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The Washington Post reports that Xi Jinping personally asked President Biden to find a way to put off House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan. According to the Post’s account, Biden explained to Xi that the independent role of Congress made it impossible for him to stop her, even though US intelligence officials were (correctly) convinced that China would follow through on its warnings and make a forceful response.

China’s ambassador to the US said:

“We had warned that if Pelosi made the visit, there would be very serious consequences. China would firmly and forcefully respond. To our regret, the United States chose not to listen.”

Pelosi’s trip was not written in stone: She said she would not go if Biden explicitly asked her not to.

So Biden had an out, but:

“In the end, Biden never spoke to Pelosi about her trip despite Xi’s request . . . In an offhand comment, Biden told reporters shortly before Pelosi’s expected visit that military officials believed the trip was not a good idea.”

Now just imagine a different scenario:

Biden, concerned about China’s reaction to the visit, says to Xi:

“I will do my best to persuade her, out of respect for China’s sensitivity regarding Taiwan. But in return for her postponing her trip, I want your assurance that China’s military will stop air naval maneuvers that threaten Taiwan. And let’s plan on holding high-level military-to-military and diplomatic discussions to promote mutual security in the Taiwan Strait area.”

It was an engagement moment, prompted by the US national interest in competitive coexistence with China.

Would Biden “look weak” if he succeeded in stopping the trip? That’s the usual retort, but Biden could have responded to such a charge by pointing out that Taiwan’s security would not be undermined by the postponement, whereas Pelosi’s trip would force China to make a show of strength. Biden could readily point to the many ways his administration is supporting Taiwan: three recent military aid packages, Biden’s public comments upholding strong ties with Taiwan, and the array of security arrangements, such as the Quad (US-Japan-Australia-India), that are focused on any Chinese threat in the Asia Pacific.

A positive response to Xi was an opportunity to put US-PRC relations onto a more positive track at a time when those relations are rapidly deteriorating. At the least, Biden’s proposal would have tested Xi’s frequent assertions in support of improved relations.

One Chinese foreign policy expert recently wrote a lengthy defense of China’s Taiwan policy and a sharp critique of how the US is eroding the One China policy. Yet the expert ended not with a warning but with a suggestion that the two countries find common ground:

“On the Taiwan Strait issue, China and the United States need to further negotiate more practical and in-depth cooperation on confidence-building measures and crisis management at the strategic and technical levels, based on the two countries’ current crisis management mechanisms. The existing crisis management mechanisms of China and the United States mainly have three types of institutional arrangements: high-level interaction, dialogue and communication channels, and military rules of behavior.”

The article suggests that there are voices inside the policymaking apparatus in China that are open to dialogue even on Taiwan, the most important of Beijing’s core interests and ordinarily a subject closed to “external interference.”

Tensions in the Taiwan Strait will probably cool down in coming weeks. But the Pelosi trip has created new circumstances that do not bode well for moderating Taiwan’s role in US-China relations. More official US visits to Taiwan are in the offing, and in Congress the mood favors bipartisan efforts to upgrade Taiwan’s status.

Meantime, the Chinese military will continue testing Taiwan’s defenses, breaking with previous patterns that had avoided directly challenging Taiwan’s territorial waters and air space. As a Chinese military adviser said the other day, the strategy is to “close the door and beat the dog.”

Spiraling confrontations will end in open conflict unless Washington and Beijing seize diminishing opportunities for engagement.

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Mel Gurtov, syndicated by PeaceVoice, is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Portland State University and blogs at In the Human Interest.

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The Islamic Emirate’s spokesman said that the reported killing of the al-Qaeda leader Ayman al Zawahiri is an allegation and that the investigation has yet to be finalized.

Speaking at a press conference in Kabul today, Zabiullah Mujahid criticized the US, saying that drones flying in Afghan airspace belong to the US and have been discussed with the American side.

He said the Islamic Emirate considers this an aggression and the US should share its concerns with the Islamic Emirate.

Speaking of the US strike on Kabul, Mujahid said:

“It is still at the level of allegation. The results have yet to be clarified. The body has not been found there because of the rockets that targeted the area—the area is destroyed and nothing is left of it,” he said.

Mujahid said that the investigation has yet to be finalized.

“The results might never be finalized. Whenever negotiations between countries take place, this issue might be forgotten,” said Torek Farhadi, an international relations analyst.

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India Today’s latest nation-wide public opinion survey has three messages for the Narendra Modi government, and for the opposition: economy, economy and economy. For the ruling party, it rings an alarm bell much louder than the orchestrated noise around amrit kaal. For the opposition, this is both an opportunity and a responsibility.

This is not how everyone would read this survey. We read opinion polls for election forecast. As an ex-pollster, this troubles me. Any seats projection made in-between two elections must not be taken literally. The real stuff of a survey like the present one is what it tells us about trends in public opinion.

For the record, therefore, I must report that the latest round of India Today’s Mood of the Nation Survey (MOTNS), one of the longest standing barometers of public mood in our country, projects that if Lok Sabha elections were held between 15 to 31 July of 2022, the BJP would secure 283 seats (a little short of the 303 seats it won in 2019) and the NDA would bag 307 (much lower than its tally of 353 last time).

A methodological disquiet

But there are many reasons not to spend too much time on these numbers. One, because we must not take any seats forecast 20 months before elections too seriously. Two, because the survey was held before the Bihar turmoil. Although the pollsters make a valiant attempt to take this factor into account with a quick snap poll in the state. (They estimate a loss of 8 seats to the BJP and of 21 seats to the NDA as a result of Nitish Kumar’s switch-over).

I must record another reason for my discomfort. Beginning January this year, MOTNS has stopped doing face-to-face interviews at peoples’ homes. For the last six decades, this has been the time-tested gold standard methodology of survey research, and is still followed by credible institutions like the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS). Instead, C-Voter, the new agency that has taken over MOTNS, has shifted entirely to telephonic interviews. Now, it is well known that telephonic interviews are much cheaper and hence preferred all over the world. It is also true that mobile density is now quite high in India. Still, it is far from universal. And no matter how much you massage it with sophisticated statistical techniques, a telephonic survey is bound to leave out the citizens at the lowest rung and thus skew the responses.

It is particularly disappointing to note that India Today, a magazine that pioneered quality opinion polling in India, chose to be economic with transparency requirements and brush this methodological shift under the carpet in a coded language. (“This survey is based on CATI interviews of adult respondents across all segments”. Did you guess that CATI meant Computer Assisted Telephonic Interviews? Did you realise that researchers doing MOTNS had stopped visiting the homes of the respondents?). We get no information of the gender, caste or class profile of the sampled respondents who responded to telephone calls. Nor is there any break-up of key responses by different categories, even when you desperately need it (economic distress by economic class and gender or communal situation by religion, for example).

It’s economy, stupid

Notwithstanding these limitations, the survey offers a wealth of information, especially on broad trends of public opinion. The headline finding is unmistakable: “it’s economy, stupid”. The top three responses to the question, “What is the biggest problem India currently faces?” are: price rise (27 per cent), unemployment (25 per cent) and poverty (7 per cent). Economic problems are on top of everyone’s mind. And with good reasons, if you follow the official and unofficial data on the state of the economy. Price rise tops the chart, as it often does even if the recorded inflation is low, though the level is not unprecedented. Given the gloomy figures on employment, it should not come as a surprise that 56 per cent think the unemployment situation is “very serious” against just 9 per cent who say it is not.

Yet, I was surprised that people project their assessment of the present economic condition into the future as well. Survey research over decades has shown that Indians are optimists about future economic prospects, no matter how bad their current state of affairs. So, it came as a shock to me that as many as 34 per cent expect the country’s economy to get worse over the next six months, compared to 31 per cent who expect it to get better, a near reversal of the balance six months ago. I don’t recall any other recorded phase of economic pessimism in India, except just after the second phase of Covid.

As a survey researcher, I trust peoples’ responses on their household economic condition much more than their assessment of the country’s economy. You can be fooled into believing a rosy or dark picture about the nation’s economy, but not about your own or your family’s economic condition. India Today has been asking this direct question for the last six years: “how has your economic condition changed since Narendra Modi took charge as PM in 2014?” Note that the question names Modi and, given his continuing popularity, should load the answers in the positive direction. However, 36 per cent respondents report that their condition has deteriorated, compared to 28 per cent who report an improvement since 2014. The same is extended to the future: more respondents expect their own economic condition to worsen in the near future than those who expect betterment. These are terrible figures for any government, bad enough to get the government kicked out at the hustings.

From economy to politics

It all depends on whether people blame the government for their poor economic conditions or not. Here too, the news is not good for the Modi government. Positive rating of the government’s economic policies is now at 48 per cent, the lowest recorded in the last six years. Negative assessment is now at 29 per cent, the highest ever. When asked to name “biggest failure” of the NDA government, the top three mentions are economy related: price rise, unemployment, economic growth. To be sure, negative assessment of economic policy has not yet overtaken the positive evaluation. And the overall assessment of the government is still quite positive, thanks to public support for its handling of other issues like Kashmir, Ram Temple, corruption, and, surprisingly, Covid.  But with inflation and unemployment showing no signs of slowing down, the government has a lot to worry about.

Is this the beginning of the end of the Modi government? That would be a hasty and lazy conclusion. The PM’s personal popularity is still fairly high, even though the proportion of those who rate his work as poor or very poor has touched a new high. As yet no opposition leader comes anywhere close to him in the popularity rating. While there is a marked unease about the state of democracy – those who say democracy is in danger clearly outnumber those who don’t – there is no perceptible popular anger on the destruction of democratic institutions or curbs on freedom of speech. Indians get more worked up about hubris and vindictiveness of the government than about the niceties of liberal democracy.

As this column argued last week, there is little to support the idea that 2024 is a “done deal” for the ruling party. Such boasts and the media circus around it are nothing but mind-games that the BJP is adept at playing. Nor should we assume that the BJP is headed for a defeat. The changed electoral baseline after Bihar upheaval, and economic distress reported in this survey, clearly indicate that the electoral race is still open. The onus is now on the opposition to take up this historic responsibility.

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Yogendra Yadav is among the founders of Jai Kisan Andolan and Swaraj India. Views are personal.

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COVID-19 Mortality: Life Insurance Survey Report

August 26th, 2022 by Thomas J. Britt

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Section 1: Purpose of the Survey

The purpose of this survey was to gather a high-level view of U.S. Group Term Life Insurance mortality results during the COVID-19 pandemic, as compared to prior period baseline mortality results. This report is an update to the previous Group Life COVID-19 Mortality Survey published in January 2022, which included pandemic data from April 2020 through September 2021. This update includes Group Life mortality results from April 2020 through March 2022 (referred to in this report as the “pandemic period”), representing 24 months of Group Life mortality experience during the COVID-19 pandemic. COVID-19 is caused by the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, which was identified in 2019. As of the writing of this document, complications from COVID-19 have resulted in more than 1.0 million deaths in the U.S. alone, and more than 6.4 million worldwide.

The survey was conducted by the Group Life Experience Committee (the Committee) of the Society of Actuaries and has been structured as a recurring monthly data collection and compilation process from U.S. Group Term Life insurers. The datasets for this report encompass all Group Term Life claims for the calendar years 2017–2022 reported to participating carriers as of March 31, 2022, and include more than 2.3 million claims and more than $103 billion in earned premium. The Committee is grateful that 20 of the top 21 U.S. Group Term Life insurers focused on employer groups are participating in this survey, with market share representing roughly 90% of the employer-based Group Term Life industry. Thus, the Committee believes the findings herein are representative of the COVID-19 mortality impact on the U.S. Group Term Life industry as a whole.

Guiding principles for the survey include the following:

  • Providing timely information on total high-level Group Life mortality results versus baseline expectations during the pandemic is the most important goal. Thus, the survey is not a seriatim mortality study. Rather, it is a synopsis of monthly Group Life exposures, death counts and amounts.
  • It is critical for this survey to compare current Group Life mortality from all causes of death to the baseline expected all-cause mortality levels. The Committee recognizes that there are limitations in the ability to code deaths as COVID-19 related, within both the general population and Group Life exposures. Also, the survey seeks to analyze whether the pandemic has had indirect impacts on population mortality, beyond deaths associated directly with the COVID-19 virus. Thus, tracking just Group Life deaths coded with a cause of COVID-19 may not accurately measure the total impact of the pandemic.
  • The Committee asked carriers to provide segmentation data when feasible. However, the Committee did not want the additional detailed data request to become so onerous that it materially delayed the survey reporting process or shrank the number of carriers willing and able to participate. Thus, the survey includes high-level exposure and claims data for all 20 carriers, but much of the segmentation data are based on results for just subsets of carriers.

Section 2: Overview

2.1 Background

Carriers provided a complete set of monthly Group Life exposures dating back to January 2017, along with all Group Life death claims reported in January 2017 or later. The reported death claims also identified the months of death, i.e., incurred months.

Exposures and deaths during the three-year period of 2017–2019 were used to set baseline mortality expectations. The dataset for this report encompasses all Group Life claims reported to participating carriers as of March 31, 2022. Reported claims are easier to measure than incurred claims, but they do not tell the full story about Group Life mortality through March 2022 because the reported claims in a given month include deaths from prior periods. Therefore, claim reporting patterns from prior periods have been analyzed to develop completion factors, which are used to estimate incurred but not yet reported (IBNR) claims for each month. This enabled the Committee to estimate incurred claims for each month up through March 2022.

As in prior reports, the most recent one-to-two incurral months should not be fully relied upon because of the maturity of the completion of reported claims, with the completion factors for the most recent two months falling in the 30%–35% and 70%–75% ranges, respectively. The Committee has observed significant reporting lag volatility over the course of the study, resulting in volatility of incurred incidence development over time, especially in the most recent incurred months.

2.2 Scope

The following specifications were used to define claims and exposures within the survey:

  • Include Group Term Life only. Exclude Group Whole Life, Group Universal Life, Company-Owned Life Insurance, 10- or 20-year Group Term, etc.
  • Include both list billed and self-administered business.
  • Include employee, spouse and child exposures and deaths.
  • Include both active and retired lives and claims.
  • Include death benefits only; exclude riders, interest payments and claims expenses.
  • Include only the life insurance benefit for accidental deaths; exclude any additional Accidental Death and Dismemberment rider amounts.
  • Exclude Waiver of Premium disabilities but include deaths from persons on Waiver of Premium status.
  • Portability and Conversion exposures and claims may be either included or excluded based on each company’s internal reporting procedures.

2.3 Survey Highlights

Tables 2.1 through 2.41 display high-level incidence results for the second quarter of 2020 through the first quarter of 2022 compared to the 2017-2019 baseline period for each combination of (a) incurred/reported basis and (b) count/amount basis as of March 31, 2022. In these tables, the number of COVID-19 claims has not been adjusted for seasonality, but the ratios to baseline have been adjusted for seasonality.

Note that additional data reported in April and May 2022 indicated that the 1Q 2022 excess mortality would likely complete downward from the 19.9% shown below using March data. The fully complete 1Q 2022 excess mortality is expected to remain above 15%.

Group Life carriers generally started receiving a small number of COVID-19 death claims during March 2020, but April 2020 was the first month in which the Group Life industry saw a material number of reported COVID-19 death claims. This drove April 2020 Group Life reported incidence to be measurably larger than baseline expected reported incidence. Reported incidence has remained materially higher than baseline in almost all months during the pandemic period. The lone exception was May 2021, during which reported incidence was approximately 1% lower than baseline.

It is important to note that incurred estimates for the most recent months lack credibility because of the low level of completion of the data used at the time of this analysis. Group Life claim completion has been especially volatile during the pandemic waves, driven both by the ultimate incurred levels fluctuating from month to month and by company-specific claim processing speeds fluctuating up and down because of increases or decreases in staffing levels and build-up or build-down of claim backlogs.

From an incurred mortality viewpoint, all 24 months from April 2020 through March 2022 showed excess mortality2 versus baseline expectations. December 2020, August 2021, and September 2021 each had very high incurred mortality spikes of 40% or more, whereas the other 21 months ranged from a low of 5% excess incurred mortality to a high of 29% excess incurred mortality above baseline.

The 24-month period of April 2020 through March 2022 showed the following Group Life mortality results:

  • Estimated reported Group Life claim incidence rates were up 20.0% on a seasonally-adjusted basiscompared to 2017–2019 reported claims.
  • Estimated incurred Group Life incidence rates were 20.9% higher than baseline on a seasonally-adjusted basis. As noted above, the incurred incidence rates in February and March 2022 are based on fairly incomplete data, so they are subject to change and should not be fully relied upon at this point.Additional highlights include the following:
  • Approximately 13% of all reported Group Life claims with death dates in the pandemic period were determined to have a cause of death of COVID-19.
  • The Grey-collar group had the lowest actual-to-expected ratios (A/Es) relative to baseline over the pandemic period at around 17%, followed by the Blue-collar group at 19%. The White-collar group continues to have the highest mortality A/E relative to baseline at 23% during the pandemic period.
  • Group Life mortality patterns by region have changed over time during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Midwest region had the highest excess mortality for the two most recent quarters included in this update. The following regions had the highest excess mortality in each quarter shown:
  1. Q2 2020: Northeast (48%)
  2. Q3 2020: Southeast (33%)
  3. Q4 2020: Midwest (38%)
  4. Q1 2021: Southeast (39%)
  5. Q2 2021: Southeast (16%)
  6. Q3 2021: Southeast (70%)
  7. Q4 2021: Midwest (38%)
  8. Q1 2022: Midwest (34%)
  • Relative to prior years, the Group Life insured population studied within this survey experienced a greater percentage increase in deaths than the U.S. population as a whole. The percentage of excess deaths in the Group Life survey data was observed to be 105% – 125% of the percentage of excess deaths in the U.S. population.
  • Early quarters of the pandemic period (Q2 and Q3 2020) showed the Group Life insured population studied within this survey experienced a lower percentage of excess deaths than the U.S. population. Beginning in the fourth quarter of 2020, this relationship flipped, with subsequent quarters indicating higher excess mortality for the Group Life insured population by a percentage difference ranging from 2% to 10% (additive) by quarter. The Q1 2022 relationship appears to be reverting back toward the pattern from 2020, as shown in Table 2.5.
  1. Note that additional data reported in April and May 2022 indicated the Q1 2022 Group Life excess mortality would likely complete downward from the 20% shown below using March data. It is expected that the fully complete Group Life excess mortality will be lower than U.S. population excess mortality for Q1 2022.

  • In the third quarter of 2021, a moderate negative correlation was seen between vaccination rate and excess mortality by state. However, this correlation weakened during the fourth quarter of 2021 and the first quarter of 2022. Other factors potentially influencing this relationship are climate, seasonality, preventative measures (e.g., social distancing and masking), deaths from causes other than COVID-19, varying degrees of vaccine effectiveness against different variants of the virus, and a higher degree of natural immunity due to past infections in the later period. This is explained in further detail in subsection 8.3.

Section 3: Group Life Mortality Results—Reported Death Claims

3.1 Reported Claim Incidence by Count — All Causes

Excess reported-basis mortality was observed in almost every month of the pandemic period, with May 2021 being the lone month where reported incidence was consistent with or less than the corresponding baseline months.

Reported overall Group Life claim incidence rates during the pandemic period, as shown in Figure 3.1, are up roughly 20% compared to 2017–2019 reported claims. Reported claims are easier to measure than incurred, as no estimation of completeness is required. However, reported claims do not tell the true economic impact of what is happening in the claim experience of a particular reported period, because those reported claims include deaths associated with prior periods, which may or may not have been accurately expected and accrued in prior period claim liabilities.

Note that incidence rates shown here are higher than in the January 2022 report. This is due to data corrections from participating companies that lowered the exposure by approximately 8% versus the previous report. It is not due to claim runout versus previous expectations. The corrections applied to both the baseline period and the pandemic period, so excess mortality calculations were not materially affected.

3.2 Reported Claim Incidence by Count — COVID-19 versus All Other Causes

A total of 135,567 COVID-19 death claims were reported during the pandemic period. Roughly 75% of the COVID-19 claims were for Basic Group Life coverage and roughly 25% for Supplemental/Voluntary coverage, with both figures including active employees and retirees. Note that the exposures and claim counts for insureds with both Basic and Supplemental/Voluntary coverage were included in both product lines. Thus, some deaths were counted as both Basic and Supplemental/Voluntary deaths, so the total number of Group Life insureds with COVID-19 deaths is less than 135,567.

Table 3.1 shows the total death claim incidence level (mortality rate) for each quarter during the pandemic relative to the baseline period metric. The table also shows a relativity for COVID-19 claims and non-COVID claims. As the table illustrates, COVID-19 claims do not fully explain the increase in reported claim incidence over the baseline period.

Reported claim details by month are shown in Table 3.2, along with calculated monthly reported incidence rates. Note that a small number of COVID-19 claims have reported dates of death in 2019 or prior, which are likely due to data errors.

3.3. Reported Claim Incidence by Amount — All Causes

Reported overall Group Life claim incidence rates by amount during the pandemic period were up roughly 33% compared to 2017–2019 reported amounts. This increase in incidence rates by amount is notably higher than the corresponding incidence rate increase by count. The Committee estimates that roughly half the difference is due to changes in age and gender mix, and the remainder is likely due to salary and face amount inflation over the four- year period.

3.4 Reported Claim Incidence by Amount — COVID-19 versus All Other Causes

Click here to read the full report.

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UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss has declared that she is ready and willing to kick off thermonuclear warfare should she take over as prime minister, stressing her hawkish bonafides as she seeks to replace Boris Johnson.

Appearing at a town hall event in Birmingham on Tuesday, Truss was asked how she would feel about ordering “global annihilation” in the event of a nuclear standoff with a foreign adversary.

“I won’t ask you if you would press the button, you’ll say yes, but faced with that task I would feel physically sick,” said host John Pienaar, who went on to ask: “How does that thought make you feel?”

“I think it’s an important duty of the prime minister and I’m ready to do that,” Truss replied, drawing applause from the audience. When Pienaar asked again how that decision would make her “feel,” she simply stated “I’m ready to do it.”

While no foreign state was mentioned by name during the exchange, Truss has been among the most bellicose British officials in her comments about the war in Ukraine, issuing a steady stream of hostile rhetoric toward Moscow while encouraging escalation at virtually every turn.

Despite serving as her country’s top diplomat, the foreign secretary has made little effort to seek out a diplomatic solution to the conflict, instead calling for Russia’s “defeat” on the battlefield regardless of the cost in Ukrainian blood.

With Prime Minister Boris Johnson preparing to leave office after announcing his resignation in July, Truss is now vying against former Finance Minister Rishi Sunak for the PM spot. While Johnson’s hawkish stance toward Russia may be hard to outdo – having visited Kiev multiple times in recent months to discourage a negotiated settlement to the war – his replacement appears set to continue London’s policies on the conflict regardless of who wins.

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Will Porter is assistant news editor at the Libertarian Institute and a staff writer at RT. Find more of his work at Antiwar.com and Consortium News.

Featured image: The ‘Baker’ nuclear weapon test is seen at Bikini Atoll, July 25, 1946; UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss. (Credit: Pentagon; UK Prime Minister’s Office)


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   

Sanctions Against Russia Damage Western Business

August 26th, 2022 by Lucas Leiroz de Almeida

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The West itself appears to be the party most harmed by the sanctions it has chosen to impose against Russia. As well known, the US, UK and EU are facing a wave of inflation with all-time highs. And in the same sense, the business world is collapsing in Western countries. The business losses with the end of participation of some Western companies in the Russian market are extremely significant and are causing serious problems for the economy of many countries, with losses accumulating exorbitant amounts.

It is estimated that American, European, British, and Japanese companies have already lost more than 70 billion dollars since February. The losses are a consequence of the packages of sanctions imposed by Western countries on Moscow in response to the start of the special military operation in Ukraine. Many corporations withdrew from Russia or had their activities frozen, losing insertion in the powerful market of consumption, work and raw materials offered by Russia.

As expected, the most affected sector is the energy one, whose losses are estimated at almost 55 billion dollars, generating a series of problems for Western societies. Relations between Russia and Western Europe in the energy sector have always been a central strategic point in the international economic balance and now seem more threatened than ever. However, other sectors are also in similar situations.

Agricultural commodity, food and tobacco markets achieve losses of almost 8 billion dollars. In the same sense, in the technology and IT sector, 5 billion dollars of losses have already been accumulated. And there is also the vital banking sector, whose side effects of anti-Russian financial coercive measures have already led to a loss of 3,7 billion dollars – most of this amount belonging to Société Générale, the only banking group to have left Russia completely so far.

With regard specifically to the energy sector, the European and British companies most affected were BP, Linde, Uniper and Total Energies, whose billions of dollars in assets were harmed as a result of the suspension of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline and other Russian-European projects of cooperation. The process of disintegration of the Russian and European energy markets will not be so easily completed, as it is necessary to reverse a scenario of decades of cooperation, which will undoubtedly take time.

For example, BP, which announced its unconditional withdrawal from the Russian market in February, still remains one of Rosneft’s main partners, owning 19.75% of its shares. However, the process of disintegration has progressively advanced. BP itself revealed a loss of more than 25 billion dollars due to the freezing of its activities in Russia, pointing to a scenario that indicates a path towards the end of the cooperation in the near future.

American and Japanese energy companies are heading in the same direction. ExxonMobil, Mitsui & Co and Mitsubishi Corporation were some of the companies that had the most losses in recent months, mainly as a result of the effects that the coercive measures had on the Sakhalin-I and Sakhalin-II projects. Obviously, other energy companies were also affected by the packages of sanctions, albeit on a smaller scale, showing a scenario of generalized losses for this sector’s businesses.

For Russia, however, the deficits are much smaller and almost never imply real losses, but market restructurings. In energy, Russian oil and gas production remains strong and active, unaffected by the departure of some Western companies. The withdrawal of these companies makes room for other markets, such as the Chinese and Indian, which are the ones that have stood out in the search for Russian oil and gas in recent months. Meanwhile, Western companies lose important sources of supply that will not be easily resolved.

As for market sectors in which Russian consumption was of interest to Western companies, there are even fewer losses. The corporations that withdrew from Russia left their physical production structures there, which could be used by Moscow, generating employment for the Russian population, internal circulation of capital and economic progress.

For example, McDonald’s lost more than one billion dollars with its adherence to anti-Russian measures, but its withdrawal from the local market made room for the nationalization of the company’s production structures, and a Russian national company was created to sell fast food for Russian citizens. The same is currently happening with other Western companies that have left the Russian market. In short, the West lost a rich consumer market and handed over to Moscow all the necessary means for Russians themselves to supply their population with such goods and services.

In practice, all these facts simply mean damage to Western business. Entrepreneurs do not appear to have been consulted by heads of state on whether or not sanctions were in their best interest. The measures were simply imposed unilaterally to meet NATO’s geopolitical plans, without considering the opinion of companies that generate jobs for Western citizens. Currently, there are still plans to completely ban the entry of Russian citizens into Europe, which according to estimates will generate losses of more than 20 billion euros, harming the entire European market.

In fact, western sanctions, if not reversed, will lead the world into a global recession in which the most affected will be the western countries themselves. To avoid this, the business sector must mobilize to demand an end to sanctions.

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

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Guest is Dr. Patrick Moore, co-founder & ex-President of Greenpeace and author. He has a BSc Biology and a PhD Ecology. Also director of co2coalition.org, a coalition that seeks to engage in an informed and dispassionate discussion of climate change, humans’ role in the climate system, the limitations of climate models, and the consequences of mandated reductions in CO2 emissions.

He strongly opposes the idea that there are too many people on earth since humanity is way better off today, than in the past centuries, thanks to science and innovations. He voices serious doubts on the CO2-caused climate change narrative dominating academia, politics and news & criticizes K. Schwab’s “Own nothing and be happy” doctrine.

This session also talks about what happened when Greenpeace grew: became a business with shifted priorities (money over ideals). Greenpeace also started to describe humanity as “enemies of the earth”.

Dr. Moore argues for a balance between taking from nature (which feeds us) and taking care of nature.

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During his fifty years as a painter, Canadian American artist Philip Guston created a body of work that stands out as among the most significant and daring of the twentieth century. His development as an artist involved several phases, and culminated with images notable for their dark, biting humor, distinct palette, unmistakable lexicon of objects, and concern with themes when taken together seem designed to heighten our uneasiness and have us question everything we thought we knew about painting. Perhaps the most important feature of these works, however, is their uncompromising interrogation of racism and white culpability, signaled by the persistent and discomfiting image of hooded Klansmen, or simply “hoods” as Guston referred to them. 

The Museum of Fine Art in Boston is presently hosting “Philip Guston Now,” a much-anticipated retrospective of Guston’s work. Comprised of seventy-three paintings and twenty-seven drawings, the exhibition reexamines an artist who began as a representational painter, but by the late 1950s was highly acclaimed as an abstract expressionist. Yet, notwithstanding the adoring critics, Guston ultimately declined to settle into his role as one of the country’s preeminent abstract artists.  His return to figuration was disparaged and ridiculed when the paintings first came before the public in his now infamous 1970 solo exhibition at New York City’s Marlborough Gallery. Despite fierce criticism, Guston insisted on confronting some of the most difficult and pressing questions our society continues to face. These paintings, preoccupied as they are with the nature of the self and its relationship to evil, violence, and bigotry are destabilizing, disruptive, and precisely for that reason they cannot afford to be overlooked.

Born in 1913, the son of Ukrainian Jewish immigrants who fled extermination in the pogroms of 1905, Guston was no stranger to racial hatred which he would encounter firsthand growing up in Los Angeles. Ku Kluxers first appeared in Guston’s work of the early 1930s, including a 1932 mural based on accounts he had read of the trial of the Scottsboro boys, nine Black youths falsely accused of rape in Alabama in the spring of 1931. A terrifying and brutal depiction of a Klansman whipping a roped black man, Guston’s mural was desecrated, along with several others, by a group “led by the chief of the Red Squad [a unit of the Los Angeles Police Department that went after Communists and strikers].”

Neither was Guston a stranger to tragedy: despondent and reduced to rag picking, his father hanged himself from the porch, and was likely discovered by Philip who had his tenth birthday only three days earlier. Ropes and porches will emerge in paintings such as If This Be Not I (1945) and Porch II (1947), both included in the current exhibition. The figures in these paintings are compressed, and flattened against each other, accentuating the overall sense of claustrophobia. They are also evocative of the Holocaust: in the lower left of If This Be Not I, a figure wearing the striped pajamas of the concentration camp is laying on his back, his head turned so that he looks vacantly at us from over his right shoulder, while his right hand slumps lifelessly beside a discarded light bulb (one of his favorite motifs).  In the figure’s left hand, he clutches a tin horn against his chest, perhaps suggesting an angel. The dangling rope of Porch II may refer to his father’s suicide; while a man hanging upside down, exposing the soles of his shoes, is an image that Guston will use in alluding to the Holocaust.

If This Be Not I (1945)

The early work demonstrates Guston’s mastery of a style informed by the great Mexican muralists (‘Los Tres Grandes’), the stylized forms of Giorgio de Chirico and Pablo Picasso, as well as the Italian Renaissance frescoes of Piero della Francesca, who painted “like a visitor to the earth… as though opening his eyes for the first time… without manner.” Guston in fact displayed Piero’s Flagellation of Christ (c. 1456-60) for much of his life: “I want to look at [it] when I have eggs and coffee in the morning or my drinks at night.” Something of Piero’s depiction of the violent flogging of Jesus is recognizable in a painting such as Martial Memory (1941), a scene of children fighting in costume (a theme to which Guston returned more than once): in this case, the children have paused momentarily, holding their weapons in the air, echoing Christ’s tormentors in the Flagellation.

Figurative painting was unequivocally set aside with the lush hues of Red Painting (1950), generally regarded as Guston’s first foray into pure abstraction, to which he would be wholly devoted for the next sixteen years. Unlike colleagues including Jackson Pollok (with whom Guston attended high school in Los Angeles), Guston painted with short rapid brushstrokes, working extremely close to the canvas. The results were rich, and visually enticing tapestries of color with touches reminiscent of Turner and especially Monet.

“Decisions to settle anywhere are intolerable,” Guston would write, “[U]nless painting proves its right to exist by being critical and self-judging, it has no right to exist at all – or is not even possible.” Having achieved international recognition for his abstract paintings, Guston forsook critical acclaim by returning to figuration, but in an entirely new, almost cartoon-like style informed by the aesthetic sensibilities he developed as an abstract artist. Although derided when they first appeared, it is the work from this third phase – characterized by the extensive use of his signature pinks and recurring objects, such as light bulbs, nails, shoes, clocks, and paintbrushes – for which Guston would be chiefly remembered.

The Studio (1969), a meta-self-portrait (that is, a painting of the artist painting a self-portrait) unabashedly announced Guston’s move away from abstraction and his return to figuration and representationalism. The uneasiness that this painting generates arises from Guston’s decision to present himself in a Klansman’s hood, working at his easel, holding a cigar with his left hand and a paintbrush in his right, as he creates a self-portrait of his hooded persona. Guston would say of the many hooded figures to follow, “They are self-portraits. I perceive myself as being behind the hood. … I almost tried to imagine that I was living with the Klan. What would it be like to be evil?”

Guston’s Web (1975) is as disturbing as any of the Klan paintings – and, in fact, the over-sized eye of the bean-shaped head (standing in for the artist himself) is itself shaped like the hoods of his Klansmen. The red rim of the eye and three-day stubble is suggestive of sleeplessness, which can be understood here not only in terms of insomnia as a medical condition, but also as a crucial metaphor for modern subjectivity under conditions of late capitalism. Guston’s cyclops is vigilant without seeing anything – it is like the vigilance of one who is chained to being, contracted to exist and unable to escape the anonymous il y a (or ‘there is’) as the philosopher Emanuel Levinas would put it.

Web (1975)

At the top of the painting, two black spiders spin their webs which partially ensnare Guston’s head if not his brain-shaped companion, a stand in for his wife Musa McKim, characteristically represented as a kind of sun rising or setting on the horizon. The spiders are weavers of time and fate – like the two women who busily knit their black wool, spinning the thread of each man’s life, at the entrance to the Company’s offices in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (1899).

Painting, Smoking, Eating (1973) is among Guston’s most recognizable works – and it is replete with the objects that variously inhabit the paintings from this period: cigarettes, light bulbs, the soles of shoes; and once again the single massive and vigilant eye of the artist’s oval-shaped head. In this case, the painter is lying in bed, smoking a cigarette, covered up to his chin by a blanket, with a plate of french fries propped on his chest. Behind him is a disordered and motley collection of shoes, a can of brushes, and a disembodied hand with its index finger pointing to the wall on which it has drawn a vertical red line. This image touches on the inevitable question, who precisely is painting in this picture? Is the artist painting in his imagination as he lays in bed? The disembodied hand marking the wall in blood invariably recalls the mystic hand which appeared before Belshazzar as he feasted in his palace, as related in the Book of Daniel, and famously depicted by Rembrandt in Belshazzar’s Feast (1635).

Painting, Smoking, Eating (1973)

The prophet Daniel informs the Babylonian ruler that he was ‘weighed in the balance and found wanting’ – a stern judgement, and for Guston a kind of self-reproach with which he was not unfamiliar and that helps us to understand his departure from pure abstraction. As Guston would recall: “When the 1960s came along I was feeling split, schizophrenic. The war, what was happening in America, the brutality of the world. What kind of man am I, sitting at home, reading magazines, going into a frustrated fury about everything-and then going into my studio to adjust a red to a blue?”

A great deal of controversy preceded this exhibition, which will travel from Boston’s MFA to the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, followed by the National Gallery of Art in Washington, and finally Tate Modern in London. In response to the “the racial justice movement that started in the US,” following the murder of George Floyd on May 25, 2020, all four institutions intended to postpone the exhibition until 2024, according to their joint statement – a testament to Guston’s ability to unsettle and even shock audiences over forty years after his death.

Thankfully, the museums reversed their decision when a fierce backlash ensued. Guston’s daughter, Musa Mayer, pointedly observed: “My father dared to unveil white culpability… our shared role in allowing the racist terror that he had witnessed since boyhood, when the Klan marched openly by the thousands in the streets of Los Angeles… He understood what hatred was. It was the subject of his earliest works.” Indeed, one can hardly conceive of a more appropriate time to present the work of an artist whose paintings are not only a condemnation of evil, its banality and proximity, but a critical reflection on our collective responsibility for bigotry, antisemitism, and violence.

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Sam Ben-Meir is a professor of philosophy and world religions at Mercy College in New York City. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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Erdogan Repairs Syria Ties with Eye on Eurasianism

August 26th, 2022 by M. K. Bhadrakumar

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Yesterday, Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke with Uzbekistan President Shavkat Mirziyoyev regarding the forthcoming Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Samarkand on September 15-16. This must be the fourth or fifth time the two leaders confabulated over the upcoming event. One lost count! 

Putin and Mirziyoyev conceivably exchanged notes on a major event likely on the sidelines of the SCO summit — a meeting between Turkish President Recep Erdogan and his Syrian counterpart Bashar al-Assad signalling a breakthrough in the conflict in Syria. 

As I wrote recently — Russia-Turkey reset eases regional tensions— one major outcome of the meeting between Putin and Erdogan in Sochi on August 5 was that a reconciliation between Ankara and Damascus may be happening. On his return journey, Erdogan said he was going to contact Assad. Hardly anyone noticed, though, that Putin also invited Erdogan and Assad to participate in the upcoming SCO summit. 

Indeed, Mirziyoyev, who will be hosting the summit in Samarkand, has been in the know of it all through. Putin and Mirziyoyev have forged a close working relationship suffused with warmth and mutual respect that puts Tashkent back as the key capital in Russia’s Central Asian strategies, as has been the case historically dating back to the Tsarist era. 

Moscow has outclassed and outmanoeuvred the recent US attempts to stir up unrest in Central Asian region, whilst the Kremlin has one eye riveted on Ukraine. (The secretary of Russia’s Security Council Nikolai Patrushev, a longtime associate of Putin, lashed out last week at a meeting of SCO security tsars at US attempts to stage colour revolutions in Central Asia.) 

Coming back to Syria, western media missed the wood for the trees while assessing the Putin-Erdogan summit in Sochi. The leitmotif in Sochi was regional security in the Greater Middle East — the vast swathe stretching from Levant to the steppes of Central Asia and the Pamirs bordering Xinjiang. 

