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The range of ideological opposition to U.S. foreign policy is the most diverse since before World War II. Liberal and progressive critics, long the primary bastion of dissent, are once again making their presence known after a lapse during the Obama administration. And, on the right, fissures over U.S. foreign policy, which erupted in 2016, are here to stay. These disparate dissidents are attempting to parlay and turn their shared opposition into action.

Many within the commentariat are confused by this perplexing alliance. Some have slandered this relationship as a tenuous “Red-Brown coalition.” Such characterization is an unfortunate (if not an intentional) mischaracterization of this budding partnership. Left-wing opponents to the foreign policy status quo are not communists. Nor are the ranks of the right overpopulated with Nazis. Instead, the two wings of dissent are the inheritors of distinct but often overlapping strains of foreign policy opposition. Both traditions are firmly rooted in the American experience; neither are alien imports of a totalitarian ideology.

The reemergence of both strains signals a return to an earlier norm where opposition to U.S. foreign policy was not a definitive litmus test for a party or ideological affiliation. Understanding this history and how they came to be consumed by partisan politics should reassure those who desire a change in how the U.S. government conducts itself abroad.

The early interwar period constituted the high point of American non-interventionism in the 21st century. The horrors of the Great War and transpartisan suspicion of centralized power created a broad range of antiwar sentiments. In both Congress and the broader political culture, Americans across the political spectrum opposed American involvement in foreign wars, particularly at the prospect of fighting in Europe. Famous works like War is a Racket by retired major general Smedley Butler challenged the naive assumptions of American foreign policy and charged that economic and government interests had become intertwined. Butler’s treatise was preceded by another expose of the corporatist roots of modern war, Merchants of Death. Authored by H.C. Englebrecht and Frank Hanighen, Merchants of Death served as a forerunner of the “military-industrial complex” concept. They helped to spawn a congressional committee to investigate the origins of U.S. entry into the Great War. The differing ideologies of its authors served as proof of broad antiwar sentiment at the time. Englebrecht was a frequent columnist for The World Tomorrow, a leading magazine for Christian socialists; Hanighen would join the America First Committee (AFC) and co-found Human Events, a leading conservative magazine founded to advocate for non-interventionism.

Despite its reputation as an exclusively conservative organization, the AFC had former progressives among its members, like NAACP co-founder and former editor of the Nation magazine Oswald Garrison Villard and dissident liberals such as journalist John T. Flynn. The AFC also found much of its inspiration from progressive historian Charles Beard. While not officially a member of the AFC, Beard’s views paralleled their efforts. The AFC listed his book, A Foreign Policy for America, Giddy Minds and Foreign Quarrels on their book list, along with other antiwar books like Merchants of Death. Conversely, The Progressive, a left-wing antiwar magazine, ran articles from conservative non-interventionists like Frank Hanighen.

In this fluid ideological environment, boilerplate left-wing critiques of capitalism merged with right-wing criticisms of state power to form a potent opposition to future American involvement in overseas wars.

Despite this early consensus, the Overton Window on American involvement in overseas wars narrowed as Hitler’s armies marched across Europe. Nazi Germany’s conquest of France and the Low Countries and assault on the British Isles turned most liberals towards intervention. Similarly, the German invasion of the Soviet Union caused American communists, who had hitherto been counted among the ranks of the non-interventionists, to flip on a dime and join the cause of the Allies. In this collapsed ideological environment, only predominantly right-wing groups like the America First Committee and progressive holdouts like Charles Beard and The Progressive remained in opposition to U.S. entry into the war during the waning months of 1941. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor caused official American entry into the war and narrowed the contours of American foreign policy debate for a generation.

However, even with the narrative weight of WWII, significant dissent remained across the political spectrum in the critical years before the Cold War became a fixture of American geopolitics. Individuals and groups that opposed conscription and its more encompassing cousin, universal military training, were as ideologically diverse as the American Labor Party and the American Civil Liberties Union on one side and Old Right figures like Howard Buffett (R-NE) on the other. The edges of the political spectrum also opposed the Marshall Plan, military aid to Greece and Turkey, and other key aspects of the early Cold War.

