Iranian oil present on the market today is almost all in the form of mixtures, which are often transported by tankers of other states. 

Third, Iran has a convergence of interests with Russia (and with Saudi Arabia) as regards the prices in the global market. It is a matter of time before Iran joins the OPEC+ (the oil alliance between Saudi Arabia and Russia at its core) in some form.  

Saudi Arabia, is increasingly more aligned with Russia than with the US on the global stage. And both need higher oil prices. The Saudi Oil Minister Prince Abulaziz bin Salman recently spoke of the “self-perpetuating vicious cycle of very thin liquidity and extreme price volatility” in oil markets, and how it has been “amplified by the flow of unsubstantiated stories about demand destruction, recurring news about the return of large volumes of supply, and ambiguity and uncertainty about the potential impacts of price caps, embargoes, and sanctions.” 

The Saudi Prince was alluding to the Biden Administration’s rampant intervention in oil markets. From the Saudi perspective, President Biden’s climate-first policies have thwarted upstream investment since he took office in early 2020. 

The butterfly effect 

The Saudi Prince’s remarks were even more telling when he was asked by Bloomberg about the future of OPEC+. He stated in a written reply: 

“In OPEC+ we have experienced a much more challenging environment in the past and we have emerged stronger and more cohesive than ever. OPEC+ has the commitment, the flexibility, and the means within the existing mechanisms of the Declaration of Cooperation to deal with such challenges and provide guidance including cutting production at any time and in different forms as has been clearly and repeatedly demonstrated in 2020 and 2021.

“Soon we will start working on a new agreement beyond 2022 which will build on our previous experiences, achievements, and successes. We are determined to make the new agreement more effective than before. Witnessing this recent harmful volatility disturb the basic functions of the market and undermine the stability of oil markets will only strengthen our resolve.” 

Plainly put, Riyadh, a key regulator of the global oil market, plans to maintain or even increase the restrictions on the production and total supply of oil for the world market and to this end, will work towards a new OPEC+ agreement, which limits production in the participating countries. 

The implications are: one, Russia can consider its revenues from oil exports relatively protected for the conceivable future; and, two, if a new OPEC+ agreement is worked out to make it “more effective than before,” Iran in all likelihood have to be brought on board. From Iran’s viewpoint also, it will be desirable to become part of the OPEC+ cartel with Russia and Saudi Arabia.

Fundamentally, Saudis understand that the ousting of Russia from the Asian markets may not take place, given the positions of China and India. That is, any increase in the presence of Gulf oil in Europe will happen by itself as Russian supplies turn to the east — and therefore, there is no reason to ruin the OPEC+ with Russia. Oil Minister Prince Abulaziz bin Salman has made this very clear. 

Therefore, a significant decline in world prices due to the growth of production in Iran should not be expected. Both Saudi Arabia and Iran primarily care about the welfare of their states, therefore, their position will be formulated in such a way that the current prices are comfortable and their companies keep increasing quarterly profits. 

The OPEC+ was the brainwave of President Vladimir Putin and then Saudi Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Sultan on a Sunday in Hangzhou, China, six years ago. (See my article Pay heed to the butterfly effect of Putin-Salman oil deal in Hangzhou, Asia Times, September 7, 2016)

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A group of independent German scientists found toxic components—mostly metallic—in all the COVID vaccine samples they analyzed, “without exception” using modern medical and physical measuring techniques.

The Working Group for COVID Vaccine Analysis says that some of the toxic elements found inside the AstraZeneca, Pfizer, and Moderna vaccine vials were not listed in the ingredient lists from the manufacturers.

The following metallic elements were found in the vaccines:

• Alkali metals: caesium (Cs), potassium (K)
• Alkaline earth metals: calcium (Ca), barium (Ba)
• transition metals: cobalt (Co), iron (Fe), chromium (Cr), titanium (Ti)
• Rare earth metals: cerium (Ce), gadolinium (Gd)
• Mining group/metal: aluminum (Al)
• Carbon group: silicon (Si) (partly support material/slide)
• Oxygen group: sulphur (S)

These substances, furthermore, “are visible under the dark-field microscope as distinctive and complex structures of different sizes, can only partially be explained as a result of crystallization or decomposition processes, [and] cannot be explained as contamination from the manufacturing process,” the researchers found.

They declared the findings as preliminary.

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A judge in the United States has recommended that the victims of the 9/11 attacks and their families not be allowed to receive billions of dollars in Afghanistan’s Central Bank assets, saying that those assets are beyond the US government’s authority.

According to US Magistrate Judge Sarah Netburn in Manhattan yesterday, the Da Afghanistan Bank is immune from jurisdiction, and to allow the 9/11 attacks’ victims to seize the billions would effectively show that Washington acknowledges the Taliban as the legitimate Afghan government.

“The Taliban’s victims have fought for years for justice, accountability, and compensation. They are entitled to no less,” she wrote in her recommendation. “But the law limits what compensation the court may authorise and those limits put the DAB’s assets beyond its authority.”

That recommendation – which is to be reviewed by US District Judge George Daniels in Manhattan in order to be accepted – could reportedly pose a major obstacle to the efforts of four groups of creditors that are suing numerous defendants in the ongoing case who they hold responsible for the attacks.

The defendants also include Al-Qaeda, the leader of which – Ayman al-Zawahiri – was reportedly killed in a US airstrike on Kabul last month. Critics, however, assert that the killing of the figure has not yet been proven as his body remains undiscovered.

After the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan one year ago and the subsequent freezing of $9 billion in Afghan Central Bank assets that Western nations have frozen, the claimant groups have been attempting to seize some of the $7 billion in funds that the US Federal Reserve Bank has itself frozen from that amount.

In February, US president Joe Biden announced an executive order that $3.5 billion of the frozen assets be set aside “for the benefit of the Afghan people,” while the remaining $3.5 billion would be used for the 9/11 victims and their legal battle.

The move has proven controversial, with critics and activists saying the entire amount of the frozen funds belongs to the Afghan government or at least the Afghan people, particularly amid the ongoing humanitarian crisis in the country. They also assert that to provide half of the amount to 9/11 victims is inaccurate, as no Afghan was involved in the attacks.

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An Israeli official said that the US hinted it was preparing a military option against Iran during a meeting between Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz and US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan on Friday, The Times of Israel reported.

The Israeli official said that Gantz told Sullivan that Israel “needs” the US to have a credible military option against Iran. The meeting came as Washington and Tehran are engaged in negotiations to revive the nuclear deal.

The official said that Gantz received “good hints” that the US was preparing a military option. The official didn’t offer details but said the idea of the military option that Israel wants would be to get Iran to make more concessions in negotiations. If not, the US could potentially take military action against the Islamic Republic alongside Israel.

Gantz expressed his opposition to the nuclear deal in the meeting with Sullivan, and the Israelis are stepping up pressure on the Biden administration to abandon the talks. As part of the pressure campaign, the head of Israel’s Mossad spy agency, David Barnea, is heading to Washington next week.

Barnea is expected to brief members of the House and Senate intelligence committees on Israel’s opposition to reviving the nuclear deal, known as the JCPOA. He will also meet with CIA Director William Burns and other Biden administration officials.

On Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid slammed the EU’s recent proposal to revive the JCPOA, calling it a “bad deal.” Iran is currently reviewing the US response to the EU proposal, which came after Tehran gave a response of its own.

Lapid said that the EU proposal is not something President Biden said he would pursue during his trip to Israel in July. “We told the Americans: ‘This is not what President Biden wanted.’ This is not what he talked about during his visit to the country,” he said.

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Dave DeCamp is the news editor of Antiwar.com, follow him on Twitter @decampdave.

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The 80% rise in the U.K.’s cap for consumer electricity and natural gas bills this fall will drive millions of households into energy poverty this winter as the worsening cost-of-living crisis stokes fears of recession.  

All the chatter today among British people is energy regulator Ofgem’s rise in the cap on power bills to a record £3,549 ($4,189) beginning Oct. 1 from £1,971 ($2,330) at present. That cap is expected to rise to £5,439 ($6,427) by January and £7,272 ($8,594) by spring — all due to skyrocketing wholesale NatGas and electricity prices caused by declining Russian energy supplies to Europe, made worse by Western sanctions that have backfired.

Source: Bloomberg

“An increase of this much cannot be budgeted for by households with no wiggle room,” said Peter Smith, director of policy and advocacy for the National Energy Action charity. “Come October, low-income households will simply not turn on their heating.”

Reuters spoke to one Brit, Philip Keetley, who said:

“The cost of living has increased and yet you’re still expected to live on the money provided for when there wasn’t a crisis … I either can have my heating on or eat.”

Another Brit, Dawn White, who has kidney failure, fears the cost of soaring energy costs means she won’t be able to afford life-saving medical treatment:

“Without my (dialysis) machine five times a week, 20 hours, I will die,” the 59-year-old woman said.

Soaring energy inflation has crushed real earnings for Brits, forcing many to pull back on spending.

Source: Bloomberg

The higher cap rate could push inflation to even more elevated levels as U.K. economists at Citi warned CPI inflation could reach a mindboggling 18.6% print in January due to soaring energy prices.

The last time CPI printed above 18% was during the stagflationary years of the mid-1970s (more precisely, 1976) after an oil supply shock led to soaring energy prices worldwide.

Currently, the CPI stands at 10.1% in July for the first time in four decades, primarily driven by skyrocketing food and fuel prices as households crumble under the weight of the cost of living crisis.

Inflation at decades highs has pushed U.K. Misery Index, an economic indicator to gauge how the average person is doing, to three-decade highs, a sign discontent is emerging.

“It’s going to be horrendous,” said Bill Bullen, chief executive officer of Utilita Energy Ltd., which supplies 810,000 homes in the U.K. “We are going to see a big increase in people struggling to pay for their energy bills.”

Last winter’s cap was £1,277, but that was before European leaders sanctioned the hell out of Moscow for the invasion of Ukraine. With the cold season just a few short months away, power prices are already at record highs as Russia’s Nord Stream 1 NatGas pipeline to the bloc experiences supply disruptions.

UK NatGas prices are also hyperinflating.

This winter could be one of the darkest in decades for U.K. households. The government has provided billions of pounds to support families, but that may not reduce the growing discontent.

The resistance is growing as more than 116,000 irritated people have pledged not to pay their electricity bill this fall when the new price cap begins, in a movement called “Don’t Pay U.K.”

“Ofgem just passed a debt and death sentence on millions – we’ve been left with no options but to refuse to pay,”the anonymous group spearheading the effort to have more than one million Brits boycott paying their power bill by Oct. 1.

🚨 Our call to the country: No one cold or hungry this winter!

🔥 Ofgem just passed a debt and death sentence on millions – we've been left with no options but to refuse to pay.

We can't pay, we won't pay! Strike! https://t.co/RYOlAVpjfL#DontPayUK #CostOfGreedCrisis pic.twitter.com/h8VhsmIOpo

— Don't Pay. (@dontpayuk) August 26, 2022

Soaring power bills will have a devastating impact on society, far greater than the GFC over a decade ago, warned James Cooper, a partner at Baringa. He warned:

“We’re now moving into territory where a majority of households are placed into debt or a very fragile financial position.”

A financial implosion of the households will spur discontent in what could be winter from hell across the U.K.

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This is a very sensitive moment for both Poles, and Ukrainians.  It seems that European border revisionism is just going to start, involving  at least Hungary, Romania and Lithuania. In that case German-Polish relations are crucial.  Already in the early 90s there were many concerns about German revanchism towards former borderlands.  Albeit it has been decided between Washington and Berlin that instead of reclaiming the Polish-German border issue, that would be more profitable to incorporate the entire potential of Poland into the new Great Germany economy area.  Peripherisation of Poland was thus guaranteed by German enterprises, in the interests of American globalism. However situation is dynamic now.  Fragmentation of Europe into an Anglo-Saxon and a Franco-German parts opens the question: what about Poland?

Since Warsaw is determined to follow the Westminster orders, another partition of Poland seems completely realistic, under cover of the territories exchange.  In form of the federation with Ukraine, Poland will supposedly return to the East, and the loss of the Polish colony will be compensated for the Germans by the restoration of their former borders.  Of course, this is only one of the possible scenarios, but we have clearly entered a period of more and more rapid changes, including changes to the World maps.

Working on regaining Polish property in the Eastern Borderlands, I have heard many times doubts whether raising this question poses a threat to our Western territories by stimulating German border revisionism. I have also explained why these issues are not related to each other at all, being associated only in propaganda aimed at preventing Poles from rebuilding their own economic strength.  This does not mean that Szczecin/Stettin, Zielona Góra/ Grünberg, Wrocław/Breslau or Opole/ Oppeln are effectively protected against revanchism. Just opposite, present Polish Government  position may directly lead to the resumption of the western border issue, and thus leave Poland in the shape of the Duchy of Warsaw.

Generalgouvernement für die besetzten polnischen Gebiete

In 1989, taking control over Poland from the Soviets, the United States decided to manage that through its economically key European vassal, i.e. Germany.  In effect Polish industry has been taken over and/or destroyed, Polish market power was fully controlled and significant source of cheap labour force has been secured. What is however even more important, that it costed nearly nothing.  The East and West Germany integration, although being an excellent opportunity to liquidate Germany’s capital surpluses, turned out to be a huge burden and a social failure.  Therefore, Berlin was at no stage interested in repeating this experiment with the areas once lost by the Third Reich, nor to pay pensions to their inhabitants, neither to invest in deprived infrastructure of Silesia, Pomerania and East Prussia. Schluß!

German middleman

Position of Poland towards Germany is now quite similar to the Russian-Polish relations in the late 18th century.  The dominant power did not want to annex the subordinate country in whole or even in part as long as it was not necessary, but tried to eliminate, counter and balance competitive influence.  Of course, the difference boils down to the fact that contemporary Germany is by no means an independent nor a prime-class power, only performing American tasks in Central Europe.  So, for the time being, Berlin was staring impotently at Washington’s revealing presence. However, this situation could change if the Anglo-Saxons would try to use Warsaw in a way that could mean direct losses for the German economy.

Putting simply: ALL OF POLAND is part of Germany, economically. That is why Germans have not introduced any directly revanchist politics. The issue of German claims is therefore not in any way related to the issue of Polish property, or even to the Polish eastern border. This is ONLY a derivative of Polish subordination to the German economic policy.  Thus, Germany may submit claims when Poland becomes part of the British Europe project, leaving the European Union.   Exactly like Russia agreed (reluctantly) to the partitions of Poland in the 18th  Century, preferring to control only a part of it, than losing any influence.  The road to losing Wrocław runs through London and Kyiv, not through Lviv. Not Polish, nor even German revisionist attitudes are threats, but Anglo-Saxon imperialism.

British Europe

Prominent Polish politician, Adam Glapinski, President of the National Bank of Poland, an enthusiastic supporter of Anglo-Saxon policy, i.e. provoking Germany to a new partition of Poland, attacks:

“Germany may find itself in a certain chaos, but it would not hinder the realisation of its basic national interests which has been carried for several decades. It used to be about the merge of the German states, or the absorption of practically the GDR, i.e. the former Soviet occupation zone, and since the completion of this task, about regaining some form of their former lands, which are now within the borders of Poland and subordinating the entire belt of countries between Germany and Russia. This is Germany’s  vision of the balance in future Europe. BREXIT opened the way to the implementation of this scenario, based on the cooperation of two empires: Russian and German, with the countries in the middle, within the spheres of influence of both powers”.

This must be understood precisely. The Establishment already knows that  at the moment when Poland accepts these new “British guarantees” (exactly like in 1939, when it provoked  WW2), leaves the EU and announces the establishment of UkroPolin, the “Polish-Ukrainian Union” under Anglo-Saxon administration – Germany will raise the issue of borders.

The transformation of the European Union may be an additional catalyst. Berlin and Paris seem determined to complete the process of its integration, i.e. disclosure as a federal state, more or less within the borders of the euro zone with colonial areas around.  Who drops out, then will suffer the consequences.  As in the case of Greece, the European branch of the global financiers will not only threaten, but simply wind-up local finances and banking. German industrial sector will have to get compensation for the loss of the Polish workers and consumers.  That would be even easier to assimilate Breslau again, than to worry about Rzeszow in the Polish-Ukrainian border, where now about 40% of inhabitants are immigrants from Ukraine.

Another partition of Poland

Even a thousand recovered Polish estates and properties in the East will not shift the course of the Oder and will not affect Polish government on the Western Regained Lands.  One signature on the act of “union” with Ukraine, one move towards the British-Polish-Ukrainian alliance – will detach from Poland everything that was gained in 1945, and maybe more. Berlin will be paid off by Washington and London with Polish lands, and the rest of them will be attached to the Ukrainian colony of Anglo-Saxons, undergoing further accelerated Ukrainianisation.. Thanks to the unanimous policy of the “anti-German government” and the “pro-German opposition”, Poland will lose Wrocław and Szczecin to see how Rzeszów, Przemyśl, Chełm, Lublin and the rest become UkroPolin cities.