The Guardian came tantalisingly close to smelling the real story behind the 4-hour long “secretive meeting” at one-to-one level in Sochi, but lost the scent somehow after hearing that “Before the meeting began, Russian journalists noted that Ramzan Kadyrov, the Chechen leader who has sent forces under his command to both Syria and Ukraine, was in attendance.”

The Putin-Erdogan axis is riveted on a balancing of interests to ensure differences (which are aplenty) do not turn into disputes. Thus, Putin is unfailingly attuned to Erdogan’s concerns today which devolve upon the state of the Turkish economy and the upcoming presidential and parliamentary polls (the two are inter-related.)  

Erdogan has his finger on many pies — from the Balkans to North Africa and Persian Gulf to the Caucasus — but what concerns him most is the situation in Syria, which has serious implications as he prepares to seek a renewed mandate.  For Erdogan, Syria is like a Matryoshka doll — a set of problems of decreasing size placed one inside another. Who else but Putin could understand a Matryoshka doll better? 

For the Russian mind, the Matryoshka doll symbolises above all other values the search for truth and meaning. That is how Syria figures prominently in Putin’s cogitations with Erdogan. Packed inside the doll, one inside another, are: PKK and Kurdish separatism; US-Kurdish unholy alliance; Israeli footprints; Turkish-American discord (following the failed US-backed coup d’état in 2016) — all of which impact Turkey’s vital concerns. 

At Sochi, Putin could persuade Erdogan that the best way to address his concerns will be by engaging with Assad. Of course, Erdogan and Assad are no strangers to each other. The two families used to vacation together — until 2011 when Barack Obama and Joe Biden weaned Erdogan away. 

Fundamentally, there is a Turkish-Russian understanding that the strengthening of Syrian government’s sovereignty will strengthen regional security and that Ankara and Damascus have a common interest in fighting separatism and terrorism. Indeed, the natural corollary is that the longer the US occupation continues, the greater the danger of a “Kurdistan” consolidating in northern Syria. 

But the US is in no hurry to end its occupation, since the troops aren’t taking casualty; large scale smuggling of oil makes the occupation rather “self-financing” (like the ancient Roman legions); and the region also happens to be Syria’s most fertile river valleys. 

Erdogan’s security concerns in Syria are best addressed in cooperation with Damascus. As the first step in this direction, he publicly stated last week that destabilising the Assad government is not Turkish policy (anymore.)

Meanwhile, reports have appeared that a Turkish delegation of former ministers and diplomats led by the leader of the Patriotic Party (Vatan Partisi) Dogu Perincek plans to visit Damascus to hold talks with Assad for the restoration of Turkish-Syrian relations. Interestingly, Tehran has since called for the rebuilding of relations between Turkey and Syria.

Now, Perincek’s appearance makes this a demi-official Track 1.5 mission. Perincek is a seasoned politician with a Marxist pedigree, who was associated with both “Kemalists” and Kurdish PKK, had spent something like 15 years in jail during various periods until an intriguing prison release in 2014, and a makeover as fellow traveller of the Erdogan regime. 

However, one consistent trait in Perincek’s ideological make-up has been his advocacy of “Eurasianism”, namely, that Turkey should turn its back on  the Atlantic system, pursue an independent foreign policy and head toward Eurasia to work with the Russia-China axis. 

Without doubt, Perincek worked on receptive minds, as a belief was gaining ground within the Erdogan government that Western powers — the US, in particular — are trying to weaken and divide Turkey through their support of Kurdish separatism, whereas Russia and China scrupulously refrain from interference in Turkey’s internal affairs. 

Curiously, Perincek and Russian philosopher and ideologue Aleksandr Dugin have enjoyed a warm personal friendship over many years, cemented by their conviction that Russian nationalism and Turkish nationalism have a meeting point in the ideology of “Eurasianism”. They have met more than once. And, like Dugin, Perincek is also credited today with influence among the power circles surrounding Erdogan. 

A presentation of the “Eurasianist” perspective on the Syrian question is available in a most recent  interview by retired Lt. Gen. Ismail Hakki Pekinformer head of the Turkish Armed Forces’ Military Intelligence (2007-2011) who used to be the deputy chairman of Perincek’s party.  

It is possible to see Perincek’s influence in the Turkish foreign policy in the so-called Asia Anew initiative, which was unveiled at the annual Turkish Ambassadors’ Meeting in Ankara three years ago. 

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Last week’s Israeli army raids and closures of seven Palestinian civil society organisations based in the occupied West Bank cities of Ramallah and Al Bireh are the latest manifestation of a decades old Israeli campaign to remove influential Palestinian leaders, undermine Palestinian institutions and disrupt Palestinian unity.

Before dawn a week ago, Israeli forces broke into their offices, searched them, confiscated computers and files, and sealed their premises. Israel branded them “terrorist” and “unlawful”, alleging ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a leftist resistance group outlawed by Israel.

Israel’s latest victims cover a broad range of activities essential for the wellbeing of Palestinians struggling for existence under Israeli occupation. These are human rights defender Al Haq, prisoner support group Addameer, the Union of Palestinian Women’s Committees, the Union of Agricultural Work Committees, the Bisan Centre for Research and Development, Defence for Children International, Palestine branch and the Union of Health Workers Committees which operates hospitals and clinics across the West Bank. The first six were banned as unlawful “terrorist” organisation last October and the seventh in 2020.

Adding insult to injury, Israel’s domestic security agency Shinbet followed up by summoning for questioning Khaled Quzmar, director of Defence for Children, who endured two hours of interrogation at Ofer military base, and  Shawan Jabari of Al Haq who refused to present  himself. The Al Haq caller made “threats of imprisonment and other measures if Al Haq continues its work,” which it has, by reopening its office and recalling staff.

The Gaza-based Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) condemned the raids as an “assault” on these organisations and warned that such closures are part of the Israeli army’s “systematic policy” of eliminating Palestinian civil society due to the role it plays in “supporting the Palestinian resistance under occupation”. The PCHR argues that Israel has [tightened] “the screws” on such organisations since the Durban Conference against Racism held in 2001 in South Africa and Israel has escalated its efforts since Palestine “acceded to the International Criminal Court in 2015”. The PCHR demanded the international community intervene to reopen these civil society bodies, which the Palestinian Authority regards as “state institutions”.

The UN, European Union, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have criticised the move and nine European countries, Germany, Italy, France, Spain, Holland, Belgium, Ireland, Denmark and Sweden have expressed “deep concern” over the closures while even Israel’s best friend, the US, voiced “concern.” All said Israel had offered no evidence to justify its “terrorist” designation. None has proposed to exert pressure on Israel to reverse its bans and return the property of the raided organisations or punish Israel if it refuses. This means, once again, Israel will get away with a major assault on Palestinian civil society just as it escapes serious censure for its nightly arrest raids on West Bank Palestinian cities, towns and villages and military offensives against Gaza.

However, if Israel provides firm evidence to justify the closure of these organisations, action would be taken making it all too clear once again that double standards will apply on the case of the banned organisations while Israel will continue to enjoy impunity.

By raiding the organisations in Ramallah, the Israeli army also violated the terms of the 1995 Oslo II agreement, signed by Israeli Prime Minister Yizak Rabin and Palestinian Liberation Organisation Chairman Yasser Arafat. Ramallah is located in Area A, the 18 per cent of the West Bank under full Palestinian Authority control. Israeli citizens, colonists, and forces are banned from entering Area A. However, since Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s full scale invasion of the West Bank in 2002, its forces have conducted routine raids into Ramallah and environs Bethlehem, Nablus, Jenin, Tulkarem, Qalqilya, Jericho, Nablus, 80 per cent of Hebron, and the 40 per cent of Al Bireh which is classified as Area A. Five per cent of this town is Area B, and 55 per cent as Area C.

In Area B, 22 per cent of the West Bank, the authority administers Palestinian enclaves while Israel has full security control.  Israel is meant to exercise total control over Area C, 60 per cent of the West Bank but in violation of Oslo II, Israel has extended the reach of its military to Area A, in defiance of the Palestinian Authority.

Israel does not confine its military raids to civil society organisations but also targets cultural centres and research organisations.  In July 2020, Israeli forces raided the Yabous Cultural Centre and Edward Said National Conservatory  of Music in occupied East Jerusalem and confiscated thousands of documents, files, computers and surveillance cameras. The military also entered the Beit Hanina home of Rania Elias and Suhail Khouri, the directors of the centres, seized files and arrested the couple.

Israel conducts drone and air strikes against cultural facilities in Gaza. In May 2021, Israel flattened two of the strip’s main bookshops and in 2018 Israel bombed the Said Al Meshal Cultural Centre in the Rimal neighbourhood of Gaza where musicians and artists practised and performed.

The most destructive raid conducted by Israel took place at the Arab Studies Society located in occupied East Jerusalem’s 1897 Husseini mansion, a graceful stone building of great historic importance and a symbol of the Palestinian presence in the city. The raid took place shortly after the death of Faisal Husseini, East Jerusalem’s leading Palestinian figure, who founded the Society in 1980 and moved it into Orient House in 1983. The Israelis carried away the library’s 17,000 books in English and Arabic as well as its collection of documents on Palestinian land ownership during the Ottoman era and British mandate period.  Israel’s aim was to deprive the Palestinians of proofs of their existence and ownership of the land Israel claims and colonises.

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The Biden administration has urged the Palestinian Authority not to pursue a vote at the UN Security Council on gaining full UN membership, stressing it will likely veto any such move, U.S. and Palestinian sources said.

Driving the news: The Palestinian Authority announced several weeks ago it will renew its push to gain full UN membership during the upcoming UN General Assembly meeting in New York.

  • Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas wants to use this move to try to put the Israeli-Palestinian conflict back at the center of the international community’s attention and to break the current deadlock in the peace process.
  • The possible UN bid is also a way for the PA and Abbas to try to win points domestically and get deliverables from the U.S. and the EU.

Behind the scenes: Several weeks ago, Palestinian Ambassador to the UN Riyad Mansour started quiet consultations in New York with Security Council members over a possible full membership bid, according to Palestinian, Israeli and U.S. sources.

  • The Palestinians also discussed the issue with Biden administration officials, who raised strong reservations and said such a move won’t lead anywhere because of the veto, U.S. sources said.

Flashback: In November 2012, the Palestinians’ UN status was upgraded to non-member observer state, but this was done through a vote at the UN General Assembly where no country has veto power.

  • Since then, Palestinian leaders tried several times to get a vote at the UN Security Council but never garnered enough support — nine of 15 members — to even hold a vote.

What they’re saying: PLO official and Palestinian Minister Hussein al-Sheikh confirmed there were talks with the Biden administration on the issue, but stressed that it is an ongoing discussion and the PA is still trying to convince countries to support it.

  • A State Department spokesperson said the U.S. is committed to a two-state solution and is focused on trying to bring the Palestinians and Israelis closer together and create conditions for direct talks.
  • “The only realistic path to a comprehensive and lasting peace is through direct negotiations between the parties. There are no shortcuts to Palestinian statehood outside direct negotiations with Israel,” the State Department spokesperson added.

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One prominent way that the U.S. regime and its allies (or vassal-nations) deceive the public is by false headlines that often don’t even represent the news-report fairly or at all. A good recent example of this was a 23 August 2022 Reuters report headlined “Analysis: As Ukraine war drags on, Europe’s economy succumbs to crisis”. The lie that the headline was designed to implant into readers’ minds was that the invasion of Ukraine by Russia didn’t merely contribute to “Europe’s economy succumbs to crisis,” but that when winter comes and Europeans will be experiencing an even worse economy, that will be largely if not mainly because the “Ukraine war drags on.”

Actually, Europe’s own sanctions against Russia have produced and are producing skyrocketing commodities-prices that Europeans are experiencing not just in fuels but in foods, and will increasingly experience during the winter when there will be an even bigger demand for the fuels that Russia more than any other supplier and had been selling to Europeans at lower prices than any other country — but, now, because of those sanctions that are imposed by Europe’s leaders, Russia’s fuels are banned from European markets. Europe’s leaders have imposed those sanctions, and Europe’s ’news’-media praised them; and, so, European citizens approved of those sanctions; but, now, Europeans are starting to feel the inevitable consequence of that policy: soaring commodities-prices, and declining economies.

On 9 May 2022, Russia’s RT News bannered “Europe’s biggest economy faces wave of bankruptcies — banking chief: Aggressive sanctions against Russia are sending financial shockwaves through Germany”. That was an honest headline and following news-report, which one won’t see in U.S.-and-allied ’news’-media. The opening was:

Germany will be battered with a wave of bankruptcies due to Ukraine-related sanctions against Russia, according to Commerzbank Chief Executive Officer Manfred Knof.

“The energy supply in Germany is at risk, supply chains are breaking down, we have high inflation,” Knof was quoted by the Handelsblatt daily as saying.

According to the executive, almost a third of Germany’s foreign trade has been impacted, forcing companies to navigate complex issues with customers, including surging commodity prices and supply-chain bottlenecks.

“We shouldn’t delude ourselves: the number of insolvencies in our markets will probably increase and the risk provisions of the banks with it,” Knof said.

Whereas the Reuters ’news’-report had a false headline, and their following news-report was incomprehensible about what is causing Europe’s economies to suffer — and the headline’s implication was that Vladimir Putin was to blame, and that Putin caused it when he made the decision on February 24th that (supposedly) caused Europe’s economic plunge — this news-report from Russia (unlike the Reuters one) had no need to lie. That’s the difference between propaganda versus news. Propaganda is fake ‘news’. Fake ‘news’ comes from the approved ‘news’-media.

Many people don’t even read beyond the headline. Far more people read the headline than actually read the news-report that is below it. And even people who don’t read beyond the headline get their mind imprinted by the impression that the headline suggests. So, headline-deception is a major technique of propaganda.

Anyone in The West who pays subscription-fees to receive ‘news’ from their Government-approved ‘news’-media is paying in order to be deceived by their Government. It might give people a ‘good feeling’ because it’s thought to be from ‘our Government’ even if in fact it is only from the ‘news’-media that are owned and controlled by the billionaires who fund the political campaigns of the winning political candidates, but those subscription-fees are actually buying poison — mind-poison.

Obviously, any news-medium that is publishing this article would never knowingly do such a thing. But all of the mainstream U.S.-and-allied news-media do it all the time, and they know what they are doing, and why.

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

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The Southern African Development Community (SADC), during its 42nd Ordinary Summit of Heads of State and Government held on 17 and 18 August at Palais du Peuple (Parliament Building), vehemently expressed their collective opposition to a proposed United States law on countering Russian influence and activities in Africa. The “Countering Malign Russian Activities in Africa Act” adopted by the US House of Representatives directs the US Secretary of State to submit a strategy on Russia.

According the statement posted to its website, the 16-member regional bloc complained that the United States has made the African continent “the target of unilateral and punitive measures” and its Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee pushed the bill designed to stop President Vladimir Putin using Africa to bypass US sanctions and fund his war in Ukraine, as well as to protect African people from human rights violations by Russian mercenaries.

The SADC leaders have, therefore, reaffirmed their collective position of non-alignment towards conflicts outside the continent. The summit was held under the theme “Promoting Industrialization through Agro-processing , mineral beneficiation  and regional value chains for inclusive and resilient economic growth.”

“Africa Is Not For Sale. Africa is open for business not for sale or looting. We must defend what is ours and make sure that no one takes from us what is ours,” declared Malawian President Lazarus Chakwera at the summit, pointing to the bold stance against the scramble for Africa’s resources by external powers. “If the world wants what we have they must buy in a fair trade so that we use proceeds to build ourselves new cities, new universities, new infrastructure, industries and new programmes that lifts people out of poverty and vulnerability.”

President Chakwera urged African leaders and their people to build Africa and future generations not for those bent on looting its resources . He further touched on the need for Africa to define its destiny and chart a new independent course. That the resources of Africa remain in the hands of Africans but not to be stolen by some people. Let us stand up with one voice and tell the World, Africa is open for business but not for sale.

“It takes only Africans to build the African continent. No foreigners will develop the continent. We must not always look upon them because what they give us does not build anything but simply causes tension in the continent like they did in the past.” In that scathing speech, he further lambasted Western and Eastern countries that they must not just be in Africa to  steal but to build. There is no one outside Africa who can build it, not any European, Asian or American.”

Labeled as the “Countering Malign Russian Activities in Africa Act” (H.R. 7311) was passed on April 27 by the House of Representatives in a bipartisan 419-9 majority and will probably be approved by the Senate which is evenly split between the Democrats and the Republicans. This legislative measure is broadly worded enabling the State Department to monitor the foreign policy of the Russian Federation in Africa including military affairs and any effort which Washington deems as “malign influence.”

Russian military operations in Ukraine are in response to Washington and Wall Street’s efforts to expand the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) deeper into Eastern Europe as a direct threat to the interests of the Russian Federation and its allies. Two other bills have recently been passed to maintain and expand Pentagon military bases around the world along with providing an additional $40 billion to supply weapons to the Ukrainian government which is bolstered by neo-Nazi militias integrated into the armed forces.

During the early phase of the Russian special operations in Ukraine, many African states abstained from two United Nations General Assembly resolutions motivated by Washington to condemn the Russian government for its intervention in Ukraine while completely ignoring the level of fascist infiltration of Kiev military forces and the necessity of reaching a diplomatic solution to the burgeoning conflict.

African Heads-of-State, such as President Cyril Ramaphosa of the Republic of South Africa, have consistently argued that the African National Congress (ANC) led government in Pretoria will not support the Ukraine war along with the draconian sanctions instigated by the Biden administration. Ramaphosa has demanded that the U.S. State Department and White House support negotiations between Kiev and Moscow, which have been routinely undermined by Biden and his cabinet members.

Long before the February 24 invasion by the Russian armed forces, the U.S. has engaged in repeated threats against President Putin and the entire government based in Moscow demanding that it acquiesce to the expansion of NATO. Unprecedented sanctions with the stated aims of completely blocading Russia from the world economic system have largely failed to curtail the advances by Moscow in eastern Ukraine.

The “Countering Malign Russian Activities in Africa Act” adopted by the US House of Representatives is a well-designed legislative measure broadly worded enabling the State Department to monitor the foreign policy of the Russian Federation in Africa including military affairs and any effort which Washington deems as malign influence.

The United States Congressional bill was approved by a wide margin that would target and punish African states that maintain political and economic relations with the Russian Federation. Labeled as the “Countering Malign Russian Activities in Africa Act” (H.R. 7311) was passed on April 27 by the House of Representatives in a bipartisan 419-9 majority and approved by the Senate which is evenly split between the Democrats and the Republicans.

On 2nd March at the United Nations General Assembly, with all 193 UN Member States in attendance, a total of 141 countries voted in favour of the resolution, which reaffirmed Ukrainian sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity. African representatives and their votes was considered very interesting. Some 17 African countries abstained from the vote at the UN General Assembly to deplore the Russian invasion of Ukraine while some other 28 countries in the continent voted in favour.

Among those abstaining from vote were South Africa, Algeria, Uganda, Burundi, Senegal, South Sudan, Mali and Mozambique. Others were Sudan, Namibia, Angola, Zimbabwe, Equatorial Guinea, Central Africa Republic, Madagascar, Tanzania and Congo.

Eritrea was the only African country that voted against the resolution. Besides that however, Egypt, Tunisia, Nigeria, Kenya, Chad, Ghana, Gambia, Gabon, Rwanda, Cote d’Ivoire, Libya, Liberia, Djibouti, Mauritania, Somalia, Niger, Benim, Lesotho, Botswana, Zambia, Malawi, Mauritius, Comoros, Seychelles ,Cape Verde, Sao Tome and Principe, Sierra Leone and the Democratic Republic of Congo, among others, voted yes.

Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Guinea Bissau, Ethiopia, Eswatini were not in the room. Uganda said it abstained from the vote to uphold “neutrality” as the incoming chair of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). NAM is a forum made up of 120 developing countries to assert their independence from the competing claims of the two superpowers.

In a tweet, Uganda’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Adonia Ayebare, said the country would continue to play a constructive role in the maintenance of peace and security both regionally and globally.

Shahid said the resolution reflected the international community’s grave concern about the situation in Ukraine. “I join member states in expressing concern about reports of attacks on civilian facilities such as residences, schools and hospitals, and of civilian casualties, including women, older persons, persons with disabilities, and children,” he said, citing the text. In practice, African countries hold similar views on the principles of sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity, even including those that voted and those that abstained.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres stated he was duty bound to stand by the resolution and be guided by its call.

“The message of the General Assembly is loud and clear: End hostilities in Ukraine now. Silence the guns now. Open the door to dialogue and diplomacy now,” Guterres said, adding: “Looking ahead, I will continue to do everything in my power to contribute to an immediate cessation of hostilities and urgent negotiations for peace. People in Ukraine desperately need peace. And people around the world demand it.”

The SADC collectively aims at, among others, promoting sustainable and equitable economic growth and social economic development that will ensure poverty alleviation, improve the living standards of the people in Southern Africa. This 16-member organization was established in 1980. The member states are Angola, Botswana, Comoros, Democratic Republic of Congo, Eswatini, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Seychelles, South Africa, United Republic of Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

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Kester Kenn Klomegah, who worked previously with Inter Press Service (IPS), is now a regular contributor to Global Research. As a versatile researcher, he believes that everyone deserves equal access to quality and trustworthy media reports.

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The Energy Crisis: A Cold Winter Ahead for Europe and Syria

August 25th, 2022 by Steven Sahiounie

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While the world has sympathy for the plight of Europeans facing a cold winter because of their energy crisis, Syrians have been suffering a lack of energy since 2011.  The European energy crisis is based partly on politics, but the Syrian energy crisis is caused exclusively by the US-NATO political attack on Syria for regime change.

Syria has a milder climate than Europe; however, Aleppo, Homs, and Damascus have snow on the ground during part of every winter. Syrian residents have almost no electricity, and a shortage of cooking gas, home heating fuel, and gasoline.  Why are Syrians being collectively punished?  The US-EU sanctions have caused suffering in Syria where the middle class has become the newly poor, and the poor have become destitute.

The attack and destruction of Syria have been supported and funded by European leaders who represent the European citizens democratically.  It is no wonder Em Ahmed said, “Let them get a taste of their own medicine.”

Europeans are facing a cold winter 

Europe is the epicenter of a global energy crisis according to the International Energy Agency.

Syria has oil wells and gas wells, but the illegal occupation US military has been stealing the oil from the largest oil field and since August 11 it has delivered 537 oil tankers of looted oil to the US military base in Iraq.

Causes of the European energy crisis

The European Commission implemented a full ban on Russian coal in August, and Gazprom has cut back on pipeline flows to Europe. EU nations are preparing for a hard winter, while cutting gas consumption, boosting Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) imports for storage, and in some cases restarting coal-powered plants.

The current energy crisis in Europe is caused by increased energy demands as the pandemic has allowed for an economic recovery phase, decreased wind power, limited gas sales by Russia on the spot market, limited gas supply from Norway, and past higher gas usage due to cold winter weather.

Europe has relied on Russian gas imports as they transitioned from coal to gas for electricity production. The US kept warning Europe that they should reduce its dependence on Russian gas, but it took the current conflict in Ukraine to make a change.

Experts have complained that Europe caused its energy crisis by failing to act quicker on a transition to renewables and form a coherent energy policy.  They feel fossil fuels have caused climate change, and renewable energy sources offer the best path to avoid future energy crises.

Europe had relied on Russian gas, but Russian gas cutoffs have affected European energy security. Russian gas amounted to about 40 percent of European imports, but Moscow has slashed the flow after Europe supported Ukraine.  Europe looked to Norway and North Africa to fill in the void, but the support didn’t materialize.

The Asian factor

Japan, South Korea, and China hold the key to Europe’s winter heating, as they are among the biggest importers of LNG, and their winter heating demands coincide with Europe’s. The three Asian countries have produced more energy from renewables: Japan and South Korea in solar power records, and China in hydropower. The post-pandemic economy recovery has seen Asian consumers competing with Europeans for gas, as there was a massive import of LNG to China.

“This is the most extreme energy crisis that has ever occurred in Europe,” said Alex Munton, an expert on global gas markets at Rapidan Energy Group, a consultancy. “Europe [is] looking at the very real prospect of not having sufficient gas when it’s most needed, which is during the coldest part of the year.”

Causes of the Syrian lack of energy

Syrians have about two to three hours of electricity every 24 hours.  This is caused by the destruction of power generating stations by terrorists, which cannot be repaired due to US-EU sanctions which prevent all infrastructure repairs, and the lack of fuel to be used to generate electricity, due to the US military occupation and looting of the main oil fields in the northeast.

Syrians are lacking gas for cooking, and gasoline and diesel for transportation, along with soaring food prices due to the currency devaluation amid hyperinflation.

In November 2021, Syria’s Internal Trade and Consumer Protection Minister Amr Salem blamed the US-EU sanctions for the suffering of the Syrian people, as the sanctions are hindering the import of petroleum products.  Before 2011, Syria was energy sufficient, producing enough of their gas for domestic use, and allowing for some export.  Now, with the US military stealing the oil since President Trump gave the order in 2019, Syria depends on imports, but the sanctions prevent even that.

In August 2021, the Syrian electricity ministry reported that the total direct and indirect losses of the electricity sector as a result of the war amounted to about 6.1 trillion Syrian pounds (24.4 billion U.S. dollars).

Before the conflict, Syria relied on 11 fossil-fuel power plants (oil and gas), while hydroelectric power came from three dams located on the Euphrates River. Attacks by terrorists destroyed four power stations, and dozens of pipelines, which has left the country with less than 15 percent of the electricity used in 2010.

In January 2012, the gas pipeline in Homs was attacked.  CNN reporter Arwa Damon and her crew were embedded with the Free Syrian Army, who was a Syrian armed militia following Radical Islam, and supported and weaponized by the US and the EU.  Damon was tipped off by the terrorists that they were going to blow up the pipeline, and she and her crew set up their camera ahead of time to capture the later explosion.  Damon was complicit in an act of terrorism that deprived innocent civilians of electricity.  This is the same CNN reporter who in 2014 bit a medic at the US Embassy in Baghdad while in a drunken attack on Charles Simon and Tracy Lamar, who later sued CNN for 1 million dollars in damages.

Coming cold

This winter in Europe may see rationing of energy, industrial shutdowns, and perhaps an economic meltdown.  Strikes already have erupted as spiraling prices and cost of living spikes cause households to struggle.

In Norway, the European Union’s biggest supplier of natural gas after Russia, mass strikes in the oil and gas industries recently forced companies to stop production, sending fear throughout Europe.

In Syria, the winter outlook is even bleaker, as the Syrian people are collectively punished for resisting the Radical Islamic overthrow of the Damascus government, and for fighting back against Al Qaeda and its allied militias who occupy Idlib today.  Syrians are still studying by candlelight.  Forgive them for not feeling too much sympathy for the Europeans who supported the terrorists who took their electricity away.

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This article was originally published on Mideast Discourse.

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

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The United Kingdom is currently going through the sharpest economic contraction in the last 313 years. According to Reuters, this is the country’s worst recorded fall in output in more than three centuries. Since 2020, the UK broke this unflattering record multiple times, first after it faced the severe consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, then after the fallout of the suicidal anti-Russian sanctions started to kick in.

Curiously, this contraction is a far larger decline than is the case in any other major Western economy, updated official figures showed on Monday. GDP (gross domestic product) fell by 11.0% in 2020, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said. This was a bigger drop than any of the ONS’s previous estimates and the largest fall since 1709, according to historical data hosted by the Bank of England.

The UK statistics experts regularly update GDP estimates as more data becomes available. The ONS’s initial estimates had already suggested that in 2020 the UK suffered its biggest fall in output since the “Great Frost” of 1709. But more recently the ONS had revised down the scale of the fall to 9.3%, the largest since just after World War One. According to Reuters, even before the latest revisions, the UK’s economic slump was the largest among the G7 countries, and the latest downward revision makes it worse than that of Spain, which recorded a 10.8% fall in economic output. However, the ONS advised against drawing direct comparisons with other Western economies, as most – with the likely exception of the United States – had “not yet undertaken the same type of in-depth revisions as the UK had.” The downward revision in GDP reflected lower contributions from healthcare and retailers than previously thought, the report says.

“The health service faced higher costs than we initially estimated, meaning its overall contribution to the economy was lower,” ONS statistician Craig McLaren said.

According to the report, the ONS had already factored in a fall in routine care provided by the UK’s troubled NHS (National Health Service) as it focused on treating COVID-19 patients and limiting the spread of the disease in hospitals. A closer look at the increased costs faced by individual retailers also led to a downward revision of the sector’s contribution, while factory output was revised up to take account of lower raw material costs. The UK economy bounced back sharply last year and recovered its pre-pandemic size in November 2021. But fast-rising inflation means the Bank of England expects the economy will slip back into recession later this year, the report concludes.

The UK is hardly the only Western power with severe economic output problems. The European Union, which the UK formally left on 31 January 2020, is also going through a tremendously difficult economic and financial crisis. This is also affecting many other countries around the globe, regardless of whether their economies are more or less integrated with those of other European countries or the EU itself. Sanctions aimed against Russia are already wreaking havoc in many, if not most Western economies.

Although the political West was initially confident the sanctions would work, in time, the belligerent power pole started losing this misplaced self-confidence. As the Kiev regime kept suffering defeats, and despite a massive media campaign to portray it as winning, people in the West became less enthusiastic. This worsened after sanctions started affecting the West more than Russia itself. Western leadership tried spinning the narrative, claiming sanctions supposedly had no boomerang effect, but that “Russia’s unprovoked, brutal invasion” was the reason behind everyone’s troubles. In June, an LA Times column, authored by Doyle McManus described his experience after visiting Europe. The columnist was in Italy to see how sanctions affected life in Europe:

“It wasn’t hard to find the effects. You’re unhappy about $5 a gallon for gas? Try $8. ‘It’s painful filling the tank,’ my friend Roberto Pesciani, a retired teacher, moaned. Utility bills? The cost of natural gas is four times higher in Italy than in the US. ‘Heating prices are up. Grocery prices are up. Everything’s going up,’ Pesciani said. The worries go beyond inflation. Italy’s foreign minister, Luigi Di Maio, warned recently that Russia’s blockade on Ukraine’s grain exports could spark a global bread war, producing famine in Africa and a new wave of migrants heading for Europe. ‘The problem with sanctions on Russia is that they will only work if they hurt us too,’ Pesciani observed.”

If we ignore false narratives, such as the supposed “blockade” of Ukrainian ports by the Russian Navy, the problems mentioned in this short interview are currently plaguing tens or likely hundreds of millions of people in Europe. As a result, the so-called “Ukraine unity myth” is slowly but surely starting to crumble in most Western states, particularly EU members.

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Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.

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***

Recently, some American pro-war activists wrote a letter entitled “U.S. must arm Ukraine now, before it’s too late”, in which they advocate an increase in aid to Kiev so that the situation of the conflict is reversed. The authors believe that the conflict is at a turning point and that aid must be provided now in order for Russia to be defeated. However, military experts disagree with this argument and say that there is no reason to try to prolong the fighting.

Despite all the difficulties the Western world has faced as a result of the conflict in Ukraine, many people still insist that aid to Kiev must continue – and increase – until Moscow is defeated. The main rhetoric of the pro-war militants is that Russia would not just win the conflict in Ukraine but would expand its operation to other countries in Europe, which is why it needs to be defeated now – which they consider possible by sending arms to Kiev.

“For the U.S. and NATO, that time is now — and the place is Ukraine, a large country whose population understands that its choice is either defeating Putin or losing their independence and even their existence as a distinct, Western-oriented nation. With the necessary weapons and economic aid, Ukraine can defeat Russia. If it succeeds, our soldiers are less likely to have to risk their lives protecting U.S. treaty allies whom Russia also threatens. What does defeat for Putin look like? The survival of Ukraine as a secure, independent, and economically viable country”, the authors of the open letter asking more weapons to Ukraine say.

In fact, this rhetoric is absolutely unfounded in all its points. First, there is no reason to believe in an expansion of the Russian special military operation to NATO countries. Moscow just started military incursions into Ukraine because Kiev left no other alternative with its continuous policy of killing Russian citizens, but there is currently no equivalent situation in other countries. However, more important than that is to note the lack of realism on the part of the pro-Western militants in believing in the possibility of “defeating” Russia, despite the current stage of the conflict.

Russia did not mobilize all of its military power to attack Ukraine, but the small portion of the Russian forces sent to the operation was efficient in annihilating Ukrainian main bases of resistance. At the current stage of the conflict, there is no possibility of reversing the military situation. Kiev is defeated and only postpones the inevitable decision to surrender because it continues to receive Western weapons, guaranteeing a kind of “survival”, prolonging the battles indefinitely, even without a chance of victory.

This is the assessment of any expert who analyzes the case honestly and without ideological emotions. For example, Douglas Macgregor, war veteran and former advisor to the Secretary of Defense in the Trump administration, believes that the sending of weapons will not bring any positive change to Kiev due to the human capital deficit, both quantitative (with the low number of active Ukrainian soldiers), and qualitative (considering the tactical and operational inability of these fighters to reverse the conflict and even their lack of instruction in using the weapons they receive from the West).

With that, the weapons would only serve to prolong, not to effectively change the current military situation. He also claims that even if Kiev were to achieve major victories, the absence of human capital would not allow it to rebuild its troops after the long battles, while Russia, whose current combat mobilization represents only a small fraction of its military potential, would have the ability to recover quickly and thus regain the positions eventually lost.

“The hard truth is the introduction of new weapon systems won’t change the strategic outcome in Ukraine. Even if NATO’s European members, together with Washington, D.C., provided Ukrainian troops with a new avalanche of weapons, and it arrived at the front instead of disappearing into the black hole of Ukrainian corruption, the training and tactical leadership required to conduct complex offensive operations does not exist inside Ukraine’s 700,000-man army. In addition, there is an acute failure to recognize that Moscow would react to such a development by escalating the conflict. Unlike Ukraine, Russia is not currently mobilized for a larger war, but it could do so quickly”, he says.

Macgregor claims that the letter written by the pro-war militants “reinforces the failure” of Ukraine. For him, the conflict is at a decisive moment, in which it must be ended, not prolonged. He still believes that the reasons that led to this conflict – NATO’s incursions on the Russian border – were disastrous and unnecessary and that Western countries should give up further provocations against Moscow. The best solution, he says, is to support the Austrian model of neutrality as a solution for Ukraine before the country is completely destroyed.

“Ukraine’s war with Russia is at a decisive point. It is time to end it. Instead, the authors of the letter seek to reinforce failure. They are demanding a deeply flawed strategy for Ukraine that will lead in the best case to Ukraine’s reduction to a shrunken, land-locked state between the Dnieper River and the Polish border (…) Expanding NATO to Russia’s borders was never necessary and has become disastrous for Europe. The longer the war with Russia lasts the more likely it becomes that the damage to Ukrainian society and its army will be irreparable. Neutrality on the Austrian model for Ukraine is still possible”, he adds.

In fact, this opposition of opinions reflects the old debate between realists and warmongers. Anyone who really understands war and military strategy knows that there is no other solution than the neutralization of Ukraine and the end of Western expansionism. Those who think through liberal idealism, however, advocate fighting “to the last Ukrainian”.

Prolonging the conflict is not good for either side: it increases the destruction in Ukraine, perpetuates the suffering of the people, raises the expenses of western countries and forces Russia to mobilize a greater part of its military forces.

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

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The Center for Biological Diversity, Department of the Interior and National Marine Fisheries Service reached an agreement today that requires the agencies to re-examine the risks and harms to whales and other endangered species from continued oil and gas drilling in federal waters off California.

Today’s agreement resolves a lawsuit filed by the Center earlier this year following a October 2021 oil spill from a subsea pipeline off Huntington Beach.

“We’re glad federal officials have agreed to reconsider offshore drilling’s harms to California’s amazing but vulnerable marine creatures,” said Kristen Monsell, oceans legal director at the Center. “Decade after decade, oil spill after oil spill, the federal government has failed to properly examine how offshore drilling threatens endangered whales and other animals. A comprehensive, science-driven analysis should show that drilling off California is just too risky to wildlife and our climate and must be phased out.”

Under the agreement’s terms, the agencies must complete a new analysis that accounts for new information related to the recent oil spill. They must consider how offshore-drilling activity affects newly designated critical habitat for Pacific humpback whales and consider implementing certain mitigation measures, such as requiring oil and gas vessels to slow down to avoid striking and killing whales and other animals.

The Trump administration completed the existing Endangered Species Act analysis for oil and gas activity off California’s shores in 2017. It was the first consultation on drilling activities off California completed in more than 30 years.

That Trump-era analysis concluded that drilling off the state’s coast would not adversely affect threatened and endangered whales, sea turtles or other species. It based its conclusion on the assumption that an oil spill is unlikely and that if it did occur it would be limited to 8,400 gallons. The Center’s lawsuit highlighted how last year’s oil spill off California, which was several times larger than the Trump-era estimate, renders that whole analysis unlawful.

The Center’s lawsuit also asserted that the existing analysis is not based on the best available science. The analysis failed to consider new information on the threat to whales of being hit by ships engaged in oil and gas activity; it also didn’t consider how existing oil drilling worsens the climate crisis and affects newly designated critical habitat for humpback whales.

The agreement requires the agencies to complete the new analysis within one year.

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America’s Recipe for Systemic Disintegration

August 25th, 2022 by Richard Gale

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More than ever before in American history people are no longer able to trust their leaders in government, industry and the media. Rather than put our confidence in official positions of power and influence, there is a better way to concentrate our focus. That is, we should allow history, independent science and substantiated facts to be our arbiters.

For example, at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic in early 2020, it was understandable that we lacked sufficient, objective information to make informed judgments and decisions. All of the data about the new coronavirus strain and its spread was derived and disseminated from official sources. Therefore, we had to rely upon the reputation of the professional institutions and the believability of so-called experts to guide us.

Without being political, partisan or biased, we can now review the official narrative and determine what was true, false and remains unproven. We were told there were enormous numbers of deaths among the elderly to justify emergency measures to rapidly develop novel drugs and new vaccines. However, the evidence shows the opposite. The vast majority of deaths in hospitals, critical care centers and nursing homes were people who died from pre-existing comorbidities that may have been complicated by SARS-2 infection. In addition, the earlier accepted course of treatment – quarantine and oxygen therapy – was shown to be largely ineffective and, in fact, further complicated rising mortality rates.