Despite these early dalliances, right and left-wing anti-imperialists were ultimately driven apart by the double burden of defeated fascism during World War II and the escalation of the Cold War. The so-called vital centerwas able to use the legacy of right-wing extremism (fascism) and the presence of the current left-wing threat (communism) to neutralize dissent on either side of the political consensus. Similarly, many so-called “Old Right” non-interventionists were active McCarthyites who relished the opportunity to red-bait individuals who had brown-baited them in the waning days of U.S. neutrality in World War II. Dissidents did, however, remain on either side of the political divide. Examples on the left included organizations like Fair Play for Cuba Committee and National Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy (SANE). On the right, groups like the Citizens Foreign Aid Committee and remnants of the Old Right in Congress opposed critical facets of the Cold War consensus. However, by the mid-1950s, the social costs of association created by hegemonic anticommunism, coupled with substantive differences over nuclear policy and the response to communism in the Western hemisphere, presented an ideological divide too great to span.

The bloodshed and horror of the Vietnam War once again presented opportunities for left-right cooperation. Libertarians like Murray Rothbard, Leonard Liggio, and former Goldwater speechwriter Karl Hess attempted to make inroads with like-minded members of the New Left. To this end, Liggio and Rothbard founded Left and Right, a radical libertarian journal dedicated to, among other things, opposition to the draft, the Vietnam War, and the Cold War generally. Their enterprise, however, was not to last as the cultural and political divides between the two halves were too vast to bridge.

Similarly, in the aftermath of Vietnam, the Republican Party homogenized its foreign policy thinking as the New Right emerged as strident supporters of the Cold War consensus. The transformation of the Republican Right occurred as Vietnam War opposition became ideologically coded as a left-wing, and the vestiges of the Old Right’s non-interventionism were purged from the airwaves by the federal government. The result of this transformation ushered in the Reagan Revolution and set the ideological landscape on foreign policy which remained the norm until 20 years of war snapped the Reaganite consensus.

The current ideological landscape of dissent on U.S. foreign policy is the most diverse it has been since the mid-1930s. The cost in blood and treasure of 20 years of war has opened the minds of vast swathes of the body politic to the idea of foreign policy restraint. And, unlike previous eras, there is no overriding “threat” that should be able to wedge the left and the right apart when it comes to antiwar activism and non-interventionism. While its impact remains to be seen, President Biden’s autocracies v. democracies rhetoric lacks the narrative authority of past authoritarianisms, nor does it possess a clear ideological wedge that can be leveled against either side of the dissident camp.

Also, for the first time since before WWII, left and right-wing antiwar and non-interventionist critiques largely mirror one another. Common to the various strains of foreign policy dissidents, both left and right is a rejection of the corporatist consensus, which created and benefits from the interventionist status quo. While left critics may focus on the capital side of the consensus and the right on the state, they both observe and critique the same institutional problems. There is no ordained reason why opponents of this consensus cannot work around this relatively minor difference in their diagnosis to achieve a shared goal of greater restraint in America’s behavior in the world. If America is to stave off collapse and survive as a political entity resembling a democratic republic, then the left and right need to find ways to do so.

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Brandan P. Buck is a Ph.D. candidate in history at George Mason University where is currently researching the domestic politics of U.S. foreign policy in the 20th Century. Brandan is also a veteran of the war in Afghanistan and former intelligence professional. He occasionally tweets @brandan_buck.

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In the last two weeks, the State Department has deployed an ambitious blackmailing persuasion program on countries located in the so-called “Western Hemisphere”, with the aim of limiting their trade and cooperation ties with Moscow and Beijing. The proximity models deployed in Latin America and the Caribbean offer a wide menu of alternatives that range from threats and sanctions to the offer of better conditions for exports, guarantees for the continuity of remittances or for the extended authorization of visas.

On April 7, the Russian Federation was suspended from the United Nations Human Rights Council, as a result of the denunciations made by Ukraine regarding war crimes. The measure was carried out without surveys or investigations on the ground.

On April 21, it was decided to suspend Russia’s seat as Permanent Observer of the Organization of American States (OAS). In the first vote, Argentina endorsed the suspension, while in the second round, it abstained. While these two votes were taking place, the State Department tried – unsuccessfully – to expel Moscow from the UN Security Council.

No consensus on expelling Russia from G20 – only three countries boycotted Russian Finance Minister

Last Wednesday, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen invited the G20 finance ministers to boycott the speech by Anton Siluanov, head of the Russian finance ministry. The Argentine representative at the meeting held in Washington rejected the boycott and remained on his bench, along with 16 other officials. The only three representatives that left the deliberations were Yellen herself and the ministers from Canada and the United Kingdom.