Unfortunately, there is no third exit between Berlin and Brussels on the one side, and London and Kiev on the other. Another partition of Poland is already underway.

*

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Konrad Rękas is a renowned geopolitical analyst and a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from OneWorld

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***

Julian Assange’s legal team has taken its next step along their Via Dolorosa, filing an appeal against the decision to extradite their client to the United States to face 18 charges, 17 based on the odious US Espionage Act of 1917.

Since his violent eviction from the Ecuadorian embassy in April 2019, much to the delight of the national security establishment and its media cheerleaders, Assange has been held captive at Her Majesty’s Belmarsh Prison awaiting his fate.  In a facility reserved for the country’s most hardened criminals, Assange has had to face the COVID-19 pandemic, isolation, limitations on visits, restrictions on regular access to legal counsel, and a stroke.  Warnings about his declining health by health professionals have been coldly ignored.  The agenda is attritive, one of prolonged, even lethal process.

Along this potted judicial road, Assange chalked up a qualified success before District Court Judge Vanessa Baraitser on January 4, 2021, who held that he would be at serious risk of suicide occasioned by the effects of Special Administrative Measures and confinement in the ADX Florence supermax facility in Colorado.  This was deemed oppressive within the meaning of the US-UK Extradition Treaty.  The most obvious aspect of the prosecution – its self-evidently political nature – was given little thought.

Since then, the US government has won each round of legal sparring.  Outrageously, the High Court agreed with the prosecutors in December last year that diplomatic assurances on how Assange would be treated on being extradited – no SAMS, no ADX Facility, even the prospect of seeking a return to Australia to serve the balance of any sentence – could be trusted as fair and ingenuous.  It mattered not one jot that these were made after the original extradition trial and smacked of opportunistic calculation.  The blinkered reasoning of the judges also ignored how US officials had, in the spring of 2017, chewed over the proposed assassination of an Australian subject on British soil.  (At stages, abduction was also floated through the ranks of the Central Intelligence Agency.)

Other gaping defects were also put to one side: the revelations of US-directed surveillance efforts of the London Ecuadorian embassy while Assange was in residence; and the fact that a hefty portion of the indictment is based on fabricated testimony from the adventurous conman, embezzler and convicted paedophile Sigurdur “Siggi” Thordarson.

On appeal to the Supreme Court, Assange found a legal body fixated with one aspect of the case: whether assurances made by the US government were worth any weight at all.  No other blotches and glaring defects mattered.  As matters unfolded, the judges were not even willing to delve into the case.  In the cool words of the Deputy Support Registrar delivered on March 14, “The Court ordered that permission to appeal be refused because the application does not raise an arguable point of law.”

It all fell to the UK Home Secretary, Priti Patel, to act upon what had been a monumental miscarriage of justice.  But blocking the extradition request was too much to expect from an individual who has shown a deep and abiding affection for the national security state.  In July, the Home Office merely reiterated the point the view that “the UK courts have not found that it would be oppressive, unjust or an abuse of process to extradite Mr Assange.”

On August 26, Assange’s legal team filed his Perfected Grounds of Appeal before the High Court of Justice Administrative Court.  The claims stretch back to the original decision of January 4 last year and focus on the seminal points that make the case scandalous.  They include the claim that Assange is being prosecuted and punished for his political opinions (s. 81(a) of the Extradition Act); that he is being prosecuted for speech protected by Article 10 of the Human Rights Act, incorporating the European Convention on Human Rights; that the request itself violates the US-UK Extradition Treaty and international law because it comprises political offences; that the US government has misrepresented core facts of the case to the UK courts; and that the extradition request and its surrounding circumstances constitute an abuse of process.

The application also makes the claim that Patel erred in approving the extradition order on grounds of specialty and because it violates Article 4 of the US-UK Extradition Treaty.  Article 4 stipulates that extradition will not be granted where “the competent authority of the Requested State determines that the request was politically motivated.”  As Julian Assange’s wife, Stella, stated, “overwhelming evidence” had emerged since the previous ruling “proving that the United States prosecution” against the publisher “is a criminal abuse.”

From the issue of ailing health, deemed a primary consideration in the lower court’s approach to Assange, the focus now turns upon the entire raison d’être of the case.  Assange, through provocative publishing, came to be seen as an agent of political disruption and disorder.  An informed populace is, as governments have found out, a dangerous thing.

In giving the rules of the sordid game away – exposing the atrocities, the abuses of power, the bankruptcy of unrepresentative politics – the Australian founder of WikiLeaks became the most prominent political target of the US imperium.  Journalism and activism have, in Assange, combined, his case nothing if not political.  It remains to be seen if the “competent authority”, to use the words of the poorly drafted, ill-weighted Extradition Treaty, agrees.

*

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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 is from Lawyers for Assange

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***

‘What we’ve seen in terms of severity of Covid disease in children is that it is actually less than influenza for most age groups in terms of risk of hospitalization,’ the former immunization chair admitted earlier this week.

The doctor who served as Canada’s chair on immunization is now admitting what critics of the COVID narrative have been saying all along, that the flu is deadlier than COVID among young people.

“What we’ve seen in terms of severity of Covid disease in children is that it is actually less than influenza for most age groups in terms of risk of hospitalization,” Dr. Caroline Quach-Thanh, who served as the chair of Canada’s National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI) from 2017 to 2021, told reporters at a press conference in Quebec earlier this week.

“And so, at one point in time, we’ll have to treat this virus as all the others and not be as stringent in trying to see where it’s coming from, trying to prevent its transmission completely, mainly because we now have — most of us — underlying immunity, be it through vaccination and/or previous infection,” added the doctor, all but confirming what dissidents of the mainstream COVID-19 narrative have been arguing since the onset of the so-called pandemic.

While government health authorities and the mainstream media have consistently pushed for the experimental injection of children, mandatory masking policies in schools and even school closures as a way of combatting COVID-19, LifeSiteNews has reported from the beginning that there exists a growing body of evidence indicating that masks are ineffective, that COVID poses little to no risk to children and that the COVID-19 vaccines cause more harm than they mitigate in young people.

In fact, Quach-Thanh’s admission that the flu is deadlier than COVID among children has been known for over a year, with researchers at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine reporting in the summer of 2021 that they found a “mortality rate of zero among children without a pre-existing medical condition such as leukemia” when they “analyze[d] approximately 48,000 children under 18 diagnosed with Covid in health-insurance data from April to August 2020.”

Despite the existence of such evidence, doctors in Canada have been continually censored, fired and even stripped of their medical licenses for refusing to go along with the push to vaccinate children against the highly survivable virus.

*

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Featured image: Dr. Caroline Quach-Thanh (Screenshot from a Youtube video via LSN)

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Pages: 164, 15 Chapters

Price: $11.50 

Purchase directly from the Global Research Online Store!

Michel Chossudovsky reviews in detail how this insidious project “destroys people’s lives”. He provides a comprehensive analysis of everything you need to know about the “pandemic” — from the medical dimensions to the economic and social repercussions, political underpinnings, and mental and psychological impacts.

“My objective as an author is to inform people worldwide and refute the official narrative which has been used as a justification to destabilize the economic and social fabric of entire countries, followed by the imposition of the “deadly” COVID-19 “vaccine”. This crisis affects humanity in its entirety: almost 8 billion people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings and our children worldwide. Truth is a powerful instrument.”

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

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***

Mütter und Väter in der Welt: Noch nie war die Lage so ernst und unser aller Zukunft so bedroht wie heute! Politiker wie die britische Außenministerin Liz Truss sind im Zusammenhang mit dem Ukraine-Krieg bereit, „notfalls Atomwaffen einzusetzen“ (1). Damit wäre unser aller Schicksal und die Zukunft unserer Kinder besiegelt.

Nach Auffassung des renommierten amerikanischen Völkerrechtsexperten Francis Boyle ist seit dem Nürnberger Kriegsverbrechertribunal 1945 allein die Drohung mit Atomwaffen „Atomterrorismus“ und ein „Verbrechen gegen Frieden und Menschlichkeit“ (2). Hinzu kommt, dass die US-NATO sich bereits auf einen großen Krieg vorzubereiten scheint (3). Die Schweizer „UNCUT-NEWS“ titelten hierzu: „Hat der Dritte Weltkrieg bereits begonnen? (WORLD WAR 3 HAS ALREADY BEGUN)“ (4)

Doch nicht nur korrupte Regierungsvertreter, skrupellose Milliardär-Technokraten oder größenwahnsinnige „Menschenfreunde“ müssen aufhören zu hassen – auch wir Väter, Mütter und Großeltern sowie alle vernunftbegabten Menschen weltweit stehen in der Pflicht, nicht mehr zu hassen und die Vernunft zu Rate zu ziehen.

Früher – im Mittelalter – hat nur der Glaube gegolten. Seit einiger Zeit hat der Mensch jedoch begonnen, die Vernunft zu Rate zu ziehen, hat angefangen, zu beobachten, sich die Natur zu erklären und sie sich in den Dienst gestellt. Der hellsichtig gewordene Mensch, der sich als Herr seines Schicksals weiß, verschreibt sich dem Geist und der Lebensform der permanenten Empörung gegen das Unrecht (5). Er richtet seine Liebe auf die Erde und die Mitmenschen – vor allem auf seine Kinder. Das ist sein Glaube, seine Leidenschaft, seine Zukunft. In der mitmenschlichen Gemeinschaft schafft er sich eine Heimstätte, ein Zuhause, das ihm aus einer Anteilnehme an den Freuden und Leiden der Mitmenschen erwächst.

Heute wissen wir, dass der Krieg nur Werke der Zerstörung vollbringen kann – wie zum Beispiel in der Ukraine, in Afghanistan, in Syrien oder im Jemen. Niemals dürfen wir von ihm unser Heil erwarten. Die geschichtliche Betrachtung zeigt sogar, dass der Niedergang der Kultur immer mit Kriegen verbunden war. Das Unglück Spartas und der Aufstieg und Fall des römischen Reiches sind historische Beispiele. Wird Amerika folgen?

Hass und Groll vergiften nicht nur die internationale politische und kulturelle Atmosphäre und erschweren oder verunmöglichen dadurch friedliche Lösungen, sie vergiften auch unser eigenes Leben und die menschliche Gemeinschaft. Wer jedoch die Vernunft zu Rate zieht, der wird einen Weg finden, einen Beitrag zur Völkerverständigung und zum Frieden zu leisten und der Jugend eine lebenswerte Zukunft zu ermöglichen.

Am 20. August 2022 machte die Holocaust-Überlebende Vera Sharav aus den USA bei einer Gedenkveranstaltung zum 75. Jahrestag der Einführung des Nürnberger Kodex auf die unheilvollen Parallelen zwischen den 1930er Jahren und der Gegenwart aufmerksam. Sie verglich die aktuelle politische Situation mit den Anfängen des Nationalsozialismus, wo Grundrechte ebenfalls schrittweise aufgegeben und Menschengruppen gezielt diffamiert und ausgegrenzt wurden. Wörtlich sagte sie: „Der Holocaust begann nicht erst in den Gaskammern von Auschwitz und Treblinka“ (6). Schließlich prophezeite sie: „Wenn wir nicht alle Widerstand leisten, wird es nie wieder so sein!“ (7)

Deshalb sollten wir nicht schweigend und mit verschränkten Armen darauf warten, bis die Welt automatisch wieder „ins Lot kommt“ oder der Planet eben eines Tages verglüht und die Welt leider untergegangen ist. In diesem Fall wären wir tatsächlich die letzte Generation (Rosalie Bertell).

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Dr. Rudolf Lothar Hänsel ist Lehrer (Rektor a. D.), Doktor der Pädagogik (Dr. paed.) und Diplom-Psychologe (Schwerpunkte: Klinische-, Pädagogische-, Medien- sowie Individual-Psychologie). Viele Jahrzehnte unterrichtete er, bildete Hochschulabsolventen fort, gründete in Köln zusammen mit Kollegen eine Modellschule für ehemalige Schulversager, bildete an der Bayerischen Akademie für Lehrerfortbildung und Personalführung Beratungslehrkräfte für alle Schularten aus und war schließlich Staatlicher Schulberater für die Landeshauptstadt München. Als Pensionär arbeitete er viele Jahre als Psychotherapeut in eigener Praxis. In seinen Büchern und pädagogisch-psychologischen Fachartikeln fordert er eine bewusste ethisch-moralische Werteerziehung und eine Erziehung zu Gemeinsinn und Frieden. Sein Lebensmotto (nach Albert Camus): Geben, wenn man kann. Und nicht hassen, wenn das möglich ist.

Noten 

1 https://de.rt.com/international/131481-liveticker-zum-ukraine-krieg-kiew/

2 https://uncutnews.ch/die-eigentliche-bedrohung-durch-atomwaffen-ist-atomterrorismus-und-ein-verbrechen-gegen-frieden-und-menschlichkeit-prof-francis-boyle/

3 https://de.rt.com/europa/146945-schutz-vor-bedrohungen-bereitet-sich/

4 https://uncutnews.ch/hat-der-dritte-weltkrieg-bereits-begonnen/

5 https://www.globalresearch.ca/actuality-french-philosopher-writer-existentialist-atheist-stamp-albert-camus/5790202

6 https://de.rt.com/meinung/146892-holocaustuberlebende-vera-sharav-diesmal-wird/

7 https://uncutnews.ch/holocaust-ueberlebende-vera-sharav-wenn-wir-nicht-alle-widerstand-leisten-wird-es-nie-wieder-so-sein-vollstaendige-rede-nuernberg-20-august-2022/

Featured image is from Countercurrents

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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” 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.

***

Mothers and fathers of the world: never before has the situation been so serious and the future of all of us so threatened! Politicians like the British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss are prepared to “use nuclear weapons if necessary” in connection with the war in Ukraine (1). This would seal the fate of all of us and the future of our children.

According to the renowned American international law expert Francis Boyle, since the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal in 1945, the mere threat of nuclear weapons is “nuclear terrorism” and a “crime against peace and humanity” (2). In addition, the US-NATO already seems to be preparing for a major war (3). The Swiss “UNCUT-NEWS” headlined: “Has the Third World War already begun? (WORLD WAR 3 HAS ALREADY BEGUN)” (4).

But it is not only corrupt government officials, unscrupulous billionaire technocrats or megalomaniac “humanitarians” who must stop hating – we fathers, mothers and grandparents, as well as all rational people worldwide, have a duty to stop hating and to consult reason.

In the past – in the Middle Ages – only faith was valid. For some time now, however, man has begun to consult reason, has begun to observe, to explain nature to himself and to put it at his service. Man, who has become clairvoyant, who knows himself to be the master of his destiny, dedicates himself to the spirit and the way of life of permanent indignation against injustice (5). He directs his love towards the earth and his fellow human beings – above all towards his children. This is his faith, his passion, his future. In the human community he creates a home for himself, a home that grows out of his participation in the joys and sufferings of his fellow human beings.

Today we know that war can only accomplish works of destruction – as for example in Ukraine, Afghanistan, Syria or Yemen. We must never expect our salvation from it. Historical observation even shows that the decline of culture has always been associated with wars. The misfortunes of Sparta and the rise and fall of the Roman Empire are historical examples. Will America follow suit?

Hatred and rancour not only poison the international political and cultural atmosphere, making peaceful solutions difficult or impossible, they also poison our own lives and the human community. However, those who consult reason will find a way to contribute to international understanding and peace, and to give youth a future worth living.

On 20 August 2022, at a commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the introduction of the Nuremberg Code, Holocaust survivor Vera Sharav from the USA drew attention to the ominous parallels between the 1930s and the present. She compared the current political situation with the beginnings of National Socialism, where fundamental rights were also gradually abandoned and groups of people were deliberately defamed and excluded. Literally, she said: “The Holocaust did not begin in the gas chambers of Auschwitz and Treblinka” (6). Finally, she prophesied, “If we don’t all resist, it will never be like this again!” (7)

Therefore, we should not wait in silence and with folded arms until the world automatically “gets back on track” or the planet just burns up one day and the world unfortunately ends. In that case, we would indeed be the last generation (Rosalie Bertell).

*

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Dr. Rudolf Lothar Hänsel is a teacher (retired headmaster), doctor of education (Dr. paed.) and graduate psychologist (specialising in clinical, educational, media and individual psychology): He specialises in clinical, educational, media and individual psychology.) He taught for many decades, trained university graduates, founded a model school for former school failures in Cologne together with colleagues, trained counselling teachers for all types of schools at the Bavarian Academy for Teacher Training and Personnel Management and was finally a state school counsellor for the state capital Munich. As a retiree, he worked for many years as a psychotherapist in his own practice. In his books and educational-psychological articles, he calls for a conscious ethical-moral values education and an education for public spirit and peace. His motto in life (after Albert Camus): Give when you can. And not to hate, if that is possible.

