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In a recent editorial, I discussed a new Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) that was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives on May 1, 2022, by Adam Kinzinger (R-IL).

The proposed AUMF, if passed, would allow President Biden to deploy American forces to restore “the territorial integrity of Ukraine” in the event that Russia uses chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons.

Thankfully, as Antiwar.com news editor Dave DeCamp writes, Kinzinger’s AUMF has failed to gain traction. This may seem like a bright spot in an otherwise apocalyptically bad news cycle, but not to worry! Antiwar.com Opinion Editor Kyle Anzalone noted in his recent interview of me, Kinzinger’s proposed AUMF will likely sit on the House Floor until the necessary political capital appears.

It probably will when Russia (or anyone really) uses the above-described weapons.

Although Kinzinger’s proposed AUMF asserts the moral high ground by threatening war against Russia, it can claim none. The United States itself has deployed all three types of weapons against its enemies—in the recent past, if not sooner.

As for nuclear weapons—the United States is the only country in world history to have used nuclear weapons against an enemy during wartime. Their use is even more abhorrent considering Hiroshima and Nagasaki held no strategic military value and the ordinance overwhelmingly killed civilians.

As if obliterating two major Japanese cities wasn’t enough, the Manhattan Project’s test detonations in the New Mexico desert exposed nearby farmers and their families to dangerous levels of radiation. Although the family members did not exhibit external symptoms, much of their livestock died.

In tune with their character, between 1945 and 1947 Manhattan Project scientists purposely injected30 Americans with plutonium just to see what would happen. These injections were administered without the subjects’ knowledge or consent.

As for biological warfare, the United States’ military has tested biological weapons against its own citizens on several occasions.

In 1949, the Army Chemical Corps secretly released a harmless bacteria into the Pentagon’s air conditioning system to see how it spread through the building.

In April of 1950 and September of 1950, the Army Chemical Corps sprayed the coasts of Norfolk, Virginia and San Francisco, California, respectively, with two types of bacteria.

The types of bacteria that were released, Bacillus globigii and Serratia marcesens were believed to be harmless at the time. However,

Bacillus globigii is now [considered] to be a pathogen, causes food poisoning, and can hurt anyone with a weak immune system. As for Serratia marcesens, 11 people were admitted to a hospital with serious bacterial infections after the San Francisco test. One of them–Edward Nevin–died three weeks later.

In a previous editorial, I wrote about how the U.S. Army Chemical Corps sprayed several cities in the United States and Canada with zinc cadmium sulfide. At the time, zinc cadmium sulfide was considered to be harmless, but a large class of victims brought a federal lawsuit claiming the exposure caused myriad ailments. The lawsuit was dismissed, in part because the U.S. Government cannot be sued without its consent.

In the 1980s, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) provided Iraq with pathogens, which were ostensibly used against Iran in the Iraq-Iran War. In fact, the United States supported both sides of the war.

In September 2002, West Virginia Senator Robert C. Byrd entered the CDC’s own documents into the Congressional Record during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing. The documents showed that

the CDC and a biological sample company, American Type Culture Collection, sent strains of all the germs Iraq used to make weapons, including anthrax, the bacteria that make botulinum toxin and the germs that cause gas gangrene…Iraq also got samples of other deadly pathogens, including West Nile virus.

A few years later, the United States invaded Iraq under the pretext of destroying the above weapons. In the largest battle of said invasion, the Second Battle of Fallujah, the United States used white phosphorous against insurgents.

White phosphorous is a chemical compound that burns intensely when exposed to oxygen. When it contacts the human body, it burns to the bone, causing horrific injuries.

Although the legality of using white phosphorous against combatants is debatable, and beyond the scope of this piece, the use of white phosphorus against civilians is a war crime.

There is evidence that the United States’ use of white phosphorous in Fallujah harmed civilians. It is also confirmed that the United States used white phosphorous in Iraq and Syria in its ostensible fight against the Islamic State. Human Rights Watch could not confirm several allegations that the white phosphorous harmed civilians, but it noted that the allegations exist and are supported by at least some evidence.

U.S. partners Israel and Turkey have been accused of using white phosphorous. Israel admitted it.

One of the most grievous and well-documented cases of the United States’ use of chemical weapons occurred during the Vietnam War.

While working on solutions to its counterinsurgency problem in Vietnam, the Pentagon, through ARPA, created a defoliant that gained international notoriety under the name “Agent Orange.”

Agent Orange was supposed to combat the Vietcong insurgency by denying it “protective cover from the jungle canopy.” Its second purpose was to starve the enemy “by poisoning their primary food crop, a jungle root called manioc.” Lyndon B. Johnson’s National Security Advisor Walt Rostow called the defoliant program “a type of chemical warfare.”

By the end of the war, the United States had sprayed 19 million gallons of Agent Orange on Vietnam’s jungles. “A 2012 congressional report determined that over the course of the war, between 2.1 million and 4.8 million Vietnamese were directly exposed[.]”

In addition to destroying its natural resources, Agent Orange caused abhorrent health defects in the Vietnamese population.

Ninety-eight refugees who had been exposed to chemical sprays in South Vietnam were interviewed in Hanoi. Most reported effects on eyes and skin and gastrointestinal upsets. Ninety-two percent suffered fatigue, prolonged or indefinite in 17 percent of cases. Reports of abortions and monstrous births in sprayed humans and animals and of substantial numbers of deaths among fish, fowl, and pigs were also given.

A 2006 meta-analysis found a very high correlation between exposure to Agent Orange and birth defects:

Results In total, 22 studies including 13 Vietnamese and nine non-Vietnamese studies were identified. The summary relative risk (RR) of birth defects associated with exposure to Agent Orange was 1.95 [95% confidence interval (95% CI) 1.59–2.39], with substantial heterogeneity across studies. Vietnamese studies showed a higher summary RR (RR = 3.00; 95% CI 2.19–4.12) than non-Vietnamese studies (RR = 1.29; 95% CI 1.04–1.59). Sub-group analyses found that the magnitude of association tended to increase with greater degrees of exposure to Agent Orange, rated on intensity and duration of exposure and dioxin concentrations measured in affected populations. Conclusion Parental exposure to Agent Orange appears to be associated with an increased risk of birth defects.

The United States constantly grandstands about enforcing the “international rules-based order,” but what does that order stand for? If its own conduct is the measure, then the United States should have no quarrel with Russia for using chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons.

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Patrick MacFarlane is the Justin Raimondo Fellow at the Libertarian Institute where he advocates a noninterventionist foreign policy. He is a Wisconsin attorney in private practice. He is the host of the Liberty Weekly Podcast at www.libertyweekly.net, where he seeks to expose establishment narratives with well researched documentary-style content and insightful guest interviews. His work has appeared on antiwar.com and Zerohedge. He may be reached at [email protected]

All images in this article are from TLI

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***

Scott and I focused initially on President Biden’s just-completed Excellent Adventure in the Far East and the U.S. effort to woo countries away from China or, at least, pre-empt closer bilateral ties.

I again posed the question (see my brief talk Thursday, embedded here), Why must China’s “win-win” approach be dismissed out of hand — especially when it was so mutually beneficial 50 years ago in reducing tension and keeping the peace?

Recent developments, including talks with Chinese officials, have fortified Scott’s view that China remains extremely reluctant to go to war over Taiwan. Nevertheless, China will do so “in a heartbeat” if Taiwan declares independence and develops a more substantial military relationship with the U.S.

Bottom line: Scott predicts that the U.S. will be at war with China within six months to a year — and will lose. This could be avoided if the U.S. takes the military aspect out of the equation in confronting China and does the sensible thing in limiting the competition to the economic sphere.

Ray discussed the lemming-like bloc heads now leading the NATO bloc and compared them to statesmen and stateswomen of the past — the German Social Democratic Party’s Willy Brandt and Egon Bahr, for example; and Angela Merkel (no Socialist she), who told President Obama to his face that Germany would not join any effort to send offensive arms to Ukraine. Sadly, serious leaders of the past, experienced in foreign affairs as well as politics, have been replaced by political hacks with little or no experience (or even interest) in Ostpolitik, which yielded a peaceful, mutually beneficial detente in the 1970-80s.

The economic sanctions are already making themselves felt, however, in Germany and elsewhere. And there are preliminary signs that even some bloc-head lemmings may be having serious second thoughts. Fissures are cracking open and expanding among the NATO countries — particularly among those most affected by the sanctions.

Scott reiterated his longstanding view that Russian forces will prevail on the ground in Ukraine, adding that recently they have been performing in a very impressive, professional way. This, despite what the NY Times and Washington Post has been saying, (and even their narrative of Russian “blundering” has begun to change under the force of circumstances). One major question: If Establishment media find themselves forced to acknowledge strong Russian advances in the coming weeks, will they turn on the Biden administration as the mid-term November elections draw near? Snippets of truth have begun to appear in the likes of the NY Times and Washington Post.

The way things have evolved on the ground, serious embarrassment may be unavoidable. Will Biden cut his loses? I suggest the answer to that is No. Rather, with no adults in the room, Biden may instead be persuaded to up the ante (see below). I do hope someone tells the president that the Russians will not back down in the face of escalatory steps they are capable of neutralizing, and that this includes what they call “offensive strike missiles” capable of reaching Russia.

Update

In this context, the trial-balloon-type media reports yesterday afternoon, after our interview, that the U.S. is preparing to send long-range rocket systems to Ukraine, takes on added importance. A final decision by the White House is expected as early as next week. (See this)

One key weapons system under discussion is the U.S.-made Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) capable of firing a torrent of rockets 180 miles or more. This is much farther than the systems currently in Ukraine’s inventory, and could put Russia itself within range. This system has been sitting atop the long list of requests from Ukrainian officials, who say it is needed to curb advancing Russian forces in the Donbas. U.S. officials reportedly “have concerns” that Ukrainian forces might end up firing into Russian territory, causing major escalation.

Meanwhile, CNN reports (See this) that Democratic Rep. Jason Crow of Colorado, who was part of a congressional delegation trip to Kyiv earlier this month, told CNN he believes the systems could help Ukraine gain significant momentum against Russia.

Crowing About the MLRS

“I think it could be a game-changer”, Crow[1] said, not only for offensive attacks but also for defense. He explained that Russian conventional artillery, which has a range of about 50km, “would not get close” to Ukrainian urban centers if MLRS systems were positioned there. “So it would take away their siege tactics,” he said of the Russians.

The Kremlin has warned that any country providing advanced weaponry to Ukraine will face harsh repercussions. Yesterday Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the West has “declared total war” against Russia. The Russians would see any attempt to provide MLRS to Ukraine as additional proof of the West’s intent.

I would expect any MLRS that make it into Ukraine to be neutralized as soon as they are detected.  And then Lockheed Martin (poor thing) would have to manufacture and sell still more! The money is there; the only problem is how fast it can be spent down.  And so it goes.

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Note

[1] Jason Crow styles himself as something of a specialist on Russia. He has asserted that: “Vladimir Putin wakes up every morning and goes to bed every night trying to figure out how to destroy American democracy.”

Featured image is from InfoBrics

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***

Adam Smith wrote that the efficiency of markets relies on the free movement of goods. What happens when governments seize property in order to exert political pressure — or out of greed?

A major, arguably the primary, incentive of the capitalist system is that it offers the potential of accruing wealth. Individuals and companies rely on government to maintain order, keep conditions like interest rates stable, and protect accumulated assets from bank failures, devaluation, fraud and theft, without regard for the political orientation of their owner. In recent years, however, the United States has increasingly been putting its thumb on the scale for ideological reasons, taking assets by ethically and legally dubious means, and imperiling its reputation as a safe haven for deposits and investments.

From the 62-years-and-counting trade embargo against Cuba to the severing of ties with Iran following the hostage crisis to the isolation of South Africa to punish apartheid, the U.S. has repeatedly turned to economic sanctions in the postwar era. The outright seizure of foreign assets held in the U.S. has increasingly become a part of the mix of pressure tactics.

President George W. Bush took $1.7 billion from Iraq’s foreign reserves in 2003 and transferred an additional $600 million to a slush fund to finance anti-Saddam Hussein factions.

Shortly before the 2011 overthrow and killing of  Moammar Gadhafi, President Barack Obama ordered that U.S. banks freeze $30 billion held by the Central Bank of Libya and the Libya Investment Authority, a sovereign wealth fund, and use some of the money to fund Benghazi-based anti-Gadhafi rebel groups, some of which morphed into radical jihadi terrorist organizations.

Obama signed a 2012 law allowing frozen Iranian assets to be made available to settle claims by families of Hezbollah victims in Lebanon.

“It is theft … it is like stealing Iran’s money and we condemn it,” an Iranian spokesman said.

Refusing to accept the legitimacy of the country’s sitting president, President Donald Trump attempted a backdoor economic coup in Venezuela with a 2019 order granting opposition leader Juan Guaido — even though he wasn’t a government official — authorization to dispose of assets and property in U.S. bank accounts under the name of the government of Venezuela.

The Biden administration recently grabbed $7 billion in deposits at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in the name of the central bank of Afghanistan, Da Afghanistan Bank. The Taliban, who seized power in late August, claim they are the new government and that the money should be sent to them so they can, among other things, address mass starvation resulting from the post-U.S.-withdrawal economic collapse. The U.S., however, refuses to recognize the Taliban (or the former regime led by Ashraf Ghani) as the government of Afghanistan.

In February, President Joe Biden signed an executive order transferring $3.5 billion to a trust fund that may be used to settle civil claims by the families of 9/11 victims and the remaining $3.5 billion to a second fund that might eventually be drawn down upon by humanitarian aid organizations. China’s reaction received widespread, approving news coverage.

“This is flagrant robbery and shameless moral decline. The U.S. should immediately return the stolen money back to the Afghan people, and compensate people in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and more who died or suffered losses from the U.S. military invasions,” said Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying.

As part of its sanctions against Russia to punish it for invading Ukraine, the U.S. has frozen $100 billion in Russian foreign-exchange reserves held at the Fed and moved to seize superyachts, luxury apartments and bank accounts held by oligarchs close to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Rep. Tom Malinowski, D-N.J., co-sponsor of a House resolution urging the sale of frozen Russian assets to benefit Ukraine that passed by an overwhelming majority, said that Russia should never get them back: “Can we imagine giving all of Russia’s wealth — the yachts, the bank accounts, the villas, the planes — back to Putin and his cronies as Ukraine lies in ruin, as the Ukrainians bury their dead? We cannot imagine doing that. We will not do that.”

Russia, however, has long anticipated American sanctions and has engaged in a policy of “de-dollarization” of its foreign currency reserves to soften the blow. “Crucially, the once-dominant dollar now accounts for only 16% of Russia’s currency reserves, which Moscow has replaced with euros, China’s renminbi, and gold,” reports The New York Times.

Other countries with less-than-perfect relationships with the United States are searching for ways to keep their assets out of our clutches. Brazil and India are worried about being targeted over their environmental policies. Do we really want to solidify our reputation as a place where your bank account and even your home can be taken by the U.S. government because you are friends with the president of your country at a time when the U.S. and your country aren’t getting along?

Kleptomaniacal economic warfare has also become pervasive within our borders. Police agencies routinely use civil asset forfeiture to take the cars, houses, boats, cash and other property of people they suspect of involvement with crime or illegal activity. More than $68 billion worth of personal property has been seized by cops over the last 20 years within the United States, all without due process. Incredibly, property is not returned even when no charges are filed or a trial ends with a not-guilty verdict.

We may not have much sympathy for Russian oligarchs or people whose flashy lifestyles attract the wrong kind of attention from the police. But it’s not hard to imagine a not-distant future when the government might seize an average law-abiding citizen’s middle-class house because they espouse the wrong politics. The way things are going, we may soon see an ill-considered tweet lead to someone’s bank account being frozen and the assets redirected to some bureaucrat’s favorite cause.

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Ted Rall (Twitter: @tedrall), political cartoonist, columnist and graphic novelist, is the author of the biography “Bernie.” You can support Ted’s hard-hitting political cartoons and columns by sponsoring his work on Patreon.

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

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***

U.S. plans to host a Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles in June have been upended by several countries dropping out.

Why? They are boycotting our mean spirited decision to not invite Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua. Seems these poor, small countries don’t bend to America’s demanding they kowtow to U.S. unipolar dominance of the world, especially in America’s backyard.

Mexican president Andres Lopez Obrador, Bolivian president Luis Arce, Argentine president Alberto Fernandez have all called for the U.S. to invite the 3 targets of U.S. hatred or they won’t attend. That poses a huge dilemma for President Biden who claims he’s re-instituting sensible diplomacy to U.S. foreign policy after 4 years of Trump mismanagement and bungling.

In 1933 newbie president FDR announced the Good Neighbor policy with Latin America reversing decades of economic exploitation and military intervention. That policy worked for a time but was jettisoned during the Cold War. America viewed every progressive movement there as communist influenced that had to be reversed, the people be damned.

The main targets were the Big 3: Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba. We’ve been interfering in the socialist government of Venezuela since early this century. Our war against Nicaragua goes back to the Reagan 80’s which inspired his treacherous Iran Contra scandal which should have gotten Reagan impeached. But for U.S. skullduggery, nothing compares to Cuba, who have been sanctioned unmercifully now for 62 years.

Unfortunately, America continues to be a terrible neighbor to Latin America, causing many invitees to the Summit of the Americas next month to tell Uncle Sam, ‘Stuff it.’

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***

The United States is an unfortunate outlier.

As citizens around the country beg for gun reform — a recent poll from YouGov and Yahoo News said just under half of all Americans believe Congress should “make gun laws more strict” — mass shootings keep on occurring.

According to the Gun Violence Archive, a nonprofit that tracks shootings in the US, there have been 214 mass shootings in 2022 alone.

The United States has far more lax firearm laws and policies compared to other countries — the federal right to own a firearm is even baked into the United States’ constitution via the Second Amendment. Gun laws and regulations also vary from state to state: some states have more restrictive laws, while some allow for much greater firearm ownership rates for protection and hunting.

But America’s fascination with guns has taken a turn: firearms have since become one of the leading causes of death for Americans of any age, and, according to the Giffords Law Center, they’re also the leading cause of death for children below the age of 18.

Different sources differ on the definition of a mass shooting, but the Gun Violence Archive and the Congressional Research Service define it as an incident where four or more people were shot, excluding the shooter from being counted as a victim.

This table includes the names, locations, and casualty information from each mass shooting in the US in 2022:

You can view a report of any incident by visiting the list on the Gun Violence Archive’s website.

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***

Just as hysteria about COVID-19 is winding down, another “pandemic” is poised to take its place. This time, it’s monkeypox, a typically mild infection that often resolves in three to four weeks without treatment

The first European case of monkeypox was confirmed May 7, 2022, in the U.K. Then, seemingly overnight, cases were being reported across the world. May 20, 2022, the World Health Organization held an emergency meeting to discuss reports of more than 100 suspected or confirmed cases in at least nine countries

A tabletop simulation exercise of a monkeypox outbreak took place in March 2021, and in this fictional scenario, the first European case of monkeypox was also identified on May 7, 2022

The first case in the U.S. was reported May 18, 2022. By May 23, suspected monkeypox cases were reported in three additional states: New York, Florida and Utah

President Joe Biden has stated that strict quarantine protocols are not likely to be implemented in the U.S. He has, however, already placed a $119 million order for a monkeypox vaccine. Belgium, meanwhile, has introduced a 21-day quarantine for anyone who tests positive, and the U.K. is urging anyone who has had direct contact with a confirmed case to voluntarily isolate for 21 days

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As predicted, just as hysteria about COVID-19 is winding down, another “pandemic” is poised to take its place. This time, it’s monkeypox, an infection that just so happens to mimic many of the symptoms of COVID jab-induced shingles — so much so, the Department of Health in Queensland, Australia, used the same photo to illustrate both infections (the photos have since been removed or updated¹).

The first European case of monkeypox was confirmed May 7, 2022, in the U.K.² Then, seemingly overnight, cases were being reported across the world.³ May 20, 2022, the World Health Organization held an emergency meeting to discuss reports of more than 100 suspected or confirmed cases in at least nine countries, including Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, the U.K., the U.S., Canada and Australia.⁴

By the time this article goes to print, the number of countries affected and the case load totals are likely going to be significantly higher. The first case in the U.S. was reported May 18, 2022.⁵

By May 23, suspected monkeypox cases were reported in three additional states: New York, Florida and Utah.⁶ All of the patients were said to be in good condition and state health departments were in agreement that the cases posed no serious risk to the public.

President Joe Biden has stated that strict quarantine protocols are not likely to be implemented in the U.S. He has, however, already placed a $119 million order for a monkeypox vaccine.^7,8

Belgium, meanwhile, has introduced a 21-day quarantine for anyone who tests positive, and the U.K. is urging anyone who has had direct contact with a confirmed case to voluntarily isolate for 21 days.⁹

As noted by Jimmy Dore in the video above, the worldwide monkeypox outbreak seems perfectly timed to pressure countries to relinquish health care authority to the WHO.

The World Health Assembly was voting on amendments to the International Health Regulations (IHR)¹⁰ as the first cases were being identified. I discussed the implications of these amendments in a recent article. As noted by Dore, a pandemic rehearsal conducted just last year also featured monkeypox specifically. I’ll review that further below.

What Is Monkeypox?

Monkeypox, a relative of the smallpox virus, is a typically mild viral illness, characterized by fever, headache, muscle aches, exhaustion, swollen lymph nodes and a bumpy rash that tends to start on the face before spreading to other parts of the body.

The pus-filled lesions are known as “pox.” The lesions eventually scab over and fall off after three to four weeks. The infection is not readily transmissible, as it requires direct contact with bodily fluids.

While there’s no known effective treatment, most patients recover without any treatment whatsoever. Historically, the infection has primarily plagued the African continent, where a few thousand cases are reported each year. However, many of the current cases are not linked to travel, making the outbreak in so many different areas a rare oddity. As noted by Nature magazine:¹¹

“On 19 May, researchers in Portugal uploaded the first draft genome¹² of the monkeypox virus that was detected there, but Gustavo Palacios, a virologist at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City, emphasizes that it’s still a very early draft, and more work needs to be done before any definitive conclusions can be drawn.

What researchers can tell from this preliminary genetic data is that the strain of the monkeypox virus found in Portugal is related to a viral strain predominantly found in West Africa. This strain causes milder disease and has a lower death rate — about 1% in poor rural populations — compared with the one that circulates in Central Africa.

But exactly how much the strain causing the current outbreaks differs from the one in West Africa — and whether the cases popping up in various countries are linked to one another — remains unknown.”

Outbreaks Blamed on Gay Sex

Several of the Spanish cases were linked to a “superspreader event at an adult sauna” in Madrid, at least three Belgian cases were linked to a gay fetish festival in Antwerp,¹³ and cases in Italy and Tenerife have been linked to a gay pride festival on the Canary Islands.¹⁴ Health officials also claim a “notable proportion” of British cases are in the gay and bisexual community.^15,16

Is the singling out of gays another ploy in the totalitarian takeover plan? Totalitarian regimes always need an enemy onto which the fear and irrational aggression of the hypnotized masses can be directed, and since the hatred against those refusing the COVID jab has significantly abated, they clearly need a new scapegoat.

It would not surprise me if, after two years of promoting the gay and trans community, the far Left will now begin to incite anger and fear against it. Why? Because it causes confusion and uncertainty. People who once showed allegiance with this group will now be splintered against them. At the end of the day, it’s all about psychological splintering and pitting various groups against each other.

It appears the monkeypox outbreak is also being used to promote The Great Reset in other ways. Already, U.K. health officials are warning the monkeypox virus may spread through consumption of infected meat,¹⁷ and we already know that eliminating meat consumption is part of the globalist agenda.

Monkeypox Simulation in 2021

Making the monkeypox outbreaks all the more suspicious is the fact that a tabletop simulation exercise of a monkeypox outbreak took place in March 2021,¹⁸ and the start date of this fictional scenario was mid-May 2022. Coincidence?

In the video above, AmazingPolly reviews the details of this simulation. She also reminds us how Event 201 ended up “predicting” the COVID pandemic to a tee, and shows how we’re now seeing a replay of “coincidences” between the monkeypox simulation and real-world events.

The monkeypox exercise was held by the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI), which is funded by Bill Gates. NTI was founded to assess and reduce threats associated with the proliferation of nuclear weapons,¹⁹ but they’ve since expanded to include biological threats.²⁰ Gates has not only funded NTI pandemic simulations but has also given grants to the NTI for vaccine development in relation to biological threats.²¹

The final report^22,23 from this event was funded by the Open Philanthropy project, which in turn is funded by Facebook cofounder Dustin Moscowitz. As reported by The Defender:²⁴

“This ‘fictional exercise scenario’ involved the simulation of ‘a deadly, global pandemic involving an unusual strain of monkeypox virus that first emerged in the fictional nation of Brinia and spread globally over 18 months’ …

The outcome of this ‘exercise scenario’ found the fictional pandemic, ‘caused by a terrorist attack using a pathogen engineered in a laboratory with inadequate biosafety and biosecurity provisions and weak oversight,’ led to ‘more than three billion cases and 270 million fatalities worldwide.’

The fictional start date of the monkeypox pandemic in this exercise was May 15, 2022. The first European case of monkeypox was identified on May 7, 2022.”

As mentioned, the first European case of monkeypox was in fact confirmed May 7, 2022, in the U.K.²⁵ Not only is the date identical to that in this supposedly fictional scenario, but the country of emergence, “Brinia,” even sounds very much like “Britannica,” or “Great Britain.” Coincidence?

Key Recommendations From the Pandemic Exercise

As reported by The Defender, among the key recommendations from this monkeypox simulation were recommendations that clearly support the WHO’s takeover of pandemic preparedness and response, and the implementation of Gates’ “Global Epidemic Response & Mobilization” (GERM²⁶) Team:²⁷

• Bolstering international systems “for pandemic risk assessment, warning, and investigating outbreak origins,” calling upon the WHO to “establish a graded, transparent, international public health alert system” and the United Nations system to “establish a new mechanism for investigating high-consequence biological events of unknown origin.”
• The development and implementation of “national-level triggers for early, proactive pandemic response,” including the adaptation of the “no-regrets” approach to responding to pandemics via “anticipatory action” based on “triggers” that would automatically generate a response to “high-consequence biological events.”
• The establishment of “an international entity dedicated to reducing emerging biological risks associated with rapid technology advances,” that would “support interventions throughout the bioscience and biotechnology research and development life cycle — from funding, through execution, and on to publication or commercialization.”

Anticipatory action based on triggers include everything we’ve saw during the COVID pandemic, such as mask mandates, the banning of mass gatherings, travel health screening and vaccine passports. This despite overwhelming evidence showing these strategies are ineffective at best, while being devastating to public health and economies.

Why Does Fiction so Often Turn Into Reality?

As noted by The Defender,²⁸ Michael P. Sanger²⁹ and Tim Hinchliffe,³⁰ among others, fictional tabletop exercises have had an uncanny ability to predict details of near-future events. Event 201 accurately “predicted” the COVID pandemic and its focus on censorship and lockdowns.

In June 2001, Operation Dark Winter examined “the national security, intergovernmental, and information challenges of a biological attack on the American homeland,” and less than three months later, the 9/11 attacks and subsequent anthrax scare occurred. In January 2005, Operation Atlantic Storm involved the fictional scenario of a transatlantic bioterrorist attack and that same month we had the bird flu pandemic. The Defender continues:³¹

“Predictions for the future don’t end there, however. For instance, in September 2017, NTI and the WEF organized a roundtable discussion on the current state of biological risks presented by technology advancement in light of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

And in January 2020, NTI and the WEF again joined forces, issuing a report titled ‘Biosecurity Innovation and Risk Reduction: A Global Framework for Accessible, Safe and Secure DNA Synthesis.’ According to the report:

‘Rapid advancements in commercially available DNA synthesis technologies — used for example to artificially create gene sequences for clinical diagnosis and treatment — pose growing risks, with the potential to cause a catastrophic biological security threat if accidentally or deliberately misused.’

Merck, whose head of corporate affairs participated in the monkeypox simulation, was the subject of an FBI and CDC investigation in November 2021 regarding 15 suspicious vials labeled “smallpox” at a Merck facility in Philadelphia.”

In a National Pulse exclusive,³² Natalie Winters also summarizes research by the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), in which they “assembled monkeypox strains using methods flagged for creating ‘contagious pathogens.’”

“Are we here because of China’s experiments again?” she asks, referring to the apparent monkeypox outbreaks. The research paper³³ in question was published at the end of February 2022, just a few months before the first cases suddenly appeared outside of Africa.

What Do We Know About the Monkeypox Vaccine?

Click image to watch the video

The monkeypox vaccine currently being stockpiled by the U.S. and Europe is not specific for the monkeypox. It’s actually a smallpox vaccine, claimed to be 85% effective at stopping monkeypox. In the U.K., close contacts of those infected with monkeypox have reportedly already been given the smallpox vaccine — a strategy known as “ring vaccination.”³⁴ In the U.S., there are currently two smallpox vaccines available:

The U.S. Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) has also signed a contract with Bavarian Nordic for a freeze-dried version of the Jynneos smallpox vaccine, which will give it longer shelf-life.³⁶ Moderna already has a monkeypox vaccine in pre-clinical trials.³⁷ It’s unclear when those trials began.

As noted by independent journalist Whitney Webb, Emergent BioSolutions and SIGA Technologies — both of which have been struggling recently — will be cashing in on the monkeypox scare:³⁸

“Regardless of how the monkeypox situation plays out, two companies are already cashing in. As concern over monkeypox has risen, so too have the shares of Emergent BioSolutions and SIGA Technologies.

Both companies essentially have monopolies in the U.S. market, and other markets as well, on smallpox vaccines and treatments. Their main smallpox-focused products are, conveniently, also used to protect against or treat monkeypox as well. As a result, the shares of Emergent BioSolutions climbed 12% on Thursday, while those of SIGA soared 17.1%.

For these companies, the monkeypox fears are a godsend, specifically for SIGA, which produces a smallpox treatment, known by its brand name TPOXX. It is SIGA’s only product.

While some outlets have noted that the rise in the valuation of SIGA Technologies has coincided with recent concerns about monkeypox, essentially no attention has been given to the fact that the company is apparently the only piece of a powerful billionaire’s empire that isn’t currently crumbling.

That billionaire, ‘corporate raider’ Ron Perelman, has deep and controversial ties to the Clinton family and the Democratic party as well as troubling ties to Jeffery Epstein. Aside from his controlling stake in SIGA, Perelman has recently made headlines for rapidly liquidating many of his assets in a desperate bid for cash.

Similarly, Emergent BioSolutions has also been in hot water. The company, which has troubling ties to the 2001 Anthrax attacks, came under fire just under two weeks ago for engaging in a ‘cover-up’ over quality control issues relating to their production of COVID-19 vaccines.

A Congressional investigation found that quality control concerns at an Emergent-run facility led to more than 400 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines being discarded.

The Emergent factory in question had been shut down by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in April 2021. They were allowed to reopen last August before the government terminated the contract.”

What’s the Truth of the Matter?

In addition to Webb’s article above, which dissects the sordid histories of Emergent and SIGA, another early analysis of the new monkeypox scare that is well worth reading is Dr. Robert Malone’s Substack article,³⁹ “Monkey Pox — Truth Versus Fearporn.” In it, he reviews what monkeypox actually is, where it came from, how it’s related to smallpox, it’s signs and symptoms, how disease spread is effectively controlled and much more.

Key take-home’s are that monkeypox is not a particularly deadly disease and one that can be readily controlled without reverting back to COVID restrictions. To quote Malone:⁴⁰

“So, is the biothreat real? Is it imminent? Does it justify the global media hype? As I was waiting in an airport lounge to travel from USA to the UK two days ago, I saw a newsreel from CNN which was breathlessly reporting on this ‘threat’ while displaying historic images of patients suffering from Smallpox disease.

This provides a classical example of public health fearporn, in my opinion, and CNN should be reprimanded for broadcasting irresponsible propaganda — misinformation and disinformation — under the guise of journalism.

In my opinion, based on currently available information, Monkeypox is a virus and disease which is endemic in Africa, emerges sporadically after transmission into humans from animal hosts, and is typically spread by close human contact. It is readily controlled by classical public health measures.

It does not have a high mortality rate. Unless there has been some genetic alteration, either through evolution or intentional genetic manipulation, it is not a significant biothreat, and has never been considered a high threat pathogen in the past. So, stop the fear mongering, misinformation and disinformation.”

The way it looks right now, it appears the monkeypox outbreaks are intended to rile the public into another fear-fueled frenzy in order to justify the WHO’s takeover of public health globally, usher in those reviled health passports and everything else that goes along with The Great Reset. As noted by Hinchliffe in a 2020 Sociable article:⁴¹

“If you are World Economic Forum (WEF) Founder Klaus Schwab, you attempt to sell your vision of a global Utopia via a great reset of the world order in three simple steps:

The so-called ‘great reset’ promises to build ‘a more secure, more equal, and more stable world’ if everyone on the planet agrees to ‘act jointly and swiftly to revamp all aspects of our societies and economies, from education to social contracts and working conditions.’

But it wouldn’t have been possible to contemplate materializing such an all-encompassing plan for a new world order without a global crisis, be it manufactured or of unfortunate happenstance, that shocked society to its core.”

COVID simply didn’t take the globalist cabal far enough. So, here comes global pandemic No. 2 — be it real or mostly fabricated — which will be rapidly followed by renewed calls for a New World Order and a Great Reset. Essentially, we can expect a repeat of the insanity we just lived through, which means we must also repeat our response, and reject the fearmongering and the global power grab.

*

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Notes

¹ Politifact May 23, 2022

^2, 4, 25 Reuters May 20, 2022

³ Cidrap May 23, 2022

⁵ ABC News May 19, 2022

⁶ Epoch Times May 23, 2022 (Archived)

^{7, 24, 27, 28, 31} The Defender May 23, 2022

^8, 36 Endpoints May 18, 2022

⁹ BBC May 23, 2022

¹⁰ CDC International Health Regulations

¹¹ Nature May 20, 2022

¹² First Draft Genome Sequence of Monkeypox Virus May 2022

^13, 15 The Telegraph May 20, 2022 (Archived)

¹⁴ Daily Mail May 21, 2022

¹⁶ Drugs.com May 23, 2022

¹⁷ The York Press May 24, 2022

^18, 22 NTI.org November 23, 2021

¹⁹ NTI Nuclear Threats

²⁰ NTI Biological Threats

²¹ Gates Foundation National Threat Initiative

²³ NTI.org November 2021 Summary

²⁶ The Counter Signal May 2, 2022

²⁹ Michael P Sanger Substack May 20, 2022

^30, 41 The Sociable November 17, 2020

³² National Pulse May 22, 2022

³³ Viroliga Sinica February 28, 2022 DOI: 10.1016/j.virs.2022.02.009

³⁴ Daily Mail May 23, 2022

³⁵ CDC.gov Smallpox Vaccines

³⁷ Reuters May 24, 2022

³⁸ The Defender May 24, 2022

^39, 40 Robert Malone Substack May 21, 2022

Featured image: Close-up of monkeypox lesions on the arm and leg of a female child in Bondua, Grand Gedeh County, Liberia. http://phil.cdc.gov (CDC’s Public Health Image Library)

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***

If you had millions of pounds of cheese—along with butter and dry-milk powders—where would you keep it? If you’re the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), the answer is obvious: in a series of caves outside underneath Springfield, Missouri. 

It’s not as wacky as it sounds. The USDA has a large presence in Kansas City, Missouri, and when it found itself with millions of pounds of surplus dairy and needed a safe, climate-controlled place to put it all, it started to search locally. A set of caves along Interstate 435 offered a convenient cold-storage option.

But still, caves aside, why is the government in the decades-long habit of hoarding cheese in the first place?

The answer to that question has two parts: why it started; and why it’s still doing it.

Because of the War in Ukraine, We Are Heading for a Global Food Catastrophe

By Marc Vandepitte, May 29, 2022

The invasion of Ukraine is a horror and has already cost thousands of lives. But this conflict may also destroy millions of lives far from the battlefield. The war is particularly detrimental to the global food system, which has already been weakened by Covid-19, by climate change and by high energy prices. If this war continues, we will be heading for a real food catastrophe.

NRA Convenes in Texas as Gun Stocks Soar on Wall Street

By C.J. Atkins, May 30, 2022

Though some politicians and singers pulled out of the NRA’s Houston confab, Trump will be the headline speaker. He’ll be joined by other darlings of the far right, such as Sen. Ted Cruz and South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem. Texas Gov. Gregg Abbott—who said a few years ago that he was “embarrassed” his state wasn’t number one in the nation for gun purchases—won’t be showing up. Instead, he’ll address the meeting via video.

Argentine Minister: ‘We can’t be sure there aren’t nuclear weapons in the Falklands.’

By Matt Kennard, May 30, 2022

On the 40th anniversary of the Falklands War, Declassified sits down with Argentina’s minister responsible for the disputed islands at his office inside the Foreign Ministry in Buenos Aires. Carmona found out about Declassified after we discovered a document at the National Archives in January showing that the UK had deployed 31 nuclear weapons to the South Atlantic during the 1982 war.

Retired US General Calls for “Coalition of the Willing” for Naval Conflict with Russia

By Andre Damon, May 30, 2022

The governments of the United States, the United Kingdom and other NATO members are preparing a major new stage of the US-NATO war against Russia by using their warships to break the Russian blockade of Ukrainian ports, creating the conditions for a direct shooting war between NATO and Russian naval forces.

Huawei Ban Undermines Canadian and World Security

By Prof. John Price, May 30, 2022

On May 19, the Canadian government formally announced that it would prohibit products and services of Chinese corporations Huawei and ZTE from being used in Canadian high-speed telecommunications systems.

Rand Paul: ‘Elitists want a One World Government; It’s not a conspiracy theory’

By Steve Watson, May 30, 2022

Senator Rand Paul appeared on Fox News Thursday and discussed the ongoing World Economic Forum gathering in Davos Switzerland, remarking that it is not a conspiracy theory to suggest the organisation is seeking a one world government, rather it is “in their mission statement.”

An Upbringing According to Strict Religious and Military Principles – And the Reflex of Absolute Spiritual Obedience: The Example of Auschwitz Commander Rudolf Höß

By Dr. Rudolf Hänsel, May 29, 2022

Religion and any other kind of occultism are a private matter for parents and their children; they must therefore be rejected as a special subject at school. The school must be non-denominational. The Bible – like any other faith programme of a superstitious nature – also does not belong in school.

What Does 5G Sound Like? Expert Investigation

By Matt Cossey, May 29, 2022

5G is now installed and switched on across millions of sites all over the world and so my testing has begun. Many are wondering: what does 5G sound like? Today I’ll share with you the radiation levels plus the eerie sound of 5G radiation coming off the transmitters.

Western Civilization at a Crossroads: Mythical Hegemony or Win-Win Paradigm?

By Matthew Ehret-Kump and Edward Lozansky, May 29, 2022

Of course, the West blames all the problems of the world on the East, particularly Russia and China but there are some “dissident” voices that need to be heard at least for the sake of those who are interested in searching for ideas that might avoid Armageddon.

The Eurasian Economic Union Steps Up

By Pepe Escobar, May 29, 2022

The Eurasian Economic Forum was established by the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council explicitly to further deepen economic cooperation between EAEU members. No wonder the official theme of the forum was Eurasian Economic Integration in the Era of Global Shifts: New Investment Opportunities, focusing on strategic development in the industrial, energy, transport, financial, and digital areas.

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***

The funerals haven’t even been held yet in Texas for the 19 schoolchildren and two teachers murdered at Robb Elementary School on Tuesday. Families remain grief-stricken, pleading for information about why law enforcement reportedly dithered as their loved ones were being gunned down.

But that’s not stopping former President Donald Trump, other Republican lawmakers, and firearms marketers from descending on Houston this weekend for a three-day celebration of guns at the National Rifle Association’s annual convention.

Meanwhile on Wall Street, the country’s biggest gun and ammunition manufacturers are also having a party—because their stock prices are swelling. Smith & Wesson added 8.4% in the days immediately after the massacre. Sturm, Ruger, & Co. tacked on 5.7%. For bullet maker Olin, the gain was 3.8%. The biggest winner was Ammo Inc., an Arizona-based manufacturer of ammunition and owner of GunBroker.com, billed as the largest online marketplace for guns. Its share price jumped more than 12%.

By now it’s all a familiar story. After a mass shooting, the NRA rushes to deflect blame from itself for promoting the culture of violence, all the while encouraging more gun purchases in the name of safety. In Washington and in state capitals around the country, the gun lobby’s political arm—the Republican Party—does its utmost to sabotage any possible firearms regulation. And the gun companies reward them both for the effort spent to protect their profits.

The whole affair is premised on transforming fear into votes for the GOP and into dollars for shareholders.

Gun party met with protests

Though some politicians and singers pulled out of the NRA’s Houston confab, Trump will be the headline speaker. He’ll be joined by other darlings of the far right, such as Sen. Ted Cruz and South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem. Texas Gov. Gregg Abbott—who said a few years ago that he was “embarrassed” his state wasn’t number one in the nation for gun purchases—won’t be showing up. Instead, he’ll address the meeting via video.

Comments from Rocky Marshall, a former NRA board member, previewed what’s expected to be the message from the organization. Marshall said that the Uvalde massacre “does put the meeting in a bad light,” but said that the free and easy availability of military-grade assault rifles is not the problem. Instead, he shifted the blame to mental illness and inadequate school security.

The nation certainly faces a crisis of mental health care accessibility, but the NRA’s attempt to deflect from its role in blocking common sense gun regulation like stronger background checks and limits on semi-automatic weapons sales isn’t fooling public safety activists.

They’re organizing massive protests to greet convention-goers and keeping tabs on which political leaders show up to pledge their fealty to the gun lobby.

“The real question now is which elected officials will choose to side with violence and go kiss the ring in Houston this weekend instead of siding with communities crying out for public safety,” Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action, told the press.

Cesar Espinosa is executive director of the Houston-based immigrant rights group FIEL (Familias Inmigrantes y Estudiantes en la Lucha / Immigrant Families and Students in the Struggle). FIEL is among the organizations leading the protests this weekend.

“This is not the time or place to have this convention,” Espinosa said. “We must not just have thoughts and prayers from legislators, but rather we need action to address this public health crisis that is affecting our communities.”

Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner had a similar message for the Republicans converging on his city.

“You can’t pray and send condolences on one day and then be going and championing guns on the next,” he said. “That’s wrong.”

The NRA isn’t listening, though. In 1999, immediately after the school shooting at Columbine High School in Colorado, the group invaded Denver to hold a big gun meeting. In Houston this weekend, they’re just following the same pattern of spitting in the faces of victims’ families.

Making a killing off of killing

When it comes to the political economy of mass shootings, the pattern at work is really quite simple. Once a mass shooting occurs, there is inevitably talk of stricter gun control legislation. This comes from activists and Democrats determined to do something about automated murder, as well as from right-wingers who want to exploit the situation for the sake of selling more guns.

“Why are we willing to live with this carnage?” President Joe Biden, a longtime crusader for gun control when he was in the Senate, asked after Uvalde. “Why do we keep letting this happen? Where in God’s name is our backbone?”

The answer, of course, is to be found in Congress and on Wall Street.

The Democratic-run House has passed several gun control measures, but the guarantee of a filibuster in the split Senate means that, once again, nothing will be done immediately to respond to this crisis. Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell has signaled he has no intention of giving gun legislation any hearing.

Same old, same old.

As soon as legislative proposals are made, the NRA and its allies are up in arms—figuratively and literally—about attacks on the Second Amendment. Americans are told that the government is plotting to take away all their guns.

Then what happens? Gun and ammunition manufacturers and retailers watch as sales soar. They, in turn, continue funding the operations of the NRA, which is a multimillion-dollar operation itself. Panic buying ensues, donations for the NRA pour in, and gun company shareholders cash in. (It’s worth noting that the only recent mass shooting which did not see an immediate jump in gun company share prices was the Buffalo grocery store massacre, where most of the victims were Black.)

Of course, the other beneficiaries of this cycle can’t be forgotten—McConnell and the Republican Party. The NRA, which is little more these days than the political arm of the gun industry, can be counted on to deliver its members’ votes and dollars into the GOP fold at every election. Republicans in Congress reciprocate by ensuring that no serious piece of gun legislation ever becomes law. And in the state legislatures they control, Republicans typically weaken existing gun laws after a mass shooting.

It is a mutually beneficial relationship that ties the gun industry, the gun lobby, and the Republican Party together.

The important role that mass shootings and the political machinations of the NRA-GOP alliance play in driving gun profits has been frankly admitted by many top executives in the industry.

At a global conference for retailers hosted by Goldman Sachs in 2015, the CEO of Dick’s Sporting Goods, Ed Stack, announced that “The gun business was very much accelerated based on what happened after the [2012] election and then the tragedy that happened at Sandy Hook.” He was referring to the massacre of schoolchildren at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., in 2012.