At the press conference, Yellen justified the limited success of the proposed boycott:

“To expel a country from participation really requires a very high level of agreement in many forums, including the G20, and tn that session, that level of agreement was not present.”

The offensive of sanctions, boycotts and blockades is directly related to the purpose of weakening any country that defends its sovereignty against the rules imposed by the United States, and/or that seeks to articulate alternative commercial blocs to the one configured by Atlanticism.

That was the geopolitical cause for which the ancestral conflict between the Ukrainian and Russian nationalist sectors was stimulated: it sought to prevent the constitution of a Eurasian continental geopolitical axis, capable of articulating Western Europe with Southeast Asia, placing Moscow as a nexus between both continents. Once at war – previously incited –, the highest authority of the US Treasury proposed the next steps:

“The earnings from the sale of oil and gas is an important source of income for Russia. It would be very useful to find a way to reduce that income.”

Washington’s offensive is related to the surprising failure of its sanctions: despite the fact that Russia was separated from the SWIFT system and foreign reserves were frozen, the value of the ruble stabilized at values similar to those exhibited prior to military intervention; Russian gas, oil and coal continue to be shipped to Western Europe; and the Central Bank continues to increase its international reserves. During the last week it added 1,700 million dollars, reaching the sum of 611,100 million. That is the reason why on April 13 the spokeswoman for the White House, Jen Psaki, advanced the request for the exclusion of Vladimir Putin from the next G20 summit, to be held between November 15 and 16 in Bali. To reinforce the pressure, the head of the Treasury held a meeting last Tuesday with the Finance Minister of the Republic of Indonesia, Sri Mulyani Indrawati, to whom she demanded the removal of the Russian President from the list of guests for November.

The State Department’s attack is aimed primarily at Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). In mid-April, officials close to Anthony Blinken connected with the Argentine ambassador in Washington to urge him to question Putin at the UN Human Rights Commission. The decision to accompany Russia’s suspension proposal from said institution was decided by Alberto Fernández, Gustavo Béliz and Santiago Cafiero after the intimidation of extortion insinuated in relation to the continuity of the agreements with the International Monetary Fund.

Diplomatic blackmail

A similar attack has been observed during the last two weeks against the Mexican government, questioned by Washington for its neutrality regarding the Russian military intervention. The irritation of the Biden administration against Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) was expressed in context to the nationalization of lithium – approved during the last week by Parliament – and the approval of the Electricity Industry Law, endorsed by the Supreme Court of Justice. A week before these rulings, the former head of Barack Obama’s State Department and current head of the White House climate agency, John Kerry, warned that the new electricity legislation would generate “deterioration of the environment”, and that its application would result in an exclusion of US companies investing in Mexico. AMLO reported – after his meeting with Kerry – that Washington intended to “impose a group to monitor us, to observe [the debates on electricity regulations]. Nobody allows that. Maybe in other times, with submissive governments, submissive, but these no longer the times of before.

The disappointment over the new electricity regulations adds to the danger – conjectured by US officials – of a potential use of Mexican lithium by Chinese companies. The nationalization of the mineral was approved last Tuesday after its international price increased by 400% in the last year. Lithium is one of the core components of the batteries needed to manufacture electric vehicles. The automotive company Tesla – owned by mega-millionaire Elon Musk – appears as one of the promoters of diplomatic and coercive pressure to guarantee said input and prevent these resources from promoting competition from cars produced by Beijing.

The production of the mineral would have to increase by 500% until 2050 to be able to face the productive reconversion that is intended for the automotive industry. The United States Geological Survey quantifies its neighbor’s holdings at 1.7 million tons – 2.3% of world reserves. The leader is Bolivia, with 21 million, and Argentina appears in second place, with 19 million. On July 24, 2020, Musk responded to an accusation about his participation in the coup against Evo Morales, promoted and endorsed by the State Department: “We will overthrow whoever we want.” According to Kenneth Smith, an embassy contractor, Washington and Ottawa could challenge the nationalization of lithium in Mexico since it violates some of the agreements reached in the T-MEC (Free Trade Agreement signed by Canada, Mexico and the United States). The underlying issue is the fear that China may access some portion of that value chain, or buy its product directly from the state.