Notes

(1) https://de.rt.com/international/131481-liveticker-zum-ukraine-krieg-kiew/

(2) https://uncutnews.ch/die-eigentliche-bedrohung-durch-atomwaffen-ist-atomterrorismus-und-ein-verbrechen-gegen-frieden-und-menschlichkeit-prof-francis-boyle/

(3) https://de.rt.com/europa/146945-schutz-vor-bedrohungen-bereitet-sich/

(4) https://uncutnews.ch/hat-der-dritte-weltkrieg-bereits-begonnen/

(5) https://www.globalresearch.ca/actuality-french-philosopher-writer-existentialist-atheist-stamp-albert-camus/5790202

(6) https://de.rt.com/meinung/146892-holocaustuberlebende-vera-sharav-diesmal-wird/

(7) https://uncutnews.ch/holocaust-ueberlebende-vera-sharav-wenn-wir-nicht-alle-widerstand-leisten-wird-es-nie-wieder-so-sein-vollstaendige-rede-nuernberg-20-august-2022/

Featured image is from Countercurrents

---

“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” 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.

***

During his trip to the Indo-Pacific in May, U.S. President Joe Biden made his first stop in South Korea where he hoped to inaugurate a new golden era of U.S.-South Korean relations.

South Korea’s newly elected President Yoon Suk-yeol was a conservative who had promised a tough stance against North Korea. A RAND Corporation analyst heralded him as “Biden’s perfect South Korean partner.”

The U.S. has maintained tens of thousands of soldiers in South Korea since the Korean War ended in 1953 with an armistice, not a peace treaty, and established 15 military bases there.

During their meeting, Biden and Yoon agreed to “expand the scope and scale” of combined military exercises and training, and discussed the possibility of deploying strategic military assets, “fighters, bombers, or missiles,” to South Korea to bolster its deterrence capabilities against North Korea, which had been ruled for the last 75 years by the socialist Kim dynasty.

Neither Biden nor Yoon, however, factored into their plans the large-scale protests which broke out on August 13 in Seoul in reaction to the military exercises, and others that may yet follow.

Named “Ulchi Freedom Shield” after a seventh Century Korean General, the military exercise have involved thousands of troops in live-fire exercises combining land, sea and air forces, and joint mock attacks assisted by drone surveillance.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un denounced these drills as a “dress rehearsal for northward invasion,” while a columnist for a North Korean newspaper wrote: “how could anybody only see a terribly dangerous tumult [since the U.S. and South Korea were] playing with fire at the front door of [North Korea’s] home.”

The drills coincided with rising tensions with China resulting from Nancy Pelosi’s inflammatory visit to Taiwan and the Biden administration’s sending of warships into the Taiwan Strait in violation of international law. Yoon had inflamed China through his decision to add more anti-missile batteries employing the U.S. Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense system, or THAAD, which could be reconfigured to peer into Chinese territory.^[1]

Yoon has also committed South Korea to a closer security relationship with Japan, with Japanese naval units joining the U.S. and South Korea for missile search and tracking exercises off the coast of Hawaii.

Protests in Seoul against THAAD missiles. [Source: defensenews.com]

Yoon’s predecessor, Moon Jae-in (2017-2022), had tried to repair relations with Beijing by pledging the “Three Nos”—that Seoul would not deploy any additional THAAD systems; would not participate in U.S.-led missile defense networks; and would not form a trilateral military alliance with Washington and Tokyo.

During Donald Trump’s presidency, regular U.S.-South Korea drills were suspended. Trump and Moon held talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and drew down military cooperation as a sign of goodwill toward Pyongyang.

In a sign of today’s worsening relations, North Korea responded to the “Ulchi Freedom Shield” drills by launching two cruise missiles into the Sea of Japan.

“No War Rehearsal”

The August 13 protests in Seoul were timed to coincide with National Liberation Day, celebrating the 77^th anniversary of the Korean Peninsula’s liberation from Imperial Japan’s 1910-45 colonial rule.

Participants took to the streets and chanted anti-U.S. slogans, shouting “Dissolve [South] Korea-U.S. alliance” and “This land is not a U.S. war base.”

Protest in Seoul. [Source: english.almayadeen.com]

Placards at the rally read “No war rehearsal, No U.S.” and “No [South] Korea-U.S.-Japan military cooperation.”

Yang Kyung-soo, chief of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU), said at the protest rally that staging military exercises in preparation for a war is “tantamount to intending to wage a war,” according to local newspaper Chosun Ilbo.

That newspaper reported that some of the KCTU members had carried out anti-U.S. demonstrations earlier in the month near U.S. military bases across South Korea, demanding the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the country.

In late June, civic groups carried out civil disobedience in front of the Jeju-do island Naval Base demanding a halt to maritime war drills and closure of the base—which was built on a pristine World Heritage Site.

Jeju-do island was the site of a horrific series of massacres by U.S. and South Korean troops on the eve of the Korean War.

Source: researchgate.net

Peace activist Choi Sung-hee wrote that the protests in Jeju-do in late June were more than just opposition to a particular military exercise; they were part of a “struggle against the preparations for war in Northeast Asia and the wholesale militarization of the ocean, earth, sky, and space.”

This is equally true of the August 13 protests, which might initiate a tidal wave that sets back Biden and Yoon’s militarist designs.

*

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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].

Note

1. Beijing retaliated by suspending Chinese group tours to South Korea and obliterating the China business of South Korean supermarket giant Lotte, which had provided land for the missile system. 

Featured image: People rally against the planned South Korea-U.S. military drills in Seoul, South Korea, August 13, 2022. [Source: eng.chinamil.com]

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***

Guest is Florian Schilling, Scientific director of a company near Munich, which produces natural manufactures. He is a naturopath and former project manager at the Bumrungrad International Hospital Bangkok: Research projects in the field of Transnational Science.

This session is about the immune escape in mRNA-injected individuals. Why the “vaccination” campaigns won’t work and the vaccinated will never achieve full immunity again – and herd immunity is thus permanently “history”.

• On the updated “vaccines” – what to think and expect from them.
• Outlook for the situation in the fall, what the politicians are planning and how one can prepare oneself in the best possible way.

*

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Featured image is a screenshot from the video

“Back Door Oil Sales”, Washington Is Furious. It Can’t Stop a Prospective Russian-Iranian Oil Swap Deal

By Andrew Korybko, August 27, 2022

The Russian and Iranian economies will mutually benefit by selling discounted resources on the global market while countries like India will accelerate their rise as multipolar Great Powers through the purchase of these exports. Their trilateral axis will continue becoming a force to be reckoned with, especially if the first two coordinate their natural gas activities seeing as how they account for the largest such reserves in the world.

America Imported Over $6 Billion in Goods From Russia Since Ukraine Invasion

By Kyle Anzalone and Will Porter, August 29, 2022

In response to Russia’s attack on Ukraine, US President Joe Biden vowed to isolate and “cripple” the Russian economy. However, Moscow has been able to maintain its economic strength, in part by exporting over $1 billion per month in wood, metals, food and other goods to the US.

Falling Military Recruitment Is Another Sign of Waning Faith in the Regime

By Ryan McMaken, August 29, 2022

The US Army reports it is having some serious problems when it comes to recruiting new soldiers. Last month, according to the AP: “Army officials … said the service will fall about 10,000 soldiers short of its planned end strength for this fiscal year, and prospects for next year are grimmer.”

Three Major Attacks in Syria in 24 Hours

By Steven Sahiounie, August 29, 2022

On August 24, the US military in Syria carried out a retaliatory airstrike on a militia that the US claims previously attacked the Al Tanf base on August 15. US F-15 and F-16 jets dropped guided bombs on nine ammunition and storage bunkers in Ayyash, near Deir al-Zour in the early hours of Wednesday; however, the militia may not have been responsible for the August 15 attack.

Ukraine Uses NATO Ammunition in Attacks on Nuclear Power Station. Dangers of Radioactive Leaks

By Ana Luisa Brown, August 28, 2022

Representatives of the civil-military administration of the Zaporozhie region denounced today that Ukrainian troops use artillery with NATO ammunition in attacks on the Energodar nuclear power plant.

Censorship, Big Tech, and Psychological Warfare

By Mark Taliano, August 27, 2022

Right now beneath the sunny blue skies and seeming normalcy, genocide is occurring globally. The experimental mRNA injections are bioweapons disguised as vaccines. They are neither safe nor effective. Some of the jabs may be placebos, some batches may be  worse than others and, fortunately, not all will be adversely affected to the same degree.

NATO’s Article 4 and Article 5 Jeopardize American Sovereignty at the Norfolk Naval Base

By Renee Parsons, August 27, 2022

As if the US contribution of  “roughly” 75% of NATO’s budget was not enough of a gift, the American public and much of Congress have remained oblivious to collaborators within the US government who have relinquished the Norfolk Naval Station to NATO forces.   With its military forces led by a NATO Supreme Allied Commander at Norfolk’s Joint Warfare Centre and hundreds of new nation member resident-families, NATO has its roots firmly ensconced at the Norfolk facility since at least 2020.  

Amnesty’s Report on Violations Committed by Ukraine Military Directed against Civilians. Storm of Media Criticism

By Marc Vandepitte, August 27, 2022

There has been a lot of buzz about Amnesty International’s recent report on the violations committed by the Ukrainian military in the war with Russia, although this was a balanced and cautious report indeed. The attacks against this human rights organization are far from innocent. Background and interpretation of this issue.

US Pressures Japan to Cancel Constitution’s Peace-Clause. China and Japan Must Thus Finally Agree Now, to Avoid a War.

By Eric Zuesse, August 26, 2022

America especially wants Japan to invade China when and if China invades (so as to retake control over) the “Republic of China”, which is China’s province of Taiwan, which province Japan had conquered from China in 1895, and which province the United States Government in 1945 forced Japan to return to China, as part of Japan’s WW II surrender, which today’s U.S. Government now wants to reverse, so that China can now become captured by America as Japan was captured in 1945.

US Pressures India to Imitate Europe’s “Self-sabotaging Energy Policy”

By Ahmed Adel, August 26, 2022

Indian Foreign Minister S Jaishankar confidently boasted recently that the world has accepted India’s energy policy and bilateral relations with Russia. Jaishankar’s statement prompted US State Department spokesperson Ned Price to say that it is going to be a long-term proposition for New Delhi to reorient foreign policy away from Moscow – but despite the QUAD alliance, India is unlikely to abandon its relations with Russia.

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***

In response to Russia’s attack on Ukraine, US President Joe Biden vowed to isolate and “cripple” the Russian economy. However, Moscow has been able to maintain its economic strength, in part by exporting over $1 billion per month in wood, metals, food and other goods to the US. 

More than 3,600 ships from Russia have arrived at US ports since February 24, according to statistics cited by the Associated Press. While that is nearly half of the shipments over the same period compared to last year, it still amounts to over $6 billion in imports.

The number of Russian products entering US ports suggests Biden is falling short of his pledge to isolate Moscow’s economy. Due to so-called “wind down” periods that allow companies to complete previous deals, some of the goods continue to enter the country long after the White House announced sanctions on those products, including oil and gas. Paradoxically, other Russian imports, such as fertilizer, came at the request of the Biden administration, which has urged American companies to make up for shortages.

And while the White House has seized several luxury yachts owned by rich Russians with loose ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, the AP found that American and European firms are importing millions of dollars in metal from a Russian company that makes parts for Moscow’s fighter jets, highlighting another odd discrepancy in Biden’s sanctions campaign.

Despite diplomatic pressure from Washington, other American allies are increasing their economic ties with Russia. Turkey – a NATO member – has doubled its imports of Russian oil this year.

During Biden’s presidency, he has taken several steps to strengthen ties with New Delhi, with American troops currently engaged in war games with India on the Chinese border. But like Ankara, the country has similarly significantly increased energy imports from Moscow. The Indian rupee has also become a major currency for the diamond trade, allowing buyers to bypass US sanctions.

Though the Western economic war was meant to negate Moscow’s military might and bring it to the negotiation table, it has so far seen little success. With Russian energy exports topping pre-war levels in recent months and the ruble rallying against the dollar, Russia’s economy appears to have fared far better than much of Europe since fighting erupted last winter.

*

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Kyle Anzalone is the opinion editor of Antiwar.com and news editor of the Libertarian Institute.

Will Porter is the assistant news editor of the Libertarian Insitute and a staff writer at RT. Kyle Anzalone and Will Porter host Conflicts of Interest along with Connor Freeman.

Featured image is from The Libertarian Institute

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***

The US Army reports it is having some serious problems when it comes to recruiting new soldiers. Last month, according to the AP: “Army officials … said the service will fall about 10,000 soldiers short of its planned end strength for this fiscal year, and prospects for next year are grimmer.”

The army is not alone in missing recruitment goals:

Senior Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps leaders have said they are hopeful they will meet or just slightly miss their recruiting goals for this year. But they said they will have to dip into their pool of delayed entry applicants, which will put them behind as they begin the next recruiting year.

In fact, recruitment prospects are so grim that 2022 is looking to be the worst recruiting year for the army since 1973, when the US military transitioned to an all-volunteer—i.e., nonconscripted—force. The days of the post-9/11 surge in enlistments are long gone, and noted for two lost wars in recent years, the US military now faces a new environment of declining public support. Moreover, with its recent drive to showcase its commitment to so-called woke policy goals, the military may be alienating conservatives—a group that has long been a reliable source of recruits and political support.

Ultimately, of course, the military can always get more troops by raising pay and lowering standards. The latter requires only a policy change. And, given the federal government’s ability to essentially print money, the former is unlikely to be an insurmountable problem for the Pentagon either.

The good news, however, is that the military’s recruiting woes are likely yet another signal of declining support for the federal government and its institutions. The federal government has benefited immensely from the fact that the military has long been one of the most popular institutions within the central government. Even as many Americans claim they distrust the government or oppose “the bureaucracy,” widespread support for the government military bureaucracy has long helped to prop up the legitimacy of federal institutions. If falling enlistments are an indication of declining faith in the military overall, that would be a positive development, indeed.

The Economics of Recruitment

As has often been the case in the past, the military is now struggling to find enough willing recruits in an environment of low unemployment. After all, many recruits are motivated at least in part by promises of steady income, veterans’ benefits, and tuition reimbursement. These benefits look relatively less attractive when private-sector jobs are easy to find.

As a result, the military has been “throwing cash” at the problem. All the services are now “leaning on record-level enlistment and retention bonuses” to attract recruits, with higher bonuses for riskier or more skill-intensive work.

Military recruiting efforts, however, have long sought to “subsidize” salaries by promising psychic profits in the form of positive emotions obtained by fulfilling one’s supposed patriotic duty. Another benefit suggested by recruiters has been an alleged opportunity for “adventure.” Historically, recruitment efforts have relied on promising a variety of nonmonetary forms of “payment.”

In their analysis of military recruitment efforts, Peter Padilla and Mary Riege Laner identified at least four different types of benefits promised to potential recruits. These include patriotism, adventure/challenge, job/career/education, social status, and money. Emphasis has differed based on social trends (such as the prevalence of antiwar sentiment) and, of course, on the personal preferences of individual recruits.

The military, in any case, has recognized the need to appeal to all these aspects to meet recruitment goals. Even when military pay is generous, it is still necessary to get potential recruits to accept a job in which one cannot legally quit. Moreover, if a large number of potential recruits view the military as pursuing values and goals contrary to their own, monetary rewards would have to be raised quite high to overcome nonmonetary concerns.

Another strategy that can increase recruitment is to lower (or change) standards for new recruits. This has been done in various ways. For example, as tattoos have become more fashionable among middle-class youth, the military has granted many more waivers. The Air Force is now considering allowing members to grow beards. These changes, however, are based largely on appearance. Broader changes that would qualify as truly lowering standards include efforts to lower physical fitness requirements for women, older members, and marijuana users. For more than a decade now, the army has also been accepting more and more recruits with lower scores on aptitude tests and with no high school diploma.

Of course, there is no “correct” number of employees for the armed forces, and there is no functioning marketplace in the provision of “defense.” The size of the US military is arbitrarily determined by Congress and the White House based on political interests and goals. The military is nonetheless partly constrained by market realities, and by the subjective values of potential workers.

Support for the Military Is Falling

All else being equal, however, falling enlistment is evidence that workers are less interested in serving in the military outside mere economic considerations. This is reflected in the survey data suggesting that the military’s reputation among members of the general public has declined significantly.

For example, as the Military Times reported last year, “About 56 percent of Americans surveyed said they have ‘a great deal of trust and confidence’ in the military, down from 70 percent in 2018.” Moreover, according to Gallup, the percentage of Americans who believe that military officers “have high ethics” dropped 10 percent from 2017 to 2021.