Moreover, if a patient in hospice care with terminal cancer or COPD became infected, the death would have been ruled Covid-19.  This manipulation of cause-of-death certificates presented an image that the virus was far more lethal than it actually was. Only about 7 percent of reported Covid deaths can actually be associated with the virus as the primary cause.

Many medical professionals have reported that the PCR diagnostic test used throughout the world was remarkably flawed with very high rates of false positives. it has been known for a couple decades that PCR is an unreliable diagnostic tool for infectious diseases. Had we not relied on PCR, the case rate would never have warranted such a hysteric reaction. In the absence of novel drugs targeting the SARS-2 virus specifically nor a vaccine, health officials held firm to the story that there was no effective treatment. Infected people should return home and quarantine themselves until their condition worsens. The reality is that there were multiple highly effective drugs and therapeutic protocols that could have been prescribed but weren’t. As a result, hundreds of thousands of lives were lost unnecessarily. Worst, this may have been the first time in American medicine when large numbers of orthodox physicians and medical experts, the large majority who are pro-vaccine, were attacked, ridiculed and cancelled for suggesting early treatment with FDA approved off-label drugs such as hydroxychoroquine and ivermectin. Any doctor who spoke out was fair game.

Locking down entire cities and quarantining large numbers of presumably infected people did nothing to stop the pandemic. Such brash measures miscalculated the long-term consequences. Throughout the pandemic depression and anxiety, suicides, alcohol consumption and drug overdoses reached record highs.

In addition, all of the propaganda about the Covid vaccines being safe and effective was indisputably erroneous. Clearly when the major institutions that create and execute national health policies are repeatedly wrong and misguided, the public quickly loses trust. These public health debacles, as well as other issues, cost taxpayers enormous sums. The latest is a $40 billion aid package to dump into the Ukrainian government’s losing war with Russia. It is unfathomable that supporting a nation militarily and economically, which has been ranked as the most corrupt in Europe, would take precedence over the severe crises in the domestic economy. Congress’ aid package becomes all the more ludicrous and egregious when we take into account the US’s increasing inflation, skyrocketing energy costs and widespread shortages in infant formula.

Americans will recognize money spent wisely and their own interests when it produces positive results. However, now we witness the majority of expenditures failing to resolve problems; rather bailouts more often than not further enrich billionaires and private corporate interests. Instead of resolving any of the country’s serious struggles, the media on behest of the government distracts us with warring debates of critical race theory and gender politics.

As a consequence of decades of consistent budgetary and domestic failures, one does not need to be an oracle to envision the future. All that is necessary is to examine our constraints and foibles. We are now facing a perfect storm of pain, suffering and destruction: financial inequality and poverty, global warming, environmental migration, and disease pandemics.  Yet when any reasonable person questions what can be done, we are told we are fine and the best and brightest are on hand to solve our problems. However, in no small measure, it was the best and brightest during the past 60 years who were the architects for the crises we face today.

We need to step back to have a purview of the larger picture in order to observe what we as individuals can do to prevent or mediate the catastrophes we will all face. This begins by reaching agreement that those in power are the structural problem and can never come up with satisfying solutions.

An optimist will say that our socio-political and ecological conditions will improve, as long as the right candidate is elected to sit in the Oval Office. Since the nation is so viciously divided between clashing ideologies, this is wishful thinking. The pessimist, on the other hand,  reflects back upon the previous administrations since Eisenhower and declares nothing fundamental will change. It will only worsen. The climate optimist says that they are lucky their home has not been swept away in a flood, burnt to the ground from a wildfire or leveled by a hurricane. For the moment their lives are safe so everything will be fine in the future. The pessimist focuses on the reality about what happens when we lack a national or worldwide Marshall Plan to curb our impending climate-induced crises.

Throughout the US, people are waking up to a once in a lifetime experience that our body-politics are built upon a fragile foundation held together with scotch tape and paper clips. Others are waking up to the reality that they may be evicted from their homes and apartments tomorrow. About 75 percent of restaurants and bars closed during the pandemic will never reopen again. Yet the sole message fed to us daily by the mainstream media is that the only important issue on hand is to remain fearful of a virus, get tested, and keep up with your Covid-19 vaccine boosters.

Governors, state legislators and mayors contribute to the collective hysteria and are determined to pass bills to impose strict penalties on those who resist. Google, Facebook, Twitter and Wikipedia do their best to ensure that no medical experts, advocates or common citizens with data or facts on social platforms contradict the official health policies and narratives.

In the meantime, the nightly news, depending upon the political ideology of the network, airs politicized rhetoric and images of Washington’s spin for that day to keep the masses paralyzed in a state of fear and helplessness. If the average person asks what are the top ten or so issues that our nation should be focused upon, barely anything found in the mainstream media would be on that list.

Why?

It is not as complex or as unfathomable as it might appear on the surface. The basis of Ockham’s Razor is that to cut through the fat and get at the meat, the correct answers are usually the simplest.  We might begin by acknowledging that we are a nation divided but we have always been divided to some degree; however it has never been as purulent and hostile as today. The uniqueness of our society has been our diversity, languages, cultures and accents, and its ethnic and racial differences.  America’s dialectic has been one that inspires to become acquainted with these differences, such as southern hospitality, the Pacific Northwest’s relaxed and playful lifestyle, the quiet reserve and rural persona of the Midwest and the frenetic professional energy to succeed in the Northeast and California. Perhaps we appreciate each other in more ways than we consciously realize. Historically, when it was necessary to unite together, we did so as a nation – the world wars and the Great Depression are but two examples.

If we were to ask the average person in the 1930s what their priorities were, they would not be much different than today: a living wage, a home, food to feed the family and educational opportunities. Families wanted their children to be educated and succeed in ways the parents were unable.

There have always been conflicting attitudes towards social order or how the nation should be governed. But today what we are observing is not concerted efforts to advance improvements for how we govern ourselves, but rather we are retreating backwards into tribalism, identity politics and a new class warfare. No one can predict where this conflict and confusion will ultimately lead.

Identity politics, the effort for groups based upon race, social status, gender or religion to create exclusive political alliances founded on groupthink, has found its scriptures in both the Left and the Right. On the Left we find the insane rationale that if one is born Caucasian then racism is built into your genetic inheritance. There can be no escape from this curse, no redemption or purification by fire regardless of how much public service one performs for the greater good. On the Right we have the identity politics of white supremacism, anti-Semitism, and a fascist Christian evangelicalism built upon medieval superstitions.

Melanie Phillips gives us a clearer understanding for why we should not rely upon those pundits who believe that either conservative or liberal truths will save us from ourselves. Despite disagreeing with Phillips on many of her other socio-political positions, we believe she correctly identifies the fundamental flaws in contemporary liberalism being institutionalized across our campuses and within the Democrat party. First, it is unable to establish a hierarchy of values and morals. For example, if one refuses to say that any lifestyle or culture is better than another, then it cannot be said that liberalism is better than conservatism or any other ideology.  Consequently, faux liberalism cannot legitimately defend the very principles upon which it defines itself: freedom of speech and religion, tolerance, gender and class equality, etc.  It contradicts its own principles and removes the dignity of the individual, which is at the heart of liberalism and serves as its moral backbone. What we are witnessing therefore in modern liberalism, according to Phillips, is “the strong dominating the weak,” and this is a “libertarian ideology that suppresses the facts” that contradict it. It is therefore an ill-liberal ideology.

Sadly we find highly educated people supporting these irrational beliefs as well as elected officials in both parties. On the Left are the college educated young adults who are highly sensitive and were raised in protected bubbles with the beliefs they are exceptional and entitled. These are the ones demanding complete fealty to gender politics. On the Right are the disgruntled working class and disenfranchised dropouts of society who value a perverted Libertarian ideal built upon gun ownership.   And both have their allies in the mainstream media — MSNBC on the Left and Fox on the Right – to provide a bullhorn to the larger public.

Both true liberalism and true conservatism, which at one time could share a constructive dialogue together, have morphed into their polar opposites: an irrational faux enlightenment of liberalism versus a neo-fascist traditionalism that is petrified of the future and wants to turn back the clock.  The current speed being measured of the melting of the Arctic and Greenland, and the recent breaking up of the Antarctic ice sheets will sooner rather than later be experienced up and down the Atlantic coastal cities and the Gulf. Nobody in government is addressing this far greater threat than a virus that seems no more dangerous than a bad seasonal flu.

More than ever be

Amidst all of the noise of protest, identity classes and coronavirus panic a laundry list of more serious issues are either being ignored or completely drowned out by the cacophony of overtly emotional hyena cries. How much attention is being given to the 66 million Americans now food insecure or the 2 million who don’t have clean drinking water. Four in ten Americans, 132 million, are conservatively financially broke. Obesity is the health risk most associated with Covid deaths; 40 percent of American adults, 20 years and over, are clinically obese and another 72% are overweight. What is being done to free our federal health agencies from the grip of the junk food industry’s lobbying? Nothing. To make matters worse, 44 million Americans are uninsured and an additional 38 million have inadequate health insurance. Approximately a quarter of the population has health coverage well below the standards of any other developed nation. How much of this gross neglect has contributed to the US having the highest percent of world Covid deaths?

And should it not surprise us that the ideological clashes have become so vile and contemptible? But the underlying problem does not reside with the camps facing each other on opposite sides of the street. Rather our educational system is a disgrace. Forty-three million American adults (21%) are illiterate or functionally illiterate according to the National Center for Educational Statistics. How much of our neglected educational system, and legislations’ disdain for teachers, is contributing to the civil war many analysts fear is brewing?

We have a president who seems to have a stronger ambition to be the president of Ukraine to battle those nasty Russians rather than deal our domestic crises that are ripping the citizenry apart and leading the nation to third world status. The alternative was a buffoon in pathological denial about climate change and chased the wildest conspiracy series. Daily, new studies are being reported that indicate the climate crisis is far worse than earlier forecasts presumed. Instead of worrying about Central American climate migrants trying to enter the country, we should be preparing for the massive migrations that will be happening within our borders. Last year half a million Oregon residents, about a tenth of the state’s population, were given evacuation warnings due to the increasing pace of wildfires. This is just the beginning

If anyone believes that the US is economically capable of tackling these problems without a catastrophic blowback, they are delusional. The US’ total debt now stands at $91 trillion. Total personal debt is $23 trillion. Unfunded government liabilities at an astronomical $169 trillion.  This is a financial tsunami that can only be curbed by keeping the dollar printing machines rolling 24-7 until doomsday. The competency of our government’s economists must be questioned. The Biden administration was completely wrong in predicting the impact of sanctions against Putin. No one in Washington seems to have even considered that Russia’s economy might be much stronger and resilient than assumed. Nor did they seem to even consider that Putin would win Washington’s economic war of contrition, which it clearly is. After three months of sanctions, Russia has now emerged as the world’s strongest economy and the ruble has emerged as a hard global currency. With the majority of nations thumbing their nose at the US sanctions, America is rapidly losing its role as a world leader.

The big question is whether we have the capability, let alone the willingness, to relinquish our personal dogmas and then individually and collectively step outside of the malignant atmosphere of negativity, hatred and virtue-shaming and begin to address real future threats?  Urgently the future needs to be re-envisioned. It might be based upon the Great Reset being orchestrated by Davos and the global elite. However, the foundation and elitist values upon which a Reset is being built upon are the very failures of neoliberal capitalism that has brought the US and the international community to its current impasse of self-destruction. Nor can we look back at the past. It is history. Neither our modern conservatism nor liberalism as they are now ideologically identified would have a constructive role. Both are terribly outdated, decrepit and utterly corrupt.

Bertrand Russell remarked that “science is what you know, philosophy is what you don’t know.” Yet science doesn’t, nor can it ever, provide the truth of an entire picture. It can only tell us about distinct parts. In that context, we must begin to investigate what we don’t know in order to arrive at a consensus of truth for saving the planet and ourselves.

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Richard Gale is the Executive Producer of the Progressive Radio Network and a former Senior Research Analyst in the biotechnology and genomic industries.

Dr. Gary Null is host of the nation’s longest running public radio program on alternative and nutritional health and a multi-award-winning documentary film director, including his recent Last Call to Tomorrow

They are regular contributors to Global Research.

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In the digital economy, cash is no longer a useful tool, and a central bank digital currency (CBDC) is the “only solution” to continue the existing monetary system, according to a new paper from the European Central Bank (ECB).

The eurozone’s central bank recently published a paper titled “The Economics of Central Bank Digital Currency,” in which the authors assessed the implications for the financial system and examined data privacy and digital payments.

A CBDC, such as a digital euro, would be the “only solution” to facilitate a “smooth continuation” of the present monetary system, the researchers concluded. Amid debate that CBDCs would limit the credit supply and be a disruptive force in financial markets, the paper rejects those concerns as unfounded.

Digital money is critical in a digital economy, the ECB noted. Since “cash is losing its appeal as efficient means of payment,” a CBDC is a necessary tool to install. While the research identifies drawbacks of instituting a uniform digital monetary system, such as the sluggish pace of settlements, market developments, and adoption, the paper notes that “a digital update of cash” is crucial to advancing “the two-layer system of public and private money.”

Ultimately, cash possesses “large economic costs without clear benefits,” so “it is by construction not ‘fit’ for the digital age.”

Digital money might generate privacy concerns, the authors warn. However, researchers point to a “privacy paradox”: consumers will emphasize the importance of privacy in surveys, but they will give away personal data for free or in exchange for small rewards.

“From a public policy perspective, these observations warrant further scepticism concerning the ability of market forces to reach efficient levels of privacy protection,” the report notes.

The paper also rejects cryptocurrencies and stablecoins, calling them a “threat to monetary sovereignty.” It welcomed President Joe Biden’s digital asset working group to put together a regulatory framework for the crypto sector, as well as the myriad of other regulations being considered worldwide.

“These proposals would bring new forms of digital money into the regulatory perimeter and help to address some of the major concerns related to monetary sovereignty and financial stability,” the paper states.

The Rise of CBDCs

Across the globe, many governments and central banks have been studying CBDCs as a potential successor or complement to physical money.

In January, for example, the Federal Reserve released a discussion paper titled “Money and Payments: The U.S. Dollar in the Age of Digital Transformation.” It examined the pros and cons of a possible U.S. CBDC.

While delivering his semiannual monetary policy report to Congress in June, Fed Chair Jerome Powell recommended that a digital dollar is “something we need to explore as a country” that “should not be a partisan thing.”

“It’s a very important potential financial innovation that will affect all Americans,” he told the House Committee on Financial Services. “Our plan is to work on both the policy side and the technological side in coming years and come to Congress with a recommendation at some point.”

He added that if the United States were to create a digital dollar, it would need to be issued by the federal government and not by a private institution.

“One question around CBDCs is do we want a private stablecoin to wind up being the digital dollar? I think the answer is no,” Powell said. “If we’re going to have a digital dollar, it should be government-guaranteed money, not private money.”

Congress is requesting faster action on a digital dollar. A bipartisan group of members of Congress has urged the Fed to speed up work on a CBDC.

“With countries around the world competing to deploy digital versions of their own currencies, America can’t be left behind,” Waters said in a statement in May before a hearing on the advantages and risks of CBDCs.

Last month, ECB President Christine Lagarde championed a digital euro, stating that digitizing the official currency in 19 of the 27 member states of the European Union can “achieve” stability and public access.

A digital euro would complement cash rather than replace it, according to Lagarde. She also pointed out that a CBDC would only be successful if it addressed the needs of consumers and businesses and ensured that privacy safeguards were established from the beginning.

That, Lagarde co-wrote in a blog post, ensures that a digital euro “serves as an anchor for the whole payment system.”

US, Europe Take on Digital Yuan?

But while the United States and Europe might be attempting to take the lead on such a critical issue in the global monetary system, market analysts note that advanced economies might be responding to action by China.

After seven years of intensive study, the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) unleashed the digital yuan in 2021. The e-yuan is a CBDC that is trying to replace a portion of the cash presently in circulation, as fewer Chinese consumers use physical money. It’s estimated that cash represented about one-quarter of point-of-sale transactions in 2020, down from nearly 75 percent in 2012.

Some aver that Beijing is seeking to dismantle the global currency system, but officials say otherwise.

While speaking at a Shanghai forum in December 2020, former PBoC head Zhou Xiaochuan noted that technology is the main goal, not currency supremacy. However, Richard Turrin, author of “Cashless: China’s Digital Currency Revolution,” told CNBC in March that a digital yuan could challenge the U.S. dollar in international trade settlements in the next decade.

“Remember, China is the largest trading country, and you’re going to see digital yuan slowly supplant the dollar when buying things from China,” he said. “If we go about five to 10 years out, yes, the digital yuan can play a significant role in reducing the dollar’s usage in international trade.”

The yuan has become one of the most popular currencies in cross-border transactions in 2021, representing 2.7 percent of global payments, the highest level in six years, according to January statistics from the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications (SWIFT). The U.S. dollar accounted for more than 40 percent of international transactions.

Any attempt to dethrone the U.S. dollar as the chief international reserve currency would take time. According to the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) Currency Composition of Official Foreign Exchange Reserves (COFER) data, dollars accounted for nearly 60 percent of reserves in the first quarter of 2022. The yuan represented less than 3 percent.

Do CBDCs Offer Risks?

But while many public policymakers are ebullient over the prospect of CBDCs, critics acknowledge that there are many drawbacks.

The primary risk for CBC is an erosion of privacy. Whether by the federal government or law enforcement agencies, every consumer’s financial transaction can be monitored by the state. As with China’s nationwide credit score system, experts warn that it isn’t hard to see the government imposing digital money to facilitate the institution of social monitoring programs.

“The end of cash and the insta-analysis of financial transactions enable surveillance, state control, and, eventually, social engineering on a scale never thought possible,” Human Rights Foundation chief strategy officer Alex Gladstein notes. “When the government can take financial privileges away for posting the wrong word on social media, saying the wrong thing in a call to parents, or sending the wrong photo to relatives, individuals self-censor and exercise extreme caution.

“In this way, control over money can create a social chilling effect.”

Another factor is the faster adoption of monetary policies, especially in times of crisis such as the coronavirus pandemic.

“The switch also simplifies the execution of monetary policy–the central bank can immediately change supply by issuing or canceling codes in its own accounts,” wrote Ajay Mookerjee at the Harvard Business Review. “And by paying interest on CBDC holdings, however, the central bank can directly transmit monetary policy to households, instead of influencing commercial deposit rates through the rates it offers banks on their reserve accounts with the central bank.”

Although proponents contend that it could support the financial system, the World Bank has warned that it actually threatens the “financial integrity” of today’s banking infrastructure.

“The introduction of CBDC could disrupt the existing financial-intermediation structure. In addition, depending on design and country context, CBDC could pose risks to financial stability, financial integrity, data protection and privacy, and cyber resilience,” the World Bank explained in its “South Asia Economic Focus” report in April.

In the end, CBDCs could turn out to be a costly investment that fails to achieve anything of substance, the Center for European Reform says.

“Without widespread adoption, a CBDC will be an expensive failure, and will do little to advance central banks’ goals,” senior research fellow Zach Meyers stated. “The EU shouldn’t be distracted by the prospect of a digital euro—which may sound impressive and exciting, but may give Europeans few benefits they can’t enjoy already.”

With more nations assessing CBDCs and other markets already implementing it into the fabric of their economies, a monetary experiment may be unfolding in real time.

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Andrew Moran covers business, economics, and finance. He has been a writer and reporter for more than a decade in Toronto, with bylines on Liberty Nation, Digital Journal, and Career Addict. He is also the author of “The War on Cash.”

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On Government Invasions of Private Property

August 25th, 2022 by Judge Andrew P. Napolitano

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***

The execution of a search warrant on the home of former President Donald Trump has brought to mind a dark and dangerous side of law enforcement. The idea of government agents rummaging through the private possessions on the private property of anyone against that person’s will brings back the specter of British soldiers knocking down doors in colonial America.

Their most notorious invasion of private property was a subterfuge, perpetrated by the British Parliament, which sought to remind colonists that the king could enter their homes through his soldiers whenever he wished.

In 1765, Parliament enacted the Stamp Act, which required government stamps — they were actually inked images of government seals, more akin to what is seen when a rubber stamp is used — on all papers in the possession of the colonists. This included letters, financial and legal documents, newspapers, pamphlets, even posters intended to be nailed to trees. To facilitate the enforcement of the Stamp Act, Parliament enacted the Writs of Assistance Act.

Much like America’s Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the Writs of Assistance Act permitted British agents to obtain search warrants for the homes of colonists based on governmental need and without identifying the name or address of the homeowner or even the object sought by the search.

These were general warrants. They were limitless in scope, as they authorized the bearer to search wherever he wished and seize whatever he found. Some students at the College of New Jersey — now called Princeton University — calculated that it cost more for the British government to enforce the Stamp Act than was generated in revenue from the sale of the stamps. We now know that power, not revenue, was the goal of this dreaded law.

The violent colonial reaction to the enforcement of the Stamp Act led to its repeal by Parliament after just one year. But the Writs of Assistance Act — allowing the execution of general warrants — stayed in force until the British left in 1781. And general warrants were not outlawed until the ratification of the Fourth Amendment in 1791.

The Fourth Amendment was written to protect that quintessentially American right to be left alone. The violation of the right to be left alone usually implicates two fundamental liberties — the right to privacy and the right to own property.

Privacy is a natural right because there are aspects of human existence and personal behavior that are not subject to the government. Natural rights come from our humanity. The natural right to own property has three aspects — the right to use the property, the right to alienate (lease, pledge or sell) it, and the right to exclude whomever and whatever the owner wishes — including the government.

As natural rights stem from our humanity, they may only be violated when we give them up or waive them by our violation of someone else’s natural rights. When James Madison wrote the Fourth Amendment, he rejected the waiver standard and instead chose the easier-for-the-government probable cause standard as the sole element justifying a government assault on property rights.

The government claims it can examine your emails, bank accounts, medical and legal records at will merely because it claims you have waived your interest in them by placing them in the custody of others. This is, of course, farcical. Those custodians have a legal duty to keep your records private. Yet, to get physically onto your property in defiance of your will, the government must meet Madison’s probable cause standard.

That standard requires a showing to a neutral judge that it is more likely than not that a crime has been committed and that it is more likely than not that evidence of that same crime can be found in the place to be searched or the person or thing to be seized. These standards come directly from the language of the amendment itself.

Does the probable cause standard adequately protect property rights? It does not. That standard involves a weighing and balancing test pitting the nature of property ownership against the government’s claimed need for evidence. It weighs the harm to property rights caused by a government invasion as against the harm to the government by denying it the fruits of its planned invasion.

The very concept of weighing a natural right against a government need is totalitarian. The government needs whatever it wants, whereas our rights are inalienable unless we waive them. A natural human right always supersedes a government wish. Thus, the only standard that morally justifies government invasion of private property is waiver by the violation of another’s natural rights.

For example, if a bank robber runs into his house with the stolen loot, he has waived his property rights in the house until he has been arrested and the loot retrieved, as he has violated the natural rights of the depositors in the bank and the bank’s right to exclude him from its property. If the government cannot demonstrate waiver and a violation of a natural right, then the property owner — even if he is the sought-after bank robber — can morally exclude the government from his property.

Because privacy and property ownership are inalienable rights and the government is an artificial creation based on a monopoly of force, when the government wants to enter upon private property against the will of the owner, and it seeks a warrant from a judge, the owner’s natural rights and the government’s needs can never be in equipoise.

Even when the government seeks to demonstrate waiver, the government should be presumed to be wrong, and every inference and bias should be drawn against it because the essence of government is the negation of liberty.

If we take rights seriously — which the government never does — natural rights are inalienable. Governmental needs change with the political winds.

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Woodstock ’99: Feeling the Heat

August 25th, 2022 by Caoimhghin Ó Croidheáin

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The documentary Trainwreck: Woodstock ’99 was most decidedly a depiction of a catastrophe. Watching the concert progress (or regress) from excitement to disaster was a spine-chilling experience. Over time the problems depicted in the film got unbelievably worse. The concert’s collapse into complete chaos as the hyped-up concert-goers set much of the event equipment on fire looked more like a depiction of hell on the walls of a medieval church.

The concert, designed to emulate the 30th anniversary of the original 1969 concert, was held in the former Griffiss Air Force Base in upstate New York, USA, with many popular acts of the time such as DMX, Limp Bizkit, Korn, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Alanis Morissette, Kid Rock, Metallica, and Creed.

The festival was held from July 22-25, 1999, and the heat was estimated to be 38°C (100°F) with little shade and swathes of concrete and asphalt magnifying the hot conditions. Very little shade and not enough grass meant that some festival-goers were even forced to camp on the asphalt.

Image: Bassist Tim Commerford (left) of Rage Against the Machine burns the American flag onstage during “Killing in the Name” at Woodstock ’99.

While the first couple of days went fairly well the atmosphere declined after the Saturday night performance by Limp Bizkit. Fans who were already frustrated by the price gouging of water and food began to tear plywood off the walls and the audio tower. Thousands of candles, distributed during the day for a candlelight vigil, were used to start bonfires. By the time the last band had finished on stage the festival site looked post-apocalyptic with troopers and police moving the concert-goers away from the stage. The whole debacle had seen overflowing toilets, sexual assaults, ATMs and semi-tractor trailers looted and destroyed, three deaths and over 5,000 medical cases reported.

The bands were accused of inciting violence. Limp Bizkit’s vocalist Fred Durst shouted out during their performance: “We already let all the negative energy out. It’s time to reach down and bring that positive energy to this motherfucker. It’s time to let yourself go right now, ’cause there are no motherfuckin’ rules out there.” The crowd were already a hyped-up, heaving mass of jumping, crowd-surfing and moshing humanity moving to the music which soon turned to violence and destruction of the event site itself. In other words, this was mass catharsis on a grand scale, an iconic symbol of the power of one large event to symbolise the contemporary feelings of a frustrated generation freed from the ‘rules’.

Image: Promotional poster designed by Arnold Skolnick. Originally, the bird was perched on a flute.

Woodstock ’69

The original 1969 Woodstock similarly freed the audience-goers from the ‘rules’ of the time as the hippie generation smoked pot, took psychedelic drugs, and even lived in communes outside of the established system. What became known as the counterculture movement of the 1960s was formed in opposition to the US involvement in the Vietnam War and left “a lasting impact on philosophy, morality, music, art, alternative health and diet, lifestyle and fashion.”

However, this counterculture also contained more serious elements that threatened the status quo itself. Young people were getting involved in revolutionary anarchist and socialist movements. Many gravitated towards the New Left: “a broad political movement mainly in the 1960s and 1970s consisting of activists in the Western world who campaigned for a broad range of social issues such as civil and political rights, environmentalism, feminism, gay rights, gender roles and drug policy reforms.” Others became involved in the political forms of Marxism and Marxism–Leninism, such as the New Communist movement  which “represented a diverse grouping of Marxist–Leninists and Maoists inspired by Cuban, Chinese, and Vietnamese revolutions. This movement emphasized opposition to racism and sexism, solidarity with oppressed peoples of the third-world, and the establishment of socialism by popular revolution.” According to historian and NCM activist Max Elbaum, the movement had an estimated 10,000 cadre members at its peak influence.

With opposition growing to the Vietnam war in 1968 and student demonstrations taking place in Poland [March 1968 protests] and in France [May 1968 campus uprisings] the New Left ideology began to filter into music and cinema.

In 1967 Jean-Luc Godard directed the film La Chinoise about a group of young Maoist activists in Paris, and in 1968 the Beatles released their song ‘Revolution’ which contained the lyrics, “But if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao / You ain’t gone make it with anyone anyhow”. The activism of the time was also reflected in the Rolling Stones single of 1968, ‘Street Fighting Man’.

Turn on, tune in, drop out

By the time the Woodstock festival came around in 1969, the themes of love and peace were combined with Timothy Leary’s “Turn on, tune in, drop out”, an evocation to look into oneself (with the use of psychedelic drugs) rather than to look outwards and change society.

The importance of Woodstock is its iconic value as a symbol of revolt for a generation, as Elvis Presley, for example, was seen in the 1950s. One event, one individual, or one band can become elevated to a symbolic level representing something radical and even revolutionary to the people who were there, (and the people who wish they had been there). This can also be seen in the Trainwreck: Woodstock ’99 interviewees who said that despite the chaos, they would go again, and that it had been the event of their lives. The huge numbers of fans involved in each concert, from 200,000 to 400,000 people, give these events cultural legitimacy and something to aspire to despite the fact that on an ideological level they work against the possibility of real change. ‘Dropping out’ in ’69 or catharsis in ’99 may have been satisfying in their times but little has changed politically since then. Is it time now for a mass music festival celebrating identity politics as the new revolution in cultural thinking, and the ultimate in divide and rule politics?

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Caoimhghin Ó Croidheáin is an Irish artist, lecturer and writer. His artwork consists of paintings based on contemporary geopolitical themes as well as Irish history and cityscapes of Dublin. His blog of critical writing based on cinema, art and politics along with research on a database of Realist and Social Realist art from around the world can be viewed country by country here. Caoimhghin has just published his new book – Against Romanticism: From Enlightenment to Enfrightenment and the Culture of Slavery.  Against Romanticism looks at philosophy, politics and the history of 10 different art forms arguing that Romanticism is dominating modern culture to the detriment of Enlightenment ideals. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).

Featured image: A poster of the miniseries Trainwreck: Woodstock ’99.

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***

 

Since the early 1980s, the prison population in the United States has grown exponentially with African Americans, Latin Americans and other working class people making up the majority of those incarcerated in the dungeons of the world’s leading capitalist state.

During the previous decade on September 9, 1971, several thousand inmates at the Attica Prison in New York State took control of the correctional facility to demand radical changes in the way people are treated while incarcerated.

Less than three weeks prior to the Attica Rebellion on August 21, George L. Jackson (1941-1971), was martyred during an escape attempt from San Quentin prison in California. One year earlier on August 7, 1970, George Jackson’s younger brother, Jonathan Jackson, just 17-years-old at the time, was killed along with William Christmas and James McClain. Jonathan Jackson had walked into a Marin County, California courtroom where Christmas, McClain and Ruchell Cinque Magee were on trial. Christmas, Magee and McClain were given weapons by Jonathan Jackson as they took Superior Court Judge Harold Haley, prosecutor Gary Thomas and three jurors hostage.

Image: George Jackson and Angela Davis (AP Photo/Wally Fong)

As they walked the hostages outside the courthouse and into a rented van, other law-enforcement officers opened fire on the vehicle killing Jackson, McClean, Christmas and Judge Haley. Ruchell Magee was wounded and was the only survivor among the armed guerrillas. These events were covered widely in the corporate press. Later that same year, George Jackson would publish his book of prison letters entitled “Soledad Brother.”

Angela Davis, at the time a member of the Communist Party, was terminated from her teaching position at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) during 1969. The then Governor Ronald Reagan deliberately interfered with the administration of colleges and universities throughout the state. The year before in 1968, the longest student strike in U.S. history took place at San Francisco State College, where an alliance led by African Americans, fought pitched battles to make sure the institution did not function on a normal basis. The SFSC strike of 1968-69 included at one point the faculty union which was under attack by the board of regents and Reagan.

Davis later became involved with the Soledad Brothers Defense Committee in 1970 and worked with Jonathan Jackson in political and legal efforts to exonerate his older brother George. Law-enforcement and media sources claimed that the guns utilized in the Marin County rebellion led by Jonathan Jackson were registered in the name of Angela Davis.

As prosecutors in Marin County focused on Davis as a suspect in an alleged conspiracy, the professor and activist went underground for two months. She was captured and imprisoned in October 1970. An international political and legal process would result in her acquittal on all charges by the summer of 1972.

It was the African American inmates which led the Attica insurrection in 1971 after being politicized by the numerous organizations operating on the outside including the Black Panther Party (BPP), Nation of Islam and the Young Lords Organization (YLO). The advent of the movement for Civil Rights and Black Power during the 1960s attracted thousands of youth activists who were committed to total freedom within their lifetimes.

Nehanda Enters the Struggle for Black Liberation

One such young person was Nehanda Abiodun of New York City. Abiodun had been politicized through the housing struggles in West Harlem which opposed the expansion of Columbia University that would displace African Americans. Her parents were activists and would have a profound influence on Nehanda’s political trajectory.

Abiodun studied at Columbia University and worked as an organizer for the West Harlem Community Organization (WHCO). During her tenure with the WHCO, she and other co-workers realized that the injustices they were fighting stemmed from the inherent racist and exploitative system of U.S. capitalism. As the years passed she was influenced by the emerging BPP.

While working at a methadone clinic in New York during the period of widespread heroin addiction among Black and Brown peoples, she realized that other methods of addressing the drug crisis were needed. She would join the efforts of Dr. Mutulu Shakur at the Hamilton Hospital clinic in the Bronx during the late 1970s. The clinic which utilized acupuncture and other methods to treat substance abuse, posed a direct threat to the federal government sponsored methadone maintenance programs. The clinic at Hamilton was closed by the City of New York in 1978.

Later Dr. Shakur would reopen a clinic in Harlem in defiance of the city administration. The people around the acupuncture clinic were treated for drug addiction, however, there was a political education component which taught the impoverished patients that their conditions were rooted in the history of racism and capitalism in the U.S.

After the liberation from maximum security prison in New Jersey of Black Liberation Army (BLA) cadre Assata Shakur on November 2, 1979, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and local law-enforcement agencies began dragnet operations against members and supporters of several revolutionary organizations including the BLA, the Republic of New Africa, Weather Underground and the May 19th Communist Organization.

When a Brink’s armed robbery was carried out on October 20, 1981, in an area north of NYC resulting in the deaths of one security guard and two Nyack, New York police officers, the FBI and state authorities began to arrest members of the organizations working with the Black Acupuncture Advisory Association of North America (BAAANA). The BLA, Weather Underground and the May 19th Communist Organization were targeted for death and incarceration.

Abiodun went underground during this period and eventually would surface in the Republic of Cuba during the early 1990s. She was granted political asylum along with Assata Shakur and other activists from the U.S. who were being pursued by federal and local police agencies.

In an interview with Abiodun she discussed her political life:

“In 1982 a federal warrant was issued for my arrest for violating the Rico Racketeering and Conspiracy laws. I choose to go underground for political reasons and while living clandestinely I learned how important it is to struggle from a position of love and not hate. It was the love of humanity, freedom and justice that were the dictates that led me to where I was then, and the love given from comrades that kept me mentally and spiritually healthy when I thought that I would die from a broken heart because of being separated from my family. And be assured that it is that same kind of love that has given me the resolve to continue daily in our quest for freedom. I recognize how blessed I am to have so many beautiful people in my life that genuinely care for me, individuals who are willing to make the sacrifices needed to carry on the traditions of principled struggle.”

Her work in Cuba included the promotion of young artists influenced by the hip hop movement in the U.S. and internationally. She along with Assata Shakur represented the legacy of the Black Liberation Movement and its victories. In 2019, Abiodun died in Cuba leaving a profound history of local, national and global struggles.

Prison Industrial Complex Continues to Grow in the U.S.

Since the 1970s and 1980s, the number of people incarcerated in the U.S. has continued to be a cause for concern for the African American liberation struggles. A series of laws and policy measures have resulted in the rapid expansion of the prison population.

These laws and measures include the growth in the numbers of police officers; draconian local, state and federal legislation which have stiffened penalties for crimes; the further deterioration of public school systems in rural, suburban and urban areas leaving millions uneducated and prone to arrest and imprisonment; federal programs which provide military grade weapons to local and state police agencies therefore encouraging the use of deadly force; an escalation in illicit narcotics use which has captured millions in a cycle of dependency and criminalization.

In an entry published by the Sentencing Project website it emphasizes that:

“The United States is the world’s leader in incarceration. There are 2 million people in the nation’s prisons and jails—a 500% increase over the last 40 years. Changes in sentencing law and policy, not changes in crime rates, explain most of this increase. These trends have resulted in prison overcrowding and fiscal burdens on states to accommodate a rapidly expanding penal system, despite increasing evidence that large-scale incarceration is not an effective means of achieving public safety.”

These grim statistics confirm what Nehanda Abiodun, Assata Shakur, George and Jonathan Jackson, among many others, have illustrated through their writings and activism. The existence of mass incarceration is clearly related to the racist, capitalist and imperialist system of the U.S. and its allies around the globe. Until these realities are transformed, the process of social containment and exploitation which the prison system represents will remain as a major impediment to the realization of liberated and just society.

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Abayomi Azikiwe is the editor of the Pan-African News Wire. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from Abayomi Azikiwe

FBI Investigates Millions of Americans Without Warrants

August 25th, 2022 by Dr. Joseph Mercola

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***

The 2022 annual transparency report by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) reveals the FBI has been surveilling millions of American citizens — without warrants or proper cause

Between December 2020 and November 2021, the FBI scoured private emails, texts and other electronic communications of 3.4 million U.S. residents, without obtaining a single warrant. Between December 2019 and November 2020, just under 1.3 million Americans were surveilled in this manner

There’s also been a sharp uptick in the number of times government officials asked for the identity of individuals surveilled to be revealed, a practice known as “unmasking”

Supposedly, FBI agents were looking for signs of potential terrorist activity. They also sought to prevent hacking attacks. In the process, they violated the constitutional privacy rights of millions, and considering the hacking attacks that have occurred anyway, this mass surveillance doesn’t seem to be achieving its stated aim

Two attorneys and two journalists are suing former CIA director Mike Pompeo in Spanish High Court for illegally surveilling them and copying private data from their electronic devices and passports while they were visiting Julian Assange in the Ecuadorian Embassy. The agency is also listed as a defendant, for purposes of forcing them to expunge all collected records

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In the aftermath of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI’s) unprecedented August 8, 2022, raidon former president Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in Florida, many are starting to question the FBI’s actions, not just in this case, but in a more general sense.

What’s become clear through this raid is that the FBI has been weaponized to hunt down and neutralize political opposition. On the surface, Republicans appear to be the target, but more specifically, the target is really anyone who disagrees with and wants to stop what we now know is a global coup by an unelected technocrat elite.

The raid on the former president shows that no one is safe from government overreach (or more precisely, the overreach of a government captured by the globalist cabal). This is made all the more disturbing by the fact that the FBI has been surveilling millions of American citizens — without warrants or proper cause.

Public assurances aside, the agency has repeatedly been caught acting lawlessly (the FBI-infiltrated kidnapping plot of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer being just one of the more recent examples2), and that lawless behavior is a piece of evidence that suggests it’s been captured by powers that do not have the welfare of American citizens at heart.