A year earlier, James Debney, the chief executive of Smith & Wesson, told an investor’s meeting that “the tragedy in Newtown and the legislative landscape” had driven sales up “significantly.” He commented that “fear and uncertainty that there might be increased gun control drove many people to buy firearms for the first time. You can see after a tragedy, there’s also a lot of buying.”

But Tommy Milner, the head of Cabela’s, one of the leading gun retailers, was even more blunt. Before a group of investors in Nebraska in 2015, he stated that his company’s business “went vertical…I mean it just went crazy.” The transcript from the conference says that Milner explained to shareholders that his company “didn’t blink as others did to stop selling the AR-15.”

The AR-15 is a semi-automatic rifle based on the U.S. military’s M-16 and was the type of gun used at Sandy Hook, at Uvalde, and at so many other mass shootings. The decision to continue selling this particular gun was a competitive advantage for Cabela’s against other retailers and brought in “a lot of new customers.” Milner said the company benefitted from the “tailwinds of profitability.”

Breaking the GOP Senate blockade

Reversing the country’s crisis of gun violence is a long-term task that will take many different forms—political, cultural, and economic. There are already some measures that could be taken right away, though, if it wasn’t for Republican intransigence.

In March of last year, the House passed two different bills aimed at expanding and strengthening background checks for anyone trying to buy a gun.

One of them would eliminate the so-called “Charleston loophole,” named after the 2015 massacre in South Carolina, which allows a person to buy a gun if their background check is not complete within three days. The other targets the “gun show loophole,” which lets private sales of firearms to go on totally unregulated, with no background checks at all, at gun shows or online.

Neither bill has been brought forward for a vote in the Senate because of McConnell and the GOP. With the chamber split almost evenly between Democrats and Republicans, the mere threat of a filibuster by the right-wing minority is enough to sink legislation before it even gets a hearing.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who introduced her own far-reaching but similarly doomed gun control package in 2019, expressed the frustration of the moment after Uvalde. “The breakdown of the political process has never been clearer. We can’t even act to keep our own children safe,” she said on Tuesday.

Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin similarly placed the blame directly where it belongs: “We can’t budge the Republicans an inch on this issue of gun safety.”

With the Democratic Party unable to rally recalcitrant lawmakers in its own right-wing faction like Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema to eliminate the filibuster, it falls to voters and the people’s organizations to change the makeup of the Senate in the elections this fall.

Shrinking the GOP’s hold in the Senate below 40 seats to block their filibuster power and keeping them in the minority in the House are key to winning progress on gun legislation—as well as every other pro-people priority, from labor law reform to voting rights protections to COVID relief and more.

The right wing’s bullets and political dollars must be countered with our votes.

*

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C.J. Atkins is the managing editor at People’s World. He holds a Ph.D. in political science from York University in Toronto and has a research and teaching background in political economy and the politics and ideas of the American left. In addition to his work at People’s World, C.J. currently serves as the Deputy Executive Director of ProudPolitics.

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***

On the 40th anniversary of the Falklands War, Declassified sits down with Argentina’s minister responsible for the disputed islands at his office inside the Foreign Ministry in Buenos Aires.

“Let me be very clear,” Guillermo Carmona says, pointing at a map of the South Atlantic sea hanging on his wall. “Las Malvinas, Sandwich and Georgia islands…these are Argentinian, they are occupied by a foreign power.”

The foreign power he is talking about is Britain.

Carmona, Argentina’s minister responsible for the South Atlantic, is talking from his office at the top of the Foreign Ministry in Buenos Aires. The floor-to-ceiling windows give panoramic views of the attractive city dubbed the Paris of South America.

The offices are a stone’s throw from the Casa Rosada (Pink House), the palatial presidential mansion from which Eva “Evita” Peron famously spoke from the balcony.

Carmona is speaking exclusively to Declassified as Argentina and Britain mark the 40th anniversary of the war over the Falklands in 1982 (in Argentina the islands are called “las Malvinas”).

“We don’t say that they will be Argentine someday,” he continues. “Ever since Argentina existed as an independent state, these territories were always claimed as Argentina.”

A map of British Overseas Territories in the South Atlantic claimed by Argentina. (Photo: UK government)

Nuclear weapons

Carmona found out about Declassified after we discovered a document at the National Archives in January showing that the UK had deployed 31 nuclear weapons to the South Atlantic during the 1982 war.

In the aftermath, the Argentine Foreign Ministry released a statement saying it was planning “to raise this situation before the relevant international organisations”.

“Your publication about the nuclear weapons in the Malvinas war was very important for us,” Carmona tells me. “The files are not recent, they were published during the Macri days, and it’s remarkable how the diplomats in London did not take note of the declassification.”

Mauricio Macri, a right-wing businessman, was president from 2015-19 and oversaw an improvement in relations with Britain (Carmona contends this is mainly because he eased Argentine opposition to UK sovereignty in the South Atlantic).

Carmona adds that Declassified’s discovery was “very serious, it confirmed what we have known since 2003” when the UK Ministry of Defence first admitted it had brought nuclear weapons to the 1982 war.

“But from Declassified we learnt of the amazing number of weapons that were brought,” he says. “This confirms how untransparent and lacking in good faith UK actions after the war were.”

Carmona continues:

“It also shows the lack of transparency currently. We can’t be sure that there are no nuclear weapons in the Malvinas now. The UK hasn’t been transparent.” He pauses.

“If something like that happened during the war how can we assume it didn’t happen after the war, especially considering the militarisation process, which is ongoing?”

Strategy

Forty years on from the Falklands war, the UK still refuses to negotiate with Argentina as it is obliged to do by the UN. In the face of this intransigence on the British side, how does Carmona hope to make a breakthrough on the issue?

Carmona tells me there are four planks to his strategy.

“The first is persisting with the claim of sovereignty with the UK. The second is to keep gathering international support. We are not only protected by international law and history, but also almost all countries worldwide stand by Argentina in its claim for abiding by international law.”

He adds:

“Thirdly Argentina, in areas that are not under dispute with the UK, needs to effectively exercise sovereignty. For example, in our sea, we are fighting illegal fishing with policies for the preservation of maritime environments, developing hydrocarbon and mining resources in a sustainable way, and strengthening our Antarctic logistics. That is showing that we care for what belongs to us.”

The first three strategies rely on Argentina. But, Carmona says, the last one doesn’t.

“That is to make the most of any opportunities the international scenario can provide. I always use two examples in this respect. Panama did those three things I mentioned persistently, and when there was an opening, a window of opening with Carter, it was ready to take the opportunity.”

In 1977, President Jimmy Carter signed the Panama Canal Treaty, which ceded US control of the canal beginning in 2000 and guaranteed the neutrality of the waterway thereafter.

Carmona continues:

“Something similar is what happened with China with Hong Kong, which persisted in showing it exercises sovereignty, garnered international support and… the end of the Cold War was the window and opportunity which they grabbed.”

Carmona takes time to think through his methodical answers. He comes across as an unusually serious politician, well drilled on the minutiae of his brief and not prone to grandstanding.

Penguins on the Falkland Islands. (Photo: Creative Commons)

‘Second class citizens’

The population living on the Falklands voted overwhelmingly to remain part of the UK in 2013. How would Carmona assure them that Argentinian rule would protect them?

“We have to bear in mind that the islanders, the people living on the islands, have been very badly treated by UK governments for a long time,” he says. “As sort of second-class citizens, and this is very clear when you analyse the history of the families living on the islands since the occupation in 1833 [the year the islands were formally annexed by Britain].”

But, Carmona says, this poor treatment continues up to the present.

“The UK government did nothing about those who were locked down on the islands during the pandemic. There are residents especially of Chilean origin who for the last two years haven’t been able to go back to where they are from, because the UK lacked the commitment to finding a solution.”

Carmona adds that

“Argentina is committed to respect the interests of the people on the Islands…any islander born on the islands will be considered an Argentine citizen.”

The British position, however, is clear: “The people of the Falklands are British and have chosen to be so. They have the right to self-determination as set out in the UN Charter.”

But Carmona says “within the UN scope this self determination right is not applicable because there is a pre-existing colonial situation.”

He adds:

“We should not lose track of the fact that the population in the islands, though its composition has changed in time, were planted in Malvinas in 1833 after a military invasion, which displaced the Argentine authorities and also displaced the inhabitants.”

“That’s why when we look at the inhabitants’ issue in Malvinas it is sort of similar with the Chagos case where the original population was displaced by a military UK action,” he adds.

The UK forcibly depopulated the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean in the 1960s, in order to establish a military base there.

‘Totally anachronistic’

Carmona concludes:

“I am absolutely sure that if we moved on in the negotiations over sovereignty the islanders would have a better life.” But he admits “it is pretty clear the UK is reluctant to go back to the negotiating table.”

According to Carmona

“there was a period of time from 1965 to 1982 when there were negotiations, there was dialogue and talks. This was a fruitful period of time in the relationship between both countries.”

Shortly before the 1982 war, the UK had announced that negotiations would be frozen for a ten year period.

“It’s been 40 years since then, not ten as they announced,” Carmona tells me. “So we believe it’s about time to go back to talking, to honour the UN General Assembly resolutions.”

“The UK’s reluctance stems from them comparing the Argentine democratic governments with the military regimes,” he adds. “Next year will be 40 years of democracy in Argentina. We believe Argentina deserves different treatment by the UK government.”

I finish by asking if Carmona has a message to the British people. He gives a wry smile then says,

“Colonisation was typical of the days of the British Empire, but now it’s totally anachronistic. Maintaining that anachronism has costs for the reputation of the UK government and the UK in general. It also has costs for British taxpayers.”

He pauses before continuing:

“In the 21st century, our expectation is to do away with these colonial situations, which were typical of a world defined by the empire. Global Britain, as proposed by the Conservative UK government, moves us all back in time.”

*

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Matt Kennard is chief investigator at Declassified UK. He was a fellow and then director at the Centre for Investigative Journalism in London. Follow him on Twitter @kennardmatt

Featured image: Guillermo Carmona, Argentina’s minister for the Malvinas (Falklands), Antarctic and South Atlantic. (Photo: Matt Kennard/DCUK)

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The governments of the United States, the United Kingdom and other NATO members are preparing a major new stage of the US-NATO war against Russia by using their warships to break the Russian blockade of Ukrainian ports, creating the conditions for a direct shooting war between NATO and Russian naval forces.

This massive escalation by the US and NATO is being billed as a “coalition of the willing,” echoing the words used by the Bush administration to describe the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Retired four-star General Jack Keane, chairman of the Institute for the Study of War and chairman of AM General, the maker of the Humvee military vehicle, called on Wednesday for the creation of an “international coalition of warships led by the United States” to secure control over the Black Sea.

General Jack Keane calls for a “coalition of the willing”

“We… go to the port of Odessa and let the ships… pick up the grain that needs to be picked up and escort them out,” Keane told Fox News.

“The other risk is the Russian Navy is there. They could see this as a provocation, and we could have a prospective confrontation.”

He said it was “well within the risk profile to get this done.”

Keane developed the comments of Admiral James Stavridis, who earlier this month said that the Black Sea would be “the next major front in the Ukraine war.”

Responding to an earlier version of Keane’s remarks, the Wall Street Journalpublished an editorial entitled “Breaking Russia’s Ukrainian Grain Blockade.” It declared, “A Black Sea mission to escort commercial ships may be needed to prevent a global food shortage.”

The Journal enthusiastically agreed with Keane’s proposal and wrote:

The mission would be to form an international coalition of warships to escort commercial vessels safely out of Odessa and the Black Sea. This would work as a coalition of the willing, and not a North Atlantic Treaty Organization project that would let Mr. Putin claim it is another NATO provocation.

The Journal continued:

There are military risks… Some critics will claim an escort mission would be too risky as a naval version of a “no-fly zone.” But it is much different… No military engagement would be needed if Russia doesn’t interfere.

Technically, this could be said about any military conflict. If the opposing army simply lays down its arms, no fighting will be necessary.

Of course, despite the optimistic assurances of Keane about the “risk profile,” the idea that Russia would simply stand by while US and UK ships break its blockade is highly unlikely.

In almost any conceivable scenario, this operation could rapidly turn into a major naval battle, just like “no-fly zone” is a synonym for open and direct war between Russia and NATO.

Not even bothering to hide its cynicism, the Journal made clear that this major escalation would be “best planned and pitched as a humanitarian operation.” That is, a direct shooting war between the two largest nuclear powers would be “pitched” as a way to end world hunger.

The language of Keane and the Wall Street Journal dovetails perfectly with the rhetoric of US officials and those of its imperialist allies.

Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland on Tuesday, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen accused Russia of bombing Ukrainian food infrastructure and “hoarding its own food exports as a form of blackmail.” She said, “holding back supplies to increase global prices, or trading wheat in exchange for political support. This is using hunger and grain to wield power.”

Secretary of State Antony Blinken accused Russia of carrying out “a deliberate effort” to undermine global food supplies.

Blinken stated,

“[T]he Russian military has repeatedly blocked safe passage to and from Ukraine by closing the Kerch Strait, tightening its control over the Sea of Azov, stationing warships off Ukrainian ports. And Russia has struck Ukrainian ports multiple times.”

He added,

“The food supply for millions of Ukrainians—and millions more around the world—has quite literally been held hostage by the Russian military.”

Earlier this week, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced that the US would provide Ukraine with Harpoon anti-ship missiles via an intermediary, Denmark. The Harpoon is the standard anti-ship armament of the US Navy, capable of sinking large warships.

On Friday, Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs adviser Anton Gerashchenko tweeted that

“The US is preparing a plan to destroy the [Russian] Black Sea Fleet” as part of a “plan to unblock the ports.” He continued, “Deliveries of powerful anti-ship weapons (Harpoon and Naval Strike Missile with a range of 250–300 km) are being discussed.”

Last month, the United States provided intelligence to Ukraine that allowed it to attack and sink the Russian missile cruiser Moskva, the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.

The first countries to officially endorse the NATO-led naval operation in the Black Sea were Lithuania and the United Kingdom. On Monday, Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis called for a plan to break the blockade, declaring, “We would need a coalition of the willing—countries with significant naval power to protect the shipping lanes and countries that are affected by this.”

The Guardian reported that UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss agreed with the proposal, including “demining the harbour and providing Ukraine with longer-range weapons to defend the harbour from Russian attack.”

The plans now being discussed would mark a significant new escalation of the war, raising the prospect of NATO and Russian warships firing on each other, the potential invocation of NATO Article 5 and the abandonment of all restraints on the conflict, with catastrophic consequences for all humanity.

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On May 19, the Canadian government formally announced that it would prohibit products and services of Chinese corporations Huawei and ZTE from being used in Canadian high-speed telecommunications systems.

The long-anticipated ban is far reaching. According to the government’s policy statement released last week, all Huawei and ZTE equipment are prohibited from use in the 5G network and previously installed work has to be removed by 2024. The same applies to the 4G network. Telecommunications companies must cease purchasing Huawei and ZTE equipment by September 1, 2022. During the transition periods, Canada’s spy agency, the Communications Security Establishment (CSE) will monitor any use of Huawei or ZTE equipment or services.

The government further intends to impose restrictions on Gigabit Passive Optical Network (GPON) equipment used in fibre-optic networks. According to the policy statement, “During these transition periods, telecommunications service providers that use this equipment and managed services would be required to comply with any assurance requirements prescribed by the government, building from the CSE’s Security Review Program.”

“Our government will always protect the safety and security of Canadians and will take any actions necessary to safeguard our critical telecommunications infrastructure,” stated Liberal minister François-Philippe Champagne in announcing the ban.

But do such measures really protect Canadians?

Far from it. In fact, the ban on Huawei actually imperils Canadians, not to mention the rest of the world, for a number of reasons.

Reinforcing the Five Eyes, global settler-colonialism

Joining Champagne in announcing the government’s ban on Huawei was Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino. He stated the prohibition was the result of an extensive review by the government, but declined to make the review public.

Instead, Mendicino simply asserted the “decision reflects the values of Canadians and is in line with our closest allies, including our Five Eyes Partners,” referring to the spy alliance comprising Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

After an extensive review, we are taking the necessary steps to protect Canadians and our telecommunications infrastructure.

This decision reflects the values of Canadians and is in line with our closest allies, including our Five Eyes partners.

— Marco Mendicino (@marcomendicino) May 19, 2022

The values of this coalition include the illegal hacking of anyone, or any corporation, they fear, from former German Chancellor Angela Merkel to the headquarters of Huawei itself, as Edward Snowden exposed in his 2013 revelations regarding the National Security Agency (NSA) global spy network to filmmaker Laura Poitras, columnist Glenn Greenwald, and The Guardian intelligence reporter Ewen MacAskill.

The Snowden revelations about STELLARWIND and other spy programs remain significant. Films such as Laura Poitras’ Oscar-winning Citizenfour (available on Prime) and Oliver Stone’s Snowden (available on Netflix) help capture the scale and scope of global surveillance.

Snowden’s whistleblowing also exposed extensive Canadian involvement in the global spy ring. The leaked materials showed that Canada’s CSE used airport wi-fi to track Canadian travellers; that Canada set up spy posts at the request of the NSA; that Canada allowed the NSA to spy on the G8 and G20 summits held in this country, and used its embassies to eavesdrop on citizens abroad.

In reporting the Huawei decision, however, the mainstream media completely ignores this history of Five Eyes spying, that included breaking into Huawei headquarters in China nearly a decade ago. Instead the media simply parrots government statements, even though the Huawei decision is nothing more than mimicry of a US report issued ten years ago that stated Huawei and ZTE “provision of equipment to US critical infrastructure could undermine core US national security interests.” That report provided no evidence either, but the report was at least made public.

In this light, Huawei Vice President Alykhan Velshi’s statement in response to the Canadian prohibition rings true:

“This is a political decision,” he stated in an interview, “It’s for the government to provide evidence that Huawei is a national security threat as they claim. They have not done so.”

Far from ensuring the safety of Canadians, the government’s prohibition against Huawei and ZTE dangerously aligns Canada with the NSA and other members of the Five Eyes spy network. This coalition of settler-colonial states—which arose out of the ashes of the Second World War—may parade as the epitome of liberal democracy, but in fact it is based on the ongoing sagas of Indigenous dispossession and the imposition of empire on subject peoples in the Global South.[1]

Targeting Asian Canadians, restricting research

As reported previously, Canada’s spy agencies are known as havens of Islamophobia and racism and have illegally spied on Indigenous groups and environmentalists opposing pipeline expansion in British Columbia.

The government’s anti-China campaign has resulted in further repressive activities. Last year the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) imposed self-screening for researchers who want to apply for research grants under the NSERC alliance program. The government prohibition against Huawei can only intensify surveillance regarding cybersecurity, measures that in fact date back to 2018.

That’s when the CSE first targeted Huawei as part of its “Security Review Program.” This program, like CSIS’s national research guidelines, affects telecommunications providers but also wields the real threat of cyber-attacks to impose its agenda: “CSE, through its Canadian Centre for Cyber Security, will continue to work in collaboration with all relevant TSPs vendors, service providers, laboratories, and allies to help deliver secure and resilient Canadian systems.”

Now the government wants to ramp up surveillance to “build on the success of the Security Review Program, led by the CSE in partnership with Canadian telecommunications service providers.” The Huawei policy statement states the government plans to expand the program “to consider risks from all key suppliers and apply more broadly to help industry improve the cyber security and resilience in Canada’s telecommunications networks.”

Researchers of Chinese or Asian heritage in Canada are increasingly standing up and speaking out against the racial profiling and unjustifiable surveillance associated with such programs.

In support, UBC professor Paul Evans and Senator Yuen Pau Woo spoke out a year ago in an article that illustrated the close tie between anti-China propaganda and racial profiling. Victor Ramraj, director of the Centre for Asia-Pacific Initiatives at the University of Victoria, has also highlighted the dangers of racial profiling, as have UBC law professors s Carol Liao and Jie Cheng.

Local groups in Ottawa, Toronto and other cities have sponsored numerous sessions highlighting the dangers of racial profiling. And last year, UBC and Toronto Metropolitan University (formerly Ryerson) sponsored two national forums on anti-Asian racism.

Instead of heeding these warnings, however, the Canadian government is doubling down, intensifying its anti-China policies, extending its surveillance powers, and further aligning Canada with the United States. The fear that CSIS’s national security guidelines were but the thin edge of a wedge is becoming a reality.

Emboldening US aggression

The Trudeau government would have Canadians believe that closer ties with the United States and other Five Eyes countries will increase Canadian security, but in fact the opposite is true—the more that Canada endorses the Five Eyes, the more aggressive the US and its allies are becoming.

For example, in his recent visit to Asia, US President Joe Biden boldly declared that the US would go to war in support of Taiwan’s independence, repudiating its previous approach of ‘strategic ambiguity.’ This, even though most countries of the world, including India and Canada, affirmed that Taiwan was part of China at the end of the Second World War and have embraced a “one China” policy.

Biden went on to state that “he does not expect China will use force to attempt to take Taiwan, especially if the world stands up to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.” In this, Biden has revealed how it is using the Russian invasion of Ukraine to justify its increased military posture not only in Europe through NATO but also in the Asia Pacific.

US national security advisor Jake Sullivan carefully explained how the US administration viewed global strategy in a recent White House briefing prior to Biden’s departure for Asia: “We actually don’t regard this as a tension between investing time, energy, and attention in Europe and time, energy, and attention in the Indo-Pacific. We regard this as mutually reinforcing.”

Sullivan pointed to how US allies in Asia were supporting sanctions against Russia, how Europeans were increasingly investing in Asia, how the UK, Australia and the US had formed AUKUS, and how the European Union had adopted an “Indo-Pacific strategy, Sullivan concluded: “So, for us, there is a certain level of integration and a symbiosis in the strategy we are pursuing in Europe and the strategy we’re pursuing in the Indo-Pacific. And President Biden’s unique capacity to actually stitch those two together is, I think, going to be a hallmark of his foreign policy presidency.”

Biden’s meetings with South Korea and Japan aimed to reinforce those countries role as cannon fodder in a confrontation with China. So too, the meetings of the Quad (US, Japan, Australia, and India) at the end of his visit, aimed to tighten the screws against China.

Biden’s visit to Asia represents sabre-rattling of the highest order, provoking China and Russia to send out strategic bombers in response. This type of brinksmanship points to the extreme danger the world now faces.

The US, with the support of its Five Eyes partners and others, is increasingly “trapped in the death spiral of unchecked militarism,” as Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges puts it in a recent article. The US ambition to “cripple Russia” and curb the growing economic and military clout of China amount to “demented and dangerous fantasies, perpetrated by a ruling class that has severed itself from reality. No longer able to salvage their own society and economy, they seek to destroy those of their global competitors, especially Russia and China.”

Abandoning any pretence of Canada as a peacekeeper or honest broker, the Trudeau government has now become a full-fledged member of the fantasy club, embracing the Five Eyes, opening negotiations with Lockheed Martin to purchase the once-spurned F-35, bolstering NATO, and banning Huawei.

The last piece of this dangerous game will be the enunciation of Canada’s own “Indo-Pacific” strategy, anticipated in the coming months after Trudeau defined it as a priority for Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly last fall.

Where will it end?

Enveloped in the Eurocentric cocoon of Canadian news, the power of the Five Eyes can seem insurmountable. Indeed, the danger of war, including nuclear war, is becoming frighteningly real.

But as the Global North continues to beat the drums of war, many in the world see this for what it really is: the dying throws of an outdated settler empire.

As Aanu Adeoye, a specialist in Africa-Russia relations, reports no African country has joined the sanctions regime being pushed by the Five Eyes. This is reinforced in Stephen Kinzer’s recent global round-up published in iAffairs.

Health officials around the world are astounded and deeply concerned about the Biden administration’s reported vetoing of a global plan to allow countries to ignore patents unless China is excluded from the plan.

“Given a choice between prolonging the pandemic and the possibility that it might get easier to cure diseases in China, the US government chooses to side with death,” said Tobita Chow, Chicago-based director of Justice is Global.

And around the world, Indigenous peoples continue to fight to regain their lands and prevent the climate disaster associated with environmental racism.

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John Price is professor emeritus at the University of Victoria, author of Orienting Canada, and a member of the Advisory Board of the newly formed Canada-China Focus, a project of the Canadian Foreign Policy Institute and the Centre for Global Studies (University of Victoria).

Note

[1] Sources on the role of the settler-colonial states included the research by Australian authors Marilyn Lake and Henry Reynolds, Drawing the Global Colour Line, my Orienting Canada: Race, Empire and the Transpacific, and, more recently, David R. Thomas and Veldon Coburn, Capitalism and Dispossession, and Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz’s Not a Nation of Immigrants.

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Senator Rand Paul appeared on Fox News Thursday and discussed the ongoing World Economic Forum gathering in Davos Switzerland, remarking that it is not a conspiracy theory to suggest the organisation is seeking a one world government, rather it is “in their mission statement.”

Paul urged that

“The real danger here that’s even more dangerous than all their phony caring about carbon footprint, the real danger is this; look how bad your government is in a country where you get to vote for these people.”

“This would be a government, a world government where you don’t get to vote on anybody. This is everybody’s worst nightmare,” Paul asserted, referring to the ‘penetration’ of the WEF, to quote its head Klaus Schwab, into national governments.

“The bureaucracy that we have trouble in our United States because we don’t get to vote on them, we vote indirectly,” Paul said, adding “Can you imagine the one-world bureaucracy of all these elitists and their private jets that would rule our country and we wouldn’t get to vote?”

The Senator continued,

“So I’m dead set against this and they used to call people that talked about one-world government used to say it’s a conspiracy. We would always say no, it’s in their mission statement.”

“They say it at every meeting. That’s what they’re for,” Paul proclaimed, adding “lack of sovereignty means lack of freedom, it means lack of responsiveness and it’s completely antithetical to everything our country stands for.”

Watch video by clicking the image below.

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Marking its 20th year of transformation from Organisation of AfricanUnity (OAU) to African Union (AU), the 54-member continental organisation, said in an official message circulated to all Heads of State and Government that Russia-Ukraine crisis is eroding economic achievements that have accumulated down the years throughout Africa.

Russia-Ukraine crisis has considerably changed the existing geopolitical, state and institutional order, and making it more difficult for the collective capacity and parameters toward building Africa. The Russia-Ukraine crisis poses numerous complex challenges in many African countries.

“More recently, Africa has become the collateral victim of a distant conflict, that between Russia and Ukraine. By profoundly upsetting the fragile global geopolitical and geostrategic balance, it has also cast a harsh light on the structural fragility of our economies,” the statement said.

“The most emblematic sign of these fragilities is the food crisis following the climatic disorders, the health crisis of COVID-19, amplified today by the conflict in Ukraine. This crisis is characterised by a shrinking world supply of agricultural products and a soaring inflation of food prices. So, what to do in the face of all these challenges?” it further emphasised.

In the light of the seemingly endless Russia-Ukraine crisis and global instability, Africa is particularly confronted with massive youth unemployment and the persistent precariousness of the women of the continent are other challenges that call for urgent responses, because this category of the African population no longer accepts to be a passive spectator of its destiny.

In addition, to all these constraints, the current economic crisis which is burdened by the debt, the climate and energy crisis, in turn, affects food prices through the exorbitant cost of transport, while the health crisis following the outbreak of COVID-19, weakens the production capacities of the various economic sectors.

The African Union statement has also acknowledged the challenges posed by all-year round terrorism, violent extremism and transnational crime (human trafficking, drug trafficking, arms trafficking). Terrorism, in particular, is constantly gaining ground. Today, many States devote a good part of their resources and energies to fighting or protecting themselves against this phenomenon, thus depriving vital sectors such as health and education of the resources they need.

“The continent is also faced with the disasters generated by bad governance, which can no longer be concealed by the demand for transparency imposed by a population that is increasingly open to the world through the new information and communication technologies,” it further said.

The African Union, however, expresses hope that through a series of actions and strategic mechanisms, African countries world be able to overcome development difficulties and defficiencies.

Then there is the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), which entered into force in 2021, making Africa the largest common market in the world and accelerating continental integration. It reinforces the measures taken in terms of free movement of persons and goods.

But much depends on the collective determination and solidarity demonstrated, to face the challenges in a united and resolute manner, by the African leaders. It depends on the strong mobilisation of African leaders and the effective coordination provided by the African Union.

Reports show that the Russia-Ukraine crisis has twisted the situation in many African countries and are now among the most vulnerable in terms of ensuring food security. In response to the food crisis, it hopes to achieve by building resilience in food security on the African continent – strengthening agri-food systems and health and social production systems to accelerate socio-economic and human capital development.

As far as the resources allow, the African Union will continue addressing health, education, infrastructure, energy, science and research, the sectors whose promotion and realisation are necessary conditions for the development of Africa.

The results have not always matched the targetted ambitions. From the focussed pooling of all energies and geographically dispersed resources will emerge a new Africa, “the Africa we want” which has understandably become the resounding guiding slogan.

There is only one condition: to identify and point out, without complacency, the evils that plague current actions and hinder the effective implementation of decisions, treaties, conventions and strategies in order to provide them with the appropriate treatment.

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Kestér Kenn Klomegâh, who worked previously with Inter Press Service (IPS), is now a regular and passionate 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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***

Read Part I and II:

Wissenschaftliche Psychologie fordert neue „Aufklärung“

By Dr. Rudolf Hänsel, May 24, 2022

Gesunder Menschenverstand versus magische Weltanschauung

By Dr. Rudolf Hänsel, May 26, 2022

Die handschriftlichen Aufzeichnungen von Rudolf Höß (1901-1947) „Meine Psyche. Werden, Leben und Vorleben“ (14) – niedergeschrieben während der Krakauer Untersuchungshaft 1946 – ermöglichen dem Leser einen Blick in die Abgründe menschlichen Verhaltens. Höß erlebte in seiner Kindheit eine Erziehung nach streng religiösen und militärischen Grundsätzen und reagierte als Erwachsener mit einem „Kadavergehorsam“. Der Herausgeber der Autobiographie, Martin Broszat, schreibt in der Einleitung:

„Die im Sinne des Nationalsozialismus ‚idealen‘ Kommandanten der Konzentrationslager waren letztlich nicht die persönlich brutalen, ausschweifenden und heruntergekommenen Kreaturen in der SS, sondern Höß und seinesgleichen. Ihre ‚aufopfernde Hingabe‘ an den Dienst im Konzentrationslager und ihre nie rastende Tätigkeit machten das System der Lager funktionsfähig, dank ihrer ‚Gewissenhaftigkeit‘ konnte als eine Einrichtung der Ordnung und Erziehung erscheinen, was ein Instrument des Terrors war. Und sie waren die geeigneten Exekutionsbeamten jener Form des hygienischen Massenmordes, die es erlaubte, Tausende von Menschen zu töten, ohne das Gefühl des Mordes zu haben.“ (Buch, S. 43)

Höß sei beseelt gewesen von ‚roboterhafter Pflichterfüllung‘ an den Dienst im Konzentrationslager und jemand, der sich rücksichtslos durchsetzt, vor keinem Befehl zurückschreckt, aber dabei persönlich ‚anständig‘ bleibt (S. 20 f.). Er sei der im Kadavergehorsam Erzogene gewesen, der sich in langjährigen Schulungen durch seine Vorgesetzten einreden ließ, dass die Liquidierung Hunderttausender von Menschen beziehungsweise die Ausmerzung „rassisch-biologischer Fremdkörper und Volksschädlinge“ ein Dienst für Volk und Vaterland beziehungsweise ein notwendiger Akt völkisch-nationaler „Schädlingsbekämpfung“ sei (S. 22).

Als Heinrich Himmler, Reichsführer der Schutzstaffel (SS) Höß 1941 den Befehl gab, „in Auschwitz einen Platz zur Massenvernichtung vorzubereiten und diese Vernichtung durchzuführen“, reagierte Höß so, wie er es in der Kinderstube beim Vater gelernt hat:

„Ich stellte damals keine Überlegungen an – ich hatte den Befehl bekommen – und hatte ihn durchzuführen. Ob diese Massenvernichtung der Juden notwendig war oder nicht, darüber konnte ich mir kein Urteil erlauben, soweit konnte ich nicht sehen: Wenn der Führer selbst die ‚Endlösung der Judenfrage‘ befohlen hatte, gab es für einen Nationalsozialisten keine Überlegungen, noch weniger für einen SS-Führer. ‚Führer befiel, wir folgen‘ – war keinesfalls eine Phrase, kein Schlagwort für uns. Es war bitter ernst gemeint.“ (S. 186)

Als ihm nach seiner Verhaftung wiederholt gesagt wurde, er hätte ja diesen Befehl ablehnen oder Himmler „über den Haufen schießen“ können, widersprach Höß und meinte:

„Seine Person als RFSS (Reichsführer der SS) war unantastbar. Seine grundsätzlichen Befehle im Namen des Führers waren heilig. An denen gab es keine Überlegungen, keine Auslegungen, keine Deutungen. Bis zur letzten Konsequenz wurden sie durchgeführt und sei es auch durch bewusste Hingabe des Lebens, wie es nicht wenige SS-Führer im Krieg taten.“ (S. 187)

Rudolf Höß war ein netter Mensch, ein anständiger Kleinbürger. Er schildert, dass er selbstverständlich gehorcht hat. Er sei ja Soldat, ein gut erzogener Mensch, der auf Hitler gehört hat. Er zählte ruhig auf: Also, was weiß ich, 20.000 Russen vergast, dann die Juden, dann die Sozis und die anderen, die Freimaurer. Er hat fleißig gearbeitet und alles war in Ordnung, weil er die Höchstzahl an Vergasungen erreicht hat und das Lager zur Zufriedenheit Hitlers und seiner Generäle gut geführt hat.

Vor Gericht in Nürnberg hat man ihm den Vorwurf gemacht, dass er in der Ukraine ganze Distrikte hätte ausrotten lassen. Darauf antwortete er: Ja, damit Platz frei wird für die Deutsche Nation. Hitler sei doch ausgezogen, um Platz zu machen. Wenn Deutschland sich entwickelt, werden die Deutschen in der Ukraine angesiedelt. Nun meinte der Richter, warum er nicht dagegen protestiert habe. Daraufhin Höß empört: „Ich bin doch kein Meuterer. Ich bin ja Soldat!“ (S. 19)

Das war seine Gesinnung: er ist Soldat und kein Meuterer. Das ist Rudolf Höß – und das sind auch wir. Wenn wir uns mit dem Lagerleiter identifizieren und vorsichtig sind, weil wir eine ähnliche Erziehung erlebt haben wie er und deshalb eine ähnliche Gesinnung in unserer Seele, in unserem Gemüt haben, dann fangen wir an, uns selbst zu erkennen, werden ruhiger und kommen in unserer Persönlichkeitsentwicklung voran.

Die Atmosphäre im Elternhaus empfand Höß als tief religiös. Sein Vater sei ein fanatischer Katholik gewesen, der das Gelübde ablegte, seinen Sohn durch große Strenge zu einem Geistlichen zu erziehen (S. 33). Aufgrund seiner religiösen Überzeugung sei der Vater ein entschiedener Gegner der Reichsregierung und deren Politik gewesen, war aber dennoch der Meinung, dass trotz aller Gegnerschaft die Gesetze und Anordnungen des Staates unbedingt zu befolgen wären (S. 35).

Nun ist es eine Erkenntnis der wissenschaftlichen Psychologie, dass wir Menschen als Erwachsene im Großen und Ganzen nur das zur Verfügung haben, was wir im Laufe unserer Kindheit von den Erziehungspersonen mitbekommen haben. Bei Höß waren das religiöse und soldatische „Tugenden“ wie blinder Gehorsam, Pflichterfüllung und das Nichthinterfragen von „höheren“ Anordnungen.

Höß selbst erinnerte sich: „Ich wurde von meinem Vater nach strengen militärischen Grundsätzen erzogen.“ (S. 33) Diese Erziehungsgrundsätze – davon war er überzeugt – seien ihm in „Fleisch und Blut“ übergegangen. Wünsche und Anordnungen der Eltern, Lehrer und Pfarrer hatte der kleine Rudolf unverzüglich zu befolgen. Was die Erwachsenen sagten, war immer richtig und nicht in Frage zu stellen. Alle Aufträge der Eltern waren genau und gewissenhaft auszuführen, die Anordnungen und Wünsche des Vaters waren peinlichst zu befolgen (S. 34 f.).

So eine autoritäre Erziehung verunmöglicht es dem Kind, echte Elternliebe und Vertrauen zum Mitmenschen zu entwickeln. Es kapselt sich innerlich ab und bleibt mit seinen Sorgen allein. So erging es auch Höß:

„Obwohl mir doch beide Eltern sehr zugetan waren, konnte ich nie den Weg zu ihnen finden in all dem großen und kleinen Kummer, der so ein Jungenherz ab und zu mal bedrückt. Ich machte dies alles mit mir selbst ab. Mein einziger Vertrauter war mein Hans (Pony) – und der verstand mich, nach meiner Ansicht.“ (S. 36)

Auch wenn er seine Eltern sehr achtete und mit Verehrung zu ihnen aufsah, so brachte er doch keine echte Elternliebe für sie auf. Schon von frühester Jugend an lehnte er deshalb jeden Zärtlichkeitsbeweis ab – ganz zum Bedauern seiner Mutter (S. 35). Er wurde Einzelgänger und Tierfreund. Seine zwei älteren Schwestern beschreibt Höß dagegen als sehr anschmiegsam und stets um die Mutter. Diese Schwestern seien ihm jedoch immer fremd geblieben, nie hätte er ein warmes Gefühl für sie aufbringen können (S. 36).

Der Einfluss der Gesellschaft auf die religiöse Einstellung des Menschen

Der Mensch ist nicht nur ein Naturwesen, sondern auch ein vergesellschaftetes Wesen. Das heißt, sein sogenanntes metaphysisches Bedürfnis, an ein übersinnliches Wesen zu glauben, wird auch von gesellschaftlichen Faktoren beeinflusst und dirigiert: Von klassenmäßigen, insbesondere wirtschaftlichen Faktoren. Die Religion wird deshalb so lange bestehen, wie materielle und damit seelische und geistige Not existiert.

Bereits Ludwig Feuerbach (1804-1872), deutscher Philosoph, Anthropologe und Religionskritiker, dessen Erkenntnisstandpunkt für die modernen Humanwissenschaften wie Psychologie und Ethnologie grundlegend geworden sind, fordert, dass der Mensch endlich damit aufhören müsse, ein Spielball der menschenfeindlichen Mächte zu sein, die sich der Religion zur Unterdrückung bedienen:

„Wir sehen den Menschen gebeugt unter der Last von Geschöpfen, welche nur Erzeugnisse seines eigenen unfreien und furchtsamen Gemütes, unwissenden und ungebildeten Verstandes sind. Setzen wir an die Stelle der Gottesliebe die Menschenliebe, an die Stelle des Gottesglaubens den Glauben des Menschen an sich, an seine Kraft, werden wir aus Gläubigen zu Denkern, aus Betern zu Arbeitern, aus Kandidaten des Jenseits zu Studenten des Diesseits, und wir werden endlich ganze Menschen werden können.“ (15)

Karl Marx (1818-1883) durchschaute das Getriebe der Gesellschaft und kam zu der Erkenntnis, dass der Mensch sich nicht ändern könne, bevor sich nicht die Struktur der Gesellschaft geändert hat. Solange im Diesseits nicht jeder menschenwürdig und ohne Furcht leben könne, werde es den Glauben an ein besseres Jenseits, an eine ausgleichende Gerechtigkeit geben. Deshalb meinte er:

„Die Religion ist das Streben nach illusorischem Glück des Volkes, das einen Zustand der Gesellschaft entspringt, welcher der Illusion bedarf.“ (16)

Marx hat die Analyse des „Diesseits“ klar umrissen er erkannte die Bedeutung der Gespaltenheit der Gesellschaft in Klassen. Erst im Abbau der kapitalistischen Gesellschaftsordnung erblickte er die Möglichkeit eines daraus folgenden Abbaus der religiösen Bedürfnisse und der Entmachtung der Kirchen. Einfluss und Gewalt haben diese Kirchen nach Marx vor allem wegen ihres materiellen Besitzes, der ihnen von der feudalistischen und kapitalistischen Gesellschaftsordnung garantiert werde.

Forderungen an Schule und Universität als öffentliche Einrichtungen

Religion und jede andere Art von Okkultismus sind Privatsache der Eltern und ihrer Kinder, sie sind deshalb als Sonderfach der Schule abzulehnen. Die Schule muss konfessionsfrei sein. Auch die Bibel – wie jedes andere Glaubensprogramm abergläubischer Art – gehört nicht in die Schule. Wenn überhaupt, dann nur als Kulturdokument, dessen Kenntnis zur Allgemeinbildung notwendig ist, aber nicht als Dogma, als grundlegende normative Lehraussage, deren Wahrheitsanspruch als unumstößlich gilt. Die Schule hat in erster Linie die Überzeugung zu vermitteln, dass erfahrungsgemäßes Wissen, Verstand und Vernunft immer und überall Vorrang haben.

Die Kirchen begründen die christliche Schule unter anderem mit der „religiösen Anlage“ des Kindes und laufen gegen eine wissenschaftliche Schule Sturm. Die Kirche weiß genau, dass sie die Seele des Kindes in die Bahn der jeweiligen Konfession pressen muss, um auf Lebenszeit der Seele des Menschen habhaft zu werden.

Eine weitere berechtigte Forderung ist die Beschränkung der Theologie auf Priesterseminare. An Universitäten sollte nur eine religionswissenschaftliche Fakultät zugelassen werden. Die Theologie hat nicht den Rang einer Wissenschaft. Ein Theologe, der erst einmal wissenschaftlich zu erforschen sucht, ob sein Gott und die Dogmen wirklich zu Recht bestehen, würde den Ast absägen, auf dem er sitzt, und kein Theologe mehr sein, sondern Religionswissenschaftler.

Ausblick

Der erwachsene Mensch ist oft in seiner Ich-Entfaltung gehemmt, doch den Priestern gegenüber hörig und suggestibel. Wenn der gläubige Erwachsene meint, seine religiösen Überzeugungen mit seinem „gesunden Menschenverstand“ vereinbaren zu können, dann irrt er. Was er unter einem „gesunden Menschenverstand“ versteht, ist nichts weiter als eine verhärtete Masse toter Metaphysik.

Vielen Erwachsenen fehlt also nicht nur der „gesunde Menschenverstand“, sie müssen in weltanschaulichen Gesprächen sogar die Reste ihres Verstandes ständig niederkämpfen und sich selbst gegenüber unehrlich sein. Und das deshalb, weil nicht der geringste Beweis für die Existenz eines außerweltlichen Wesens erbracht ist, das am Schicksal des Menschen teilnimmt.

Die kirchliche Religionslehre setzt eben das Weltbild des primitiven Menschen voraus. Diese Voraussetzung ist heute durch die moderne Wissenschaft nicht mehr gegeben. Wir suchen und finden das „Göttliche“, das Ideale in der Natur, im Gesetzmäßigen, nicht mehr im Mystischen. Wir dürfen uns nicht mehr durch wunderbare Fabeln von einem vagen Transzendenten ablenken lassen und sollten für das reale Diesseits arbeiten.

Wir müssen der Jugend in der Erziehung von Anfang an Werte vermitteln, die unserem Heute entsprechen und die auch im Erwachsenenalter noch Gültigkeit haben. Wir dürfen die Jugend nicht mit Mystizismen belasten, die sie später oft über Bord wirft. Vor allem müssen wir uns immer wieder die Tatsache vor Augen halten, dass zahlreiche Religiöse keine wissenschaftlichen Interessen mehr zeigen, dass ihr natürlicher Wissensdurst durch die Religion bereits gelöscht wurde und dass die religiöse Erziehung manche Menschen und ganz Völker stumpf machte für die Schönheiten der Natur und Kunst.

Außerdem muss ein gesetzlicher Schutz der Gesundheit von Seele und Geist gefordert werden. Das Interesse des Staates hat nicht nur in der körperlichen, sondern auch in der seelisch-geistigen Hygiene seiner Bürgerinnen und Bürger zu liegen. Ein Gesetzesparagraph ist zu verlangen, der die Kinderseele vor den Vergewaltigungen verängstigender oder die logische Denkfähigkeit schädigender Okkult-Lehren schützt.

Vertreter der Okkult-Lehren, die auf die Einschüchterung der Vernunft ihre Existenz gründen, mögen dagegen protestieren und sich auf die Meinungsfreiheit und Demokratie berufen. Was als volksschädlich erkannt ist, kann aber nicht demokratisch sein. Der Kampf zwischen Wahrheit und Wahn ist „todernst“.

Die Schule, die den Schülern den unbedingten Zusammenhang von religiösen Dogmen und Moral lehrt, hat die Aufgabe, die Moral auch auf eine irdische Grundlage zu stellen. Dem Schüler muss gezeigt werden, dass es eine hochstehende Ethik auch ohne Glaubensvorstellungen gibt und in verschiedenen Ländern schon vor Jahrtausenden gegeben hat. Ihm muss gezeigt werden, dass die Begründung der ethischen Lehren aus einem inneren Trieb und dem sozialen Zusammenleben der Menschen zumindest so verständlich und zwingend ist wie die religiöse Begründung. Nicht jeder religiöse Mensch ist auch ein moralisch hochstehender.