As has long been the case, the military remains among the more trusted institutions in the US, but, as even the relentless promilitary Heritage Foundation admits:

A more candid appraisal, however, would see this for what it is: a vote of declining confidence by America in its oldest and heretofore most trusted institution.

More worrisome still—from the Pentagon’s perspective—is that much of this decline is coming from a drop in conservative and Republican support. Gallup reports that in its survey, military officers’ “image among the GOP is now the lowest Gallup has recorded since the first reading, in 2002, a period spanning Republican and Democratic presidencies.”

Moreover, political rhetoric among many conservatives has decidedly turned against the Pentagon. This was noted last year in Foreign Policy:

The long Republican romance with the military appears to have finally come to an end. And as conservative politicians and pundits have put the U.S. military—and especially the top brass—in their cross hairs, their supporters and listeners have taken note. The consequences for the U.S. military could be dire.

Part of this is apparently due to the growing feeling among conservatives that military bureaucracy has committed itself to so-called woke politics. From Tucker Carlson to Ted Cruz to Sabastian Gorka, conservatives apparently are not nearly as enamored with the US military establishment as they once were. As Tucker Carlson complained back in May:

Most of the generals we see quoted in the press seem more committed to meeting some counterproductive diversity goal—hiring more pregnant Air Force pilots, assembling the world’s first transgender SEAL team—than on defending the United States.

The Effect on Enlistments

These trends among historical supporters of the military may be finally showing up in recruitment realities. It’s difficult to directly measure the ideological leanings of new recruits. After all, enlistment forms don’t ask for one’s political and ideological beliefs. But we can indirectly make some guesses about who is joining the military based on where most of the recruits are coming from. For example, as the New York Times reported in 2018, military recruiters rely heavily on new recruits from the nation’s most politically conservative region—the South—to meet recruiting goals:

In 2019, Fayetteville, N.C., which is home to Fort Bragg, provided more than twice as many military enlistment contracts as Manhattan, even though Manhattan has eight times as many people. Many of the new contracts in Fayetteville were soldiers signing up for second and third enlistments…. Military service was once spread fairly evenly—at least geographically—throughout the nation because of the draft. But after the draft ended in 1973, enlistments shifted steadily south of the Mason-Dixon line. The military’s decision to close many bases in Northern states where long winters limited training only hastened the trend.

The significance of geography for new recruits can also be seen in the fact that politically conservative regions also tend to grant military recruiters better access to local schools. As school districts in many left-leaning urban areas restricted recruiters’ access to high school students in recent years, this has further increased the reliance on recruits from promilitary suburbs, exurbs, and rural towns. These are areas that tend to be more politically conservative. Moreover, new recruits lopsidedly come from families with a history of military service. While the extent to which military personnel support Republicans has been overstated, the military does nonetheless lean conservative. All this would suggest that new recruits come both from households and regions that lean conservative themselves.

In other words, the military has becoming increasingly reliant on a dwindling number of communities and families. The military brass admits this model is not sustainable.

The larger issue here is not whether or not the military can meet recruitment goals without big changes to current standards and pay. After all, if the economy continues to weaken and unemployment rises, this could bail out recruiters in a big way. Rather, the enlistment situation helps to illustrate what may be a developing and hopeful trend in which many conservatives are finally abandoning their long love affair with the US regime through its military institutions.

*

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Ryan McMaken (@ryanmcmaken) is a senior editor at the Mises Institute. Send him your article submissions for the Mises Wire and Power and Market, but read article guidelines first. Ryan has a bachelor’s degree in economics and a master’s degree in public policy and international relations from the University of Colorado. He was a housing economist for the State of Colorado. He is the author of Commie Cowboys: The Bourgeoisie and the Nation-State in the Western Genre.

Featured image is from Mises Wire

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***

On August 24, the US military in Syria carried out a retaliatory airstrike on a militia that the US claims previously attacked the Al Tanf base on August 15. 

US F-15 and F-16 jets dropped guided bombs on nine ammunition and storage bunkers in Ayyash, near Deir al-Zour in the early hours of Wednesday; however, the militia may not have been responsible for the August 15 attack.

The Al Tanf base is an illegal US military base in southeast Syria established in 2016, on the Damascus to Baghdad highway, near the borders of Iraq and Jordan. The US military invaded Syria in 2015 while fighting ISIS. Despite ISIS being defeated in 2019, the US occupation forces have never left Syria.

ISIS did invade Syria and caused a great deal of death and destruction; however, the US and their Kurdish allies were not responsible for the defeat of ISIS.  The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) is the national army in Syria and is comprised of hundreds of thousands of Syrians, as it is a compulsory service for every Syrian male over the age of 18, who is not enrolled in a University.  On the ground as well as the Russian army and air force base in Syria.  A few thousand US troops and their Kurdish militia, the SDF, played a small part in the defeat of ISIS in Syria as compared with the Syrian and Russian armies.

On August 15, the Al Tanf base was attacked by drones, but according to US Central Command, caused no casualties and no damage. The US has stated the recovered drone parts lead them to believe it was an Iranian-backed militia in Syria who carried out the attack.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman, Nasser Kanaani, issued a statement denying Iran had any link to the groups the US has blamed.

Major General John Brennan, the commander of the Combined Joint Task Force, associated with Operation Inherent Resolve, said, “Coalition personnel retains the right to self-defense, and we will take appropriate measures to protect our forces.”

Under international law, the people under military occupation by foreign invaders have the right to repel the invaders and force them out, and the right to self-defense.  Invaders have no such rights.

The eastern desert areas in Syria are inhabited by local tribes.  These are hard-living, sturdy people who are not afraid to stand their ground and are well-armed in most cases.  In history, these are peoples who have fought each other and invaders over the millennia.  The tribes have decided they want the US invaders out of the country, primarily as they see the US sanctions on Syria as the foremost obstacle to reconstruction and recovery from the devastation caused by armed conflict beginning in 2011.  The tribes have rejected the US-backed militias, such as the Kurdish SDF, and the terrorists who were following Radical Islam, such as those in occupation of Idlib.  The US-backed Free Syrian Army (FSA) was not supported by the tribes, and after the FSA morphed into Al Qaeda the tribes fought battles to drive the terrorists westward into their current enclave at Idlib.

Syria has a severe electricity shortage, with most households getting about one hour per day.  Syria does not have full electricity because the US military has occupied the oil fields and confiscated the oil, thus preventing its domestic use to generate electricity.  The tribes, and indeed all Syrian residents, desperately want the US military out so they can once again produce electricity, and gasoline for domestic use.  US sanctions prevent importing petroleum products, which led to the US high-jacking Iranian oil tankers coming to Syria previously.

Misyaf

On August 25, Israel targeted the city of Misyaf in the Hama province.  The attack came from Israeli warplanes over the Mediterranean Sea near Tartus, as they fired several missiles at Misyaf.  Syrian air defenses responded and most of the missiles were downed, but one missile caused a fire that threatened to spread into a wildfire but was eventually contained by residents and firefighters. Syrian Arab News Agency reported that two civilians were wounded in the attack.

Israel always coordinates with the US military on airstrikes it conducts in Syria.

Deir Ez Zor

The Euphrates river splits the eastern province of Deir Ezzor, with the US and their Kurdish SDF allies on the east side, and the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and their allies west of the river.

The Al-Omar oilfield is the largest in Syria, and before 2011 Syria was energy self-sufficient.  Syria produced enough domestic oil and natural gas to meet the needs of the nation in electricity production, cooking gas, diesel fuel for heating and transportation, as well as gasoline for cars and transportation.  Before the US-NATO war for regime change, Syria even exported gas and oil.

Once the US military invaded, they set up a base at the Al-Omar oilfield and confiscated the oil produced.  In cooperation with their Kurdish allies, the US looted the oil and transported hundreds of tankers full to the Kurdish region in neighboring Iraq for resale on the black market.  This is the same oil that ISIS used to sell to Turkey for $17 per barrel.

On August 25, Syrian Arab tribes in the northern suburbs of Deir Ez Zor attacked the base housing US military at the Al-Omar and Conoco oil fields, leaving three US servicemen with minor wounds, after the residential area at the base was hit by missiles causing a massive fire.

The tribes temporarily wrested control of the oil field from the US military, their security contractors, and the SDF.  Battles soon ensued at Azbay, in the northern suburbs of Deir Ez Zor, between the Syrian Arab tribes against the US and their SDF allies.  The US called in helicopters and reinforcements to the oil field, and ambulances were seen responding.

The US has 28 military bases in Syria, located at strategic oil and gas wells in the east of Syria.

The US responded by air strikes on an SAA position in al-Mayadeen, a suburb of Deir Ez Zor. This is the fifth attack on the US military base at the Al-Omar oil field this month.

Syria says it will drive the US from Syria if they will not leave voluntarily. Local tribes and residents have been resisting the US occupation by blocking the path of US military vehicles, throwing stones at vehicles, and in some cases attacking bases.

Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad, while speaking to the United Nations General Assembly in New York in September 2021, said, “Just as we managed to wipe out terrorists from most of Syria, we will work to end the occupation with the same resolve and determination, using all possible means under international law.”

*

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This article was originally published on Mideast Discourse.

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

Featured image is from MD

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***

Summer is here, and some public outdoor spaces in the Dutch city of Utrecht are a riot of colors: wildflowers in myriad hues of orange, red, yellow and purple pop in the sun. More than mere beautification projects, these wildflower patches are among an array of Dutch initiatives to help insect pollinators — part of an ambitious national strategy to support honey bees, wild bees, hoverflies, beetles, butterflies and other species.

The Netherlands is one of only a handful of countries that has a comprehensive strategy aimed directly at stemming the decline in pollinators. Launched in 2018, the National Pollinator Strategy encompasses a range of ongoing efforts and carries clear and measurable benchmarks for success. Already, it is providing a roadmap for other countries looking to conserve their pollinators.

Prioritizing pollination

The Netherlands’ awareness of the importance of pollinators began growing over the past decade following dramatic declines in bee populations that began in the mid 1940s. As wilderness and countryside became farmland and towns, and pesticides grew in use, more than half of the country’s nearly 360 bee species have become endangered. “There are too many pressures on the Dutch landscape,” says Marten Schoonman of the Naturalis Biodiversity Center in Leiden.

Acknowledging the critical role played by pollinators in agriculture, the Netherlands — the world’s second largest exporter of agricultural products — began conservation measures over a decade ago. In 2013, the government launched the Bee Health Action Program, an initiative focused on honey bees. In 2016, along with 13 other countries, the Netherlands became one of the founding members of Promote Pollinators, a coalition of countries (now numbering 30) sharing knowledge about protecting and conserving pollinators.

But it was the country’s National Pollinator Strategy that set it apart from its peers. Launched in 2018 with some 70 initiatives, from creating more nesting sites to improving pollinators’ access to food, the Strategy set out to make the Netherlands a haven for pollinating insects. “We have destroyed a lot [of biodiversity] in the past,” says Nicky Kruizinga, the Strategy’s project leader. “We have a lot of catching up to do.”

The National Pollinator Strategy currently consists of 120 initiatives, underway both in urban centers and agricultural regions. These programs are created and executed at the stakeholder-level, be it a nonprofit, a collective, or a city or province.  They follow the general guidelines necessary to create food and nesting opportunities for insect pollinators.

“There’s a lot of energy going into the Strategy, which is a big change from 10 years ago,” says David Kleijn, a professor of plant ecology and nature conservation at Wageningen University who was involved in formulating the Strategy’s objectives. “It has drawn attention to pollinators, it has gotten people to think about their decline, and motivated them to do something about it. Today, there are over a hundred initiatives. In that sense, it’s a big success.”

The broad aim of the Strategy is “to arrive at a number of bee species showing a stable or positive population trend by 2023 and 2030.” This objective has been further broken down into measurable targets for those years. The 2023 goal is to reduce the number of species showing a downward trend by 30 percent and increase the number of species with an upward trend by 30 percent, as compared to a 2012 baseline. In 2030, the broad goal remains the same as 2023, but the target increases to 50 percent as compared to the 2012 baseline.

According to Kleijn, who was involved in formulating the objectives of the Strategy,

“One of the most frustrating things in policy evaluation is that you can’t find clear objectives of what the policy aims to achieve. In this case, the objectives are measurable, so scientists can evaluate if the goals are reached.”

The Strategy’s nearly 90 signatories include seven of the Netherlands’ 12 provinces, as well as municipalities that have adopted a variety of measures: wildflower patches, insect hotels and green roofs, along with bans on the use of pesticides in public green spaces.

Other signatories are very local, like De Fruitmotor, a cooperative that makes cider from “ugly” apples that won’t sell because of blemishes or deformities. The cooperative’s earnings are invested in planting pollen- and nectar-producing plants to create a pollinator-friendly area around the Betuwe River. “These plants flower at different times of the year, from early spring to late autumn, thus ensuring a steady supply of food for bees and other insects,” says De Fruitmotor co-founder Henri Holster.

The Strategy even includes efforts propelled by private individuals, such as theHoney Highway, an entrepreneurial venture by bee enthusiast Deborah Postma that partners with municipalities to plant wildflowers along highways, railways, and waterways, turning stretches devoid of biodiversity into pollinator-rich zones.

“All stakeholders are working towards the same goal: more food and shelter for insect pollinators,” says Kruizinga, who monitors the Strategy. In 2018 and 2019, the Pollinator Strategy team organized a large meeting where stakeholders could meet and learn from each other. “What is really working well is that our partners have started to cooperate at different levels and there is a lot of knowledge sharing.” (Due to the pandemic, their annual meeting was not held in 2020 and 2021.)

The Dutch Pollinator Strategy aims to enroll as many signatories and pollinator-friendly initiatives as possible. Naturalis, where Schoonman works, is a knowledge partner of the Strategy and is involved with its roll-out. “Making people aware of the diversity and richness of pollinator species plays a key role in their conservation. That’s why the bee count is so important,” Schoonman says, referring to the annual bee count organized by Naturalis with the help of the public.

This year was the fifth edition of the Netherlands’ annual bee count. Nearly 4,000 volunteers from across the country spent 30 minutes in their gardens counting bees on a designated weekend in April. The honey bee topped the count once again. The horned mason bee continued to be one of the most common wild bees in gardens, a species that was quite rare across the Netherlands a decade ago. While the bee count is not an exhaustive activity, it helps keep a track on pollinator population trends.

The National Pollinator Strategy has its limitations. For instance, managing issues like pesticide use and industrial pollution are beyond its scope. “How are we going to get farmers to reduce or eliminate the use of pesticides so that pollinators are not affected?” Kruizinga asks. Changing mindsets and behavior takes time, especially when commercial interests are involved. “Farmers are used to doing things in a certain way that makes sense economically or time management-wise,” says Kleijn, adding that providing subsidies can steer farmers towards difficult but essential measures. “But then a sizable budget needs to be arranged,” he says.

Meanwhile, the EU is moving forward in tackling pesticides. In 2013, it banned the use of three neonicotinoid pesticides — known to be extremely harmful to insect pollinators — on flowering crops. In 2018, this ban was extended to all crops. And in June, the European Commission adopted proposals to reduce pesticide use EU-wide by 50 percent before 2030. But there is still a lot of work to be done to reach those targets.

Another inherent limitation of the Strategy is that it relies mainly on the stakeholders to create pollinator friendly landscapes. “One could question whether that is enough to really make a difference,” says Kleijn.

Kruizinga, however, remains optimistic about the impact of the Pollinator Strategy. “There’s definitely a shift towards pollinator-friendly landscapes and nature-inclusive farming,” she says.

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Anne Pinto Rodrigues is a Netherlands-based freelance journalist, writing on a broad range of topics under social and environmental justice. Her work has been published in The Guardian, The Telegraph, CS Monitor, Yes!, Ensia, and several other international publications.

Featured image: An insect hotel in the Dutch countryside. Credit: Shutterstock

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First published on August 24, 2022

***

Representatives of the civil-military administration of the Zaporozhie region denounced today that Ukrainian troops use artillery with NATO ammunition in attacks on the Energodar nuclear power plant.

“The latest attacks on Saturday were carried out with 155-millimeter shells of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) with American M739 fuses,” the Ukrainian oblast authorities reported on their Telegram account.

In this regard, the member of the main council of the Zaporozhie oblast administration Vladimir Rogogov confirmed that long-range weapons were used in the aggression from the opposite side of the Dnieper River.

The Russian Defense Ministry warned last Thursday that Kiev troops would stage a provocation to generate a radiation leak, as well as to break the integrity of the nuclear waste repository and put the reactor in an abnormal operating state.

The portfolio specified that the aim of such action would be to create an exclusion zone of up to 30 kilometers and to blame Russia for nuclear terrorism, in order to justify a further escalation of the conflict. Several Western politicians stated that a radiation leak at the Zaporozhie nuclear power plant as a result of the shelling could be a pretext for the Atlantic Alliance to start participating in the fighting in Ukraine.