FBI Illegally Spies on Millions of Americans

According to the American Civil Liberties Union, the FBI is violating Americans’ privacy “on an enormous scale.” As reported by Bloomberg,3 the 2022 annual transparency report by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) reveals the FBI, between December 2020 and November 2021, scoured private emails, texts and other electronic communications of some 3.4 million U.S. residents, without obtaining a single warrant.

Between December 2019 and November 2020, just under 1.3 million Americans were surveilled in this manner. The report also notes there’s been a sharp uptick in the number of times government officials asked for the identity of individuals surveilled to be revealed, a practice known as “unmasking.”

Supposedly, FBI agents were looking for signs of potential terrorist activity and sought to prevent hacking attacks. But in so doing, they violated the constitutional privacy rights of millions, and considering the hacking attacks that have occurred anyway, this mass surveillance doesn’t seem to be achieving its stated aim.

Privacy Rights Help Prevent Tyrannical Overreaches

While some say you have nothing to worry about if you’re not doing anything wrong, that old adage has long since worn out because, again, we’re dealing with an agency whose job it is to take out political opponents. You don’t need to do anything illegal or criminal to be targeted for neutralization.

“Wrong-think” is now a “crime” in and of itself, so you better believe that privacy matters. You do not want the FBI to rifle through your personal correspondence. They will find something, some sentence, some idea, some opinion, with which to hang you, figuratively speaking.

Just look at Dr. Simone Gold. She’s now serving a prison sentence over what amounts to medical opinion. She didn’t do anything criminal or illegal. She’s a political prisoner.

But by “political prisoner,” I’m not exclusively referring to opponents of the Democrat Party. The true political opposition parties in this day and age are the technocratic Great Reset insiders (who have infiltrated all political parties) on one side, and the rest of us, who see the playbook and don’t want to submit to their planned slave system, on the other.

Congress Must Protect Americans’ Fourth Amendment Rights

In response to the ODNI’s report, Ashley Gorski, a senior attorney with the ACLU’s National Security Project stated:4

“Today’s report sheds light on the extent of these unconstitutional ‘backdoor searches,’ and underscores the urgency of the problem. It’s past time for Congress to step in to protect Americans’ Fourth Amendment rights.”

According to Bloomberg,5 the “authority” used to surveil Americans by the millions was Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). It’s set to expire at the end of 2023, unless Congress renews it. Clearly, they shouldn’t, as it’s being grossly misused.

“Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime,” Lavrentiy Beria, Joseph Stalin’s secret police chief, once said.6 Beria oversaw the expansion of Stalin’s gulags for political dissidents, and bragged he could prove criminal conduct by anyone, anywhere. Framing innocent people is nothing new. It’s not even all that difficult, especially if you have access to everything a person has ever said, thought or done.

CIA Sued Over Fourth Amendment Rights Violations

The Central Intelligence Agency is also making headlines, and for the same disturbing reason. As reported by Newsweek,7 the CIA illegally surveilled and recorded Julian Assange’s conversations with American attorneys, journalists, doctors, celebrities and at least one U.S. Congressman while holed up in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London to avoid extradition.

The CIA also obtained copies of visitors’ passports, photographs of the IMEI and SIM card numbers in their cell phones (which allows devices to be identified on any network and are essential for surveillance targeting), as well as copies of the private data from their phones and other electronic devices brought into the embassy.

Passports and electronic devices had to be handed over to security guards and could not be brought inside. Unbeknownst to visitors, everything was then meticulously photographed and copied in their absence.

Four Americans who visited Assange are now suing then-CIA director Mike Pompeo in Spanish High Court, seeking damages for violation of their Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable search and seizure. The agency as a whole is also listed as a defendant, for the purpose of forcing them to expunge all collected records.

Plaintiffs include two New York attorneys on Assange’s legal team, and two American journalists who interviewed him. Lead plaintiff, attorney Margaret Kunstler, told Newsweek:8

“As a criminal attorney, I don’t think that there’s anything worse than your opposition listening in on what your plans are, what you intend to do, on your conversations. It’s a terrible thing. It’s gross misconduct. I don’t understand how the CIA … could think that they could do this. It’s so outrageous that it’s beyond my comprehension.”

Attorneys aren’t the only ones bound by confidentiality. Doctors and journalists also rely on confidential relationships with patients and sources, so the arbitrary copying of everything on their private devices is a gross privacy violation against any number of individuals they may have had interactions with.

CIA Crossed Lines That Shouldn’t Be Crossed

The four plaintiffs are also seeking damages against UnderCover Global, a Spanish security firm that provided embassy protection. The lawsuit was launched after whistleblowers from the firm came forward, admitting they illegally spied on Assange’s visitors, copied their passports and electronic devices, and then passed everything on to the CIA.

UnderCover Global CEO David Morales allegedly was being paid “substantial sums of money to share surveillance data with the CIA.” According to Newsweek:9

“Legal experts, including a former senior intelligence official, told Newsweek that the allegations in the lawsuit, if proven, show the CIA crossed lines drawn to protect American citizens from surveillance by overzealous intelligence agencies.”

According to Tim Edgar, professor at Brown University and former deputy privacy and civil liberties officer for the ODNI, the copying of visitors’ cell phone data is particularly difficult to defend.

“That seems to me like a very excessive amount of collection,” he told Newsweek. “What’s the expected intelligence value from that? It’s a high bar to justify. If it’s just everyone who visited Assange, then it’s not like you have a specific reason to look at a particular phone.”

During one visit, actress Pamela Anderson wrote down her email and Apple ID passwords to get help with technical security from Assange. A photograph of the slip of paper with her passwords and PIN numbers was given to the CIA.

This hardly seems justifiable from a national security standpoint. It smacks of perversion, really, and one wonders how many CIA agents have sifted through Anderson’s private messages for no other reason than pure titillating entertainment.

Seizure of Privileged Material Makes Fair Trial Impossible

But getting back to more serious matters, the CIA’s blanket data collection “may make it impossible for Assange to get a fair trial,” attorney Richard Roth, another plaintiff in the lawsuit, told Newsweek. Making matters even worse, when Assange was arrested by British police in April 2019, the embassy turned over all of Assange’s legal papers and computers to the U.S. Department of Justice. As noted by Roth:10

“When a federal prosecutor comes after a lawyer with a search warrant and seizes their devices, there are multiple layers of review and protection for privileged lawyer-client communications. None of that happened here. They just grabbed everything.”

When done in accordance to law, a court will typically appoint a special master, someone who is independent from the prosecuting government, to make sure privileged communications, such as lawyer-client communication, are segregated from the communication handed over to the prosecution.

Alphabet-Soup Agencies and The Great Reset

Since the beginning of the COVID pandemic, we’ve seen ever more egregious overreaches by government. Intelligence agencies have gone so far as to slap a “domestic terrorist” label on anyone who expresses an opinion that counters the narrative directed by the globalist cabal. This is why privacy rights must be protected at all costs.

In August 2021, former assistant secretary for Homeland Security Juliette Kayyem proposed putting all unvaccinated Americans on a no-fly list. Doctors who speak out against the medical tyranny that is COVID standard of care are being stripped of their medical licenses.

Global organizations such as the International Grand Committee on Disinformation (IGCD), which consists of “an international array of legislators, policy advisers, and other experts,” are working together to end free speech worldwide, and every click, comment and online search can and will be used against you.

The digital identity they want to roll out depends on the same kind of intrusive mass surveillance the FBI and CIA have been caught doing, but covering every person on the planet, and without any legal barriers impinging on the kind of information they can gather about you.

In the end, if the technocratic cabal gets their way, you won’t even be able to use a public toilet without a compliance passport giving you the green-light.11 That’s already the case in China, as you can see in the video below.

Tell Congress to Rein in Out-of-Control Surveillance Powers

Surveillance powers have always been sold to us as something that will protect us. It’s high time to realize we’ve been sold a lie. All the surveillance acts are, in fact, being used against us, and for all we know, that’s what they were intended for all along.

After all, The Great Reset didn’t emerge out of nothing, overnight. It’s a plan that’s been in the works for decades, and the digital surveillance network required for it to function as an “open-air prison” has been built up around us for just as long.

We were fooled into thinking it was for our own good, for our protection, but it’s not. It’s to ensure we won’t have the ability to rebel when the final pieces of the Great Reset plan are put into place.

As suggested by Gorski with the ACLU, we need to urge members of Congress to step in and revoke or severely restrict government surveillance powers, and reaffirm the absolute supremacy of the U.S. Bill of Rights. These are rights that cannot be taken from us, come hell or high water — or deep state billionaires with egos the size of Mount Everest.

The way things look, many government agencies — including the FBI and CIA — also need to be dismantled, and only put back together if absolutely necessary, and if so, in new, more limited forms with greater public oversight and more checks and balances.

Make no mistake, this is the highest-stakes game in human history. We’re facing nothing short of the enslavement of all of humankind, and our intelligence agencies are proving — through their questionable, biased and often lawless actions — which side they’re really on.

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Notes

1 Fox News August 8, 2022

2 Biz Pac Review August 16, 2022

3, 4, 5 Bloomberg April 29, 2022

6 Oxford Eagle May 9, 2018

7, 8, 9, 10 Newsweek August 15, 2022

11 Sociable November 23, 2020

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Two U.S. senators on Tuesday — the day after Dr. Anthony Fauci announced plans to leave his government posts in December — formally requested the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services preserve all documents and communications related to Fauci.

Two U.S. senators on Tuesday — the day after Dr. Anthony Fauci announced plans to leave his government posts in December — formally requested the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) preserve all documents and communications related to Fauci.

Fauci on Monday said he will retire as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and as chief medical adviser to President Joe Biden in December to pursue “the next chapter” of his career.

In a letter to HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra, Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) demanded Becerra “immediately confirm” that HHS is preserving all records related to Fauci and  Dr. Francis Collins, who was director of the NIH from August 2009 to December 2021.

“This request applies to all documents, records, memoranda, research, correspondence, or other communication or any portion thereof relevant to any involvement of Dr. Fauci or Dr. Collins,” the letter stated.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), in a letter to Lawrence Tabak, D.D.S., Ph.D., acting director of the NIH, asked Tabak to “ensure the preservation of all documents and communications within Dr. Fauci’s possession related to his tenure at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).”

Marshall stressed that it is “imperative” that all HHS workers are made aware of their “legal responsibilities to collect, retain, and preserve all documents, communications, and other records in accordance with federal law.”

He also reminded Tabak of his obligation, as the head of HHS, to ensure the preservation of all records and that any employee “who conceals, destroys, or attempts to conceal or destroy a federal record may be subject to fine and imprisonment for up to three years.”

Marshall pointed out that HHS previously refused to provide information to Congress:

“HHS and component agencies, including NIH in particular, continue to obstruct numerous congressional investigations through refusal to provide responsive information.

“In addition to withholding information from Congress, private parties note that NIH refuses to comply with Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests until forced to do so by court order.”

Marshall went on to list “recent egregious examples” of NIH’s failure to meet record-keeping requirements and said that “even one” such example “should instigate immediate oversight action by HHS.”

Marshall’s letter outlined four “notable recent concerns” with NIH’s record-keeping, including past accusations that NIH destroyed records, potential conflicts of interest within the HHS Office of Inspector General, NIH’s practice of “self-policing” and NIH’s failure to ensure required reporting of clinical trial results.

‘Fauci’s resignation will not prevent full-throated investigation into origins of pandemic’ — Rand Paul

Paul, in his letter to Tabak, also emphasized the need to preserve NIH documents for investigation purposes.

Paul wrote:

“This information is critical to ensure that Congress has access to information necessary to conduct proper oversight regarding events that took place during Dr. Fauci’s tenure with the agency.

“Specifically, I request you preserve all records, e-mail, electronic documents, and data created by or shared with Dr. Fauci during his tenure at NIH that relate to COVID-19 including, but not limited to, NIAID-funded coronavirus research.”

In an email today, Paul told The Defender:

“Dr. Fauci misled the American people on public health guidance throughout the pandemic, lied to Congress under oath, and funneled tax dollars to fund dangerous research in communist China.

“The American people deserve transparency and accountability from the NIH regarding the COVID-19 pandemic regardless of Dr. Fauci’s future employment plans.”

On Monday, Paul tweeted, “Fauci’s resignation will not prevent a full-throated investigation into the origins of the pandemic. He will be asked to testify under oath regarding any discussions he participated in concerning the lab leak.”

For more than a year, Paul has advocated for a thorough investigation into the origins of COVID-19 and pushed for a criminal investigation of Fauci, whose NIAID research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China Paul suggested may have been involved in creating the virus.

Following up on a threat he made in mid-July of 2021, Rand sent an official criminal referral on Fauci to the U.S. Department of Justice on July 26, 2021.

Paul asked Attorney General Merrick Garland to investigate Fauci for allegedly lying to Congress when he said the NIH “has not ever and does not now fund gain-of-function research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.”

The week before he sent the official criminal referral, Paul asked Fauci if he wanted to retract the statement he made to Congress during a May 11 hearing. Paul said,

“Dr. Fauci, knowing that it is a crime to lie to Congress, do you wish to retract your statement of May 11, where you claimed the NIH never funded gain-of-function research and move on?”

Fauci replied he would not retract the statement and was adamant he never lied before Congress.

However, Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson said on June 2, 2021, that evidence showed Fauci was “implicated in the very pandemic he had been charged with fighting.”

Emails obtained by BuzzFeed via the Freedom of Information Act show “Fauci supported the grotesque and dangerous experiments that appeared to have made COVID possible,” Carlson said.

The emails, which date back to the early winter of 2020, show Fauci was worried the public would think COVID-19 originated at the Wuhan lab. Why?

“Possibly because Tony Fauci knew perfectly well he had funded gain-of-function experiments at that very same laboratory,” Carlson said.

The emails showed Fauci and other top virologists shared an article from ZeroHedge suggesting COVID-19 was a man-made bioweapon. Despite it being a “plausible explanation,” said Carlson, ZeroHedge was banned from social media.

Carlson said:

“Until recently, you were not allowed to suggest that COVID might be man-made. Why couldn’t you suggest that? The fact checkers wouldn’t allow it. Why wouldn’t they? Because Tony Fauci assured the tech monopolies that the coronavirus could not have been manmade. And so the tech monopolies shut down the topic.”

NIAID has, for years, provided grants to the EcoHealth Alliance and others to conduct gain-of-function research on coronaviruses, as The Defender previously reported.

In March 2021, the Wuhan lab deleted mentions of its collaboration with the NIAID/NIH and other American research partners from its website. It also deleted descriptions of gain-of-function experiments on the SARS virus, according to Dr. Joseph Mercola.

“The NIH/NIAID has funded GOF [gain-of-function] research to the tune of at least $41.7 million,” Mercola said. “Up until 2014, this research was conducted by Ralph Baric at the University of North Carolina.”

After 2014, when federal funding of gain-of-function research was banned, the research was funneled to the Wuhan lab via the EcoHealth Alliance.

Mercola added:

“In August 2020, the NIAID announced a five-year, $82-million investment in a new global network of Centers for Research in Emerging Infectious Diseases that will conduct GOF experiments to ‘determine what genetic or other changes make [animal] pathogens capable of infecting humans.’”

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Suzanne Burdick, Ph.D., is an independent journalist and researcher based in Fairfield, Iowa.

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A record-breaking drought has caused some rivers in China – including parts of the Yangtze – to dry up, affecting hydropower, halting shipping, and forcing major companies to suspend operations.

A nationwide drought alert was issued on Friday as a long-running and severe heatwave in China’s heavily populated south-west was forecast to continue well into September.

The loss of water flow to China’s extensive hydropower system has sparked a “grave situation” in Sichuan, which gets more than 80% of its energy from hydropower.

On Sunday the provincial government declared it was at the highest warning level of “particularly severe”, with water flow to Sichuan’s hydropower reservoirs dropping by half. The demand for electricity has increased by 25% this summer, local media reported. The reduction in hydropower has also reportedly affected downstream populations, including Chongqing city and Hubei province.

Last week Sichuan suspended or limited power supply to thousands of factories and rationed public electricity usage due to the shortage. Toyota, Foxconn and Tesla are among companies reported to have temporarily suspended operations at some plants over the last fortnight. On Sunday the South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported plans to restart production this week had been postponed.

The Yangtze is the world’s third largest river, providing drinking water to more than 400 million Chinese people, and is the most vital waterway to China’s economy. It is also crucial to the global supply chain, but this summer it has reached record-low water levels, with entire sections and dozens of tributaries drying up. Water flow on the Yangtze’s main trunk is more than 50% below the average of the last five years. Shipping routes in the middle and lower sections have also closed, the SCMP reported.

Across the affected regions of China authorities are rushing to ensure water and power supply, as the region approaches harvest season for water-intensive crops such as rice and soy. On Sunday, authorities discharged 980m cubic metres of water from reservoirs in an effort to replenish lower levels of the river, state media said.

The drought has affected at least 2.46 million people and 2.2m hectares of agricultural land in Sichuan, Hebei, Hunan, Jiangxi, Anhui and Chongqing. More than 780,000 people have needed direct government support because of the drought, according to China’s ministry of emergency management. Drinking water has been trucked in to areas where residential supplies have completely dried up. High temperatures in July alone caused direct economic losses of 2.73bn yuan (£340m), affecting 5.5 million people, the emergency ministry said last week.

In the city of Chongqing the water level dropped to reveal previously submerged Buddhist statues thought to be about 600 years old.

Around the world major rivers are drying up as record-breaking heatwaves take a devastating toll, including the Rhine and the Loire in Europe, and the Colorado River in the US.

Bernice Lee, chair of the advisory board at the Chatham House sustainability accelerator in London, said societies including China have remained “unprepared and underprepared” for high-impact, low-probability events like extreme droughts and heatwave.

“Looking to the future, as the frequency of extreme weather events looks set to grow, the future could be even more bleak.”

Dr Faith Chan, the head of the school of geographical sciences at the University of Nottingham in Ningbo, said China was committed to climate change adaptions and preparing for climactic extremes.

“But it is very difficult to say what is the long-term effect on the economy by the extreme weather. For the short term, electricity use is heavily consumed and stressed,” Chan said.

Chinese authorities have repeatedly attributed the drought and heatwave to the climate crisis. Chen Lijuan, the chief forecaster of the country’s national climate centre, last week described the combined heatwave and drought as a “pressure cooker”.

“We have to face the fact that similar heatwaves will occur frequently in the future … it will become a new normal,” Chen said.

However, the immediate impact on electricity supplies has put pressure on Beijing’s climate change commitments. Last week the vice-premier Han Zheng said the government would step up support for coal-fired power production.

Warnings are in place for continued high temperatures and low rain. A red heat warning – the highest level of alert – was issued for the 10th consecutive day on Sunday for large swathes of the country.

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Droughts in China

August 25th, 2022 by Facts and Details

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Up to 33 million tons of crops are lost each year to drought. A severe drought in the spring and summer of 2001 stretched across 17 provinces and left 23 million people short of drinking water and damaged 73 million acres of farmland. Hundreds of sheep and cattle died of dehydration.

A severe drought on Guangxi in 2004 produced withered crops and massive power losses due to lack of water for hydro power generation. More than 1,100 reservoirs went dry. In neighboring Guangdong Province 1 million people didn’t have enough drinking water. The drought was partly the result of typhoons failing to strike the region.

The worst drought in 50 years struck Guangdong Province in 2005. The drought was especially bad because it struck during the rice planting season and was exacerbated by high water usage. The drought affected the power supply and in some places factories only operated during the night because that was the only time electricity was available.

China’s state meteorologists have blamed an increase in the number of extreme weather events in recent years on climate change. But the drought has been intensified by massive deforestation and the pollution and depletion of water resources caused by China’s heady pursuit of economic growth, said Ma Jun, author of “China’s Water Crisis”. “There is such a tight eco-balance now that whenever we have a problem with a natural climate phenomenon, it causes a big disaster. We don’t have much extra capacity to absorb the impact,” he said. [Source: Dan Martin, AFP, March 29, 2010]

Drought in China in 2006 and 2007

The worst drought in more than century struck southwest China and Sichuan in the summer of 2006. Chonquing suffered repeated heat waves, record highs of 44.5̊C and hardly any rain in July or August. In the grain producing areas of Sichuan huge swath of farmland withered after rainfall in the rainy season in early summer was the lowest since 1947. The water levels of the Yangtze were the lowest in the past century.

The drought cost more than $1.1 billion in crop damage in Sichuan, Guizhou, Hubei, Hunan, Zhejiang, Anhui and Jiangxi Provinces. More than 5 million tons of sweet potatoes and beans were lost, 11 million hectares of mostly rice, corn and tobacco were destroyed or damaged.

The drought affected all of China. In Guangdong a salt tide caused in part by a dropping water table affected drinking water supplies. In Inner Mongolia well water ran out and goats and sheep were fed from tanker trucks. Horses and cattle starved. For a time 18 million people nationwide had no access to clean drinking water.

The area around the Yangtze River suffered a severe drought in 2007. In some places water levels of the river dropped to their lowest levels since records began 142 years ago. Between October and December 2007 forty ships ran aground in the main course of the river. The drought was also severe in large areas of the normally wet south. Reservoirs and rivers shrunk and supplies of drinking water fell to alarmingly low levels.

Drought in Southwest China in 2009 and 2010

20080317-8ChinaGRNPCwater shortages.jpg

A severe drought in the southwestern provinces of Yunnan, Guangxi, Sichuan and Guizhou in 2009-2010 was the worst there in over a century. In areas of the normally wet region there was hardly any rain for months. Reservoirs were empty; river beds were dry; hillsides and terraces normally full of crops looked like deserts; the rich soil was like rock; people got sick from drinking contaminated water. It seem liked half the people in some parts of the region spent most of their day carrying water with shoulder poles from distant wells to their homes or fields. More than 90 percent of the hydro power stations in Guizhou, the worst-hit province, were not operating.

One farmer told AFP his family barely had enough water to drink water to drink and was forced to go weeks without bathing. To get water for his chestnut and walnut trees the farmer trekked long distance and carries back water on a shoulder pole. Damages to his crops has cut his earnings by 80 percent. “I’m 64, and this is the driest I have ever seen it,” said another farmer, who lost half his crop and half his income. “My biggest fear is that if it continues to be so dry , the impact on the harvest will be severe.”

According to government estimates 60 million were affected and 18 million people and 11 million livestock were short of water. Total economic costs exceeded $3 billion. Some blamed global warming. Others said that deforestation and depletion of water sources by economic activity were involved. To help he Chinese government dug thousands of wells, trucked in drinking water and carried out emergency water diversion projects. Clouding seeding efforts were futile.

Dan Martin wrote AFP,

“The drought plaguing Yunnan, Guizhou and Sichuan provinces, the Guangxi region and the mega-city of Chongqing has been called the worst in a century. It has devastated crops, fueled price rises and highlighted China’s chronic water problems. Since last September, rainfall has been less than half the normal levels, turning much of normally temperate Yunnan into a bone-dry environmental disaster zone of evaporating reservoirs and shrivelled rivers.”[Source: Dan Martin, AFP, March 29, 2010]

“Terraced fields that should be bursting green with winter crops instead resemble dusty deserts, their normally rich soil hard as rock. Everywhere in the countryside, men and women in conical hats carry precious water in buckets balanced on bamboo poles across their shoulders, often for long distances. The government says more than 60 million people are affected, with more than 18 million people and 11 million livestock short of drinking water – numbers that grow daily.”

“Sudden shortages of economically vital sugar, rice, tea, and fresh flowers have driven up prices, and the drought zone’s rich hydroelectric resources are dwindling. State media this week said 90 percent of hydropower stations in the worst-hit province, Guizhou, were paralysed. This comes just as the government is struggling to rein in inflation and prevent it tripping up the country’s robust economic recovery. While the full economic damage remains to be seen, with the government already putting direct losses at nearly three billion dollars, the human impact is clear.”

Drought in 2009-2010 in Yunnan

Reporting from Qixingcun in Yunnan Province in late March 2010, Dan Martin wrote AFP, “In Yunnan alone, hundreds of reservoirs vital to rural communities have dried up or will do soon, state media have said. Tap water is cut off in many areas and illnesses have been reported as thirsty villagers drink unsafe reservoir water. The state media have been full of stark images of desperate villagers sitting amid the cracked beds of dried-up reservoirs. China has dealt for millennia with the alternating curses of drought and flood, but the severity of this dry spell is on everyone’s lips.” [Source: Dan Martin, AFP, March 29, 2010]

”Peasant farmer Dong Guicheng wakes up every morning hoping for rain, but each day a crippling drought instead brings more disappointment and desperation….Dong treks daily to a dwindling reservoir to fetch scarce water for his walnut and chestnut trees, which have seen almost no rain for half a year. His family has barely enough to drink, he hasn’t bathed for weeks, and Dong says the damage to his crops could cut his earnings by 80 percent this year.” “I am very worried,” Dong said, as he and his wife Dao Haiyan filled a rusty tank with water from the reservoir before carting it to their home two kilometers (one mile) away. “If there continues to be no rain I will have no income. The impact has been too big for words,” he said, shaking his fist skywards.

“I’m 64, and this is the driest I have ever seen it,” said Cai Yichang, a farmer who lives near the Yunnan city of Yiliang. Scanning sand-colored terraced fields that should be green, Cai has had to plant a smaller crop of onions and has been unable to plant his spring corn, a blow likely to halve his roughly 20,000 yuan (S$4,116) annual income. “My biggest fear is that if it continues to be so dry, the impact on the harvest will be severe,” he said, in between drags of tobacco on a large water pipe.

The government says it has rushed drinking water to the region, launched emergency water diversion projects and dug thousands of wells. But the impact on the ground has been as negligible as the rain, said Dong. “The government? They haven’t taken any measures. We just have to rely on ourselves to take the water to the fields,” said Dong, whose troubles are compounded by rising vegetable prices, which he said had more than doubled.

Affects of the Drought in Southwest China in 2009-2010

The soil on roughly 30,000 square miles of farmland was too dry to plant crops, the vice minister of water resources, Liu Ning, said last Wednesday. Around 24 million people were short of water. Agriculturallosses already total $3.5 billion.[Source: Michael Wines, New York Times, April 4, 2010]

20080317-water shortage Xinhua4jpg.jpg

As of April 2010, many areas have not had rain since at least October. In some places in Luliang County, about 70 miles east of Yunnan’s capital, Kunming, no rain has fallen since August. There many wells dried up completely and one family well that normally has 33 feet of water during the dry season only had a foot. Hong Kong’s major newspaper, The South China Morning Post, reported last month that many adults had left villages in Guangxi, and that many of those who remained behind were elderly residents and children who had difficulty finding drinking water.

The government stepped in by rationing drinking water to millions, digging 1,600 emergency wells and shooting silver iodide into the air in a marginally successful rainmaking effort. In mid-March, China’s premier, Wen Jiabao, made a three-day tour of Yunnan, including Luliang County, to pledge government help and urge new water-conservation efforts.

The drought’s effects also reached beyond China, stirring up tensions with its neighbors over energy and environmental concerns. China’s southern neighbors sharply questioned whether the drought’s effect on the Mekong River — at its lowest in a half-century — had been worsened by dams along its upper reaches, known as the Lancang, in western Yunnan. The hydroelectric dams there store water that otherwise would flow naturally in wet and dry seasons. The Chinese deny the charge and say that they released dammed water during this dry season to raise the Mekong’s level.

Environmentalists have raised other questions. Wang Yongchen, the senior environmental writer for China National Radio, asked in a March journal article in Beijing whether the reservoirs and rapid industrialization had permanently changed the climate in Yunnan. She said that the wholesale replacement of Yunnan’s forests with plantations — especially thirsty rubber and eucalyptus trees — may have lowered the region’s water table, dried the atmosphere and worsened water shortages.

Effect of Drought in Southwest China in 2009-2010 on Farmers

In Luliang County in Yunnan Province, farmers that sold their harvest of winter wheat for $585 in normal years were lucky to sell their meager crop for $30. A farmer named Huang Jianxue, told New York Times, “It’s only good for the pigs,” brushing perhaps six or eight wheat kernels from a stunted stalk that, in a normal year, would hold dozens. [Source: Michael Wines, New York Times, April 4, 2010]

Huang crops and animals were starved for water. He had to borrow money to send his 7-year-old son and 12-year-old daughter to school. Getting for work in the city was not an option as he can not read, and leaving his family would wipe out any chance to plant crops should the rains return. With virtually no money from the spring harvest, he said, his only plan to repay his debt is to kill the family pig and sell the meat.

Michael Wines wrote in the New York Times,

“A several-hour tour of Luliang County on Sunday suggested the drought had struck in patchwork fashion. Residents said some reservoirs were dry basins of cracked mud, while others could be seen filled with water and surrounded by green crops.” In Shizikou village “verdant acres of rapeseed plants and other crops lined a dirty-looking river that had been tapped for irrigation.”

“But yards away from the river, 44-year-old Liu Hong said her entire wheat crop had grown only about a foot high before dying for lack of water, wiping out the $440 she had hoped to earn. Liu said she had been forced to borrow more than $700 from a local bank to send her two sons to high school. I don’t know what will happen if I can’t repay it, she said. And just down the road, 38-year-old Zhang Weixing’s crop of wendou, a type of pea used to make noodles, was so shrunken that his family was harvesting it to use as seeds rather than food. A crop that brought $440 in a normal year would be lucky to fetch $15 this time, he said.”

But as serious as the drought was, it affected only about 6 percent of China’s farmland and a tiny portion of its 1.3 billion people. The impact on inflation and food supplies in China as a whole were minimal.

Drought in Northern China in 2009

A severe drought struck parts of northern and central China in 2008 and 2009. The drought hit wheat growing areas in Henan and Anhui Provinces particularly hard. The government declared an emergency. Wheat prices rose and concerned were raised about out of work migrant workers returning home to find they can’t make a living at farming either.

The drought deprived 3.46 million people of adequate drinking water and affected 9.5 million hectares of farmland, An effort was made to bring irrigation water to agricultural areas deprived of water by diverting water from the Yangtze and Yellow Rivers. Irrigated water nourishes 60 percent of the winter wheat farmland and a third of all the farm land affected. In the Beijing area and elsewhere thousands of cloud seeding rockets and shells were fired to bring precipitation.

The worst drought in 60 years struck parts of northern China stretching from Jilin Province to Inner Mongolia in the summer of 2009, leaving 4.6 million people and 4.1 million head of livestock short of water.

The drought not only devastated China’s best wheat farmland, it also emptied the wells that provide clean water to industry and to millions of people. More than 18,000 square miles of farmland was labeled by the Chinese Agriculture Ministry. Northern China grows three-fifths of China’s crops and houses more than two-fifths of its people. [Source:Michael Wines, New York Times, February 24, 2009]

The drought occurred during the global economic crisis and peaked as millions of migrant workers who lost their jobs as a result of factory closings and construction shutdowns were returning from the cities to places where farming is the main source of income. Government officials were worried that water shortages and failed crops would raise the prospect of unrest among jobless migrants.

The national government increased spending on drought relief by about $44 million and announced plans to speed up the provision of annual grain and farm subsidies worth another $13 billion. Authorities also opened dam sluices, draining reservoirs toirrigate dry fields; dispatched water trucks to thousands of villages with dry wells; and bored hundreds of new wells. Newspapers reported the launching of thousands of rocket shells filled with silver iodide ro induce rain. Snow that fell on Drought-stricken Beijing were said to be the result of such efforts.

Effect of Drought in Northern China in 2009 on Farmers

20080317-yangtze ESWN, env news 2.jpg

Michael Wines wrote in the New York Times: “In the hamlet of Qiaobei in China’s wheat belt, a local farmer, Zheng Songxian, scrapes out a living growing winter wheat on a vest-pocket plot, a third of an acre carved out of a rocky hillside. He might have been expected to celebrate being offered the chance to till new land this winter. He did not.” [Source:Michael Wines, New York Times, February 24, 2009]

“Normally, the new land he was offered lies under more than 20 feet of water, part of the Luhun Reservoir in Henan Province. But this winter, Luhun has lost most of its water. And what was once lake bottom has become just another field of winter wheat, stunted for want of rain. Zheng, 50, stood in his field on a recent winter day, in one hand a shrunken wheat plant freshly pulled from the earth. I think I’m going to lose at least a third of my harvest this year, he said. If we don’t get rain before May, I won’t be able to harvest anything.”

“Zheng said his wheat was usually a foot tall by mid-February. But this year his field more resembled a suburban lawn in need of mowing, with clumps of wheat barely two inches high. Irrigation for such a small plot, he said, is too costly. We have a well up the hill, he said, but you have to pay 50 yuan every time you pump water, and you need to do it three times before you can harvest. The total of 150 yuan would be more than $20. So Zheng is hoping for rain, and counting on his two sons and daughter, who have jobs in nearby towns, to make up the money lost from crop failure.”

“In a neighboring village of 1,900, Zhailing…wells already strained by falling groundwater levels have effectively run dry, and many farmers have written off their wheat. Even regular day water is not guaranteed. How can we talk about anything for our crops? said Shi Shegan, the Communist Party secretary for the village.”

“The county-level chief of local drought-relief efforts, Gong Xinzhen, is determinedly upbeat about the situation. The county has bought 100 pumps to draw water from streams and wells, he said, and workers have handed out $15,000 worth of plastic bags for citizens to haul water from distant taps. Seven trucks are hauling water to communities like Zhailing where water has run out. Shi applauds the government’s hard work. But he also notes that when his village was built 14 years ago, one could sink a new well and haul water up by the bucketful. Now, he said, wells sunk 100 feet deep get mere trickles and can be tapped only once or twice a day.”

Winter Drought in Northern China in 2010-2011

The winter of 2010-2011 was the driest in perhaps 200 years in parts of China, which is the world’s largest wheat producer. This prompted worries that China might need to increase sharply its usually modest wheat imports, at a time when world food prices were already surging. Supplies were tight after bad weather in other producers, including Russia and Australia. Beijing launched a $1 billion emergency campaign of cloud-seeding and expanded irrigation.

Keith Bradsher wrote in the New York Times, “By January 2011, around 2.2 million people were facing water shortages as a result of droughts in southern, eastern and central China. Winter in China’s wheat belt is usually fairly dry. But this winter was so dry that it provoked considerable concern, from government offices in Beijing to the grain markets of Chicago. [Source: Keith Bradsher, New York Times, March 7, 2011]

“Some of the driest areas are close to Beijing, which has had no appreciable precipitation since Oct. 23, although there were brief snow flurries on Dec. 29. If the drought lasts 11 more days it will match one in the winter of 1970-71 as the longest since modern record keeping started in 1951, according to government meteorologists…In some places fields so dry large cracks appeared in the dirt. Particularly hard hit have been Hebei Province, which is next to Beijing…The dirt in farmers’ fields has become bone dry and is easily lifted by breezes, coating trees and houses in fine dust.” [Source: Keith Bradsher, New York Times, February 3, 2011]

The U.N. food agency issued a rare “special alert — on Feb. 8 warning of the drought’s effects on the wheat crop and even on drinking water for people and livestock. Wheat futures in Chicago, already high because of extreme heat last summer in Russia, surged even higher when the food agency issued its alert, jumping 2 percent in a day. On Monday, wheat prices edged down 0.3 percent in early trading after word spread of China’s recent damp weather.

Drought Fuels Inflation and Has Global Implications

The severe drought in northern fueled inflation and alarming China’s leaders. Keith Bradsher wrote in the New York Times, “President Hu Jintao and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao separately toured drought-stricken regions and have called for “all-out efforts” to address the effects of water shortages on agriculture…Rising food prices were a problem even before the drought began, prompting the government to impose a wide range of price controls in mid-November. The winter wheat crop has been parched since then in northern China while unusually widespread frost has hurt the vegetable crop in southern China. [Source: Keith Bradsher, New York Times, February 3, 2011]

“Food prices have been rising around the world, a result of weather problems in many countries, like the unusual heat wave in Russia last summer. High food prices have been among the many reasons for protests in Egypt and elsewhere in the Arab world. But even a prolonged drought in China appears highly unlikely to cause acute food shortages. China has spent years accumulating very large government reserves of grain and also has $2.85 trillion in foreign exchange reserves, giving it virtually unlimited ability to import food as long as major grain producers do not limit exports.”

“When commodity prices last surged in 2007 and 2008, however, at least 29 countries sharply curbed food exports in attempts to prevent domestic food prices from rising as quickly as world prices. And if China does become a large importer of wheat — it imports a lot of soybeans but tries to be essentially self-sufficient in rice and other grains for national security reasons — then it could push up world prices and make it harder for poor countries to afford food imports. Higher food and energy prices are spreading to other parts of China’s economy, contributing to broader inflation. Prices rose 4.6 percent in 2010, according to the consumer price index. The government has cushioned the effects of rising food prices by encouraging provinces and cities to sharply raise the minimum wage, which has been climbing 18 percent a year in Guangdong Province, in southern China.

“Accelerating inflation in China is starting to show up in the prices that American companies pay for imports from China. After years of showing little change, a United States Bureau of Labor Statistics index of average import prices suddenly jumped 0.3 percent from September to October, then jumped the same amount in November and again in December.”

In the end Rain and snow during late February and early March ” together with a huge irrigation effort, “saved much of the wheat crop in northern China from drought, Chinese and international agricultural and meteorological experts said…Days of snow and rain across the heart of China’s wheat belt in northern Henan and western Shandong provinces…The precipitation arrived at just the right moment, experts said, as vulnerable wheat planted last autumn was coming out its winter dormancy and needed to grow or it would die.” [Source: Keith Bradsher, New York Times, March 7, 2011]

Yangtze Delta Drought in 2011

On the drought that struck central China in the winter and spring of 2011, Jonathan Watts wrote in The Guardian, it is the — worst drought that parts of the Yangtze delta have experienced for more than 100 years

“Even for a country that is used to drought, this year’s arid spell has been shocking because of its duration and location: the Yangtze region is usually considered one of the lushest in China. But Asia’s greatest river is shrinking and shallowing, along with many of the lakes around it. Shanghai is in its longest dry spell for 138 years, according to People’s Daily. Further upstream, Hunan is suffering the worst drought since 1910, affecting water supplies for 1.1 million people and 157 urban areas.”[Source: Jonathan Watts, The Guardian, June 1, 2011]

“Television bulletins and newspapers are filled with images of dead fish, stranded ships and dry river beds. Hydropower production has been slashed and vast swaths of paddy fields are parched. The Three Gorges dam has been forced to cut hydropower generation and open its sluice gates to provide more water to downstream areas.