Wir sollen dem jungen Menschen dazu verhelfen, sein eigens Wesen ohne Einschnürung durch eine Konfession auszuprägen. Dieser Mensch wird im Allgemeinen auch moralisch sein, denn da er im Einklang mit sich selbst lebt, lebt er auch im Einklang mit seiner Umgebung.

Auch die Schule hat die eigene Kraft und das Selbstbewusstsein zu stärken, vom eigenen geliebten Seelenheil abzulenken auf das Heil der Allgemeinheit, auf die Notwendigkeit der Hilfsbereitschaft, auf ein Ideal, das die höchste sittliche Kraft nicht mehr in der religiösen, sondern in der sozialen Idee sieht, in der Schaffung eines „Paradieses“ der Humanität auf Erden.

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Dr. Rudolf Lothar Hänsel ist Lehrer (Rektor a. D.), Doktor der Pädagogik (Dr. paed.) und Diplom-Psychologe (Schwerpunkte: Klinische-, Pädagogische- und Medien-Psychologie). Als Pensionär arbeitete er viele Jahre als Psychotherapeut in eigener Praxis. In seinen Büchern und pädagogisch-psychologischen Fachartikeln fordert er eine bewusste ethisch-moralische Werteerziehung und eine Erziehung zum Gemeinsinn und Frieden.

Noten

(14) Broszat, Martin (Hrsg.). (1963). Kommandant in Auschwitz. Autobiographische Aufzeichnungen des Rudolf Höß. München

(15) https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig…Feuerbach

(16) https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die…deutsche…Ideologie

Featured image: Höss at trial before the Polish Supreme National Tribunal, 1947 (Licensed under public domain)

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***

Read Part I and II:

The Agony of a Totalitarian “New World Order” (NWO) and A Different “Being Human”: Scientific Psychology Demands New “Enlightenment”

By Dr. Rudolf Hänsel, May 24, 2022

Common Sense Versus “A Magical Worldview”

By Dr. Rudolf Hänsel, May 26, 2022

The handwritten notes of Rudolf Höß (1901-1947) “Meine Psyche. Becoming, Life and Past Life” (14) – written down during his imprisonment in Krakow in 1946 – give the reader an insight into the abysses of human behaviour. Höß experienced an upbringing according to strict religious and military principles in his childhood and reacted as an adult with “cadaver obedience”. The editor of the autobiography, Martin Broszat, writes in the introduction:

“The ‘ideal’ commanders of the concentration camps in the sense of National Socialism were ultimately not the personally brutal, dissolute and derelict creatures in the SS, but Höß and his ilk. Their ‘self-sacrificing devotion’ to concentration camp service and their never-resting activity made the camp system workable, thanks to their ‘conscientiousness’ could appear as an institution of order and education, which was an instrument of terror. And they were the suitable executioners of that form of hygienic mass murder which allowed thousands of people to be killed without the feeling of murder.” (Book, p. 43)

Höß had been animated by ‘robotic devotion to duty’ to the service in the concentration camp and someone who ruthlessly asserted himself, did not shy away from any order, but remained personally ‘decent’ (p. 20 f.). He had been brought up in cadaver obedience, who had allowed himself to be persuaded by his superiors during many years of training that the liquidation of hundreds of thousands of people or the extermination of “racial-biological foreign bodies and pests of the people” was a service to the people and the fatherland or a necessary act of völkisch-national “pest control” (p. 22).

When Heinrich Himmler, Reichsführer of the Schutzstaffel (SS) gave Höß the order in 1941 “to prepare a place for mass extermination in Auschwitz and to carry out this extermination”, Höß reacted in the same way as he had learned in childhood with his father:

“I did not make any considerations at that time – I had received the order – and had to carry it out. Whether this mass extermination of the Jews was necessary or not, I could not allow myself to judge, I could not see that far: If the Führer himself had ordered the ‘Final Solution of the Jewish Question’, there were no considerations for a National Socialist, even less for an SS leader. ‘Führer commanded, we follow’ – was by no means a phrase, not a slogan for us. It was bitterly serious.” (S. 186)

When he was repeatedly told after his arrest that he could have refused this order or “shot Himmler over the head”, Höß contradicted himself and said:

“His person as RFSS (Reichsführer der SS) was untouchable. His fundamental orders in the name of the Führer were sacred. There were no considerations, no interpretations, no interpretations of them. They were carried out to the last consequence, even if it was by deliberate surrender of life, as not a few SS leaders did during the war.” (S. 187)

Rudolf Höß was a nice person, a decent petit bourgeois. He describes that he obeyed as a matter of course. He was, after all, a soldier, a well-bred person who listened to Hitler. He calmly enumerated: So, what do I know, 20,000 Russians gassed, then the Jews, then the Socialists and the others, the Freemasons. He worked diligently and everything was in order because he reached the maximum number of gassings and ran the camp well to the satisfaction of Hitler and his generals.

In court in Nuremberg he was accused of having had whole districts in the Ukraine exterminated. He replied: Yes, so that there would be room for the German nation. Hitler had gone out to make room, he said. When Germany develops, the Germans will be settled in the Ukraine. Now the judge asked why he had not protested against this. Höß responded indignantly: “I’m not a mutineer. I am a soldier!” (S. 19)

That was his attitude: he is a soldier and not a mutineer. That is Rudolf Höß – and so are we. If we identify with the camp leader and are careful because we experienced a similar upbringing as he did and therefore have a similar mindset in our soul, in our mind, then we begin to recognise ourselves, become calmer and make progress in our personality development.

Höß found the atmosphere in his parental home deeply religious. His father had been a fanatical Catholic who took a vow to raise his son to be a clergyman through great strictness (p. 33). Because of his religious convictions, his father was a staunch opponent of the imperial government and its policies, but nevertheless believed that, despite all opposition, the laws and orders of the state had to be obeyed at all costs (p. 35).

Now, it is an insight of scientific psychology that we humans as adults by and large only have at our disposal what we have received from our educators in the course of our childhood. In Höß’s case, these were religious and soldierly “virtues” such as blind obedience, fulfilment of duty and not questioning “higher” orders.

Höß himself recalled: “I was brought up by my father according to strict military principles.” (p. 33) He was convinced that these educational principles had become second nature to him. Little Rudolf had to obey the wishes and orders of parents, teachers and priests without delay. What the adults said was always right and not to be questioned. All orders from the parents were to be carried out precisely and conscientiously, the orders and wishes of the father were to be followed scrupulously (p. 34 f.).

Such an authoritarian upbringing makes it impossible for the child to develop genuine parental love and trust in fellow human beings. It isolates itself internally and remains alone with its worries. This is what happened to Höß:

“Although both parents were very devoted to me, I could never find my way to them in all the big and small sorrows that occasionally weigh down a boy’s heart. I dealt with all this on my own. My only confidant was my Hans (Pony) – and he understood me, according to me.” (S. 36)

Even though he respected his parents very much and looked up to them with adoration, he did not muster any genuine parental love for them. From an early age, therefore, he rejected any show of affection – much to his mother’s regret (p. 35). He became a loner and an animal lover. In contrast, Höß describes his two older sisters as very cuddly and always around their mother. These sisters, however, had always remained strangers to him, he had never been able to muster a warm feeling for them (p. 36).

The Influence of Society on the Religious Attitude of Man

Man is not only a natural being, but also a socialised being. This means that his so-called metaphysical need to believe in a supersensible being is also influenced and directed by social factors: By class factors, especially economic factors. Religion will therefore exist as long as material and thus mental and spiritual need exists.

Already Ludwig Feuerbach (1804-1872), German philosopher, anthropologist and critic of religion, whose epistemological standpoint has become fundamental for modern human sciences such as psychology and ethnology, demands that man must finally stop being a plaything of the anti-human powers that use religion for oppression:

“We see man bent under the burden of creatures which are but products of his own unfree and fearful mind, ignorant and uneducated intellect. If we replace the love of God with the love of man, if we replace the faith in God with the faith of man in himself, in his own power, we shall turn believers into thinkers, prayers into workers, candidates of the hereafter into students of the hereafter, and we shall at last be able to become whole men.” (15)

Karl Marx (1818-1883) saw through the gears of society and came to the conclusion that man could not change until the structure of society changed. As long as everyone could not live humanely and without fear in this world, there would be a belief in a better hereafter, in a compensatory justice. Therefore, he opined:

“Religion is the pursuit of illusory happiness of the people, springing from a state of society which needs illusion.” (16)

Marx clearly outlined the analysis of “this world” and recognised the significance of the division of society into classes. Only in the dismantling of the capitalist social order did he see the possibility of a consequent dismantling of religious needs and the disempowerment of the churches. According to Marx, these churches have influence and power primarily because of their material possessions, which are guaranteed to them by the feudalist and capitalist social order.

Demands on schools and universities as public institutions

Religion and any other kind of occultism are a private matter for parents and their children; they must therefore be rejected as a special subject at school. The school must be non-denominational. The Bible – like any other faith programme of a superstitious nature – also does not belong in school. If at all, then only as a cultural document, knowledge of which is necessary for general education, but not as a dogma, as a fundamental normative doctrinal statement whose claim to truth is considered irrefutable. The school must first and foremost convey the conviction that experiential knowledge, understanding and reason always and everywhere have priority.

The churches justify the Christian school, among other things, with the “religious disposition” of the child and run up a storm against a scientific school. The church knows very well that it has to press the child’s soul into the orbit of the respective denomination in order to get hold of the soul of the human being for life.

Another justified demand is the restriction of theology to seminaries. Only a faculty of religious studies should be allowed at universities. Theology does not have the rank of a science. A theologian who first tries to scientifically investigate whether his God and dogmas really exist rightly would saw off the branch he is sitting on and would no longer be a theologian, but a religious scientist.

Outlook

The adult human being is often inhibited in his ego development, but is in bondage to the priests and suggestible. If the believing adult thinks he can reconcile his religious convictions with his “common sense”, he is mistaken. What he understands by “common sense” is nothing more than a hardened mass of dead metaphysics.

So many adults not only lack “common sense”, they even have to constantly fight down the remnants of their intellect in worldview discussions and be dishonest with themselves. And this is because not the slightest proof has been produced for the existence of an extra-worldly being that participates in man’s destiny.

The religious teachings of the Church presuppose the world view of primitive man. This prerequisite is no longer given today by modern science. We seek and find the “divine”, the ideal in nature, in the lawful, no longer in the mystical. We must no longer allow ourselves to be distracted from a vague transcendent by wonderful fables and should work for the real this world.

In education, we must impart values to the youth from the very beginning that correspond to our present day and are still valid in adulthood. We must not burden the youth with mysticism, which they often throw overboard later. Above all, we must always bear in mind the fact that many religious people no longer show any scientific interest, that their natural thirst for knowledge has already been quenched by religion, and that religious education has dulled some people and whole nations to the beauties of nature and art.

Moreover, legal protection of the health of soul and spirit must be demanded. The interest of the state has to lie not only in the physical but also in the mental-spiritual hygiene of its citizens. A paragraph in the law is to be demanded which protects the child’s soul from the rape of frightening occult teachings or those which damage the ability to think logically.

Representatives of occult teachings who base their existence on the intimidation of reason may protest against this and invoke freedom of speech and democracy. But what is recognised as harmful to the people cannot be democratic. The struggle between truth and delusion is “deadly serious”.

The school that teaches pupils the unconditional connection between religious dogma and morality has the task of also placing morality on an earthly basis. The pupil must be shown that high ethics also exist without beliefs and existed in various countries thousands of years ago. He must be shown that the justification of ethical teachings from an inner drive and the social coexistence of people is at least as understandable and compelling as the religious justification. Not every religious person is also a moral person.

We should help the young person to develop his own nature without being constricted by a denomination. This person will generally also be moral, because since he lives in harmony with himself, he also lives in harmony with his environment.

The school, too, has to strengthen one’s own strength and self-confidence, to divert attention from one’s own beloved salvation to the salvation of the general public, to the necessity of helpfulness, to an ideal which no longer sees the highest moral force in the religious but in the social idea, in the creation of a “paradise” of humanity on earth.

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Dr. Rudolf Lothar Hänsel is a teacher (retired headmaster), doctor of education (Dr. paed.) and graduate psychologist (specialising in clinical, educational and media psychology). As a retiree, he worked for many years as a psychotherapist in his own practice. In his books and educational-psychological articles, he calls for a conscious ethical-moral values education and an education for public spirit and peace. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Notes

(14) Broszat, Martin (ed.). (1963). Commandant at Auschwitz. Autobiographical notes of Rudolf Höß. Munich

(15) https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig…Feuerbach

(16) https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die…deutsche…Ideologie

Featured image: Höss at trial before the Polish Supreme National Tribunal, 1947 (Licensed under public domain)

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

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

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The invasion of Ukraine is a horror and has already cost thousands of lives. But this conflict may also destroy millions of lives far from the battlefield. The war is particularly detrimental to the global food system, which has already been weakened by Covid-19, by climate change and by high energy prices. If this war continues, we will be heading for a real food catastrophe.

How serious the situation is

On May 18, António Guterres, the UN Secretary General, sounded the alarm. For him “the spectre of a global food shortage” looms and he fears “this dangerous situation could tip into catastrophe”.

“It threatens to tip tens of millions of people over the edge into food insecurity, followed by malnutrition, mass hunger and famine, in a crisis that could last for years.”

Six days before the raid, David Beasley, director of the World Food Program (WPF), had warned of an impending food disaster:

“If we do not address the situation immediately over the next 9 months we will see famine, we will see destabilization of nations and we will see mass migration. If we don’t do something we are going to pay a mighty big price.”

At the time, he was talking about 45 million people teetering on the brink of famine. The war could add tens of millions more. As in 2011, this situation will cause political unrest in many countries. “If we don’t feed people, we feed conflict,” Guterres said.

Pandemic and Climate

Before the invasion, the food situation in the world was already precarious. Climate change has a lot to do with that. The increasing number of extreme weather phenomena is detrimental to agriculture and food production. In the past decade, 1.7 billion people have been affected by extreme weather events and climate-related disasters.

Some examples.

Last year’s floods could make the yield of China’s winter wheat harvest the lowest in history.

The recent heat wave in India will also be very detrimental to the wheat harvest there.

Due to a drought in the US grain belt, 40 percent of wheat is in bad or very bad shape (normally only 15 to 20 percent). In Europe, the yield will almost certainly be alarmingly low due to low rainfall.

Covid-19 was and remains also a major disrupting factor. The pandemic caused an economic shock. This has reduced the purchasing power of the populations in many countries and disrupted supply chains.

Many countries of the South are on the brink of bankruptcy and their access to the financial markets is limited, look at Sri Lanka as an example.

There have been other consequences. The revival of the economy after the pandemic caused soaring energy and transport prices. The energy bill is also rising due to increasing CO2 taxes. These price increases make food products a lot more expensive.

All these factors undermine food security for large parts of the world’s population. This is especially the case in the Global South, but also for us, just think of the unprecedented number of people who rely on food banks. Before the pandemic, there were 135 million people worldwide suffering from severe food insecurity. In the past two years, that number has doubled to 276 million.

The War and the Sanctions

Russia and Ukraine play a leading role in global food production. Together they account for more than a third of the world’s grain exports and just over half of the sunflower oil exports. Russia is also the largest producer of fertilizers.

Nearly 50 countries depend on Russia and Ukraine for at least 30 percent of their wheat imports. In 26 countries this is even more than 50 percent. Together, the two countries provide 12 percent of the calories traded worldwide and in total about 800 million people depend on them for their food.

The war itself and the sanctions against Russia are having a detrimental effect on both food production and export in both countries. This is especially the case in Ukraine.

Due to military violence, a lack of fertilizers and pesticides and higher diesel prices, there is a risk that it will be impossible to plant 30 to 50 percent of the spring wheat fields in Ukraine.

But especially exports have nearly completely stopped. Until recently, 98 percent of Ukrainian grain was transported via the Black Sea. Those exports have come to a complete standstill however, because Ukraine has laid naval mines and Russia has blocked all Ukrainian ports. Due to a number of problems,[i] rail or freight transport is not a real alternative.

Escorted naval convoys could be a solution, but the Ukrainian navy is too small for that and so it would need the support of NATO countries. Given the strength of the Russian fleet, that would be a more than risky undertaking and could lead to another dangerous escalation of the conflict.

Whatever the case, unless Black Sea exports pick up again, millions of tons of grain will simply rot in Ukraine’s silos.

With Russia, the problems lie elsewhere. Due to the sanctions, Russian farmers or farms may be short of seeds and pesticides.[ii] That will have an important impact on the next harvest.

Disrupted World Market

Farmers elsewhere in the world will unlikely be able to compensate for declining grain exports from Ukraine and Russia. For farmers who grow grain, fertilizers and energy are the main expenses. Both markets have been disrupted by sanctions and the natural gas rush.

If farmers cut back on fertilizers, the yields will be lower. In addition, instead of planting grain or maize, farmers will consider switching to crops with lower input costs.[iii]

The market has been further disrupted because in recent months no fewer than 35 countries have imposed strict restrictions on food exports, out of fear for their own food security. In many cases those are even total bans.

Such a disruption of the global market drives food prices up sharply. As a result of the war, food prices have reached the highest level ever recorded by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Today food prices are on average 34 percent higher than a year ago. For grain, the increase is even 81 percent.

This is becoming more and more unaffordable for many communities, especially in the countries of the South. There, families spend up to a quarter of their income on food. In Sub-Saharan Africa that is even 40 percent. Moreover, grain makes up a larger part of the budget there than in richer regions.

And then there’s another perverse effect for those countries. Inflation causes interest rates to rise. This makes the dollar and the euro more attractive, causing their exchange rate to rise. But that makes food imports (often in dollars) more expensive for the countries of the South, as well as paying off foreign debts.

What is to be Done?

The longer the war drags on, the greater the food shortage, the higher the prices and the worse the food crisis will be.

The US strategic option to “fight to the last Ukrainian” will not only increase the number of casualties on the battlefield. Far away, hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of people will die of famine as a result.

What must be done to avoid that catastrophe?

First of all, the blockade of the Black Sea must be undone as soon as possible. This is only possible in the context of peace negotiations and a ceasefire. That presupposes a de-escalation of the war effort instead of the warmongering that we see now. In any case, according to Western diplomats, we should not expect Ukrainian ports to be opened in the coming six months.

In addition, all economic sanctions against Russia related to food production must be lifted.

Third, food protectionism must stop. In the words of António Guterres:

“There should be no restrictions on exports, and surpluses must be made available to those most in need.”

Finally, financial aid is urgently needed for the countries of the South, both to ensure food security and to avert an impending debt crisis. In October, the World Food Program estimated that it would take $6.6 billion annually to solve world hunger.[iv]

That’s not even a huge sum of money. For this war alone, Biden has committed an additional $24 billion in armaments and military support. The military budget of the European countries will also increase by tens of billions in the coming years. Apparently, there is always money for waging war, but for fighting hunger… It shows the madness of the world in which we live.

*

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Translated by Dirk Nimmegeers

Marc Vandepitte is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Notes

[i] There are serious bottlenecks at the borders because Ukraine’s EU neighbours use different track gauges. Road transport is hampered by shortages of trucks, drivers, fuel and customs officials.

[ii] Russia buys both seeds and pesticides mainly from the European Union. The sanctions have made bank financing difficult and fewer European companies are willing to supply those goods. In addition, most major Western seed and chemical companies have withdrawn or are in the process of withdrawing from Russia.

[iii] In March, for example, a study by the US Department of Agriculture found that farmers in that country plan to switch from corn to soybeans this season.

[iv] This is the amount calculated as needed for saving 45 million people from starvation. With the current war, that cost will of course rise, but it will never exceed twice this amount.

Featured image is from NaturalNews.com

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***

5G is now installed and switched on across millions of sites all over the world and so my testing has begun. Many are wondering: what does 5G sound like?

Today I’ll share with you the radiation levels plus the eerie sound of 5G radiation coming off the transmitters.

The radiation from 5G (RF/microwaves) is an invisible environmental pollutant, beyond our awareness.

My goal – using specialized equipment, is to reveal both what 5G beam forming radiation sounds like and how much radiation I’m being exposed to 600 meters away from the 5G transmitters.

Location of tested 5G installation

The 5G site tested was in Kings Cross, Sydney and goes by RFNSA ID number 2011007. I set up 615 meters away from the 5G transmitters with an unobstructed view of the entire installation.

The testing equipment used was some of the best available in the world. The Gigahertz Solutions HFW59D + HP33 filter and directional antenna to measure only the 5G radiation at a frequency of 3.5 GHz.

High radiation levels 600m (2,000ft) away

A maximum power density of 12,600 uW/m2 (crest factor applied) was detected from 615 meters away (2,018 ft) – that’s 12 times the IBN extreme level. This is also from the 5G transmitters alone, not including 3/4G which is also present at the site.

This is a concern, especially since almost no one is using 5G phones (when I conducted this test in December 2019). Meaning that the radiation from 5G transmitters is likely to power up even more as people start using 5G enabled devices.

Radiation level as compared to IBN guidelines from Germany

5G is dramatically increasing exposures

Since the early 1900s, our exposure to non-native EMFs has been creeping up slowly. However, it’s only been in the last 25 years or so that our exposures have exploded beyond belief.

This is thanks mainly due to the increased cell tower density (demand for high bandwidth data on mobile devices) and the wireless technology we’re bringing into our homes (Wi-Fi, cell phones etc).

However, in early 2019 as 5G was being installed around the globe, most people were very unaware of something of great significance. A major escalation of our exposure to radio frequency / microwave radiation – specifically from 5G.

A small study I conducted proved that once 5G was installed at cellular base station sites – there was almost always a significant increase in radiation.

From the graph below, you can very easily see the radiation levels before and after 5G was installed.

Those affected most will not only be those living in direct line of sight to a cell tower. It’s going to impact all of us when just simply driving around.

When driving (or walking around for that matter) you’re getting significant exposures as you pass the 4 / 5G transmitters. Which are now basically everywhere.

Often, 5G (and 4G) transmitters are placed hanging off highway signage, rooftops, cell tower structures – even inside tunnels and right above their entrance / exits.

What does 5G sound like?

During my investigation I also managed to capture the sound of 5G which is something else! It has no resemblance to the smooth high pitch sound of 3 / 4G transmitters. It’s highly erratic and almost sounds like static electricity.

One can only imagine what kind of biological harm this kind of field has. Just listening to its erratic sound speaks for itself – listen below!

Sound of 5G coming off the transmitters

I’ve been getting a lot of people experiencing symptoms, not only from 5G but from all 4 EMFs of concern in general. Very common is headaches, ringing in the ears or feeling a vibration in the head.

This has me concerned… It would be interesting to hear what others are feeling around 5G towers, especially those suffering from electro-hypersensitivity (EHS).

Remember to keep your distance and limit exposure!

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Matt Cossey is a certified electromagnetic radiation specialist from Australia. He’s helped protect thousands world-wide from EMFs.

Featured image is from Children’s Health Defense

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***

As the world is moving slowly but surely to the edge of the abyss, there is a parallel crisis going within the nations that claim to exemplify the best of “western values” while undermining and violating them at every point.

Of course, the West blames all the problems of the world on the East, particularly Russia and China but there are some “dissident” voices that need to be heard at least for the sake of those who are interested in searching for ideas that might avoid Armageddon.

Rudyard Kipling once wrote:

“East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet, Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great Judgment Seat.”

In his poem, Kipling was expressing his belief that cultures of the East and West were so intrinsically different that any hope for harmony or mutual interest was little more than a delusion.

How could such a worldview possibly mesh with the cultures of Orthodox Russia, Confucian China, or the Islamic world? To the degree that those cultures maintained their ancient traditions and values, it obviously could not, as only total submission to a hegemon could resolve the conflict.

However, instead of looking to those modern heirs of Kipling’s vision based in Washington D.C. as the role models for ‘western civilization’, it would be much more appropriate to look instead to the much more dignified example of the founding fathers of America. Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, John Jay and John Quincy Adams were men who believed in peaceful conflict resolutions, promoted diplomacy over war, and sought solutions based in mutual self-interest for all parties.

Those were also the days when Russia helped the newborn nation to withstand the pressure of the colonial British Empire. This spirit of friendship was rekindled when Russia saved the union during the Civil War, and again as both nations fought to put down fascism in WW2.

The 1991 collapse of the USSR presented a unique chance for America to return the favor and exercise a geostrategic vision by sharing its best accomplishments in a win-win paradigm.

Russia and even the USSR under the late Gorbachev time frame were ready for the full integration with the West but instead, she was hollowed out under the dark age of looting overseen by the administration of Bill Clinton and IMF-imposed regime. They ensured that Russia’s industries were crushed, new oligarchs were built up on the riches of privatized state assets, which lead to the 1998 default of its economy.

At the same time, instead of dissolving itself as the Warsaw military block did, NATO continued its “drang nach Osten” with a broader ‘full spectrum dominance’ agenda encircling Russia with a missile shield that countless experts have warned can be made offensive in short notice.

At the same time another most visible destruction took place in Ukraine which today has become the sparkplug for a potential thermonuclear WW3.

This country that enjoyed one of the highest per capita economies of Europe in 1990 could have prospered by choosing neutral military status, while taking the best that the West and East could offer. Instead the West decided to turn it into anti-Russia strategic beachhead.

As a result, the Ukrainian economy has been devastated. It has lost its once powerful rocket/aviation/space/automotive industries, and is now ranked among the poorest in Europe and most corrupt states on Earth.

Along with the destruction of industry came the collapse of the population that has fallen from 52 million in 1990 to 37 million today. Outraged by the continuing resistance of the Ukrainian people to join NATO, the West orchestrated the 2014 regime change coup that resulted in the current military collision with Russia.

At the beginning of this war, it looked like Kyiv was ready to reach a compromise with Moscow, but Washington said NO. Instead, the USA, and NATO countries pour billions of dollars and huge numbers of the most sophisticated weapons to Ukraine urging it to continue the fighting that now threatens all of humankind with a nuclear catastrophe.

These are the gifts of the ugly counterfeit of ‘western values’ which proclaimed its absolute victory in the Cold War as ‘an end of history’. Then-senator Joe Biden in his 1992 ‘How I learned to love the New World Order’ embodied this arrogant paradigm stating: “Having contained Soviet Communism until it dissolved, we need a new strategy of ‘containment’ based, like NATO, on collective action”.

These champions of western values don’t mind Ukraine’s glorification of WW2 Nazi collaborators and modern day neo-Nazis. They pretend not to notice the elimination of Ukrainian political opposition parties, nor the destruction of the free media. These pretenders of western values even look the other way when the water supplies are cut off to the people of Crimea.

Back in 2015, the US Congress banned the Pentagon from training and equipping the Azov Battalion. Congressional representatives called it a “disgusting Nazi formation”. Now its members are presented as valiant heroes, the “defenders of Mariupol”.

This and the horrifying results of the western wars in the Middle East with hundreds of thousand killed, millions wounded, and tens of millions war refuges prove that those who keep speaking  about western values, are like Kipling, merely Utopians ideologically committed to an age of total world’s domination under a modern remix of ‘the white man’s burden’.

This ideology underlies the downfall of every major empire throughout history, as it is only capable of destroying the diversity, and creative vitality so necessary for humanity to thrive and progress. It is a culture of dark ages, war and ignorance and it is everything that those leading figures of the renaissance and American Revolution sought to extinguish forever from the face of the Earth.

When the very thing which both Reagan and Gorbachev ruled out now presses ominously upon our future, it is worth asking if the West has lost the moral fitness to survive, or is there the power to restore the true heritage of 1776 with a look towards cooperating with nations of Eurasia before we light the world on fire?

*

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This article was first published on American Committee for US-Russia Accord.

Matthew Ehret is Vice President of the Rising Tide Foundation and author of The Clash of the Two Americas. He is a regular contributor to Global Research

Edward Lozansky is Founder and President of the American University in Moscow, and Editor-in Chief of the online magazine New Kontinent.

Featured image is from Global Times

Featured image is from TCP

The Clash of the Two Americas

Vol. 1 & 2

by Matthew Ehret

In his new two volume series The Clash of the Two Americas, Matthew Ehret introduces a new analysis of American history from the vantage point that the globally-extended supranational shadow government that managed the British Empire was never fully defeated and has acted within the USA itself since 1776 as a continuous multi-generational fifth column managing every significant event and assassination of American presidents for the next 250 years.

Click here to order.

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***

The first Eurasian Economic Forum, in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, took place this week at a very sensitive geopolitical juncture, as Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov keeps stressing that,

“the West has declared total war against us, against the entire Russian world. Nobody even hides this now.”

It’s always important to remember that before Maidan in 2014, Ukraine had the option to become a full member of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), and even balance it with a loose association with the EU.

The EAEU comprises five full members – Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Belarus and Armenia – yet 14 nations sent delegations to the forum, including China, Vietnam and Latin American nations.

There was much rumbling that the proceedings would be jeopardized by the serial sanctions packages imposed on Russia by the collective West. There’s no question that some EAEU members – such as Kazakhstan – seem to be more worried about the effects of the sanctions than about fine-tuning business with Russia. Yet that’s not the point.

The crucial point is that by 2025 they have to harmonize their legislation concerning financial markets. And that’s directly connected to what the executive body of the EAEU, led by Sergey Glazyev, is working on, extensively: designing the lineaments of an alternative financial/economic system  to what the West would rather coin as Bretton Woods 3.

The Eurasian Economic Forum was established by the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council explicitly to further deepen economic cooperation between EAEU members. No wonder the official theme of the forum was Eurasian Economic Integration in the Era of Global Shifts: New Investment Opportunities, focusing on strategic development in the industrial, energy, transport, financial, and digital areas.

So Many Converging Strategies

President Putin’s speech to the plenary session was quite revealing. To really appreciate the scope of what’s implied, it’s important to remember that the Greater Eurasian Partnership concept was presented by Putin in 2016 at the St. Petersburg Economic Forum, focused on a “more extensive Eurasian partnership involving the Eurasian Economic Union” and including China, Pakistan, Iran and India.

Putin stressed how the drive for developing ties “within the framework of the Greater Eurasian Partnership” (…) “was not the political situation but global economic trends, because the centre of economic development is gradually – we are aware of this, and our businesspeople are aware of this – is gradually moving, continues to move into the Asia-Pacific Region.”

He added, “in the current international conditions when, unfortunately, traditional trade and economic links and supply chains are being disrupted”, the Greater Eurasian Partnership “is gaining a special meaning.”

Putin established a direct connection not only between the Greater Eurasian Partnership and EAEU members but also “BRICS members such as China and India”, “the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, ASEAN and other organizations.”

And that’s the core of the whole, ongoing, multi-layered process of Eurasia integration, with the China-led New Silk Roads intersecting with the Eurasia Economic Union, the SCO, BRICS+, and other converging strategies.

Lavrov this week said that Argentina and Saudi Arabia want to join BRICS, whose next summer in China is being meticulously prepared. Not only that: Lavrov mentioned how quite a few Arab nations want to join the SCO. He was careful to describe this process of converging alliances as “not antagonistic”.

Putin for his part was careful to define the Greater Eurasian Partnership as “a big civilizational project. The main idea is to create a common space for equitable cooperation for regional organizations”, changing “the political and economic architecture on the entire continent.”

Thus, the necessity to “draft a comprehensive strategy for developing large-scale Eurasian partnership”, including “a roadmap for industrialization”. That translates in practice as developing “engineering centers and research centers. This is inevitable for any country that wants to increase its economic, financial, and ultimately political sovereignty. It is inevitable.”

Yaroslav Lissovolik at the Valdai Club is one of the top analysts tracking how this convergence may profit the whole Global South. He stresses that among the “variability and diversity in the platforms that may be launched by Global South economies, the most sizeable and comprehensive of which could include the aggregation of CELAC (Latin America), African Union (Africa)”, and the SCO in Eurasia.

And an even more diverse set of “regional blocs that targets deeper integration could feature a BRICS+ platform that comprises the South African Development Community (SADC), MERCOSUR, BIMSTEC”, the China-ASEAN free trade agreement, and the EAEU.

The Eurasian Economic Forum has shown once again that this high-speed – economic integration – train has already left the station. It’s quite enlightening to notice the sharp contrast with the endless doom and gloom afflicting a collective West prone to inflation, energy shortages, food shortages, fictional “narratives” and the defense of neo-Nazis under the banner of liberal “democracy”.

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Pepe Escobar, born in Brazil, is a correspondent and editor-at-large at Asia Times and columnist for Consortium News and Strategic Culture in Moscow. Since the mid-1980s he’s lived and worked as a foreign correspondent in London, Paris, Milan, Los Angeles, Singapore, Bangkok. He has extensively covered Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia to China, Iran, Iraq and the wider Middle East. Pepe is the author of Globalistan – How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War; Red Zone Blues: A Snapshot of Baghdad during the Surge. He was contributing editor to The Empire and The Crescent and Tutto in Vendita in Italy. His last two books are Empire of Chaos and 2030. Pepe is also associated with the Paris-based European Academy of Geopolitics. When not on the road he lives between Paris and Bangkok.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is licensed under public domain

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

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***

With great fanfare, Sweden has now (May 15) officially announced it seeks to apply for formal NATO membership.

The Ukraine War has provided the pretext for this announcement which has long been in the making and has been widely supported in the Swedish mainstream.

The kind of rhetoric associated with the decision was epitomized by that of a leading political commentator and a former government minister who said it is “miraculous how the world’s democracies magnetically gather around the values of the free world,” namely, “democracy and the respect for national sovereignty”—Yemenis and Palestinians not included, plainly. Finally we can rejoice in the “alliance of world democracies” with “giants such as the U.S.” leading us toward “freedom, democracy and peace.”^[1]

“In Sweden, the unanimity is so compact that one is almost moved,” as one of the most respected literary figures, Alex Schulman, cheered in his trance.^[2]

The most respected liberal paper explained that “Western democracy stands against Putin’s neo-Stalinism,” and “there is no middle way, no compromise between these two worldviews.”^[3] Or the leading business analyst, Peter Nilsson, who is revered by everyone: “The production in the American, British, French and Swedish weapons industries need to continue booming” since “there is now no middle way. The world is…black-and-white”—just to quote some of the more moderate ones.^[4]

About two weeks later, after a propaganda campaign which probably would have made even Stalin cringe, the moment to bring up the question of joining NATO was ripe; after all, NATO “doesn’t seek more territory…doesn’t seek territorial disputes [and] doesn’t threaten the territorial sovereignty of other states…and is supremely resourceful when trying to avoid conflicts,” as one of the leading liberal commentators schooled “the most useful of useful idiots for peace”—namely, most of the general population before the war, and half of it now. “The West and NATO are willing to fold over three times in order to avoid fighting over any territory, except its own,” he further explained, which is “a fact so obvious that it needs no proof”—such as Libya, Yemen, Afghanistan, Iraq and so on.^[5]

Or to quote perhaps the leading voice of the social democratic “left,” Anders Lindberg, who is constantly criticized for being a leftist extremist: Since Putin is “a contemporary Hitler”—as well as since Russians hate “our ideas about freedom”—it is beyond question that we immediately “need to join NATO.”^[6] Again: I am quoting the dovish end, and so the tune goes virtually without exception.

(Right) Anders Lindberg, editor-in-chief of Aftonbladet, Sweden’s daily newspaper. [Source: tellerreport.com]

Funneling arms to the “defense” sector and formally joining NATO became indisputable gospel, needing no credible argument whatsoever, and making any independent criticism psychologically impossible (especially for the critics—who in fact unanimously accept the government propaganda lines, as I will explain below). These “requirements are enormous.” “It is important that this process is not prolonged by vain attempts at estimating its costs,” and the “Government and Parliament [should] accept the judgment without any objections,” as two of the country’s most respected security analysts noted, knowing that would in fact be more or less the case.^[7]

With at least 70% of the corporations being for NATO membership, and barely 50% of the population (DI, April 19), it was as indisputable as a mathematical proof that Swedish membership in NATO was “of existential nature for our country’s freedom and sovereignty.”^[8]

All of this, needless to say, systematically suppresses the fact that there have been diplomatic proposals put forth by Russia for years, which have been unilaterally rejected by the Western governments, and that this has overwhelmingly caused this conflict. Or that NATO provocations and incursions into Russian territory are constantly taking place, which by far outnumber anything carried out by the Russians toward us. (These last two sentences may surprise you. And if so, just look at the deluge of detailed studies presented constantly in the technical diplomatic press, which provide ample evidence reaching a burden of proof expected only in chemistry or physics, however, never presented to the general public for obvious reasons.)^[9]

Or the fact that even those most loyal to the Party line, including the awed and constantly cited Lt. Col. Joakim Paasikivi—who practically sets the entire military analytic agenda in the country—regularly concede that the Russian military “capability is not at all impressive,” failing to take control over cities just across its own border.^[10]

That is unsurprising, since we are dealing with a country whose GDP ranks far below countries like Italy. Or the fact that the Estonian Foreign Minister, Eva-Maria Liimets, openly stated that the Baltics “see no direct [Russian] military threat.”^[11]

But somehow the far more powerful Sweden and its “existential nature” is under Russian threat. That is an impressive achievement, even for the “free” press. Why Russia would invade Sweden, and us needing to formally join NATO, has not once been argued (except through the constant reference to “the changing security climate in the world,” a phrase repeated with the same fervor and lack of meaning as “God is great”). No proof reaching the minimal level of credibility or honesty is ever presented, nor needed, which is standard when you specialize in regurgitating official Party dogma.

However, I do not mean to say that everybody in the media and academia is happy with the near 100% consensus, and do not critique it. One of the most well known and respected journalists complained that those who “opposed” NATO—while still remaining well within the ideological framework established by government propaganda—and who are now “being very late” in joining the chorus for the offensive alliance, “don’t seem to be punished for it.”

In typical Communist Party style, he went on to lament that the pro-NATO side is unfortunately cheering “without enthusiasm”—a total lie, but a neat one when enforcing the required Party discipline.^[12]

Reviewing the literally thousands of articles which strictly abide by the required doctrinal Truth is not so interesting. The commentary is more or less totally predictable and expected. Rather, in looking at what the dovish extreme ends of dissent say (they are so small in numbers that you can practically count them), we will find where the outermost limits of acceptable thought go, and thus we will behold the spectacular feat of the propaganda system.

First, the critic will argue that NATO membership could compromise our prospects for “autonomous foreign policy,” and that sufficient discussion and “serious thought” has not gone into all of this, making this a too hasty decision, to quote the “extremist” Mattias Gardell, who has been accused of being the slave of Hamas and Jihadists, an extreme hater of the West and so on.^[13]

Maybe NATO is not all that good an idea since “37 Danish NATO soldiers died in Afghanistan under the first years of the 2000s,” wrote Arne Larsson, who went as far out as you can go when chastising the lack of counter-arguments put forth by the press.^[14]

Sven-Eric Liedman, the most respected intellectual historian in the country, repeats the revered staples of anti-arguments, citing the possibility of a Trump presidency and NATO’s undemocratic members—which never cause a problem to our sensibilities otherwise, of course. “One of NATO’s most powerful members is Turkey,” and the next “Donald Trump as president” thinks “that NATO is useless”—which is total nonsense when you look at irrelevant things such as facts, but anything goes as long as you defend the Holy State from serious critique.^[15] Or: we will become “less safe,” as our “dissident” Left party put it.

Our own National radical, Göran Greider, noted, “Swedish membership in NATO would mean larger investments in the military, when the climate and the public sector” needs the money.^[16] It is completely uniform among “dissidents” to stick to the above, since these points are considered to be the “most powerful arguments,” to use the phrase of a journalist who has been the target of constant attack for his “pro-Russian” stance.^[17]

All of this could be perfectly true, and in fact mostly is. But it is all beside the point. No one in the press could think of something different, which happens to be ten times more obvious. Namely, that NATO has been carrying out aggression against Russia (constantly, up until the very present), and has been unilaterally rejecting a peace settlement .^[18]

Source: twitter.com

And in the same sense, a true Belarusian dissident would not use the counter-argument that it would be costly for Belarus, dangerous or divert its resources, when arguing against Belarus joining a military pact with Russia; rather, that it would mean joining an aggressive criminal organization—that is the problem. But naturally, stating this will elicit a stream of attacks and accusations in the West, and the argument itself causes only mental short circuit; it is psychologically impossible to comprehend, which is why the banal truism cannot be uttered even by the most radical critics. This is the ultimate achievement of thought control. I guess some just keep quiet, too, which all makes a good deal of sense. When the Party even hints at it, all must obey and join in the parades, or remain silent. Anything else is not worth it, or is simply too dangerous.

Others have other things to say, however. The CEO of Sweden’s largest polling company triumphed that “The discussion about the pros and cons of Membership has been lively.” True, there has been a lively debate, but all within Party doctrine.

It is also obvious that the whole question of formal NATO membership is more or less a PR-charade, but which is zealously debated, giving the required democratic guise of passionate and open discussion. The real world relationship between Swedish neutrality and the U.S./NATO was eloquently described by one of our most influential diplomats, Östen Undén, just two months before the creation of NATO in 1949: namely, he described “neutrality as a flawed and passé policy.” Furthermore, he went on to describe in a confidential meeting in September 1949 that this secret relation between Sweden and NATO “can’t be allowed to be expressed in public.”^[19]

These “direct contacts…with the heart of the Pentagon” (as one of the top military chiefs put it) were highly developed and systematic, and it was “therefore important that the knowledge about this partnership would be kept known only to a group as small as possible,” to quote one of the chiefs in the General Staff.^[20]Naturally, all of this had to be concealed and diverted from with a “religion” of neutrality, as former Prime Minister Ola Ullsten put it—which of course amounts to “a democratic catastrophe,” to use the words of political scientist Kjell Goldmann.^[21]

That continues up to the very present, in which “Sweden’s neutrality is more fiction than fact,” as Professor Emeritus in history, Harald Gustafsson, recently put it. The fact that Sweden “is more NATO than most NATO members” (The Economist, 2007), and that Sweden’s ties to NATO “on areas of defense and security never before has been stronger” as well as that “Sweden is a closer partner to NATO than even some of our NATO members are’” (as U.S. ambassador Ken Howery said over a year ago), have all had some obvious implications:^[22] Namely, that we have served as a NATO outpost, an “unsinkable aircraft carrier” as an American general once put it.^[23]

Thus, Sweden has for years enthusiastically been part of the rejectionist Western camp, explicitly participating in blocking a diplomatic settlement with Russia. The same goes for the constant participation in NATO war games next to Russia’s territory, receiving minimal reporting in the West—which is expected, since keeping to minimal honesty would give the entire game away.

I do not, however, insinuate that large-scale incursions do not occur—as opposed to the constant small-scale ones conducted with NATO attack and spy planes, or military ships, which “dwarf” those carried out by Russia toward the West, to quote the findings of a detailed report by ABC News.^[24] Just to name one example: During the summer of last year, Sweden participated in Operation Sea Breeze (one of NATO’s innumerable war games for 2021) together with 35 other countries from five different continents.

The warships were a couple of kilometers inside of Russian waters, and we know from leaked internal British documents that it was all planned and that they in fact expected a Russian “welcome party,” as they frankly and proudly put it—all while American military planes were “operating in and watching everything in the Black Sea region, as we always do,” which Navy Captain Wendy Snyder boasted.^[25] In short, we were behaving as an obedient satellite before any NATO formalisms.

This is the real issue: We are—and have been for a while—acting within an aggressive anti-diplomatic organization, and that can simply never be discussed. Now, however, the diversion of simply formalizing and ratifying previous policy, is being used as a remarkable tool of distraction and deceit, thus ignoring the central problem itself, even by those who should know better.

We do, however, get a more honest picture as to why we are formalizing the role of an “unsinkable aircraft carrier” in the elite business press—as is quite typical. Euphoric headlines read: “CEO sees opportunities in NATO membership”; “It is now booming” for the military industry; “To be part of NATO absolutely opens up a larger market to the NATO countries…where we can work together on sensitive stuff”, the country’s top military CEO pointed out. We should join NATO formally “with enthusiasm,” “enough talking,” since we will have “the biggest economy, defense industry,” etc., in northern Europe, as the leading national business guru cheers.^[26] “It’s time for victory” for the Industry after formal membership, reads another ecstatic headline.^[27]

The leading Finnish businessman, Mika Ihamuotila, told our business paper that “enormous costs would occur for Swedish investors and corporations if Sweden would not join NATO now,” and we would lose “hundreds of deals” if we “stayed outside of NATO” formally. He did not want to make it all too obvious what all the fuss is actually about, why he as a safety measure added at the very end that Putin “is like Hitler” and so on.^[28] To put it plainly: “There is a before and after February 24th for Swedish business.” “That Sweden joins NATO is attractive for business,” and not joining would mean that “Sweden risks losing direct investments and deals”—so let’s seize the opportunity that we now have.^[29]

Hence the enormous propaganda.