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Featured image is from Prensa Latina

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First published on August 23, 2022

***

We are experiencing a very hot and dry summer. Some people quite like it and for our governments there is nothing wrong yet. But actually, we should sound a big alarm. According to experts, if we do not change course soon, we risk ending up in the ‘climate end game’. In the meantime, the orchestra on the Titanic is continuing to play.

Worrying facts are piling up

France is in the grip of a third heatwave this summer. Temperatures exceed 40°C. The country is experiencing the worst drought in its history. In two-thirds of the departments, the water supply is in crisis.

This year, 48.000 hectares of land have been burnt, which is seven times more than the usual amount. The output of the nuclear power plants on the Rhône and the Garonne has been temporarily reduced because there is not enough river water to cool the plants.

In Canada, temperatures also rose above 40C. That and the sustained drought and wildfires have had a detrimental effect on food production. There are crop failures and 80-per-cent mortality rates at some commercial shellfish operations. In the province of British Columbia, 400,000 chickens have died as a result of the extreme heat.

Italy is experiencing its worst drought since 2003, when a massive heatwave killed 30,000 people and destroyed agricultural produce. A third of agricultural produce is said to be at risk this year. In Switzerland, the army is deployed to prevent cow herds from dying of thirst.

At the beginning of August, the Netherlands declared a national water shortage. In Germany, the Rhine threatens to become unnavigable. In Poland, the authorities have already imposed restrictions on river transports because of the very low water level.

Due to exceptionally dry weather, many reservoirs in Norway have reached historically low water levels. As a result, the government has decided to limit the export of electricity to other countries until the reservoirs are replenished.

California is facing a chronic “mega-drought” in which dry years are becoming more frequent and wet years are becoming scarcer. The current drought, which started around 2000, is the second worst in the past 1200 years. This year alone, more than 140 square mile have burnt in more than 5,000 fires in California’s wine region.

Within three decades a quarter of the US land area and over 107 million people will be subjected to perceived temperatures of above 52C.

The unbearable heat of being

The droughts we have experienced in recent years on the European continent were “unprecedented in the last 250 years”, according to scientists. As the climate continues to warm, heat waves and droughts will become more frequent, they will last longer and temperature peaks will also become higher. Moreover, heat waves and droughts are mutually reinforcing phenomena.[i]

This will be the new normal. It is possible that within a decade every summer in Western Europe will be as hot and dry as this one. In addition to those heat waves, we will also have to deal with rain bombs much more frequently, as in Germany and Belgium last year.[ii]

Since the 1980s, exposure to deadly urban heat has tripled. It now affects nearly a quarter of the world’s population. Already five million people die each year from extreme weather, increasingly from heat-related causes.

According to the French Ministry of the Environment, the average air temperature will rise by 1.4 to 3 degrees Celsius by 2070. Precipitation will decline by 16 to 23 percent and river flows in the south of the country will fall by 30 to 50 percent. Similar numbers may be expected in neighbouring countries.

If the current evolution continues, agricultural yields could fall by 30 percent worldwide by 2050. About 5 billion people could face water shortages for at least one month a year.

Extreme heat – defined as an annual average temperature of over 29°C – would affect two billion people by 2070. By 2060, about 1.4 billion people could be climate refugees and by 2100, a fifth of the world’s population may be displaced as a result of rising sea levels.

Endgame?

And these are only conservative predictions. In recent years, climate scientists have found that extreme weather events are occurring faster than models had predicted. Initially it was assumed that temperatures and extreme weather events would increase gradually and linearly. It is possible that we have now entered a period where extremes will occur suddenly, more frequently and also more powerfully.

In a recent study, a group of scientists does no longer completely rule out a global societal collapse or human extinction. They call such a catastrophe the ‘climate endgame’. The probability of such a catastrophe may be small, but such scenarios cannot be ruled out, given the uncertainties in future emissions and the climate system.

A possible acceleration of warming is related to so-called tipping points[iii] and feedbacks.[iv] Certain tipping points could cause even an additional 8 °C global warming.[v]

According to those scientists “facing a future of accelerating climate change while remaining blind to worst-case scenarios is naive risk management at best and fatally foolish at worst”.

It is worth remembering that the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is currently approaching the level there was 15 million years ago. Back then, temperatures were 3 to 4 degrees Celsius higher and the sea level was 20 metres higher.

“There are warnings from history. Climate change (either regional or global) has played a role in the collapse or transformation of numerous previous societies and in each of the five mass extinction events in Phanerozoic[vi] Earth history” according to scientists.

Much will depend on global climate efforts. The current trajectory puts the world on track for a temperature rise between 2.1 °C and 3.9 °C by 2100. If the existing pledges by countries are fully implemented, this increase will be 1.9 to 3 degrees Celsius. Provided all long-term pledges and targets were met, the warming would be 1.7 to 2.6 degrees Celsius.

“Even these optimistic assumptions lead to dangerous Earth system trajectories. Temperatures of more than 2°C above preindustrial values have not been sustained on Earth’s surface since before the Pleistocene Epoch (or more than 2.6 million years ago).”

A warming of more than 2°C is particularly alarming. Human societies are adapted to specific climatic environments. Since the emergence of large-scale, urbanised agricultural societies around 12,000 years ago, civilisations have developed within a narrow climatic framework with an average annual temperature of around 13°C.

Even today, the most economically productive centres of human activity are concentrated in such areas. According to the scientists, “the cumulative impacts of warming may overwhelm societal adaptive capacity”.

We are faced with a choice

UN Secretary-General António Guterres presents us with a choice: “We are on a catastrophic path. “We can either save our world or condemn humanity to a hellish future.”

To save the world from climate degeneration, a complete energy transition is needed that is much bigger and faster than any previous one in world history. In the next 30 to 50 years, 90 per cent or more of the world’s energy that is currently produced from fossil fuels will have to be provided by renewable energy sources, nuclear power[vii] or fossil fuel plants that bury their waste rather than emitting it.

According to Energy Transitions Commission, a prestigious think tank on global warming, less than 1 per cent of the world’s GDP[viii] annually is needed to become carbon neutral by the middle of this century. This is an insignificant amount to save the world from catastrophic climate change. By comparison, it is estimated that by 2020 the entirety of the stimulus packages in the rich countries in the context of the covid crisis accounted for more than 30 per cent of GDP.[ix]

Avoiding a climate catastrophe is thus absolutely possible, but it will require a drastic change of course. To date, tackling global warming has largely been left to market forces: emissions trading, carbon taxes, market-based development of green technology, etc. Obviously, this is not a successful strategy.

Moreover, one hundred multinationals are responsible for 71 percent of greenhouse gas emissions between 1988 and 2015. Another reason why green and cheap energy must become a public service, just like the low-carbon infrastructure and technology needed to deliver that energy. In the past, governments created other public services such as those for defence, public health, education, scientific research, …

We do not have much time left. We have now used up 86% of the carbon budget[x] for a 50-50 chance of staying below 1.5°C, or 89% of the budget for a 2/3 chance. Or expressed in time, we still have 7 to 10 years to turn the tide. It is not without reason that Guterres warns of a ‘code red‘ for humanity.

 

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Translation by Dirk Nimmegeers

Marc Vandepitte is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Sources

Climate Endgame: Exploring catastrophic climate change scenarios, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Climate endgame: risk of human extinction ‘dangerously underexplored’, The Guardian

Imagining a “Half-Earth” Sustainable Economy, Counterpunch

Notes

[i] The energy of the sunlight is partly used to evaporate moisture from the soil and the leaves of the trees. When the Earth is bone dry there is nothing left to evaporate and all the sun’s energy goes into heating the atmosphere. This makes the Earth even drier and heats up the atmosphere even more. It is a vicious circle.

[ii] British climate experts predict that such rain storms will become 14 times more frequent by the end of the century if CO2 emissions remain high.

[iii] In climate science, a tipping point is a critical threshold at which a (relatively) small perturbation can dramatically change the state of major components of the Earth system. According to scientists, large-scale components of the Earth system may pass a tipping point in the near future, causing a change in the global climate. They have in mind, for example, the deterioration of the Amazon rainforest or the death of the boreal forests in Canada and Siberia, the melting of the polar caps or the Greenland icecap, the disruption of the monsoon on the Indian subcontinent, the degradation of coral reefs, the loss of permafrost and tundra.

[iv] A feedback means that the change in one variable has an effect on a second variable, which in turn has an effect on the first variable. This creates a chain effect.

A good example is the emission of methane from thawing permafrost in the frozen peat bogs of Siberia. Global warming melts the permafrost and releases methane. This is a very powerful greenhouse gas that accelerates warming, causing even more permafrost to melt and releasing even more methane.

[v] For example, the abrupt loss of stratocumulus cloud cover (clouds that are lower than 2.5 km in altitude).

[vi] The Phanerozoic geological era is a period of the Earth’s geological history lasting from about 540 million years to the present.

[vii] Nuclear power is not appropriate because it is too expensive, there is a risk of nuclear disasters and hazardous waste has to be stored for centuries.

[viii] GDP stands for Gross Domestic Product. That is what we all produce in terms of wealth every year.

[ix] It concerns both fiscal measures (direct state aid to companies, families, etc.) and monetary measures (central banks pumping money into the financial markets).

[x] The carbon budget is the amount of CO2 that may be added to the atmosphere in order to limit climate warming to 1.5°C.

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***

Before the Russian invasion, CIA reports linked him to an oligarch so dirty and so mired in “significant corruption” that the State Department banned him from entering the U.S.

But now CIA propaganda portrays Zelensky as nobler than Winston Churchill and saintlier than Mother Theresa.

Will the Real Volodymyr Zelensky Please Stand Up

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In 2019, the CIA-run Radio Free Europe reported on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s connection to Ihor Kholomoisky, a Ukrainian oligarch whom the State Department banned from entering the U.S. in March 2021 due to his “significant corruption.” See video report below.

(Click on image to link to video) [Source: realclearpolitics.com]

This report is ironic given that, since Ukraine’s war with Russia began over four months ago, Radio Free Europe along with the rest of the Western media has depicted Zelensky as something equivalent to a reincarnation of Winston Churchill and Mother Teresa, driving a campaign for his nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize and inspiring a flamboyant musical tribute during the 2022 Grammy awards.

Zelensky gives a video address at the 2022 Grammy awards in April. [Source: jta.org]

Steering One of the Biggest Ponzi Schemes in World History

Meanwhile in January 2022, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a civil forfeiture complaint—the fourth against him—which alleges that Kholomoisky and Gennadiy Bogolyubov, who owned PrivatBank, one of the largest banks in Ukraine, embezzled and defrauded the bank of $5.5 billion which went missing.

The two allegedly obtained fraudulent loans and lines of credit from 2008 through 2016 and laundered portions of their criminal proceeds using an array of shell companies’ bank accounts, primarily at PrivatBank’s Cyprus branch, before they transferred the funds to the U.S. where they continued to launder them illegally through an associate operating out of offices in Miami.

Source: johnhelmer.org

Some of the stolen money was from IMF loans granted to the Ukrainian government after the 2014 Maidan coup, which was paid out by the National Bank of Ukraine into Privatbank.^[1]

According to a profile in The American Spectator, Kholomoisky laundered millions in Cleveland, Ohio, and across the Midwest where, as “one of the [region’s] biggest real-estate landlords,” he “steered one of the biggest Ponzi schemes in world history.”

Making Even Other Oligarchs, No Strangers to Violent Crime, Blanch

Born in Soviet Ukraine in 1963, Kholomoisky was among those to benefit after the Soviet collapse in the early 1990s from the sale of formerly state-owned enterprises like steel plants and gas wells at fire-sale prices.

According to The American Spectator, Kholomoisky had two advantages over other nascent oligarchs. First, he had a background in metallurgy—in the science of making and molding metals and alloys in demand. Second, Kholomoisky “displayed a ruthlessness that made even other oligarchs, no strangers to violent crime, blanch.”

A writer for Forbes magazine reported that, in one instance, he saw “hundreds of hired rowdies armed with baseball bats, iron bars, gas and rubber-bullet pistols and chainsaws forcibly [take] over” a steel plant that Kholomoisky eyed.

For the full Bond-villain effect, Kholomoisky put a shark tank in his office. Allegedly, he was not averse to shoving the head of a visitor in it as a reminder never to cross him.

Funding Neo-Nazis

According to Oleg Noginsky, the president of the Suppliers Customs Union, after Ukraine’s February 2014 Euro-Maidan Revolution, Kholomoisky “hired the guys who carried out the Odessa massacre”—the killing of several dozen supporters of deposed Russian-allied President Viktor Yanukovych who were holed up in a trade union building.

As Governor of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast from 2014 until 2016, Kholomoisky bankrolled anti-Russian units operating with the Ukrainian army in Donetsk and Luhansk—which voted to secede after the post-Maidan government tried to impose the Ukrainian language on them.

These units included the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion which terrorized the people of eastern Ukraine, along with the Dnipro and Aidar battalions, which were sometimes deployed as personal thug squads to protect Kholomoisky’s financial interests.

Burisma and the CIA

The New York Post reported that Kholomoisky had a “controlling interest” in Burisma Holdings—the Ukrainian energy company which employed Hunter Biden as a board member for $50,000 per month. Russian media, quoted in State Department emails, referred to Burisma as “part of Kholomoisky’s financial empire.”

Six months after Hunter Biden departed, Burisma appointed Cofer Black to its board—a position that he maintains. Black was a career CIA officer who served as director of the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center following the September 11 attacks.

This appointment raises questions as to whether Burisma served as a CIA-front operation that was designed to help finance the anti-Russia militias in eastern Ukraine.

Source: usatoday.com

Ihor and Volodymyr Sitting in a Tree…

Kholomoisky’s relationship with Zelensky goes back to around 2012, when Zelensky and his partners in a television production company, Kvartal 95, began making regular content for TV stations owned by Kholomoisky.

A comedian and actor who had been famous since the 2000s, Zelensky began his political rise a few years after taking on a starring role in the political satire “Servant of the People,” which began airing on Kholomoisky’s network in 2015.

The show starred Zelensky as a humble history teacher whose anti-corruption rant in class is filmed by a student, goes viral online, and wins him national office.

In a case of life imitating art, Zelensky ended up winning the real-world Ukrainian presidency just three-and-a-half years after the show’s launch, with more than 73% of the vote.

Zelensky capitalized on widespread public anger at corruption, but his 2019 campaign was dogged by doubts over his anti-graft bona fides given his connection to Kholomoisky.

In the heat of the campaign, an ally of incumbent Petro Poroshenko, Volodymyr Ariev, published a chart on Facebook purporting to show that Zelensky and his television production partners were beneficiaries of a web of offshore firms, which they had set up beginning in 2012, that allegedly received $41 million in funds from Kholomoisky’s Privatbank.

Ariev did not provide smoking-gun evidence, though the Pandora Papers—11.9 million leaked documents published by a consortium of investigative journalists in October 2021—show that at least some of the details in this alleged scheme correspond to reality.

In specific, the Pandora Papers reveal information on ten companies in the network that match structures detailed in Ariev’s chart, and show that Zelensky and his partners used companies based in the British Virgin Islands (BVI), Belize and Cyprus.

Forbes magazine currently places Zelensky’s net worth at between $20 and $30 million—a total he could not have earned simply as a TV performer and comedian.

Zelensky allegedly owns lavish properties in central London, Italy and Miami Beach—to which he could retire if he is forced to flee Ukraine.

Two of Zelensky’s associates in the offshore network, who were also part of his TV production company, have held powerful positions in his government. Serhiy Shefir is Zelensky’s top presidential aide, while Ivan Bakanov headed until very recently the feared Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), which is Europe’s largest security agency and nearly the same size as the FBI despite Ukraine being 16 times smaller than the U.S.

You Scratch My Back, I’ll Scratch Yours

Besides providing financial support during Ukraine’s 2019 election, Kholomoisky supplied Zelensky with a car and lent his personal lawyer to him to be campaign adviser and promoted his candidacy on various media outlets that he owned.

The close ties between the two were apparent in 2018 when Zelensky traveled to Geneva Switzerland, for Kholomoisky’s birthday, and then afterwards back to Geneva another ten times.

When Kholomoisky moved to Tel Aviv, Israel, Zelensky traveled there to visit with him three times, according to Radio Free Europe.

Zelensky claimed that his relationship with Kholomoisky was not political; rather he had gone to visit him because of TV work.

However, Zelensky made sure to reward him when he became president. He removed Kholomoisky’s opponents, the Prosecutor General, the Governor of the National Bank of Ukraine, and his own prime minister, who tried to regulate Kholomoisky’s control of a state-owned electricity company.

Ukraine’s parliament also passed a measure that prevented Kholomoisky from having topay higher taxes on his mining operations.