Recent cloudbursts — some precipitated by weather-modifying techniques — have raised hopes that the rainy season may finally have arrived. But the China Meteorological Administration forecasts a short, sharp — and possibly dangerous — flood season, amid a long, hot summer.

Another problem: “China is running out of cloud-seeding shells after pounding the skies with a massive barrage to ease the Yangtze delta drought. One of the country’s biggest manufacturers of the weather-modifying ordnance said its warehouses were empty despite raising production by 30 percent , operating on weekends and adding two hours to shift times.

Jiangxi Gangsi is one of the nation’s biggest makers of cloud-seeding shells. Company managers told the Guardian that they have struggled to meet a surge of demand during an unusually hot, dry spring. “There is demand but not enough supply. This year is special,” said Gu Jiangjun, a sales manager. “We normally produce 3,000 shells a month but now we are aiming for 4,000 to 5,000.” Agency officials encouraged local governments to make continued use of weather-modifying techniques. “We attach great importance to artificial rainfall in the effort to ease the drought,” said the administration’s vice director, Chen Zhenlin.

Droughts in the 2020s

In December 2021, China’s major southern cities Guangzhou and Shenzhen warned of impending severe water shortages lasting into next spring as the East River, a tributary of Guangdong’s Pearl River, was hit by Guangdong province’s most severe drought in decades. Reuters reported: Authorities in both cities are asking citizens to reduce water consumption, with rainfall between January to October this year down by a quarter compared to average levels over the last decade. The inflow of water into the East River Basin, a major supply of water for both cities, was around 50-60 percent its usual level. The company in charge of Guangzhou’s water supply is taking emergency measures to deal with increased salt tides, where the water supply becomes increasingly saline due to a lack of fresh water, it said. Hong Kong also imports much of its water from the East River. [Source: Reuters, December 8 2021]

In 2020, Yunnan Province and the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau in southwest China experienced its worst drought in a decades, affecting more around 1.5 million people. Xinhua reported: As of April 15, 1.48 million people and 417,300 large domestic animals faced drinking water shortage, and 306,667 hectares of crops were damaged, according to the provincial water conservancy department. Some 100 rivers in the province were cut off, 180 reservoirs dried up, and 140 irrigation wells had an insufficient water supply, figures of the department showed. [Source: CGTN, Xinhua News Agency, April 18, 2020]

The Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau saw an uneven and lesser amount of precipitation in 2019 and 2020. In the two days of March 29 to 30, there had been seven cases of forest fires in Yunnan Province. The province poured 546 million yuan (around 77.1 million U.S. dollars) in drought relief, mobilizing 1.13 million people and 131,100 water-loaded vehicles to irrigate the farmland and providing drinking water to thirsty people and livestock.

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Text Sources: New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Times of London, National Geographic, The New Yorker, Time, Newsweek, Reuters, AP, Lonely Planet Guides, Compton’s Encyclopedia and various books and other publications.

Featured image: Drought-burned trees / Image Sources: Gary Braasch, Xinhua, ESWN environmental news

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Europe is facing its worst drought in at least 500 years, with two-thirds of the continent in a state of alert or warning, reducing inland shipping, electricity production and the yields of certain crops, a European Union agency has said.

The August report of the European Drought Observatory (EDO), overseen by the European Commission, said that 47 percent of Europe is undergoing warning conditions, as moisture in the soil dries out and 17 percent of the region is on a state of alert as vegetation is affected.

“The severe drought affecting many regions of Europe since the beginning of the year has been further expanding and worsening as of early August,” the report said, adding that the western Europe-Mediterranean region was likely to experience warmer and drier than normal conditions until November.

Much of Europe has faced weeks of baking temperatures this summer, which worsened the drought, caused wildfires, set off health warnings, and prompted calls for more action to tackle climate change.

This Copernicus Sentinel-2 satellite image shows how part of the Po River in Italy has significantly shrunk between June 2020 and June 2022. Image processed by ESA.

The current drought appeared to be the worst in at least 500 years, assuming final data at the end of the season confirmed the preliminary assessment, the Commission said in a statement on Tuesday.

Summer crops have suffered, with 2022 yields for grain maize set to be 16 percent below the average of the previous five years and soybean and sunflowers yields set to fall by 15 percent and 12 percent respectively.

Hydropower generation has been hit and other power producers affected due to water shortages that feed cooling systems.

Low water levels have hampered inland shipping, such as along the Rhine river, with reduced shipping loads affecting coal and oil transport.

The EDO said mid-August rainfall may have alleviated conditions but in some cases, it had come with thunderstorms that caused further damage.

The observatory’s drought indicator is derived from measurements of precipitation, soil moisture and the fraction of solar radiation absorbed by plants for photosynthesis.

Click here to read the full article.

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Featured image: People take a stroll on the river bed of the Waal as water levels dropped because of drought in Nijmegen, Netherlands [Peter Dejong/AP Photo]

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US Secretary of State Blinken Returns Empty Handed from Africa Tour

By Abayomi Azikiwe, August 24, 2022

This tour came amid an escalation of tensions between the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China in regard to their relations with Washington. Blinken first visited the Republic of South Africa where he had a joint meeting with Naledi Pandor, his diplomatic counterpart. Pandor reiterated the views of the African National Congress (ANC) government which has refused to denounce Moscow over its special military operation in Ukraine.

Fauci’s Resignation ‘Good News for America’

By Dr. Anthony Fauci and Andrew Thornebrooke, August 24, 2022

Following Dr. Anthony Fauci announcing his resignation, Republicans have vowed Congressional investigations into his conduct if they win majority in the House and Senate in November, with many being critical of his leadership decisions and lack of transparency through the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Video: Kiev’s Military Operations “Switched to Terrorist Strategy”

By South Front, August 24, 2022

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.

Inspector General: The U.S. Government Left More Than $7 Billion in Military Equipment to the Taliban

By Jonathan Turley, August 24, 2022

Defense Department Inspector General has released its long-awaited report on what the Biden Administration left behind in Afghanistan. It is an unbelievable list of equipment left to the Taliban. I opposed the long war in Afghanistan, so I was not among those critical of Trump or Biden in pushing to leave the conflict. However, no one has ever explained why the Biden Administration left this equipment in Afghanistan as opposed to removing it or destroying it.

Active US Military Service Members: Significant Increase in Cancers, Myocarditis, and Pericarditis Resulting from COVID-19 Vaccine

By Ella Kietlinska and Joshua Philipp, August 24, 2022

A medical Army officer who discovered a sudden increase in disease coinciding with reports of side effects alongside COVID-19 vaccines—which the Army has dismissed as a data glitch—said he faces involuntary separation after being convicted but not punished for disobeying COVID-19 protocol.

Ukraine Uses NATO Ammunition in Attacks on Nuclear Power Station. Dangers of Radioactive Leaks

By Ana Luisa Brown, 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.

European Aid to Ukraine Grinds to a Halt

By Free West Media, August 24, 2022

Support for Ukraine is crumbling not only among the population. Aid pledges from European countries are also falling rapidly. The Institute has developed its own tool to measure the support provided by Western countries to Ukraine. The Ukraine Support Tracker is a database that tracks the financial, military and humanitarian assistance provided to Ukraine.

US

Infographic: US Military Presence Around the World

By Mohammed Hussein and Mohammed Haddad, August 24, 2022

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.

Reinforcing Failure in Ukraine. “Neutrality on the Austrian Model Is Still Possible”

By Douglas Macgregor, August 24, 2022

The hard truth is the introduction of new weapon systems won’t change the strategic outcome in Ukraine. Even if NATO’s European members, together with Washington, D.C., provided Ukrainian troops with a new avalanche of weapons, and it arrived at the front instead of disappearing into the black hole of Ukrainian corruption, the training and tactical leadership required to conduct complex offensive operations does not exist inside Ukraine’s 700,000-man army.

Video: Public Health System Rigged to Make the COVID Vaccines Look “Safe and Effective”. Deborah Conrad Interviewed by Reiner Fuellmich

By Deborah Conrad and Reiner Fuellmich, August 24, 2022

This session is about what she saw when the vaccines were rolled out in her hospital and how she came to know about VAERS.

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Fauci’s Resignation ‘Good News for America’

August 24th, 2022 by Dr. Anthony Fauci

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Fauci’s Resignation ‘Good News for America’

by Andrew Thornebrooke, The Epoch Times

Following Dr. Anthony Fauci announcing his resignation, Republicans have vowed Congressional investigations into his conduct if they win majority in the House and Senate in November, with many being critical of his leadership decisions and lack of transparency through the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Fauci announced on Monday he will resign from his post as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) in December, after more than 50 years working in government.

“He better have plenty of time on his hands come January, because we’re going to be wanting to talk to him,” said Rep. Buddy Carter (R-Ga.) during an Aug. 22 interview with Steve Lance on NTD, a sister media outlet of Epoch Times.

Carter said that, should Republicans gain majority control of the oversight and investigation committees after the upcoming midterm elections, the GOP would make it a priority to investigate whether Fauci mishandled the COVID-19 pandemic or willfully mislead the public about the virus.

Fauci’s tenure, Carter said, had been marred by inconsistency and flip-flopping on vital issues, such as the origins of the virus.

In May 2020, Fauci said that the virus “could not have been artificially or deliberately manipulated.”

However, Fauci has since said that he is “open” to the idea that the virus originated in a laboratory following a concession by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) last year that it provided funding to third-party groups to perform gain-of-function research on bat coronaviruses at laboratory in Wuhan, China.

“We need to make sure that we’re not doing this again and, if indeed this did come from a leak in the Wuhan lab, then China needs to be held responsible,” Carter said. “There’s no question about that.

“This is good news for America, because we need to take the politics out of healthcare. [Fauci] has inserted politics into healthcare, and I think that’s going to be his legacy.”

Click here to read the full article.

Statement by Anthony S. Fauci, M.D.

I am announcing today that I will be stepping down from the positions of Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and Chief of the NIAID Laboratory of Immunoregulation, as well as the position of Chief Medical Advisor to President Joe Biden. I will be leaving these positions in December of this year to pursue the next chapter of my career.

It has been the honor of a lifetime to have led the NIAID, an extraordinary institution, for so many years and through so many scientific and public health challenges. I am very proud of our many accomplishments. I have worked with — and learned from — countless talented and dedicated people in my own laboratory, at NIAID, at NIH and beyond. To them I express my abiding respect and gratitude.

Over the past 38 years as NIAID Director, I have had the enormous privilege of serving under and advising seven Presidents of the United States, beginning with President Ronald Reagan, on newly emerging and re-emerging infectious disease threats including HIV/AIDS, West Nile virus, the anthrax attacks, pandemic influenza, various bird influenza threats, Ebola and Zika, among others, and, of course, most recently the COVID-19 pandemic. I am particularly proud to have served as the Chief Medical Advisor to President Joe Biden since the very first day of his administration.

While I am moving on from my current positions, I am not retiring. After more than 50 years of government service, I plan to pursue the next phase of my career while I still have so much energy and passion for my field. I want to use what I have learned as NIAID Director to continue to advance science and public health and to inspire and mentor the next generation of scientific leaders as they help prepare the world to face future infectious disease threats.

Click here to read the full statement.

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Defense Department Inspector General has released its long-awaited report on what the Biden Administration left behind in Afghanistan. It is an unbelievable list of equipment left to the Taliban.

I opposed the long war in Afghanistan, so I was not among those critical of Trump or Biden in pushing to leave the conflict. However, no one has ever explained why the Biden Administration left this equipment in Afghanistan as opposed to removing it or destroying it.

While the collapse of the Afghan government was rapid in the final days, the government had many months to prepare for the scheduled withdrawal. Yet, it took no steps to remove or destroy this equipment. Instead, it elected to leave this arsenal intact to the Taliban.

The ground vehicle inventory alone was worth about $4.12 billion. In addition, the U.S. military lost $923.3 million worth of military aircraft and $294.6 million in aircraft munitions.

The Taliban was instantly made one of the best equipped militaries in the world due to this windfall gift by the Biden Administration.

While the report says that “some” of the aircraft were “demilitarized and rendered inoperable during the evacuation,” most of this equipment was left read to use, including 316,260 small arms, including sniper rifles, machine guns and grenade launchers that were worth $511.8 million.

I do not understand how this clear and unimaginable blunder has gone unaddressed. No one was fired. There is not even any evidence of discipline of any kind. The Biden Administration decided to give the Taliban billions in weapons rather than destroy them. Yet, there seems little more than a shrug and a yawn from Congress and the press.

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Featured image is from Jonathan Turley

European Aid to Ukraine Grinds to a Halt

August 24th, 2022 by Free West Media

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Support for Ukraine is crumbling not only among the population. Aid pledges from European countries are also falling rapidly.

The Institute has developed its own tool to measure the support provided by Western countries to Ukraine. The Ukraine Support Tracker is a database that tracks the financial, military and humanitarian assistance provided to Ukraine.

The tracker showed that for the month of July, support for Ukraine was crumbling. There were practically no further pledges of aid.

The tracker records the support services from a total of 40 countries. It differentiates into three categories: military, humanitarian and financial support. He also differentiates between promised aid and aid actually provided. In addition to the EU, the United States and Great Britain, data from Turkey, Australia, Norway, South Korea, New Zealand, China, India, Taiwan and Switzerland are also included.

Data for July shows that Ukraine’s six largest European countries have not made any further commitments. Only Norway has promised Ukraine further support in the form of financial aid of one billion euros.

However, the decline is in line with the trend: the promised support services had already fallen significantly in June. On the other hand, the data also showed that aid actually provided was increasing slightly. This means that the gap between promised aid and aid actually provided has been somewhat reduced.

Christoph Trebesch, head of the team compiling the Ukraine Support Tracker, pointed out that while Germany, for example, did not pledge any new weapons in July, it did deliver some of the weapons it had previously pledged in that month.

So far, according to the data, the US and Great Britain in particular have proven to be very reliable supporters of Ukraine. Germany ranks third with Canada and Poland. This also corresponds to the thesis that the US in particular has an interest in a war that lasts as long as possible.

The Kiel Institute noted that the EU Commission regularly verbally supports large support packages. But then there are often delays at state level. This unreliability is problematic for Ukraine. It said nothing about whether the declining support commitments also indicated that the West expected the war to end soon, or is perhaps even working towards trying to end it.

In July, the six largest EU countries, including Germany and France, made no new promises to Kyiv at all. This is the first time since the beginning of the special operation that such a situation has arisen, according to Politico. Last week in Copenhagen, Western allies decided to give Kyiv $1,5 billion. But, as the article stated, this is a “minor” sum compared to what had previously been promised to Ukraine.

According to data from the Kiel Institute, the volume of military aid to Ukraine from European countries has been on a downward trend since April.

The Kiel Institute for the World Economy (Institut für Weltwirtschaft, or IfW) is an independent, non-profit economic research institute and think tank based in Kiel, Germany. In 2017, it was ranked as one of the top 50 most influential think tanks in the world and was also ranked in the top 15 in the world for economic policy specifically. German business newspaper, Handelsblatt, referred to the Institute as “Germany’s most influential economic think tank”, while Die Welt, stated that “The best economists in the world are in Kiel”.

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Featured image: The Zentralbibliothek Wirtschaft of the Kiel Institute for the World Economy in Kiel, Germany. Wikipedia

Birds, Other Wildlife Sacrificed for Useless Mask Pollution

August 24th, 2022 by Dr. Joseph Mercola

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Worldwide reports, including from Sri Lanka, the U.K, Australia, Japan and North America were gathered to demonstrate how masks have created environmental pollution that is injuring and killing wildlife

Mindless mask mandates increase your risk of death, weaken the immune system, encourage dehydration, increase headaches, decrease cognitive precision and promote facial alkalinization

Wearing surgical masks increases your daily inhalation of microplastics, while studies have demonstrated that mask wearing does not lower your risk of contracting viral illnesses, including flu and COVID-19

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Yet another way in which masks have created problems is the environmental pollution that is injuring and killing wildlife.1,2,3 Experts have estimated that 129 billion face masks and 65 billion gloves were used and discarded each month during the pandemic. In 2020, research also suggested that 1.6 billion disposable masks from mindless mask mandates ended up in the ocean.4

But it’s not just the whole masks and gloves that have created a significant environmental problem. Although the bottled water crisis is a leading source of environmental plastic pollution, the new mask crisis is slated to outpace it. The scientists in one paper5 published in Frontiers of Environmental Science and Engineering wrote:

“… there is no official guidance on mask recycling, making it more likely to be disposed of as solid waste. With increasing reports on inappropriate disposal of masks, it is urgent to recognize this potential environmental threat.”

Masks are not being recycled. Yet, their material makes it likely they persist and accumulate in the environment. Most disposable surgical masks contain three layers — polyester outer layer, a polypropylene or polystyrene middle layer and an inner layer made of absorbent materials such as cotton.

Polypropylene is one of the most problematic plastics, as it’s widely produced, responsible for a large accumulation of waste in the environment, and is a known asthma trigger.6 The researchers noted7 that once masks are subjected to solar radiation, the degradation of polypropylene slows dramatically and leads to persistence and accumulation.

But, before the masks even break down in the environment, they are causing significant damage to wildlife, especially the bird population. You don’t have to be a bird enthusiast to understand that birds are uniquely important to the balance of the environment.

They are pollinators, they disperse seeds and they recycle nutrients.8 They are predators, scavengers and ecosystem engineers. Injuries and falling populations will have a unique and significant impact on an ecosystem on which we rely for our survival.

COVID Face Masks Devastating Wildlife

Researchers used social media images to identify the effect personal protective equipment waste has had on wildlife, including disposable masks and gloves. Information from the online citizen science project, Birds and Debris,9 and Dalhousie University reveal the devastation to wildlife, especially birds.

Birds and Debris has been collecting images across social media for four years. The project is part of the North Highland College UHI and the University of the Highlands and Islands. According to The Telegraph, Dr. Alex Bond, one of the researchers from the Natural History Museum in London, called human debris a “global issue.”

They have fielded reports from Sri Lanka, the U.K, Australia, Japan and North America since the start of the pandemic. Bond told the Telegraph that almost all the images they have collected have involved masks. Images depict elastic tangled around bird’s legs or birds injured after trying to consume the mask.

Of the 114 reports, 93% were face masks. Images have shown nine dead animals in direct contact with personal protective equipment, but the fate of most animals is unknown. Since the pandemic, the team has recorded 114 incidents in 23 countries. The paper10 gathered information from social media searches, reports from the citizen science database Birds and Debris, and unpublished reports from colleagues.

The sightings were verified by contacting the observers. The researchers believe that this data underestimates the number of animals that have been harmed by the debris triggered by the pandemic. They went on to write:11

“Widespread use and insufficient infrastructure, combined with improper waste management have resulted in an emerging category of litter. With widespread presence in the environment, such items pose a direct threat to wildlife as animals can interact with them in a series of ways.

It is crucial that we identify opportunities to improve our waste management infrastructure, so that we can prevent similar leakages during the inevitable future pandemics.”

Mindless Masking Raises the Risk of Death and More

It is called “mindless masking” since wearing the mask increases your risk of death, and as we discuss below, there is no scientific evidence that wearing a mask can reduce your risk of getting COVID. German physician Dr. Zacharias Fögen was unable to find published evidence that masking effectively reduced the severity of the disease or had an influence on case fatality.12

He began gathering demographic data from the state of Kansas to analyze the effect of wearing a mask using data in counties where masks were mandated and those that didn’t. The results suggested that masking was not innocuous. In fact, it may present a greater threat than the infection, making it a “debatable epidemiological intervention.”13

The death rate in counties where masks were mandated was 85% higher than in those where they were not. After accounting for confounding factors, the mortality rate remained 52% higher. On further analysis, he wrote, “this study determines that over 95% of this effect can solely be attributed to COVID-19.”14

In other words, while other pathogens or CO2 build-up could have weakened the immune system, it was COVID-19 that caused the rise in deaths in counties where masks were mandated. He named this the Foegen effect, referring to the reinhalation of viral particles trapped in droplets and deposited on the mask, which worsens outcomes.15

Fögen noted two large studies had found similar results with case fatality rates. In other words, the studies found a positive link between masking and death. The first was published in the journal Cureus,16 which found no association between case numbers and mask compliance, but a positive association with death and mask compliance.

The second study17 was published in PLOS One, which revealed an association between negative COVID outcomes and mask mandates across 847,000 people in 69 countries. One report18 focused on the health and safety of wearing masks and proposed the potential of permanent fibrotic lung damage caused by inhaling fibrous nanoparticles. The author explained:19

“There are real and significant dangers of respiratory infection, oral health deterioration and of lung injury, such as pneumothorax, owing to moisture buildup and also exposure to potentially harmful levels of an asphyxiant gas (carbon dioxide [CO2]) which can cause serious injury to health.”

Public Health Officials Ignore Two Years of Data

Jeffrey Anderson, past director of the Bureau of Justice Statistics at the U.S. Department of Justice, makes several salient points after the San Diego, California school board once again took up the mindless mask mandate for school children, decreeing that children who do not wear face coverings would be barred from the classroom.

An August 2022 evaluation of the CDC and Census Bureau figures show that 99.99% of children in California and Florida have not died of COVID — “either because they haven’t gotten it, or because they’ve gotten it and survived it.”20 And yet the two states approached masking completely differently, where California regularly imposed mindless masking and Florida has not. The statistic holds true throughout the U.S.21

Anderson notes that public health experts have thoroughly embraced masking, based on reasoning expounded by Seán Muller that “‘the failure of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) to provide supportive evidence’ that masks work to reduce viral transmission.”22,23 Muller goes on to propose that “a statistically significant finding from a high quality RCT (the ‘gold standard’)” should not be the basis for decision making.

Rather “mechanism-based reasoning” should be used that does not require scientific knowledge but rather an application of his own reasoning.24 Muller then argues that “from the perspective of the history of medical science that this logic relies only on a fairly simple germ theory of disease. And it places the burden of proof on those who would argue against recommending face masks.”

In other words, there may not be scientific evidence that mask wearing works, but it makes sense that it does … so if you want to stop wearing masks you must prove they don’t work, and I don’t have to prove that they do work. On the surface, one 2021 study from Bangladesh seems to show that masks do work.

Yet, as Anderson describes,25 after Ben Recht, a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at the University of California, Berkeley computed the numbers from data the researchers released, they didn’t add up. It turns out that in a group of 178,322 who wore masks and 163,861 who did not, 20 more people without a mask got COVID, which is a 0.08% difference.

The researchers wrote this was “clear evidence that surgical masks lead to a relative reduction in symptomatic seroprevalence of 11.1%.”26 The difference between the two risk percentages is the difference between relative risk reduction and absolute risk reduction. After further analysis of the study, Anderson writes, “these tiny differences register as statistically significant only because of myriad questionable methodological choices.”27

Problems Ignored When Mandating Masks

The mainstream media touted the results as evidence for mask wearing. Yet, as Anderson writes,28further analysis of the data found more interesting figures.

  • No statistical significance that masks work under the age of 40
  • For people in their 40s, cloth masks work but not surgical masks
  • People in their 50s should wear surgical masks and not cloth masks

The researchers distributed red and purple masks to the participants of the study. When Recht analyzed the data, he found “cloth purple masks did nothing, but the red masks ‘work,’” and added, “Indeed, red masks were more effective than surgical masks!” Anderson concludes, “When a study starts producing findings like these, its results start to look like random noise.”29

The fear-mongering prevalent during the mask mandates encouraged people to overlook much of the data and research that challenged the idea that masks might slow the spread of the virus. Some began asking if the masks were effective against the COVID-19 virus, why were they not being treated as a biohazard?30

If there were millions of masks contaminated with SARS-CoV-2, would they not present a danger after being thrown out in the garbage and eventually released into the environment? One preprint study31 posted August 7, 2021, found that mask wearing could:

  • Promote facial alkalinization
  • Encourage dehydration, which enhances barrier breakdown and raises the risk of bacterial infection
  • Increase headaches and sweating
  • Decrease cognitive precision, which can lead to medical errors

According to a study32 by Chinese scientists posted in January 2021, wearing a face mask can increase your daily inhalation of microplastics. In April 2022,33 a team of scientists from Hull York Medical School published findings that showed 39 microplastic particles in 11 of 13 lung tissues sampled during lung surgery.

According to the lead scientist, microplastics have been found in autopsies in the past, but this is the first study to demonstrate they are found in the living. Interestingly, these microparticles were also found in the lowest parts of the lungs, which researchers had once thought they could not possibly reach.34

The researchers found the subjects had 12 types of microplastics and the most abundant were polypropylene (PP) and polyethylene terephthalate (PET).35 This finding points to the recent ubiquitous use of blue surgical masks during the pandemic as PP is the most used plastic component in those masks.

No Benefit Found in COVID-Specific Mask Trial

While multiple studies published before the pandemic demonstrated masks were not effective against viral transfer, U.S. public health experts lobbied hard for mask mandates. This was a driving force in the plastic pollution that has devastated the environment and is injuring and killing wildlife.36 As is portrayed in this short, humorous video, many went along with masking to get along.

Many of the past studies evaluated the efficacy of masking against the flu virus. The first COVID-19-specific randomized controlled surgical mask trial was published in the Annals of Internal Medicine. The data from this study confirmed past findings, showing that:37

  • Masks may reduce your risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection by as much as 46%, or they may increase your risk by 23%
  • The vast majority — 97.9% of those who didn’t wear masks, and 98.2% of those who did — remained infection free

The conclusions were made on the analysis of data from 4,862 people who completed the study. Among mask wearers, 1.8% tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, compared to 2.1% among controls. When they removed the people who reported not adhering to the recommendations to use masks, the results were the same — 1.8%, which suggests adherence does not make a significant difference.

Among those who reported wearing their face mask “exactly as instructed,” 2% tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 compared to 2.1% of the controls. So, essentially, economies, lives, and the environment have been destroyed to protect a tiny minority from a positive PCR test, which means little to nothing.

Evidence that masks are not effective against viral particles has been published for many years. In addition to the research reviewed above, here’s a sample of what else you’ll find when you start searching for data on face masks as a strategy to prevent viral infection:

  • Surgical masks and n95 masks perform about the same — A 2009 study38 published in JAMA compared the effectiveness of surgical masks and N95 respirators against the seasonal flu in a hospital setting; 23.6% of the nurses using surgical masks got the flu and 22.9% of those who wore N95 masks got influenza.
  • Cloth masks are far worse than medical masks — A 2015 study39 of healthcare workers showed cloth masks had the highest rate of influenza-like illness and laboratory-confirmed respiratory virus infections when compared to medical masks or controls who used standard practices, including occasional medical masks.
  • No significant reduction in flu transmission in a community setting — A policy review paper40in 2020 that reviewed “the evidence base(d) on the effectiveness of nonpharmaceutical personal protective measures … in non-healthcare settings” concluded, based on 10 randomized controlled trials, that there was “no significant reduction in influenza transmission with the use of face masks …”
  • Risk reduction may be due to chance — In 2019, a review41 of interventions for flu epidemics published by the World Health Organization concluded the evidence for face masks was slim, and “the evidence was insufficient to exclude chance as an explanation for the reduced risk of transmission.”
  • Mask or no mask, same difference — A meta-analysis and scientific review42 led by respected researcher Thomas Jefferson, cofounder of the Cochrane Collaboration, posted on the prepublication server medRxiv in April 2020, found that, compared to no mask, mask wearing in the general population or among health care workers did not reduce influenza-like illness cases or influenza.

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Notes

1, 4, 9 The Telegraph, August 5, 2022

2 Daily Mail, July 29, 2022

3, 36 Science of the Total Environment, 2022;848

5 Frontiers of Environmental Science and Engineering, 2021;15(6)

6 European Respiratory Journal, 1994;7(2)

7 Frontiers of Environmental Science and Engineering, 2021;15(6) page 1 right col para 2, 11 lines up from the bottom

8 Annals of the New York Academy of Science, 2008;1134

10 Science of the Total Environment, 2022;848 Abstract

11 Science of the Total Environment, 2022;848 Abstract and Conclusion last sentence 50% DTP

12 Medicine, 2022;101(7)

13 Medicine, 2022;101(7) Abstract para 4

14 Medicine, 2022;101(7) Abstract

15 Daily Skeptic, May 2, 2022

16 Cureus, 2022;14(4)

17 PLOS|One, 2021, doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0252315

18 Health, Safety and Wellbeing Report in respect of Civil Proceedings April 9, 2021 Summary of Conclusions

19 Health, Safety and Wellbeing Report in respect of Civil Proceedings April 9, 2021 Summary of Conclusions 6.1 page 16

20, 21, 22, 25, 27, 28, 29 City-Journal, August 8, 2022

23 Nature Public Health Emergency Collection, 2021;43(2)

24 Nature Public Health Emergency Collection, 2021;43(2) Numbers in 1st subhead

26 Science, 2021;375(6577)

30 Twitter, Smile Free

31 medRxiv, August 7, 2021

32 Yahoo News, January 1, 2021

33, 34 Hull York Medical School, April 6, 2022

35 Western Standard, April 17, 2022

37 Annals of Internal Medicine, doi.org/10.7326/M20-6817

38 JAMA 2009;302(17):1865

39 BMJ Open, 2015;5(4)

40 Emerging Infectious Diseases May 2020; 26(5)

41 WHO.int 4.3 Face Masks

42 medRxiv, 2020; doi.org/10.1101/2020.03.30.20047217

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***

In an open letter entitled “U.S. must arm Ukraine now, before it’s too late” 20 notable American advocates for the war against Russia in Ukraine argue that the conflict has reached a decisive moment. To win, the authors insist, Ukrainian forces need an abundance of new equipment, including the constant resupply of ammunition and spare parts for artillery platforms, short- and medium-range air defense systems to counter Russian air and missile strikes, and ATACMS munitions fired by HIMARS with the 300km range necessary to strike Russian military targets anywhere in Ukraine or Crimea.

Meanwhile, the initial flood of equipment and ammunition from Washington’s European Allies into Ukraine has been reduced to a trickle. Daniel Fiott, a European defense analyst at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, complained, “Ukraine needs hardware, not hot air.” Equally important, refugee fatigue is setting in across Europe.

Germans and Hungarians lost their patience with the unrelenting influx of refugees into Europe some time ago, but now the Poles are reaching the saturation point. Polish households confront serious economic headwinds. Poland has one of Europe’s highest inflation rates—15.6 percent in July—caused in part by the war in Ukraine. As conditions worsen in the fall and winter, it is not hard to imagine enormous public pressure on Berlin, Warsaw, Prague, Paris, and Rome to end the war in Ukraine.

The hard truth is the introduction of new weapon systems won’t change the strategic outcome in Ukraine. Even if NATO’s European members, together with Washington, D.C., provided Ukrainian troops with a new avalanche of weapons, and it arrived at the front instead of disappearing into the black hole of Ukrainian corruption, the training and tactical leadership required to conduct complex offensive operations does not exist inside Ukraine’s 700,000-man army. In addition, there is an acute failure to recognize that Moscow would react to such a development by escalating the conflict. Unlike Ukraine, Russia is not currently mobilized for a larger war, but it could do so quickly.

American military and civilian leaders routinely ignore the historical record and its lessons. Most importantly, they ignored the criticality of human capital in uniform that frequently constitutes the margin of victory in war.

On June 22, 1941, the German Wehrmacht launched its invasion of Russia with more horses than tanks. For the most part, the German ground forces were composed of Great War-style infantry divisions dependent on horse-draw logistics and artillery. The German soldiers were indisputably excellent, but only a minority were equipped with the firepower, mobility, and armored protection needed for warfare in Eastern Europe.

Of the millions of German soldiers who marched into Russia, roughly 450,000 to 500,000 were assigned to Germany’s mobile armored force, the offensive striking power that rapidly crushed its Polish, British, Dutch, Belgian, and French opponents. These soldiers were the best of the best with the lion’s share of the modern equipment.

It took four years, from 1939 to 1943, to wear down this core element to the point where large-scale German offensives were no longer possible. The critical data point to remember is that 55,000 German officers had been killed in action by October.

These German officers were among the best and most experienced officers in the army. They performed the brilliant maneuvers that brought the ill-equipped Wehrmacht to the gates of Moscow in a war on three fronts—Western Europe, the Mediterranean, and Eastern Europe. They led it through the offensives that culminated in the battles of Kursk and El Alamein.

A similar problem plagued the Luftwaffe. German industry could provide modern jet fighters, but the Luftwaffe could no more replace the losses of its best pilots than the German Army could replace its best officers.

Meanwhile, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto understood the importance of human capital in uniform better than anyone. Yamamoto not only wanted to strike and annihilate the U.S. fleet at Pearl Harbor but also wanted to seize the Hawaiian Islands, declaring, “To defeat the U.S. Navy we must kill its officers.” Yamamoto understood how long it took to train and prepare officers for the Navy. Ultimately, Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor allowed U.S. forces to kill off the best the Imperial Japanese armed forces had in the air and at sea.

In war and peace, human capital is everything. Sadly, Washington places almost no value on it, eagerly lowering standards of admission for soldiers and officers. If this attitude persists, and it probably will, relaxed standards will catch up with America’s military when our forces finally confront a capable opposing force in battle.

John Adams, second president of the United States, observed, “Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.” Adams is still right.

Ukraine’s war with Russia is at a decisive point. It is time to end it. Instead, the authors of the letter seek to reinforce failure. They are demanding a deeply flawed strategy for Ukraine that will lead in the best case to Ukraine’s reduction to a shrunken, land-locked state between the Dnieper River and the Polish border. These are results of misguided policies originating in the 1990s under the Clinton administration, which drove Russia into political isolation from Europe and forged Moscow’s alliance with Beijing.

Expanding NATO to Russia’s borders was never necessary and has become disastrous for Europe. The longer the war with Russia lasts the more likely it becomes that the damage to Ukrainian society and its army will be irreparable. Neutrality on the Austrian model for Ukraine is still possible. If Washington insists on perpetuating Ukraine’s war with Russia, the neutrality option will vanish, NATO’s fragile “coalition of the willing” will collapse, and Ukraine will become the new “sick man of Europe” and remain a catalyst for future conflict.

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Douglas Macgregor, Col. (ret.) is a senior fellow with The American Conservative, the former advisor to the Secretary of Defense in the Trump administration, a decorated combat veteran, and the author of five books.

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At the end of its annual summit in Madrid in late June, NATO adopted a new strategic concept. The guidance document is the eighth of its kind since the founding of the alliance in 1949. It radically breaks with the three previous post-Cold War security briefs, however, which observed that “the Euro-Atlantic area is at peace” because “the threat of a conventional attack against NATO territory is low.” In the eyes of NATO, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has changed that calculus, claiming that the military organization can no longer discount the possibility of an assault on sovereign NATO states. Continuing the same cryptic language, the new strategic concept concludes that the Euro-Atlantic area now is “not at peace,” in spite of no NATO member being in a state of war with Russia.

Behind this word play, a more dangerous policy change has been codified in the document. Since the adoption of the Harmel Report in 1967, NATO has always officially included diplomacy in one form or another (with political dialogue and strategic partnership being interchangeable labels) as one of its “core” or “fundamental” tasks. The “NATO 2030” report from November 2020, for instance, unequivocally stated that “NATO should continue the dual-track approach of deterrence and dialogue with Russia.”

In the new strategic concept, the core tasks have been purged of the need for diplomacy, except for one or two throw-away lines about “meaningful and reciprocal political dialogue” about arms control issues buried in the middle of the text. Rather, in addition to its original function of deterrence and defense, NATO now fully embraces “crisis prevention and management,” which it has spearheaded since the 1990s with its legally dubious and morally questionable interventions in the Balkans, Afghanistan, and Libya; and “cooperative security,” referring to NATO’s enlargement in Eastern Europe and its Partnership for Peace cooperation with countries in ever further-away regions, including the Black Sea, the Middle East, North Africa, and even the Indo-Pacific, which the British have been pushing to include in a “global NATO.”

Russia was the first country to sign up for the Partnership for Peace program back in 1994. The new NATO doctrine, however, states that Russia can no longer be considered a partner “in light of its hostile policies and actions.” The strategic concept ignores the fact that NATO’s enlargement and new core tasks, which the alliance adopted after the Cold War in an effort to justify its continued existence, have likewise long been seen as hostile in Moscow, nor does it offer any reflection on how the new policies might have contributed to the current unpeaceful “strategic environment.” Instead, it hails the “historic success” of NATO’s expansion in terms of space and substance and insists that the alliance “does not seek confrontation and poses no threat to the Russian federation.”

The logic behind this reasoning is that NATO’s enlargement, or its Partnership for Peace program for that matter, is an outflow of the West’s innocent and well-meant efforts to spread its values of liberal democracy around the world. New member states joined the alliance in a voluntary capacity, after all. In a sense, this logic holds true. It is difficult to see how extending a war guarantee to East European and Balkan nations contribute to the security of Western Europe, let alone the United States. And from Clinton to Bush and Obama, NATO’s Open Door policy has been couched in a Wilsonian rhetoric of the United States as a benign hegemon. Joe Biden, too, steered last year’s NATO conference in Brussels in the direction of proclaiming a global fight between democracy and authoritarianism.

What proponents of this Wilsonian liberalism fail to realize, however, is that their benevolent actions might antagonize other nations. Now, NATO apologists, like Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, argue that if the alliance had not expanded eastward, Vladimir Putin would have been even bolder in his imperial ambitions. But as John Mearsheimer pointed out back in 2014, there is virtually no evidence that Putin aimed to incorporate Crimea before the Maidan coup. Rather, his offensive foreign policy in Ukraine since 2014, culminating in the 2022 invasion, is one of reaction to NATO creeping up to Russia’s borders. Bringing Ukraine into the NATO fold has long been a big fat redline for Russia, and we crossed it.

First of all, West-European officials promised the Soviets after the fall of the Berlin Wall that NATO’s borders would not move “one inch” eastward. But then all former Warsaw Pact countries and even some former Soviet Republics were incorporated in the 1990s and early 2000s. In addition to the evidence the National Security Archive assembled on this issue a few years ago, recent archival research has once again confirmed these broken promises.