*

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Andi Olluri lives in western Sweden. He just turned 20 and is studying dietetics. Andi has been an activist since he was a young teenager. He can be reached at [email protected].

Notes

1. Dagens Industri, Maria Borelius, March 3. 

2. Dagens Nyheter, Alex Schulman, March 14. 
3. Ibid, Op-ed, March 17. 
4. Dagens Industri, P M Nilsson, March 25. 
5. Fokus, Johan Hakelius, March 7. 
6. Aftonbladet, Anders Lindberg, April 20;30. 
7. Dagens Industri, march 22. Quoting former ambassadeur Daine Janse and Gen. Maj. and former principal at the College of Defence, Karlis Neretnieks. 
8. Affärsvärlden, nr. 15-16, p. 19. 
9. As far as I’m aware, I am the only one who has covered this in detail in the Swedish press, and to some degree even so in comparison to the English-speaking press – Consortium News, Antiwar, QIRS, Counterpunch, Mint Press News etc. The overwhelming aggression carried out by NATO towards (for a short summary, see for example T. G. Carpenter’s text in Responsible Statecraft, December 14 2020), the outright rejection of multiple Russian peace offers, up until the present, which explicitly refer to adhering to “the UN charter” as well as appealing to “the UNSC” and calling on the West and Russia to “not regard each other as opponents” (the proposal from December 17:th last year) – all of this and other matters are discussed in detail in the texts I’ve published in Globalpolitics.se, between December last year and February this year. Also in my coming review of the current crisis. They are all written in Swedish, but I draw from English sources. 
10. Svenska Dagbladet, May 13. 
11. Dagens Industri, March 29. 
12. Dagens Nyheter, Niklas Ekdal, April 21. 
13. ETC, May 6. 
14. Svenska Dagbladet, Arne Larsson, April 14. 
15. Dagens Nyheter, S-E Liedman, April 20. For discussion, see footnote 9. 
16. Dala-Demokraten, Göran Greider, March 5. 
17. Dagens Nyheter, Björn Wiman, March 4. 
18. Once again, see footnote 9. 
19. Mikael Holmström, Den Dolda Alliansen, Atlantis (2011), p. 70f, 100. This 600-page book is the most authoritative scholarly work on the subject. 
20. Ibid, p. 220, 226. 
21. Ibid, p. 424, 432f. 
22. Svenska Dagbladet, Harald Gustafsson, May 4; Dagens Nyheter, December 23 2020. 
23. Holmström op. cit., p. 447. 
24. Carpenter op.cit. 
25. See for instance BBC, June 27 2021; Antiwar, June 30 2021 and Responsible Statecraft, Kellet Beaucar, June 27 2021. 
26. Dagens Industri, April 25 (P M Nilsson). 
27. Ibid, Torun Nilsson, May 6. 
28. Ibid, May 9. 

29. Ibid, Henrik Westman, May 13. 

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***

Death, remarked Gore Vidal about Truman Capote’s passing, was a good career move.  The novelist Saki also considered the good qualities of shuffling off the mortal coil.  “Waldo,” he writes in “The Feast of Nemesis”, “is one of those people who would be enormously improved by death.”  But what of those instances when death is foiled, the Grim Reaper cheated? 

Former US President George W. Bush has had the good fortune of facing such a foiling, though the claims remain fresh.  On May 24, Shihab Ahmed Shihab Shihab, an Iraqi national living in Columbus, Ohio, was arrested and charged with aiding and abetting the attempted murder of a former US official and charges of attempting to bring foreign nationals to the US.  The nationals in question are said to be affiliated with the Islamic State group.

According to court documents, the FBI foiled the alleged plot through using informants.  In November last year, Shihab is said to have told one of them that he “wished to kill former President Bush because they felt that he was responsible for killing many Iraqis and breaking apart the entire country of Iraq.”

In subsequent discussions with the informants, Shihab is alleged to have said how he “wanted to be involved in the actual attack and assassination of former President Bush and did not care if he died as he would be proud to have been involved in killing former President Bush.”  One may fault the intended outcome, but the historical reasoning behind the motive is hard to rebut.

A statement from Bush’s chief of staff Freddy Ford had the former president expressing “all the confidence in the world in the United States Secret Service and our law enforcement and intelligence communities.”

This would have caused a gasp from those in the intelligence community so wilfully maligned in the lead-up to the Iraq War in 2003.  The issue again surfaced in March 2019, when former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer took to Twitter to wash his hands while dumping on those who had supplied the intelligence.  “There is a myth about the war that I have been meaning to set straight for years,” he began.  “After no WMDs [weapons of mass destruction] were found, the left claimed ‘Bush lied.  People died.’  This accusation is a lie.  It’s time to put it to rest.”

Unconvincingly, Fleischer proceeded to shift and spread blame, claiming both he and Bush “faithfully and accurately reported to the public what the intelligence community concluded.” He implicated the CIA and other intelligence services, including those of Egypt, France and Israel.  “We all turned out to be wrong.  That is very different from lying.”

Bush’s role in the Iraq War was again appraised in his May 19 speech on election integrity, when he enlivened his gaffe-strewn legacy with a momentous Freudian slip or, as John Fugelsang described it, “a Freudian confession”.  In referring to Vladimir Putin and Russia’s “absence of checks and balances”, Bush had something of a coming out moment: “the decision of one man to launch a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq … I mean, of Ukraine.”  On realising his error, and no doubt hoping to strike a note of levity, he suggested, “Iraq, too” and pointing to age as an excuse (“Anyway, 75!”).

Guffawing followed and could only come across as ghoulishly telling about the predations of power and cant.  It was reminiscent of the light-hearted response to his cringeworthy performance at the 2004 White House Correspondents’ Dinner.  While narrating a slideshow featuring a picture of himself peering under furniture in the Oval Office, Bush could not resist quipping: “Those weapons of mass destruction have got to be here somewhere.”

David Corn, writing at the time for The Nation, found little reason to be amused.  “Before an audience of people who supposedly spend their days pursuing the truth, Bush joked about misstatements (if not lies) he had used to persuade (if not hornswoggle) the American people and the media.”

The same could be said about the Iraqi poet Sinan Antoon, who refused to partake in the merriment, however nervously expressed, by the audience gathered at the Southern Methodist University.  “Freudian slip about past massacres (of other barbarians) amuses audience,” he tweeted gloomily.  “All is well in the settler colony.”

All is certainly well for Bush, who, as absent-minded dauber, has undergone a rapid rehabilitation as elder statesman.  Little is mentioned these days of his culpable role in leading an invasion of a sovereign state that saw the deaths and maiming of hundreds of thousands, displacements, poisonings, and the destabilisation of the Middle East.  “When your guilty consciousness catch [sic] up with you and you end up confessing but no one cares to hold you to account,” observed Representative Ilhan Omar.

The Trump era aided the process of revision and cleansing, with traumatised Democrats and some notional progressives longing to return to the good times of the Bush imperium marked by illegal wars, warrantless surveillance and state sanctioned torture.

In 2019, Yale University, via a delegation of students who might have known better, bestowed upon Bush the Yale Undergraduate Lifetime Achievement Award.  The decision to select the former president as the recipient was drawn from a vote by over 1,000 students, suggesting that collective amnesia is rife.  In a statement, Bush acknowledged the role played by the university in shaping him, expressing pride in joining the ranks of Anderson Cooper, Maya Lin and Jodie Foster, concluding with the triumphant, “Boola Boola!”

With Shihab’s arrest, Bush can draw upon a well of sympathy by claiming that Freedom’s Land had, at the very least, a president worthy of being the target of an alleged assassination plot.  But in prosecuting a man nursing a grievance over the role played by Bush in perpetrating the destruction of his homeland, another brutal invasion will receive some renewed attention, if only briefly.

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

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This Zoom call with Dr David E Martin and a group of Canadian scientists and activists was uploaded to Rumble on May 17, 2022 and it is a hard-hitting and concise summary of the legal tack that he’s taking against the COVID Genocide and of the status of Dr Martin’s lawsuits against the primary individuals responsible.

I’ve made numerous hyperlinks to the entities and the legal filings that he describes.

Transcript

“For those not familiar with the work, you can go to ProsecuteNow.com and…you will see the Utah Federal Case that we have filed against the President, against CMS and against the Department of Health and Human Services.

“If you want to understand why we refuse to use the term, ‘vaccination’, that’s the reason why, so go to ProsecuteNow.com. There, you’ll also see the summary of litigation and you’ll also see the draft indictment.

What I can say is that we have three different law enforcement agencies who, in fact are working with us right now on the development of the very first criminal indictment against one of the sociopaths that architected this global campaign of terror and you will be hearing more about that between now and the 22nd of May. The crime is coming.

“And if you haven’t read the Utah filing, please do, it is extremely, extremely important and obviously, some of you are aware that… Leslie Manookian hired me and George [Wentz] – to build the case that ultimately led to the Florida decision that removed masks from airplanes.

“So we have the first win, which obviously, is now benefitting everybody who ever has to be in a plane and we are now in the middle of the preliminary injunction phase of the Utah case against CMS.

“I wanted to lean heavily into the Canadian side of this question – but I want to make sure that we stipulate something out of the gate:

“This is not a public health situation, this is not even a science situation. And while I appreciate the public health people and the scientists who love to talk about the nuance of this, it is like commenting on the merits of firearms at a shooting.

“This is a case of murder. It is not a case of disease, it is not a case of pandemic, this is a case of murder and the people currently doing delivery of the agent of that murder are, in fact, people who wear lab coats. If they wore anything else, if they wore hoodies, if they wore anything else, we’d call them ‘murderers’. Right now, we call them ‘doctors’.

“The fact of the matter is, this is premeditated global terrorism. This is premeditated domestic terrorism and this is premeditated racketeering.

“And the reason why I say that is because the evidence is that Canada and the United States collaborated – and specifically, during the gain-of-function moratorium.

“So for those of you who actually don’t understand the dynamics of this, the weaponization of the spike protein associated with WIV1, which is the Wuhan Institute of Virology Virus 1, which was sampled from China, reportedly between 2011 and 2013, which was replicated at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill in 2013 and ’14, which was the subject of the moratorium on the gain-of-function research, where Anthony Fauci said to Ralph Baric at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill in October of 2014, that while, in fact there was a gain-of-function moratorium, his work on the weaponization of the Wuhan Institute of Virology virus spike protein was able to go on because, I quote, ‘He had already been funded,’ end quote.

“And this study, which was done in vivo, resulted in two papers: One, in 2015 and one, in 2016, both stating that the Wuhan Institute of Virology Virus 1 [WIV1] spike protein, targeting endothelial tissue, targeting lung tissue, targeting kidney tissue; he stated that it was – and I’m quoting: ‘Poised for human emergence.’

“So anyone who wants to sit here and pretend like this is anything other than premeditated murder is actually watching freight cars roll across Germany and wondering where neighbors are going.

“The fact is that there is no question, whatsoever that this was a premeditated act of murder.

“And for those of you that have not heard it, I will not get on a show without reciting the evidence: In March of 2015, Peter Daszak, the chief architect of the deployment of this particular campaign of terror, along with Anthony Fauci and Ralph Baric, Peter Daszak made the following statement:

‘To sustain the funding base beyond the crisis, we need to increase the public understanding of the need for medical countermeasures, such as a pan-influenza or a pan-coronavirus vaccine. A key driver is the media and the economics will follow the hype.

‘We need to use that hype to our advantage to get to the real issues. Investors will respond if they see profit at the end of the process.’

“If you think this is an issue that has anything to do with a virus spreading in a pandemic, you are delusional. This is a premeditated crime. They announced the crime in 2015 and conveniently, the Government of Canada entered into an agreement with the distribution of the lethal agent in 2015.

“And specifically, that was Thomas Madden, that was Pieter Cullisand Ian MacLachlan, who at the University of British Columbia developed a lipid nanoparticle that was required to first, demonstrate the ability to actually do what was called ‘gene silencing’ in monkeys and then, took that technology, after a lawsuit, which was a $65 million lawsuit – the settlement of that lawsuit in 2012 – and for those in Canada, look up that lawsuit – it was the lawsuit between Protiva, Tekmira, AlCana Therapeutics and the University of British Columbia.

“After the $65 million settlement was paid in that particular case in 2015, AlCana Therapeutics, owned by Thomas Madden and Pieter Cullis sub-licensed the lipid nanoparticle technology to Moderna for the development of an mRNA vaccine during the gain-of-function moratorium, in violation of US and Canadian law.

“Because it’s illegal in Canada to support and make an agent which enables the delivery of a biological weapon. That’s actually illegal in Canada and it’s illegal to develop and aid in the development of a biological weapon in the United States.

“Those are Felony Violations of two parts of the Criminal Code of the United States: 18 US Code §2339, which is conspiring to commit acts of terrorism and 18 US Code §175, funding and creating a biological weapon.

“The fact of the matter is AlCana, Acuitas and the University of British Columbia, together with Moderna are, in fact guilty of Felony Violations of 18 US Code §175 and that Felony Violation took place in 2015 – specifically, during the gain-of-function moratorium.

“Any law enforcement official who is actually doing anything in support of Trudeau is aiding and abetting the criminal acts of the Government Canada, the criminal acts of the University of British Columbia and the criminal acts of Acuitas, AlCana and its principals, Thomas Madden and Pieter Cullis.

“So, lest we sit here and pretend to stand on ceremony, the fact of the matter is, it does not matter what clinical trials have or haven’t been done. That’s like debating the merits of copper when a bullet is in a corpse. That is a foolish exercise.

“What we need to be doing is focusing all of our efforts single-handedly and directly on the criminal prosecution of terrorists who have now aided and abetted in the murder of millions.

“And just to put a fine point on this thing: Ralph Baric at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, in addition to being the architect of the spike protein weaponized to destroy humanity also holds patent interest in the invention of Remdesivir, which was known in its clinical trials in the early 2000s to be lethal when used in patients for a number of other pathogens.

“And willfully and knowingly distributing an agent that is, in fact known to be harmful and fatal to humans is Premeditated Murder.

“And the fact that all of the governments inside the earshot of who’s listening right now have adopted the Remdesivir protocol and have adopted the acceptance of the narrative that this is, in fact some sort of variation of coronavirus, the fact of the matter is neither are the case.

“This is, in fact a bioweapon delivered by a carrier agent developed by the Government of Canada – and given that Pfizer-Biontech and Moderna both pay royalties to Canadian interests, every single shot administered from Pfizer or from Moderna involve license fees that flow back to the Government of Canada.

“So this is racketeering at the highest level and the Canadian government is complicit and guilty of racketeering and conspiring to fund the commission of acts of terror…

“We have to focus on the crime that’s being committed, we have to put our efforts on that crime and 100% of what I’m doing is making sure that the entire world knows that anybody who actually promotes a narrative that says that there is a novel disease, anyone who promotes the narrative that says there’s a novel pathogen – and any lawyer who stipulates that there are either of those things – is as complicit as Trudeau and Fauci.

“It’s time that we draw a line in the sand and say, ‘We the People will not stand for the domestic and international terrorism that is being done in the name of health.’”

*

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***

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced on May 23 a new military operation in northern Syria to establish a 30-kilometer-wide zone of Turkish occupation.  Erdogan terms the proposed action as a counterterrorism operation, with details to be announced in the next National Security Council meeting. Turkey views the US-sponsored Kurdish People’s Defense Units (YPG) and their allied militia, Syrian Defense Forces (SDF), as brother-in-arms with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).  The US sponsorship and support of the SDF and YPG has angered Turkey for years and has created tension between Washington and Ankara who were at one time seen as close allies, and both are members of NATO.

Turkey has for years targeted Kurdish militias in Syria and northern Iraq.  The US is also occupying parts of northeast Syria, which they characterize as anti-ISIS operations, but in reality, are anti-Turkish and anti-Syrian operations in support of the US-sponsored Kurdish militias.

Ankara has conducted three military incursions into northern Syria since 2016, seizing hundreds of kilometers of land and pushing some 30 deep into the country.  During the US-NATO attack on Syria beginning in March 2011, Turkey along with the US, UK, France, Germany, and the oil-rich monarchies of the Gulf supported and financed the Radical Islamic terrorists used as foot-soldiers in Syria during the Obama administration.

The conflict in Syria has died out since 2019 into the current stalemate with only Idlib under Al Qaeda control and protected by Turkish military outposts.

The US warns Turkey

Ned Price, the US State Department spokesperson, came out strongly against Erdogan’s proposed new military operation on May 24, saying any new offensive in northern Syria would undermine regional stability and put US troops at risk.

“We are deeply concerned about reports and discussions of potential increased military activity in northern Syria, and in particular, its impact on the civilian population there,” Price said, and added, “We condemn any escalation. We support the maintenance of the current ceasefire lines.”

The Biden administration wants to maintain the stalemate in Syria, which prevents the Syrian population from recovering or rebuilding after 11 years of armed conflict.  The US policy is to keep Syria and Lebanon in chaos to weaken their resistance to the Israeli occupation.

The Syrian government’s response

On May 25, the foreign ministry of Syria stated that it would consider any Turkish military incursions into its territory as “war crimes and crimes against humanity.”

Damascus sees the incursions as a violation of the country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and sent a letter to the United Nations secretary-general and the Security Council, describing Turkey’s actions as illegitimate.

Before the 2011 conflict began, Syria and Turkey were close allies and had a free-trade and visa-free travel policy between the two neighbors which share a huge border.  Turkey signed on to a US-NATO-directed attack for regime change which failed.  During the conflict, Turkey hosted terrorists from around the world as a transit hub for terrorists arriving on their way by land into Syria from the Turkish border.  The international terrorists were from the US, Western Europe, and Australia as well as from Arab nations.  Most were followers of Al Qaeda and ISIS.

Syria is in economic collapse, as US-EU sanctions have destroyed the economy, and have thrown the population into poverty, but the sanctions have not affected the Syrian government, causing economists to question the role of US Congressional approved sanctions.

Who are the PKK, SDF, and YPG?

The US and NATO view the PKK as a terrorist group but support the SDF and YPG.  This has caused friction between the US and EU with Turkey.

The PKK has killed thousands of people in Turkey over decades of terrorism.  The PKK is a communist armed terrorist group that is aligned with the US-sponsored SDF and YPG.

Amid the chaos of conflict in Syria, the Kurds took up arms and cleared the northeast of Syria of Arabs in an ethnic cleansing operation at gun point.  Hundreds of thousands of Syrian Arabs were made homeless in the process, which set up a socialist administration in the northeast.  When the US decided to militarily invade Syria to fight ISIS and put US soldiers on the ground, the Pentagon aligned with the socialist SDF and YPG, who are aligned with the PKK communists. The Pentagon was willing to support and defend those terrorists because they were acting as mercenaries for the US.

Domestically, the US labels communists and socialists as un-American, but the US government will freely align with them as long as it serves the American military interest.

New houses for Syrian refugees

Speaking by video link at the inauguration of new cement block homes in northern Syria, Erdogan announced his plan to remove Syrian refugees from inside Turkey, and settle them on Turkish-occupied lands in northern Syria.  More than 57,000 out of 77,000 planned homes in Idlib Province have been completed and now house 50,000 families, he said.  Erdogan’s proposed safe zone is to feature 100,000 homes, and ultimately have enough homes to house all the millions of Syrian refugees in Turkey.

The occupation settlement will have schools and hospitals administered by Turkey on Syrian land. Turkey took in more Syrian refugees than any other country and has reported that about 500,000 Syria have returned to Syria since 2016, with some voluntary, and some through forced deportations.

Turkish hatred against Syrian refugees

Turkey is experiencing a serious economic crisis which has seen its currency devalued and high inflation.  In response to their domestic troubles, the Turkish people have collectively pointed an accusing finger at the Syrian refugees. Widespread anger has been directed at Syrian refugees who are being used as scapegoats.

Turkish social media has gone viral with hate-filled posts, and a recent video developed by Umit OzDag, a far-right member of Parliament, has been viewed by millions.  A growing segment of the Turkish population blames all their woes on the Syrian refugees and wants them gone.

The Turkish Ottoman administration carried out the very first genocide in history against the Armenians and Christians.  The Turkish are not Arabs and have a culture of deep-seated racial prejudice against all who are not ethnically Turks.

The EU paid billions of dollars to Erdogan to keep the Syrian refugees and prevent them from migrating to Europe to seek asylum.

Turkey and NATO

Erdogan holds the decision to allow or disbar, Finland and Sweden’s application for NATO membership.  Both countries have harbored and protected Kurdish activists, who Turkey deems terrorists linked to the PKK and other extremist groups.  To the west in general, the Kurdish issue, and their struggle to establish a homeland on stolen land  has been favorably regarded and terrorists are often called ‘freedom fighters’ by the west.

With the NATO enlargement in the hands of Erdogan, he sees his opportunity to demand Finland and Sweden stop their support of the Kurdish activists and those connected to SDF, YPG, and PKK.

Turkey is demanding that NATO stop supporting terrorists while claiming to provide security for member states.  This will be a departure from past support of Radical Islamic terrorists who were the US-NATO’s boots on the ground in Syria.  The question will be, can NATO stop supporting Kurdish terrorists while the US is partnered with them in Syria?  Is NATO a group representing all members, or only a puppet in the hands of the US?

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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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***

Millions of Palestinians live under Israel’s system of apartheid. At the heart of this violently racist system, is the Palestinian experience of being denied a home.

For over 73 years, Israel has forcibly displaced entire Palestinian communities and demolished hundreds of thousands of Palestinians’ homes, causing terrible trauma and suffering. Over six million Palestinians remain as refugees and, as you are reading this email, at least another 150,000 are at risk of losing their homes.

“My plan was for [my children] to have a warm family home close to their loved ones and family members. Now I’m passing on the memories of their first childhood home being destroyed” – Mohammed Al-Rajabi, a resident of Al-Bustan area in Silwan

Israel created and maintains laws, policies, and practices that deliberately oppress Palestinians and enforce Jewish Israeli domination across Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). These laws, policies and practices include racist seizures of property and rules about planning that make it impossible for many Palestinians to build homes.

Palestinians are caught in a Catch-22 situation. Israel requires them to obtain a permit to build or even erect a structure such as a tent, but rarely issues them a permit. Many Palestinians are forced to build without permits. Israel then demolishes Palestinian homes on the basis that they were built “illegally”.

Take action against demolitions and forced evictions now by writing to Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett. Click here.

Apartheid is a crime against humanity and is committed with the specific intent of maintaining a cruel system of control by one racial group over another. Every week, the Israeli authorities displace Palestinians through demolitions or forced evictions, which demonstrates how Israel deliberately disadvantages Palestinians, giving them inferior status to Israeli Jews.

In March – one month after Amnesty’s ground breaking report Israel’s Apartheid against Palestinians: Cruel System of Domination and Crime against Humanity — the United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Michael Lynk, submitted a report to the Human Rights Council also concluding that the situation in the OPT amounts to apartheid.

With more stories coming to light and more people around the world mobilizing against these injustices, now is the time for us to work together. As a first step, we must speak out for Palestinians living under Israel’s apartheid. We have the power to demolish this system, one pillar at a time.

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***

“There is really no true solution to the problem of global food security without bringing back the agriculture production of Ukraine and the food and fertilizer production of Russia and Belarus into world markets despite the war.” These blunt words by UN Secretary-General António Guterres accurately describe the present global food crisis.

As the U.S. and the G7 (comprising Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States) insist that cutting off food exports from Ukraine poses the biggest threat to world food security, rather than admitting the far more powerful negative effect of Western sanctions against Russia, their propaganda does immense damage to the world’s understanding and capability of avoiding a looming global food disaster.

The G7 and the Approaching Food Disaster

Looking at the world food supply situation, many experts see an imminent threat of “human catastrophe,” as World Bank President David Malpass put it. Andrew Bailey, the governor of the Bank of England, characterized his outlook on global food supply problems as “apocalyptic” when discussing increasing food prices. This rise has led to the unfolding of two issues simultaneously: creating the threat of hunger and famine in parts of the Global South, and hitting living standards in every country across the globe.

Even before rapid price rises surrounding the Ukraine war, more than 800 million people were suffering from chronic food insecurity—around 10 percent of the world’s population. U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen cited this fact while speaking to the participants of an April 2022 event, “Tackling Food Insecurity: The Challenge and Call to Action,” whose participants included the heads of international financial institutions such as the World Bank’s Malpass. Yellen also noted, “Early estimates suggest that at least 10 million more people could be pushed into poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa due to higher food prices alone.” The World Food Program (WFP) plans “to feed a record 140 million people this year,” and it reports that “at least 44 million people in 38 countries are teetering on the edge of famine,” an increase from 27 million in 2019.

In countries facing other problems, like climate change, food price increases have been catastrophic. For example, in Lebanon, “the cost of a basic food basket—the minimum food needs per family per month—[rose]… by 351 percent” in 2021 compared to 2020, according to the WFP.

In the Global North, famine is not a threat, but the populations of these countries face a sharp squeeze on their living standards as the global food crisis also raises the prices people in wealthy countries have to pay and budget for. In the United States, for example, the combination of high inflation and economic slowdown led to a 3.4 percent reduction in real average weekly earnings in the last year, as per data provided by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Fake Analysis by the G7 About the Reasons for the Food Crisis

Faced with this rapidly rising threat of the deepening food crisis, the G7 foreign ministers met from May 12 to May 14 to finally focus their attention on this pressing matter. They issued a statement on May 13 expressing “deep concern” about the growing food insecurity, while pointing out the next day that “the world is now facing a worsening state of food insecurity and malnutrition… at a time when 43 million people were already one step away from famine.”

But the G7 falsely claimed that the reason for this food crisis was primarily due to “Russia blocking the exit routes for Ukraine’s grain.” According to Canada’s foreign minister, Mélanie Joly: “We need to make sure that these cereals are sent to the world. If not, millions of people will be facing famine.”

Sanctions and the Global Food Crisis

This G7 statement deliberately misrepresented the present global food crisis. Instead of attempting to solve this crisis, the U.S. and the rest of the G7 used this opportunity to further their propaganda on the Ukraine war.

Certainly, Ukraine’s export restrictions make the global food problem worse. But it is not the main cause of the deteriorating situation. A much more powerful cause is Western sanctions imposed on Russia’s exports.

The first reason for this is that Russia is a far bigger exporter of essential food items and other products in comparison to Ukraine. Russia is the world’s largest wheat exporter, accounting for almost three times as much of world exports as Ukraine, 18 percent compared to 7 percent.

Second, and even more important, is the situation with fertilizers. Russia is the world’s largest fertilizer exporter, and Belarus, which is also facing Western sanctions, is also a major supplier—together they account for more than 20 percent of the global supply. Fertilizer prices were already rising before the Ukraine war due to high fuel prices—fertilizer production relies heavily on natural gas—but sanctions by the West, which prevent Russia from exporting fertilizers, have made the situation worse.

David Laborde, a senior research fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute, pointed out that “the biggest threat the food system is facing is the disruption of the fertilizer trade.” This is because, he said: “Wheat will impact a few countries. The fertilizer issue can impact every farmer everywhere in the world, and cause declines in the production of all food, not just wheat.”

The threat to global fertilizer supply illustrates how energy products are an essential input into virtually all economic sectors. As Russia is one of the world’s largest exporters not only of food but also of energy, sanctions against the country have a knock-on inflationary effect across the entire world economy.

Response in the Global South

This world food supply situation worsened further after the G7 meeting when on May 14, India, the world’s second-largest wheat producer, announced that it was halting wheat exports due to crop losses caused by an intense heat wave. Already in April Indonesia had announced that it was ending palm oil exports—Indonesia accounts for 60 percent of the world supply.

India’s halt of wheat exports will be a further severe blow to countries in the Global South, where its exports are mostly focused. In 2021-2022, India exported 7 million metric tons of wheat, primarily to Asian Global South countries such as Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Yemen, Nepal, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Bangladesh. But India had earlier set a target of expanding wheat exports to 10 million tons in 2022-2023, including supplying 3 million tons of wheat to Egypt for the first time.

Ending Sanctions to Prevent Worsening of the Food Crisis

The unfolding situation makes clear that António Guterres’ words were indeed accurate—the world food crisis cannot be solved without both Ukraine’s exports and Russia’s exports of food and fertilizer. Without the latter, humanity does indeed face a “catastrophe”—billions of people will have to lower their living standards, and hundreds of millions of people in the Global South will face great hardship like hunger or worse. Almost every Global South country rightly refused to support the unilateral U.S. sanctions against Russia. This refusal needs to be extended to the whole world to prevent further devastation.

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John Ross is a senior fellow at Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, Renmin University of China. He is also a member of the international No Cold War campaign organizing committee. His writing on the Chinese and U.S. economies and geopolitics has been published widely online, and he is the author of two books published in China, Don’t Misunderstand China’s Economy and The Great Chess Game. His most recent book is China’s Great Road: Lessons for Marxist Theory and Socialist Practices(1804 Books, 2021). He was previously director of economic policy for the mayor of London.

Featured image is Stock File/Pressenza

Elon Musk, l’uomo più ricco del mondo il cui patrimonio si è quasi decuplicato nei due anni di pandemia, ha offerto 44 miliardi di dollari per acquistare Twitter che, a quanto dice, diverrebbe “la piattaforna per la libertà di parola in tutto il mondo”. Elon Musk possiede la SpaceX, azienda aerospaziale con sede in California. 

La SpaceX costruisce razzi e satelliti per realizzare Starlink, sistema Internet a banda larga che, una volta ultimato, coprirà il mondo intero. SpaceX, che ha finora messo in orbita 2.500 satelliti con razzi che ne trasportano 50 alla volta, ha in programma di collocare 42.000 satelliti Starlink in orbita bassa, occupando l’80% di questo spazio. 

Starlink, presentato quale sistema satellitare commerciale, ha fondamentali applicazioni militari. I satelliti in orbita bassa trasmettono infatti i segnali a velocità molto maggiore di quelli in orbita geosincrona attorno all’Equatore. L’esercito e l’aeronautica statunitensi finanziano e testano Starlink per usarne le capacità militari. Ad esempio, lo scorso marzo, la US Air Force ha comunicato che i caccia F-35A a duplice capacità convenzionale e nucleare avevano effettuato la trasmissione di dati utilizzando i satelliti Startlink con velocità 30 volte più veloci delle connessioni tradizionali.

I satelliti Starlink della SpaceX vengono già usati dall’esercito ucraino per guidare droni, proiettili di artiglieria e missili contro le postazioni russe.  Lo conferma il generale Dickinson, capo del Comando spaziale USA, il quale ha dichiarato al Senato che “la Starlink di Elon Musk dimostra in Ucraina cosa possono fare le megacostellazioni di satelliti”. La SpaceX di Elon Musk fa parte del gruppo dei dieci maggiori operatori satellitari commerciali che collaborano col Comando spaziale USA nella base spaziale militare di Vandenberg in California. 

Manlio Dinucci 

LIBRO

LA GUERRA    

E’ IN GIOCO LA NOSTRA VITA

https://store.byoblu.com/prodotto/la-guerra-e-in-gioco-la-nostra-vita/

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First published on May 24, 2022

The Davos World Economic Forum (WEF) opened officially its 51^st Forum today, 23 May 2022. Klaus Schwab invited Ukraine’s President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy to give the opening speech. The Key Note for the WEF, so to speak. Zelenskyy spoke on video from somewhere in Ukraine, in his traditional military green brown shirt. He spoke with his by now well-known demanding, rather than asking, in rather shrewd language.

First, the west received a little-bit of Zelenskyy’s praise for supporting Ukraine with money, weapons and NATO advisors to fight Russia, in most everybody’s Davos-mind, the aggressor. But that’s not enough. Then came the hammer, Zelenskyy asked for more. For much more, money, weapons – sophisticated weapons – billions and billions more. To fight Russia.

One wonders, how a country like Ukraine can absorb all the billions – they already received or will receive, say the US$ 40 billion additional Biden-allocated funds, plus all the billions and billions from others, from the European Union, and from individual EU members. Who keeps counting?

And what with the sophisticated weapons, for which Ukraine doesn’t even have trained military specialists who know how to use and operate them? No matter. Nobody asks, nobody counts. Nobody cares.

This man, Zelenskyy, after begging, no – requesting – more money and more killing instruments, he demanded more sanctions on Russia, total oil-gas embargoes, cutting off Russia totally from the international payment system.

Aside from the West’s starving and freezing and economically breaking down which is already in the cards with the current sanctions, if the West would comply with the SWIFT cut-off demand (SWIFT = international payment system) – they would forego payments of Russian debt and outstanding bills, more shooting themselves in their own feet, or worse.

Zelenskyy presented an aggressive wish-list, that only spoke of more violence, more death, more misery, more killing, not a single word of Peace, of mediation, of seeking an armistice agreement, of asking for WEF’s help with Peace Negotiations.

Nothing. Zilch. Zero wish reconciliation. Just more war, more destruction. More poverty and we know, more often than not behind the scene, or not even so much covered-up CORRUPTION. Sorry, it has to be said: Ukraine is known, has been known way before the war for corruption, as well as trading in children, women, organs and drugs.

Where do you think all the billions go?

The country has an economy so weak, so destroyed – even long before the war – that cannot even constructively absorb one billion – dollars or euros, doesn’t matter.

But now comes another hammer. Once Zelenskyy finished his “plaidoyer”, he got a standing ovation.

I repeat – a pure, open, totally undisguised war-monger receives from the WEF-elite crowd a standing ovation. It can’t be blindness by these luminaries. It must be political. It must be the underlaying tenets of political and physical destruction – of diving further into darkness to destroy life as we know it – to destroy our very civilization.

That’s the goal of the few, who believe they will live luxuriously, when everything is digitized, including the human brain of the surviving masses; they dream living in more luxury, in more abundance — no words are strong enough to describe this self-styled elite crowd’s arrogance, private-jet climate change fraudsters, so-called 4^th Revolutionaries.

Wouldn’t you think, that the WEF’s wealth-celebrities, these enormous power brokers who control conservatively estimated some US$ 25 trillion of the world’s assets and literally about 90% of the world’s industry and food manufacturers, not to speak about weapons, both, in the form of guns and pharmaceuticals, would be interested in ending this war for the sake of preventing it becoming an all-destructive nuclear confrontation, a potential annihilation of civilization, as we know it?

If Zelenskyy wanted peace, peace and reconstruction of his country for the people of Ukraine, wouldn’t he ask the WEF and its illustrious attendants for help in establishing Peace?

Or, if Zelenskyy does not have a spirit of Peace, wouldn’t you expect that the inventor and eternal Chairman of the WEF, Professor Dr. Klaus Schwab, would have the inspiration to suggest Peace, to his scholar, Zelenskyy, as well as the WEF’s followers, the richest of the rich?

The WEF and its associates would have the power – the money power, the political power and the sheer lime-light power to achieve Peace, to help moderate between Russia and Ukraine, to recognize Russia’s worries, to admit to the west’s broken Minsk II Agreement, the promises vis-à-vis Russia, at least since 1991 – and even before, during the time of the Soviet Union – of no NATO expansion east of Berlin.

All with the foresight of PEACE. The WEF could do it.

Why does the WEF not lead such an initiative, bringing along all its wealthy and influential supporters to make the world a Place of Peace — to finish wars, this Ukraine war and all future wars?

This would be clearly in the power of influence of the WEF.

Instead, they give Zelenskyy, who seeks weapons instead of peace, a standing ovation.

What does that say for the WEF, for its members, for the entire western world – and for the WEF’s own stated objectives: To Make the World a Better Place?

Indeed, after Zelenskyy’s demands, already the EU, plus 20 countries have committed themselves to deliver more weapons, more money to Ukraine. In other words, to prolong the war, the misery the destruction, the floods of refugees. A lot of that money goes into private pockets.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates that by now some 6.4 million Ukrainians fled their country. But not all to the West. Some actually to Russia. But they are not counted. Not by the west.

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Back to the WEF – wouldn’t it be a reasonable appeal to the WEF, the self-proclaimed “good-doer” of the world, to do good for humanity, stop this war, stop all wars, stop digitizing the globe and people into humanoids, or transhumans?

With all the financial resources you control, Dr. Professor Klaus Schwab, and all your wealthy WEF supporters – not least your host country, Switzerland, a peace-loving country, that spends hundreds of millions in helping you organize and police-and-militarily protect your Davos events year-after-year-after-year – you could help make the world a peaceful place.

Something to think about, while your “partner-in-crime”, the World Health Organization (WHO), has started almost at the same time – on 22 May – there are no coincidences, its 75^th World Health Assembly to debate making WHO the World Health Tyrant, overruling all 194 member countries national sovereignties, with a so-called “Pandemic Treaty” that would bestow WHO with absolute powers to decide over the definition of pandemics, on behalf of Big Pharma and Big Money.

WHO could literally declare wantonly pandemics when it suits the world elite. They would have the power to decide, where what type of pandemic has broken out, what measures need to be taken, and for how long.

They would have unilateral power to declare lockdowns, forced vaxxes, travel bans, mandatory vaxx certificates – the entire package.

This they could all do in close collaboration with GAVI, the Gates created Vaxx Alliance, housed just next door to WHO in Geneva.

And all based on total, absolute control, à la Bill Gates’ ID2020, using as instrument the infamous QR code (QR =Quick response), a Trojan horse, that has already infiltrated every corner of our lives for absolute control of each one of the surviving populations, today some 7.9 billion.

To expand on Henry Kissinger’s infamous statements: “Who controls the food supply controls the people; who controls the energy can control whole continents; who controls money can control the world;” you may add: “Who controls health, decides over Life and Death”. It perfectly fits the elite’s eugenist agenda.

More than 100 years ago, the visionary Rudolf Steiner (1861–1925) has already hinted at what evil will beset the world, and our spirits.

The philosopher, Rudolf Steiner, had foreseen the “vaxx craze” that people would be subjected to, so as to demolish our soul, soon after we were born, so as to overrule our natural immune system, so that we will depend on a soulless pharma culture, so as to be unable to develop a conscience and “to make the etheric body loose in the physical body” – see insert.

After implementation of UN Agenda 2030, and / or the WEF’s Great Reset, and the 4^th Industrial Revolution – all synonymous – committed to depopulation, We, the People, must crawl out from under our “cognitive dissonance”, wake up and stop it, stopping it in Solidarity is the only way.

Freedom doesn’t come for free.

We have to fight for it.

What does it take to get the WEF on the peoples’ side?

We the people have the power to abandon the world of the WEF, to develop alternative methods of living, outside of the Globalist Matrix.

We might jump forward into the past, when many of societies favored economic models according to “local production for local consumption, with local sovereign, economy-backed money, while trading according to the principles of comparative advantage – aiming at win-win situations for all partners.”

A vast majority of the populations around the globe would favor national political sovereignty and cultural and economic independence over a Globalist world, over a One World Governance, or what that may become a One World Tyranny.

This shall not happen.

Just believe in, and meditate:

We the People want Peace.

We the People, are of the Light.

We the People, shall overcome!

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

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

Featured image is a screenshot from the video

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First published on May 26, 2022

***

When a disturbed teenager or adult commits mass murder it has nothing to do with liberty. Yet, since the weapon is usually a gun, many people in the US essentially respond that the freedom to be armed is more important that the right to be safe. In fact, millions claim that being armed is the only way to be safe. Like most arguments against gun control, it’s cruel and illogical.

For decades now, leaders of gun rights groups have made the same case. They claim, for example, that the only thing separating Americans from people living in dictatorships is their unrestricted access to weapons. If the government has all the guns, they say, attacks against defenseless citizens will become as common in the US as they are in oppressed countries. This is one of the reasons why gun owners oppose the banning of so-called assault rifles.

Does this sound familiar? It certainly should. The same argument is still being made today by those who say nothing can be done to stop mass shootings like the recent ones in Texas and upstate New York. They also warn that only way to prevent a police state here, which many people claim is on the verge of happening, is to allow the wide and unregulated distribution of all sorts of weapons.

This idea, which assumes that any regulation is the first step toward confiscation, represents a paranoid and individualist mentality that for decades has dominated debate about gun violence in the US. We are free, the argument goes, only as long as we can defend ourselves with guns, not only against criminals but also against the law and the State.

A related argument is that the federal government should not be allowed to regulate guns; this is a matter best left to states. And if a state wants to do nothing, perhaps because the gun lobby can defeat candidates who back even modest reforms, or because the crime rate isn’t soaring or no mass shootings have recently occurred, people in neighboring states must simply spend more money to crack down on crime and violence. It’s just the price of freedom.

Such positions are based on the notion that government should not meddle in the affairs of individuals. Guns aren’t the problem, opponents add, it’s people — in other words, human nature. But most homicides in the US are committed with guns; in other words, people with guns kill more people than those without them.

There are 393 million privately owned firearms in this country — up almost 100 million in the last ten years. Use by children has also increased, as has the stockpiling of exotic weapons by extreme groups and criminal organizations. Three-in-ten American adults say they currently own a gun, and another 11 percent say they don’t personally own a gun but live with someone who does.

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

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a

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“For me it was never about money, but solving problems for the future of humanity.”

– Elon Musk [1]

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On May 23, Oxfam International released the latest study examining how the COVID-19 pandemic affected the distribution of wealth worldwide. The results were alarming, and for people with any sense of fairness, out and out infuriating:

• Billionaires increased their wealth as much in the last 24 months as it normally does in 23 years!
• As many as 263 million people could be pushed into extreme poverty this year.
• The world’s billionaires saw their collective wealth increase by $12.7 trillion (42%) during the pandemic.
• The richest 10 men possess more wealth than the poorest 40% of humanity combined.
• Elon Musk could lose 99% of his wealth and would still be among the top 0.0001% of the world’s richest people. Since 2019, his wealth increased by 699%.
• The incomes of 99% of humanity fell because of the pandemic, with 125 full-time jobs lost in 2021.
• total billionaire wealth currently stands at 13.9% of Global Gross Domestic Product, up from 4.4% in 2020. [2]

With the event recently passed known as May Day, the International Workers’ Day, commemorating the efforts and victories of the working class and the labour movement, and celebrated in over 80 countries around the world, these developments in recent years is hardly cause to gloat!

Moreover, new struggles have confronted the workers while the elites are dominating the gains. The fourth industrial revolution, artificial intelligence, ad a whole gamut of new technologies seem to have given the tech lords an edge.

In a March 2021 Global Research News Hour interview, Catherine Austin Fitts explained how the decision by the G7 banks to re-organize the financial systems under the plan ‘Going Direct Reset’ allowed COVID to be a cover for a major thrust of wealth toward the wealthy and allow new technologies to once again return to them control of the mass population.

In a statement on what labour would be facing she said the following:

“If I can insert things into your body, if I can mind-control you, if I can turn off your ability to transact, that’s a slavery system…and you’re looking at a leadership who thinks they can do almost everything with software and AI and robotics, and they don’t need people.” [3]

These threats are no longer science fiction. For any serious person with a quest for worker solidarity, it is imperative that we not only remember with fondness the past glories of our collective triumphs, but muster like there’s no tomorrow against the scourge of the clear and present threat to our gains and possibly even our existence. The anthem of The Internationale will underscore this week’s episode of the Global Research News Hour.

Our first half hour features an interview with Professor Anthony Hall, a man who has been skeptical of many of the assertions of the COVID-19 pandemic. He shares with us his assessment of the lost freedoms the working man and woman are forced to reckon with, and also takes on the left and organized labour who, given their stand on the freedom convoy, are hurting rather than helping those they claim to protect.

This is then followed by a panel who will discuss the road ahead for labour given the sobering facts available at present. Professor Richard Wolff, Nora Loreto and Paul Moist all compare notes on the path forward, including where labour is and should be at, what the role of the freedom convoy might have been able to show us, and what lessons might have presented itself in the wake of the Indian General Strike.

Professor Anthony J Hall is Emeritus Professor of Liberal Education and Globalization Studies at the University of Lethbridge in Alberta, Canada. He is a regular contributor to Global Research, and has written a great deal on COVID-19 and “The Great Reset.”

Professor Richard Wolff is an American Marxian economist. He is Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and currently a Visiting Professor in the Graduate Program in International Affairs of the New School in New York. He is host, creator and writer of Economic Update with Richard D. Wolff. He is also a frequent lecturer at community and academic institutions across the country.

Nora Loreto is an activist based in Quebec City and editor of the Canadian Association of Labour Media and a much sought-after facilitator. She presents regularly on media relations, writing, editing, social media and online security and privacy. She authored Take Back the Fight, Organizing Feminism in the Digital Age (2020) and her latest from November 2021,  Spin Doctors: How Media and Politicians Misdiagnosed the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Paul Moist has been a member of the Canadian Union of Public Employees for 40 years, serving 6 years as president of the CUPE local in Manitoba and 10 years as national president. He also got a bachelor’s degree in history and politics at the University of Manitoba. He is also active with the New Democratic Party.