No Lion of a Leader

Zelensky’s long-standing ties to Kholomoisky belie the pristine public image of a man hailed by U.S. politicians as a “lion of a leader” (August Pfluger R-TX) and person of “incredible bravery” (Adam Schiff, D-CA).

A neoliberal who advanced a sweeping privatization initiative, Zelensky has banned eleven opposition parties and carried out a reign of terror against political opponents.

The victims include the former leader of the Ukrainian left forces, Vasily Volga, and the Kononovich brothers, leaders of Ukraine’s Young Communist League who were accused of being pro-Russian.

The Kononovich brothers, leaders of the Young Communist League in Ukraine, who have been detained since March 6. [Source: towardfreedom.org]

Despite campaigning on a peace platform, Zelensky provoked war with Russia by a) enacting a major troop buildup in eastern Ukraine in February; b) increasing shelling of eastern Ukraine in violation of ceasefire agreements; and c) calling for the retaking from Russia of Crimea and city of Sevastopol, which houses the Russian Navy’s Black Sea fleet.

Map showing Ukrainian troop concentrations on eastern Ukraine’s border on eve of the Russian invasion of February 24, 2022. According to the Russian Deputy Foreign Minister, Ukraine had massed 122,000 troops on the border with Donbass. The Duma furthermore has claimed to have intelligence indicating that these troops were planning an offensive into Donbas, which the Russian invasion preempted. [Source: consortiumnews.com]

Since the fighting began, Zelensky has eschewed negotiations and instead begged the West for more and more weapons while inviting foreign mercenaries into Ukraine.

Swiss journalist Guy Mettan has written that Zelensky will ultimately be held responsible for Ukraine’s devastation in the war as he “preferred the ruin of his country to a timely compromise.”

This assessment is at odds with the current media hagiography of Zelensky, which also obscures his ties to Kholomoisky that the CIA itself has acknowledged.

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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].

Notes

1. Journalist John Helmer points out that Hillary Clinton, Victoria Nuland and Christine LaGarde, the former IMF directors, ignored the evidence of Kholomoisky’s corruption and the squandering of IMF loan money in a ponzi scheme; probably because of the political imperative underlying the IMF’s policy towards Ukraine after the Maidan coup. John Helmer, “The Kolomoisky Pyramid Started with Hillary Clinton and Victoria Nuland of the State Department Plus Christine Lagarde of the IMF,” http://johnhelmer.org/the-kolomoisky-pyramid-started-with-hillary-clinton-and-victoria-nuland-of-the-state-department-plus-christine-lagarde-of-the-imf/ 

Featured image:  Zelensky in 2019, photo by President.gov.ua, CC BY 4.0  via Wikimedia Commons

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First published on August 19, 2022

***

I have been subject to tremendous criticism from all sides over the last week for my recent comments concerning billionaires, and specifically concerning the man who put the “bill” in “billionaire,” none other than the “workingman’s hero” Bill Gates, the inventor of just about everything he can get his hands on.

Let me first say, unambiguously, that when I suggested that we should hunt down the billionaires on their private islands, in their space-age bunkers, that I was just joking, just making a few glib remarks for close friends.

You can’t possibly believe I was serious. I mean who would listen to a poor little guy with no assets, no cash, and no job? I mean, by billionaire’s standards, I don’t even exist, I am but a useless eater.

And we all know that the politicians, the bureaucrats, the military, the police, the employees of the corporations who run the world, they would never listen to a worthless figure like me.

Why all of them already know that they are to follow the orders passed down from billionaires, not scraps of paper like the constitution.

Video

 

And let me tell you that some of my best friends are billionaires. Why we are practically on a first-name basis.

I have the ultimate respect for billionaires who have, through their wisdom and their benevolence, through their commitment to the future of mankind–using charitable organizations like the World Economic Forum, have transformed our world into a dream.

It is those billionaires, those entrepreneurs and innovators, those visionaries, those philanthropists and “creative destroyers” who worry, day and night, about how the common man is doing. Why they have practically planned out everything for the common man, the common women, far into the future.

They are truly geniuses. How could they amass billions, even hundreds of billions, of dollars when I can barely pay my rent?

I need to learn from them. We must all become like the billionaires, especially my favorite, the avuncular Warren Buffett, a humble man who lives in a humble home, who advocates that the rich should pay more taxes, even as he himself pays less than other billionaires. What a genius! What an angel!

I guess I did not know how sensitive billionaires are. I really did not mean to hurt their little feelings.

As a holy man of the ancient world once remarked, “why so serious?” Or the Chinese philosopher Laozi once commented, “my turn” –or was it “ideas are bulletproof.”

My heart goes out to them, those billionaires. I can imagine what is must be like to be trapped in a Fantasy Island compound of your own design. Why a palace like that, surrounded by guards, AI directed drones, can start to feel a bit like a prison at times.

I extend to all billionaires a warm greeting and a sincere offer to meet in person so we can discuss how we can build a better world together.

After all, with all those excess people on the Earth, we had better start planning quickly. We would not want people to figure what is going on before the armed drones and robots are in place, the 5G towers are up, the low orbit military satellites are deployed, the farm land is controlled, and the digital currencies and basic incomes are accepted.

Maybe my kind words might soften their hearts, might inspire them to consider taking me along to the island where the next stage of this game is being planned.

I assure you, dear billionaires, I would not turn down the opportunity if it cost me my life, or yours.

As Socrates wrote so long ago,

“Life is short: Play dead!”

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This article was originally published on Fear No Evil.

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

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from The Socialist Network

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***

Since the proudly announced counteroffensive of the Ukrainian Army in the south has not happened, and more and more territories of the country are coming under the control of Russian forces, the Kiev regime which vitally needs to declare any victories has switched to a terrorist strategy of military operations.

Over the past week, the Russian ground forces have won several important victories on the front lines.

On August 19, the headquarters of the territorial defense of the DPR confirmed full control of the town of Zaitsevo and small village of Dacha located on the northern outskirts of Gorlovka. The Ukrainian units deployed in the area saved their own lives and surrendered. Fighting has been ongoing there since 2014. The Armed Forces of Ukraine held control in the north of the town, from where they constantly shelled civilians in the areas under DPR control.

In the Donetsk region, after the town of Peski came under control of the DPR, fighters of the 11th regiment of the DPR and famous Somalia battalion are moving towards Pervomaisky and Nevelsky.

Near Ugledar, the Ukrainian command was forced to transfer reserves in order to restrain the offensive of the allied forces. On August 21, Russian reconnaissance units reportedly entered the village of Pavlovka.

Instead of the counteroffensive in the south promised by Kiev, Russian forces claimed victories in the Nikolaev region.

Russian units advanced in the village of Blagodatnoye located 40 kilometers to the west of Nikolaev. According to preliminary reports, Russian servicemen managed to dislodge forces of the 63 separate mechanized brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and establish control over the village. This is the area from where Ukrainian troops have been trying to develop any offensive for the last two months.

Losing on the front lines, the Ukrainian military is busy carrying terrorist attacks against Russians in DPR, LPR as well as on the Russian territories. The Ukrainian military has already shelled civilians in Donetsk with PFM-1 mines. They continue attacks on the Zaporozhskaya Nuclear power plant and the Kakhovskaya power station, threatening the world with ecological catastrophes. Ukrainian saboteurs attempt to attack military and civilian facilities in Crimea and other Russian regions.

The Kiev regime does not stop and continues attacks on pro-Russian officials in the territories under Russian control.

On August 20, the mayor of Mariupol survived an assassination attempt. In early August, another assassination attempt targeted the deputy head of the Novokakhovskaya administration for Communal Services.

On August 20, a car explosion killed Darya Dugina. The young woman worked as a political comentator and she was included in the Western sanctions lists. She was the daughter of the famous Russian philosopher and political scientist Alexander Dugin. Being the founder of neo-Eurasianism he became one of the most influential thinkers in Russia.

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First published on July 27, 2022

***

“We’re now facing a situation where a huge number of very powerful organizations and elites at an international and at national levels are calling for policies that are basically a suicide pact.

Basically a death wish of some sort.”

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***

This article was originally published by Al Jazeera on September 10, 2021.

In the early morning hours of August 31, 2021 the last American soldiers lifted off from Kabul airport, officially ending the 20-year war in Afghanistan, the longest in US history.

At its peak in 2011, the US had approximately 100,000 troops across at least 10 military bases from Bagram to Kandahar. In total, more than 800,000 US soldiers served in the war according to the Pentagon.

While no US troops remain on the ground today, US President Joe Biden said that his military will continue to conduct air raids against enemy targets from “over-the-horizon” – air missions from a vast network of US bases around the region.

Upwards of 750 US bases around the world

According to David Vine, ​​professor of political anthropology at the American University in Washington, DC, the US had around 750 bases in at least 80 countries as of July 2021.

The actual number may be even higher as not all data is published by the Pentagon.

With 120 active bases, Japan has the highest number of US bases in the world followed by Germany with 119 and South Korea with 73.

Copyright Al Jazeera

US military base sites fall under two main categories:

Large bases or “Bases”: Defined as military installations larger than 4 hectares (10 acres) or worth more than $10 million. These bases typically have in excess of 200 US military personnel. 439 or 60 percent of the US’s foreign bases fall under this category.

Small bases or “Lily Pads”: These bases are smaller than 4 hectares(10 acres) or have a value of less than $10 million. These include cooperative security locations and forward operating sites. The remaining 40 percent of US foreign bases fall under this category.

According to global US military deployment data published in the Conflict Management and Peace Science Journal, the US had around 173,000 troops deployed in 159 countries as of 2020.

Like the US bases, the countries with the most number of US troops include Japan with 53,700, Germany with 33,900 and South Korea with 26,400.

US military presence in the Middle East

According to the Watson Institute at Brown University, between 1.9 and three million US service members have served in Afghanistan and Iraq since 2001, with over half of them deployed more than once.

The largest US military installation in the Middle East is the Al Udeid Air Base, located west of Doha, Qatar. Established in 1996, it hosts around 11,000 American and coalition service members. Covering an area of 24 hectares (60 acres), the base accommodates almost 100 aircraft as well as drones.

Copyright Al Jazeera

On October 7, 2001, the US under President George W Bush invaded Afghanistan following the 9/11 attacks. The coalition he led accused the ruling Taliban regime of harbouring Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaeda leader who claimed responsibility for the attacks.

An estimated 241,000 people have died as a direct result of the war since 2001, according to the Costs of War project at Brown University. In addition, hundreds of thousands more, mostly civilians, have died due to hunger, disease and injury caused by the devastating war.

In 2003, the US invaded Iraq after it accused long-time Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein of having weapons of mass destruction – none was found. At its peak in 2007, the US had an estimated 170,000 troops in the country. Today, there are around 2,500 US troops in the country as part of a security agreement with the Iraqi government.

US military presence in Japan and South Korea

The US has been in Japan since the end of World War II (1939-1945) and in South Korea since the Korean War (1950-1953).

Nearly half of all US military deployed abroad, some 80,100 American personnel, are stationed in Japan with 53,700 and South Korea with 26,400.

South Korea hosts Camp Humphreys, the largest overseas US military base, located approximately 65km (40 miles) south of the capital Seoul.

Copyright Al Jazeera

The 1,398 hectares (3,454 acres) base is one of 80 bases in the country and is less than 100km (60 miles) from the heavily fortified demilitarized zone that demarcates North Korea from South Korea.

US military presence in Europe

Europe is home to at least 60,000 US troops. At 33,900, Germany has the highest number of US troops in Europe – and the second highest in the world – followed by Italy at 12,300 and the UK at 9,300. However, the number of US troops stationed in Germany has more than halved between 2006 and 2020, dropping from 72,400 to 33,900.

Copyright Al Jazeera

The Ramstein Air Base in Germany is the largest hub for US troops and military supplies in Europe. Just outside the 1,200 hectares (3,000 acres) base is the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, the largest US military hospital outside the US. The facility was used extensively during the Afghanistan and Iraq wars and treated thousands of wounded soldiers.

Like nearly all US bases, Ramstein is equipped with hospitals, schools, power stations, apartment complexes and a host of amenities often referred to as “Burger Kings and bowling alleys”.

US military presence in Latin America

Located on the eastern tip of Cuba, the Guantanamo Bay naval base is the US’s oldest overseas military base. The 116sq km (45 sq miles) facility has been under American control since the end of the 19th century.

The base is a hotly debated issue between the US and Cuba. For decades, Cuba has insisted that the US hand back the territory it took by force in 1898 and subsequently leased permanently in 1903.

Copyright Al Jazeera

US troop deployment since 1950

Over the past 70 years, the US military has been deployed to more than 200 countries and territories.

The infographic below shows a brief history of where the US has deployed its troops since the end of World War II, along with the wars it has fought in.

Copyright Al Jazeera

1950-1953

Following the surrender of the Japanese to the Allies that ended World War II, the US and the Soviet Union divided Korea, which had been under Japanese rule, along the 38th parallel, roughly bisecting the Korean peninsula.

On June 25, 1950, North Korean forces, backed by China and the Soviet Union, invaded the South triggering the start of the Korean War. Allied with the South, the US deployed some 1.78 million troops over the three-year-long war.

It is estimated that between 2 to 3 million civilians died during the war. According to the US Department of Defense, the US suffered 33,739 deaths in battle. No formal peace treaty was ever signed.

1955-1975

Tensions between the US and the Soviet Union continued to brew in Southeast Asia in the 1950s and 1960s. The main conflict pitted the communist government of North Vietnam against South Vietnam and its ally, the US.

Over 3.4 million US troops were deployed to Southeast Asia; in excess of three million people, including over 58,000 Americans, were killed in the war.

On March 29, 1973, the last US combat troops left Vietnam. Two years later on April 30, 1975, communist forces seized control of South Vietnam and ended the war.

1990-1991

On August 2, 1990, the Iraqi army invaded Kuwait, a small oil-rich nation to the country’s south. One week later, on August 9, the US began Operation Desert Shield, and deployed thousands of troops to Saudi Arabia.

During the brief war, around 694,550 American troops were deployed to the region. On February 28, 1991, US President George HW Bush declared a ceasefire, and on April 3 of that same year, the UN passed a resolution formally ending the conflict.

2001-2021

The period following the 9/11 attacks, and the declaration of war on both Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003, saw a large spike in troops abroad. At least 800,000 Americans served in Afghanistan and more than 1.5 million in Iraq over the past 20 years.

The human cost of the wars is estimated to have killed more than 900,000 people – mostly civilians.

US military spending since 1950

In 2020, the US spent $778bn on its military – the largest military spender in the world and more than the next 10 countries combined – according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

China ranked second at $252bn, followed by India at $73bn, Russia at $62bn and the UK at $59bn.

Copyright Al Jazeera

Over the past 20 years alone, the US has spent $8 trillion on its so-called “global war on terror” according to the Costs of War project at Brown University. The war in Afghanistan accounts for $2.3 trillion which, according to Brown University researchers, equals more than $300 million a day for 20 years.

$2.1 trillion was spent on the wars in Iraq and Syria, and $355bn was attributed to other wars. The rest of the money includes in excess of $1bn in interest payments for the huge amounts of money borrowed to fund the wars as well as more than $2.2bn in obligations for veterans’ care over the next 30 years. This means that, even after the US has left Afghanistan, it will continue to pay for the wars for years to come.

Thanks to Al Jazeera for bringing this article to our attention.

Link to the original article. Copyright Al Jazeera

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First published on July 15, 2022

***

“Production of the B61-12 nuclear bomb begins,” Sandia National Laboratories announced from the United States. The B61-12, which replaces the previous B61 deployed by the U.S. at Aviano and Ghedi and other European bases, is a new type of weapon. It has a nuclear warhead with four power options, selectable depending on the target to be destroyed. It is not dropped vertically, but at a distance from the target on which it is directed guided by a satellite system. It can penetrate underground, exploding deep to destroy command center bunkers in a nuclear first strike.

The B61-12s, classified as “non-strategic nuclear weapons,” are deployed in Europe — in Italy, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Britain and probably other countries — at distances far enough to strike Russia. They thus have offensive capabilities similar to those of strategic weapons.

Another nuclear weapon system, which the United States is preparing to install in Europe against Russia, is ground-based intermediate-range missiles. They can also be launched from “anti-missile shield” installations, deployed by the U.S. at bases in Deveselu in Romania and Redzikowo in Poland, and aboard five warships cruising in the Mediterranean, Black Sea and Baltic Sea close to Russia.

That such installations have offensive capabilities is confirmed by Lockheed Martin itself. Outlining the characteristics of the Mk 41 vertical launch system, used in both land and naval installations, it specifies that it is capable of launching “missiles for all missions, both defense and long-range attack, including Tomahawk cruise missiles.” These can be armed with nuclear warheads.

Europe is thus being turned by the U.S. into the front line of a nuclear confrontation with Russia, even more dangerous than that of the Cold War.