Next, in 2008, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned American diplomats that further NATO enlargement, particularly to Ukraine, would constitute a “potential military threat.” William J. Burns, who is now the CIA chief but at the time served as the U.S. ambassador to Russia, translated Lavrov’s message succinctly in a diplomatic cable: “Nyet means nyet: Russia’s NATO enlargement redlines.” He further gave voice to the opinion of State Department experts, who warned that “the strong division in Ukraine over NATO membership, with much of the ethnic-Russian community against membership, could lead to a major split, involving violence or at worst, civil war.” The Bush administration ignored these warnings and pushed for the inclusion of Georgia and Ukraine at a summit in Bucharest, where the alliance codified that “these countries will become members of NATO.” Ultimately, war followed in both countries, in Georgia in 2008, and in Ukraine in 2014. In the process, Russia annexed Crimea and supported a separatist war in the Donbass, which dragged on in protracted fashion until the 2022 invasion.

After 2014, Ukraine started to become a de facto member of NATO, which bolstered the Ukrainian regime to take a tough stance against Russia. In 2017, Trump decided to sell “defensive weapons” to Kyiv. Other NATO countries got in on the act, shipping weapons to Ukraine, training its military and teaming up with it in joint air and naval exercises. In June 2021, a British destroyer sailed through the Black Sea in an effort to shore up support for Ukraine, precipitating a diplomatic stand-off with Russia. NATO was undeterred, however, because a total of 32 countries participated in a major naval exercise in the Black Sea one month later.

In response, Russia decided to engage in coercive diplomacy, much like the Obama administration had done to get Iran to sign on to the 2015 nuclear deal. Putin amassed troops on the Ukrainian border, demanding guarantees that no offensive missiles would be installed in Eastern Europe and Ukraine not to join NATO. When the crisis was not solved diplomatically, Russia invaded Ukraine. Up until recently, there was hardly any diplomatic intercourse between Washington and Moscow in order to resolve the conflict. The UK’s Boris Johnson, too, “urged against negotiations” during a trip to Kyiv in April. Other NATO members, such as France, Germany, Italy and Hungary, have warmed to negotiations. But as long as there is no bigger push to re-establish diplomacy as a core task of the military alliance, Wilsonian rhetoric is likely to continue to make the world unsafe.

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Bas Spliet is a historian and PhD candidate at the University of Antwerp in Belgium. He writes about a variety of topics from a historical angle. Find all his work on (Re)writing history, his Substack website. He is also on Twitter @BSpliet. You can e-mail him at [email protected].

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Vietnam’s War Remnants Museum

August 24th, 2022 by Aaron Monopoli

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There’s a saying that “the victor writes history”. Standing in the War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, the question arises: Who wrote the history of the Vietnam War we were taught in Australia?

The grounds of the museum open with a collection of United States military vehicles — a UH 1 Huey Helicopter, F-5A Fighter plane, M48 Patton Tank, A-1 Skyraider Bomber and a A-37 Dragonfly Bomber — and other tools of war. Absent is any glamourisation.

For the Vietnamese people, it was the War of Resistance Against America, and the museum tells the story of what they went through to achieve victory. Before the US invaded Vietnam, the French were doing their best to maintain Indochina as a colony. The people gave all they had to finally gain freedom and independence from foreign powers.

Vietnam War Remnants Museum

The entrance to the museum, which houses exhibits from the international anti-war movement. Photo: Aaron Monopoli

The ground floor tells the story of those around the world who wanted peace in Vietnam: Anti-war posters, images of people protesting and standing in solidarity with the Vietnamese adorn the walls. This exhibit gives off hope and shares positivity. When things got so dark and destructive for the Vietnamese, so many people were on their side, and the number of people who were anti-war kept growing.

On the first floor, the exhibits are confronting. The room entitled “Agent Orange Consequences in the American war of aggression in Vietnam” shows the human cost of the war for generations of Vietnamese and Americans. Agent Orange — a herbicide and defoliant chemical deployed by the US military during the war to destroy forests and crops — was an agent of death and torture for the living and the unborn. Images show babies born with birth defects next to those living through Agent Orange attacks.

The next exhibit features a display of war crimes, photographed by various people. To see a modern war documented in a way that highlights its atrocities hits the heart. There is no sign of Vietnam chest beating or gloating over its victory. The war crimes exhibition shares the loss, grief, pain and suffering the Vietnamese population went through to gain their liberation.

Another room contains the story of the weapons used in the war and their consequences. A pilot drops a bomb and flies away, while a person becomes another unrecognisable body.

The reality of the war entered people’s lives outside of Vietnam through images. The stories that those with guns couldn’t tell were told by photographers and filmmakers. Shocking images of the war flowed out of Vietnam and entered the international media, helping the peace movement to grow. Eventually, the war became untenable for the US and its allies to continue.

Outside the building are examples of the “tiger cages” created for Vietnamese prisoners of war. There was barely enough room to move, prisoners were left out in the weather, and treated in inhumane ways by the invaders.

The War Remnants Museum contains immense horrors captured in images, but also tells the story of the people who risked their lives to share the experiences of an oppressed people fighting for their liberation. It also tells the story of people’s solidarity around the world against a powerful nation using war to control a people.

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Featured image: ‘Mother’ – a sculpture commemorating the sacrifices of the Vietnamese people. Photo: Aaron Monopoli

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Next summer, Kosovo will host a massive NATO field exercise, with preparations already underway. The Kosovo Security Forces (KSF) will participate with two regiments in the exercises that are not only aimed at pressuring Serbia, but also Russia. The facts are that the actions of NATO in the Balkans, most particularly the US, is focussed around the construction of Kosovo’s statehood as an independent entity from Serbia.

The participation of the KSF in these exercises is unsurprising because their forces have been present in previous exercises. By the West equipping and building the KSF, NATO and the US are trying to ensure Kosovo’s survival and security. For Serbian leaders in Belgrade though, this is an alarming development, especially as it is an attempt to resolve the issue with Kosovo in a non-peaceful manner.

With this in consideration, it cannot be overlooked that perhaps the US wants violence to breakout in the heart of the Balkans to once and for all resolve Kosovo’s separation from Serbia, particularly at a time when Russia is already occupied with its own military operation in Ukraine.

Holding a NATO exercise in Kosovo is a big challenge for the institutions in Belgrade in a legal, diplomatic, security and military sense. The problem, however, is that leading NATO members approach the statehood of Kosovo as if it were a country with complete international recognition, which does not correspond to reality. In fact, in recent years, several countries have reversed their recognition of Kosovo’s independence, hence the need to disseminate and propagate information about NATO’s upcoming exercises in Kosovo so far in advance.

Kosovo’s authorities, as well as the leading countries of NATO and the EU, want to make it known that nothing can be expected from the strategic goals proclaimed by Serbia in any negotiations between Belgrade and Pristina. Therefore, according to the West, Serbia should accept Kosovo as an independent state. In this way, the ultimate goal of all negotiations is to form pressure against Serbia.

These exercises are not only a direct type of pressure against Serbia, but also Russia. In other words, the message to Belgrade is that it should not resist too much against the West’s demands regarding Pristina’s efforts to integrate the Serbian-dominated region of ​​northern Kosovo into the composition of the partially recognised state.

The West is signalling to Russia that it has no chance of expanding its influence in the Balkans, despite the friendly relations Belgrade has with Moscow. This is because the West wants to shape Serbia in a way that adheres to the interests of the Western alliance. For this reason, there are parallel pressures against the Serbian-dominated entity in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Republika Srpska, as well as in Kosovo. This is effectively in order for the West to end Serbian national interests, which Russia has always supported.

By building NATO and American bases in Albania and trying to cover all territories with NATO forces, it shows that the Western alliance is working hard to ensure that the Balkans does not fall under so-called Russian-influence.

The Kosovo Army will participate in “Defender Europe 23” with two regiments, and during this exercise, the KSF infantry at the regimental level will demonstrate its capacities. “Defender Europe” is an annual exercise led by the US, in which troops from different countries participate. The exercise aims to increase the readiness of US, NATO and partner armies.

This year, “Defender Europe” was held in Albania with American troops landing in the port of Durrës, which was announced as the largest military exercise in the Western Balkans region. About 28,000 soldiers from 26 allied and partner countries participated in the exercise, and it took place in seven different bases in the countries of the region.

These exercises have always been held with a sight of the US forcing its European allies to go to war with Russia. Deciding to host such provocative exercises in the heart of the Balkans, especially in a territory which does not even have its independence recognised by all NATO members, only signals for Serbia to capitulate, recognise Kosovo’s independence, and end its Russophilia.

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

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‘Nature Is Not for Sale,’ Vandana Shiva Tells RFK Jr.

August 24th, 2022 by Dr. Suzanne Burdick

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Agroecology — sustainable farming that works with nature, rather than depleting nature — is the solution to global hunger, poverty and climate change, Vandana Shiva, Ph.D., told Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., on a recent episode of “RFK Jr. The Defender Podcast.”

Agroecology — sustainable farming that works with nature, rather than depleting nature — is the answer urgently needed to address global hunger, poverty and climate change, according to Vandana Shiva, Ph.D., environmental activist, author and founder of Navdanya International.

Shiva told Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., on a recent episode of “RFK Jr. The Defender Podcast”:

“Asset management companies go to an indebted company and say, ‘Give us your forest and your mountains, and here’s the money to pay your debt.’

“Because we are in a debt crisis, this kind of new enslavement will increase unless we rise up and say, ‘Nature’s not for sale.’”

Shiva’s latest book, “Agroecology and Regenerative Agriculture: Sustainable Solutions for Hunger, Poverty, and Climate Change,” provides evidence-based solutions for pressing crises in global ecology, agriculture and public health.

She told Kennedy she became an environmentalist when she realized corporations that sold chemicals and “poisons” wanted to own seeds and were promoting GMOs (genetically modified organisms) in order to patent the seeds.

“I happened to be at a meeting where they were talking about this 1987,” she said. “That’s when I said, ‘No, the seed must be saved. We cannot allow the poison cartel to be the owners of life and take royalties from the farmers.’”

Shiva and Kennedy discussed how the Rockefeller Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation pushed industrial agriculture on Indian farmers under the “so-called ‘green revolution,’ which really means “chemical farming,” Shiva said.

Kennedy pointed out that the green revolution “was a brainchild of the Rockefeller Foundation and a way to supplant local subsistence, traditional agriculture with chemically-based agriculture, heavy-duty pesticides, heavy-duty carbon-based fertilizers, big machinery etc. with the claim that ‘we’re going to feed the world.’”

“[Agriculture] has been taken over … by the Gates Foundation,” Kennedy said, which “has pushed people into starvation with these methods of bringing in Kraft food and McDonald’s and Cargill, and these big corporations that he has invested in — and Monsanto, of course, where he is one of the biggest investors — to create supply chains and to force those governments to force upon their people chemically based agriculture that enrich corporations in which he personally is invested.”

“Bill Gates launched Gates Ag One,” Shiva said, which promotes “one agriculture for the world” and serves as a platform for manifesting two of Gate’s “favorite dystopian visions” of “farming without farmers” — through the robotization of farming — and “food without farms,” through the manufacture of “fake food.”

“You can’t do ‘one agriculture for the world’ through biodiversity, with different climates. You can only do it through total industrialization mechanization,” she said.

According to Shiva, total industrialization mechanization would threaten the survival of all forms of life — people, plants, animals, insects, microorganisms — and the Earth herself.

People, she said, must resist this.

“We need partners everywhere, in every field — including the conventional farmers,” she said.

She added:

“Ecological farmers, regenerative farmers must join hands with anyone who is on the land, because anyone who is on the land can start taking care of the land and not participate in the destructive warlike activities.”

Shiva told Kennedy,

“In a crumbling world where there are ‘cost-of-living marches’ everywhere,” where people aren’t being able to pay for food and rent, the “BlackRocks and the Vanguards and the asset management companies” are looking to control $4 trillion worth of financial assets.

People must send the message that “our world is not for sale,” she said.

Shiva and Kennedy also discussed how agroecology produces more nutritious food than a “One Ag” monoculture design.

“Our work shows that the more you enrich biodiversity, you intensify biodiversity rather than toxics and chemicals. You actually have more nutrition,” she said.

*

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Suzanne Burdick, Ph.D., is an independent journalist and researcher based in Fairfield, Iowa.

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***

United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited three African Union (AU) member-states during early August in an attempt to enhance the presence of Washington on the continent.

This tour came amid an escalation of tensions between the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China in regard to their relations with Washington.

Blinken first visited the Republic of South Africa where he had a joint meeting with Naledi Pandor, his diplomatic counterpart. Pandor reiterated the views of the African National Congress (ANC) government which has refused to denounce Moscow over its special military operation in Ukraine.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has stated that the U.S. should encourage a diplomatic resolution to the war in Ukraine. This view is at extreme variance with that of the administration of President Joe Biden which has sent billions of dollars in military equipment and other support aimed at continuing the war.

Biden and Secretary of State Lloyd Austin have called for the weakening and removal of the government of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Biden administration has imposed unprecedented draconian sanctions against Moscow, forcing U.S.-based firms to leave the country and making it even more difficult for nations around the world to conduct trade with Russia.

Historically during the period of the Soviet Union, the socialist state supported the national liberation movements and progressive governments on the continent during the 1950s through the 1980s. Those states in Eastern Europe which were allied with the Soviets also participated in providing scholarships, military training and joint economic projects.

As hundreds of U.S.-based corporations and the Pentagon provided direct economic, intelligence and military support to the racist apartheid system prior to the democratic breakthrough of April 1994, the socialist countries including the Soviet Union, the Comecon sector, China, Cuba, Yugoslavia, among others, were diplomatically and materially bolstering the struggle to win independence and non-capitalist development.

Since the ascendancy of the ANC to power in South Africa in May 1994, successive administrations have sought to rebuild and sustain normal relations with Washington and its allies. However, there are issues which have continued to divide Pretoria and Washington.

Ukraine is not the only point of disagreement involving geopolitical positions. South Africa has remained a staunch proponent of Palestinian liberation along with calls for the departure of the Kingdom of Morocco which has occupied the Western Sahara for more than four decades. In contrast, the administrations in the U.S. since 1948 have provided unconditional diplomatic, material, military and public relations support to the State of Israel. In regard to the Western Sahara question, the previous administration of President Donald Trump recognized the “sovereignty” of Morocco over the political, military and economic control of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), the provisional government representing the Western Sahara, previously a colony of Spain until the 1970s.

In an article authored by Elliot Smith published by CNBC, it notes that:

“The underlying purpose of the trip — Blinken’s second since President Joe Biden’s administration took office — will be to try to contain Russian and Chinese geopolitical influence on the continent, according to Alex Vines, director of the Africa program at Chatham House. ‘South Africa is a country which doesn’t have a good relationship with the United States. The party of government, the African National Congress, regularly issues declaration communiques criticizing the United States, and so the effort there is how to improve the relationship and at least have a more constructive dialog with South Africa,’ Vines told CNBC on Monday (Aug. 8). He suggested that this is the reason why South Africa is Blinken’s first port of call, and that particular attention will be paid to aligning the two countries’ perspectives on Russia’s war in Ukraine. ‘There’s a big difference between how Pretoria sees the Russia-Ukraine issue, and Washington,’ Vines added.”

Beyond an emphasis on the economic trade between the two countries, there was no progress in regard to convincing South Africa to move closer to Washington’s policies toward Palestine and Ukraine. Pretoria is a member of the Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) Summit which meets on a regular basis to enhance diplomatic and economic cooperation independent of the complete domination of Washington and Wall Street.

Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and the U.S. Legacy of Imperialism

After leaving South Africa, Blinken landed in Kinshasa, the capital of the DRC. This visit came just weeks after the attempts by the former colonial power of Belgium to recalibrate relations with the Congolese government.

When the DRC gained independence in June 1960, the U.S. and Belgium worked closely together to overthrow the administration of revolutionary Pan-Africanist leader Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba, who was later assassinated in January of 1961. The remains of Lumumba were just returned from Brussels after more than sixty years.

Blinken expressed his concern over rising conflict on the border between the DRC and neighboring Rwanda, also a former Belgian colony. In the east of the DRC, the rebel M23 organization has reportedly increased their attacks which have impacted civilians. The United Nations Peacekeeping Forces of more than 17,000 soldiers in the DRC known as MONUSCO, has drawn the ire of the civilian population in recent months due to the worsening security situation.

According to the DRC mission statement it emphasizes:

“MONUSCO took over from an earlier UN peacekeeping operation – the United Nations Organization Mission in Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC) – on 1 July 2010. It was done in accordance with Security Council resolution 1925 of 28 May to reflect the new phase reached in the country. The new mission has been authorized to use all necessary means to carry out its mandate relating, among other things, to the protection of civilians, humanitarian personnel and human rights defenders under imminent threat of physical violence and to support the Government of the DRC in its stabilization and peace consolidation efforts.”

However, demonstrations led by local residents in and around Goma erupted in recent weeks demanding the withdrawal of the MONUSCO forces which are largely composed of soldiers from numerous African and Asian states. A report published by the New Humanitarian said of the situation in eastern DRC:

“Prior to the protests, MONUSCO had drawn up a withdrawal plan that envisaged a 2024 departure date contingent on security improvements in DRC. But the upswell of anger has led the Congolese government to announce it is re-evaluating that plan.

The current protests come amid a rebellion by the M23 armed group that has captured parts of the eastern province of North Kivu. Protesters say MONUSCO has shown inaction and failed to clearly acknowledge alleged Rwandans backing for the group.”

Blinken in his talks with DRC President Felix Antoine Tshisekedi indicated that the U.S. was concerned about the continuing instability in the eastern region and would raise the issue with neighboring Rwanda. Although Rwanda has denied that it is supporting the M23 rebel groupings, this issue became the central focus of interactions during the last leg of the Blinken tour.

Rwandan Press Criticizes White House Africa Policy

Even prior to the arrival of Blinken to Kigali, the state media in Rwanda had published an open letter penned scholars from the continent and North America to the U.S. Secretary of State related to the situation on the border with Eastern DRC as well as the prosecution and imprisonment Paul Rusesabagina, who the government accuses of supporting rebel groups in opposition to the administration of President Paul Kagame. Rusesabagina was the subject of the U.S. film “Hotel Rwanda” that portrayed the businessman as being sympathetic to the victims of the 1994 genocide.

The New Times said of the letter to Blinken:

“Regarding the crisis in Eastern DR Congo, they invite him to adopt a holistic approach considering the political, economic, and socio-cultural ramifications of the Congolese situation. On the case of Mr. Rusesabagina, the African and U.S. scholars remind the Secretary of State that the lives of Rwandan citizens matter as much of those of American citizens.”

A week after Blinken’s departure from Rwanda, Veronica Mbaye wrote in the New Times pointing out the contradictory character of Washington’s foreign policy saying:

“Whatever residue of faith persisted after George Bush lied about mass destruction weapons existing in oil-rich Iraq, as an excuse to invade the country and cause decades-long instability, was exhausted during the Barack Obama years. Obama, who ran a successful campaign by feigning an impeccable moral core (which I suppose Americans did want to see in him to prove they were not racist) positioned himself as anti-war, only to line the pockets of gun lobbyists and drop bombs on innocent Syrian children when elected. As Antony Blinken will recall, having served as Obama’s close aide for years, the Obama Administration orchestrated the assassination of an African leader on African soil, despite the full awareness that it would send Libya and the entire region into deathly, dehumanizing turmoil. So frankly, I am dazed and amazed that a single American, State official or not, would think their act is convincing when claiming to have the interests of the Africans they so casually kill at heart.”

Therefore, the Blinken second Africa tour passed with no fanfare in the U.S. corporate and government-controlled media. These developments are indicative of the failure of U.S. imperialism to shift its foreign policy orientation to meet the contemporary issues of the 21st century.

From Bush, Obama, Trump to Biden, Washington has maintained its commitment to world hegemony over the majority of the people now living within the oppressed nations and geo-political regions. It is up to the African workers, farmers and youth in alliance with the international proletariat to bring into existence a world devoid of inequality and economic exploitation.

*

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Abayomi Azikiwe is the editor of the Pan-African News Wire. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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***

Guest is Deborah Conrad, Hospitalist Physician Assistant and PR spokesperson. She has won a physician excellence award during the pandemic. And was then later declared “a disgrace” when she spoke up for safety and the harm she was seeing from these vaccines.

This session is about what she saw when the vaccines were rolled out in her hospital and how she came to know about VAERS.

  • About her experience as a hospitalist PA (for 18 years), her role in leadership and what happened to her when she started to speak up about the required VAERS reporting that wasn’t being done or educated to them.
  • About how, one day, she was walked out of the hospital, publicly humiliated in front of her peers, for standing up.
  • How the FDA, CDC and the NY State Department of Health ignored her warnings and pleas for help
  • How the VAERS representatives were unable to help her and
  • How rigged the system actually is to make the vaccines look “safe and effective.”

*

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Featured image is a screenshot from the video

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  • Tags:

The Next Generation Says Good-Bye to Ursula von der Leyen’s Europe

By Dr. Eric Beeth, August 23, 2022

The EU’s support of the Zelensky regime will only prolong the war in Ukraine. Approximately 50,000 young Ukrainians soldiers have died since February 24th, 2022, and many more have been maimed or are suffering from PTSD.

US Ramping Up Drone Strikes in the Middle East and Africa

By Drago Bosnic, August 23, 2022

Drone strikes have been an integral part of US aggression against the world for over two decades now. These strikes have been the mainstay of joint military-intelligence black ops, especially in the Middle East and Africa. From the mountains of Afghanistan to the deserts of Libya, US strikes drones have been sowing death and destruction, ever so euphemistically called “spreading freedom and democracy.”

Unseen Heat: Is this the ‘End Game’ of the Climate?

By Marc Vandepitte, 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.

The Many Lives of Ayman al-Zawahiri

By Dr. Binoy Kampmark, August 23, 2022

Ayman al-Zawahiri is dead – or so we are told.  Al-Qaida’s chief and successor to the slain Osama bin Laden, he was deemed the chief ideologue and mastermind behind the audacious September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.  On July 31, he was supposedly killed in a drone strike in Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul, while standing on his balcony.

Israel Conquers the World

By Philip Giraldi, August 23, 2022

I have to confess a certain liking for Russian President Vladimir Putin. No, it’s not over his actions in Ukraine, nor his authoritarian tendencies domestically. It is due to the fact that he sometimes articulates the hypocrisy of foreign countries and leaders in a pithy and take-no-prisoners fashion. He has lately been brave enough to compare and contrast what the Russian military has been accused of in Ukraine with what Israel has been doing to Gaza.

Amish Farm Under Threat From U.S. Federal Government for Refusal to Abandon Traditional Farming Practices

By Jeremy Loffredo, August 23, 2022

Miller’s Organic Farm, located in the remote Amish village of Bird-in-Hand, Pennsylvania, has been around for almost 30 years. The farm supplies everything from grass-fed beef and cheese, to raw milk and organic eggs, to dairy from grass-fed water buffalo and all types of produce, all to roughly 4,000 private food club members who pay top dollar for high quality whole food.

The FBI’s Gestapo Tactics: Hallmarks of an Authoritarian Regime

By John W. Whitehead and Nisha Whitehead, August 23, 2022

With every passing day, the United States government borrows yet another leaf from Nazi Germany’s playbook: Secret police. Secret courts. Secret government agencies. Surveillance. Censorship. Intimidation. Harassment. Torture. Brutality. Widespread corruption. Entrapment. Indoctrination. Indefinite detention.

Behind the Political Assassination of Daria Platonova Dugina

By Manlio Dinucci and Zero Hedge, August 23, 2022

The attack in Moscow that resulted in the death of journalist Daria Platonova was primarily aimed at her father, Alexander Dugin, philosopher, creator of the modern school of geopolitics, head of the Department of Sociology of International Relations at Moscow’s Lomonosov State University, and founder of the International Eurasian Movement.

The US Must Compensate Burn Pit Victims in Iraq Too

By Carly A. Krakow, August 23, 2022

On August 10, United States President Joe Biden signed the PACT Act, aiding approximately 3.5 million American veterans with severe medical conditions linked to toxic exposure to burn pits during service, including in Iraq and Afghanistan. Open air pits of military waste, sometimes as large as football fields, are burned to destroy munitions, chemicals, plastics, and medical and human waste, typically using jet fuel.

What Did the West Promise Russia on NATO Expansion?

By Ted Snider, August 23, 2022

In 2007, Russian President Vladimir Putin complained, “What happened to the assurances our western partners made after the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact? Where are those declarations today? No one even remembers them. But I will allow myself to remind this audience what was said. I would like to quote the speech of NATO General Secretary Mr. Woerner in Brussels on 17 May 1990. He said at the time that: ‘The fact that we are ready not to place a NATO army outside of German territory gives the Soviet Union a firm security guarantee.’ Where are those guarantees?”

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***

 

 

Driving back to my office one September evening last year, I stopped to snap a shot of this enormous poster adorning the side of the EU Berlaymont building. (See photo). 

At first sight, I thought it was announcing a dystopian future of European children receiving some kind up “upgrade” every year from the profusely touted experimental genetic products developed by companies like BioNTech with swathes of money flowing in from dual-use bio-warfare programs scattered around the globe and augmented by bio-interconnectivity fanatics supported by actors who tend to cluster around organizations like the World Economic Forum.

It turned out to be a public announcement of an ambitious project, +/- 820 billion Euros that the EU is borrowing over a long period (starting end of May 2020), to help compensate for the enormous losses European citizens had endured during the covid season that started in March 2020.

No doubt it will be reimbursed to players on the international financial markets like BlackRock or Vanguard by Europeans paying taxes, including future carbon emission taxes and the hypothetical gains of deploying 5G and linking all of Europe into cyber-clouds of information to the glee of big tech like Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Apple (GAFA).

But my first gut feeling was unfortunately a prescient hint of what was in the pipeline of horrible developments we all need to put an URGENT end to.  This will  be the task of our Next Generation of Europeans, and you can read the writing on the wall by listening to this 11-year-old girl in the UK.

Video

On December 1, 2021, three weeks after European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen got back from her meeting at The Atlantic Council in Washington, where she charmed Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla by giving him the “Distinguished Business Leadership Award” for the Greek-American Veterinarian’s bold moves that led to his company’s massive financial success (which her husband also profits from) – she expressed her relief at Pfizer-BioNTech having paediatric doses of the new experimental genetic product to inject into Europe’s 5 to 12 year-olds by mid-December ’21.

Ever since, I’ve been unable to come to terms with how this mother of 7 children, a former General Practitioner, could sink into public-office corruption so deeply that she lost all track of her well-trained doctor’s ingrained oath to do no harm, and proceeded to promote experimental genetic injections of innocent children to the benefit of her friends in the political and business world.

I was surprised to find out that she lives in a flat adjacent to her official office situated in one of the top floors of that pictured Berlaymont building during the week. More recently she has been seen around the Brussels institutions loudly supporting President Volodymyr Zelensky’s insistent and vociferous demands to help arm Western Ukrainians during a hot civil war against the Eastern Russian-speaking minority supported by Russia.  On February 24th, Russia initiated a special military operation aimed primarily at militarily neutralizing Western Ukraine that was gearing up for a more full-fledged attack on the Russian-speaking East. The second stated goal of this operation was to “denazify” the Ukraine. Though not an issue commonly encountered in Europe, Ukraine’s history is littered with Stepan Bandera followers whose animosity towards the Russians is legendary.

US Career Ambassador Victoria Nuland explained in 2014 that the US had gifted $5 billion over the preceding two decades to help the Ukraine join the Atlantic block.  It is conceivable that a large chunk of this kind of money came out coffers like the “Black Eagle Trust”, an American political action fund set up under President Truman to fight communism. Apart from corrupting political processes in favour of US (politician) friendly outcomes, this type of fund also distributes hard currency and gold to Gladio type NATO secret armies. In (Western) Ukraine, money can have flowed to strengthening an inherent strongly nationalistic perception of itself, and, via certain oligarchs, funding an array of Nazi ideology inspired fighting groups (more than thirty so-called volunteer battalions like Aidar and Azov).

When it comes to the former USSR republic with whom the country used to be fully integrated, the Russians may understandably wish to discourage a Stepan Bandera type uprising as this movement is neither good for democracy in the Ukraine nor fruitful for maintaining good neighbourly relations with its (often Russian speaking) Ukrainian brothers and sisters. Prior to the US backed Maidan uprising of 2014, 70% of Ukraine’s economic exchange was with Russia, and most Ukrainian soldiers had a solidary sentiment for their Russian comrades.  (A recent video interviews the motivations of the soldiers who joined the Azov “Warriors of Light”, watch below)

 

Before Mrs Ursula von der Leyen literally moved into the Berlaymont Building, I remember seeing the announcement of a big event that also adorned the building: the European Union had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for six decades of advancement of peace, reconciliation, democracy, and human rights in Europe ten years prior, in October of 2012.

Many of my patients work in the European Union, and while they took great pride in that prestigious prize at the time, they feel very differently about the current President of the EU.

After 60 years of advancement on peace, reconciliation, democracy and human rights, Ursula von der Leyen’s gung-ho stance on the US-installed “post-Maidan” Nazi-supported Ukrainian government was a bad slip for Europe.  It is self-evident that Europe should have been much more pro-active and protective of the Minsk agreements, rather than arming Ukraine to the teeth, and to encourage them (especially their Nazi friendly elements) to take back the rebellious Lugansk, Donbas and Crimea regions.  Ursula von der Leyen and Josep Borell have both declared that Ukraine’s war against “the Russian invaders” is Europe’s war. In who’s name are they speaking? For Europe or for NATO?  Is that the same? In any case, they do not represent my choice of representatives, and certainly not the next generation of EU citizens.

In essence, Russia is an Eastern neighbour that Europe has every good reason to stay on good terms with, but with NATO being controlled from Washington, Europe has been gradually goaded into creating its own Iron Curtain to separate itself from its Eastern neighbour. In so doing, it sabotaged its access to one of the most exciting expanding economic markets of the coming decades.

The EU’s support of the Zelensky regime will only prolong the war in Ukraine. Approximately 50,000 young Ukrainians soldiers have died since February 24th, 2022, and many more have been maimed or are suffering from PTSD.

Where are the European peace-brokers, these Nobel-Prize-winning leaders in the advancement of peace, reconciliation, democracy and human rights?

The Ukraine war of 2014-2022 could have been avoided had Europe been more careful not to let Washington and London stir the pot.  Awarding itself the Nobel Peace Prize gave off a false sense of wisdom and security. To this day, no wise leader has stood up for the true interests of Europe – which, as Olof Palme or Charles De Gaulle would have pointed out, are not necessarily in line with US interests. Today’s generation, including the current bungling President of the EU, has not only missed many important opportunities for reconciliation with its critically important eastern neighbour but has managed to burn its bridges to the future powerhouse of its economy. We will soon be the ones begging for a chance to re-establish a buoyant economy, but there are no easy or fast solutions to reverse the course after so much harm has been done.

Together with our next generation, we will have ample time to reflect on what we did wrong.  We must commence this process urgently.

The head of the European Union delivering a prize from “The Atlantic Council” in Washington should ring alarm bells as to what geo-political territory we are on. Giving it to a personal acquaintance after placing a multibillion-dollar order with his company using European taxpayers’ money, should raise the alert level to red. It’s entirely possible that Mrs Ursula von der Leyen’s intentions were authentic, aiming to secure what she believed were somewhat effective vaccines for the European market. She may also consider digital-covid certificates to be a wonderful invention leading to financial streamlining, with long-term economic benefits for Europe as the World Economic Forum would have her believe.

The trouble is that it is we Europeans who are paying the price – not only with our tax money, but more worrisomely with our personal bodily integrity and our collective health.

Furthermore, the planned cashless and QR-code-embedded society would strip Europeans of any physical autonomy while subjecting them to information technology algorithms (GAFA!) and 5G dependent accessories like mobile phones and computers.

Though she perhaps doesn’t know it, the EU President is selling off European citizens like a herd of cattle while the World Bank chucks in a good billion Euros ensuring the Digital ID with your “bio-security” up-grades against newly found or invented bioweapons will be required to do your shopping. Ursula von der Leyen appears to believe the propaganda that the purveyors of Digital Access to her citizens, like the sales slogan of Pfizer “Science Will Win”, but no one is taking responsibility for what happens to the physical and mental health of the individuals in her herd who, no doubt, have a totally different concept of what benefits best their own health and wellbeing.

Nowhere can you see her dangerously delusional behaviour more clearly than when this medical doctor-turned-politician cries out that she is relieved that the (experimental gene-therapy) shots from Pfizer are finally available for 5-year-old toddlers.

These last covid-years have shown us the kind of society our next generation will rightfully reject:

  • Bodily harm from unsafe medicines: all of the agencies and medical ethics institutions that were silent while the purveyors of the covid “scamdemic” played out their “expertise” should be carefully audited from top to bottom to make sure they never again allow anything as toxic as these often-mandated mRNA shots, and the economically suicidal “Lock-Downs”.
  • Pharmaceutical companies whose business model consists of making dangerous diseases and then making millions purporting to protect us from the bio-toxic agents they themselves hold patents on. (For example: Moderna, which had never made an approved vaccine in its history, developed its covid shot based on a patent it already held on the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein in 2016).
  • Non doctors who insist they know better than you do about your personal health. Take the French billionaire CEO of Moderna, Stéphane Bancel, who recently said he expected his “vaccines” to be offered like yearly “up-grades” on iPhones. Bancel, of course, is not a doctor, as is true of the other expert on “up-grades”, the computer nerd turned worldwide vaccination “expert” Bill Gates.  The head of the World Health Organization who likes to call himself Doctor Tedros is not a physician either. Mr Tedros Adhanon Ghebreyesus is a former member of a guerrilla organization who got promoted to the top “medical” position of the World as a result of having been the protégé of a computer nerd – the very same Bill Gates who decided that the whole world needed to be vaccinated because it benefits his philanthropist business and the stake holders, he promised money and information access to.
  • World Economic Forum trained politicians who have manipulated the masses into paying the “Stake Holders” pawns of the WEF, of which there are many. A People’s Court Nuremburg-2 trial has been set in motion by attorney Reiner Füllmich to publicly document the WEF’s crimes against humanity, such as criminally mandating experimental genetic treatments without sufficient safety or efficacy data against a virus that has undergone lethal and illegal “Gain of Function” enhancement for emergence into the human population. (See the March 2016 article by University of North Carolina Chapel Hill PhD Microbiologist Ralph S Baric “SARS-like WIV1-CoV poised for human emergence”).
  • Other politicians, who have a track record of corruption within their political career, or who pushed for clearly totalitarian and unfounded measures during the covid period to spread fear and punish citizens who did not want to take the so-called ‘safe and effective’ anti-covid shots.
  • Just as German civil servants are warned not to use Facebook and Gmail as this information is filtered by the US NSA, all European citizens should follow suit and be very wary of everything that could be compromised by Big Tech.

The majority of Swedes communicate by Facebook every day, and Facebook censors and manipulates its pages according to geo-political algorithms that the Atlantic Council approves. When citizens’ spontaneous conversations get tweaked in this dictated way, and Reuters and AFP only send out the news that its owners and diverse “stakeholders” want you to hear, it becomes child’s play to influence the collective consciousness of the Swedes who, after a long history of a surprisingly benevolent democracy, do not realize that their governmental institutions are being compromised.

When you look at Sweden’s citizens wanting to join NATO, a collective ‘defence’ pact that has recently participated in several wars of choice after Article 5 was set into effect based on the unproven claim that Al Qaeda attacked the U.S. on 9/11, one has to wonder what would make that country give up its long-standing principles of non-alignment and neutrality.  Sweden’s NATO member neighbour Denmark went 200 years without war before Sept. 11th 2001.  Trying hard to live up to its NATO obligations, Denmark lost, per capita, more soldiers in the scandalous and unnecessary post-9/11 “wars on terror” than the US lost in the entire Vietnam War.

  • The media that hyped the covid fear, and made sure to censor any news of effective treatment against it – except those “efficient and safe” “preventions” that the government and Big Pharma told them to glorify.
  • This is the same media that pushes only the Western Atlanticist version of the war in the Ukraine, while those journalists accurately reporting on war crimes from the Donbas are criminalised* by European governments, and all Russian channels, as well as the official Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, have been silenced throughout Europe. How can European citizens become informed in this type of biased and controlled media environment?  (*See Max Blumenthal interview of German freelance journalist Alina Lipp July 13th 2022)
  • As the 21st Anniversary of the 9/11’s State Crime Against Democracy (SCAD) draws near, we must remind our European youth that the West has still not seriously investigated the killing of 3,000 citizens in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania on Sept 11th 2001.

Since the real criminals have so far gotten away with such a heinous SCAD, they and the media that assisted them in the cover up will be emboldened to do further harm if we do not collectively decide to expose the obvious lies that they keep perpetuating regarding these events. We will need some kind of ‘Truth and Reconciliation Commission’ to free ourselves, as a people, from the overflowing septic tank of lies that keeps Europeans beholden to a false picture of reality, making common sense and truthful discourse a quasi-impossibility.

  • No self-respecting engineer or University academic should accept the blatant impossibility that Atlantic Council member Philipp Zelikov penned in the Report of the 9/11 Commission he headed — that two planes brought down three steel-framed skyscrapers on Sept. 11th. [1]
  • No Medical University would allow experimental genetic treatments to be pushed on its students or population of childbearing age in the future. Any University or medical institution that has done so needs to be thoroughly scrutinized, to ensure that this never happens again.

The avalanche of totalitarian absurdities we have been forced to live through during these last two covid years have the silver lining that people are awakening to the fact that there is something rotten under the roof of that Berlaymont building, and these absurdities have only been possible due to the heavy hand of the GAFA (Google Amazon Facebook Apple type Big Tech) and the media that follow a corrupt elite’s chosen doxa to influence how we see reality.

  • Also, the absence of a true forensic criminal investigation into the massive 9/11 State Crimes Against Democracy 21 years ago has still today a weakening effect on the European people’s capacity to think clearly, and to make decisions based on reality and common sense.

Let us together warmly welcome this Next Generation Europe. After such a close call with totalitarianism of the past, let us resurrect the Europe we used to know and cherish.

To do this, we will need to clear away the nefarious influences, misconceptions and outright lies that had rendered the present European generation unable to make the best decisions for our own Future.

Next Generation Europe, HERE WE COME!!