(Global Research News Hour Episode 357)

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Other stations airing the show:

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Notes:

1. Alex Davies (March 13, 2013), “How Elon Musk Is Revolutionizing Two Major Industries At The Same Time”, Business Insider;  https://www.businessinsider.in/How-Elon-Musk-Is-Revolutionizing-Two-Major-Industries-At-The-Same-Time/articleshow/21261518.cms#:~:text=His%20intense%20ambition%20and%20self-confidence%20enable%20him%20to,that%20have%20made%20Musk%20what%20he%20is%20today.
2. OXFAM Media Briefing (23 May, 2022), “Profiting from Pain: The urgency of taxing the rich amid a surge in billionaire wealth and a global cost-of-living crisis”; https://oi-files-d8-prod.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/2022-05/Oxfam%20Media%20Brief%20-%20EN%20-%20Profiting%20From%20Pain%2C%20Davos%202022%20Part%202.pdf
3. https://www.globalresearch.ca/unmasking-covid-what-purpose-does-it-serve-and-for-whom/5739062

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First published on May 26, 2022

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Former president George W. Bush wrote in his memoirs that following the 9/11 atrocities, he had formulated a strategy in which to safeguard the United States. His plan did not make a distinction between the terrorists and the countries where they resided. Under Bush, the Americans would fight the enemy abroad before they could strike, confronting a perceived threat before it materialised, i.e. preventive attacks. 

This strategy, known as the Bush Doctrine, had actually originated before 9/11, not after. The Bush Doctrine was developed together with the “freedom agenda”, which Bush wanted to use to support “inexperienced democratic governments” in the Ukraine, Georgia and Lebanon, to name but three; and strengthening dissidents in the “repressive regimes” of Syria, Iran, North Korea and Venezuela.

Image on the right: President Bush makes remarks in 2006 during a press conference in the Rose Garden about Iran’s nuclear ambitions and discusses North Korea’s nuclear test (Licensed under public domain)

Comprising part of the freedom agenda, were flagrant attempts at regime change with president Bush leading a team of neoconservatives (neocons). They were focused on extending US global hegemony, and subordinating other countries to the superpower’s interests.

The Bush administration’s moves into Eurasia led to growing tensions with Russia, which has been returning as a world power over the past 2 decades under president Vladimir Putin. With legitimate cause, in late February 2002 the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Igor Ivanov, warned that the Americans should understand Moscow’s concerns about the highly provocative presence of US soldiers in Georgia, a nation which shares a 550 mile border with Russia.

The Russian grievances regarding US and NATO enlargement were ignored. NATO, in effect America’s military arm, has long been an instrument to subordinate Europe to the US along with that of its major banks, such as JP Morgan, Chase Manhattan Bank, Bank of America, etc. Rapid NATO expansion further enabled the war industry’s growth, bolstering profits through arms deals by selling weaponry to the many new countries which have joined NATO over the past generation.

Among the key tasks of NATO troops is “to guard pipelines that transport oil and gas that is directed to the West”, said NATO Secretary-General, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, in June 2007, when he was addressing a meeting of NATO members. Washington believes that the transportation of oil and gas through Russian territory makes Western markets vulnerable.

The Americans made great efforts to ensure that the pipelines avoided Russian land, or that of Russia’s allies. For Washington a crucial goal, to the present, is to control the countries of the former Soviet Union. They went about this not only with military persuasion, but through the assistance of organisations like the CIA, the NED (National Endowment for Democracy), Freedom House, USAID and the Open Society Institute; the latter was created by Hungarian-American billionaire George Soros, a ubiquitous and controversial figure, and in 2011 his Open Society Institute was renamed Open Society Foundations.

It should be mentioned that Soros is an implacable adversary of leaders such as Putin and Chinese president Xi Jinping. Among Soros’ business deals, he has had ties to American politicians like John McCain; upon McCain’s death on 25 August 2018, Soros led the tributes describing him as “a brave warrior for human rights who stood up against repression and torture”. Not mentioned was that McCain had a history of warmongering – he strongly endorsed the US-NATO invasions of Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya.

The above Western NGOs and foundations serve as devices to promote regime change, in countries regarded suspiciously by Washington. Bush’s government dispatched 200 military advisers to Georgia. This small Caucasus country is recognised to be of vital strategic importance, partly because of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, supported by the West. The infrastructure, at 1,099 miles long, is the second largest oil pipeline present in the former Soviet Union. It transports crude oil from the Caspian Sea through Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey, bypassing Russia and Iran.

The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline was operated through a consortium led by British Petroleum (BP) and Chevron. The Pentagon started drafting policies to use Georgia in a containment policy of Russia, with the intention of preventing the Kremlin from reasserting its influence over the Caucasus.

Location of Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan pipeline (Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0)

A few weeks after 9/11, Georgia’s president Eduard Shevardnadze visited the American capital, where he pledged his backing in the “war on terror”. Shevardnadze asked for economic and military aid from the Americans, and he signed a strategic partnership with NATO. He also authorized the construction of the previously mentioned pipeline, which would be commissioned in 2006. Yet the Georgian president’s position had become precarious. He was politically weak and isolated; Georgia’s foreign debt had rocketed to $1.75 billion and Shevardnadze had no way of paying it off. This instability in Georgia was viewed with concern in Bush’s White House, who feared that the country would return to Russia’s orbit of control.

The so-called Rose Revolution in Georgia of November 2003 was planned and initiated from Washington, in co-ordination with the US Ambassador to Georgia, Richard Miles, according to Moniz Bandeira, a Brazilian political scientist. Bandeira continued, “The ambassador Richard Miles had played an important role in the toppling of Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, when he headed the diplomatic mission of the United States in Belgrade, between 1996 and 1999”.

The “Rose Revolution” was granted huge funding from Soros’ Open Society Institute, totalling over $42 million. US-friendly politician Mikheil Saakashvili, who received some of his education at private institutions in America, took over the Georgian presidency in January 2004. Saakashvili’s rise to power was partly made possible by the assistance of Western NGOs, and pro-Saakashvili activists in Georgia who were on the bankroll of the Open Society Institute of Soros.

Saakashvili promptly went about reducing the Russian military presence in Georgia. The US Secretary of Defence, Donald Rumsfeld, signed a $15 million contract with the American firm, the Cubic Corporation, in order to provide defence equipment and training to Georgia’s military.

The Bush administration was sending to Georgia US Special Operation Forces (Green Berets) and the US Marine Corps, among others, to train the Georgian military personnel; these contingents participated in the US offensives in Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq. The Americans had launched the Georgia Train and Equip Program (GTEP) in 2002 and, in 2005, the Georgia Security and Stability Operations Program (GSSOP), initiatives formed to align the Georgian forces to US military goals.

With tensions rising in the separatist Caucasus regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, both of which want to join Russia, president Saakashvili requested that Georgia be allowed to join NATO; which would have been the equivalent of Mexico acceding to the Soviet Union-led Warsaw Pact.

The following year, starting in November 2004, a second colour revolution commenced this time in the Ukraine, another very important country which has an 830 mile border with Russia. The protests occurred principally in the capital Kiev, by no means nationwide, and it had been dubbed by the Western media as the “Orange Revolution”. The target was the Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchma, who had assumed power in Kiev 10 years before in July 1994.

Kuchma could not be called an ardent pro-Russian but, overall, relations with Russia had improved during his decade in office. Kuchma described Russian as “an official language” in the Ukraine and, during late May 1997, he had signed a Treaty of Friendship, Co-operation and Partnership with Russia.

As regarding Georgia, the anti-government actions in the Ukraine were encouraged by American organisations like the NED, USAID, Freedom House, along with activists on the payroll of Soros. He was supporting the campaign of Viktor Yushchenko, a pro-Western figure. Yushchenko has been an advocate of the Ukraine joining NATO and the EU, while he was opposed to Russian being the second state language in the country.

English correspondent Jonathan Steele wrote of the Orange Revolution in the Guardian newspaper, “Intervening in foreign elections, under the guise of an impartial interest in helping civil society, has become the run-up to the postmodern coup d’etat. The CIA-sponsored third world uprising of cold war days adapted to post-Soviet conditions”. In the decade or so following the Soviet Union’s 1991 collapse, Washington poured $350 million and counting into eastern Europe and the ex-Soviet republics. This included the funding of psychological warfare operations assisted by the mass media.

The Pentagon had invested millions of dollars in the colour revolutions, with the support of the US State Department and the US Army Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations Command (USACAPOC). Washington had clearly not abandoned its Cold War practice of surrounding Russia, and if anything was increasing the intensity of such policies post-1991, breaking verbal promises made to the Russians.

With crucial Western support, Yushchenko took power in Kiev in January 2005. Bush hoped that Yushchenko would shift the Ukraine towards Western integration, while adopting a “free-market economy”. The first major project that Yushchenko announced, in the summer of 2005, was the construction of a pipeline originating from the Caspian Sea via the Ukraine to Poland. This would reduce Kiev’s dependence on Moscow for raw materials.

Yushchenko’s prime minister was Yulia Tymoshenko, known in the Ukraine as the “gas princess”, because of the fortune she had gained through murky business deals relating to natural gas. Tymoshenko has publicly supported Ukrainian accession to NATO and the EU.

President Bush and colleagues had no desire to sow instability in Azerbaijan, another former Soviet republic. Azerbaijan, which rests on the Caspian Sea, serves as a critical pipeline corridor between the Caucasus and Central Asia; as Zbigniew Brzezinski started to realise about Azerbaijan, when he was the National Security Adviser under president Jimmy Carter.

To help protect the oil/gas fields and pipelines, the Pentagon dispatched to the Caspian region mercenaries from American Private Military Companies (PMCs) like Blackwater. The Caspian region had historically been dominated by Russia and Iran. Bush, like his predecessor Bill Clinton, was provoking and humiliating Russia by sanctioning further NATO expansion and launching wars of aggression in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Less than a year after becoming president in January 2001, Bush withdrew America from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM), which had been signed in 1972 with the USSR in order to implement the anti-missile defence system. He also refused to ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (1996), along with modifications to the SALT 2 agreement on the reduction of strategic armaments.

Bush moved to establish missile bases in Poland and the Czech Republic, two central European states which had joined NATO in 1999. He aggressively advanced NATO to Russia’s very borders, with the accession in 2004 to NATO of the Baltic states Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, along with that same year Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia and Slovenia.

In early 2007, an increasingly frustrated Putin rebuked NATO’s march to Russia’s frontiers when he said “the United States has overstepped its borders in every way”, a policy which he described as “very dangerous”.

Undeterred, the Bush administration continued its imperialist program, by making steps to incorporate the Ukraine and Georgia into the American military sphere. In early April 2008 it was outlined at a NATO summit in Bucharest, Romania, “NATO welcomes Ukraine’s and Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations for membership in NATO. We agreed today that these countries will become members of NATO. Both nations have made valuable contributions to Alliance operations”. NATO’s stated ambitions did not go unnoticed in the Kremlin.

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Shane Quinn, Journalist and renowned Historian, focussing on geopolitics and the history of World War II, based in Ireland. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).

Sources

George W. Bush, Decision Points (Crown, 20 Nov. 2010)

Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov, “Ivanov: Russia Opposed to US Troops in Georgia – 2002-02-27”, Voice of America

Doug Bandow, “John McCain Loved the Military Too Much”, Foreign Policy, 28 August 2018

Jacob Grandstaff, “George Soros, John McCain, and Immigration”, Capital Research Center, 10 July 2017

Jonathan Steele, “Ukraine’s postmodern coup d’etat”, The Guardian, 25 November 2004

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

Taiwan News, “Ukraine to ditch Russian friendship treaty amid tensions”, 10 December 2018

Zbigniew Brzezinski, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geostrategic Imperatives (Basic Books; 1st edition, 18 Nov. 1997)

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

“Press Briefing by National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley on the President’s Trip to the NATO Summit”, Bush White House Archives, 3 April 2008

History of World War II: Operation Barbarossa, the Allied Firebombing of German Cities and Japan’s Early Conquests

By Shane Quinn

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

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

Click here to read the e-Book.

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First posted by GR on May 23, 2022

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Dr. Peter McCullough on Friday sketched what he believes is the true purpose of an induced COVID “medical crisis”: global world government.

“What we’re seeing now is the utilization of vaccines as an inroad to global human compliance. Subjugation of the entire world’s population at the same time, via the same method. Having our rights linked to the end of a hypodermic needle,” declared McCullough, a renowned physician and prolific writer and speaker, during the health conference“Reclaiming Science Together” held Friday in Bath, England.

Since the early stages of COVID-19, McCullough has spoken regularly about the dangers of the COVID shots, and about the suppression of effective early treatment for COVID. However, he has been mostly tight-lipped on the reasons behind the seemingly ubiquitous push for dangerous jabs, and suppression of effective treatment.

During Friday’s conference, however, he frankly described what he believes to be a sinister strategy behind the handling of the COVID “crisis,” in service of a global, malignant agenda.

He noted to the conference audience that just prior to his talk, he had given podcast host Joe Rogan a copy of a recently published book he co-wrote with John Leake, titled “The Courage to face COVID-19: Preventing Hospitalization and Death While Battling the Bio-Pharmaceutical Complex.”

He explained that it “deals with the crime of the suppression of early treatment,” which he said was “integral to create fear, suffering, hospitalizations and deaths in order to prepare the world to accept mass vaccination.”

According to McCullough, it doesn’t matter whether the “vaccine” is a genetic one, such as those being used in the West, or a “kill virus vaccine,” which he said is being used in the East. In his view, they accomplish the same purpose: They subjugate our medical, social, and economic freedom.

“Because those who are under the duress of taking the vaccine are given the most agonizing decision: The decision to take a product they know will cause harm to their bodies, or lose their livelihood. Or in some countries, lose their type of governmental financial assistance, or in some countries, lose access to their bank accounts,” McCullough said.

He noted the vaccines are also being “tightly tied” to the ability to carry out social activities like going to school or church.

“What we’re seeing now is an attempt for a global world government through the context of medical crisis and medical relief,” McCullough said.

“The next step in this process is the World Health Organization (WHO) global treaty that will bind countries into this type of totalitarian servitude,” he added, referring to recently proposed amendments to the WHO’s International Health Regulations, that many have pointed out would compromise the sovereignty of nations in the case of a “health emergency.”

“In my view, the only court that’s open now is the court of public opinion,” said McCullough, adding that for those “on the line,” he believes that “our challenge is to make our case” here.

“The sacrifices are just starting, and I think the stakes will get higher and higher. I think the vaccines are just one chapter in a very, very dark narrative that’s being handed to us,” he continued.

McCullough then issued a rousing call to resist and fight the malevolent agenda behind the COVID-induced medical, social and economic tyranny.

“If the entire world tomorrow rejected these vaccines, uniformly rejected these vaccines, the entire dark plot would fall,” he declared.

“And I encourage each and every one of you to have strength and resolve beyond anything you think you could have possibly done in your life. To make this the line. It has become clear, this is the line. It’s only by holding the line that we actually stop this freight train.”

“There is a vaccine cabal — vaccine stakeholders … we know you’re listening. And my message to you is that we are bold, and we are relentless, and we are unstoppable, and we have the truth. And the truth will prevail.”

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Just before the beginning of Ukraine’s war with Russia, Vladimir Putin uttered a key phrase, the meaning of which was that Russia could not allow Ukraine to reacquire even tactical nuclear weapons and that Kiev was literally one step away from creating them. It was this emphasis that immediately fell out of the public spotlight amid claims of “denazification” and “demilitarization”. What is a dirty nuclear bomb and how likely is Kiev to have one?

The classic nuclear charge has a monstrous destructive power, but the effect of using such weapons is relatively short-lived. Yes, indeed, during a nuclear explosion extremely dangerous isotopes are formed, including strontium-89, strontium-90, cesium-137, zinc-64 and tantalum-181. These isotopes, once in the body, accumulate there, causing severe and often incurable diseases. For example, radioactive iodine accumulates in the thyroid gland, cesium in muscles, strontium in bones and so on.

At the same time, the affected area of a nuclear explosion denuclearizes rather quickly, i.e. actively loses radioactivity. Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the only cities in the history of mankind to have been nuclear bombed, are a case in point. The masses were under the impression that they left a scorched desert for decades, which is not true. As early as August 1949, the Hiroshima Peace Memorial City Construction Law was passed, which gave an immediate start to the total reconstruction of the city. That is, little more than four years had passed since the nuclear strike.

The principle of the dirty bomb is different. This type of munition is much simpler in its construction and does not require complex technical solutions. In fact, it is simply a delivery vehicle (missile, bomb or artillery shell) to which a container with radioactive filler is attached. One of the potentially most effective and therefore dangerous applications in general involves simply spraying radioactive dust from an airplane or any other aircraft.

Dangerous isotopes with long half-lives are deposited on the surface of the earth, plants, and further into the ground and aquifers, making the area dangerous to live in for many decades. To a man to develop radiation sickness it is enough to get just one sievert dose (Sv), a dose of 3 to 5 Sv leads either to death in a couple of months or to the development of cancer, 6 to 10 Sv is a guaranteed death as the irreversible death of bone marrow begins.

The consequences of the Chernobyl explosion are close to a dirty bomb explosion

The issue of the possibility of Ukraine, which renounced nuclear missile weapons as part of the Budapest Memorandum, creating a dirty bomb has been repeatedly considered by various experts. Most of them agreed that it is impossible for a number of reasons.

First, for political reasons: Western allies will not give the unpredictable government in Kiev such a bargaining chip. Second, Ukraine does not have the appropriate technical capabilities, no centrifuge capacity for uranium enrichment, and no suitable means of delivery. Some experts do not agree with the latter assertion, because a large amount of equipment and specialists capable of creating such means has been preserved since the Soviet Union days.

Ukraine currently holds a large amount of spent nuclear fuel that has not been removed from the territory of Ukraine since 2020 and that has been stored on the territory of nuclear power plants awaiting the construction of a nuclear fuel storage facility in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone.

In addition, the Kiev regime had accumulated 30 tons of plutonium and 40 tons of enriched uranium at the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant. This was reported by Wall Street Journal journalist Lawrence Norman, citing IAEA Director General Raphael Grossi. The head of the international nuclear watchdog agency noted that although the nuclear power plant is under Russian control, it is run by Ukrainian reactors. That is why the IAEA needs to urgently send its experts to assess the situation and find out whether there are stocks of uranium and plutonium missing (alas, earlier Kiev has lost Javelins, bulletproof vests, etc.).

Laurence Norman’s post

In response, Ukraine’s Energoatom announced the IAEA head’s words as a fake and tried to explain that plutonium and enriched uranium are only in fuel assemblies (tubes) at nuclear power plants, while spent nuclear fuel is present at every nuclear power plant.

“This is a sly thing. If the state has sufficient competence to dismantle fuel assemblies, the spent nuclear fuel can be used to make weapon-grade isotopes. And for sure, in order to fill a missile warhead with it, a subversive charge, to arrange a dirty bomb, when the territory is contaminated without a nuclear explosion. And the activity of such a bomb will be higher than that of a cobalt bomb by one and a half times,” said the expert.

“Let’s take the Bushehr nuclear power plant in Iran as an example – the whole Western world demanded from Russia to close the project at first, and then they agreed – Russia takes the spent nuclear fuel so that Iranians would not accidentally start using it illegally for weapons-military purposes. For some reason it was scary in Iran, it was a stumbling block, but with Ukraine it is not frightening”.

As for the creation of delivery vehicles, nothing is impossible. The legendary Yuzhmash plant of the past is really going through a period of total decay today, while, remember, for many decades it has produced a fairly wide range of products for the space industry, including fuel modules. In other words, both the documentation and some of the production facilities that make it possible to assemble a hull of especially durable metals, where a load of spent nuclear fuel could be placed, are likely to have remained in place.

Nor would it have been a matter of delivery vehicles. If the Neptun missiles of their own production failed, the allies are full of their own much more powerful and long-range counterparts. Arms deliveries to Ukraine did not open with the start of the Russian special operation. And there have been serious discussions about supplying Kiev with heavy weapons.

In conclusion, the threat of Kiev creating a dirty bomb is serious. This is confirmed, albeit indirectly, by statements by experts, journalists around the world, and Russian officials. Despite the revelation that a large amount of spent nuclear fuel is stored at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, no one knows reliably how much is stored at other nuclear power plants. We can only hope for the remnants of the adequacy of the Ukrainian government. Otherwise, it could do irreparable harm not only to Russia and Belarus, but also to their neighbours.

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Featured image: Possible creation of a nuclear bomb in Ukraine (Source: South Front)

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***

The World Economic Forum claims that genetic modification is the way of the future

In February 2022, Chile passed a law prohibiting employers from discriminating against genetically impaired employees

There are studies suggesting that in some cases, COVID injections might lead to changes in human DNA; more research is needed

Disabled rights attorney Todd Callender looked at a Supreme Court case from 2013, which led him to believe that using mRNA to modify genomes may turn people into legal property of the patent holders (unless this interpretation is explicitly ruled out)

Making us biologically dependent on the “artificial immunity service” is bad for the people but sadly good for business

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This story is about the hubris of conquest and genetic modification. Let’s start with the ugly. The richest people of the world, as well as their loyal servants from the World Economic Forum, are on the Genetic Modification team. According to the World Economic Forum, “the evolution of gene testing and gene editing will drive the future of healthcare.”

They really can’t sleep at night knowing that they have not yet stuck their fingers into every nook and cranny of the human body and efficiently monetized them! Here is a technical video from 2016 on “Harnessing Gene Editing for Multiple and Permanent Genetic Changes.”

I don’t know … somehow I am not excited. Besides, all of this sounds suspiciously like Manifest Destiny 2.0.

A Legal Framework for a “Mutant Apocalypse”?

In February 2022, Chile passed a law prohibiting employers to discriminate against genetically impaired employees. The bill was “initiated on a motion by the Honorable Senator Mr. Alejandro Navarro Brain.” In response, a lot of people in the freedom community started asking questions. Does somebody expect a great increase in the number of genetically impaired people? Why? Here is the law (translated):

“Article 1. — No employer may condition the hiring of workers, their permanence or the renewal of their contract, or the promotion or mobility in their employment, to the absence of mutations or alterations in their genome that cause a predisposition or a high risk of a pathology that may manifest itself during the course of the employment relationship, nor require for such purposes any certificate or examination that allows verifying that the worker does not have mutations or alterations of genetic material in his human genome that may lead to the development or manifest in a disease or physical or mental abnormality in the future.”

If these exams are required by the employer, the latter must assume the cost of it. Likewise, if there is a current employment relationship, the time used to carry out said exams will be understood as worked for all legal purposes.”

“Article 3. — Health establishments and laboratories that carry out this type of examination, as well as employers who access this information, must adopt all the security measures prescribed in Law No. 20,584 and in Article 12 of Law No. 20,120, in order to protect the privacy of the worker and guarantee confidential handling of the data. The worker will always have the right to access the information revealed by a genetic test.”

The law was published in the official gazette on February 16, 2022. The jury on why this law had to pass is still out. For background on the GMO industry in Chile, here is a “GMO-positive” analysis from 2016.

What Could Potentially Cause an Excessive Amount of Genetic Impairment?

We, human beings of the 21st century, are bombarded with poisons every step of the way — and we are kind of on our own with this. Our air is polluted. Our water is filled with contaminants (speaking of, as a tangent, the water coming out of my tap in New York City is a little rusty … go figure). Our food, unless we are super vigilant and can afford organic (and even then) contains God knows what. Glyphosate is everywhere, and so are “forever chemicals.”

Plus, on a daily basis, we deal with emotional stress, geoengineering-derived toxicity (about geoengineering, here and here), electromagnetic pollution … seriously, it’s a miracle that we are still around, given that our wealthy are treating us like roaches!

And now, we have a new ambitious player in the area of messing with our bodies! Meet the biological bandit, the novel injections! As we all know, the COVID injections are designed to turn our bodies into factories producing spike proteins (in the words of the CDC, “harmless pieces”).

At no point in known history have our bodies been asked to grow foreign spikes on the surface of our cells — so this is frankly kind of creepy. There is a reason why our instincts naturally go against Frankenstein initiatives and untested products. It’s because they are Frankenstein and untested!

Case in point: were those products maybe tested for important things like genotoxicity? Let’s ask the trustworthy insert for the trustworthy FDA-approved product, Comirnaty. It says the following:

“COMIRNATY has not been evaluated for the potential to cause carcinogenicity, genotoxicity, or impairment of male fertility.” Oh. But at least, it is not really genetic modification because it doesn’t change our actual DNA, right?

Not so Fast?

First of all, let me point out that the scientists are still discovering new connections and even organs in the human body (here, here, and here), so any knowledge they have is conditional, and real scientists are humble and cautious. The arrogant ones may puff their cheeks all day — but it doesn’t mean that they really know how thing work, in a finite manner.

So, in the case of eliminating the possibility of DNA damage, even if the regulators were pure and honest, and if they were truly following the also pure and honest scientists, their statement about the novel product not impacting human DNA is only a “good faith” opinion, as of this second. After all, the product is novel!

Lo and behold, here is dr. Paul Alexander’s analysis of the study called, “Intracellular Reverse Transcription of Pfizer BioNTech COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine BNT162b2 In Vitro in Human Liver Cell Line.”

Quoting the abstract: “Preclinical studies of COVID-19 mRNA vaccine BNT162b2, developed by Pfizer and BioNTech, showed reversible hepatic effects in animals that received the BNT162b2 injection. Furthermore, a recent study showed that SARS-CoV-2 RNA can be reverse-transcribed and integrated into the genome of human cells.”

As Dr. Alexander notes poignantly, “the failure is that the vaccine companies did not study this in clinical trial. We have no idea in the human model as we have no idea in everything as to the safety of these vaccines and the short, medium, and long-term effects. We have no idea if persons who have taken these vaccines will not have autoimmune disease or be severely ill, or have severe side effects, or even die from the vaccines, in the future.”

And here is analysis by Mikolaj Raszek, PhD, in Canada. Dr. Raszek looked at the Australian Pfizer data, i.e. “Nonclinical Evaluation Report for BNT162b2 [mRNA] COVID-19 vaccine (COMIRNATYTM),” submitted in January 2021.

To sum up my answer to the question as to whether COVID injection may alter human DNA, we have no idea. And yet so many people are forced to take them — like cattle (which is not to say that it is right to treat cattle in this manner, it is also wrong).

The Question of Ownership

Many of us remember how Monsanto sued different farmers after Monsanto’s toxic products contaminated the farmers’ crops. The corporate giant claimed that the farmers had illegally used their patented products. (I’d say, this is emotional and intellectual abuse, who even wants their products).

Which brings us to today — and the legal analysis by the disabled rights attorney Todd Callender who has looked at a U.S. Supreme Court case from 2013, and it led him to believe that this case could have far-fetching legal implications for the recipients COVID injections.

The case in question is “ASSOCIATION FOR MOLECULAR PATHOLOGY ET AL. v. MYRIAD GENETICS, INC., ET AL.” Here is the exact syllabus of the case, as per Cornell Law School website:

“Each human gene is encoded as deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), which takes the shape of a “double helix.” Each “cross-bar” in that helix consists of two chemically joined nucleotides. Sequences of DNA nucleotides contain the information necessary to create strings of amino acids used to build proteins in the body. The nucleotides that code for amino acids are “exons,” and those that do not are “introns.”

Scientists can extract DNA from cells to isolate specific segments for study. They can also synthetically create exons-only strands of nucleotides known as composite DNA (cDNA). cDNA contains only the exons that occur in DNA, omitting the intervening introns.”

“Respondent Myriad Genetics, Inc. (Myriad), obtained several patents after discovering the precise location and sequence of the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes, mutations of which can dramatically increase the risk of breast and ovarian cancer.

This knowledge allowed Myriad to determine the genes’ typical nucleotide sequence, which, in turn, enabled it to develop medical tests useful for detecting mutations in these genes in a particular patient to assess the patient’s cancer risk. If valid, Myriad’s patents would give it the exclusive right to isolate an individual’s BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes, and would give Myriad the exclusive right to synthetically create BRCA cDNA.

Petitioners filed suit, seeking a declaration that Myriad’s patents are invalid under 35 U. S. C. §101. As relevant here, the District Court granted summary judgment to petitioners, concluding that Myriad’s claims were invalid because they covered products of nature. The Federal Circuit initially reversed, but on remand in light of Mayo Collaborative Services v. Prometheus Laboratories, Inc., 566 U. S. ___, the Circuit found both isolated DNA and cDNA patent eligible.”

“Held: A naturally occurring DNA segment is a product of nature and not patent eligible merely because it has been isolated, but cDNA is patent eligible because it is not naturally occurring.”

According to Todd Callender, who was interviewed by the Corona Investigative Committee, the document holds that the use of mRNA for modification of the genome results in a synthetic genome that belongs to the patent holder. Therefore, if we follow that line of legal logic, it is possible to conclude that using mRNA to modify human cells can result in said cells (and living beings) owned by the patent holder.

As of this moment, there is still no clarity and no official legal conclusion as to whether this interpretation will apply — but given how crazy the past two years have been, and how brazenly the bulldozer has been proceeding so far, nothing seems off limits. Also this:

A conspiracy theory, you say? A tinfoil hat, you say? Sounds more like a business plan to me…

A question then. Do you want to live like this? Do you want to become corporate property, literally? What are you doing to prevent it from happening? https://t.co/KFmz5Xqqy1

— Tessa Lena a.k.a. Tessa Fights Robots ❤️ (@TessaMakesLove) July 6, 2021

And we are at it, let’s also look at the concept of “DNA storage.”

MAD SCIENTISTS SHOULD STOP IMPLEMENTING CONSPIRACY THEORIES. “It’s possible to store data in the DNA of living cells — though only for a short time. Storing data in your skin would be a fantastic way of transferring data securely.” https://t.co/1X0VnkvX2p

— Tessa Lena a.k.a. Tessa Fights Robots ❤️ (@TessaMakesLove) August 14, 2021

The War on Everything Natural

All this fits in perfectly with the “blue ocean” business model that creates new markets out of thin air.

I wrote about this in detail in a 2021 article about the war on natural immunity and ability — but the gist is that eroding natural health and natural defenses (whether accidentally or on purpose) turns us into loyal customers who have to subscribe to the “artificial immunity” service for the rest of our lives, however long it lasts. Sucks for us but very good for business!

And where does the money come from, assuming that the citizens are all half-alive and can barely provide for themselves? Well, the money could come, for example, from the virtual digital “press” owned by the central bank, who would fund the “noble” companies providing the artificial immunity services to the people in the name of “public health” … You know the drill.

It’s all for our own good! In this case, the citizens would exist as mere excuses for the companies to make money. Which, to be fair, has been the case for a while, just in a way that was hidden from many of us — until two years ago.

The end result would look very much like the Monsanto arrangement where living forms are modified to depend on purchased products, while remaining in an increasingly toxic environment. I don’t know about you, but I already feel bad for the crippled GMO tomato, and I certainly don’t want to turn into something similar.

The Fear of Missing Out

Let’s look at the existential picture. Where does all this cluelessness, arrogance, greed, and cruelty come from?

Human beings do a lot of unintelligent and self-destructive things out of fear (I’ve done it, I am no exception, definitely no finger pointing here). Fear of missing out (and thus being humbled by rivals) is important motive in our culture.

I think that, philosophically speaking, today’s unhealthy hunger for conquering nature and scanning every nook and cranny for “goodies” — and then squeezing every drop of juice out everything, and then tossing it out — is driven by a spiritual void, by the lack of joyful faith, by the fear of being existentially vulnerable, intellectually unsophisticated, and emotionally unimportant.

After all, even the most egregious greed covers up for a spiritual void since we don’t really need to own everything in the world to be happy. It’s like, “If I leave even a drop of valuable goods on the side of the road for someone else to grab them, I’ll feel so stupid! And they will sure judge me! And I am afraid of that so I’d rather just take it.”

Right now, we are living in times of very ripe and internalized fear and peer pressure but initially, to shake the people off their axis, it had to come with violence, which is something that all of our ancestors experienced at different points.

Here is a non-GMO-related story that really moved me several years ago, and stuck with me. It was told by the Dagara elder Malidoma Some, who, sadly, passed away last year (and I just learned about it, so I am very shocked and sad).

As a young child, Malidoma Some was kidnapped by priests into a mission boarding school, which he fled as a teen, and then had to undergo a lot of things in order to heal. He then moved to America and dedicated his life to help westerners understand the centuries-tested wisdom of his people.

One of his stories stuck in my mind. He wrote about how the missionaries who came to his village tempted the farmers. The missionaries promised to buy the crops from the farmers if the farmers bought the fancy fertilizes from the missionaries. Some of the farmers got tempted and bought the fertilizes.

The missionaries’ fertilizers “made the land angry,” and the crops didn’t grow. And so those farmers found themselves in debt to the Jesuits for the fertilizers, and without the yields. And from being indebted, they were more vulnerable to the demands of the missionaries.

This sounds very similar to the behavior of Monsanto, leading to farmer suicides in countries like India (a fact so egregious that the establishment had to “debunk” it).

Similar things were unfortunately done in the Americas, too, as a part of the intentional policy of building outposts around Indian territory to seduce and corrupt the people on the “reservations” (what a word, if you really think about it). The well-documented strategy was designed to steal more land from the Native people — who were already greatly perturbed by the violence of the “great reset” that had been handed to them by the Europeans.

The plan was to sell them goods “on credit,” and put them in so much debt that they would let go of more their land. The final goal was for the Native people to “own nothing and be happy” (yes, the original American great reset, and we really need to come to terms with how similar it is to the great reset of today, which is still in early stages.

Conclusion

I believe with great passion that in order for us to win this victory and to stop the bulldozer, we need to tackle the underlying spiritual and spiritual malaise, or else the bulldozer will keep coming at us in different ways. Being spiritually honest and brave, and working toward healing after centuries of abuse, are the challenges of our generation, and perhaps of many generations to come.

Bottom line, we are free people. We never belonged to the great resetters, just like the people who came before us never belonged to the great resetters of their time.

And there is no need to scan every nook and cranny of bodies, looking for money. Unmonetized bodies are free bodies. So I pray that we the people start pedaling toward honesty and wisdom so that we can heal.

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***

It is WEF 2022 – Day 3 – 25 May 2022.

Professor Schwab’s opening statement refers to WEF’s goal, “Our objective is to make the world a better place.” In fact, the WEF logo throughout Davos and the rest of the world is “World Economic Forum – Committed to Improving the State of the World”.

Just as a parenthesis, it reminds me of the slogan at the entrance of the World Bank, “Our Dream is a World Free of Poverty”. Whenever I passed this phrase, I couldn’t help thinking, “… And we make sure it will just remain a dream.”

The following is just a summary of the “dialogue”, reflecting the most salient points. It was clear from the outset that the entire conversation was orchestrated, maybe not so much for the public who attended the Davos event, the so-called Davos Man, they are supposedly in the know. But for the public at large who watch these WEF Davos videos around the globe, it hammers in another point of vaxx propaganda.

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Pfizer’s Dr. Albert Bourla introduces himself as a Greek Jew and Holocaust survivor. Maybe his underlaying message was that he knows what suffering means – and he knows how to reduce, alleviate and eliminate the pain.

Answering Klaus Schwab’s question on the state of corona, Bourla said that

“The virus will not disappear, but we can get our lives back, we have the means, very effective vaccines, with that people are not dying anymore.”

It is unfortunate that Bourla did not mention even with one word, the Pfizer “vaccine” risks, let alone the death reports. Tens of thousands of people perished after and in connection with the Pfizer mRNA vaxxes. Pfizer is a criminal organization and has indeed criminal lawsuits on its books.

See this for more truth and this, Michel Chossudovsky: “Pfizer’s Secret Report on the Covid Vaccine…” and this.

Bourla continues, questioning himself, or the audience, “Are we scared of new viruses? — We should be prepared, but science will win.”

At this time a reference to Mike Yeadon, former Pfizer Vice-president and Chief Science Officer, who already months ago sent via video a warning to humanity:

See also this and this.

Schwab follows up with a provocative but leading question:

“Why should you be vaccinated, if you have treatment?”

And Bourla, without hesitation,

“Because we rather prevent the disease by vaccination, than cure it.”

He adds,

“We will continue to be vaccinated, so we need continuous vaccines.”

Prepared for this answer, Schwab doubles up, “Will it also be possible to combine vaccines, for example with the flu vaccine?”

There we go. This will be next, you will be given a flu-shot with mRNA qualities, possibly without you even knowing it.

Bourla confirms affirmatively, “Yes, we will combine.”

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Now Schwab enters a new dimension. “Would you recommend changes in public-private cooperation?”

Bourla shoots back with a smile, “Yes, regulators EMA (European Medicine Agency) and FDA (US Food and Drug Administration) did very well in cooperation. FDA staff could not sleep for five days, as they had to approve a vaccine in 5 days, instead of years.”

Imagine, this open admittance of enormous wrong-doing, approving of a brand-new, never before tested, method of vaccine, the mRNA-gene-modifying type – even under the premise of “experimental approval”!

Tens of thousands have died from this “experimental vaccine”, but neither FDA, CDC, or EMA called for a halt of vaccination. Doesn’t this resemble part of a eugenist agenda?

There is a worldwide upward trend of vaccine deaths and injuries. The latest official figures (April 3, 2022) point to approximately: 

69,053 Covid-19 injection related deaths and 10,997,085 injuries  for the EU, US and UK Combined for a population of 830 million people

Based on reported cases. Only a small fraction of the victims or families of the deceased will go through the tedious process of reporting vaccine related deaths and adverse events to the national health authorities. 

See this: Pfizer and FDA knew that vaccines were not safe.

Schwab continues in this vein. “Under this conditional approval, who takes the risk? Who is liable?”

Without hesitation, Bourla shoots, as if it were the most natural thing in the world: “Governments take the risk. This is part of our contract with Governments.”

Paraphrased:

“We provide the helping remedy, and the governments, as their part of the deal, cover the risk.”

Dr. Bourla did not mention that there were indeed governments who refused taking the risk – for example, Argentina. And Pfizer left. All governments should have refused taking the liability, and tens of thousands, maybe leading up to hundreds of thousands of lives could have been saved.

*

Professor Schwab was now handing out more flowers: “You had such a success with mRNA can this success be replicated for other diseases, like malaria?”

Bourla: “We hope in the long run, but first we are working on the flu-vaccine, producing a flu-vaccine with the updated mRNA technology.”

Here we go. Instead of with the covid vaxxes, in the future, people will get their flu-shot mRNA-style, not a clue that these vaxxes may possibly contain the same poisonous concoctions that were found in the covid vaxxes, responsible for millions of adverse occurrences; dangerous and deadly “side effects” that the lot of the medical and scientific society did not dare – and still does not dare – to associate with the covid vaxxes, due to the risk of losing their medical license, or worse.

Professor Schwab continues with his bouquet of compliments: “You are leading a company so much focused on research. How did you manage when covid occurred and you were overburdened with research?”

Bourla’s quick response – “I am very proud of what we did and what we achieved”

Standing ovation.

Klaus Schwab – “Last question: With all your experience: What is your message?”

And again, Dr. Bourla doesn’t hesitate, as if he was trained for the answer: ”I learned a lot; people don’t know what they can and cannot do in their lives, what capacities they have when they are challenged. It was a big surprise.”

And now comes Bourla’s punch line: “What were the options – not do it – let the world die?

When you understand that the solution is you do it, or you let the world die, then you know what to do.”

Bourla’s final words, paraphrased – “Losing 3 billion dollars would be very painful, but it would not be the end of the world. But if we don’t find a solution, it’s going to very painful for all.”

Schwab, “Let us applause you. – We do it for two reasons:

First, it was very evident, your social responsibility, your sense for purpose, and
second – thank you for having so openly shared with us your objectives and also your concerns and what drives you. Thank you very much.”

Followed by another standing ovation.

And just as a sideline to and in parallel with the WEF, the World Health Organization (WHO), also based in Switzerland, Geneva, is holding its 75^th Annual World Health Assembly during which it will be debated – who are the “debaters” is not public knowledge” – whether WHO will receive global powers to decide over our health and above and beyond its 194 member countries’ own Constitutions.

As Kissinger, alias Bill Gates would say: “Who controls the people’s health, decides over life and death.”

If approved, WHO will convert into WHT, or World Health Tyranny. The first set of government overarching rules would become effective in November 2022 – see this and this.

And, by the way, the World Health Assembly has also just renewed Dr. Tedros, the DG’s mandate for another five years.

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We must resist. Collectively. In solidarity.

Yes, a New World Order may be necessary – but to the true benefit of the people: i) Forward to the concepts of democracy, born in Greece some 5 centuries BC; ii) Forward to the concept of sovereign nations, as we still knew them less than a century ago; and iii) Forward to an economy of “Small is Beautiful” – like in “Local Production for Local Consumption with Local Money and a Local Public Banking System; and Trading According to Comparative Advantages,” – As was still known on many Continents less than a century ago.

Definitely, Exit Globalization.

*

See for yourself, this pathetic, deceptive, promotional, propaganda dialogue between WEF CEO, Klaus Schwab and Pfizer CEO, Albert Bourla.

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

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

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***

Although the Biden administration hasn’t given up on defeating COVID-19 as they continue to ask for more funding for testing and the COVID-19 drug, another disease is starting to capture the media’s attention as numerous cases of monkeypox have been reported. With President Joe Biden stating that people should be concerned, many are worried that the disease might bring a new wave of restrictions, protocols, and mandates that were seen during the COVID-19 pandemic. While no announcement has been made, recently, Maria Zeee sat down with both Dr. Peter McCullough and author John Leake who suggested monkeypox might be a scapegoat for the cluster of side effects reported from the COVID-19 jab.

In the video featured below, Zee presented just a few of the side effects being seen from monkeypox. “The [monkeypox] illness begins with symptoms of fever, headache, muscle aches, swollen lymph nodes, chills, and exhaustion…. symptoms that really are just the flu…” Being interrupted, Dr. McCullough noted that the symptoms might actually be from the COVID-19 drug other than the disease.

Adding his input, Leake revealed that monkeypox isn’t new, and the United States even had an outbreak back in 2003, and nobody knew about it.

“We had a monkeypox outbreak, a small one that was quickly contained in the United States in 2003. No one even remembers it. Most people didn’t even know it was happening at the time. Seventy people got monkeypox in the United States, but it’s very identifiable. It’s grotesquely symptomatic. These people were treated and kept at home. And that was the end of it.”

Again, Dr. McCullough focused on if there was a link between the disease, side effects, and the COVID-19 drug.

“And that’s the setup [COVID shot or infection] for a relatively innocuous adenovirus 41 to cause hepatitis. Now bring in monkeypox. Is it conceivable that mass vaccination now is allowing outbreaks of other contagious viral illnesses? I think it is. Obviously, for each case, we need to know: did they take one of the COVID-19 products?”

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***

For observers of President Biden’s recent visit to Asia it will come as no surprise that, as in the past, the US sought to encourage Asian allies to join in further strengthening its political, economic and especially military containment of China. Like the US role in prolonging the war in Ukraine in order to weaken Russia, the US hopes to weaken China so that it will be unable to challenge American hegemony.

On Monday, May 23^rd, when Biden was asked by a reporter if the United States would respond militarily if China attempted to invade Taiwan, the president responded, “Yes” and added, “That’s the commitment we made.” In reality the US has never made such an explicit security guarantee to Taiwan, with which it no longer has a mutual defense treaty. Instead, it has long maintained a policy of “strategic ambiguity” about how far it would be willing to go if China invaded. The 1979 Taiwan Relations Act, which has governed US relations with the island, does not require the U.S. to step in militarily to defend Taiwan if China invades, but makes it American policy to ensure Taiwan has the resources to defend itself in order to prevent any unilateral change in the status of Taiwan by Beijing.

Nevertheless, as the Washington Post noted, Biden has, over the course of the past nine months, stated on two previous occasions that the United States would defend Taiwan if invaded. Thus, there was really nothing new in his latest statement, especially as it has long been believed, strategic ambiguity or not, that the US will continue to defend Taiwan militarily as in the past, beginning with the Korean War when the Truman administration employed the US Seventh Fleet to prevent victorious Communist forces from crossing the Taiwan Strait in pursuit of the defeated Nationalist forces under the leadership of Chiang Kai-shek.

Does this mean there were no new developments connected to Biden’s trip? Most definitely not! On the contrary, a new and important development occurred. However, it occurred not in Asia but in Washington, specifically on the webpages of the US State Department. Around May 5^th an unannounced change was made to the State Department’s webpage entitled, “U.S. Relations with Taiwan (see this). Eliminated were such phrases as “we [the US] do not support Taiwan’s independence” and “Taiwan is part of China.” Now the webpage opens with the words: “Taiwan is a key U.S. partner in the Indo-Pacific.”

As innocuous as these deletions may appear, they represent a momentous change in policy, for it means that the US is no longer opposed to Taiwan’s independence. True, Taiwan would have to give up its claim that, as the “Republic of China,” the country is the true government of all of China, but that claim has been dismissed by the world as the myth it has long been since losing the Chinese civil war in 1949. On the other hand, it represents the long sought opportunity by elements in the current government in Taipei to declare independence, i.e. to become the Republic of Taiwan. From the US viewpoint, the attractiveness of this development is that the US will still be able to proclaim its adherence to the professed policy of recognizing only “one China” even while supporting the birth of a new island nation.