The offense is not only against Mexico or Argentina. The White House has openly repudiated the neutrality of the BRICS (economic and political alliance of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) in relation to the military intervention in Ukraine. However, last Tuesday, Jair Bolsonaro’s Minister of Economy, Paulo Guedes, responded to the State Department by announcing that he would propose the Argentina to join the New Development Bank of the BRICS group. The Biden administration’s attack was also frustrated in Panama, where Antony Blinken and Alejandro Mayorkas, Secretaries of State and National Security, were present. The visit sought to promote some type of restriction on ships carrying Chinese or Russian products through the canal, but their requests were not granted. In the case of Honduras, despite the resistance of the Xiomara Castro government, the financial dependence on remittances from relatives residing in the United States imposed an alignment with the situation in Ukraine.

Venezuela is paradoxically one of the most favored. Given the sovereignty acquired by that country since 1999, Biden lacks extortion mechanisms (political, commercial or military), while imploring to dump barrels of oil on the international market to avoid the global inflationary spiral. The same was attempted with Saudi Arabia, a country that was asked to increase oil production in order to lower its price and thus undermine Moscow’s ability to obtain resources. The kingdom, however, refused to increase production.

In the case of Cuba the situation is ambivalent. For the first time since 2018, meetings between US and Cuban officials were held on April 21 to give continuity to the migratory agreements broken by the Washington authorities in the last four years. These meetings granted by the Biden administration seek to decompress the levels of confrontation with Latin America and the Caribbean – while continuing to extort money – to reprioritize what Democratic think tanks call the “Eurasian emergency”. However, the sanctions against Putin seem to make a bigger dent in Russia’s partners than in Moscow: in early February a freighter left Russia with a delivery of 19,526 tons of wheat for Havana. The Russian ambassador in Havana, Andréi Guskov, explained that the delay was due to the disconnection of several Russian banks from the SWIFT system, which prevented the freight from being paid.

Who does not seem to have this type of problems is Colombia, the only country that follows Washington’s recommendations to the letter. While Iván Duque continues without giving explanations about the daily massacres of social leaders and peasants, his authorities automatically join in all the measures and speeches requested by the White House. On Thursday, the spokeswoman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, María Sajárova, highlighted in a statement that

“we take note of the statements made by the President of Colombia on Russian-Colombian relations. We regret that he made them in the spirit of the negative rhetoric imposed on other countries by the United States government.”

The attack against China – promoted by Washington – includes carrots and wishes: the governments of Latin America and the Caribbean are repeatedly told that in the future, they will be able to replace segments of the supply chains, today controlled by China, heralding a new stage of relocation (nearshoring). A move that would boost the growth of the subcontinent, if they are capable of offering reduced internal markets and meager wages.

The model promoted by the Biden administration is that of a permanent fragmentation of the world economy, with two alternative circuits of trade and international cooperation based on geopolitical blocs. To achieve this goal, it must strive to sever solid ties and prevent – simultaneously – Eurasia from failing to escape imposed apartheid.

The novelist Henry Miller slipped, shortly before his death, a doubt that sharply worries international analysts: “My only doubt is to know whether the United States will end the world, or the world is going to end the United States”.

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Prof. Jorge Elbaum is Professor at the University of Buenos Aires. This article previously was published in spanish on Diario y Radio de Universidad de Chile.

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***

The U.S. Government Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) was updated today, and there have now been 1,255,355 cases of adverse reactions filed following COVID-19 vaccines since December of 2020, a 17-month time frame.

This includes 27,758 deaths and 51,600 permanent disabilities. (Source.)

By way of contrast, for the previous 30 years before the COVID vaccines were rushed to market with EUAs (emergency use authorizations), there were 936,214 cases reported with 12,964 deaths and 23,838 permanent disabilities following all FDA-approved vaccines during a 360-month period. (Source.)

That’s a 4,434.22% increase in deaths following COVID-19 vaccines, compared to deaths following ALL FDA-approved vaccines for the previous 30 years.

And yet, the CDC continues to refer to COVID-19 vaccines as “safe and effective.”

“Effective” in what? The symptoms associated with “COVID-19” are easily treatable as many doctors have said since the beginning of the “pandemic” that they were healing COVID-19 patients with older drugs such as Ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine.

The annual “flu virus” has all but disappeared since COVID-19 arrived, so this will go down as the biggest medical scam in the history of the human race.

The CDC and FDA acknowledge that there are serious side effects with these vaccines, but they call them “rare,” a term that is really not defined.

Yesterday, however, the FDA announced that they were only recommending the Janssen COVID-19 vaccine now in certain cases, due to the reports of blood clots following the vaccines.