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Dr. Eric Beeth is a General Practitioner working in Brussels Belgium. He has contributed to Global Research on medical matters, but with the current increase in deceitful provocations that the even many of his well-liked high ranking patients do not seem to understand, he takes the 11th of the month off from his medical duties, to inform the elites about the criminal “inside job” nature of September 11th 2001.  Most citizens are well aware of this, but apparently not the elite, and not the journalists, as they have vested so much of their credibility in denying what is self-evident for a 10-year-old with an intuitively correct understanding of the laws of Physics.  Journalists and decision makers in Brussels who would like to have more information are welcome to contact Dr. Beeth at [email protected].

Note

[1] For more background information on the advancement of inquiry into the events of 9/11: check the Lawyers’ Committee for 9/11 Inquiry, Richard Gage’s web site, and Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth.

Architect Richard Gage gave a presentation in Indianapolis on July 9th 2022 analysing parallels that exist between the two events, 9/11 and covid, and how these events changed the world politically, culturally, economically and geo-politically.

COVID UPDATE: What is the truth? (Dr. Russel Baylock, April 22, 2022) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9062939

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***

Drone strikes have been an integral part of US aggression against the world for over two decades now. These strikes have been the mainstay of joint military-intelligence black ops, especially in the Middle East and Africa. From the mountains of Afghanistan to the deserts of Libya, US strikes drones have been sowing death and destruction, ever so euphemistically called “spreading freedom and democracy.”

These drones, first used only for ISR (intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance) missions, were modified for rudimentary strike roles and were first tested in former Yugoslavia, laying the groundwork for their later usage in various US invasions. The strikes were massively expanded under Barack Obama, with thousands being approved by his administration. After Donald Trump came to power, he officially reduced the number of drone strikes, although they now became more specific, with US intelligence services getting even more involved. However, since Joe Biden took office, it seems the trend has now been reversed and US drones are coming back in full force.

On August 19 conflict monitors drew attention to a series of US strikes in Somalia, which have escalated significantly in the last couple of months. These attacks have gained little to no attention in the US corporate mass media despite resulting in the deaths of more than 20 people.

“If you were unaware that we were bombing Somalia, don’t feel bad, this is a completely under-the-radar news story, one that was curiously absent from the headlines in all of the major newspapers this morning,” wrote Kelley Beaucar Vlahos, a senior adviser at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.

Last Wednesday, Dave DeCamp, writing for AntiWar reported that the US AFRICOM (Africa Command) launched its second strike on Somalia in less than a week. AFRICOM claims the attack, which occurred in Beledweyne, “had killed 13 fighters belonging to the al-Qaeda-linked Somali militant group al-Shabaab, and that no civilians were harmed.” AFRICOM claims drone strikes also killed four al-Shabaab members in three separate operations near Beledweyne on August 9, two fighters near Labi Kus on July 17, and five militants in a June 3 bombing outside Beer Xani.

All of the aforementioned strikes have taken place since President Biden approved the redeployment of hundreds of special forces to Somalia in May, reversing an earlier withdrawal decision under the administration of former President Donald Trump. DeCamp noted that Trump’s withdrawal from Somalia merely “repositioned troops in neighboring Djibouti and Kenya, allowing the drone war to continue. But Biden has launched significantly fewer strikes in Somalia compared to his predecessor.”

According to the London-based Airwars monitoring group, US forces have targeted Somalia at least 16 times since Joe Biden took office, killing between 465 and 545 supposed militants. On March 13, a single US drone strike reportedly killed up to 200 alleged militants. Airwars claims there were civilian casualties in just one of the drone attacks under the Biden administration, conducted in June 2021. The attack on the southern town of Ceel Cadde killed a woman named Sahro Adan Warsame and seriously injured five of her children, according to local media reports. US forces have carried out at least 260 strikes in Somalia since 2007. The Pentagon has so far admitted killing five civilians and wounding 11 others, but Airwars claims 78-153 civilians, including 20-23 children, have died in US attacks.

“Bottom line, it’s been a long time since the United States was not bombing Somalia,” wrote Vlahos. “This comes after a particularly bloody period during the [so-called War on Terror] in which the CIA was using the country to detain and torture terror suspects from across North Africa. Whether this has ultimately been a good thing for the country or for the broader security of the region, one need only to look at the continued instability and impoverishment of the people,” she added, “and of course, the persistent presence of al-Shabaab itself.”

In addition to Somalia, recent reports indicate that US drones have been reactivated over Libya as well. The US shows no intention of stopping these strikes, with most now being relegated to intelligence services, such as the infamous CIA, with minimal civilian oversight. Many experts believe the indiscriminate use of these drones is a major, if not the key contributor to the overall instability across the troubled regions in which they’re deployed, as the terrorist activity which they’re allegedly there to stop is only exacerbated as a result.

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Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.

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The Many Lives of Ayman al-Zawahiri

August 23rd, 2022 by Dr. Binoy Kampmark

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***

 

 

 

 

Ayman al-Zawahiri is dead – or so we are told.  Al-Qaida’s chief and successor to the slain Osama bin Laden, he was deemed the chief ideologue and mastermind behind the audacious September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.  On July 31, he was supposedly killed in a drone strike in Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul, while standing on his balcony.

Terrorism and security pundits, whose views are best considered from afar with stern scrutiny, are predictably speculating that the killing will have some effect on al-Qaida but are incapable of showing how.  Vanda Felbab-Brown at Brookings is convinced that “his death with have a negative strategic and demoralizing impact on al-Qaida” though gives no inkling of how this might be so.  Even by her own admission, Zawahiri was not “involved in daily tactical al-Qaida planning”.

The lack of US counter-terrorism capabilities, not to mention officially stationed personnel in Afghanistan, is no problem for Felbab-Brown.  She admires the US forces for still getting the job done, if it can be put as crudely as that.  This killing was an “impressive show of the effectiveness and persistence of US counterterrorism efforts”.  Scorn is also reserved for the Taliban, who seemed to be playing host and continuing old habits of supping from the same bowl.

President Joe Biden also took pride in noting that such killings could be executed at a distance, and without the need for an ongoing US garrison.  “When I ended our military mission in Afghanistan almost a year ago, I made the decision that after 20 years of war, the United States no longer needed thousands of boots on the ground in Afghanistan to protect America from terrorists who seek to do us harm.”

In November 2020, another commentator from the Brookings stable, Daniel Byman, wrote something almost identical in flavour to that of Felbab-Brown.  Zawahiri had, on that occasion, had another one of his death flourishes, reportedly expiring in Afghanistan from “natural causes”.

Byman was keen to speculate.  “If Zawahri is dead, where will al-Qaida go next and what kind of movement will Zawahri’s successor inherit?”  With classroom authority, Byman opined that, “Leaders matter tremendously for terrorist groups, especially jihadi ones, which often rise and fall based on the fortunes of their emir.”

As things transpired, the leader in question was very much alive and kicking and reports of his death had been embarrassingly exaggerated.  He appeared in a video message celebrating the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan, released on September 11, 2021.

The al-Qaida leader certainly has form.  In August 2008, Zawahiri’s fate was of such interest to CBS News as to prompt a bold pronouncement.  He was said to be in “severe pain” and in need of urgent treatment for injuries sustained in a strike.  Lara Logan, the CBS News chief foreign affairs correspondent, had supposedly secured a letter written by local Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud making that point.  The injuries were said to be so critical that the leader was “possibly dead”.  Logan acknowledged that there had been “false death rumours” floating around previously about the al-Qaida figure, but no denials had been issued from Pakistan, the US or al-Qaida websites.  Not exactly formidably deductive.

Zawahiri has encountered death yet again, this time at the end of a drone strike on a safe house in Kabul.  But things were far from clear.  Former head of the National Directorate of Security in Afghanistan, Rahmatullah Nabil, claimed it was “an American strike on IS-K” (Islamic State-Khorasan Province) that took place on July 31.  Not so, according to Amrullah Saleh, former Afghan vice-president, who attributed responsibility to the Pakistani Airforce.

The Taliban followed up, with spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid confirming that the strike had, in fact, been the work of a US drone.  “Such actions are a repetition of the failed experiences of the past 20 years and are against the interests of the US, Afghanistan and the region,” Mujahid added.

US President Joe Biden duly issued his video-briefing corroborating the attack.  Not that this necessarily clarified matters regarding Zawahiri.  John Kirby, National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications, admitted that no DNA evidence had been obtained.  Cockily, he asserted that, “based on multiple sources and methods that we’ve gathered information from, we don’t need it.”

The pattern of killings and assassinations gloried in, only to be revised or disproved later, is very much part of the counterterrorist manual.  US officials have indulged in this before, notably in the context of Osama bin Laden.  At a certain point in time, it became irrelevant whether he lived or otherwise.  The figure had died on so many occasions as to become a simulacrum, existing in an absurdist drama known as terrorism studies and “counter-terrorist operations”.  At best, the obsession with capturing and killing him provided the personal touch, an individual whose targeting gave reassurance that wrongs could somehow be righted by disposing of him in extrajudicial fashion.

Bin Laden’s slaying by the Navy Seals in May 2011 had a cinematic element and, in a rather fitting way, reconciled his dead-yet-not-dead existence to celluloid.   The White House Situation Room showed President Barack Obama and his officials glued to the screen as the events in Abbottabad, Pakistan unfolded.  Ghoulish reality television unfolded before an audience grimly transfixed, horrified and entertained.

Like his predecessor felled by US bullets, Zawahiri’s demise hardly changes the dynamic of the terrorist franchise he led.  Killing such a man is not quite the equivalent of doing away with the manager of a banking branch, but the principle has a similarity to it.  Such entities will continue to thrive, fed by the very forces that often claim to suppress them.  Adherents will always be found; the hangman will never be disappointed.

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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: Dr. Ayman al-Zawahri in an photograph taken by Hamid Mir, who took this picture during his third and last interview with Osama bin Laden during November 2001 in Kabul. Dr. al-Zawahri was present at the interview where he acted as translator for bin Laden. (Licensed under CC BY SA 3.0)

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***

Close strategic partnership between Russia and China has been the mainstay of their relationship for decades. The US has been trying to disrupt this successful partnership ever since, especially as Russia started regaining its strength, but the incessant belligerent actions of the imperialist thalassocracy have pushed the two (Eur)Asian superpowers even closer. This cooperation is manifold, but its space component is particularly concerning for the US, as it has serious security implications. The Pentagon is worried that the US “might not be able to match the united financing and know-how” of Moscow and Beijing.

“The two countries’ space cooperation, including in the military realm, has become inextricable since 2018 and works against U.S. interests,” said Kevin Pollpeter, senior research scientist at the CNA think tank’s China Studies Division. “I don’t think we can separate China and Russia. I just don’t think that’s possible,” Pollpeter said in response to a question from Air Force Magazine following a panel discussion on China-Russia space cooperation at the National Defense University in Washington, D.C.

“While the countries do not have completely overlapping security concerns, they do share a strong desire to counter U.S. leadership, including in outer space,” he said. “What we need to do is, we need to mitigate whatever problems that relationship may cause for us. The two countries’ military space cooperation includes the areas of ballistic missile defense, space debris monitoring, and satellite navigation. The resulting exchange has included technology transfer, weapons sales, combined exercises, and compensating measures,” Pollpeter added.

In 1989, the US imposed sanctions on China, targeting Beijing’s defense and space industry. China looked to Russia for the necessary technology transfers and by 1997, the two countries started regular cooperation in space. Russia had the know-how, but its space industry was faced with severe funding shortages.

“…a number of embargoes that took place made [China] increasingly more reliant on Russia as a potential source of technology, particularly for dual use and defense,” said Pollpeter. “…China started looking more to Russia, and Russia started looking more to China for help with supporting their own space program.”

China also began cooperating with Russia on ballistic missile defense after the US unilaterally withdrew from the INF (Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces) Treaty in 2019. In the immediate aftermath of the withdrawal, Russian President Vladimir Putin stated that Russia would assist China in creating a ballistic missile early warning system. At the time, Putin said that China was perfectly capable of creating such a system itself, but that it would take longer, so Russia decided to aid Beijing in enhancing its strategic security in light of aggressive US moves in the Asia-Pacific region.

“There appears to be some sort of technology transfer going on,” Pollpeter added. “There’s been joint exercises – the Aerospace Security 2016 and 2017 involved joint air and missile defense planning and coordination.”

According to Pollpeter, another area of cooperation, space debris monitoring, “may sound innocuous,” but he claims “it has security implications.”

“If you have a space debris monitoring system, then you actually have a space domain awareness or space surveillance system,” he said. “This very much has a military role in helping China and Russia better monitor U.S. movements up in space.”

The US Space Force is particularly concerned about how “little is known about the satellite navigation cooperation between the two nations.” According to Pollpeter, other than the fact that there are compatibility and interoperability between the Russian and Chinese equivalents to GPS, the GLONASS and BeiDou navigation systems, nothing else is known about the security component of this cooperation. What is supposedly known is “the presence of augmentation stations in each other’s countries and performance monitoring,” Pollpeter claims.

“What they really want to do, then, is demonstrate that in a world where the U.S. and China could come into military conflict, they have an alternative,” he said. “They don’t have to rely on BeiDou exclusively. They also have the Russian system.”

As China doesn’t publicly discuss its space defense capabilities, Pollpeter claims it’s currently unknown which level of cooperation have Moscow and Beijing reached in this regard.

“A lot of it’s so opaque that when you get into something like counterspace, they’re not going to discuss that,” he said. “What China is developing is a capability that really is designed to threaten the United States space architecture from the ground all the way up to geosynchronous orbit.”

Existing agreements indicate close Chinese and Russian cooperation on launch vehicles, rocket engines, space planes, lunar and deep space exploration, remote sensing, electronics, space debris, satellite navigation and communication. Pollpeter thinks the US Space Force cannot halt the China-Russia cooperation, but it could do more to mitigate its effects.

“There’s really little we can do to separate the two countries, especially [on] the space side,” he said. “The distrust and, let’s say, to some extent, animosity of both countries towards the U.S. sort of precludes, at this point, that any of those efforts can be successful.”

As the US state-run space sector kept falling behind, private companies, the most prominent certainly being SpaceX, started closely cooperating with the US military. Both Russia and China have been responding to the US militarization of space by enhancing their own capabilities, both separately and jointly. While China started deploying pilotless spaceplanes, Russia is building land-based laser weapons to counter US space threats and is also launching its own spacecraft to track US space assets.

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Israel Conquers the World

August 23rd, 2022 by Philip Giraldi

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***

 

I have to confess a certain liking for Russian President Vladimir Putin. No, it’s not over his actions in Ukraine, nor his authoritarian tendencies domestically. It is due to the fact that he sometimes articulates the hypocrisy of foreign countries and leaders in a pithy and take-no-prisoners fashion.

He has lately been brave enough to compare and contrast what the Russian military has been accused of in Ukraine with what Israel has been doing to Gaza.

He has done so by asking a series of questions that together demonstrate the hypocrisy of Washington and of some Europeans over what constitutes war crimes or crimes against humanity.

The questions were:

“First, are there any sanctions against Israel for the murder and destruction of innocent Palestinian women and children? Second, are there any sanctions against the United States for killing and destroying lives of innocent women and children in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Cuba, Vietnam, and even stealing their diamonds and gold? And third, were there any sanctions against the US and France over the killing of Muammar Gaddafi and the destruction of Libya?”

Russia, of course, has been on the receiving end of sanctions and boycotts and even official theft of the money that it had in US and European banks. It has also had to deal as well with military support provided by NATO to the Volodymyr Zelensky regime in Ukraine. Last month the US Senate unanimously passed a ridiculous nonbinding resolution declaring Russia to be a “state sponsor of terrorism,” which, if endorsed by the White House, would inevitably lead to still more sanctions and increasing aid to Zelensky and his corrupt cronies in an openly declared attempt to weaken Russia and bring down Putin. It would also mean that a future functional diplomatic relationship between Moscow and Washington would become impossible. Implicit in Putin’s questions is the clear accusation that there is a double standard on what constitutes national security. The West supports military resistance by Ukraine against Russia but does not support the right of the Palestinians to defend themselves when attacked by Israel, as took place on August 5th, an unprovoked attack that killed inter alia 17 Palestinian children.

The Russian Foreign Ministry followed-up with a statement first posted on its Egyptian Embassy social media accounts. The statement included a screenshot of a tweet Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid posted April 3rd on the claimed killing of civilians in the Ukrainian town of Bucha, attributed by Lapid and the western media to Russian forces. Lapid declared “It is impossible to remain indifferent in the face of the horrific images from the city of Bucha near Kiev, from after the Russian army left. Intentionally harming a civilian population is a war crime and I strongly condemn it.” The Russian post observed how one might “Compare Yair Lapid’s lies about [Ukraine] in April and attempts to place blame and responsibility on [Russia] for the deaths of people in Bucha brutally murdered by the Nazis with his calls in August for bombing and strikes on [Palestinian] land in the Gaza Strip. Isn’t that a double standard, complete disregard and contempt for the lives of Palestinians?”

The point about a double standard is particularly relevant as Ukraine, which claims to be enduring a brutal Russian assault replete with war crimes, has openly endorsed Israel’s bombing and shooting of the unarmed Palestinians. Two weeks ago, Ukrainian Ambassador to Israel Yevgen Korniychuk expressed his full support for Tel Aviv, saying “As a Ukrainian whose country is under a very brutal attack by its neighbor, I feel great sympathy towards the Israeli public. Attacks on women and children are reprehensible. Terrorism and malicious attacks against civilians are the daily reality of Israelis and Ukrainians and this appalling threat must be stopped immediately.”

Korniychuk’s odd, and manifestly false, comment takes reality and turns it upside down. But nevertheless, to be sure, Israel’s recent bloody assault on Gaza did not earn it much favor from a global audience that has become tired of the Jewish state’s belligerency and self-serving flood of disinformation. A number of human rights organizations and even some churches responded by declaring Israel to be an “apartheid state.” Some critics of the Israelis have also been pleased to observe that ordinary voters in the US Democratic Party in particular have moved away from knee-jerk support of Israel and have accepted that it is racist and undemocratic. Even a considerable number young Jews, many of whom have protested against the Israeli automatic resort to gunfire and bombs in suppressing the Palestinians, have broken with their parents over the issue of what constitutes the legitimate “right” of Israel to “defend itself.”

Israel is far from defeated, however, and it has struck back in the time-honored fashion, using the Jewish diaspora and its vast wealth to buy up or leverage the media, to corrupt politicians at all levels, and to propagate a narrative that always depicts Jews sympathetically as perpetual victims. That narrative relies on the so-called holocaust and the slogan “never again” to generate the moral authority and outrage that makes the entire otherwise unsustainable imposture work.

What might be plausibly described as an International Jewish Conspiracy directed from the Israeli government’s Ministry of Strategic Affairs and from the think tanks, banks and investment houses on Wall Street and K Street is working hard to make it illegal to criticize Israel and is enjoying considerable success. Israel’s recent and continuing slaughter of Gazans and West Bank villagers has not induced the thoroughly controlled governments and media outlets that the Jewish state dominates that there is anything seriously wrong going on between the Israelis and Palestinians, only business as usual.

Israel appears to be winning its war against the Palestinians (and let’s not forget the Iranians) where it matters most, among the power brokers in both the US and elsewhere. Witness for example the reaction of the US government to the killing of the Gazans. President Joe Biden declared that Israel has a “right to defend itself,” the standard line also parroted by Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi. Thirty-four congressmen meanwhile signed on to a letter calling on the United Nations to disband a UN Commission of Inquiry (COI) into Israel following recent controversial remarks by one of the commission’s members. The COI was set up to investigate possible Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity in the occupied territories and Gaza.

The signatories particularly objected to what the always vigilant Anti-Defamation League has described as anti-Semitic statements by COI member Miloon Kothari, an Indian human rights expert and investigator. In a podcast Kothari observed that Israel routinely “practiced apartheid and settler colonialism against the Palestinians,” before rejecting criticism of his commission as the work of the Jewish lobby that controls the media, saying “We are very disheartened by the social media that is controlled largely by the Jewish lobby or specific NGOs,” adding that “a lot of money is being thrown at trying to discredit the commission’s work.”

Jewish power particularly in the anglophone world was also on display recently in Canada. The painfully politically correct Justin Trudeau regime has succumbed to the example set by Germany and several other European states in enshrining the official Jewish organizations’ perpetual victim narrative in the Canadian Criminal Code, s. 319. Henceforth

(2.1) Everyone who, by communicating statements, other than in private conversation, willfully promotes antisemitism by condoning, denying or downplaying the Holocaust

  • (a) is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years; or
  • (b) is guilty of an offence punishable on summary conviction.

So, from now on in Canada, if you question the claimed facts surrounding the approved so-called holocaust narrative you can be sent to prison for two years. So much for free speech or the right to challenge disinformation.

Finally, in Britain, the two contenders for the position of Prime Minister replacing the disgraced Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, the foreign secretary, and Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, were boasting of their pro-Israel credentials over the very weekend when Israel was killing more than fifty Palestinians, including 17 children, while wounding scores more. Truss and Sunak played the Israel/Jewish card big time, with Truss asserting that “The UK should stand side by side with Israel, now and well into the future. As Prime Minister, I would be at the forefront of this mission.” Truss has also hinted that she would follow the Zionist stooge Donald Trump’s lead in moving the British Embassy to Jerusalem and she has supported a Free Trade Agreement between the UK and Israel, which would primarily benefit the Israelis. She has also declared that any criticism of Israel is rooted in anti-Semitism, a popular line that is also being extensively promoted in the United States.

The two dominant parties in the UK’s parliamentary system are the Conservatives (Tories) and Labour. Both parties have organized “Friends of Israel” groups that have as members a majority of parliamentarians, including more than four out of every five Tories, who currently form the government. Recently, the Labour Party ousted leader Jeremy Corbyn because he dared to express sympathy for the Palestinians and replaced him with Keir Starmer, who is as close to Israel and the powerful British Jewish community as, well… choose your metaphor. For what it’s worth, Truss, Sunak and Starmer all support a hard line against Russia in Ukraine and also advocate putting extreme pressure on Iran, Israel’s declared regional enemy. They also all support using the British veto in the United Nations to protect the Jewish state against critics.

In 2001, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon angrily admonished his colleague Shimon Peres, who was arguing that Israel should heed US calls for a cease fire, saying “I want to tell you something very clear, don’t worry about American pressure on Israel. We, the Jewish people, control America, and the Americans know it.” It now appears that the US, Canada, and Great Britain, joined by other anglophone states like Australia and New Zealand, are riding on the same horse when it comes to sacrificing actual national interests to pander to a foreign nation which can rightly be regarded as both a habitual war criminal and manifestly racist. The British and Canadian politicians on both sides of the aisle have now become like their American counterparts in allowing themselves to be corrupted by money and media influence, making an uncritical and near total commitment to Israel the defining issue in any political campaign for high office.

Modern Jewish power as a global phenomenon is a cancer that was in a certain sense made in America and has spread worldwide. But, fortunately, the smearing of critics as anti-Semites is beginning to wear thin. As Chris Hedges observed in March 2019 “The Israel Lobby’s buying off of nearly every senior politician in the United States, facilitated by our system of legalized bribery, is not an anti-Semitic trope. It is a fact. The lobby’s campaign of vicious character assassination, smearing and blacklisting against those who defend Palestinian rights…is not an anti-Semitic trope. It is a fact. Twenty-four state governments’ passage of Israel Lobby-backed legislation requiring their workers and contractors, under threat of dismissal, to sign a pro-Israel oath and promise not to support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement is not an anti-Semitic trope. It is a fact.”

It should also be a fact that Americans are beginning to rally against their government being manipulated by the unregistered insidious agents of a foreign government, but that will have to wait presumably. For the moment, Israel and its fifth column have key elements in both government and in the public space in their iron grip. It might require something like a revolution to loosen that.

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This article was originally published on The Unz Review. 

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

Featured image is from TUR

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***

Miller’s Organic Farm, located in the remote Amish village of Bird-in-Hand, Pennsylvania, has been around for almost 30 years.

The farm supplies everything from grass-fed beef and cheese, to raw milk and organic eggs, to dairy from grass-fed water buffalo and all types of produce, all to roughly 4,000 private food club members who pay top dollar for high quality whole food.

The private food club members appreciate their freedom to get food from an independent farmer that isn’t processing his meat and dairy at U.S. Department of Agriculture facilities, which mandates that food be prepared in ways that Miller’s Organic Farm believe make it less nutritious.

Amos Miller, the farm’s owner, contends that he’s preparing food the way God intended — but the U.S. government doesn’t see things that way.

They recently sent armed federal agents to the farm and demanded he cease operations. The government is also looking to issue more than $300,000 in fines — a request so steep, it would put the farm out of business.

This is an attack on Amish religious freedom just 150 miles from Washington D.C.

Making it even more independent, Miller’s farm also doesn’t use gasoline or fertilizer, and therefore the war between Ukraine and Russia isn’t affecting his bottom line, unlike every other farming competitor in the country.

Miller isn’t dependent on big industry players or the government, and he’s providing healthy food to his community the way he believes God intended. The government is trying to intimidate his operation and shut it down.

If you believe the Amish should have the right to exercise their religious beliefs and their ability to provide healthy food to their community, sign our petition at LeaveThemAlone.com and I’ll personally deliver it to the U.S. Federal Eastern District Court of Pennsylvania.

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What Did the West Promise Russia on NATO Expansion?

August 23rd, 2022 by Ted Snider

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***

In 2007, Russian President Vladimir Putin complained, “What happened to the assurances our western partners made after the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact? Where are those declarations today? No one even remembers them. But I will allow myself to remind this audience what was said. I would like to quote the speech of NATO General Secretary Mr. Woerner in Brussels on 17 May 1990. He said at the time that: ‘The fact that we are ready not to place a NATO army outside of German territory gives the Soviet Union a firm security guarantee.’ Where are those guarantees?”

Putin was quoting correctly. He might have added, as we know from newly declassified documents, that Woerner also “stressed that the NATO Council and he are against the expansion of NATO (13 out of 16 NATO members support this point of view).” The NATO Secretary General also assured the Russians on July 1, 1991 that, in an upcoming meeting with Poland’s Lech Walesa and Romania’s Ion Iliescu, “he will oppose Poland and Romania joining NATO, and earlier this was stated to Hungary and Czechoslovakia” (document 30).

Many have accused Putin of historical revisionism and denied that the West ever promised Russia that, if a unified Germany were permitted to join NATO, NATO would not expand east. But, as these three quotations from the highest level of NATO show, the declassified documents firmly establish that NATO was lying when it said in a 2014 report that “No such pledge was made, and no evidence to back up Russia’s claims has ever been produced.”

Secretary of State James Baker has also insisted no such promise was made. On February 9, 1990, Baker famously offered Gorbachev a choice:

“I want to ask you a question, and you need not answer it right now. Supposing unification takes place, what would you prefer: a united Germany outside of NATO, absolutely independent and without American troops; or a united Germany keeping its connections with NATO, but with the guarantee that NATO’s jurisdiction or troops will not spread east of the present boundary?”

Baker has been dismissive of this statement, categorizing it as only a hypothetical question. But Baker’s next statement, not previously included in the quotation but now placed back in the script by the documentary record, refutes that claim. After Gorbachev answers Baker’s question, saying, “It goes without saying that a broadening of the NATO zone is not acceptable,” Baker replies categorically, “We agree with that” (document 6).

There are four other declassified statements that now solidify the evidence against Baker’s claim. The most important is Baker’s own interpretation of his question to Gorbachev at the time. At a press conference immediately following this most crucial meeting with Gorbachev, Baker announced that NATO’s “jurisdiction would not be moved eastward.”

The second is that, while Baker was meeting with Gorbachev, Deputy National Security Adviser Robert Gates was asking the same question of KGB leader Vladimir Kryuchkov in clearly non-hypothetical terms. He asked Kryuchkov what he thought of the “proposal under which a united Germany would be associated with NATO, but in which NATO troops would move no further east than they now were?” Gates then added, “It seems to us to be a sound proposal” (document 7).

The third is that, on the same day, Baker posed the same question to Soviet Minister of Foreign Affairs Eduard Shevardnadze. He asked if there “might be an outcome that would guarantee that there would be no NATO forces in the eastern part of Germany. In fact, there could be an absolute ban on that.” How did Baker intend that offer? In Not One Inch, M.E. Sarotte reports that in his own notes, Baker wrote, “End result: Unified Ger. Anchored in a changed (polit.) NATO – whose juris. would not be moved eastward!” According to a now declassified State department memorandum of their conversation, Baker had already in this conversation assured Shevardnadze that “There would, of course, have to be ironclad guarantees that NATO’s jurisdiction or forces would not move eastward” (document 4).

Finally, according to a declassified State Department memorandum of the conversation, on still the same busy day, Baker told Gorbachev and Shevardnadze, not in the form of a question at all, that “If we maintain a presence in a Germany that is a part of NATO, there would be no extension of NATO’s jurisdiction for forces of NATO one inch to the east” (document 5).

Thought these are Secretary of State Baker’s most important assurances, they are not his only assurances. On May 18, 1990, Baker told Gorbachev in a meeting in Moscow, “I wanted to emphasize that our policies are not aimed at separating Eastern Europe from the Soviet Union” (document 18). And, yet again, on February 12, 1990, the promise is made. According to notes taken for Shevardnadze at the Open Skies Conference in Ottawa, Baker told Gorbachev that “if U[united] G[ermany] stays in NATO, we should take care about non-expansion of its jurisdiction to the East” (document 10).

Baker’s assurances to Gorbachev and Shevardnadze were confirmed and shared by the State Department who, on February 13, 1990, informed US embassies that “[t]he Secretary made clear that. . . we supported a unified Germany within NATO, but that we were prepared to ensure that NATO’s military presence would not extend further eastward.”

A 1996 State Department investigation by John Herbst and John Kornblum not only became official US policy but, according to Sarotte “because of the official imprimatur and the broad distribution . . .helped shape American attitudes toward the controversy of what, exactly had been said. . . .” Herbst and Kornblum concluded that the assurances that were given had no legal force. They were able to make this judgment by separating the verbal promises from the written documents that make “no mention of NATO deployments beyond the boundaries of Germany.”

The investigation did not deny that spoken assurances had been made. And no Russian official has ever claimed that they were written in the documents; in fact, they have regretted that they were not. But written agreements can be broken too, and the US record on keeping written promises is not much better than its record on keeping spoken ones, as Trump’s breaking of the JCPOA Iran nuclear agreement and Biden’s frequent violations of the joint communiqués signed with China regarding Taiwan testify. That record led Putin to complain on December 21, 2021 that “we know very well that even legal guarantees cannot be completely fail-safe, because the United States easily pulls out of any international treaty that has ceased to be interesting to it. . . .”

The distinction that Herbst and Kornblum rely on is an act of legal sophistry. In “Deal or No Deal? The End of the Cold War and the U.S. Offer to Limit NATO Expansion,” Joshua R. Itzkowitz Shifrinson argues that verbal agreements can be legally binding and that “analysts have long understood that states do not need formal agreements on which to base their future expectations.” Verbal agreements are the foundation of diplomacy. Shifrinson argues that informal deals are important to politics and that they were particularly important to diplomacy between the US and Russia during the Cold War. As examples, he cites the resolution of the Cuban missile crisis through informal verbal agreements and the “Cold War order [that] emerged from tacit US and Soviet initiatives in the 1950s and 1960s that helped the two sides to find ways to coexist.” Verbal agreements between the US and Russia “abounded during the Cold War,” Shifrinson says. Trusting spoken promises made in 1990 was nothing new.

Furthermore, verbal agreements, Shifrinson points out, “can constitute a binding agreement provided one party gives up something of value in consideration” of what the other party promised in return. Gorbachev certainly understood Baker’s promises in this way, as he agreed to allow a unified Germany to be absorbed by NATO in return for the “ironclad” guarantee that NATO would expand no further east. It was only after these talks with Baker that Gorbachev agreed to German reunification and ascension to NATO. The “not one inch” promise was the condition for Gorbachev agreeing to a united Germany in NATO. In his memoir, Gorbachev called his February 9 conversation with Baker the moment that “cleared the way for a compromise.”

And the promises made by Baker were not the only promises made to Russia. Assurances came from the highest level of NATO and from Robert Gates, who, unlike Baker and NATO never deceived about his promises. In July 2000, Gates criticized “pressing ahead with expansion of NATO eastward [in the 1990s], when Gorbachev and others were led to believe that wouldn’t happen.”

The same promises were made by the leaders of several other nations. On July 15, 1996, now foreign minister Yevgeny Primakov, who had “been looking at the material in our archives from 1990 and 1991,” declared, according to Sarotte, that “It was clear . . . that Baker, Kohl and the British and French leaders John Major and François Mitterrand had all ‘told Gorbachev that not one country leaving the Warsaw Pact would enter NATO – that NATO wouldn’t move one inch closer to Russia.”

Importantly, those same promises were made by German officials. West German chancellor Helmut Kohl met with Gorbachev the day after Baker on February 10. He assured Gorbachev that “naturally, NATO could not expand its territory to the current territory of the GDR [East Germany].” Clearer still, he told Gorbachev that “We believe that NATO should not expand its scope” (document 9). Simultaneously, West German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher was pointedly telling Shevardnadze that “For us, it is clear: NATO will not extend itself to the East.”

On March 5, 1991, British Ambassador to Russia Rodric Braithwaite recorded in his diary that when Russian Minister of Defense Dmitry Yazov had expressed that he was “worried that the Czechs, Poles and Hungarians will join NATO,” British Prime Minister John “Major assure[d] him that nothing of the sort will happen” (document 28). When Yazov specifically asked Major about “NATO’s plans in the region,” the British Prime Minister told him that he “did not himself foresee circumstances now or in the future where East European countries would become members of NATO” (document 28). On March 26, 1991, British Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd informed Soviet Foreign Minister Aleksandr Bessmertnykh that “there are no plans in NATO to include the countries of Eastern and Central Europe in NATO in one form or another” (document 28). In a July 2016 article, Braithwaite wrote that “US Secretary of State James Baker stated on 9 February 1990: “We consider that the consultations and discussions in the framework of the 2+4 mechanism should give a guarantee that the reunification of Germany will not lead to the enlargement of NATO’s military organization to the East”.

The clarity of the documentary record is still relevant today because it indicates that when Russia talks of a final red line at NATO expansion into Ukraine and right up to Russia’s border and of Western promises that neither NATO jurisdiction nor forces would expand beyond Germany’s borders, they are not engaging in historical revisionism as the West accuses but are expressing real existential fears and expressing legitimate expectations that the West will keep the promises they made in exchange for Russia keeping the promise it made in those 1990 and 1991 negotiations.

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Ted Snider has a graduate degree in philosophy and writes on analyzing patterns in US foreign policy and history.

Featured image is from CODEPINK

The US Must Compensate Burn Pit Victims in Iraq Too

August 23rd, 2022 by Carly A. Krakow

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***

On August 10, United States President Joe Biden signed the PACT Act, aiding approximately 3.5 million American veterans with severe medical conditions linked to toxic exposure to burn pits during service, including in Iraq and Afghanistan. Open air pits of military waste, sometimes as large as football fields, are burned to destroy munitions, chemicals, plastics, and medical and human waste, typically using jet fuel. Used widely until at least 2010, burn pits were still permitted at least as of last year, when waste management facilities were not available.

Their impact, however, extends beyond the harm to those who were deployed and exposed to toxins in the short term. Fatal cancers. Birth defects that can cause infant death or lifelong disabilities. Malformations including a missing hand, cleft lip and paralysed club foot. Anencephaly — an underdeveloped brain and incomplete skull. These are just some of the devastating conditions plaguing Iraqi civilians following toxic exposure from the 2003 US invasion and occupation and 1991 Gulf War.

How is this a fair price for civilians to pay for simply residing in their homes while the US “war on terror” forcibly exposed them to burn pits and depleted uranium? When will the US fulfill international law obligations to compensate them for the toxic war zones that its military has left behind?

Biden’s signing last week was filled with fanfare and applause, and a moving appearance by the wife and young child of the late Ohio veteran in whose honour the act is named (full title: the Sergeant First Class Heath Robinson Honoring our Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics (PACT) Act). Indeed, the legislation is welcome: It covers numerous cancers and lung conditions, and marks progress toward addressing dire suffering similar to that of Vietnam veterans who were unjustly neglected (PDF) following Agent Orange exposure. In fact, the PACT Act addresses Agent Orange — 47 years after that war’s end.

Biden said this is “the least we can do” for veterans. Where is equivalent acknowledgment – and compensation – for Iraqi civilians, who have no escape from the kind of toxic surroundings the act aims to address for injured US veterans?

Benefit of doubt

Many of those paying the highest price are Iraqi infants born two decades after the start of the “war on terror”. According to Dutch peace organisation PAX, more than 780,000 rounds of depleted uranium were fired in 1991, and more than 300,000 rounds in 2003.

Diseases linked to genetic damage in Fallujah, which was contaminated with depleted uranium munitions, have been documented at higher rates than in Hiroshima.

The PACT Act provides “presumptive conditions” benefits that remove the burden of proof. Instead, veterans will be presumed eligible according to dates and locations of service. Previously, nearly four in five burn pits-connected Veterans Affairs (VA) claims were rejected.

This same benefit of the doubt must be extended to Iraqis through a presumptive benefits-style programme. The US must not delay clean-up and compensation for decades, as with Vietnam. There is more than enough data to justify reparations. Petty, minutiae-rooted arguments can be used to fixate on documentation of the precise dates and nature of civilians’ toxic exposure. Yet, there is ample evidence of what I call “toxic saturation” — the long-term, undeniable, accumulative encounters of Iraqi civilians with a variety of deadly toxins. As Iraqi novelist and poet Sinan Antoon asks: “Do we breathe to live? Or do we breathe to die?”

The law is clear. Article 91 of Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions says that violators of international humanitarian law are “liable to pay compensation.” The Environmental Modification Convention (ENMOD) forbids military “environmental modification techniques having widespread, long-lasting or severe effects as the means of destruction, damage or injury.”

There are abundant international regulations that are in conflict with US actions regarding toxins. Article 55 of Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions prohibits means of warfare that damage the environment and “prejudice the health or survival of the population”. The Rio Declaration calls for states to “develop national law regarding liability and compensation” for victims of environmental damage.

Members of the US Congress were not concerned with international law, however, when finally compensating veterans. They acted once they could not resist pressure any longer. US leaders likely fear that compensation would admit US culpability for Iraqi civilians’ injuries. The harm caused, however, is obvious and must be remedied.

History repeats

Sadly, Washington’s track record doesn’t inspire optimism.