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This article was originally published on byoblu.

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

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***

The Russian and Iranian economies will mutually benefit by selling discounted resources on the global market while countries like India will accelerate their rise as multipolar Great Powers through the purchase of these exports. Their trilateral axis will continue becoming a force to be reckoned with, especially if the first two coordinate their natural gas activities seeing as how they account for the largest such reserves in the world.

The influential US-led Western Mainstream Media (MSM) outlet Politico expressed extreme frustration on Tuesday at America’s inability to stop a prospective Russian-Iranian oil swap arrangement pending the successful renegotiation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan Of Action (JCPOA) that recent reports indicate might be on the brink of finally being reached. In their piece titled “Russia eyes Iran as sanctions-busting backdoor for oil sales”, they lament how easily “Iran could import Russian crude to its northern Caspian coast and then sell equivalent amounts of crude on Russia’s behalf in Iranian tankers leaving from the Persian Gulf.” This pact would be mutually beneficial and further strengthen the rapidly intensifying strategic partnership between these multipolar Great Powers.

The global systemic transition to multipolarity that unprecedentedly accelerated in light of the latest US-provoked phase of the Ukrainian Conflict that began half a year ago is fundamentally transforming Eurasia. President Putin recently declared that Russia restored its status as a world power, which is an accurate reflection of its role in contemporary International Relations. To explain, the US-led West’s unprecedented sanctions counterproductively crippled the economic-financial basis of America’s declining unipolar hegemony, which coincided with Russia teaming up with India and Iran to forge a third pole of influence in the present bi-multipolar intermediary phase of the above-mentioned systemic transition to more complex multipolarity (“multiplexity”).

These two factors irreversibly altered the course of the New Cold War: the US’ unipolar hegemonic decline became inevitable while India helped Russia preemptively avert any potentially disproportionate dependence on China that some observers speculated could have led to the People’s Republic replacing America’s sole superpower status in the coming future and thus replicating the systemic inequalities connected with that scenario. To be absolutely clear, the author doesn’t extend credence to that dire prediction about China replacing the US’ prior role in International Relations but is simply pointing out how India’s black swan intervention just made that scenario impossible in any case.

Having explained the game-changing structural significance of the Russian-Indian Strategic Partnership, readers can now better understand the complementary role that the Russian-Iranian one plays. While less directly influential in terms of immediately reshaping the trajectory of the global systemic transition, it’s no less significant with respect to its long-term implications due to the impact that it’s poised to have on the energy industry. These two multipolar powers are major players in that trade, especially the natural gas one. Their speculative plans for an oil swap deal that prompted such panic from Politico carry with them the potential to ensure reliable revenue generation for both while also helping their partners.

The Russian and Iranian economies will mutually benefit by selling discounted resources on the global market while countries like India will accelerate their rise as multipolar Great Powers through the purchase of these exports. Their trilateral axis will continue becoming a force to be reckoned with, especially if the first two coordinate their natural gas activities seeing as how they account for the largest such reserves in the world. It’s therefore not difficult to foresee that the global energy industry could eventually be revolutionized by the Russian-Iranian Strategic Partnership, which could in turn deal a deathblow to the so-called “petrodollar”, especially in the scenario of Saudi Arabia selling oil to China and others in yuan.

De-dollarizing the natural gas trade, whether in parallel with the aforesaid scenario of Saudi Arabia and China leading the de-dollarization of the oil one or instead of it in the event that this second scenario doesn’t transpire for whatever reason, will go down as a landmark event in the history of the global economy. Russia and Iran’s speculatively impending close cooperation in the oil trade will set the stage for what’s very likely to come, which will have outsized importance for everyone since natural gas consumption is expected to continue growing for the indefinite future. In practical terms, this means that those two will collectively exert disproportionate influence over the global economy in an indirect but nevertheless tangible way.

Nobody should doubt their intentions either since Iran has been a revolutionary state since 1979 while President Putin just unveiled his country’s global revolutionary manifesto late last month. Iran and Russia therefore see eye-to-eye on the need to do all that’s required in order to accelerate the systemic transition to multipolarity, which unquestionably includes jointly leveraging their roles in the energy trade so as to become superpowers in this industry. They’ll mutually benefit while also speeding up their shared Indian strategic partner’s rise as a Great Power, which will help break International Relations out of their present bi-multipolar intermediary phase and thus herald the emergence of complex multipolarity exactly as their leaderships envision, all to the detriment of the US’ declining hegemony.

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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 frequent contributor to Global Research.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is a screenshot from Politico via OneWorld

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***

 

As I read through the multitude of daily news articles about Russia, Ukraine, NATO and EU, it’s getting ever harder to escape the idea that there is a controlled demolition of the continent happening. And that neither its “leaders”, and certainly not its people, have any say in this. All we get from those “leaders” are NATO or World Economic Forum talking points. The only independent voice is Victor Orban. Who is either silenced in western media or painted as fully insane.

But Orban’s Hungarians won’t freeze this coming winter. He just signed a new gas deal with Russia. The main reason that is provided for all the others not doing that is of course Russia’s Special Military Operation in Ukraine. Which is as insane as Orban is, and “totally unprovoked”, say the western media. Noam Chomsky summarized that best: “Of course it was provoked. Otherwise they wouldn’t refer to it all the time as an unprovoked invasion.”

And no, it wasn’t just Russia/Ukraine, way before that Europe had already screwed up its economies beyond recognition -if you cared to look under the hood. But why make it worse? I get a very strong feeling that those EU “leaders” have alienated themselves far too much from the people they purport to serve, and they’ll regret it. For now it’s obvious among farmers, for instance, but when people start freezing, they will want to know why. And if no answer is forthcoming that is both honest and satisfactory, many “leaders” will have it coming for them.

The entire energy and food crisis is being sold as “inevitable”, but it is nothing of the kind. They are the result of choices being made in Brussels, Berlin, Amsterdam etc., about which nobody has asked your opinion. Something I jotted down a few days ago:

Is the west using Ukraine as an excuse to commit mass economic suicide? And, you know, fulfill some WEF-related goals? Why else would they cut off all economic ties to Moscow, at a time when it’s obvious they have no alternative sources for much of what they import from Russia? Moreover, why does a country like Holland aim to close 10,000 of its farms when it’s crystal clear that that will exacerbate the coming global food crises?

If you don’t like Putin, that’s fine, but why should your own people suffer from what you like or not? And of course you can ask whether it’s a good idea that a country the size of a postage stamp is the world’s no. 2 food exporter. But it is. And if you try to change that by doing a 180º, also on a postage stamp, it is very obvious that is not going to go well. And all the so-called leaders know this. But they still do it.

Prices for heating, petrol, as well as food, are set to go much higher than they have already, mitigated only -perhaps- by the fact that ever fewer people will be able to afford the ever higher prices. But now it’s starting to look like this was all scripted. Because “we” could have kept communication channels with Russia open, “we” could have negotiated for peace for the past 6 months. Not doing that was a deliberate choice. A choice that you and me, another “we”- had no voice in whatsoever.

The Dutch could have negotiated with their farmers, and slowly addressed their perceived problems with nitrogen oxides, while keeping food production going. And we could have found a way to keep Russian and Ukrainian crops available on world markets too. But it doesn’t feel at all like “we” wanted that.

Someone made a list of what EU won’t get anymore with the Russia boycott.: “nat-gas, rare earths, inert gases, potash, sulfur, uranium, palladium, vanadium, cobalt, coke, titanium, nickel, lithium, plastics, glass, ceramics, pharmaceuticals, ships, inks, airplanes, polymers, medical and industrial gases, sealing rings & membranes, power transmission, transformer and lube oils, neon gas for microchip etching, etc., etc.”

And that’s not all. Fertilizer!! Why they do it, I don’t know. Do they WANT to kill their own economies? It makes no sense. And this will not be over soon.

Reuters of course seeks to blame Putin. But he’s not the one who introduced the sanctions. He’s offered to let the gas and oil exports continue.

Putin Bets Winter Gas Chokehold Will Yield Ukraine Peace – On His Terms

Cold winters helped Moscow defeat Napoleon and Hitler. President Vladimir Putin is now betting that sky-rocketing energy prices and possible shortages this winter will persuade Europe to strong arm Ukraine into a truce — on Russia’s terms. That, say two Russian sources familiar with Kremlin thinking, is the only path to peace that Moscow sees, given Kyiv says it will not negotiate until Russia leaves all of Ukraine

“We have time, we can wait,” said one source close to the Russian authorities, who declined to be named because they are not authorised to speak to the media. “It’s going to be a difficult winter for Europeans. We could see protests, unrest. Some European leaders might think twice about continuing to support Ukraine and think it’s time for a deal.”

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell wants Europeans to be obedient little critters, and take the punishment for the policies he and his ilk have carved out. Because “we” are destined to win. Mr. Borrell is planing to do just fine this winter, mind you. With the best steak your money can buy, real fine wine, to be consumed in comfortably heated homes, restaurants and offices. A picture of Marie Antoinette pops up in my brain.

‘Weary’ Europeans Must ‘Bear Consequences’ Of Ukraine War As Putin Will Eventually Blink: EU’s Borrell

EU high representative and foreign policy chief Josep Borrell gave a surprisingly blunt assessment of the Ukraine war and Europe’s precarious position in an AFP interview published Tuesday, admitting that Russian President Vladimir Putin is betting on fracturing a united EU response amid the current crisis situation of soaring prices and energy extreme uncertainty headed into a long winter. Borrell’s words seemed to come close to admitting that Putin’s tactic is working on some level, or at least will indeed chip away at European resolve in the short and long run, given he chose words like EU populations having to “endure” the deep economic pain and severe energy crunch. He cited the “weariness” of Europeans while calling on leadership as well as the common people to “bear the consequences” with continued resolve.

Borrell explained to AFP that Putin sees “the weariness of the Europeans and the reluctance of their citizens to bear the consequences of support for Ukraine.” But Borrell suggested that Europe will not back down no matter the leverage Moscow might have, particularly when it comes to ‘weaponization of energy’ – and called on citizens to continue to shoulder the cost. Who will blink first? …appears to be the subtext here. He urged: “We will have to endure, spread the costs within the EU,” Borrell told AFP, warning that keeping the 27 member states together was a task to be carried out “day by day.”

And yet, as some like Hungary’s Viktor Orbán have consistently argued since near the start of the Feb.24 invasion, it is inevitable that some will be forced to bear the “costs” much more than others. Already this is being seen with initiatives out of Brussels like rationing gas consumption, which has further led to scenarios like German towns and even residences being mandated to switch off lights or resources for designated periods at night. “More cold showers” – many are also being told. As we round the corner of fall and enter the more frigid months, we are likely to only see more headlines like this: “German cities impose cold showers and turn off lights amid Russian gas crisis.”

Talking of Marie Antoinette. Emmanuel Macron is the little man of grand vision. He foresees the ‘End Of Abundance’, a veritable “tipping point” in history. And he’s just the man to lead you through it. I’ll give him this: he’s got good speech writers. But speech writers don’t keep the people warm and fed.

Macron Warns Of ‘End Of Abundance’

France is headed toward the “end of abundance” and “sacrifices” have to be made during what is a time of great upheaval, President Emmanuel Macron told his cabinet on Wednesday upon returning from summer break. The country has faced multiple challenges lately, ranging from the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine to the unprecedented drought that has battered the whole European continent this summer. Yet, Macron believes that the crisis is actually of a much bigger scale and that structural changes are imminent.“

Some could see our destiny as being to constantly manage crises or emergencies. I believe that we are living through a tipping point or great upheaval. Firstly, because we are living through… what could seem like the end of abundance,” he said. The country and its citizens must be ready to make “sacrifices” to meet and overcome the challenges they are facing, he continued. “Our system based on freedom in which we have become used to living, when we need to defend it sometimes that can entail making sacrifices,”Macron added.

“Faced with this, we have duties, the first of which is to speak frankly and very clearly without doom-mongering,” Macron stressed. The president called upon his cabinet to show unity, be “serious” and “credible” and urged ministers to avoid “demagogy.” “It’s easy to promise anything and everything, sometimes to say anything and everything. Do not give in to these temptations, it is demagoguery,” the president said, adding that such an approach “flourishes” today “in all democracies in a complex and frightening world.”

There is a pattern in the messages of today’s Marie Antoinettes. Borrell wants you to take it lying down, Macron wants you to do that for a long time (like the rest of your lives), and the Belgian PM makes it more concrete: you’ll be freezing for the next 10 years. After which, supposedly, renewables will have been built to keep your kids warm. Spoiler: they won’t be.

Belgian PM: “Next 5-10 Winters Will Be Difficult” As Energy Crisis Worsens

Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo might have spilled the beans about the duration of Europe’s energy crisis. He told reporters Monday, “the next 5 to 10 winters will be difficult.” “The development of the situation is very difficult throughout Europe,” De Croo told Belgium broadcaster VRT. “In a number of sectors, it is really difficult to deal with those high energy prices. We are monitoring this closely, but we must be transparent: the coming months will be difficult, the coming winters will be difficult,” he said. The prime minister’s comments suggest replacing Russian natural gas imports could take years, exerting further economic doom on the region’s economy in the form of energy hyperinflation.

From Greece, even more concrete: energy subsidies. €1.9 billion in one month. To keep the hordes out of the streets. Wait, that Belgian guy said this will last 5-10 years. How is the country going to pay for that? One thing that comes to mind is Greeks will vote for anyone in the next election who vows to talk to Putin ASAP, restore the countries’ good relationships and sign a gas deal.

The Electricity Subsidy Shock

A significant rise in the price of electricity announced by state-controlled Public Power Corporation (PPC) for September forced the government to raise its electricity subsidy for September to 1.9 billion euros, from €1.1 billion in August. The subsidy level inevitably follows the PPC’s pricing policy, since it is the dominant player in the market, with 63% of consumers choosing it. While PPC had the lowest price of all electricity providers in August (€0.48 per kilowatt-hour) it raised its September price to €0.788 for those consuming up to 500kWh per month and €0.80 for heavier consumers. In order to stick to its commitment for an actual charge to consumers between €0.14-0.17 per kWh the government had to adjust its subsidy level accordingly, raising it by over 72%.

How long will this last, you said? Well, according to AP, “Washington expects Ukrainian forces “to fight for years to come.” “Included in the package are advanced weapons that are still in the development phase..”

‘Months Or Years’ Before US Arms Reach Ukraine – Media

Years could pass before some of the weapons in the upcoming “largest ever” package of US military assistance to Kiev actually reach Ukraine, according to Western media reports. On Tuesday, a number of mainstream media outlets cited anonymous US officials as describing the impending announcement of a $3 billion package of military aid to Ukraine. If confirmed, it would be the largest of its kind so far. Washington is by far the biggest supplier of military hardware to Ukraine as it fights against Russia. However, some of the promised equipment “will not be in the hands of Ukrainian fighters for months or years,” according to NBC News, one of the outlets that reported the upcoming package. Included in the package are advanced weapons that are still in the development phase, it explained.

The same caveat was cited by the Associated Press, which said that it may take “a year or two” for the arms to reach the battlefield, according to its sources. Washington expects Ukrainian forces “to fight for years to come,” US officials told the AP. The AeroVironment Switchblade 600 drone is an example of a weapon system that was promised to Ukraine months ago but has yet to be delivered. Defense News said this week that the Pentagon plans to sign the contract necessary for sending 10 of the so-called “kamikaze drones” within a month. Last month, Ukrainian Defense Minister Aleksey Reznikov called on foreign suppliers of arms to use his country as a testing ground for new weapons. He pledged to provide detailed reports about the experiences of Ukrainian soldiers with the prototypes provided to them.

This is not going to go well. Not for the European “leaders”, not for the EU, not for Ukraine, and not for Europeans. We could start a little bet as to how many leaders will still be in place by spring, and I bet you Zelensky won’t be one of them. Putin will. As for the rest, Rutte, Macron, we’ll see. But don’t underestimate the wrath of people with hungry and cold children. It feels like almost an alien image for 99% of Europeans, but it no longer will be.

And there is no logical reason for this, there is only the ideology of a few handfuls of little men with grand visions. Hate of everything Russia has kept the west going for 100 years or more. And these little men feed off of that. They can only do that by refusing to talk. Because that’s exactly what Russia does not refuse. Only, they want to talk as equals.