For Immediate Release:
May 05, 2022

Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has limited the authorized use of the Janssen COVID-19 Vaccine to individuals 18 years of age and older for whom other authorized or approved COVID-19 vaccines are not accessible or clinically appropriate, and to individuals 18 years of age and older who elect to receive the Janssen COVID-19 Vaccine because they would otherwise not receive a COVID-19 vaccine.

Key Points:

• After conducting an updated analysis, evaluation and investigation of reported cases, the FDA has determined that the risk of thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome (TTS), a syndrome of rare and potentially life-threatening blood clots in combination with low levels of blood platelets with onset of symptoms approximately one to two weeks following administration of the Janssen COVID-19 Vaccine, warrants limiting the authorized use of the vaccine.

• The FDA has determined that the known and potential benefits of the vaccine for the prevention of COVID-19 outweigh the known and potential risks for individuals 18 years of age and older for whom other authorized or approved COVID-19 vaccines are not accessible or clinically appropriate, and for individuals 18 years of age and older who elect to receive the Janssen COVID-19 Vaccine because they would otherwise not receive a COVID-19 vaccine.

• The Fact Sheet for Healthcare Providers Administering Vaccine  now reflects the revision of the authorized use of the Janssen COVID-19 Vaccine and includes a warning statement at the beginning of the fact sheet for prominence which summarizes information on the risk for TTS. Additionally, information on the revision to the authorized use of the vaccine and updated information on this risk of blood clots with low levels of blood platelets has been added to the Fact Sheet for Recipients and Caregivers.

Full press release here.

How long before they issue similar statements for the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines? Probably when a new class of COVID vaccines hit the market, so that the cash can keep flowing to the Pharmaceutical companies, who are the real entities they are protecting, and not the public.

Here are some more deaths of younger people who believed the propaganda about the COVID-19 vaccines but would probably regret their decisions, if they were still alive.

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Frank Harrington Jr: 44-year-old father of four diagnosed with aggressive post-injection brain cancer, dies three weeks later

by the COVID Blog

PULASKI, NEW YORK — A 44-year-old father, grandfather, and long-time worker for a heat transfer equipment manufacturer is dead, as post-injection cancer continues claiming lives across the globe.

Mr. Frank Harrington Jr. practically lived on social media. He posted at least 15 times per day on Facebook since April 2021. Thus it is difficult to scan his entire profile, as Facebook overloads and freezes. One thing is clear. Mr. Harrington never posted the band-aid “I’m vaccinated” photos to his profile. It’s also clear that Mr. Harrington was a mask zealot, vaxx zealot and very loyal to the overall COVID-19 faith.

The mask and COVID zealotry started very early in the so-called pandemic. Keep in mind that Mr. Harrington rarely posted original thoughts. Most of his Facebook posts were memes and images.

He mocked people who caught the flu at a Wisconsin protest against lockdowns in May 2020.

A few days later, he mockingly compared the American Revolution to wearing masks.

By August 31, 2021, Mr. Harrington mocked people who died from so-called COVID-19. It can be reasonably assumed that he had received his first two injections by this time.

Three weeks later, Mr. Harrington equated parents who opposed masks for their kids at school, to Casey Anthony.

He then referred to the non-vaccinated as “drama queens” on October 12, 2021, and compared experimental mRNA injections to the measles and tetanus shots from the 1970s.

Mr. Harrington also fallaciously equated 1950s polio vaccines to the experimental mRNA injections in late December 2021.

Liberal vaxx zealotry would not be complete without their misconceptions about Donald Trump. For whatever reason, these types want to believe so badly that Trump is an “anti-vaxxer” when in fact he is one of the top 20 vaxx zealots in the United States.

Sad irony and death

Mr. Harrington continued his attacks on the non-vaccinated after the New Year. He mockingly posted on January 11 that the non-vaccinated would rather drink urine than receive experimental mRNA injections.

Again, Mr. Harrington never posted his band-aid/needle photos. But he made clear on January 20, 2022, “I’ll get vaccinated again” in order to see Rage Against the Machine in concert.

The sad parts of this story unfolded from this point forward. Mr. Harrington apparently lost 70 pounds from January 2021 to January 2022.

He wrote on February 3 that friends and family were teasing him, and asking if he had cancer due to the major weight loss.