The US left Vietnam veterans in the cold, before finally providing presumptive benefitsand benefits for Agent Orange-linked birth defects in veterans’ children. The US Court of Appeals ruled against Vietnamese people who sought to hold Dow Chemical, Monsanto and other companies accountable. The court justified this partly on the basis that dioxin was a defoliant to clear foliage, not intended to harm humans.

The US has spent roughly $400m to address Agent Orange’s environmental and health effects. USAID and Vietnam’s government have a 10-year plan costing up to $500m to clean Bien Hoa Air Base. A smaller amount, $14.5m annually, was allocated for health and disability programmes.

If this numbers game seems a bit obscure, this is because there have been many parcelled-out allocations of funding, none of which have fully ameliorated harm to Vietnam’s people. This becomes clearer when considered in relation to the US military budget of $753bn.

These precedents prove that US-funded clean-ups are possible, even as they underscore the grossly inadequate nature of projects to address the horrific, multigenerational effects of dioxin. Cancer and other crushing illnesses plague Vietnam’s survivors and their children.

The bad news? History is not simply repeating. Conditions are worsening as new benchmarks are continually set for how bad things can get.

As Vietnamese-American writer and professor Viet Thanh Nguyen writes, we can forgive the atrocities of the past but “the present is not yet finished. The present, perhaps, is always unforgivable.”

Way forward

When the Senate finally passed the PACT Act, it was in spite of Republicans who refused to support it — which was seen as retaliation for Democratic legislation on climate and healthcare. This dysfunction regarding compensating veterans provides a glimpse into how antagonistic many US lawmakers would be towards an Iraqi reparations proposal.

The US must take responsibility for toxins used by the military, and by for-profit contractors. Yet abandoning civilians abroad is horrifically consistent with the US approach to environmental racism domestically. Environmental injustice disproportionately impacts US minority communities who often live in sacrifice zones.

These realities make for an uphill struggle, though not an impossible one. The US’s recognition of veterans, while ignoring Iraqis, reveals a segregated outlook on justice. The public needs to stand in solidarity with victims of the “war on terror”. The US government must expeditiously provide reparations to Iraqis and fulfill international law obligations.

Anything less is environmental racism, and a dangerously hierarchical approach to justice.

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Carly A. Krakow is a writer, Scholar in Residence at NYU School of Law’s Center for Human Rights and Global Justice, and faculty member at the NYU Gallatin School.

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***

“We want no Gestapo or Secret Police. FBI is tending in that direction.”—Harry Truman

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With every passing day, the United States government borrows yet another leaf from Nazi Germany’s playbook: Secret police. Secret courts. Secret government agencies. Surveillance. Censorship. Intimidation. Harassment. Torture. Brutality. Widespread corruption. Entrapment. Indoctrination. Indefinite detention.

These are not tactics used by constitutional republics, where the rule of law and the rights of the citizenry reign supreme. Rather, they are the hallmarks of authoritarian regimes, where secret police control the populace through intimidation, fear and official lawlessness on the part of government agents.

That authoritarian danger is now posed by the FBI, whose love affair with totalitarianism began long ago. Indeed, according to the New York Times, the U.S. government so admired the Nazi regime that following the second World War, it secretly and aggressively recruited at least a thousand Nazis, including some of Hitler’s highest henchmen as part of Operation Paperclip. American taxpayers have been paying to keep these ex-Nazis on the U.S. government’s payroll ever since.

If the government’s covert, taxpayer-funded employment of Nazis after World War II weren’t bad enough, U.S. government agencies—the FBI, CIA and the military—adopted many of the Third Reich’s well-honed policing tactics, and have used them against American citizens.

Indeed, the FBI’s laundry list of crimes against the American people includes surveillance, disinformation, blackmail, entrapment, intimidation tactics, harassment and indoctrination, governmental overreach, abuse, misconduct, trespassing, enabling criminal activity, and damaging private property, and that’s just based on what we know.

Compare the FBI’s far-reaching powers to surveil, detain, interrogate, investigate, prosecute, punish, police and generally act as a law unto themselves—powers that have grown since 9/11, transforming the FBI into a mammoth federal policing and surveillance agency that largely operates as a power unto itself, beyond the reach of established laws, court rulings and legislative mandates—to its Nazi counterparts, the Gestapo—and then try to convince yourself that the United States is not a totalitarian police state.

Just like the Gestapo, the FBI has vast resources, vast investigatory powers, and vast discretion to determine who is an enemy of the state.

Today, the FBI employs more than 35,000 individuals and operates more than 56 field offices in major cities across the U.S., as well as 400 resident agencies in smaller towns, and more than 50 international offices. In addition to their “data campus,” which houses more than 96 million sets of fingerprints from across the United States and elsewhere, the FBI has also built a vast repository of “profiles of tens of thousands of Americans and legal residents who are not accused of any crime. What they have done is appear to be acting suspiciously to a town sheriff, a traffic cop or even a neighbor.” The FBI’s burgeoning databases on Americans are not only being added to and used by local police agencies, but are also being made available to employers for real-time background checks.

All of this is made possible by the agency’s nearly unlimited resources (President Biden’s budget projections allocate $10.8 billion for the FBI), the government’s vast arsenal of technology, the interconnectedness of government intelligence agencies, and information sharing through fusion centers—data collecting intelligence agencies spread throughout the country that constantly monitor communications (including those of American citizens), everything from internet activity and web searches to text messages, phone calls and emails.

Much like the Gestapo spied on mail and phone calls, FBI agents have carte blanche access to the citizenry’s most personal information.

Working through the U.S. Post Office, the FBI has access to every piece of mail that passes through the postal system: more than 160 billion pieces are scanned and recorded annually. Moreover, the agency’s 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 those demands to the customer. 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 constitutional violations.

Much like the Gestapo’s sophisticated surveillance programs, the FBI’s spying capabilities can delve into Americans’ most intimate details (and allow local police to do so, as well).

In addition to technology (which is shared with police agencies) that allows them to listen in on phone calls, read emails and text messages, and monitor web activities, the FBI’s surveillance boasts an invasive 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.” Law enforcement agencies are also using social media tracking software to monitor Facebook, Twitter and Instagram posts. Moreover, secret FBI rules also allow agents to spy on journalists without significant judicial oversight.

Much like the Gestapo’s ability to profile based on race and religion, and its assumption of guilt by association, the FBI’s approach to pre-crime allows it to profile Americans based on a broad range of characteristics including race and religion.

The agency’s biometric database has grown to massive proportions, the largest in the world, encompassing everything from fingerprints, palm, face and iris scans to DNA, and is being increasingly shared between federal, state and local law enforcement agencies in an effort to target potential criminals long before they ever commit a crime. This is what’s known as pre-crime. Yet it’s not just your actions that will get you in trouble. In many cases, it’s also who you know—even minimally—and where your sympathies lie that could land you on a government watch list. Moreover, as the Intercept reports, despite anti-profiling prohibitions, the bureau “claims considerable latitude to use race, ethnicity, nationality, and religion in deciding which people and communities to investigate.”

Much like the Gestapo’s power to render anyone an enemy of the state, the FBI has the power to label anyone a domestic terrorist.

As part of the government’s so-called ongoing war on terror, the nation’s de facto secret police force has begun using the terms “anti-government,” “extremist” and “terrorist” interchangeably. Moreover, the government continues to add to its growing list of characteristics that can be used to identify an individual (especially anyone who disagrees with the government) as a potential domestic terrorist. For instance, you might be a domestic terrorist in the eyes of the FBI (and its network of snitches) if you:

  • express libertarian philosophies (statements, bumper stickers)
  • exhibit Second Amendment-oriented views (NRA or gun club membership)
  • read survivalist literature, including apocalyptic fictional books
  • show signs of self-sufficiency (stockpiling food, ammo, hand tools, medical supplies)
  • fear an economic collapse
  • buy gold and barter items
  • subscribe to religious views concerning the book of Revelation
  • voice fears about Big Brother or big government
  • expound about constitutional rights and civil liberties
  • believe in a New World Order conspiracy

Much like the Gestapo infiltrated communities in order to spy on the German citizenry, the FBI routinely infiltrates political and religious groups, as well as businesses.

As Cora Currier writes for the Intercept: “Using loopholes it has kept secret for years, the FBI can in certain circumstances bypass its own rules in order to send undercover agents or informants into political and religious organizations, as well as schools, clubs, and businesses…” The FBI has even been paying Geek Squad technicians at Best Buy to spy on customers’ computers without a warrant.

Just as the Gestapo united and militarized Germany’s police forces into a national police force, America’s police forces have largely been federalized and turned into a national police force.

In addition to government programs that provide the nation’s police forces with military equipment and training, the FBI also operates a National Academy that trains thousands of police chiefs every year and indoctrinates them into an agency mindset that advocates the use of surveillance technology and information sharing between local, state, federal, and international agencies.

Just as the Gestapo’s secret files on political leaders were used to intimidate and coerce, the FBI’s files on anyone suspected of “anti-government” sentiment have been similarly abused.

As countless documents make clear, the FBI has no qualms about using its extensive powers in order to blackmail politicians, spy on celebrities and high-ranking government officials, and intimidate and attempt to discredit dissidents of all stripes. For example, not only did the FBI follow Martin Luther King Jr. and bug his phones and hotel rooms, but agents also sent him anonymous letters urging him to commit suicide and pressured a Massachusetts college into dropping King as its commencement speaker.

Just as the Gestapo carried out entrapment operations, the FBI has become a master in the art of entrapment.

In the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks the FBI has not only targeted vulnerable individuals but has also lured or blackmailed them into fake terror plots while actually equipping them with the organization, money, weapons and motivation to carry out the plots—entrapment—and then jailing or deporting them for their so-called terrorist plotting.

This is what the FBI characterizes as “forward leaning—preventative—prosecutions.” In addition to creating certain crimes in order to then “solve” them, the FBI 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 FBI agents have authorized criminals to engage in as many as 15 crimes a day. 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.

When and if a true history of the FBI 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, in much the same way that the empowerment of Germany’s secret police tracked with the rise of the Nazi regime.

How did the Gestapo become the terror of the Third Reich?

It did so by creating a sophisticated surveillance and law enforcement system that relied for its success on the cooperation of the military, the police, the intelligence community, neighborhood watchdogs, government workers for the post office and railroads, ordinary civil servants, and a nation of snitches inclined to report “rumors, deviant behavior, or even just loose talk.”

In other words, ordinary citizens working with government agents helped create the monster that became Nazi Germany. Writing for the New York Times, Barry Ewen paints a particularly chilling portrait of how an entire nation becomes complicit in its own downfall by looking the other way:

In what may be his most provocative statement, [author Eric A.] Johnson says that ‘‘most Germans may not even have realized until very late in the war, if ever, that they were living in a vile dictatorship.’’ This is not to say that they were unaware of the Holocaust; Johnson demonstrates that millions of Germans must have known at least some of the truth. But, he concludes, ‘‘a tacit Faustian bargain was struck between the regime and the citizenry.’’ The government looked the other way when petty crimes were being committed. Ordinary Germans looked the other way when Jews were being rounded up and murdered; they abetted one of the greatest crimes of the 20th century not through active collaboration but through passivity, denial and indifference.

Much like the German people, “we the people” have become passive, polarized, gullible, easily manipulated, and lacking in critical thinking skills.  Distracted by entertainment spectacles, politics and screen devices, we too are complicit, silent partners in creating a police state similar to the terror practiced by former regimes.

Had the government tried to ram such a state of affairs down our throats suddenly, it might have had a rebellion on its hands. Instead, the American people have been given the boiling frog treatment, immersed in water that slowly is heated up—degree by degree—so that they’ve fail to notice that they’re being trapped and cooked and killed.

“We the people” are in hot water now.

The Constitution doesn’t stand a chance against a federalized, globalized standing army of government henchmen protected by legislative, judicial and executive branches that are all on the same side, no matter what political views they subscribe to: suffice it to say, they are not on our side or the side of freedom.

From Presidents Clinton to Bush, then Obama to Trump and now Biden, it’s as if we’ve been caught in a time loop, forced to re-live the same thing over and over again: the same assaults on our freedoms, the same disregard for the rule of law, the same subservience to the Deep State, and the same corrupt, self-serving government that exists only to amass power, enrich its shareholders and ensure its continued domination.

Can the Fourth Reich happen here?

As I point out in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, it’s already happening right under our noses.

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This article was originally published on The Rutherford Institute.

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

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

They are regular contributors to Global Research.

Featured image is from The Grayzone

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CIA Admits Role in 1953 Iran Coup

August 23rd, 2022 by Al Jazeera America

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Our thanks to Al Jazeera for bringing this article to our attention, first published on August 19, 2013

The CIA orchestrated the August 1953 coup that toppled Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh after he tried to nationalize his country’s oil wealth, according to a document recently declassified by the agency. The ouster of the democratically elected Mossadegh and his replacement by the Western-backed autocracy of Shah Mohamed Reza Pahlavi set the context for the anti-American sentiment that followed the 1979 Iranian revolution and the mutual mistrust and resentment that continue to affect relations between Tehran and Washington.

The coup that overthrew Mossadegh and his National Front cabinet “was carried out under CIA direction as an act of U.S. foreign policy, conceived and approved at the highest levels of government,” the document said. It was obtained by George Washington University’s National Security Archive through the Freedom of Information Act.

“The military coup that overthrew Mosadeq and his National Front cabinet was carried out under CIA direction as an act of U.S. foreign policy, conceived, and approved at the highest levels of government,” the document, obtained by George Washington University’s National Security Archive through a Freedom of Information Act — said using an alternative spelling of Mossadegh.

“The coup was the beginning of a sequence of tragedies that dog the U.S. and its allies in the Middle East today. It was the key source of the anti-American resentment that exploded during the Iranian revolution of 1979,” Former CIA operative Robert B. Baer, author of “The Devil We Know: Dealing With the New Iranian Superpower,” told Al Jazeera.

Pahlavi, a close U.S. ally, was toppled in the 1979 revolution. Its leadership under Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini made hostility toward the U.S. a cornerstone of Iran’s foreign policy. The most immediate traumatic expression of that hostility was the hostage crisis that saw a group of Iranian students take control of the U.S. embassy in Tehran and hold 52 Americans captive for 444 days.

“Iranians truly believe that if it weren’t for the CIA, the Shah would never have been brought to power,” Baer said. “And they believe that the CIA continues to operate as an evil force in their country.”

The CIA’s role in the coup has long been known: A heavily redacted version of the document was first released in 1981 and there are still documents related to the coup that have not been released. But those released on Sunday — the coup’s 60th anniversary — were the most explicit admission to date of involvement by the agency.

Reza Marashi, a former Iran analyst with State Department  who is now with the National Iranian American Council, told Al Jazeera that the release of the documents could serve as a “very small, but important step forward in un-poisoning things.”

“The first step toward fixing a problem is acknowledging it exists, and the problem that exists between Iran and the United States is historical – not just about centrifuges and everything else,” Marashi said, referring to the ongoing fracas over Iran’s nuclear program. “You have to acknowledge the past in order to focus on the future – both sides need to do that.”

Mossadegh had angered Britain by moving to take over the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company — the predecessor of modern-day BP. The British believed that control of Iranian oil was vital to reviving their economy from the destruction of World War II.

The internal CIA history offered a degree of understanding of Mossadegh’s position and rejected Western media depictions of him as “a madman” or “an emotional bundle of senility.”

Another internal history, authored by coup planner Donald Wilber and leaked to The New York Times in 2000, said that agents had arranged stories against Mossadegh in the press both in Iran and the United States aimed at setting the stage for the coup.

In 2000, as part of an effort to mend relations with Iran, then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright admitted that the U.S. had “played a significant role” in overthrowing Mossadegh.

“The coup was clearly a setback for Iran’s political development, and it is easy to see now why many Iranians continue to resent this intervention by America in their internal affairs,” Albright said at the time.

President Barack Obama also made a similar admission after taking office in 2009 in another unsuccessful attempt at reconciliation with Iran, which has sought an explicit apology.

Historians often regard the 1953 coup in Iran as a first for the CIA, offering a template for government takeovers in Latin America and elsewhere during the Cold War.

Malcolm Byrne, deputy director of the National Security Archive, said that the CIA wrote the secret histories for internal use.

The histories “give people on the inside a sense of what happened and, presumably, give them a little context for whatever else they may be planning,” he said.

U.S. and British spies also tried to fan the flames against Mossadegh among the Iranian clergy, the documents said. The history also said that the CIA arranged to pay $5 million within days of the coup to the new government of Fazlollah Zahedi, a general appointed to succeed Mossadegh.

While recognizing that London needed the oil, the CIA history said that British policymakers had “little in their experience to make them respect Iranians, whom company managers and Foreign Office managers saw as inefficient, corrupt and self-serving.”

But the CIA history cast the decision in Cold War terms, fearing that the Soviets would invade and take over Iran if the crisis escalated and Britain sent in warships — as it would do three years later alongside France and Israel when Egypt nationalized the Suez Canal.

“The irony was that the coup was predominantly a British operation, undertaken on behalf of that country’s oil interests, into which the CIA was drawn in the name of anti-communism and fear that Mossadegh would hand the country over to the Russians,” Baer said.

As for the timing of the document release, Marashi said it may have been a small and subtle gesture to Iran’s new president Hassan Rouhani, who has vowed to shift relations with the West.

“Hopefully this can be the icing on the cake and then when the relationship between the two countries improves there can be a cherry on top where the United States will apologize for that and Iran will apologize for the hostage crisis and everybody can move on in a peaceful way,” he said.

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Philip J. Victor contributed to this report. With Al Jazeera and wire services.

Featured image: Mohammad Mosaddegh in court, 8 November 1953 (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

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***

 

 

 

 

 

The attack in Moscow that resulted in the death of journalist Daria Platonova was primarily aimed at her father, Alexander Dugin, philosopher, creator of the modern school of geopolitics, head of the Department of Sociology of International Relations at Moscow’s Lomonosov State University, and founder of the International Eurasian Movement.

This is not simply the criminal act of an individual or small group, but a political crime planned and carried out by Western intelligence services, particularly those of the United States and Britain, according to well-established procedures.

First, the choice of target. In his interview with Grandangolo last April, Alexander Dugin explains that the Russian military operation in Ukraine is not only a response to the U.S.-NATO escalation, which endangers Russia’s security, but a response to the West’s globalist plan to maintain a unipolar world under its own rule. As an alternative to the globalist agenda Dughin envisions the creation of a multipolar world through a historic planetary pact of all people of different cultures and traditions who reject the globalist agenda. What is needed is a universal alliance against the Soros, Schwabs, Bill Gates and the global liberal oligarchy, who threaten humanity with their insane plans.

Within this framework is the International Eurasian Movement. The growing economic integration of Eurasia, which encourages negotiated conflict resolution and cross-cultural dialogue, contributes concretely to the transition from the unipolar world to the multipolar world, which the United States and other major powers of the West are trying hard to prevent.

Daria Platonova – an expert on international relations, columnist and contributor to radio and television channels – had contributed to a few episodes of Grandangolo, and in the coming months her collaboration was to take on a periodic character. The news of her murder shocked but did not silence us. Daria will remain with us on Byoblu.

This article was originally published on byoblu. Translated from Italian.

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 FSB investigation

Latest Report from Zero Hedge  

The Russian Federal Security Service (“FSB”) has claimed that the assassination of Dugina was committed by a covert operative of Ukraine. The FSB has identified Natalia Vovk as the alleged assassin.

“As a result of a complex of urgent operational-search measures, the Federal Security Service has solved the murder of Russian journalist Darya Dugina, born in 1992,” the FSB announced, going on to emphasize the culpibility of the Ukrainian government by stating that “the crime was prepared and committed by the Ukrainian special services[.]”

According to the FSB’s investigation, Vovk entered Russia in July before situating herself in the same apartment building that Dugina resided in. Vovk would then follow Dugina to the festival in which the explosive device that led to her death was planted. Vovk, who was accompanied by her 12-year old daughter, fled to Estonia following the assassination, according to Russian intelligence. Following her identification, Russian law enforcement agencies declared their intent to seek her extradition.

FSB alleges that Ukrainian spy Natalia Vovk assassinated Darya Dugina.

Following Dugina’s assassination, Ukraine was naturally implicated as being behind the murder given her father’s significant, albeit enigmatic, reputation as one of Vladimir Putin’s most influential ideologues. Kiev urgently washed its hands of any involvement as advisor Mykhailo Podolyak stated “Ukraine, of course, has nothing to do with yesterday’s explosion[.]” Although Ukrainian officials denied any involvement in the attack, President Volodymyr Zelensky warned of his anticipation that Dugina’s murder would inextricably result in the intensification Russia’s military campaign.

Given the reports of Vovk’s escape to Estonia, the location of the alleged assassin places Russia in a conflict against a NATO member state even more directly than the proxy war in Ukraine has. In 2016, the European Court of Justice set precedent which would justify any extradition request for Vovk by Russia. The case law that set that standard occurred when the court found that any member state of the European Union is obligated to accommodate an extradition request of any third-party non-member state even if the subject of the request is not a citizen of the EU nation itself. This decision followed a case in which Russia requested to have Estonian national Aleksei Petruhhin extradited from Latvia for drug trafficking offenses.

The legal framework set by the European Court of Justice will place Estonia in a crucible if Vovk has indeed found safe haven in the Baltic state. In addition to joining the EU in 2004, Estonia joined NATO that same year. The potential conflict arising between Estonia and the Russian Federation has the potential to trigger Article 5 of the NATO Charter which puts forth a collective defense clause meaning that any military engagement with a NATO member state constitutes action taken against the entire trans-Atlantic body whether it occurs as far east as Tallinn or as far west as Hawai’i.

Article 5 has been constantly dangled before Russia as a Sword of Damicles of sorts designed to dissuade any escalation of the Ukrainian conflict. The veiled threat was most recently invoked in response to Russian attack on Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant and increased military incursions by Ukrainian military forces into Crimea. “Any deliberate damage causing potential radiation leak to a Ukrainian nuclear reactor would be a breach of NATO’s Article 5,” said UK MP Tobias Ellwood. His sentiments were echoed by US Congressman Adam Kinzinger (R – IL) who followed Ellwood’s declaration by stating “This really isn’t even up for debate; any leak will kill people in NATO countries, that’s an automatic article 5[.]” just hours before Dugina’s assassination.

While Article 5 of the NATO Charter has been used to threaten Russia from intensifying any aggression, the officials who have constantly cited the collective defense policy have done so under the pretense of preventing any further aggression. The assassination of Darya Dugina is a drastically different circumstance as Russia will surely perceive any potential action it takes to have Vovk extradited from Estonia as entirely justified and as a response to the murder, not an offensive attack against a NATO member state. As the manhunt for Vovk ensures, Europe again finds itself in the political crucible that enveloped the continent following Gravrilo Princip’s assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. However, in this historical iteration, it is the European central powers who find themselves in a position of being the aggressor that could provoke a catastrophic conflict with Russia.

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Featured image is by 1RNK, licensed under CC BY 3.0

“Tell Me, Mother, What Does Peace Look Like?”

By Dr. Rudolf Hänsel and Ellen Rohlfs, August 22, 2022

When I read in “Global Research” of 17 August 2022 (“Haaretz” 11 August 2022) the article by Gideon Levy When Roger Waters Cried. “Has any Israeli Shed Tears for a Boy from Gaza?”‘” (1), I remembered the German peace activist Ellen Rohlfs (1927-2020), with whom I had a lively exchange in the mid-1990s.

Europe Quietly Abandoning Ukraine, as for the First Time, No New Military Pledges Have Been Made

By Uriel Araujo, August 23, 2022

According to Germany’s Kiel Institute for the World Economy, the six largest European countries gave Kiev no new military pledges last month, this being the first time such a thing has happened since the beginning of the conflict in February.

The Only Thing Keeping US and China From War Is Running Dangerously Thin

By Scott Ritter, August 23, 2022

American relations with China in regards to Taiwan have been dictated by years of ambiguous statements and commitments. Now this rhetoric is breaking down and armed conflict seems closer than ever – but is Washington ready to fight over Taiwan, or capable of winning?

The Hideous Assassination of Russian Journalist Daria Dugina, Designed to Enhance the Conflict?

By Stephen Karganovic, August 22, 2022

The appalling murder near Moscow a few days ago of Daria Dugina, daughter of the illustrious Russian philosopher and geostrategic thinker Alexander Dugin, ironically occurred precisely as the imbecilic solons of her country’s main geopolitical rival were contemplating legislation to designate Russia as a state “sponsor of terrorism.”

United Nations Recruited Over 100,000 ‘Digital First Responders’ to Push Establishment COVID Narrative

By Paul Joseph Watson, August 22, 2022

At the height of the pandemic, the United Nations recruited over 100,000 “digital first responders’ to push the establishment narrative on COVID via social media. The revelation actually slipped out in October 2020 during a World Economic Forum podcast called ‘Seeking a cure for the infodemic’, although it is only going viral on Twitter today.

The Sword of Bolivar Is Wielded Again by the People of Latin America. Gustavo Petro Inauguration as President of Colombia

By Daniel Kovalik, August 22, 2022

For the first time since the liberation of Colombia from Spain by Simón Bolívar, Colombia now had leaders who promised to radically transform Colombia, and with it, all of Latin America. I was fortunate enough to be present at the inauguration ceremony which was just as exciting as one could have hoped for.

Countdown to the New Iranian Nuclear Deal

By Steven Sahiounie, August 22, 2022

The world is inching closer to restoring a deal to prevent Iran from building a nuclear bomb. The US is examining the Iranian response to a ‘final’ accord tabled by the EU in the latest round of negotiation for the restoration of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (or JCPOA, as the deal between Iran, the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, Germany and the European Union is known).

The Destabilization of Pakistan: The Media Regulator’s Ban on Imran Khan’s Live Broadcasts

By Andrew Korybko, August 22, 2022

All that the latest development will do is exacerbate the growing generational divide within the country, turn more people against the “official narrative”, and further worsen the socio-political (soft security) situation. Considering this, there’s no doubt that the destabilization of Pakistan is being driven by those same political forces tasked with protecting it, not their opponents.

Subverting Medicine: The Role of the Federation of State Medical Boards

By Dr. Emanuel Garcia, August 22, 2022

The other day I received a link to this video, an appeal on behalf of an Irish General Practitioner, Dr. William Ralph, who is currently under investigation by the Medical Council of Ireland.  I learned of Dr. Ralph’s plight through his niece, Dr. Karen McDonnell, a psychiatrist who is on the verge of losing her job in New Zealand (where, incidentally there is a tremendous dearth of psychiatrists) because she refuses to receive a third Pfizer inoculation, thanks to New Zealand’s ill-considered and scientifically unfounded inoculation mandates for health practitioners.

Unlawful Pentagon Order Mandating mRNA Vaccine for Troops

By Jordan Schachtel, August 22, 2022

Lawyers representing America’s service members are beginning to produce victories defending the U.S. Armed Forces against forced compliance with biomedical gene therapy experiments, and suddenly, nobody in the Pentagon wants to take accountability for their legally dubious mRNA injection order.

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According to Germany’s Kiel Institute for the World Economy, the six largest European countries gave Kiev no new military pledges last month, this being the first time such a thing has happened since the beginning of the conflict in February. Besides Spain, France, Germany and Italy, not even the UK and Poland have made any new military commitments to Ukraine, which is quite surprising considering they had been such staunch supporters. In any case, European military support had been decreasing since April. It would seem Europe is quietly and silently “abandoning” Kiev.

Overall European aid to Ukraine is in any case but a fraction of the estimated €800 billion pandemic recovery fund thus far conceded in loans and grants, for example. Germany in turn is taking too long to implement tank swamps with its neighbors, so that they send their own Soviet-era tanks to Kiev.

There are many possible reasons for what appears to be a gradual “abandonment”, and the fact that Transparency International’s corruption index ranks Ukraine in the bottom third can certainly play a role. It is true that the huge flow of European weapons to Ukraine certainly had an impact, particularly the Javelin missiles, but it is also true that as much as 70% of the weaponry sent never reached the troops, while large parts of it ended up in the black market. Interpol secretary general Jürgen Stock warned about the dangers posed by such a situation, pertaining to international terrorism and organized crime.

Be it as it may, the Western weapons could never guarantee Ukraine victory, and a Russian victory, even if a partial one, remains the only possible scenario. Slowly but surely, Moscow keeps making progress in its military operations. Its withdrawal from Northern Ukraine does not matter much, as “conquering Ukraine” was never a Russian goal – Moscow’s main point was alway about keeping NATO out of its own geostrategic environment and stopping Kiev’s aggression against the populations of Donetsk and Luhansk as well as the humanitarian disaster that has been going on there since 2014.

The second phase of the Russian “special operation” is all about encircling and neutralizing Kiev’s forces in Southeastern Ukraine, and, to a large degree, this is being done very efficiently. The infamous far-right Azov Regiment, which until recently had such a strong presence in the city of Mariupol, has been largely neutralized, and many of its leaders have been captured. Azov forces were oppressing and persecuting ethnic Greeks in the region, among other atrocities, and even though Russian rhetoric about “de-nazification” goals was much ridiculed by Western analysts, as part of the whitewashing of Azov, today almost no one denies the “neo-Nazi problem” around the Regiment .

The conflict is admittedly taking much longer than initially thought for a number of reasons, one of them being the simple fact that Kiev has from the very beginning militarized residential areas as part of human shield tactics, as exposed by the latest Amnesty International report. Besides Russian concerns pertaining to civilian casualties and human rights, Ukrainians are, from a Russian perspective, a historically united people, as Russian President Vladimir Putin himself has for years stated several times. This partly explains the relatively slow Russian advances.

As the winter approaches Europe, accompanied by the coming recession and an unprecedented wage of Ukrainian refugees, amid inflation and political crises, one could expect the EU to largely “abandon” Kiev, as its elites now fear an “European spring”. In Germany, public intellectuals have already collected thousands of signatures in a petition to end the flow of weapons to Ukraine.

A recent article by New York Times journalist Thomas Friedman has exposed the fact that the White House distrusts Ukrainian President Volodymir Zelensky. Ukraine is nonetheless preparing for its counter-offensive in the Kherson region. It is true that the US has just announced it is sending a $755 million package of weapons and supplies to its ally, to fuel its immediate artillery fight. It includes, among other things, 40 armored vehicles, and 1,000 Javelin anti-tank missiles, as well as HIMARS rockets and  more high-speed anti-radiation missiles (HARMs). The number of HIMARS sent was limited to 16, though, so as to not burn the Pentagon’s own stockpile. A senior Pentagon official has admitted that the Ukrainians lack sufficient troops to drive Russians from their positions. This American package in any case is far from being sufficient.

As aid initiatives are drying up and Zelensky is becoming an inconvenience, not much trusted by Washington, it remains to be seen how long the US, which struggles with its own domestic crisis (and is already facing frictions with China over Taiwan), will have the political will to remain bearing mostly alone the “burden” of supporting Kiev. It also remains to be seen how Kiev will perform without the expected new weapons from Europe it so ardently has been claiming to need.

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

Featured image is from InfoBrics

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***

Dear Secretary General Antonio Guterres,

I am writing with grave concern about the situation at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in Ukraine.

I have been following this dangerous situation for many weeks. It is abundantly obvious to me that the US-installed Kiev government is doing the shelling of the nuclear plant.

Why would Russia want to contaminate the very region of Russian-ethnic citizens it is attempting to save from this out-of-control Kiev regime?

The fact that the Ukrainian plant personnel remain on their posts, and that Russia is trying to protect the plant from a disaster, indicates its good intentions in this matter.

I urge your offices to get the IAEA to the plant ASAP and you must publicly pin the blame for the shelling on the appropriate source – the Kiev regime that is clearly taking their marching orders from Washington.

Has the United Nations begun to also take their orders from the Biden administration? At this point one must surely wonder if that is the case as we face the possibility of a massive global disaster.

If you cannot perform your job appropriately, and protect the global population, then maybe it would be time for you to step aside and leave the post to someone more willing to speak truth to power.

The fate of much of humanity is at stake here.

In peace,

Bruce K. Gagnon
Coordinator
Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space

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How Even a Limited Nuclear War Would Destroy the Planet

August 23rd, 2022 by Jasmine Owens

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There is no such thing as a “limited” nuclear war, a new study published in the Nature Food journal urgently warns us.

Led by Dr. Lili Xia of Rutgers University, this staggering report concludes that even a limited exchange of nuclear weapons between any two nuclear-armed states — using less than three percent of the global nuclear weapons supply — could lead to mass starvation and death of up to 2.5 billion people around the world. Even worse, they estimate that an all-out nuclear war between the United States and Russia would result in more than 5 billion deaths.

You read that right. Five. Billion. Deaths. This does not include the millions of people who would die immediately from the blasts, fires, and prompt radiation, nor those who would die in subsequent days, weeks, or years due to radiation exposure.

This is the latest scientific study in a string of reports dating back to the 1980s, with collaboration from climate scientists like Drs. Alan Robock and Brian Toon. Their previous studies reiterate the catastrophic consequences of the potential use of nuclear weapons, and further illustrate the dire need for nuclear abolition now.

Setting the Stage

Using the climate forecasting resource Community Earth System Model, Xia and co-authors sought to calculate how much sun-blocking soot would be injected into the atmosphere and stratosphere after firestorms following the detonation of nuclear weapons under six different scenarios. The scenarios largely focused on a potential nuclear war between India and Pakistan, mainly because the prior studies this report built off of used that scenario, and accuracy is fine-tuned when the models use the same context for each scenario. Given the long history of tension and rivalry, it is believed that India and Pakistan would be most likely to engage in a nuclear exchange.

The authors used population data from a 2010 population dataset, with the global population set at 6.7 billion. However, today’s global population is estimated to be around 8 billion, so it is likely that the amount of deaths would in fact be higher in the case of a nuclear war.

Unpacking the Data

So what exactly would lead to billions of deaths? When nuclear weapons are detonated over cities, they create smoke and soot from resulting firestorms. That debris would then rise high into the Earth’s atmosphere, up into the stratosphere, and stay there for years, blocking out the warmth of the sun.

What’s more, the climate models used were not built to account for another severe impact: damage to the ozone layer. In a companion report from International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), we learn that the soot is heated by the sunlight it is blocking. The heating of the soot (in the smallest exchange modeled) would destroy around 25 percent of the ozone, though up to 50-70 percent over the high northern hemisphere. This means the United States, Canada, Europe, and northern Asia, including parts of Russia and China, would be most impacted. A damaged ozone layer increases our exposure to ultraviolet radiation, which can lead to an increase of various health issues like sunburns, cataracs, and cancers.

With all the sunlight blocked by thick clouds of soot and ash, crop production will plummet. Combining the data from the Xia-led study and previous studies, depending on the size and amount of nuclear weapons detonated, global temperatures will drop anywhere between 1.3℃ in the most narrow case, to 6.5℃ in the most severe case. For context, climate scientists have been sounding the alarm for years that an abrupt rise in global temperatures by even 1℃ would have catastrophic consequences for humanity. Additionally, the last Ice Age that occurred was around 6℃ cooler than the temperatures we are experiencing today.

No matter the scenario, the drastic drop in temperatures would demolish crop production, and severely diminish livestock and aquatic food production as a result of overconsumption in the wake of crop depletion. In the smallest scenario of a nuclear war between India and Pakistan, calorie production from crops would decrease seven percent within five years of the conflict, and up to 50 percent in the largest scenario. Mass starvation would ensue. To provide context, a mere seven percent global calorie decline would be unprecedented. This decline would surpass  the largest decrease ever recorded since the United Nations began tracking this information in 1961.

Again, those most directly impacted would be the United States, Canada, much of Europe, Russia, and China. However, many regions like the Middle East, Africa and East Asia rely on these regions for food imports, so the effects would undoubtedly ripple to the rest of the world. Interestingly, as this region can tolerate a darker, cooler planet better than others, global temperature declines wouldn’t largely affect Australia and New Zealand. It is important to note, though, that this doesn’t account for other effects like radioactive fallout or ozone layer depletion. Australia and New Zealand would also likely have to contend with a massive influx of refugees from Asia and elsewhere.

A Strong Case for Nuclear Abolition

Grounding the nuclear weapons abolition movement in hard science and data, this latest report makes it extremely difficult to argue against the dire need to get rid of these weapons. Critics will say that no leader of a nuclear-armed state would ever use these weapons so we don’t need to worry about the world-altering effects of a potential nuclear war.

While this argument is grounded in the false assumption that every leader will always be rational and level-headed in their role as arbiters of doom, all it takes is an accident or miscalculation to make the impossible possible. U.S. nuclear weapons currently exist under hair trigger alert, meaning a president has about six minutes to decide whether or not they want to launch a nuclear strike if they believe the United States is under attack. Combine this with the too-long list of accidents and incidents that have occurred over time since the dawn of the nuclear age, it is easy to see how a nuclear war could start by mistake.

Since the United States dropped atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, we have survived off a game of luck. To this day, no country’s public health infrastructure can survive a nuclear attack.

Yet the nine nuclear weapons states — the United States, United Kingdom, France, Israel, Russia, Pakistan, India, China, and North Korea — continue to modernize and increase their arsenals, despite knowing they hold the power to destroy modern civilization as we know it.

No Time to Waste

This latest study should urge us to take action so that nuclear weapons states stop this dangerous gamble. Russia can lift its suspension of New START inspections, given this undermines the effectiveness of the only remaining arms control agreement between the United States and Russia. The United States — and any other nuclear weapon states that implement a similar policy — should remove its nuclear weapons off hair-trigger alert so that a president has time to actually engage in rational thinking before responding to a potential nuclear attack and risking nuclear war. Ending sole authority, implementing a No First Use policy, and focusing on building a robust multilateral arms control regime are further steps the United States and other nuclear weapon states can take to ease growing tensions between the nuclear weapon states.

Additionally, we must insist that our members of Congress sign on to H.R. 2850 and H.Res.1185, both calling for the United States to join the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), the first treaty to ban nuclear weapons. Moreover, H.Res.1185 calls on the United States to lead global efforts to prevent a nuclear war. This is extremely important, given the terrifying data on what would happen if such a scenario were to occur.

We all need to be working to abolish nuclear weapons so that none of these nuclear famine scenarios become reality. Because nuclear weapons neither discriminate nor recognize borders, our security is a matter of collective urgency. No one is safe until the last weapon is dismantled.

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

by Michel Chossudovsky

Available to order from Global Research! 

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

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

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

Reviews

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

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

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

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