Needless to say, the US is not the only country welcoming this possibility. I recently had the opportunity to discuss this development with one of the leaders of Japan’s largest opposition political party. When I queried him on the current Japanese government’s likely reaction to a Taiwanese declaration of independence, he immediately responded, “The Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs would undoubtedly recognize Taiwan’s independence.” Further, both the US and Japan could claim that Taiwan’s change in status was in accord with the will of the democratically elected representatives of the Taiwanese people and was not the result of military force or coercion on the part of the US, China or any nation.

There is, of course, one not so small problem to this ‘peaceful’ scenario – the People’s Republic of China (PRC). For the PRC, Taiwan is the single remaining part of the country separated from mainland control since the Communist defeat of Nationalist forces in 1949. The PRC has made it abundantly clear that a Taiwanese declaration of independence is a redline which, if crossed, will result in war. Expressed in the negative, Zhou Bo, a retired officer of the People’s Liberation Army, now a senior fellow at Tsinghua University’s Center for International Strategy and Security Studies, explained: “China will not use force unless and until Taiwan declares independence, unless and until an external force separates Taiwan from China, or unless and until the possibility of peaceful reunification is totally exhausted.”

Nevertheless, as my recent article in Countercurrents makes clear, at least one influential conservative think tank in the US is currently planning, if not advocating, for a US military response to a Chinese invasion they believe is coming soon (see: “Pearl Harbor Comes to Taiwan”). In fact, if this think tank’s plans come to pass, Japan will also be embroiled in the US military’s response, thereby committing Japan to its first overseas combat role since WW II.

Conservative voices in Japan would welcome Japan’s military involvement, not least because of its ties to Taiwan as a former Japanese colony while, at the same time, China’s communists have been regarded as a major enemy from as far back as 1937 if not before. Many of Japan’s contemporary conservative political leaders, including former Prime Minister Abe Shinzo and current Defense Minister Kishi Nobuo, are descendants of Japan’s wartime leaders and have inherited many of their predecessors’ views. Japan’s arms manufacturers, like Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, also trace their origins to the same time period, with roots reaching back to the nineteenth century. They welcome Japan’s stated intention to substantially increase its military budget, including, for the first time, building offensive missiles that can strike enemy military bases.

However, from the Chinese viewpoint, it must be remembered that as the result of Japan’s full-scale invasion during WW II, China lost a total number of military and non-military casualties of around 35 million, including 20 million dead and 15 million wounded. Thus, Japan is the worst possible ally the US could have in any future war with China. The hatred toward Japan a conventional war would rekindle among the Chinese people is beyond belief. Ultimately, nothing short of a full-fledged nuclear exchange with the US would end the carnage. Yet were that to occur, what would remain of either side, or any side?

In light of the ongoing bloodbath now taking place in Ukraine, and its repercussions throughout the world, it is nearly inconceivable to imagine another major war breaking out.

Yet, as early as June 2020 Michèle Flournoy, formerly an undersecretary of defence in the Obama administration, called for the US Navy in the South China Sea to have the ability to destroy the entire Chinese navy within 72 hours. Her proposal, one of many, demonstrates there are powerful elements in the US who are seriously preparing for a conventional war with China, sooner rather than later. This is because they are aware China is growing militarily stronger year by year. Thus, striking China now, in tandem with Japan’s growing military might, is an attractive opportunity. Observing how Russia has been bloodied in the Ukraine, they dream of achieving the same result regarding China.

It is not yet too late to prevent this madness from occurring, but it will take the collective voices and efforts of citizens in many nations, beginning with the US and Japan, but also including citizens from all nations who recognize the utter folly of yet more warfare, especially in the face of ever worsening climate change, growing world hunger, the refugee crisis, etc. At least for a short period, we still have the opportunity to make our opposition known to a new war, this time over Taiwan. Will we seize it?

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Brian Victoria, Ph.D., Senior Research Fellow, Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies

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***

Biden’s Latest Defense Pledge to Taiwan: Gaffe or the Real U.S. Policy? 

President Joe Biden has once again roiled the geopolitical waters of East Asia with his latest statement on U.S. policy toward Taiwan. At a May 23, 2022, news conference during his visit to Japan, Biden strongly indicatedthat he would go further on behalf of Taiwan’s defense than he has been willing to do with respect to Ukraine.  It is a significant distinction and an escalation of the U.S. commitment to Taipei. Biden has steadfastly refused to deploy U.S. forces in Ukraine, although Washington has provided tens of billions of dollars in weapons as well as intelligence assistance to help Kyiv defeat Russian forces.  When a reporter asked: “Are you willing to get involved militarily to defend Taiwan if it comes to that?” Biden answered flatly: “Yes.” There appeared to be no waffling either.  “You are?” the reporter followed up, making it clear that he was talking about direct U.S. military intervention. “That’s the commitment we made,” Biden replied.

Biden’s last statement was factually inaccurate. U.S. policy regarding Taiwan is governed by the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979, which was enacted when Washington shifted official diplomatic relations to the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Under the TRA, the United States pledges only to sell Taiwan weapons of defensive nature and regard any PRC attack on the island as a severe breach of the peace in East Asia. If the latter occurs, the president and Congress are obligated to consult about an appropriate response. There is no official commitment for Washington to defend Taiwan, however, despite Biden’s implication to the contrary. Indeed, U.S. administrations over more than 4 decades have pursued a policy of “strategic ambiguity”—playing coy about what Washington’s response would be if the PRC resorted to military force.

It is tempting to dismiss Biden’s comment as simply the latest clumsy incident by a notoriously gaffe-prone president of a notoriously gaffe-prone administration. There are mounting reasons, though, to conclude that a more severe situation is taking place with respect to Taiwan policy. Biden has made too many similar statements about Washington’s alleged defense commitment to the island to believe that all of his comments are merely verbal blunders.

During an August 2021 interview with ABC News, host George Stephanopoulos asked the president if Washington’s allies could still rely on U.S. protection in light of the disorderly withdrawal from Afghanistan. Biden responded:  “We made a sacred commitment to Article Five that if in fact, anyone were to invade or take action against our NATO allies, we would respond.” He goes on: “The same alliance had been forged with Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan,” he stated [Emphasis added]. During an October 21, 2021, CNN town hall session, the president was asked explicitly whether the United States would defend Taiwan from a PRC attack.  Biden responded unhesitatingly: “Yes, we have a commitment.”

In all previous episodes, administration officials, including Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, and White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, scrambled to “clarify” (walk back) the president’s comments to assure the news media and international leaders (especially PRC leaders) that U.S. policy had not really changed and that the TRA still determined that policy. Both Austin and the White House staff tried to execute the same maneuver on this latest occasion.

However, there are strong reasons to conclude that the president’s repeated “gaffes” accurately reflect his actual policy regarding Taiwan. Under both Biden and his predecessor Donald Trump, Washington’s security relationship with Taipei has blossomed to the point that it has restored many of the features of the full-fledged bilateral security alliance that existed before 1979.

It’s also important to understand that if a crisis erupts in the Taiwan Strait, the fateful decision about the U.S. response will not be made by Lloyd Austin, Jake Sullivan, the White House press secretary, or any other figure who might favor greater restraint. Joe Biden will make that decision. It shouldn’t be that way; no single official should have such power. Yet, despite language in the Constitution giving Congress, not the president, the authority to make decisions about going to war, it is unlikely that Biden would do more than “consult” Congress, if he deigned to do even that much. For more than seven decades, Congress has abdicated its responsibility for issues of war and peace and allowed an unrestrained, imperial presidency to flourish. It is highly improbable that the legislative branch would now attempt to rein in Biden in the midst of a Taiwan crisis.

The unpleasant reality is that the U.S. commitment to Taiwan’s defense has expanded dramatically in recent years, with little congressional debate and hardly more significant public discussion about the enormous potential costs and risks. Strategic ambiguity is dead. Biden is not guilty of making repeated verbal gaffes about U.S. policy toward Taiwan, although it is understandable why that impression persists. He is stating the truth about the substance of U.S. policy, however covertly the shift has taken place.

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Ted Galen Carpenter, a senior fellow in defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute and a contributing editor to 19FortyFive, is the author of 12 books on international affairs, including America’s Coming War with China: A Collision Course over Taiwan (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005).

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***

On Wednesday, the EU’s European Commission proposed to make breaking EU sanctions on Russia a crime, which would make it easier for the bloc to confiscate assets of people and companies that evade sanctions.

“Today’s proposals aim to ensure that the assets of individuals and entities that violate the restrictive measures can be effectively confiscated in the future,” the European Commission said in a statement.

Confiscating assets means they can be taken, sold, and used by the EU as opposed to freezing them, which only denies the targeted person access to their assets.

Breaking Russia sanctions is currently a crime in 12 EU nations. In 13 EU countries, it is either a criminal offense or an administrative offense, and two EU members only consider it an administrative offense.

Wednesday’s proposal would make evading Russia sanctions a serious criminal offense in all 27 EU countries. It would mean the EU could confiscate the assets of anyone who helped facilitate the skirting of sanctions, including lawyers and bankers.

The EU is also considering selling off the assets of already-sanctioned individuals, including Russian billionaires, to use the funds for Ukraine. President Biden is looking for similar power, but the federal government seizing private property without due process is a clear violation of the Fourth Amendment.

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

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***

So we hear that former President George W. Bush finally came around to denouncing “the decision of one man to launch a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq.” This unexpected and belated outburst of truth-telling and self-criticism was, of course, unintentional—just one of those verbal gaffes that the man once entertained the nation with on a regular basis. Realizing his error, the former commander-in-chief quickly explained that the unjustified and brutal invasion he was condemning was, naturally, not that of Iraq, but Ukraine. He brushed his faux pas off as a result of his advanced age, and the audience had a good laugh about it all.

Unfortunately, that crowd at the George W. Bush Presidential Library in Dallas was not the only group with reason to smile at the current state of affairs, for these are happy days throughout the entire war-making community. With the nation understandably and justifiably outraged at the Russian invasion of Ukraine, it’s been widely noted that NATO is back in favor, arms manufacturers are back in clover, and increased military spending is way back in vogue in Washington—not that it ever suffered much of a downswing, mind you.

What’s also happening these days is that the public are paying much closer attention than usual to matters of war. With the Ukraine invasion streaming on every screen, most Americans appear to know far more of the activities of the Russian and Ukrainian militaries than they know about their own—a situation that our domestic military policy makers are probably quite comfortable with. Unfortunately, the rest of us ought to be quite uncomfortable with this situation—as a glance at the back pages of the past week’s news will show.

First, there was the announcement that President Biden would be sending troops back to Somalia. Why? In the words of National Security Council spokeswoman, Adrienne Watson, the purpose is to wage “a more effective fight against Al Shabab.” Al Shabab, (“the youth”), a fundamentalist Islamic group thought to have 5,000-10,000 members, has been fighting for control of Somalia since the 2000s. The U.S. started bombing Somalia in 2011. The following year Al Shabab declared allegiance to al-Qaeda. The U.S. has bombed Somalia in every subsequent year. The reason we can be waging war in Somalia? Well, it’s not something much discussed, since the fact that we bomb Somalia is not much discussed in the first place. Used to be that the justification and authorization cited for almost all of the bombs we have dropped in this century was the 2002 Authorization of the Use of Military Force resolution (the one that only Democratic Rep. Barbara Lee of California opposed.) Since that authorization was actually repealed last September, the White House/Pentagon’s operative rationale here now seems to be a sort-of “We’ve always done it this way” thing.

This move on the part of Biden—who declared it “time to end the forever war” when he announced the withdrawal of all American troops from Afghanistan—will reverse President Trump’s decision to remove almost all of the 700 Americans previously stationed in Somalia, which Watson called “a precipitous decision to withdraw.” The unofficial word is that about 450 will return. Biden has also approved the Pentagon’s request to attempt assassinations of about a dozen suspected Al Shabab leaders, part of an overall effort—in the words of an unnamed senior administration official—to reduce “the threat to a level that is tolerable.” A prime example of the type of “threat” that Americans might face in that part of the world was the attack that killed three soldiers at the American air base at Manda Bay, Kenya on January 2, 2020. (American soldiers killed in Kenya? We’ll return to that.)

And elsewhere on the assassination-attempts-on-enemy-leaders front, the very next day the Pentagon spoke for the first time about civilian casualties resulting from its March 18, 2019 drone strike near Baghuz, Syria. The U.S. military had not originally intended to discuss this matter at all, until the New York Times uncovered the incident in a November, 2021 series on civilian deaths resulting from U.S. air strikes. This recent Pentagon acknowledgment came a week after the Times was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for that series. Although the bulk of its investigation remains classified, the Pentagon does acknowledge 73 casualties including 56 dead, 52 of whom it claims “were enemy fighters, including one child.” The enemy in this case refers to the Islamic State (ISIS). Anonymous officials familiar with the findings acknowledged that all males at the site, armed or not, were assumed to fall into the “enemy fighters” category, despite the Times report that the camp’s occupants included “captives and scores of wounded men who were no longer in the fight and, according to the law of armed conflict, were not legal targets.”

The justification offered for this bombing was the defense of our Syrian Defense Force allies in Syria’s civil war. At the press conference announcing its report, Pentagon spokesman John F. Kirby characterized the Times’ findings as “not comfortable, not easy and not simple to address,” but he assured those present that “We actually do feel bad about this.” No wrong doing was found on the part of any American involved in the military operation, however, nor was anyone found to have improperly covered it up. And why are U.S. military forces currently at war in Syria? Again, it would pretty much seem to come back to the undeniable fact that this is just the sort of thing we do, ever since four airplanes crashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001.

The very next day following the Pentagon’s self-exoneration in the Syria bombing, it took the opportunity to present even happier news: Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III has nominated Lt. Gen Michael E. Langley to a position that puts him in line to become the U.S. Marine Corp’s first black four star general. If formally nominated by President Biden and confirmed by the Senate, Langley will assume the top position of the U.S. Africa Command, a group said to currently number about 2,000 men and women, about 1,500 of whom actually operate out of Stuttgart, Germany (a country that is host to 40 U.S. military bases and about 35,000 American military personnel). The actual extent of the Africa Command remains a bit murky, though. In 2020, the news website Intercept published a Pentagon planning document that listed 29 U.S. military bases in fifteen different African nations.

And why are we in Africa? According to the Africa Command’s website, the organization “counters transnational threats and malign actors.” Indeed, these “malign actors” do appear to be on the rise. For instance, in the course of the decade plus in which the U.S. has been bombing Somalia, the number of militant Islamist organizations operating in the continent has risen from about five to 25. And now it appears that there are at least 29 locations there where Americans might now be threatened.

So, with just a brief look at what’s not streaming on every screen, it’s hard to avoid thinking that if there were half as many Americans who knew what our own military was up to around the globe—or if there were half as many Americans who could name even half the countries we repeatedly bomb—as there are Americans who know what the Russian military is doing, people might start talking about making some real changes there.

From Common Dreams: Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

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Tom Gallagher is a former Massachusetts State Representative and the author of ‘The Primary Route: How the 99% Take On the Military Industrial Complex.’ He lives in San Francisco.

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On May 17, the U.S. Congress held its first hearings on Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP)—the new official name for Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs)—in more than 50 years.

Less then two months earlier, President Joe Biden’s $773 billion budget request for the Defense Department for fiscal year 2023 included $24.5 billion for the U.S. Space Force and the Space Development Agency—about $5 billion more than what Congress approved in 2022.

The fortuitous timing was all but predicted by Wernher von Braun, a Nazi scientist recruited under Operation Paperclip, who served as the first director of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, from 1960 to 1970.

Before his death in 1977, von Braun said: “Weapons will be based in space—hence the need to create a psychological nexus whereby people will fear all things alien.”^[1]

As Von Braun Would Have Wanted

Von Braun’s spirit was evident in the opening remarks of André Carson (D-IN), the chairman of the House Intelligence Subcommittee on Counterintelligence, Counterterrorism, and Counterproliferation, who emphasized that UAPs “are a potential national security threat, and they need to be treated that way.”

Carson further stated:

“For too long, the stigma associated with UAPs has gotten in the way of good intelligence analysis. Pilots avoided reporting or were laughed at when they did. DOD officials relegated the issue to the backroom or swept it under the rug entirely, fearful of a skeptical national security community. Today, we know better. UAPs are unexplained, it’s true. But they are real. They need to be investigated. And any threats they pose need to be mitigated.”

Scott Bray, Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence showed two videos at the hearing taken by Air Force pilots which showed white objects that looked like flying saucers in the air whose source could not be identified.

Bray said that, although the second object in particular could have been some kind of drone, he was not aware of any foreign adversaries who had technologies that resembled these objects.

Bray further said that, while some of the sightings could have been of airborne clutter, meteorological phenomenon, or U.S. industry or military technologies, of the 144 reports of UAPs documented between 2004 and 2021, 18 appeared to exhibit unspecified flight characteristics and lacked evidence of propulsion—even when they moved at excessive speeds—which made them intriguing.

An unidentified flying object captured by the U.S. Navy in video. [Source: cnet.com]

False Threat Inflation

Last December, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) succeeded with bipartisan support in inserting an amendment into the annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that directs the Pentagon to work with the intelligence community to investigate the phenomenon of UAPs and to publicly report its findings.

Gillibrand—who has received huge campaign donations from Wall Street and consistently supports U.S. military interventions—said that “our national security efforts rely on aerial supremacy and these phenomena present a challenge to our dominance. The United States needs a coordinated effort to take control and understand whether these aerial phenomena belong to a foreign government or something else altogether.”

At the May 17 hearing, Russia hawk Adam Schiff (D-CA)—who has received more than $100,000 in campaign contributions from Raytheon since 1999—echoed Gillibrand by emphasizing the significance of UAPs as a national security matter.

Ronald Moultrie, Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security, emphasized the potential threat of UAPs to U.S. military bases and installations, which he vowed to protect.

When Republican Congressman Mike Gallagher (WI) challenged Moultrie, he called for investigation of an alleged 1975 incident in which a glowing red orb was witnessed above Malmstrom Air Force Base in rural Montana, eight years after ten nuclear inter-continental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) became inoperable there.^[2]

Gallagher became angry when Moultrie said he had not heard of the incident, and asked him to investigate it—omitting that it had occurred decades ago, before Gallagher was even born.

Gallagher was not so subtle generally in advocating for greater vigilance by the government in protecting the nation from inter-galactic predators intent on destroying the United States—along with other foreign enemies.

Planning for Interplanetary War?

Dr. Steven Greer, who retired from the emergency room to pursue the hunt for aliens as the self-described “world’s expert on UFOs,” is among those horrified by the mindset that was on display at the congressional hearing.

As Greer sees it, aliens are here to help us and the military-industrial complex is hyping their danger and creating the U.S. Space Force to prepare for interplanetary war, arguing movies like “Independence Day” are part of “a false narrative created by covert groups striving to generate fear of ETs.”

Source: arkadincinema.com

“Have We Visitors From Space?”

Public fixation with UFOs in the U.S. goes back to at least the 1920s when science fiction writers featured stories of scientific geniuses who developed super-weapons that helped save the U.S. from alien invaders.^[3]

This 1929 cover of Science Wonder Stories, drawn by notable pulp artist Frank R. Paul, is one of the earliest depictions of a “flying saucer” in fiction. [Source: wikipedia.org]

On April 7, 1952, Life magazine published an article entitled “Have We Visitors From Space?” which purported to offer scientific evidence verifying the existence of interplanetary saucers.

The article mentioned numerous UFO sightings, including one in 1947 by a pilot named Kenneth Arnold who said he saw nine saucer-like things flying like geese near Mount Rainier, Washington, in a diagonal chain-like line at speeds estimated to be 1,200 miles per hour.

At that time there was still some thought that Mars or Venus might have a habitable surface. People thought these UFOs were Martians who had come to keep an eye on Planet Earth now that the U.S. had nuclear weapons.

Project Bluebird

Such attitudes prompted an Air Force study out of Wright Patterson Air Force base in Ohio called Project Bluebird, which collected and analyzed more than 12,000 UFO reports from 1952 to 1969.

A few years before the project was initiated, Lt. General Nathan Twining, the commander of Air Materiel Command (later to become Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff), sent a secret memo on “Flying Discs” to the Commanding General of the Army Air Forces at the Pentagon, stating that “the phenomenon reported is something real and not visionary or fictitious.” The silent, disc-like objects demonstrated “extreme rates of climb, maneuverability (particularly in roll), and motion which must be considered evasive when sighted or contacted by friendly aircraft and radar.”

Project Bluebird, however, concluded that most of the UFO sighting reports were misidentifications of natural phenomena (clouds, stars, etc.) or conventional aircraft.

A number of the reports could be explained by flights of the formerly secret U-2 and A-12 reconnaissance planes, though some remained unexplained.

CIA’s Robertson Report

In the early 1950s, the CIA weighed in with its own investigation, headed by a Cal Tech physicist Dr. H.P. Robertson, which concluded that low-grade, unverifiable UFO reports were overloading intelligence channels, with the risk of missing a genuine conventional threat to the U.S.

The Robertson Commission recommended that the Air Force de-emphasize the subject of UFOs and embark on a debunking campaign through the mass media to lessen public interest and ridicule those who believed in UFOs.^[4]

The committee’s final report specified that civilian UFO groups “should be watched because of their potentially great influence on mass thinking…The apparent irresponsibility and the possible use of such groups for subversive purposes should be kept in mind.”

Amateur photo of flying saucer in 1952. [Source: history.com]

These latter comments have fueled belief in a huge CIA/government cover-up. They were echoed at the May 17 congressional hearings by Ronald Moultrie, who implied that amateur UFOlogists were advancing conspiracy theories.

A big difference today, however, is that the Pentagon is now encouraging UFO sighting in order to validate the weaponization of Outer Space—and secure U.S. domination of Planet Earth.

Historian Jack Manno, author of Arming the Heavens: The Hidden Military Agenda for Space, 1945-1995 (New York: Dodd Mead, 1984), told space expert Karl Grossman that “control over the Earth” was what those who have wanted to weaponize space seek. “The aim is to…have the capacity to carry out global warfare [using] weapons systems that reside in space.”

Roswell

The name Roswell was never invoked at the May 17 hearing—except in passing—though it might have been if the Pentagon were savvier in its public relations.

On July 3, 1947, a cattle rancher named Mack Brazel uncovered debris from a downed plane in the remote New Mexico town of Roswell, which had lightweight wood that would not burn and metal beams filled with writing that bore some resemblance to Egyptian hieroglyphics.

Barney Barnett, a civil engineer, uncovered another crash site nearby with the bodies of four beings whose heads were larger than their bodies and whose eyes were slanted.

Brigadier General Roger M. Ramey, Commanding General of Eighth Air Force, and Col. Thomas J. Dubose, Eighth Air Force Chief of Staff, identify metallic fragments found near Roswell, New Mexico. [Source: history.com]

Debris in field after Roswell crash. [Source: unsolvedmysteries.fandom.com]

The U.S. Army claimed that the aircraft was a weather balloon and tried to silence Brazel, though a top secret army report leaked in 1984 pointed to a cover-up.

Source: theweek.co.uk

Unsolved Mysteries host Robert Stack concluded in a 1989 episode on Roswell:

“The military declared that the remnants found in that remote field [in Roswell] came from a downed weather balloon. But the people who actually saw and held the wreckage disagree. Perhaps it was an experimental aircraft that the military wanted to keep top secret at all costs. But perhaps, just perhaps, it was something else.”

Concealing Military Experiments

Perhaps it was, but journalist Annie Jacobsen interviewed an engineer with EG&G Company, who worked at Area 51—a top secret military testing base in Nevada—who said that the Soviets stirred up the Roswell UFO incident by sending flying discs into New Mexico with child-size aviators on board as a warning that they could spark a UFO panic if they wanted to.^[5]

Jacobsen’s source believes that the Soviets dispatched flying-disc drone aircraft—which they had developed during World War II—from a mother ship flying near Alaska. Intermittent radar signals were picked up by U.S. installations, but the discs were able to enter U.S. airspace and come down near Roswell.

The child-sized aviators were about 13 years old and surgically or biologically altered to give them enlarged heads and eyes. Jacobsen quotes her source as saying he was told that the alien look-alikes were the result of experiments conducted by Nazi mad scientist Josef Mengele.

When Jacobsen asked the engineer—who had a top-secret security clearance—why President Harry Truman did not report all this in 1947, she said the source replied, “because we were doing the same thing.”

NBC News suggested that the “UFO” was indeed a flying disc, but that it was a U.S. rather than a Soviet experimental craft. In this scenario, the alien-looking bodies might have been dummies designed to create a preposterous cover story.

If the latter is true, the cover-up at Roswell had nothing to do with aliens, but was designed to cover up secret and unethical U.S. military experiments.

The Pentagon’s latest invocation of the UAP “threat” similarly aims to divert public attention from the military’s new Frankensteinian projects, while triggering concerns about a phenomenon that exists only in science-fiction stories and in people’s imaginations.

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Jeremy Kuzmarov is Managing Editor of CovertAction Magazine. He is the author of four books on U.S. foreign policy, including Obama’s Unending Wars (Clarity Press, 2019) and The Russians Are Coming, Again, with John Marciano (Monthly Review Press, 2018). He can be reached at: [email protected].

Notes

1. Quoted in Dr. Steven Greer, Hidden Truth: Forbidden Knowledge (Crozet, VA: Crossing Point, 2006), 37. 

2. According to a report in the Sun (a British tabloid), a CIA aircraft gave chase to a mysterious aircraft near the base, which then vanished before reappearing, and one hurtled into the sky at rapid speeds. Brigadier General William D. Barnes signed off on a document that specified that the encounter was “unknown.” 
3. See H. Bruce Franklin, War Stars: The Superweapon and the American Imagination(Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 2008). 
4. In 1966, fitting with the CIA’s mandate, Walter Cronkite sponsored a CBS News special “UFO: Friend, Foe or Fantasy?” which focused on debunking UFO sightings. 

5. See Annie Jacobsen, Area 51: An Uncensored History of America’s Top Secret Military Base (Boston: Little & Brown, 2011). 

Featured image: Scott Bray, Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence, left, and Ronald Moultrie, Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security, right. Both testified at the first congressional hearings on UFOs in more than 50 years. In the center is a video of a so-called unidentified flying object. [Source: unitednewpost.com]

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As an unprecedented outbreak of monkeypox spreads throughout the west, questions continue to swirl around the origin of the outbreak, the risk it poses to the public and the measures that may or may not be required to contain the virus.

Some also wondered how unexpected the outbreak was after learning about a March 2021 tabletop simulation of a hypothetical deadly outbreak of monkeypox predicted to occur in May 2022.

The Nuclear Threat Initiative and the Munich Security Conference — entities closely connected to the World Economic Forum (WEF), the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security — conducted the tabletop exercise.

Some analysts suggested the outbreak may have resulted from gain-of-function research or similar experiments involving the virus, while others floated the theory that malign actors, perhaps related to the conflict in Ukraine, intentionally released the virus.

Meanwhile, politicians and public health officials are delivering mixed and confusing messages to the public about the level of risk, while pharmaceutical companies are preparing to introduce monkeypox vaccines.

WHO responds with emergency meeting — just prior to its World Health Assembly

The World Health Organization (WHO) said it has considered monkeypox a “priority pathogen” for several years. Nevertheless, the new outbreak led the agency on May 20 to hold an emergency meeting of its Strategic and Technical Advisory Group on Infectious Hazards with Pandemic and Endemic Potential (STAG-IH) to discuss monkeypox.

STAG-IH, comprised of experts and scientists from around the world and chaired by David Heymann, professor of epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, advises the WHO on infection risks that could threaten global public health.

STAG-IH does not have the authority to declare a public health emergency of international concern — the WHO’s highest form of alert — which is currently active in relation to COVID-19.

The WHO convened the emergency meeting even though the organization was already set to meet for its World Health Assembly May 22-28 in Geneva, Switzerland — where members discussed proposed amendments to the existing International Health Regulations 2005, and where WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus was re-elected without opposition to a second five-year term.

The WEF also held its annual meeting May 22-26 — in Davos, Switzerland, not far from Geneva.

Monkeypox response described as ‘gaslighting’

Health officials and politicians are responding to the sudden spread of monkeypox with mixed messages.

WHO Europe regional director Dr. Hans Kluge recently expressed concerns about transmission at “mass gatherings, festivals, and parties.”

President Biden also shared concerns, stating that “it is something that everybody should be concerned about … it is a concern in the sense that if it were to spread, it’s consequential.”

And the U.K.’s National Health Service issued an advisory recommending people “only eat meat that has been cooked thoroughly.”

However, other public health professionals said the risk to the public is low, as is the likelihood the epidemic will last very long.

In what has been described by scientist and author James Lyons-Weiler as an example of gaslighting, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) advised the public not to be concerned over the spread of monkeypox, contradicting President Biden’s warning.

An article in the Daily Mail delivered its own mixed messages by first warning, in capital letters, about a possible “hypermutated” monkeypox virus, then quoting Dr. Rosamund Lewis, who heads the smallpox secretariat on the WHO’s emergencies program, who said, “Despite suggestions that the virus may have evolved, experts have warned there is no evidence it has done so.”

Despite the fact that the WHO has not declared any kind of public health emergency related to the spread of monkeypox outside of Africa, various countries have begun enacting their own measures in response to the outbreak.

Public health authorities in Belgium announced May 20 that a compulsory 21-day quarantine will be imposed for monkeypox patients, U.K. health authorities urged “high risk” contacts of monkeypox cases to self-isolate and to avoid children for 21 days, and Greece and other countries are considering similar measures.

The Belgian Institute of Tropical Medicine announced it is conducting its own monkeypox PCR tests.

Smallpox outbreak: a new windfall for vaccine manufacturers and Big Pharma?

In response to the monkeypox outbreak, the Biden administration placed a $119 million order for smallpox vaccines from Bavarian Nordic, the manufacturer of JYNNEOS (also known as Imvamune and Imvanex), a smallpox vaccine also licensed to treat monkeypox.

The purchase includes a $180 million option for the purchase of future doses, bringing the combined total of the order to 13 million doses if the option is exercised.

According to Fortune:

“The order will convert existing smallpox vaccines, which are also effective against monkeypox, into freeze-dried versions, which have a longer shelf life. The converted vaccines will be manufactured in 2023 and 2024, the company says.

“Bavarian Nordic has worked with the U.S. government since 2003 to develop, manufacture and supply smallpox vaccines. To date, it says, it has supplied nearly 30 million doses to the Department of Health and Human Services.”

The U.K. ordered more than 20,000 doses of JYNNEOS, while the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control reportedly is set to recommend a monkeypox vaccine plan for EU member states.

Existing smallpox vaccines reportedly are up to 85% effective against monkeypox. With the recent outbreak, health authorities in countries such as the U.K. have begun administering the smallpox vaccine to healthcare workers and others who may have been exposed to monkeypox.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2019 approved the JYNNEOS smallpox vaccine, which was developed in conjunction with U.S. Army scientists.

After JYNNEOS received FDA approval, Dr. Peter Marks, director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, said:

“[A]lthough naturally occurring smallpox disease is no longer a global threat, the intentional release of this highly contagious virus could have a devastating effect.

“Jynneos will be available for those determined to be at high risk of either smallpox or monkeypox infection.

“This vaccine is also part of the Strategic National Stockpile (SNS), the nation’s largest supply of potentially life-saving pharmaceuticals and medical supplies for use in a public health emergency that is severe enough to cause local supplies to be depleted.”

Dr. Anthony Fauci had a hand in the development of JYNNEOS, with accompanying controversy, as highlighted in 2009:

“Fauci gave about $100 million each to Bavarian Nordic and Acambis for research on a smallpox vaccine in preparation for a BioShield contract to be awarded in 2006.

“Some observers have said that Fauci is ‘overstepping his bounds,’ [The Wall Street] Journal reports.”

A study published in February 2022 in the PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases journal, “initiated and funded by Bavarian Nordic” and co-authored by employees of the company, states:

“The appearance of outbreaks beyond Africa highlights the global relevance of the disease.

“Increased surveillance and detection of monkeypox cases are essential tools for understanding the continuously changing epidemiology of this resurging disease.

“Overall, monkeypox is gradually evolving to become of global relevance.”

Bavarian Nordic isn’t the only drugmaker focused on monkeypox. On May 19, the FDA approvedan additional drug, an intravenous version of TPOXX (tecovirimat) for the treatment of monkeypox.

TPOXX is produced by SIGA, described by Bloomberg as “a biological warfare defense firm.”

According to SIGA, “Funding and technical support for this work is provided by the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), under the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR), within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).”

As reported by The Gateway Pundit:

“TPOXX has been available for use to treat smallpox for several years, but it was only available in pill form.

“The new version of TPOXX will be delivered directly into the bloodstream via injection and also reportedly works for treating monkeypox.”

The previous oral formulation of TPOXX was approved by the FDA in July 2018. That same year, SIGA signed a $629 million contract with BARDA for the inclusion of smallpox drugs in the Strategic National Stockpile.

SIGA reached a similar agreement with Canadian authorities in December 2021, less than a month after Bill Gates warned of the risk of a bioterror attack.

In June 2019, SIGA signed an international promotion agreement with Meridian Medical Technologies, a company owned by Pfizer.

Recent developments sent the stocks of SIGA and Bavarian Nordic soaring. SIGA’s stock, which previously peaked in November 2021, rose soon after Gates’ pronouncements regarding the possibility of an intentional release of smallpox.

In a recent article, investigative journalist Whitney Webb highlighted the potentially troubling track record of SIGA and another smallpox vaccine manufacturer, Emergent Biosolutions, including:

• Close ties to Jeffrey Epstein and the Democratic Party.
• “Outrageous” no-bid federal contracts to SIGA for the procurement of smallpox drugs.
• “Troubling ties” to the 2001 anthrax attacks.
• “Serious deficiencies” at a manufacturing plant of a smallpox vaccine producer, Emergent Biosolutions, that also produced COVID-19 vaccines.

Webb also discovered a direct link between Emergent Biosolutions, the Strategic National Stockpile, the anthrax attacks of 2001, the Dark Winter simulation and Bavarian Nordic — via Robert Kadlec, who served as the top bioterror advisor to the Pentagon in the weeks leading up to the 2001 anthrax attacks.

Kadlec participated in the June 2001 Dark Winter simulation of an anthrax attack, helped establish the Strategic National Stockpile, and has directly advised Emergent Biosolutions and Bavarian Nordic.

New players also are jostling for position in light of the monkeypox outbreak, including a familiar face: COVID-19 vaccine manufacturer Moderna, which recently announced it is testing potential monkeypox vaccines.

Confusion over who — or what — to blame for the monkeypox outbreak

Analyst Paul Craig Roberts recently wrote, “No one has explained why and how monkeypox, a problem in a small area of Africa, suddenly appeared all at once all over the Western world,” asking if we are about to experience another fear campaign, or something even worse.

The questions posited by Roberts point to the broader confusion, at least from what is evident through publicly available information, as to the origin of the monkeypox outbreak and how it is spreading.

Many scientists reportedly are “baffled” by the “unprecedented” spread of monkeypox outside of Africa and find its spread in North America and Europe to be “perplexing.”

This may remind some of the spread of the Omicron variant of COVID-19, which was said to have emerged in Botswana and South Africa without, apparently, heavily impacting those countries.

Oyewale Tomori, a virologist and former president of the Nigerian Academy of Science who currently serves on various WHO advisory committees, was quoted as saying:

“I’m stunned by this. Every day I wake up and there are more countries infected … [t]his is not the kind of spread we’ve seen in West Africa, so there may be something new happening in the West.”

Dr. Hans Kluge, the WHO’s Europe director, characterized the situation as “atypical.”

“We’ve never seen anything like what’s happening in Europe,” said Christian Happi, director of the African Centre of Excellence for Genomics of Infectious Diseases.

Happi also suggested the cessation of smallpox vaccination campaigns in 1980, when the disease was declared eradicated, may be contributing to the spread of monkeypox, as no immunity against smallpox or monkeypox would exist in the population.

This view was mirrored recently in an analysis by Jason Gale of Bloomberg, and picked up by the Washington Post. Gale argued that the eradication of smallpox “led to the end of a global vaccination program that provided protection against other poxviruses [including] monkeypox.”

Others argued the low level of incidence of smallpox makes vaccination against it more of a risk than a benefit.

Debates appear to be ongoing in the scientific community as to whether monkeypox is now being sexually transmitted.

Tomori noted sexual transmission has not been observed in Nigeria, but also that viruses not previously known to transmit via sexual contact, such as Ebola, were later proven to do so.

Alessio D’Amato, health commissioner of the Lazio region in Italy, said it was too early to say if monkeypox has morphed into a sexually transmitted disease, while Stuart Neil, professor of virology at King’s College London, said, “The idea that there’s some sort of sexual transmission in this, I think, is a little bit of a stretch.”

Neil Mabbott, personal chair of immunopathology at the University of Edinburgh’s Roslin Institute, argued the spread of monkeypox among sexual partners is likely due to close physical proximity rather than sexual contact per se.

However, David Heymann, an infectious disease specialist at the WHO who led the organization’s recent emergency meeting on monkeypox, suggested the virus entered the population as a “sexual form, as a genital form, and is being spread as are sexually transmitted infections.”

This appears to be aligned with the WHO’s current official view that sexual contact is responsible for the spread of monkeypox, not as a sexually transmitted disease but by virtue of close physical contact.

Is the current monkeypox outbreak related to gain-of-function research?

The term “gain-of-function” (GoF) research over the past two years entered mainstream discourse following speculation the SARS-CoV-2 virus was engineered, and subsequently escaped from, the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan, China.

GoF refers to medical research in which an organism is genetically altered, either for military purposes or medical research, in such a way that the biological functions of gene products are enhanced.

The National Pulse reported that in February 2022, Virologica Sinica, a prominent journal of virology, published a peer-reviewed study pertaining to a monkeypox-related GoF research project performed by scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in August 2021.

In this study, according to The National Pulse:

“The Wuhan Institute of Virology assembled a monkeypox virus genome, allowing the virus to be identified through PCR tests, using a method researchers flagged for potentially creating a ‘contagious pathogen.’

“The paper … also follows the wide-scale use of Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) tests to identify COVID-19-positive individuals.

“Researchers appeared to identify a portion of the monkeypox virus genome, enabling PCR tests to identify the virus.”

Canadian researcher Polly St. George in a recent investigative report said there is an association between monkeypox and GoF research.

And in a recent interview, international law scholar Francis Boyle, who drafted the Biological Weapon Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989, said the bioware industry uses monkeypox as a simulant for smallpox.

Along these lines, geopolitical analyst Michael Whitney in a recent article remarked on the sudden rapid spread of monkeypox and posed the following question:

“I wonder if that ‘rapidly spreading’ part has something to do with the way that researchers have been tweaking the gain-of-function of these unique pathogens in order to make them more contagious and more lethal? Is that what’s going on?”

Similarly, James Lyons-Weiler pointed out monkeypox first officially appeared in 1958, “about the time scientists were injecting African subjects with blood products from monkeys to see which viruses might be transmissible. Zikavirus came into our species about the same time.”

Uncertainty breeds speculation, and such is the case with some who suggested a possible link between the monkeypox outbreak and a January 2022 incident involving a truck transporting 100 laboratory monkeys that collided with a dump truck and overturned in Pennsylvania, leading to the escape of at least three monkeys.

The monkeys reportedly were later caught and euthanized, though no reason was given as to why they were killed.

An eyewitness who handled escaped monkeys developed pink eye and a cough, received treatment and was monitored by the CDC.

Others also tried to draw a connection between monkeypox and the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, which utilizes a chimpanzee adenovirus vaccine vector.

However, no such link has been reported, and it’s important to note that chimpanzees are distinct from monkeys.

Is monkeypox outbreak a tool of intentional warfare?

Some officials speculated monkeypox was weaponized and intentionally released as an act of biological warfare, perhaps in relation to the conflict in Ukraine.

There are at least three such strands of speculation currently circulating:

• Claims by independent investigator Dr. Benjamin Braddock that an unnamed source at the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control said, “Preliminary analysis of the monkeypox strain currently doing the rounds found the virus came from a lab and may be related to the U.S.’s biological research in Ukraine,” implying that it may have been intentionally released, perhaps by Russia.
• Theories circulating in China and reported by Chinese state media that the U.S. intentionally released the virus, as part of “a plan by the U.S. to leak bioengineered monkeypox virus.”
• Statements by Irina Yarovaya, co-chair of Russia’s parliamentary commission on investigation of U.S. biological laboratories in Ukraine, and reported by Russia’s TASS news agency, that “the U.S. researched Ebola and smallpox viruses in Ukraine,” perhaps implying this resulted in the monkeypox outbreak.

These scenarios remain within the realm of speculation for the time being, but bear a close resemblance to the Wuhan lab leak scenarios under investigation in relation to the outbreak of COVID-19.

However, even if none of these scenarios hold water, they possess evident value as tools of information warfare, especially in relation to the ongoing schism between Russia and the West vis-à-vis the conflict in Ukraine.

Are monkeypox symptoms similar to COVID vaccine side effects?

Despite the current scare, monkeypox symptoms for most individuals who have been infected are mild, particularly in countries with adequate health systems.

However, they also resemble known adverse effects of the COVID-19 vaccines and symptoms of ailments such as shingles.

According to the WHO, monkeypox symptoms are characterized by “a person of any age presenting in a monkeypox non-endemic country with an unexplained acute rash,” with one or more of the following symptoms (updated March 15, 2022):

• Headache
• Acute onset of fever (>38.5oC)
• Lymphadenopathy (swollen lymph nodes)
• Myalgia (muscle and body aches)
• Back pain
• Asthenia (profound weakness)

Notably, many of these symptoms appear in the list of adverse effects of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine. These adverse effects include lymphadenopathy, myalgia, asthenia, back pain and headache.

Others noted the similarity between monkeypox and shingles. Indeed, an image published by TheHealthSite.com of rashes said to be caused by smallpox is identical to an image published by Australia’s Queensland government displaying shingles rashes.

The CDC states, “The rash may be hard to distinguish from syphilis, herpes simplex virus infection, shingles and other more common infections.”

Moreover, according to Andrew Preston, professor of microbial pathogenicity at the University of Bath, “Some people say the rash is a bit like shingles.”

In recent years, certain countries, such as the U.K., have introduced a comprehensive shingles vaccination campaign for individuals age 70 and over.

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Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D., is an independent journalist and researcher based in Athens, Greece.

Featured image is from CHD

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Israel’s announcement that it will not pursue an investigation into the killing of famed Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was not surprising. The specific reasons it gave to justify the decision make little difference. However, one thing is certain: It is highly unlikely that the killing of a journalist like Shireen Abu Akleh was the decision of a lone soldier or a commander on the ground.

Abu Akleh was well known and well respected. She was clearly identifiable as a non-combatant and a journalist who posed no threat to Israeli forces. She had been in similar situations before and knew how to take the necessary precautions, including wearing a helmet and a bulletproof vest. She had to be shot by a well-trained sniper, and their identity must be known to the Israeli authorities.

There had to have been an order or, at the minimum, approval given by the highest levels of the Israeli defense apparatus, as high as the minister of defense or even the prime minister, before the sniper could execute this assassination. Then, in a pretty transparent attempt to cover up the assassination, Israel pretended to want to conduct an investigation and demanded that the Palestinian Authority, which conducted the autopsy, hand over the bullet that killed Abu Akleh.

Quoting an Israeli military official, The Times of Israel reported that “[t]he Israeli military has identified a soldier’s rifle that may have killed Al Jazeerajournalist Shireen Abu Akleh.” However, it continues to claim that “it cannot be certain unless the Palestinians turn over the bullet for analysis.” The attempt to deceive is ever-so-obvious in this statement. Since it had to have been a sniper who aimed and then took the shot, there can be no doubt who pulled the trigger.

Palestinian Militants?

The British paper The Guardian recently wrote, “Abu Aqleh [sic] was killed during an arrest raid by an Israeli commando unit on Palestinian militants.” Statements like this demonstrate the larger problem. The Israeli commando raids have no justification and are responsible for countless deaths of Palestinian civilians. Framing Palestinian fighters – defenders of their camp, their city and their people – as “militants,” and the Israeli invaders as “commandos,” immediately places the blame on the Palestinians and justifies the Israeli attack, thus justifying every Israeli raid.

This framing, typical in the media, allows the constant, never-ending killing of young Palestinians by Israel to go on uninterrupted. It begs the question: How many Palestinians need to die before the reporting is honest and Israel is forced to stop the killing?

Every so often, an event causes people to lift their heads and acknowledge that Israel went too far and that maybe something needs to be done. When Shireen Abu Akleh was murdered, there was a moment like that. When, a few days after the killing, her funeral procession was brutally attacked by Israeli forces, that was another such moment. But these moments are few and far between.

And these moments, even when they do come, do not last very long and yield no real results. Sometimes a letter is sent by a member of U.S. Congress; sometimes a few statements are made demanding an investigation into what took place. Then people move on and forget, and the flow of Palestinian blood – mostly young, promising men – continues unabated.