Almost exactly two months later, on April 2, 2022, Mr. Harrington was diagnosed with grade IV glioblastoma multiforme. It is one of the most aggressive brain cancers known to man. It is also the same brain cancer that Atlanta news anchor Jovita Moore developed less than two weeks after her second Pfizer mRNA injection in April 2021. Ms. Moore died six months later, on October 29, 2021, which is about the longest prognosis patients with this condition can expect.

Mr. Harrington had brain surgery on Friday, April 8 to remove as much of the malignant tumors as possible. Unfortunately some of the masses were inoperable.

Mr. Harrington underwent several rounds of chemotherapy and radiation to treat the inoperable tumor in the following weeks. But the cancer was far too aggressive. Mrs. Dawn Draper Harrington, Frank’s widow, announced that her husband passed away on Monday morning, April 25.

He was laid to rest on April 30.

Read the full article at the COVID Blog.

Click here to read more cases.

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One month after the commencement of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, peace talks in Istanbul were already in the pipeline.

There were reports of concessions from both sides, indicating fruitful negotiations. However, it seems that the said development has been quashed by the continuous huge inflow of military aid from Western allies into the besieged nation.

Given Russia’s  objectives and Ukraine’s relentless appeal for international support to “win” the war, is peace even on the horizon? Or are we facing the imminent danger of a third world war?

Read our selection below and take the liberty of sharing and forwarding.

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A Statement on Ukraine from the Black Liberation Movement

By Black Liberation Movement Organizations, May 05, 2022

The ongoing crisis and war in Ukraine threatens to pull the world into a disastrous nuclear confrontation. Disinformation, lies, and propaganda from the US and other western media are aimed at confusing millions of people inside the US and around the world to view Russia as the aggressor, while hiding the US role in the evolution of this conflict.

Congress Must Reject the Application to Russia of the Crazy AUMF (Post 9/11 Authorization for Use of Military Force)

By Daniel Larison, May 05, 2022

The US has no business joining the war in Ukraine, and Congress should refuse to approve any measure that endorses direct intervention in the conflict. Rep. Adam Kinzinger is sponsoring a new resolution authorizing the use of American military force in the war, and it is vital that Congress rejects it.

Nancy and the Nazis. Speaker of the House Arrived Unannounced in Ukraine

By Kurt Nimmo, May 05, 2022

On April 30, the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, arrived unannounced in Ukraine with a small congressional delegation. Pelosi met withPresident Volodymyr Zelenskyy and received the Order of Princess Olga (or Olha) award. It is an ideal award for a woman who celebrated the gruesome murder of Libya’s Moammar Gaddafi by Obama and his NATO assassins.

Are the Neocons Setting Up the World for Nuclear War?

By Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, May 04, 2022

A false flag event is not the only avenue to nuclear war.  The expansion of NATO to Finland and Sweden is another.  Washington is not only pressuring the governments to apply for NATO membership but also is bribing Swedish and Finnish government officials to do so.  

“World War III is Closer than Ever”: US War Machine to Increase Lethal Military Aid by Sending “Suicide Drones” to Ukraine

By Timothy Alexander Guzman, May 04, 2022

Despite the US economic decline, the Biden regime is sending another $33 billion to support Ukraine’s war efforts against Russia. Biden called on the US congress with the majority who are in the pockets of the Military-Industrial Complex to provide Ukraine with the necessary assistance to defeat Russia.

“Preemptive Nuclear War”: The Historic Battle for Peace and Democracy. A Third World War Threatens the Future of Humanity

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, May 04, 2022

At no point since the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6th, 1945, has humanity been closer to the unthinkable. All the safeguards of the Cold War era, which categorized the nuclear bomb as “a weapon of last resort”, have been scrapped.

Dangerous Ambiguity: UK Policy Towards Ukraine. “A War of Attrition with No End in Sight”

By Richard Norton-Taylor, May 02, 2022

After resisting Ukraine’s pleas for help for so long – while sending entirely wrong messages to Putin – the government now seems to do whatever Volodymyr Zelensky wants both in supplying weapons and in war aims.

Enormous U.S. Military Spending, EU Dragged into Abyss of War against Russia. Italy Out of the War!

By Manlio Dinucci, May 01, 2022

The US and NATO are thus conducting a proxy war against Russia in Europe, which began with the 2014 coup d’état and the attack on the Russian populations of Ukraine. Dramatic evidence of this is the massacre in Odessa on May 2, 2014, carried out by the neo-Nazi forces – Pravi Sektor, Azov Battalion and others – that have since assumed power in Kiev.