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Right now beneath the sunny blue skies and seeming normalcy, genocide is occurring globally. The experimental mRNA injections are bioweapons disguised as vaccines (2). They are neither safe nor effective. Some of the jabs may be placebos (3), some batches may be  worse than others and, fortunately, not all will be adversely affected to the same degree. Unfortunately, those receiving a placebo and/or those not apparently adversely impacted, will advertise the “safe and effective” lie, thus enabling the globalist totalitarianism masquerading as public health measures. (4)

The COVID Op is a military/intelligence operation, and the “Lion’s Den”, as per Reiner Fuelmich, is the U.S. deep state. (5)

Read Kennedy’s book, The Real Anthony Fauci,  and you will see the eerily predictive pre-COVID scenarios that are deeply embedded with intelligence agencies and military. DARPA is involved. An Italian judge noted that she could not get ingredients because it was a “military secret”. (6)

Canada is heading into a fall season of more unreasonable fear porn to push the dangerous, experimental jabs based on fabricated pretexts and fabricated pandemics. Early treatment protocols have always been available but largely denied (7) even as the COVID protocols and mandates are killing us and the economy, by design.

All COVID data has been manipulated for a disease that is similar to the flu. Nobody needed to die. PCR test results are invalid (8), and the data base is junk.

Our governments no longer represent us, a global coup is underway.

If enough of us say NO, we can end this. More and more are saying NO. That is the good news.

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This article was originally published on the author’s website, marktaliano.net.

Mark Taliano is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) and the author of Voices from Syria, Global Research Publishers, 2017.

Notes

(1)  INJECTIONS AND PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE/ Grand Jury Day 4 – Mark Taliano Accessed 25 August, 2022

(2) Video: Italian Regional Court Identifies the mRNA Injections as “Experimental Substances” which do not Break the Chains of Infection. Reiner Fuelmich Interviews Renate Video: Italian Regional Court Identifies the mRNA Injections as “Experimental Substances” which not Break the Chains of Infection. Reiner Fuelmich Interviews Renate Holzeisen – Global ResearchGlobal Research – Centre for Research on Globalization (Accessed 25 August, 2022)

(3) Peter Koenig, “The Planned Fall 2022 “Epidemics Tyranny.” Global Research, 18 August, 2022. The Planned Fall 2022 “Epidemics Tyranny” – Global ResearchGlobal Research – Centre for Research on Globalization (Accessed 25 August, 2022)

(4) German Corona Investigative Committee,1 August, 2022 From The Hague. International Trials Day One -Crimes Against Humanity (rumble.com) (Accessed 25 August, 2022)

(5) Deborah Conrad and Reiner Fuellmich, Video: Public Health System Rigged to Make the COVID Vaccines Look “Safe and Effective”. Global Research, 24 August, 2022 Video: Public Health System Rigged to Make the Covid Vaccines Look “Safe and Effective”. Deborah Conrad Interviewed by Reiner Fuellmich – Global ResearchGlobal Research – Centre for Research on Globalization (Accessed 25 August, 2022)

(6)  Renate Holzeisen and Reiner Fuellmich, Video: Italian Regional Court Identifies the MRNA Injections as “Experimental Substances” which not Break the Chains of Infection. Reiner Fuelmch interviews Renate Holzeisen. Corona Investigative Committee Session 113: Mycelium. Global Research, 19 July, 2022. (Video: Italian Regional Court Identifies the mRNA Injections as “Experimental Substances” which not Break the Chains of Infection. Reiner Fuelmich Interviews Renate Holzeisen – Global ResearchGlobal Research – Centre for Research on Globalization) Accessed 25 August, 2022.

(7) Megan Redshaw, ” Groundbreaking: Nebraska AG Says Doctors Can Legally Prescribe Ivermectin, HCQ for COVID, Calls Out FDA, CDC, Fauci, Media for ‘Fueling Confusion and Misinformation’. the Defender, Children’s Health Defense, 18 October, 2021. (Groundbreaking: Nebraska AG Says Doctors Can Legally Prescribe Ivermectin, HCQ for COVID, Calls Out FDA, CDC, Fauci, Media for ‘Fueling Confusion and Misinformation’ • Children’s Health Defense (childrenshealthdefense.org)) Accessed 25 August, 2022.

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

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***

As if the US contribution of  “roughly” 75% of NATO’s budget was not enough of a gift, the American public and much of Congress have remained oblivious to collaborators within the US government who have relinquished the Norfolk Naval Station to NATO forces.   With its military forces led by a NATO Supreme Allied Commander at Norfolk’s Joint Warfare Centre and hundreds of new nation member resident-families, NATO has its roots firmly ensconced at the Norfolk facility since at least 2020.  

How this stunning transgression occurred with no public knowledge, deliberation, debate or approval by the Executive Branch or Congress and with no national media inquiry remains a puzzlement.   

The NATO presence is a strong signal that Neocon forces within the US will continue its leadership in maintaining the unipolar world that has plagued the planet since NATO’s existence in 1949.  Established to be a deterrent to the threat of Soviet expansion in Europe after World War II, the United States saw NATO as a tool to prevent the resurgence of nationalist tendencies in Europe and to foster political integration on the continent. 

It is fair to suggest that the world’s largest and most sophisticated naval facility was stealthily and deceitfully conveyed to NATO by more than just a sleight of hand.  The deed had to have been committed with the leadership of treasonous, embedded members of the government’s Senior Executive Service (SES); those  who had  access to the necessary military documentation, records, files and dossiers to unobtrusively pull off a monster accomplishment of this magnitude. 

 The SES are part of the Federal government’s Administrative State which ranks as those most senior public servants, those at the highest management of the bureaucracy with indisputable credentials, unquestioned authority and are largely unaccountable. 

How did this massive reorganization of the nation’s most prodigious Naval facility slip past the House and Senate Armed Services Committees which have legislative oversight and responsibility for naval affairs?  It is the Armed Services Committees which have produced the massive and controversial National Defense Authorization Act annually since 1962.  It is possible that buried deep within the bowels of a long-forgotten NDAA may contain an obscure reference granting NATO permission, at some future time, to relocate to the Norfolk Naval Base. 

Given NATO’s presence as a foreign military agent, it is critically important to understand how NATO’s Article 4 and Article 5 could potentially affect the United States as a constitutional republic given the current national turmoil as the Biden Administration tightens its tyrannical grip on the very dominion of the United States of America.   

Most prominent within the NATO Treaty is Article 5 which guarantees a collective defenseby all NATO members in the event of an attack on one member nation.  The only example of invoking Article 5 came in the wake of the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.  NATO collectively responded as its member nation allies were deployed to Afghanistan under the Resolute Support Mission.  Bringing the wrath of God down on one country which was not a participant to the 911 attack destroys the concept that the ‘collective defense” strategy is a valid vehicle for a peaceful world.  

The oft-neglected Article 4 has been invoked several times during NATO’s history and with its loose verbiage that states “The parties will consult together whenever, in the opinion of any of them, the territorial integrity, political independence or security of any of the parties is threatened.”   In other words, any one NATO member nation can invoke Article 4 to trigger an organization-wide discussion if its “territorial integrity” is threatened as is currently occurring along the southern borders of the United States, or if its “political independence” defined as the freedom from external political influence which is open to interpretation or if the “security” of one NATO member is under threat.  At which point, activating Article 5 would be an easy slide. 

The question remains with NATO’s presence in Norfolk, what would it take to create a crisis for intervention and activate more of an Article 5 power grab on behalf of the international deep state order?  Will either Article provide the necessary incentive to respond to what may be perceived as an internal threat to US ‘territorial integrity” rather than an external attack or mass detention to quell a civil political disturbance or a domestic revolt if Donald Trump is arrested or trigger suspicious cyber threats? 

At what point might a Continuity of Government be implemented and by whom to restore civil order with NATO-Norfolk contributing its military to protect the Deep State structure.  While earlier such civil disturbances by Antifa and BLM in Portland, Seattle and elsewhere resulted in no significant penalty or punishment, a different standard as applied to those who may be arbitrarily labeled white supremacists.

And unbeknownst to most Americans, the US-NATO relationship established the US Army NATO Brigade by General Order #46 in December, 1950.   For the first time, NATO’s war in Ukraine has provided the cover for thousands of US Army troops to be deployed under the US Army NATO Brigade banner and to serve under NATO’s direct command.  As Air Force Gen. Tod Wolters, head of the U.S. European Command and the NATO Supreme Allied Commander in Europe stated, “We are grateful to our allies Canada and the United States for their recent commitments to deploy an additional 7,460 troops, including an armored brigade combat team, artillery units, a naval frigate, and surveillance aircraft, to support this Alliance-wide effort.”   

Finally, is there any assurance that constitutional demands from Congress or the Executive Branch have more authority to supersede Articles 4 and 5 or will US laws and obligations be secondary to NATO’s Orders?  One way to eliminate NATO from Norfolk is for the United States to remove itself from NATO.

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This article was originally published on State of the Nation.

Renee Parsons served on the ACLU’s Florida State Board of Directors and as president of the ACLU Treasure Coast Chapter. She has been an elected public official in Colorado, staff in the Office of the Colorado State Public Defender, an environmental lobbyist for Friends of the Earth and a staff member of the US House of Representatives in Washington DC. She can be found at [email protected]. She is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Ernest R. Scott, licensed under the Public Domain

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

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The possibility of US lockdowns – never attempted on this scale in the history of pandemics – was already in the air in early March 2020. The theory of lockdown had been floating around for 15 years but now China was first to try it, and claim enormous success, however fraudulently. 

Incredibly, the US was set to try it out too but getting Trump on board was going to take some doing. The federal government had the quarantine power since 1944. That much we knew. But just how expansive could its exercise be? Would they dare quarantine the well with the sick? How far would this go?

Thanks to several journalistic accounts, we have a better idea of what went on in the White House before the dreadful March 16, 2020, press conference of Donald Trump, Anthony Fauci, and Deborah Birx in which the lockdowns were announced. Along with that came a flier with tiny print about which the ever-trusting Trump apparently knew nothing: “bars, restaurants, food courts, gyms, and other indoor and outdoor venues where groups of people congregate should be closed.”

Read those words again. Has anything like this ever been issued by any government in the history of the world, before China did it? I cannot think of a case. It shuts not only the places where people do “congregate” but also everywhere where they might congregate. Churches. AA meetings. Civic clubs. Libraries. Museums. Homes! And this happened under Trump’s watch right here in the US! There ought to be a word to describe something more extreme than totalitarian.

There were a number of people in Trump’s circle in those days who proved panicked and confused enough to embrace the idea. But who precisely wrote those words in the sheet handed out to reporters?

We cannot say for sure but Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner played an important role. He had enlisted two close friends from college to help: Nat Turner and Adam Boehler. Both were graduates from the Wharton School, like Trump. Jared somehow believed that they knew something about pandemics because they worked in health-care delivery. So he called them.

Boehler headed the $60 billion US International Development Finance Corporation and still does. It’s one of those many agencies that throws contracts and cash to big shots within industry. Before that job, he was head of Landmark Health delivery services, which means that he knew business and finance, not public health. He is among those high-finance execs who were drawn to healthcare not for the science but for the money.

As for Turner, he is a serial entrepreneur who got his start selling snakes from his parents’ garage. Truly. He founded an ad agency that he eventually sold to Google 10 years ago, Invite Media, for more than $70 million. His company Flatiron – oncology-related electronic record software – sold to Roche in 2018 for $1.9 billion. His page at the Wharton School describes him as “Young, Entrepreneurial and Google-Owned.” He is now a billionaire investor at an implausibly young age.

And Google-owned! 

The book Nightmare Scenario (2021) explains what happened next. On March 13, 2020:

Boehler and Turner burrowed into a room in the basement of the West Wing and started calling people who grasped both the scale of the crisis but also the politics. Over that weekend, they put together recommendations and then circulated them with Birx and Fauci. The guidelines were refined further before being presented to Trump in the Oval Office. They wanted to recommend shutting down in-person education at schools. Closing indoor dining at restaurants and bars. Canceling travel.

Birx and Fauci saw the guidelines as a crucial pause that would buy them some time to better understand the pandemic. Shutting down flights was not enough, they said; more would have to be done. …. Boehler, Kushner, Birx, Fauci, and other aides presented Trump with the recommendations several days later, anxious over what he might say. Kushner had been preparing Trump for the possibility that they were going to need to take more “draconian” actions.

This account was not speculative. Kushner himself in his new book tells a very similar story:

On my way to the White House early the next morning, March 12, my [billionaire investor] brother Josh called from New York City. He described the worrisome signs: the city had canceled its annual Saint Patrick’s Day parade, thousands of people were self-quarantining, and millions more were leaving the city. When I told him that I was asked to jump into the response, he made a suggestion: “You should call Adam.”…

Call Adam!

Why not call, oh, for example, a public health scientist? Someone with some expertise in viruses? A medical doctor? Universities are packed with them. Someone, anyone, with actual knowledge and experience? Nope. It was entirely a crony operation, privileged fools about to take over the private lives of hundreds of millions of people.

Boehler was the perfect person to help us with the federal government’s COVID response, especially because he had the skills to overcome the fierce rivalries among the administration’s health-care team….After the meeting, Boehler and I huddled in my office and began sketching out how we could help with testing and supplies. To get additional support, we called our mutual friend and successful health-care entrepreneur Nat Turner. …

As we dealt with the shortage of cotton swabs and other supplies, we faced another problem: the need to develop public health guidelines.

Let’s just stop right there and consider this realization. Oh, they needed guidelines for the rest of us to follow, for reasons of politics and public relations. After all, they are surely the masters of the craft. Continuing:

Given that people across the country were confused and concerned, Birx and Fauci had been discussing the need for a unified set of federal standards to help Americans understand what they should do to keep themselves safe and slow the spread of the virus. They insisted that these guidelines would help prevent hospitals from becoming overwhelmed. Despite all the talk over the past week, no one had taken steps to produce a document. When Nat Turner flagged the issue,

Again, let’s stop the tape there. Nat Turner pointed out that no one had yet issued any orders? Good call, dude. Someone needs to get right on that. Just open up a Google doc and get to work on writing a central plan for the whole country. You have a two-hour deadline.

I asked him to coordinate with Derek Lyons to produce a draft and encouraged him to call Dr. Scott Gottlieb, the former head of the FDA and a renowned public health expert [and Pfizer board member]. I had been trying to persuade Gottlieb to come back into government for a short-term stint to help us better organize our response and support our effort to develop a vaccine.

When we called Gottlieb, he was grateful that we were preparing guidelines. “They should go a little bit further than you are comfortable with,” he said. “When you feel like you are doing more than you should, that is a sign that you are doing them right.”

Look, this whole scene truly just boggles the mind. Phone calls. Rushed documents. Friends of friends. Pharma executives. People in the know!

The result was a document that shut down the US and the world, all banged out by rank amateurs with ungodly privilege, with nary a thought of asking disinterested experts. Whatever they typed would affect the lives of 333 million people coast to coast. Did they think about that? Did they even care? Did the even once think about people not of their class and pedigree?

The result: Trump agreed to the “guidelines,” which led to the most momentous lockdown decision in the history of public health and even in the whole of human history. It locked down hospitals, nursing homes, and every commercial establishment in the country except those called essential. Homes too: the CDC said no more than ten can come to your house for dinner.

So let’s get this straight. This decision, which wrecked life in the US and all over the world, and eventually caused the loss of the presidency and the Congress, was made by a handful of well-connected tech entrepreneurs with ZERO experience in infectious disease, epidemiology, immunology, pandemic history, or anything other than management and business classes at the Wharton School. With close Google connections. And they did this in cooperation with one name board member of Big Pharma that ended up making billions in profits from mandated vaccines that were forced on the American people. Also, Google made a mint.

Apparently, the above is a true story, based on one first-hand account and one journalistic account. The world was wrecked by a literal snake salesman, the Google-funded inventor of DoorDash for medicine, a big pharma executive, some bureaucrat who lived off AIDS largess, an octogenarian media star who had been in government for 40 years, plus the son-in-law of an easily bamboozled name-brand purveyor who imagined from his years as a CEO that he could just shut down a country and turn it back on! They constitute a plethora of elites who scammed their way to the top and deployed their new-found power in grossly immoral ways that wrecked this country and many others.

Now, to be clear, there is surely much more to this story. For one thing, even as these birds were deliberating, the Department of Health and Human Services had already issued on March 13 a lockdown order marked as classified. So it was already in the cards. Maybe these bozos only believed they were in charge when the real power was higher up. I do not know. But I would like to. It’s like a kaleidoscope that never stops turning. What we know now is enough of a scandal.

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Jeffrey A. Tucker is Founder and President of the Brownstone Institute and the author of many thousands of articles in the scholarly and popular press and ten books in 5 languages, most recently Liberty or Lockdown. He is also the editor of The Best of Mises. He writes a daily column on economics at The Epoch Times, and speaks widely on topics of economics, technology, social philosophy, and culture.

Featured image: Kushner: On March 11, 2020, Vice President Mike Pence asked for my help with the COVID response. I called my friend Nat Turner (left) and Adam Boehler (far right), successful healthcare entrepreneurs who helped me procure lifesaving supplies and equipment from around the world. Avi Berkowitz (center) was a critical source of counsel throughout our government service. (Courtesy of the White House Photo Office)