The roll of names of young Palestinians killed by Israel is too long to list; and, besides, by the time you try to write it down, more are added. The ages vary, but many are under 21. The images of weeping parents and siblings – sometimes a wife and a child, if they were old enough to marry – continue to flow as though this were some unavoidable, unpreventable curse.

In an open and frank interview I recently conducted with veteran Israeli journalist Gideon Levy, he speaks of his frustration with the Israeli media and the Israeli audiences that consume it. “The media doesn’t want to report, and the consumers don’t want to know,” Levy passionately exclaimed.

Toeing the Line

When the Israeli press report on a killing, they never fail to toe the government line, so the Palestinian is always a terrorist or part of a violent riot. He or they, as the case may be, had to be dealt with, and the courageous Israeli fighters did so. From time to time, to demonstrate just how professional the Israeli forces are, they are shown in action. Images are shown of these forces entering a refugee camp, which, as of late, they have often been doing, particularly in the northern part of the West Bank.

Israel brings in several battalions of commando units, Shabak secret-police units, or anti-terrorist forces, all heavily armed and wearing the best communication and protection equipment in the world, and equipped with unlimited amounts of ammunition. Israeli forces also have the best-trained medics, the finest first-aid capabilities, and helicopters ready to evacuate an injured soldier speedily. Once evacuated, an injured Israeli soldier receives the finest medical care in modern, well-equipped facilities.

All of this to face a few young Palestinians armed with little more than M-16s. The Palestinians have no helmets, no bulletproof vests, possess limited amounts of ammunition, and risk a very high possibility of getting injured or killed. A Palestinian wounded in battle does not have access to the same level of emergency medical care as the Israeli forces. Not even remotely. Palestinian ambulances, if they can even make it to the scene, are poorly equipped, and medical facilities are far and are rarely equipped well enough to deal with severe injuries.

Life Goes On

On the Israeli side, life goes on as though nothing significant happened. Watching the news makes Israeli society numb. Clashes, Palestinians killed, the coalition government facing yet another crisis, Netanyahu may or may not be close to returning to the prime minister’s chair; who knows. From time to time, an Israeli settler or an officer is killed, their name is mentioned in the news, and people cry for a few days and forget. Settlements are being built – so many thousands in the Naqab, thousands more in east Jerusalem – and people of Msafer Yota in the South Hebron Hills are being forced off of their lands, but this is all normal, nothing to worry about. Israelis travel overseas for vacation and go out to cafes and restaurants — new ones open daily. One has to try them all.

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Miko Peled is MintPress News contributing writer, published author and human rights activist born in Jerusalem. His latest books are”The General’s Son. Journey of an Israeli in Palestine,” and “Injustice, the Story of the Holy Land Foundation Five.”

Featured image: Shireen Abu Akleh was an icon in Palestine and throughout much of the Arabic speaking world for her reporting from the occupied territories (Illustration/MEE)

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The WHO recently announced plans for an international pandemic treaty tied to a digital passport and digital ID system. Meeting in December 2021 in a special session for only the second time since the WHO’s founding in 1948, the Health Assembly of the WHO adopted a single decision titled, “The World Together.” The WHO plans to finalize the treaty by 2024. It will aim to shift governing authority now reserved to sovereign states to the WHO during a pandemic by legally binding member states to the WHO’s revised International Health Regulations.

In January of 2022 the United States submitted proposed amendments to the 2005 International Health Regulations, which bind all 194 UN member states, which the WHO director general accepted and forwarded to other member states. In contrast to amendments to our own constitution, these amendments will not require a two-thirds vote of our Senate, but a simple majority of the member states. Most of the public is wholly unaware of these changes, which will impact the national sovereignty of member states.

The proposed amendments include, among others, the following. Among the changes the WHO will no longer need to consult with the state or attempt to obtain verification from the state where a reported event of concern (e.g., a new outbreak) is allegedly occurring before taking action on the basis of such reports (Article 9.1). In addition to the authority to make the determination of a public health emergency of international concern under Article 12, the WHO will be granted additional powers to determine a public health emergency of regional concern, as well as a category referred to as an intermediate health alert.

The relevant state no longer needs to agree with the WHO Director General’s determination that an event constitutes a public health emergency of international concern. A new Emergency Committee will be constituted at the WHO, which the Director-General will consult in lieu of the state within whose territory the public health emergency of international concern has occurred, to declare the emergency over. The amendments will also give “regional directors” within the WHO, rather than elected representatives of the relevant states, the legal authority to declare a Public Health Emergency of Regional Concern.

Also, when an event does not meet criteria for a public health emergency of international concern but the WHO Director-General determines it requires heightened awareness and a potential international public health response, he may determine at any time to issue an “intermediate public health alert” to states and consult the WHO’s Emergency Committee. The criteria for this category are simple fiat: “the Director-General has determined it requires heightened international awareness and a potential international public health response.”

Through these amendments, the WHO, with the support of the U.S., appears to be responding to roadblocks that China erected in the early days of covid. This is a legitimate concern. But the net effect of the proposed amendments is a shift of power away from sovereign states, ours included, to unelected bureaucrats at the WHO. The thrust of every one of the changes is toward increased powers and centralized powers delegated to the WHO and away from member states.

Leslyn Lewis, a member of the Canadian parliament and lawyer with international experience, has warned that the treaty would also allow the WHO unilaterally to determine what constitutes a pandemic and declare when a pandemic is occurring. “We would end up with a one-size-fits-all approach for the entire world,” she cautioned. Under the proposed WHO plan, pandemics need not be limited to infectious diseases and could include, for example, a declared obesity crisis.

As part of this plan the WHO has contracted German-based Deutsche Telekom subsidiary T-Systems to develop a global vaccine passport system, with plans to link every person on the planet to a QR code digital ID. “Vaccination certificates that are tamper-proof and digitally verifiable build trust. WHO is therefore supporting member states in building national and regional trust networks and verification technology,” explained Garret Mehl, head of the WHO’s Department of Digital Health and Innovation. “The WHO’s gateway service also serves as a bridge between regional systems. It can also be used as part of future vaccination campaigns and home-based records.” This system will be universal, mandatory, trans-national, and operated by unelected bureaucrats in a captured NGO who already bungled the covid pandemic response.

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This article shows how media uses computer modeling and “virtual crime scenes” to assign blame for some extremely important international events. In these examples from Nicaragua, Ukraine and Syria, many people died in complex circumstances.

The deaths at the “Mother’s March” in Managua, Nicaragua precipitated an attempted coup. 

The Maidan Massacre in Kyiv led to an actual coup.

The claims of a chemical attack in Douma led to the US, France and the UK bombing Syria.

The three incidents are in different continents but share some key characteristics: each is to some degree emblematic of the conflict of which it is part, cited as an important indicator of who is right and who is wrong. All three violent incidents are controversial, with both “sides” claiming to be right. Creating “virtual crime scenes” is a tool which enables establishment media such as the New York Times, the BBC or (in Spain) El Pais, to convey interpretations of the events which conveniently coincide with the way they are seen by the US government and its allies.

All three events have been described and analyzed elsewhere. Here we describe them briefly and then discuss how the “virtual crime scenes” were developed, what their conclusions were and why they are at best questionable and at worst completely mistaken.

Managua, Nicaragua, 30 May 2018

In April 2018, demonstrations sprang up against Daniel Ortega’s government and they quickly turned violent: demonstrators attacked police and vice versa. A “national dialogue” began in early May but, despite this, the violence became worse. Large numbers took part in demonstrations which were mainly peaceful, but with violent outbreaks at the fringes or after most participants had gone home. Large pro- and anti-government marches were planned for Managua on May 30, Mother’s Day.  Authorities set the routes to keep them apart. Despite police efforts, at the end of the opposition march, violent groups headed towards the rival demonstration. In the resultant clashes two pro-government marchers and seven anti-government protesters were killed, while 20 police were injured and there were two deaths among bystanders.

Two years after this day of violence, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), through its Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts (GIEI, for its initials in Spanish) published a reconstruction of a “virtual crime scene,” focused on the deaths of three protesters. It was produced for the GIEI by the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team (EAAF)  and SITU Research of New York. The “forensic” examination was aimed at finding the likely culprits in the killings, which took place at a roadblock put in place by the protesters, close to Managua’s national baseball stadium. A website shows the evidence collected, including two specialist firearms reports, although access to the full video event reconstruction has recently been blocked and only clips are shown. The video acknowledges the lack of conclusive evidence but argues that “circumstantial evidence” overwhelmingly suggests that armed police officers or Sandinista supporters indiscriminately killed the three protesters and others shot dead in related incidents.

A detailed critique of the reconstruction was published by the Council on Hemispheric Affairs (COHA).This showed fundamental errors and gaps in the SITU/EAAF work. The most important were:

• A map which is key to the video shows the position of a group of police who were alleged to have fired the fatal shots. But it was incorrectly drawn: it placed them at the center of the zone from which the firearms expert judged the shots to have originated, whereas in fact their true location was outside that zone.
• The firearms expert’s judgment that conventional firearms (as well as homemade mortars) were being fired by the protesters was completely ignored.
• Video evidence that a group of protesters had conventional weapons, and fired them at other protesters, were omitted from the large volume of video material that the investigators collected.
• The deaths of two government supporters and the wounding by gunshot of 20 police officers were ignored.

These errors and omissions at best left the reconstruction in doubt or at worst completely invalidated it. For example, an equally plausible reason for the deaths could be that they were part of a “return of fire” incident, or even that the protesters may have been shot by other protesters. Nevertheless, for El Pais and for the BBC, the reconstruction proved that the police were the killers.

Protesters at a Managua roadblock,  30 May 2018 (Source: SITU Research)

SITU and EAAF refused to respond to criticisms of their work. The IACHR and its parent body, the Organization of American States, has also ignored the contradictory information and revelations.

Maidan Square, Kyiv, Ukraine, 20 February 2014

On Feb 20, 2014, 49 protesters and four police were killed at the central square known as Maidan in Kyiv, Ukraine.  Many more were injured. The event led to the overthrow of the elected government and a radical change in national politics and policy. Who was responsible for the mass killings?  Eight years later, there have been no convictions. How could this be, when there were dozens of videos, hundreds of victims and thousands of witnesses to a mass killing in the heart of a European capital?

Western media and the post-coup government blamed the security services of the previous Yanukovich government. Others claim the killings and chaos were organized by the militant opposition using snipers located in adjacent buildings, including the Hotel Ukraina and Arkada Bank.

After the killings and coup, a German news team visited. Their report quotes doctors saying that both police and protesters had been shot by identical bullets. The investigation was ongoing yet the newly appointed state prosecutor, a leader of the ultra-nationalist Svoboda Party, had already declared former President Yanukovich and Berkut police to be responsible.

Despite the state prosecutor’s efforts and numerous police being charged and imprisoned, there were no convictions.

In 2018, the New York Times (NYT) published a lengthy story titled “Who Killed the Kiev Protesters? A 3-D Model Holds the Clues”. It was accompanied by a video titled “Did Police Kill these protesters? What the videos show.” The NYT story reports that Ukrainian prosecutors enlisted the help of SITU Research, who built a replica of the street where protesters were shot, then did 3D modeling of the buildings, location of protesters, police, etc.. They analyzed dozens of actual videos then produced their own video concluding “In all three cases, individual officers can be seen aiming and firing their rifles during the moments leading to the victims’ deaths.”

The “virtual crime scene” analysis focuses on three individuals killed in the same area. In all three cases, based on bullet wound locations, SITU alleges that the fatal shots were fired from the direction of the police barricade.  An audio analysis, based on the time difference of a shockwave versus firearm discharge, approximates the distance of the shooter.

Illustration showing incorrect bullet trajectory on Kyiv victim (Source: SITU Research)

Looked at casually or superficially, this appears to be compelling evidence.

However, Canadian Professor Ivan Katchanovski has done rigorous research on the Maidan Massacre and reveals that the SITU model misrepresented the location of wounds in all three cases.

1/ In the case of Igor Dmytriv, the wound locations are not level and straight as portrayed by SITU; they are from right to left, with a distinct downward angle. The video shows a hole in his shield near the right edge which also points to his shooting from Arkada Bank to the right, not the police barricade directly in front.  The shield evidence disappeared before the trial.

2/ The wound locations are also misrepresented in the case of Andriy Dyhdalovych. As discovered by Katchanovski, “The 3d model moved the exit wound location from around the middle line of the back of his body in forensic medical and clothing examinations to the right and changed a steep top and bottom direction and 17 cm difference in height.” SITU misrepresented the wounds to match up with the direction of the police barricade. The actual wound locations point to the killer also being in the upper floors of the Arkada Bank.

3/ The third victim was Yuri Parashchuk: his wounds were also misrepresented. He was killed by a bullet to the back of his head. “The single bullet in the back right helmet area, and exit wounds in the back left area of his head (parietal region) in forensic examination mean that it was physically impossible to shoot him from the police barricade, contrary to the SITU model,” Katchanovski argues. The victim’s wife confirmed the gunshot wound locations.

The NYT story falsely characterized any critics as “pro-Russia sources” and “Kremlin-funded media.”  University of Ottawa Professor Katchanovski has presented his findings to high interest before numerous academic conferences.

In addition to misrepresenting the body wounds, the “virtual crime scene” analysis ignores a crucial question:  Who would have a motive to kill both protesters and police?

Douma, Syria, 7 April 2018

On 7 April 2018 there were sensational claims of a chemical weapons attack in Douma, Syria. Social media lit up with a video showing dead and living victims plus a chaotic scene in a medical clinic. The “White Helmets” claimed these were victims of a chemical attack by the Syrian military. Western media and governments quickly endorsed this accusation. The Syrian government denied it and called for a factual investigation by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).

Without waiting for an inspection, the US declared, “The Assad regime and its backers must be held accountable.” One week later, the US, UK and France launched air attacks on Damascus.

In late April, OPCW inspectors visited the site of the incident, interviewed witnesses, took photos and collected evidence.

While the OPCW team were making their analysis, the NYT created a reconstruction of the event, using photos, videos and computer modeling. The “visual investigation” was presented in a 12-minute video, “One Building, One Bomb: How Assad Gassed His Own People”. With seven producers, three editors and the collaboration of a private agency called “Forensic Architecture”, this was clearly a major and costly effort. It is a third example of how smooth video, computer modeling and professional voice-overs can lend an air of authority, whether true or not.

On 25 June 2018, just ten weeks after the event, the NYT published “How We Created a Virtual Crime Scene to Investigate Syria’s Chemical Attack,” They say, “Our investigation found that the Syrian government dropped a chlorine bomb on this apartment in Syria.” For western politicians and media, that was the end of the matter: Syria had been found guilty and the western attacks vindicated.

OPCW issued an interim report in July 2018 and full report in March 2019. They concluded there was evidence of reactive chlorine and there are “reasonable grounds that the use of a toxic chemical as a weapon took place.”

The governments which had attacked Syria claimed this was “proof” of guilt.  The UK foreign ministry said the report provided “reasonable grounds to conclude that a toxic chemical was used as a weapon.”  The NYT concluded that the OPCW had given “the most definitive finding yet to corroborate allegations that chemical weapons were dropped on the town, Douma, a suburb of Damascus, killing 43 people.” The Guardian similarly reported “Chlorine was used in attack on Syrian rebel town, watchdog says.”

Behind the scenes, OPCW staff were in turmoil. Investigators were complaining the investigation report was politically influenced and biased.

In May 2019, the “Engineering Assessment of Two Cylinders Observed at the Douma Incident” was published by an academic coalition. It was written by a lead engineer on the OPCW’s Douma team, Ian Henderson. It contradicted the official narrative and concluded that “there is a higher probability that both cylinders were manually placed at those two locations rather than being delivered from aircraft.” It gives detailed evidence to support this argument – evidence that should have been included in the original OPCW report.

The OPCW fired Ian Henderson and made efforts to remove all evidence of his engineering report from the OPCW archives.

Then in October 2019 a second OPCW whistle-blower emerged, giving more details of the report’s omissions. In a detailed interview, he told a British journalist that “Most of the Douma team felt the two reports on the incident, the Interim Report and the Final Report, were scientifically impoverished, procedurally irregular and possibly fraudulent.” He added that they had tried all possible internal channels before going public.

Because of the importance of these revelations about a biased and compromised OPCW investigation, an international panel was convened. It included experts from international law, military, intelligence agencies and the founding Director General of the OPCW. It expressed “alarm” at the “unacceptable practices” in the Douma investigation.

Supposed victim of April 2018 CW attack in Douma, during and after (Source: RT)

The scandal exposed the political manipulation of a crucial international organization, the OPCW.

The “virtual crime scene” and evidence presented by the NYT was shown to be fundamentally flawed. The on-site engineering assessment revealed that cylinder deformation did not match the hole in the roof or what would have occurred if the cylinder was dropped from an aircraft. The “criss-cross” pattern on the cylinder that the NYT “virtual crime scene” suggested was evidence, was dismissed as “inconsistent with the vertical, or near-vertical, angle of incidence of the cylinder”. The lead investigator concluded that it was more likely the cylinders were “manually placed”. In other words, the incident was staged.

Regarding the claim that “reactive chlorine” had been found in samples from the site, it was learned that these were trace levels that could be found in any location.

After publishing headline stories such as “How Assad Gassed His Own People” and creating a costly contrived “virtual crime scene” to “prove” Syria’s guilt, it is understandable that the NYT would be embarrassed at the revelations from these OPCW whistle-blowers.  If the NYT were as factual as they claim to be, they would report these important stories and issue a correction and apology for their earlier false reports. Instead, there has been total silence.

Conclusion: What credibility should we give to “virtual crime scenes”?

Creating “virtual crime scenes” is clearly a growing business: SITU appears to have done at least 24 such reconstructions, while Forensic Architecture has well over 70, dating back more than a decade. A common factor is funding sources: as well as what are presumed to be specific contracts (for example with the NYT), both organizations receive funds from the Open Society Foundation, Oak Foundation, European Research Council and similar bodies aligned with conventional western political attitudes.

No doubt some of this work is in the public good (for example, SITU says it is helping a group of children sue the US government for its inaction on the climate crisis). But the case studies above show that such work can – whether intentionally or otherwise – push public opinion on controversial issues in a particular direction.

Brad Samuels, founding partner of SITU, appeared to acknowledge this ambiguity in an interview quoted here:

“…it’s about not allowing these narratives to become the reason that there’s no accountability … so that you can focus on what you do know and I just I think that that’s at play in all kinds of ways more than it ever has been … this question of competing narratives, truth claims and facts and that’s really what we’re, this work is about.”

In an article about the use of virtual crime scenes in legal cases, Sarah Zarmsky concedes that they can be “extremely compelling” but that “any political motives or biases must be taken into account.” In the Maidan Square example, which she examines, she points out that the reconstruction was presented as “flawless” whereas Katchanovski later accused those who created it of misrepresentation. Virtual crime scenes are expensive, sophisticated exercises, which once published are left open to interpretation by people who have no expertise in how they are created, she points out. Where witness statements, amateur videos and other material are used to build reconstructions, there is no outside control of the process.  She concludes that “digital reconstructions need to be approached with caution and analyzed through a critical eye.”

Our conclusion is more definitive: digital reconstructions, especially in high-profile and controversial circumstances like the three examples presented here, are being used to serve political purposes. Their sophisticated and compelling approaches, obviously requiring considerable resources in their production and presentation, can be highly misleading. Whether or not this is the intention of those devising these virtual crime scenes, their work is used to add momentum to political arguments. In the cases examined here – Nicaragua, Ukraine and Syria – they have been explicitly used to endorse the US and European governments’ political narratives about those conflicts, creating apparent “proof” of one side’s culpability in violent incidents. However, objective analysis of the kind summarized in this article shows that digital reconstructions can hide the truth rather than reveal it. In Zarmsky’s words, “seeing should not always be believing.”

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John Perry is a writer based in Masaya, Nicaragua.

Rick Sterling is a journalist based in the Bay Area, California.  He is a regular contributor to Global Research. He can be reached at [email protected].

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More than 17,000 doctors and medical experts, including former Pfizer Vice President Dr. Michael Yeadon, are calling for every pharmaceutical company that makes Wuhan coronavirus (Covid-19) “vaccines” to be “immediately indicted for fraud.”

Thousands of people have died and many thousands more have become injured, in many cases permanently, from the injections, and Yeadon and his colleagues want to see justice served.

Speaking at the recent Global COVID Summit, Yeadon made the case for swift prosecution against the likes of Pfizer, BioNTech, Janssen (Johnson & Johnson), AstraZeneca, “and their enablers.” He also issued a corresponding press statement with the same claims.

For the last two years, Yeadon has been warning about the “lies” coming from Big Pharma and the government concerning Fauci Flu shots. In Principle #9 of a 10-part list of principles issued at the gathering, the following was said:

“We declare that Pfizer, Moderna, BioNTech, Janssen, AstraZeneca, and their enablers, withheld and willfully omitted safety and effectiveness information from patients and physicians, and should be immediately indicted for fraud.”

In his own words, Yeadon said the following about the death toll from the shots:

“We know that shortly after administration of these products thousands of people have died. And although correlation isn’t causation, reasonable criteria have been applied to examine the relationship between injections and the events and it is absolutely clear – cut that these [shots] are the cause of death.”

Covid “vaccines” are medical fraud

Not only did the jabs turn out to be dangerous, but Yeadon provided evidence showing that all of the jab manufacturers knew full well that this was the case before they were all unleashed by Donald Trump under Operation Warp Speed.

“The design of these products was knowingly deficient in a number of ways,” Yeadon explained, pointing to the fact that they trigger the production of “toxic virus spike protein” throughout the body.

The world was promised that these toxic virus spike proteins would remain at the injection site, but the reality is that they “distribute throughout the body,” Yeadon warned.

“There was no built-in limit to the amounts of toxic spike proteins that can be made, or for how long it is made, and that’s the cause of the toxicity,” he further stated.

With more than 30 years of experience in the industry, Yeadon is no shlock when it comes to these issues. He pointed to reports from last November showing that the clinical trials run by the likes of Pfizer involved “questionable practices all around” that point to serious fraud.

“For example, several of the studies were clearly unblinded while they were ongoing, contrary to best practice,” he explained. “And also, in a number of cases, subjects were removed from the database prior to statistical analysis in a way that is suggestive of fraud.”

“We were given blanket assurances time and again by all of the companies about the benign safety profile of their products,” he added. “Even as products rolled out in the earliest weeks, they must have known this was not true. To add insult to injury, it appears that these products provide little or no protection from the virus they sought to protect us from.”

An expert in toxicology, Yeadon further delineated that these experimental gene-based covid injections were tested using methods that were unsafe and unsound. In most cases, proper safety standards were thrown out the window entirely in order to rush the products to market at warp speed.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is also complicit as it knew about the problems associated with the injections but granted them emergency use authorization (EUA) regardless.

*

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***

The Al Jazeera Media Network announced on Thursday that it would refer the killing of its veteran journalist Shireen Abu Akleh to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague.

The Qatar-based media network said it had formed an international coalition consisting of its legal team and international experts, and was preparing a dossier on Abu Akleh’s killing for submission to the ICC prosecutor.

“Al Jazeera Media Network condemns the killing of our colleague Shireen Abu Akleh, who worked with the Network for 25 years as a professional journalist covering the ongoing conflict in the occupied Palestinian territories,” the network said in a statement.

“The Network vows to follow every path to achieve justice for Shireen, and ensure those responsible for her killing are brought to justice and held accountable in all international justice and legal platforms and courts.”

Al Jazeera said it would also include in its submission the Israeli bombing of the network’s office in Gaza during Israel’s assault on the besieged strip in May 2021.

Abu Akleh, 51, was shot dead by Israeli forces on 11 May near the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank while covering an Israeli raid on the camp. Israel has denied targeting her and said it remained unclear who killed the journalist.

Eyewitnesses and colleagues who were present at the scene, including Middle East Eye correspondent Shatha Hanaysha, said Abu Akleh was targeted by an Israeli sniper. Al Jazeera said Abu Akleh was “assassinated in cold blood”.

Calls have grown both in the US and internationally for an independent investigation into the killing of the Al Jazeera journalist. Earlier this month, more than 50 US lawmakers signed a letter calling for the FBI and State Department to intervene and lead a probe.

A coalition of more than 30 press freedom and human rights groups also published a statement on Thursday, calling for an immediate and independent investigation into the killing.

They called for “an international task force to investigate this attack and to ensure credibility and impartiality of procedures and outcomes”.

Palestinian Foreign Minister Mustafa Barghouthi also announced the ICC had been formally asked to investigate Abu Akleh’s killing. Barghouti, general secretary of the Palestinian National Initiative, said there was a need for strong international pressure on the ICC to investigate crimes including the killing of Abu Akleh.

On Monday, a CNN investigation found Abu Akleh was likely killed by Israeli forces in a targeted attack.

The Palestinian Authority has so far refused to hand over the bullet to Israel, saying Israel could not be trusted to investigate the conduct of its military. Rights groups have also said this, saying Israel had a poor record of investigating the conduct of its forces in relation to Palestinian deaths.

The ICC opens investigations in places where domestic authorities are unable or unwilling to look into allegations of abuse.

Israel, however, maintains that it is not subject to the court’s mandate because it is not a signatory to the Rome Statute that established the tribunal, and that the ICC cannot investigate abuses in the Palestinian territories because Palestine is not a state.

‘Aim to kill’

The Palestinian Authority announced earlier on Thursday that the results of its investigation into the killing of Shireen Abu Akleh showed Israeli forces deliberately shot and killed the veteran reporter.

Palestinian Attorney-General Akram al-Khatib told reporters:

“It was clear that one of the [Israeli] occupation forces… had fired a bullet that hit journalist Shireen Abu Akleh directly in her head” while she was trying to escape.

Abu Akleh was hit with an armour-piercing bullet, Khatib said, while she was wearing a helmet and a vest that was clearly marked with the word “PRESS”.

“The only source of firing was by the occupation forces with the aim to kill,” he said in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah.

Khatib said the PA investigation was based on interviews with witnesses, an inspection of the scene and a forensic medical report.

The Palestinian attorney-general also said the probe found there were no Palestinian fighters near the scene of the shooting, contradicting claims made by Israeli officials that she could have been killed by Palestinian gunmen.

He said that the Israeli forces were able to see Abu Akleh and other journalists, who were all clearly marked as members of the press.

Khatib noted that an autopsy and forensic examination conducted in Nablus after Abu Akleh’s death showed she was shot from behind, an indication that she was attempting to flee as Israeli forces continued to shoot towards her and other journalists.

Israel’s military prosecutor has called on the army to conduct an in-depth investigation. However, Israeli media reported last week that the military had no plans to launch a criminal investigation.

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***

What in the world is going on? 

In the past, we were told that monkeypox was not a major concern because it was so difficult to spread it from person to person. 

But now monkeypox seems to be spreading like wildfire.  On May 7th, the very first case in the western world in 2022 was confirmed in the United Kingdom. 

Now here we are less than two weeks later and there are now dozens of confirmed and suspected cases in seven different countries outside of Africa.  Yesterday, I discussed the cases that have popped up in Spain, Portugal and the United States.  Now there are three more nations that are reporting confirmed or suspected cases, and that should greatly alarm all of us.

The confirmed case in Massachusetts involves a man that had recently traveled to Canada, and so it was suspected that there were additional cases among the Canadians.  Earlier today, we learned that “thirteen probable cases are being investigated in Canada”, and the test results for those thirteen “probable cases” should be released soon.

Meanwhile, a case has been confirmed all the way up in Sweden…

‘One person in the Stockholm region has been confirmed to be infected with monkeypox,’ Sweden’s Public Health Agency said in a statement.

The infected person ‘is not seriously ill, but has been given care,’ according to the agency.

And it appears that there could be multiple cases in Italy…

Italy’s patient was holidaying in the Canary Islands and is now in isolation at the Spallanzani hospital in Rome, the hospital said.

Another two other suspected cases are being monitored, it added.

This was never supposed to happen.

Even though monkeypox is a relatively new disease, cases were always extremely rare, and a global outbreak was always considered to be extremely unlikely because it was so hard to spread monkeypox.

Has something changed?

A prominent infectious disease expert at Johns Hopkins University is telling us that this virus “is spreading via physical touch”, and that it can spread “through respiratory droplets” under certain circumstances…

Dr Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease expert at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, also told DailyMail.com that the virus is spreading via physical touch – and that it only spreads through respiratory droplets in the air in people that are already exhibiting symptoms.

That is extremely alarming to hear.

But before we jump to conclusions, it is important to note that we still really don’t know too much about this virus.  It hasn’t been around for that long, and scientists have long warned that it could potentially mutate into a more transmissible form…

For decades, a few scientists have voiced concerns that the monkeypox virus could have become better at infecting people—ironically because we eradicated its relative, smallpox, in the late 1970s. The smallpox vaccine incidentally protected against monkeypox. And when new generations were born into a world without either smallpox or smallpox-vaccination campaigns, they grew up vulnerable to monkeypox. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, this dwindling immunity meant that monkeypox infections increased 20-fold in the three decades after smallpox vanished, as Rimoin showed in 2010. That gives the virus more chances to evolve into a more transmissible pathogen in humans. To date, its R0—the average number of people who catch the disease from one infected person—has been less than 1, which means that outbreaks naturally peter out. But it could eventually evolve above that threshold, and cause more protracted epidemics, as Bergstrom simulated in 2003. “We saw monkeypox as a ticking time bomb,” he told me.

Hopefully those that are investigating this new outbreak will soon be able to tell us whether the virus has mutated or not.

Meanwhile, authorities are claiming that it seems to be particularly spreading among men that have sex with other men.  The following comes from CNN…

Both in the United Kingdom and Canada, health authorities have noted that many of the monkeypox cases were identified in men who have sex with men — but the virus is not typically described as a sexually transmitted infection and investigations into these recent cases continue.

If this new outbreak continues to grow, it will only be a matter of time before people start clamoring for vaccines.  Health officials say that the existing smallpox vaccine should offer at least some protection against monkeypox, and they are already considering giving it to certain groups…

CDC officials are evaluating whether smallpox vaccine should be offered to healthcare workers treating monkeypox patients and other people who may be at “high risk” for exposure to monkeypox, McQuiston said.

“It’s definitely something that we’re discussing and evaluating, whether offering smallpox vaccine makes sense in the current setting,” she said. “We’ll be closer to making recommendations for that in the next day or so.”

And it is being reported that there are enough doses of the smallpox vaccine “to vaccinate basically everyone in the U.S.”…

And as another bioterrorism precaution, stockpiles of three smallpox vaccines are large enough “to vaccinate basically everyone in the U.S.” Inglesby said. And though monkeypox patients usually get just supportive care, a possible treatment does exist and has also been stockpiled: Tecovirimat, or TPOXX, was developed to treat smallpox but would likely work for monkeypox too.

Hopefully we never get to a point where officials feel like a full-blown vaccination campaign is needed.  After what we have been through with COVID, nobody wants to see that.

Apparently a monkeypox vaccine already exists as well, and the New York Post is reporting that the U.S. has just ordered “13 million additional doses”…

The US has ordered 13 million additional doses of the monkeypox vaccine after a Massachusetts man contracted the rare — but potentially severe — virus, officials said Thursday.

The massive $119 million order of Jynneos jabs — which can be used to treat both the monkeypox virus and smallpox — was created by the biotechnology company Bavarian Nordic, according to Newsweek.

Authorities in the western world are certainly acting as if this is going to turn into something big.

Time will tell whether that turns out to be true or not.

But without a doubt, I believe that we have entered a time in history when there will regularly be great pestilences.

In secret labs all over the globe, mad scientists are feverishly trying to make the deadliest diseases on the planet even deadlier.

I could not possibly overstate the foolishness of conducting such “research”, but no matter how much we object they are just going to continue their work.

Over time, it is inevitable that at least some of their creations will get loose, and vast numbers of people could end up dead as a result.

*

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Michael Snyder’s brand new book entitled “7 Year Apocalypse” is now available on Amazon.com.  He has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, which are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe. 

Featured image is from Stat News

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***

By the time Zainab al-Qolaq had reached the age of 22, she had already lost 22 people in her life. The Palestinian artist, now 23 years old, displayed her art, which speaks of her devastation and loss, this month in an exhibition in Gaza.

The exhibition was held in the Gaza office of the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, which put the exhibition together. (All photos by Mohammed Hajjar)

The two-day exhibition featured nine pieces of art that al-Qolaq painted after Israel’s offensive on Gaza in May 2021.

During the war on Gaza, al-Qolaq lost her mother and three of her siblings when an Israeli air strike hit her home. The family’s home is located in the residential block on al-Wehda Street, which was bombed on 16 May. Forty-two Palestinians died in a single night, among them 11 children.

Anas Jerjawi, the chief operating officer at Euro-Med, told Middle East Eye that it was important for them to provide a platform for al-Qolaq to share her experience. “Today we have decided to give the victim the floor to speak to the world by herself. Her paintings do not need to be accompanied by any language, or need to be translated to be felt and understood,” he said.

In this photo, al-Qolaq stands with her father and brother who survived the Israeli offensive.

The art reflects the suffering al-Qolaq felt in the aftermath of the attacks, which left many buildings, including residential blocks and media offices, flattened. Al-Qolaq also lost cousins, uncles and grandparents in the offensive.

“I can never describe the feelings and the thoughts I had throughout the 12 hours I spent under the rubble. I’ve never talked to anyone about it, no one knows what was going through my mind at that moment,” she told Middle East Eye.

After her home collapsed, Zainab got stuck under a heavy wall but managed to call an ambulance and talk to a paramedic. Al-Qolaq’s father was also pulled out from under the rubble by paramedics.

In this painting, al-Qolaq illustrates the 22 members of her family in shrouds following the attacks. “I imagined my relatives inside these shrouds, one by one, as I painted each of them and said goodbye to them. Twenty-two shrouds, for twenty-two lives that were lost overnight. These shrouds are not the same, though they may seem like they are – each wrapping represents a loved relative of mine,” she told Middle East Eye.

Her art not only depicts the hurt she felt from the offensive and the destruction of her neighbourhood, but also some of the mental struggles she endured as a result, and how she is coping since the events.

At the time of the Israeli offensive, al-Qolaq, an English student at university, was preparing for her final exams, hoping to graduate in the near future.

Al-Qolaq described how she is struggling to deal with the events and passing of time one year on. “The sun rising every morning troubles me. I am still hoping to open my eyes, as I used to, to my mother’s smile and affection. I am still longing for one hug from Hana.

“I used to stay up late with Ahmed, who would ease away the worries and pain of life by his infectious laughs. His laughter still echoes in my ears, so much so that I sometimes turn around to see if he is really there,” she said.

Much of her work centres around the psychological impact she has faced but struggled to put into words. For al-Qolaq, the exhibition and working on her art allowed her to express the trauma she went through, and allow people to get an insight into how the Israeli offensive impacted people like herself.

One of the biggest struggles al-Qolaq has faced is dealing with the absence of having so many loving family members around, spending quality time with them, and having them present in every aspect of her life.

Many have praised al-Qolaq’s strength and artwork. Maha Hussaini, a Middle East Eye contributor and strategy director at Euro-Med, said that al-Qolaq is strong for being able to talk about her experience.

“Despite our deep sorrow for what happened with Zainab and her family, we are proud of her and her courage and determination to overcome the trauma and speak firmly of what happened to her. She is truly an inspiring model for a strong survivor,” she said in a statement.

Although al-Qolaq was able to graduate, she described herself as a “corpse in a gown”, since she was not able to celebrate the milestone achievement with her entire family, and was still processing the events.

At the exhibition, the artist described how she was forced to relive the trauma as she was painting, and could hear the voices of her family and the paramedics.

She also described the fear she felt when her phone battery died while she was under the rubble and slowly losing her voice.

A large number of people turned out to the exhibition, where al-Qolaq thanked civil defence workers and paramedics for their service and saving her life.

“Thank you to the civil defence worker who insisted on saving my father despite the difficult situation and the lack of proper equipment – the person who almost suffocated while trying to deliver oxygen to my father,” she said.

“I know how trivial [my] thank you is compared to what you have done. Nothing is enough to reward you for your efforts.”

*

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***

Lock yourselves down inside your homes! Break out the masks and prophylactic face-shields! Switch off what’s left of your critical faculties and prepare yourselves to “follow the Science!”

Yes, that’s right, just as the survivors of The Simulated Apocalyptic Plague of 2020-2021 were crawling up out of their Covid bunkers and starting to “build the world back better,” another biblical pestilence has apparently been unleashed on humanity!

This time it’s the dreaded monkeypox, a viral zoonotic disease endemic to central and western Africa that circulates among giant pouched rats, squirrels, dormice, and other rodents and has been infecting humans for centuries, or millennia. Monkeypox causes fever, headaches, muscle aches, and sometimes fluid-filled blisters, tends to resolve in two to four weeks, and thus poses absolutely zero threat to human civilization generally.

The corporate media do not want to alarm us, but it is their duty as professional journalists to report that THE MONKEYPOX IS SPREADING LIKE WILDFIRE! OVER 100 CASES OF MONKEYPOX have been confirmed in countries throughout the world! MONKEYPOX TASKFORCES are being convened! Close-up photos of NASTY-LOOKING MONKEYPOX LESIONS are being disseminated! The President of the United States says “EVERYBODY SHOULD BE CONCERNED!”

The WHO is calling it “a multi-country monkeypox outbreak!” Belgium has introduced a mandatory quarantine. The CDC has gone to “Alert Level 2!” “Enhanced precautions” are recommended! In New York City, the nexus of probably the most paranoid, mask-wearing, quadruple-“vaccinated” New Normal fanatics on the face of the planet, the Department of Health is instructing everyone to wear the masks they are already wearing to protect them from both Covid and monkeypox, and smallpox, and largepox, and airborne cancer, and God knows what other horrors might be out there!

Here in the capital of New Normal Germany, Karl Lauterbach, who, despite wasting hundreds of millions of Euros on superfluous “vaccines,” attempting to compulsorily “vaccinate” every man, woman, and child in the country, and otherwise behaving like a fascist lunatic, remains the official Minister of Health, is excitedly hopping up and down and hooting like a Siamang gibbon about “recommendations for isolation and quarantine,” and other “monkeypox containment measures.”

As Yogi Berra famously put it, “it’s like déjà vu all over again.”

Except that it isn’t … or it probably isn’t. Before I could even finish this column, the United GloboCap Ministries of Truth started dialing down the monkeypox panic. It appears they’re going with “it’s a gay pandemic,” or an “LGBTQ pandemic,” or an “LGBTQIA+ pandemic,” or whatever the official acronym is by the time I click the “publish” button, and making other noises to the effect that it might not be absolutely necessary this time to order a full-scale global lockdown, release the drones and robotic dogs, inject everybody with experimental drugs, and start viciously persecuting “monkeypox deniers.”

You didn’t really believe they were launching a shot-by-shot remake of Covid, did you? The showrunners at GloboCap may be preternaturally evil, but they aren’t stupid. Only the most hopelessly brainwashed New Normals would go along with another “apocalyptic pandemic” before the current one has even been officially cancelled. No, unfortunately, odds are, we’re just getting a preview of what “life” is going to be like in the New Normal Reich, where the masses will be perpetually menaced by an inexhaustible assortment of exotic pathogens and interchangeable pseudo-pathological threats.

The New Normal was never about Covid specifically. It was always about implementing a new “reality” — a pathologized-totalitarian “reality,” not so much ruled as discreetly “guided” by unaccountable, supranational, non-governmental governing entities, global corporations, and assorted billionaires — in which Covid, or monkeypox, or kangaroopox, or any other viral zoonotic disease, or any climate-related or economic development, or aberrant ideological or behavioral tendency, could be used as a pretext to foment another outbreak of mindless mass hysteria and impose additional restrictions on society.

That new “reality” has been implemented … perhaps not as firmly as originally intended, but implemented nonetheless. We are being conditioned to accept this new “reality,” as we were conditioned to accept the War on Terror “reality,” to pointlessly remove our footwear at the airport, place our liquids in travel-size containers, submit to groping by “security staff,” and otherwise live in a state of constant low-level fear of a “terrorist attack,” as we are now being conditioned to wear masks where we are told, submit to mandatory “vaccination,” and live in constant low-level fear of the next purportedly deadly pathogen.

Sadly, most of us will accept this conditioning, and adapt to the “minor inconveniences” that are being imposed on us at every turn. After all, what difference does it really make if we have to wear a little mask on an airplane, or on public transport, or at the doctor’s office? And is it really such a breach of our fundamental rights to freedom of speech, freedom of movement, association, privacy, and basic bodily autonomy if we have to allow governments and global corporations to censor our political opinions, prevent us from traveling, forbid us to protest, and force us to submit to invasive medical treatments in order to hold a job? We got used to taking off our shoes at the airport and watching the “security staff” fondle our kids’ genitals, and invading and bombing other countries and murdering whole families with drones, didn’t we? Surely, we’ll get used to this.

Or … OK, I won’t, and neither will you, probably, but the majority of the masses will. They just demonstrated that pretty clearly, didn’t they? As they demonstrated it during the Global War on Terror. As they demonstrated it during the Cold War. As they demonstrated it … oh, never mind.

Sorry, I really wanted to end this column on a positive note. All right, here’s one! A little good news, finally! According to the professional fact-checkers at Reuters, it turns out “there is no evidence at all that the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting [which is taking place in Davos right now] was scheduled to coincide with these outbreaks of monkeypox,” and anyone who says there is, or implies there is, or who deviates from or questions the “facts,” or the “Science,” or whatever, is a “monkeypox-denying, conspiracy-theorizing, anti-vax, Putin-loving disinformationist,” and so everything is actually hunky-dory, or it will be as soon as we teach those evil Rooskies a little thermonuclear lesson!

I don’t know about you, but that’s a load off my mind. For a moment there, I thought we were in trouble.

*

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Featured image: Close-up of monkeypox lesions on the arm and leg of a female child in Bondua, Grand Gedeh County, Liberia. http://phil.cdc.gov (CDC’s Public Health Image Library)

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***

We are living amidst heaps of visible and invisible wreckage, much of it toxic, as we continue our journey into the third year of the manufactured COVID crisis. Although not in the ways emphasized by our governors’ centrally controlled media monopolies, the contrived fight against the overhyped coronavirus has brought serious trauma to the physical, mental and economic state of much of humanity.

A widely broadcasted outpouring of lies and deception has been instrumental in helping to open the way for the rapid descent of the socio-economic conditions experienced by important population groups throughout the world. Moreover, the wall-to-wall misrepresentations have helped create tainted mental environments where heightened levels of military confrontation are for the most part welcomed, encouraged, and facilitated. We are fast being sucked into a whirlpool of psychopathic war mongering that is steadily moving all life on earth towards a nuclear holocaust at the end of history.

It is important to recall that the current cacophony of cataclysms pointed against us, burst onto the scene with a corporatist campaign to vanquish a flu-like illness. This medical mobilization provided the pretext for a well-orchestrated psychological operation, one that led to invasive assaults into almost every facet of our personal and collective lives.

As this history unfolds, a daunting assortment of malevolent precedents and processes continue to proliferate with no real end in sight. The resulting complex of catastrophes has much potential to further degrade our governments, universities, courts, public services, Internet interactions, banking transactions, professional associations and unions. This list of the institutional casualties is far from complete.

At this stage in the engineered crisis we have great need of fresh infusions of robust investigative activity leading to serious rounds of uncorrupted arbitration in the arena of the criminal law. The aim of these inquiries, trials and judgments must be to put an end to the elaborate crime spree whose high costs imposed on society extend far beyond the vandalized state of medical care, public health, and parliamentary governance.  

In order to apply genuine remedies for the political, cultural and economic ailments that are infecting our key institutions, those of us who are awake to the perils engulfing us must find innovative ways of growing our numbers. We must expand our circles of collaboration in order to mount more effective strategies of collective self-defense. The alternatives to well-coordinated resistance are indeed dire, as we continue to bear the brunt of steady attacks in the undeclared war targeting the largest part of humanity.

Can the Top Culprits in Operation COVID-19 be Brought to Justice?

This creep of a hybrid war against the people entered a new stage in 2020 with an onslaught of medical tyranny. In 2022 the aggressions are proliferating across many financial, cultural and logistical fronts with particular emphasis on the destruction of supply chains especially of food.

See this and this.

Some of the state and media-induced contempt formerly reserved for the so-called “unvaxxed’ has been redirected into a more rudimentary form of discriminatory war propaganda. This propaganda is calculated to breed hatred towards Russia and Russians. Russians are being constructed in the Western media as convenient scapegoats on which to hang woes whose real origins lie mostly in the misdeeds of our own corrupt rulers.

The chain of command of our governors extends to the secretive operations of banks, bankers and their multi-billionaire associates. The vast privileges of those imbued with chartered power over the creation of money and debt translates into enormous influence over government policies and actions.

Many of those implicated in this post-2019 crime spree are prominent officials. They include judges, heads of state, university presidents, media moguls, corporate executives, financiers, prominent celebrities, research directors, “philanthropy” directors, widely published pundits, and spy bosses. The current round of criminal activity at high levels is consistent with a longstanding pattern whose disastrous effect has been to put those in the upper echelons of wealth, power and prestige above the law.