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First published on May 4, 2022

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Despite the US economic decline, the Biden regime is sending another $33 billion to support Ukraine’s war efforts against Russia. Biden called on the US congress with the majority who are in the pockets of the Military-Industrial Complex to provide Ukraine with the necessary assistance to defeat Russia. A CBS news report titled ‘Biden asks Congress for $33 billion in Ukraine aid to ramp up pressure on Russia’ on Biden’s recent comments on the proposed bill, he said,

“That’s why today, in order to sustain Ukraine as it continues to fight, I’m sending Congress a supplemental budget request,” he said. “It’s going to keep weapons and ammunitions flowing without interruption to the brave Ukrainian fighters and continue delivering economic and humanitarian assistance to the Ukrainian people.”

The majority of the $33 billion, around $20 billion of the US taxpayer-funded war will be used for “artillery, armored vehicles and anti-armor and anti-air capabilities, according to the White House.”

Washington and the Military-Industrial Complex will continue to instigate war with Russia by continuing to send the Ukrainian military and their Nazi battalions more suicide drones.  In a report by Military.com ‘The Phoenix Ghost, a Secretive ‘Suicide Drone’ Developed in California, Is Headed to Ukraine’ said that “the Ukrainian military will soon begin tracking and attacking Russian forces with a secret new “suicide drone” produced by Aevex Aerospace, a little-known Solana Beach company that has considerable experience with unmanned aerial systems.”  The Biden regime is supposed to send more than 121 of the Phoenix Ghost drones to the Ukraine:

Defense analysts say it appears the Phoenix Ghost will loiter in the sky, quietly looking for targets. Once it finds one, the drone goes into a dive and rams the object, setting off its explosive warhead. Analysts speculate that it is a comparatively small weapon that could be hard to see against the cloud cover that shrouds much of Ukraine in late April and in May

The Pentagon has been developing the Phoenix Ghost drones since last February, “We can’t talk about details,” said Brian Raduenz, the retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who serves as chief executive officer of Aevex Aerospace. “I have to refer you to the remarks that John Kirby made about this.”  John Kirby, a Pentagon press secretary and then a spokesman for the State Department under Barack Obama recently had a press conference briefing and mentioned the Phoenix Ghost drone and said that

it has “been in development before the invasion, clearly.  The Air Force was working this.  And in discussions with the Ukrainians, again, about their requirements, we believed that this particular system would very nicely suit their needs, particularly in eastern Ukraine” and later concluded that “This unmanned aerial system is designed for tactical operations. In other words, largely, but not exclusively, to attack targets. … It can also be used to give you a site picture of what it is seeing, of course. But it’s principal focus is attack…its purpose is akin to that of the Switchblade, which we have been talking about in the past, which is basically a one-way drone and attack drone. And that’s essentially what this is designed to do.” (emphasis added)

A U.S. Marine launches a lethal miniature aerial missile system during an exercise at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, Calif. on Sept. 2, 2020. According to reports on Saturday, April 30, 2022, the new Phoenix Ghost drone, recently developed and said to function similarly to the Switchblade drone, is being sent to Ukraine. (Jennessa Davey/U.S. Marine Corps )

The switch blade is described as a

“quiet, lightweight, all-electric drone made by AeroVironment.” AeroVironment also produces another drone which is a “5.5-pound 300 version of Switchblade can be carried in a soldier’s backpack and quickly launched — making it highly useful for Ukrainian soldiers who are trying to maneuver around Russian troop and vehicles. The larger 600 version of Switchblade is being used to destroy Russian tanks and armored vehicles, many which litter roads in the Donbas region of Ukraine.” 

Militay.com said that the Biden regime has sent over 1,000 switchblades to the Ukraine so far, a move that surely angered Moscow.

Russia has warned the US and its NATO allies that they were “adding fuel” to the conflict and that there can be “unpredictable consequences.”  Washington and its NATO allies are not listening, they should know that Russia is not bluffing.  What will happen if this continues?

I believe World War III is closer than ever before, so why does Washington want this war in the first place?

Well since the US economy is collapsing with tensions increasing between liberals and conservatives and an increase of violent crime that is sweeping across the nation followed by an influx of illegal immigration on its southern borders, Washington has failed on every level.

This leads to what Gerald Celente of the Trends Journal has famously said “when all else fails, they take you to war!” Given the rapid decline of the US empire, Celente’s quote should not be taken lightly during these dangerous times.  War is coming soon; times will be very different so prepare for the worst.