The seriousness of the present crisis demands we must find ways to break the stranglehold over our key institutions in order to restore something akin to a rule of law. What will it take to generate serious actions of law enforcement aimed at bringing to justice the top culprits of the manufactured COVID crisis?

How is it that, for instance, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the USA’s most influential czar of the COVID industry, has escaped criminal charges up until this time? How has Dr. Fauci avoided this outcome even with such intense public disclosure highlighting his apparent violations of many laws, rules and policies over a number of decades? Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been especially unrelenting in providing a superbly-documented case impugning Fauci in what amounts to one of the most detailed accounts of the misdeeds of a wayward civil servant ever published.

See this.

If even civil servants are to be treated as immune from criminal investigations and charges, what hope is there of ever bringing to justice heads of government like Justin Trudeau in Canada and Jacinda Ardern in New Zealand? Trudeau and Ardern are both prime ministerial mascots of the Young Leaders Program of Klaus Schwab’s World Economic Forum.

Explaining the Most Sweeping Round of Medical Deregulation Ever

Operation COVID-19 introduced a period when an open season was declared on certain kinds of corporate plunder and pillage. This boondoggle enabled retail giants like Wal*Mart, Costco, and Amazon to push aside scores of small retailers and suppliers. The so-called lockdowns advanced an agenda of attack aimed especially at small family businesses, part of a larger pattern of assault aimed at diminishing and disabling the middle class.

Among the pharmaceutical corporations, Pfizer and Moderna were among the biggest winners of government largesse. Government favored them with the most sweeping rounds of medical deregulation in a century of developing new medical products.

After waving aside the need to follow many of the rules for the invention, testing and evaluating of new drugs, governments became primary funders, promoters, defenders and enforcers of the push to universalize COVID shots. Even as many injection mandates continue to back the jabs-for jobs tradeoffs, officialdom is still denying or downplaying mounting evidence from authoritative sources that the COVID jabs are decidedly ineffective and profoundly unsafe.

In fact the clot shots are so unsafe that they are forcing unprecedented levels of death and injury on those who have been cajoled or coerced into taking the experimental injections.         

Governments, mass media and their many accomplices have gone to great extremes to persuade the public that this program of mass injection was actually wise, prudent and necessary. The conspirators have gone to exceptional lengths to cover up many of the deceptions that they had concocted to push forward an agenda whose primary goal seems to be depopulation. This obfuscation of their own deceits merged into a cover up of the horrific outcomes brought on by their own actions.

Formidable totalitarian regimes are fast being consolidated as an outgrowth of the actions of those at the front of the line in facilitating and exploiting the stealthy manipulations of medical tyranny. The purpose of these manipulations is ultimately to further expand the power and wealth of some of the richest and most heavily entitled people on Earth.

Accordingly, new frontiers of obscenity are being breached by the propensity of those in power to break all the rules in order to get things done and then to avoid accountability by lying about it all.

There is much evidence of this growth of tyranny in the current barrage of enactments being rushed into operation. Generally speaking the goal of this process is to make it even easier for authorities to censor unwanted news. Among the most effective techniques of censorship is to spy on, harass, criminalize, silence and disappear those independent investigators who have shown themselves to be effective at exposing government and corporate wrongdoing.

Another aspect of this growing totalitarianism is evident in the rush to take powers away from the parliamentary institutions of national government. The other side of this same process is to upload decision-making authority to agencies like the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Economic Forum (WEF).

The objective of these agencies is to advance a very malevolent genre of global plutocracy, one that operates well outside the reach of most average citizens whose political lives unfold largely within well-established traditions of national governance. 

As Trudeau’s treatment of the Truckers demonstrated, these patterns of domestic politics do not sit well with the politics of officials who prefer to take their leads from the Swiss-headquartered WHO and WEF. The business of these organizations is very open to the manipulative bribes and interventions by international corporations, but especially those connected to the pharmaceutical industry.

Dangerous Precedents

A big part of the institutional wreckage accumulating around us, is the result of misplaced efforts to shut down, sideline or discredit any critical analysis that calls into question the project of mass injection.

Many have participated knowingly or inadvertently in the elaborate process aimed at silencing, discrediting, punishing, or sideling all voices, including those of highly qualified experts, who criticize the contrived COVID orthodoxy. This effort to block the process of open debate testing the merit of competing theories and theorists runs against core attributes of the scientific method.

The punishments directed at those with viewpoints that challenge the COVID policies of our bought-and-paid-for-governments can include being fired from high-ranking positions. On the way to being fired, many independent-minded scientists face severe ad hominem attacks concentrating on alleged personal foibles rather than on the scientific merit of their research and conclusions.

The media’s attacks directed at supposed scientific heretics have been extended to collective attacks on members of the public.  Those who have chosen to resist the regime of forced lockdowns, mask wearing and coercive injection mandates have been crudely grouped and characterized as “anti-vaxxers.”

Anything goes, it seems, when it comes to the project of dehumanizing and demonizing so-called “anti-vaxxers.” Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has led the way in this regard. He has widely publicized his own strange opinion that “anti-vaxxers” tend to be deplorable racists, women haters and “science deniers.”

See this.

Invoking harsh memories of the genesis of earlier bouts of state-sanctioned discriminatory violence, Trudeau wonders if “anti-vaxxers” should be “tolerated” in Canada. By seeming to open the federal door to the option of intolerance, Justin Trudeau is acting consistently with a detailed case put forward by Rav Arora in the New York Post. Aora accused Trudeau of pointing Canada away from being a “vibrant liberal democracy” towards becoming “an authoritarian state.”

The campaign to constrain and shut down scientific debate even in parliamentary, journalistic, and academic settings has established extremely dangerous precedents that have yet to be addressed. It is in this fashion that the manufactured COVID crisis has undermined the basis of legal protections for free speech, academic freedom, freedom of assembly, religious freedom, freedom of conscience, as well as the right to exercise of bodily autonomy.

Once it has been established that governments can create the conditions to coerce citizens into accepting unwanted substances into their bodies, what comes next? Have individual rights already been sacrificed on the altar of this manufactured medical crisis?

Has the green lighting by governments of the largest medical experiment ever on human subjects, established the precedent that the Nuremberg Code no longer applies? Have we entered an era when all sorts of medical experiments on human subjects can take place without the informed consent of those subjects? Can people be coercively mandated to become guinea pigs in medical experiments even if they don’t want to do so?

Will it be required in the future even to inform test subjects that they are objects of medical experimentation? If twelve-year-olds can overrule their parents in deciding to take COVID shots, what is to be the future role of mothers and fathers in other aspects of child rearing? And speaking of children, how many of them will be born in the future given the devastating effects of COVID shots on fertility organs in both women and men?

Increased Distrust of Our Core institutions and Those That Lead Them 

Given their role as compliant servants of government COVID policies, how will courts, universities, professional organizations, and media cartels operate in the future?

How has the subservience of these organizations to government dictates set precedents that run contrary to the kinds of independence we expect of certain institutions? How, for instance, can we any longer regard our universities as genuine sites of higher education when so many of the senior custodians of these institutions have made unquestioning compliance with authoritarian measures a condition of admission for students and a condition of employment for faculty members? How can inconvenient truths readily be spoken to power in such heavily politicized institutions where obedience to authority is becoming the highest ideal?

It is clear that in the course of Operation COVID-19 the principles of academic freedom and academic meritocracy have been seriously violated in ways that cannot be easily understood let alone fixed. As we shall see below, even the principles of academic publication through academic peer review have been hijacked in order to clear the way for the mass distribution of dangerous COVID shots to the general population.  

To this day, no significant platforms have been given over for meaningful public discourse on how we should respond to all the destructive precedents established in the course of the fake fight against COVID-19. Instead, much of the media as well as many governments persist in trying to impose on everyone a single uniform perception of the COVID crisis.

Nevertheless no consensus has emerged from this huge and elaborate thought-control operation. A sizable minority of the worldwide population has emerged from the misnamed pandemic more distrustful than ever of our core institutions and those that lead them.

The distrust is especially significant when it comes to the cynical responses to the failures of media, universities, and courts.  We tend to afford these agencies high levels of latitude for independent analysis and action partly because we depend on them to embody some checks against the exercise of excessive power by governments.

In this instance, however, these institutions have, with some rare exceptions, let down the public at the very moment we needed them most. Can these failed institutions ever be repaired or do we need to contemplate building new institutions of higher education, law enforcement and news reporting from the ground up?  

The primary indicator that the main institutional responses to the manufactured COVID crisis have been harmful and wrong is the large mass of dead, dying, crippled and otherwise injured humans struck down in the course of the global push to impose policies of mass injection.

At this stage of the saga it would be a mark of either disingenuousness or negligence for anyone in official positions of power and responsibility to claim complete unawareness of the big medical experiment’s primary victims. It is clear that millions of otherwise healthy people have been badly hurt and/or decimated by the one-size-fits-all approach to the injection of COVID jabs into the multitudes.

The high rates of injection deaths and injuries began almost immediately with the dissemination of mRNA injections that started in mid-December of 2020.  As Professor Emeritus Michel Chossudovsky explained, by April of 2022 the official published records of several governments including those of the US, the UK and the EU, revealed that at least 70,000 deaths and more than 11,000,0000 injuries had been caused by COVID injections.

These figures almost certainly significantly understate the real figures because, as repeated studies have demonstrated, only a small percentage of injection deaths and injuries actually get reported.  This pattern is probably more pronounced in this COVID-19 episode.  Hospital administrators and those that speak on behalf of colleges of physicians have left medical staff with no doubts that they will be severely punished if they do not refrain from doing anything that might encourage so-called “vaccine hesitancy.”   

Prof. Chossudovsky goes on to identify an internal document of the Pfizer Corporation now made public due to a court order. This internal document reveals that by February of 2020 it was already known by many insiders that about 1,200 deaths and over 40,000 injuries had already been caused by the experimental Pfizer shots. It is also made clear that Pfizer officials had already determined that 1291 ailments, some of them lethal, are at risk of infecting the recipients of Pfizer shots.

See this and this.

Dr. Chossudovsky expresses the view that this evidence should have been enough to cause Pfizer officials to withdraw their product from public distribution. His indication that COVID injections should be removed from distribution has been a common theme of many principled scientists who have looked independently at the harm done to human populations by the Warp Speed injection products.

Large controversies should arise when public officials together with all manner of celebrities, publicly promote as safe and effective a set of medical products that do in fact cause high rates of death and injury. The cheerleader approach deployed in multiple advertising campaigns to kick off the so-called “vaccine rollouts” set up immediate obstacles against the kind of balanced public education that would have been necessary to cultivate “informed consent” among those about to receive the experimental shots.

Premeditated Murder? 

As time has passed there has been more and more evidence showing that completely unacceptable levels of death and injury flowing from the injections. The failure of public officials to acknowledge this information, let alone to act on it, will have significant consequences. As news of the millions of victims proliferates in literally thousands of published essays, the issue of premeditated murder comes more and more into focus.

What is supposed to happen when there is abundant evidence showing that the dissemination of a particular medical product is causing high death rates? What is supposed to happen to those that become aware of this lethal outcome but continue nevertheless to promote and facilitate the dissemination of the killer injections? Surely at some point such reckless and irresponsible behavior reaches the criteria of premeditated murder.

The issue of the deaths and shortened life spans that have been caused belongs in the realm of the criminal law rather than to that of civil law or constitutional law. But where is there any indication that law enforcement agencies are actively investigating these criminal matters that are making murder suspects of some of our top officials especially in media and government.

Even at this stage we cannot with certainty say whether injection deaths so far can be counted in the tens of thousands, in the hundreds of thousands, or in the millions. This uncertainty alone represents a stunning illustration of the extent of the scientific and professional malfeasance running rampant in this matter.  The whole gamut of officialdom’s responses to the COVID phenomenon has been anything but safe and effective. Nor has it been honest.

If there is no provision even for counting honestly the extent of morbidity caused by the experimental injections, what other factors in this experiment are not being conscientiously observed and monitored? How is this open contempt for the rules of those most responsible for this experiment to be explained? What else is being covered up?

Are the large uncertainties concerning death and injury among injection recipients an indicator that nobody in positions of power in this matter has a solid grip on the need to protect the public interest? Much of the media is deeply implicated in the crime of depriving the public of the information resources that they require to protect themselves from a devastating plague of medical malpractice underway.

The COVID Injections Don’t Work 

We are still in the early days of learning how deeply problematic the COVID injections have proven to be. In the words of Australian Senator Gerard Rennick, the COVID injections “don’t work”! The COVID injections “are not fit for purpose.” Senator Rennick explains, “They don’t provide immunity. They didn’t prevent transmission. They didn’t prevent hospitalization. And they didn’t prevent death.” He explained further,

“Despite the fact that 90% of the population (in Australia) is jabbed, COVID still ran rampant throughout the community. No herd immunity was achieved.”

Senator Rennick expounded on the “unbridled abuse” which has taken place in Australia in order to hide the true extent of vaccine injuries. This abuse extended to “gagging” and “bullying” medical professionals so they would not reveal just how dangerous the COVID shots really are.   

This abuse of medical professionals more generally extended to gross violations of the provisions of peer review in prestigious medical journals.

See this.

The aim of those behind this scientific and academic fraud was to discredit the COVID remedies that are in fact effective, economical and, in correct dosages, safe. The aim of this sidelining of alternative remedies was anything but altruistic. If, for instance, hydroxychloriquine and ivermectin had been widely adopted as COVID remedies, obstacles would have been put in the way of emergency use authorization for the COVID shots.

What safeguards are needed to protect against further abuses of the legal provisions underlying emergency use authorization of medical products? Given what we now know, is the time right to remove the dubious legal enactments that immunize vaccine makers against being sued for deaths and injuries created by faults in their products? 

From the very beginning of the manufactured COVID crisis Bill Gates, Justin Trudeau, Anthony Fauci and many other agents of Big Pharma repeatedly declared in the media that vaccines offered the only viable route out of the coronavirus affliction. Why was the remedy already being publicized well before a credible diagnosis of the affliction was formulated?

Were the injections created to treat COVID-19 or was the overhyped coronavirus created as a means of injecting into society the habits, expectations, legal frameworks and political impetus conducive to pushing the adoption of mandated programs of cradle-to-grave vaccines for everyone?

Will There Be Public Show Trials of Nurses and Doctors?

Not surprisingly, initiatives are underway whose object seems to be to divert attention away from those who directed the Covid responses from the upper echelons of national, international, and supranational power. Instead of investigations into the activities of those that led the grab for more power and wealth through the manipulation of the manufactured emergency, proceedings are underway to identify patsies and scapegoats. Judicial investigations and court proceedings are already targeting low-level medical practitioners as well as working class critics of COVID policies.  

In Canada, for instance, Justin Trudeau is seeking to transform a mandatory federal investigation of his government’s decision to invoke the federal Emergency Act. The stated goal of this invocation was to quash the protest of those Truckers and their supporters who organized a Freedom Convoy to Ottawa.

So far the Trudeau government is obsessive in its efforts to keep secret what transpired inside cabinet in the run up to the declaration of the Emergencies Act on Feb. 14. Trudeau’s plan seems to be to point attention away from what happened inside the federal government and to place at the forefront of federal publicity and propaganda the concocted imagery of the Truckers as terrorist and insurrectionists.  

See this.

In a video entitled, “How Jailing a Nurse Could Help Paper Over Responsibility for Operation COVID-19,” scholar Emanuel Pastreich explains the implication of a court ruling in a criminal proceeding brought against nurse RaDonda Vaught. Ms. Vaught worked at Vanderbilt University Hospital when it was being remade as a commercial business.

Nurse Vaught was convicted of “reckless homicide” for making a mistake in giving the wrong drug to a patient who subsequently died as a result of the error. It is very unusual to charge, convict and jail a nurse as a criminal for making an honest mistake in providing care. The more usual response would be to deal with such a tragedy within the professional codes of the nursing discipline.  

Dr. Pastreich is a critic of the accelerated privatization of the US healthcare system as well as its transformation into a big money bonanza for the well-rewarded beneficiaries of Big Pharma. As Dr. Pastreich sees it, the criminalization of nurse Vaught provided a way of diverting attention from more systematic crimes entailed in the cost-cutting machinations associated with the privatization of institutions like the Vanderbilt University Hospital.

For Dr. Pastreich it is no coincidence that nurse Vaught was sentenced to jail time

“at the very moment that the deadly implications of the mandate for COVID-19 vaccinations is at last receiving broad attention after the release of the Pfizer files. These so-called vaccines, which have no properties associated with vaccines, but are loaded with dangerous mRNA and other substances, are being administered in hospitals in blatant violation of the law and the hippocratic oath. When the truth is eventually out about the injection of millions of citizens with this deadly concoction, who will be held responsible for the deaths and injuries that resulted?”

Dr. Pastreich believes that the high-ranking financiers, bankers and racketeers at the highest levels of what he calls Operation COVID-19 are well aware of the dangers of public exposure they are facing. He argues they are therefore setting up the basis for the theatrics of “fobbing off” COVID crimes so they will land on the shoulders of medical staff far down the chain of command.

This tactic of offering up underlings to protect those at the top is commonly deployed in a society where much effort is devoted to keeping the leadership of the highest level of organized crime safely remote from legal accountability. 

In Dr. Pastreich’s imagined scenario the public appetite for people to blame and punish for the toxic clot shots is to be met by criminalizing those who actually delivered the fatal jabs as well as administered fake remedies such as the toxic remdesivir. In this fashion those most responsible for “the COVID 19 holocaust” are to be “let off the hook.”

How jailing a nurse could help paper over responsibility for Operation COVID-19 from Emanuel Pastreich on Vimeo. 

Dr. Pastreich anticipates the possibility of “public show trials” that “drag out nurses and doctors” as scapegoats for the crimes against humanity whose full extent is still far from being measured. Surely we the citizens who have endured the lies and crimes of Operation COVID-19 deserve a better and more honest resolution than that.   

When will the accumulation of the wreckage emanating from the incursion of Operation COVID-19 come to end? When can we begin to put our houses, businesses, schools, hospitals, media, governments, and families back in order? 

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Dr. Anthony Hall is editor in chief of the American Herald Tribune. He is currently Professor of Globalization Studies at University of Lethbridge in Alberta Canada. He has been a teacher in the Canadian university system since 1982. Dr. Hall, has recently finished a big two-volume publishing project at McGill-Queen’s University Press entitled “The Bowl with One Spoon”.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: Edmonton police are among the city employees fighting against COVID-19 shot mandates. (Source: Kaytoo / Shutterstock.com)

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***

The World Health Organization is attempting to seize control over global pandemic monitoring and response and, ultimately, all health care decisions

Bill Gates intends to play a key part in this takeover. He’s building a pandemic response team for the WHO, dubbed the “Global Epidemic Response & Mobilization” or GERM Team, which will have the authority to monitor nations and make pandemic response decisions, such as when to suspend civil liberties to prevent spread of an illness

The globalist cabal plans to seize control through biosecurity governance, and they’re attempting to do this using two different avenues. If we fail to fight off both attacks, we’ll end up under totalitarian governance

The first attack comes in the form of amendments to the International Health Regulations (IHR), which are currently being voted on by the World Health Assembly. These amendments will strip member nations of their sovereignty and give the WHO unprecedented power to restrict your medical freedoms and civil liberties in the name of biosecurity. Get involved and urge your nation’s leaders to reject the amendments if passed. Unless rejected, they will become binding law in November 2022

The second attack comes through a new international pandemic treaty with the WHO. They intend to eliminate individualized medicine and provide blanket rulings for how a given threat is to be addressed, and this can only result in needless suffering — not to mention the loss of individual freedom

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In “The Corbett Report” above,¹ independent journalist James Corbett reviews the contents of Bill Gates’ book, “How to Prevent the Next Pandemic.”

“It’s every bit as infuriating, nauseating, ridiculous, laughable and risible as you would expect,” he says. “This is a ridiculous book … There’s certainly nothing of medical or scientific value in here … It’s a baffling book even from a propagandistic perspective …

Gates’ goal in writing the book is to disarm the public and prepare us to accept the agenda that Gates and his allies would like to impose on the world. Ultimately, what this is about is drumming up general public support — or at least general public understanding — of the unfolding biosecurity agenda.”

Another reviewer of Gates’ book, economist Jeffrey Tucker, offered similarly negative feedback:²

“Imagine yourself sidled up to a bar. A talkative guy sits down on the stool next to you. He has decided that there is one thing wrong with the world. It can be literally anything. Regardless, he has the solution.

It’s interesting and weird for a few minutes. But you gradually come to realize that he is actually crazy. His main point is wrong and so his solutions are wrong too. But the drinks are good, and he is buying. So you put up with it. In any case, you will forget the whole thing in the morning.

In the morning, however, you realize that he is one of the world’s richest men and he is pulling the strings of many of the world’s most powerful people. Now you are alarmed. In a nutshell, that’s what it’s like to read Bill Gates’s new book ‘How to Prevent the Next Pandemic.’”

Gates’ Book Chapter by Chapter

Corbett goes through Gates’ book chapter by chapter, so if you’re short on time, you can review the ones that interest you the most:

Gates GERM Team

Click here to watch the video.

By now, you’ve probably heard that the World Health Organization is attempting to seize control over global pandemic monitoring and response, and ultimately, all health care decisions. But did you know Bill Gates, the largest funder of the WHO (if you combine funding from his foundation and GAVI), also intends to play a key part in this takeover?

As Gates explains in a video at the beginning of Corbett’s report, he’s building a pandemic response team for the WHO, dubbed the “Global Epidemic Response & Mobilization” or GERM Team. This team will be made up of thousands of disease experts under WHO’s purview, and will monitor nations and make decisions about when to suspend civil liberties to prevent spread of an illness.³

Alas, as noted by “Rising” host Kim Iversen in the video compilation above, if COVID-19 has taught us anything, it’s that stopping the spread of a virus is more or less impossible, no matter how draconian the rules. Meanwhile, the side effects of lockdowns and business shutdowns are manifold.

People’s health has suffered from lack of health care. Depression and suicide have skyrocketed. Economies have gone bust. Violent crime has risen. Tucker also points out the false premise behind Gates’ pandemic prevention plan, stating:⁴

“This theory of virus control — the notion that muscling the population makes a prevalent virus shrink into submission and disappear — is a completely new invention, the mechanization of a primitive instinct.

Smallpox occupies a unique position among infectious diseases as the only one affecting humans that has been eradicated. There are reasons for that: a stable pathogen, a great vaccine, and a hundred years of focused public health work. This happened not due to lockdowns but from the careful and patient application of traditional public-health principles.

[T]he attempt to crush a respiratory virus through universal avoidance could be worse than allowing endemicity to it to develop throughout the population.”

Gates’ Destructive Greed

During COVID, we basically traded false protection against one thing for a multitude of other ills that are far worse in the long run. Now, Gates and the WHO want to make this disastrous strategy the norm.

Once again, we see Gates is basically paying the WHO to dictate what the world must do to make him a ton of money, because he’s always heavily invested in the very “solutions” he presents to the world. While he’s built a reputation as a philanthropist, his actions are self-serving, and more often than not, the recipients of his “generosity” end up worse than they were before.

Case in point: After 15 years, Gates’ Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) project has now been proven an epic fail.⁵ Gates promised the project would “double yields and incomes for 30 million farming households by 2020.”

That false prognosis was deleted from the AGRA website in June 2020, after a Tuft University assessment revealed hunger had actually increased by 31%. February 28, 2022, the first-ever evaluation report⁶ confirmed the failure of AGRA.

The Globalists’ Double-Prong Attack on National Sovereignty

But getting back to the globalists’ plan to seize global control through biosecurity governance, they are attempting to do this using two different avenues. If we fail to fight off both attacks, we’ll end up under totalitarian governance.

The first attack comes in the form of amendments⁷ to the International Health Regulations (IHR). The second attack comes through a new international pandemic treaty with the WHO.

Starting with the first takeover strategy, as you read this, countries around the world are in the process of voting on amendments to the IHR.⁸ By May 28, 2022, the World Health Assembly will have concluded their vote on these amendments and, if passed, they will be enacted into international law in November 2022.

The IHR, adopted in 2005, is what empowers the WHO to declare a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC).⁹ This is a special legal category that allows the WHO to initiate certain contracts and procedures, including drug and vaccine contracts. While the IHR grants the WHO exceptional power over global health policy already, under the current rules, member states must consent to the WHO’s recommendations.

This is one key feature that is up for revision. Under the new amendments, the WHO would be able to declare a PHEIC in a member state over the objection of that state. The amendments also include ceding control to WHO regional directors authorized to declare a Public Health Emergency of Regional Concern (PHERC).

In summary, the IHR amendments establish “a globalist architecture of worldwide health surveillance, reporting and management,” Robert Malone, Ph.D., warns,¹⁰ and we the public have no say in the matter.

We have no official avenue for providing feedback to the World Health Assembly, even though the amendments will give the WHO unprecedented power to restrict our rights and freedoms in the name of biosecurity. There’s not even a publicly available list of who the delegates are or who will vote on the amendments.

Summary of Proposed IHR Amendments

A summary of the proposed changes to the IHR was recently provided by Malone.¹¹ In all, the WHO wants to amend 13 different IHR articles (articles 5, 6, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 18, 48, 49, 53 and 59), the end result of which is the following:¹²

Once the amendments are adopted by the World Health Assembly, nations will have only a limited time — six months — to reject them. That would put us into November 2022. Any nation which hasn’t officially rejected the amendments will then be legally bound by them, and any attempt to reject them after the six-month grace period will be null and void.

Attack No. 2: The WHO Pandemic Treaty

The second attempt to gain global control is through an international pandemic treaty with the WHO. An intergovernmental negotiating body (INB) was established as a subdivision of the World Health Assembly in December 2021,¹³ for the purpose of drafting and negotiating this new pandemic treaty.

In summary, the WHO wants to make its pandemic leadership permanent. It can then extend its power into the health care systems of every nation, and eventually implement a universal or “socialist-like” health care system as part of The Great Reset.

While a WHO-based universal health care system is not currently being discussed, there’s every reason to suspect that this is part of the plan. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has previously stated that his “central priority” as director-general is to push the world toward universal health coverage.¹⁴

And, considering the WHO changed its definition of “pandemic” to “a worldwide epidemic of a disease,”¹⁵ without the original specificity of severe illness that causes high morbidity,^16,17 just about anything could be made to fit the pandemic criterion.

The problem with this treaty is that it simply cannot work. The whole premise behind this pandemic treaty is that “shared threat requires shared response.” But a given threat is almost never equally shared across regions.

Take COVID-19 for example. Not only is the risk of COVID not the same for people in New York City and the outback of Australia, it’s not even the same for all the people in those areas, as COVID is highly dependent on age and underlying health conditions.

The WHO insists that the remedy is the same for everyone everywhere, yet the risks vary widely from nation to nation, region to region, person to person. They intend to eliminate individualized medicine and provide blanket rulings for how a given threat is to be addressed, and this can only result in needless suffering — not to mention the loss of individual freedom.

Are You Ready to Cede All Authority to Gates-Led Group?

In closing, Gates’ GERM team would be the ones with the authority to declare pandemics and coordinate global response.¹⁸ Are you ready to cede all authority over your life, health and livelihood to the likes of Gates? I hope not.

In the video above, Del Bigtree with “The Highwire” provides poignant examples where Gates is now admitting what “The Highwire,” I and many others have been saying since the earliest days of the COVID pandemic, and getting censored and deplatformed for it.

Gates is two years behind everyone else, yet despite his apparent inability to interpret the readily available data, he now wants power to dictate health rules to the whole world. We can’t let that happen.

Join the Global #StopTheWHO Campaign

It’s going to require a global response to prevent these two power grabs, starting with the IHR amendments under vote by the World Health Assembly. To that end, the World Council for Health has launched a global #StopTheWHO campaign. Here’s how you can get involved:¹⁹

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Notes

¹ Corbett Report Episode 418, May 10, 2022

^2, 4 Brownstone Institute May 3, 2022

³ The Counter Signal May 2, 2022

⁵ Corey’s Digs April 27, 2022

⁶ USRTK March 17, 2022

⁷ Health Policy Watch February 23, 2022

^8, 9 CDC International Health Regulations

^{10, 11, 12, 19} RW Malone Substack May 17, 2022

¹³ WHO Proposed Method of Work February 21, 2022

¹⁴ National Review June 14, 2017

¹⁵ Wayback Machine, WHO Pandemic Preparedness captured September 2, 2009 (PDF)

¹⁶ The BMJ 2010;340:c2912

¹⁷ Wayback Machine, WHO Pandemic Preparedness captured May 1, 2009 (PDF)

¹⁸ The Lancet May 14, 2022; 399(10338): 1853

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China on May 25, 2022 said its joint military exercises around Taiwan were intended as a “stern warning” against “collusion activities” between the US and Taipei.

“The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) recently organized joint combat-readiness patrols and real combat training exercises involving multiple services and arms in the waters and airspace around the Taiwan Island,” military spokesperson Col. Shi Yi said in a statement.

“This is a stern warning against the recent US-Taiwan collusion activities,” said Shi.

The latest Chinese military drills come after US President Joe Biden considerably upped the ante over Taiwan during his first presidential trip to Asia.

In Tokyo on Monday, Biden said the US will intervene militarily if China attempted to take over Taiwan by force, angering Beijing, which considers the island of over 24 million people a “breakaway province.”

Taipei, however, has insisted on its independence since 1949 and has diplomatic relations with at least 14 nations.

Biden later said Washington’s stance on Taiwan had not changed and it would not abandon the “One-China” policy.

Shi asserted it was “hypocritical and futile for the US to say one thing and do another on the Taiwan issue,” saying its actions “frequently encourage ‘Taiwan independence’ forces.”

“Taiwan is part of China … (our) troops are determined and capable of thwarting any external forces’ interference and separatist attempts … and resolutely safeguard national sovereignty and security and regional peace and stability,” the spokesperson added.

China also carried out joint drills with Russia on Tuesday, sending six jets over the Sea of Japan and East China Sea as leaders of the Quad group – the US, India, Australia and Japan – were meeting in Tokyo.

Japan condemned the “show of force” and expressed its “grave concerns” to Beijing and Moscow.

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Viktor Orbán’s announcement of a state of emergency in Hungary received criticism from the pro-West political opposition despite the fact that it is needed because of the war raging in neighboring Ukraine, where a large number of members of the Hungarian national community have arrived, as well as thousands of other Ukrainian refugees. A state of emergency is also needed due to the energy and food crisis.

The Hungarian government needs more powers to more easily maintain the economy and social order that is struggling due to the war in Ukraine and the corresponding anti-Russia sanctions. Yet, despite criticism from the pro-West opposition, it is recalled that Western countries themselves have declared states of emergencies in times of wars, pandemic and economic crises. One does not have to remember far back to the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic when entire Western societies and economies were shutdown because of emergency measures.

Emergency measures were introduced by the Hungarian government in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Although it seemed to the Hungarian opposition at the time that it would give them an advantage and lead to a drop in Orbán’s popularity, the opposite in fact happened. Orbán’s Fidesz political party actually gained even more popularity. In this way, Orbán evidently understands that Hungarians support measures to impose martial law if it is genuinely justified.

The current state of emergency gives the government more authority to make some decisions far quicker as they usually require several days or weeks in regular procedure. This is something critical when considering the war next door and how this affects the Hungarian minority in Ukraine and the Hungarian economy.

It must be noted though that the state of emergency in Hungary is not a typical state of emergency in which the rights and freedoms of citizens are limited. Hungarian citizens do not have any restrictions, including against their human rights. This is solely about the government having greater powers so that it can respond timely and efficiently to any changes that can occur as there is a war in the region. Effectively, the government can act faster and parliament can subsequently adopt or reject government decisions.

A state of emergency was imposed in Hungary on May 24, and took effect the next day. Earlier, a constitutional amendment was adopted in parliament allowing the introduction of legal states of danger when armed conflicts or humanitarian disasters occur in neighboring countries.

In a video posted on social media, Orbán said the conflict in Ukraine poses a “continuing threat to Hungary” which is “putting our physical security at risk and threatening the energy and financial security of our economy and families.”

The ruling Fidesz party won a fourth-straight election victory on April 3, giving Orbán, the longest-serving leader in the EU, an additional four-year term, something that caused immense frustration in the West. This is in addition to the party holding a two-thirds majority in parliament since 2010.

It is recalled that Orbán wrote to the President of the European Council Charles Michel on May 23 to stress that the new sanctions against Russia proposed by the EU, including an oil embargo, should not be discussed at the upcoming summit of EU leaders (May 30-31). Orbán said it was unlikely a solution could be found by then, and that Hungary was not in a position to agree to the proposed EU sanctions until all outstanding issues are resolved.

Although the EU is desperately trying to phase out Russian energy, Budapest has insisted that it will not support any sanctions that target Russian energy exports as it would be an “atomic bomb” for Hungary’s economy and destroy its “stable energy supply.” While other mid-sized EU countries like Greece are desperate to adopt all measures that target Russia (so long as it does not affect the oligarchical Greek shipowners), even if it means that price increases are pushed onto consumers, Hungary is not entertaining any notion that their citizens should suffer as a result of Western policies.

In this way, the new emergency measures introduced are consistent to Orbán’s policy of protecting Hungarian interests despite the upheaval that Western policies has caused on its border. Although it is certainly not popular in the West, it certainly appears that Orbán will continue protecting Hungarian interests, even if it is in opposition to the EU and NATO.

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Paul Antonopoulos is an independent geopolitical analyst. 

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I never thought I’d live to see the day when the “Too Old to Rule the World, But Too Young to Die Crowd” (apologies Ian Anderson) would meet at Davos and fight over what to do about Russia.

In a twenty-four hour period two of the most influential men on the planet came out swinging as to what course of action the Davos Crowd should take in Ukraine.

The first blows were landed by Mr. Realpolitik, Henry Kissinger, who most people were surprised to find was still alive. Kissinger true to form told everyone that it was time to begin negotiations for a settlement with Russia soon.

“Negotiations on peace need to begin in the next two months or so, [before the conflict] creates upheavals and tensions that will not be easily overcome,” the 98-year-old veteran diplomat said of the crisis. The outcome will determine the rest of Europe’s relationships with Russia and Ukraine alike, he said. “Ideally, the dividing line should return to the status quo ante,” he said.

“I believe pursuing the war beyond that point would turn it not into a war about the freedom of Ukraine, which had been undertaken with great cohesion by NATO, but into a war against Russia itself,” he added.

Kissinger is simply talking sense, knowing full well that the situation in Ukraine is getting very close to militarily unsalvageable for Ukraine. You know things are bad when the British Press is now acknowledging this, even though the Telegraph was told to change the original headline (follow link above):

Even Western reporters on the ground there are admitting the truth…

A little update and a bit of a rant about the situation here in the Donbas. pic.twitter.com/Pu8VxDrMFc

— Tom Mutch (@Tomthescribe) May 22, 2022

The front in the Donbass is collapsing on the heels of the surrender, sorry “evacuation,” from the Azovstal Steel Factory of the Azov Regimen’s top commanders.

The Ukrainians aren’t just running out of ammunition, the men are running out of morale. When you break the will of an army, it doesn’t matter what you try to force feed into the conflict it won’t change the outcome. If reports are true Ukraine will only see about 15% of the $40 billion the Biden Junta approved last week.

On the heels of Kissinger’s pragmatism came George Soros’ dizzying pastiche of wholly constructed western narratives about Russia and China’s goals and their respective leaders’ shortcomings. Soros stayed completely on script with the neoliberal/neoconservative warmongering that Ukraine has put itself in a position to win this war and it is our duty as defenders of his Open Society to assist them no matter the cost.

Because if we do not, “Civilization may not survive.” The particular type of solipsism and hubris that Soros exhibits doesn’t just border on the pathological, it ignores it like Soros argues we should do for all borders.

In his worldview borders should be eradicated. So why are his puppets and acolytes so obsessed with the ‘territorial integrity of Ukraine?’

Soros is an ideologue. He has defined the world in terms that are incompatible with human nature. And he is losing. This is why he wants more commitment to kill the evil Russians who refuse to eat bugs, get sterilized and be eradicated from history, which he spent billions doing in Ukraine over the past eight years.

Going through the lies of his speech are almost not worth the time. They are, ultimately, just Soros’ projections of what he believes are Putin’s and Xi’s motives and goals with their current operations — war in Ukraine / lockdowns in China.

Soros rehashes the epic victory of Ukraine in Kiev to paint the picture he needs to make his point but it’s something two months now out of date. All the defense of Kiev did was embolden US and British belligerence, it did not, however, thwart any of Putin’s ultimate goals. Nor did it move the popular sentiment.

It gave us the situation we have today and it’s one he decries as needing an immense effort to save from going completely Russia’s way.

Those projections fuel conclusions which are not based on reality but on wishful thinking. Soros, like all investors (and he has invested heavily in overthrowing Putin and Xi) will always ‘talk his book’ and make it sound like cogent and sober analysis.

Decisions on the fighting in Ukraine haven’t been made from a militarily strategic perspective for weeks now. If they were, a ceasefire would have been sought. Soros’ puppet government in the U.S. refuses to accede to reality because Soros himself refuses to engage with it.

But, since he’s the one writing the checks to help the Democrats steal win the mid-term elections in November, he gets what he wants. I know I’m being reductionist here. The forces acting within the U.S. political and military establishment are far deeper and more diverse than just Soros’ megalomania, but he makes as good a metaphor for them as anything else.

There has been a not-so-subtle shift in the news surrounding events in Ukraine over the past couple of weeks. It is now grudgingly accepted that Russia’s war of attrition against the Ukrainian Armed Forces has been brutal, costly and effective.

It is now beginning to show real dividends in terms of territory gains as the center of the front in the Donbass collapses:

The only reason why the Russians haven’t taken more territory is because brave men have stood their ground as President Zelenskyy went on tour to sell an unwinnable war to an exhausted and disinterested public in Europe and the U.S.

We’ve finally reached that point where even the Skinner Box button loses all its power. Now that the UAF’s positions have degraded beyond repair, all that’s left is retreat or surrender. We’re no more than a few weeks away from that now.

And those brave men are about to be ground into paste for their loyalty to an idea that should have died months ago.

When you decode both Kissinger’s pragmatism and Soros’ near hysteria you get one conclusion, Russia is winning the ground war in eastern Ukraine. And by winning those battles they are expending the effective fighting strength of the UAF in the process.

Ukraine has always been the Rubicon for a lot of folks. So much capital has been poured in there that everyone is pot-committed. It represented the dividing line between success and failure of generations of preparations for a global world order.

Henry Kissinger stood at the center of this for decades. He groomed Klaus Schwab to build the WEF into what it is today, the premier influence peddling dirty tricksters and promoters of the worst ideas advanced in human history.

George Soros is a nouveau riche, Nazi collaborator and opportunistic vulture with delusions of adequacy. He’s played high sakes poker with the biggest players in the world and broken entire countries multiple times. His son has his legacy now, but he’ll lose that now that his dad has gone shitbird crazy.

But he’s never beaten a country whose people stood their ground. Whether you like what Russia is doing in Ukraine or not, viewed dispassionately they are standing their ground. Whether you agree this war was the right way of doing that is irrelevant.

Kissinger would agree with me.

Those that doubted Russia’s resolve or depth of preparation across all axes of warfare — militarily, economically, socially, culturally — are about to come face to face with a shocking conclusion, you can’t take over a people from the top down who are united from the ground up.

Kissinger would agree with that as well. It’s why he advocated for finding ways to keep Russia from leaving its European character behind and not embracing its Asian. Now that the economic war has failed the only reasonable option is accepting what’s been lost before what looks like a stalemate today turns quickly into a rout.

Soros is just your typical narcissistic bully, ready to tell you why you need to do his bidding to make him powerful. This will be the last time he makes a speech anyone listens to and the last time anyone will give a shit about who wins the fight between two old cripples at a globalist chug and tug.

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Lebanon’s May 15 parliamentary election succeeded on the organisational level but did not usher in personnel changes which could rescue the country from political, economic and social crises which have nearly destroyed the middle class and driven 80 per cent of the population into poverty.

Balloting was largely peaceful, and voters were cheerful despite the lack of electricity in polling stations and, at least in the narrow streets of central Beirut, horrendous traffic jams. Officials and rival party observers in polling stations coexisted comfortably and counting of the paper ballots went smoothly although the results were not fully published until two days after the election. For these reasons, this exercise in democracy should be counted as a triumph for the moribund Lebanese state and an administration starved of funds and depleted by defecting and migrating civil servants.

Fifty-nine per cent of the nearly four million registered to vote did not cast ballots for various reasons. Some could not be bothered, others said participating would make no difference as the deeply entrenched political elite would return to parliament. Followers of former prime minister Saad Hariri were urged to boycott and installed inflatable swimming pools on streets in a poor quarter of Beirut and jumped in and out of the water to show they were partying not voting.

Of the 41 per cent who voted, there were mainly middle aged men and women who did not believe change would result but insisted it was their democratic duty. The majority voted for communal parties with patronage networks which have provided them with help in getting jobs, permits building, licenses for firms, places in schools, and beds in hospitals. These parties and their candidates also distributed vouchers for petrol and supermarkets at a time most Lebanese are struggling to put food on the table and pay their bills.

Many young voters cast ballots for newcomers on lists promising change, some of them activists in the October 17th, 2019, “revolution”, the uprising against the political elite, mismanagement, corruption and the sectarian system of governance. It dictates that the president must always be a Maronite Christian, the prime minister a Sunni and the parliamentary speaker a Shia. This system has sustained political deadlock after Lebanese revolutionaries took to the streets and squares demanding change.

While more than a dozen newcomers, often called “independents”, won seats they did not unite to form their own bloc because lists and individuals have diverse agendas. Some are more “independent” than others by demanding regime change rather than reform.

Firas, 25, a banker said “I did not expect change in this election… It will take one or two elections before there can be change. There must be a shift in generations, a mass awakening among the young and the age requirement for voting changed from 21 to 18.” Alas, Lebanon does not have the luxury to wait for such changes to take place.

Nevertheless, newcomers could become kingmakers because neither the bloc headed by Hizbollah and Amal, which retained all Shia assembly seats, nor the bloc led by hard right-wing Lebanese forces, which gained two seats, won majorities. Hizbollah’s partner the Free Patriotic Movement founded by President Michel Aoun and the Lebanese Forces’ ally, the Sunni Future Movement, shed seats.

The other potential kingmaker, the Progressive Socialist Party, chaired by the sometimes erratic Druze leader Walid Jumblatt could also play the role of kingmaker. Indeed, it has already opted for this role by nominating Nabih Berri, 84, to continue as assembly speaker, a job he has held since 1992. The new legislature has only two weeks from taking office on May 22nd to elect a speaker.

Once this first step is taken, the political forces will have to begin Herculean task of choosing a prime minister from the Sunni community which has been gravely weakened by Hariri’s abandonment. The US, Britain, and France have urged the political elite to “hurry” so that a government of neutral technocrats can be formed, and reforms enacted with the aim of securing $21 billion in foreign finance to halt the country’s rapid downward plunge.

However, selection of a prime minister could be a long-drawn out process due the deep polarisation between the rival camps. To make matters worse, Sunni politicians — from whose ranks a prime minister must come, are in complete disarray because of the boycott by Hariri and members of his Future Movement.

Hassan Diab was appointed premier in January 2019 but did not form his government until January 2020, 13 months later, and resigned in August 2020 following the devastating explosion at Beirut Port which killed 219, wounded 6,000 and rendered 300,000 homeless. Hariri’s third appointment as premier took place in October 2020 and he resigned in July 2021 because he could not form a cabinet. Outgoing Prime Minister Najib Mikati, who was anointed after Hariri stepped down, established a government in September 2021. This was an achievement in a short time, given the unstable context.

Having failed in nine months to meet conditions laid down by international organisations for providing financial aid, Mikati’s government, in its last session, adopted, with five ministers opposed, of a controversial financial recovery programme. This adheres to the April 2022 deal reached by the government with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for restructuring and recapitalising the broken banking system while protecting small depositors “as much as possible” from cconfiscation of their savings. This could be highly dangerous for it would be regarded as “stealing” depositors’ money and could reignite the “revolution”. Lebanon’s reward for implementing the deal would be the transfer by the IMF of a mere $3 billion, far from enough to refloat the country’s sinking economy.

This programme could also complicate and delay government formation, thereby prolonging the economic and financial agony of millions of Lebanese and strengthen the country’s currency which has lost 90 per cent of its value against the dollar.

Once a prime minister is in place and his government is approved by parliament, Beirut is meant to address the multiple crises Lebanon faces. So far, three governments have not done so due to the refusal of the political elite to accept change.

Lebanon’s third task will come at the end of October when deputies have to choose a new president. Aoun, 88, is set to leave office and, according to the constitution, cannot serve a second term.

Former prime minister Tammam Salam pointed out in conversation with this correspondent that Aoun said he would “not stay one day longer” in office when his term expires, “unless there is a void”. Political paralysis could provide just such a void.

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