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Timothy Alexander Guzman writes on his own blog site, Silent Crow News, where this article was originally published. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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a

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“I am saying to you today, that for the first time, Pakistan’s policies won’t be for the few rich people, it will be for the poor, for our women, for our minorities, whose rights are not respected. My whole aim will be to protect our lower classes and to bring them up.”

–  Imran Khan, 2018 election campaign speech [1]

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In the early hours of April 9, the Prime Minister of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, Imran Ahmed Khan Niazi, faced a no-confidence motion in the country’s National Assembly resulting in his removal from power. This was the first time ever that an official of his stature was removed in such a manner. [2]

What makes this move so geopolitically significant was the unique significance of this state as a square on the tabletop of the grand chessboard between the United States, and Russia and China.

On the one hand, Pakistan has traditionally used the country’s military and the intelligence services, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), as partners. Over the course of the last twenty years, the Islamic State was a leading local site from which to launch air and ground operations in favor of America’s War on Terrorism. And as Michel Chossudovsky wrote back at the time of the infamous September 11th terrorist attacks, the ISI played a key role in acting as a “go-between” between the CIA and the Islamic jihadists in Afghanistan going back to 1979. This would in large part lead to the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union. [3][4]

On the other hand, Pakistan has gained partners both in Russia and in China. There was a vital 1100km gas pipeline project between Lahore and Karachi in which the goods would be provided from Russia. And in November of 2014, Russia and Pakistan signed a defense cooperation pact followed by a military-technical cooperation agreement all of which would serve toward “Strengthening of mutual trust and international security, counter-terrorist and arms control activities.” [5][6][7]

And then there was China’s “One Belt One Road” initiative, which would ultimately help undermine dependence on the Strait of Malacca and building a conduit between China and West Asia and the Middle East. [8]

These alliances have been tightening under the new leader Khan. On the same night Russian President Vladimir Putin authorized the Ukraine intervention, Khan had been meeting with him to discuss a wide variety of subjects including economic and energy cooperation. He did not announce a formal disapproval of the intervention in Ukraine then, nor did he do it when he returned home. [9][10]

Did Khan then cross the rubicon and slot himself in the bad books of Washington? Maybe it’s a coincidence, but in the lead-up to the National Assembly vote of no confidence, Prime Minister Khan cited the following quote of U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Donald Lu as evidence the U.S. was behind this move:

“If Prime Minister Imran Khan remained in office, then Pakistan will be isolated from the United States and we will take the issue head on; but if the vote of no-confidence succeeds, all will be forgiven.” [11]

Was this yet another plot of regime change by the United States? And how would the people coming out in unprecedented number in support of their removed Prime Minister prevail in his return to power? We will examine these questions on this edition of the Global Research News Hour.

In Part One of our series, we will talk to Professor Junaid Ahmad, who has a background in Pakistan about the details of the coup, the reasons for Khan to go, and the resulting push back from the people of Pakistan. And in our second half hour, we present a repeat broadcast from October of 2012 of an interview with Professor Michel Chossudovsky, founder/director of the Centre for Research on Globalization. His talk mostly deals with Afghanistan and 9/11, although he touches also on Pakistan’s then pivotal role in the military-intelligent quagmire surrounding the whole affair.

Junaid S. Ahmad teaches Religion, Law, and Politics and is the Director of the Center for the Study of Islam and Decoloniality. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Michel Chossudovsky is the author of thirteen books including The Globalization of War: America’s Long War Against Humanity (2015), and the international best America’s “War on Terrorism”  Second Edition (2005). He is Professor of Economics at the University of Ottawa and Director of the Center for Research on Globalization. 

(Global Research News Hour Episode 354)

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Other stations airing the show:

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Notes:

1. ‘Imran Khan’s speech in full’ (July 26, 2018), Al Jazeera;

   https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/7/26/imran-khans-speech-in-full

2. No-Trust Motion: Imran Khan Becomes First Prime Minister To Be Voted Out Of Power (April 10, 2022), The Nation; https://nation.com.pk/2022/04/10/no-trust-motion-imran-khan-becomes-first-prime-minister-to-be-voted-out-of-pow/

3. https://asiatimes.com/2021/05/pakistan-leans-towards-giving-us-military-bases/
4. https://www.globalresearch.ca/september-11-2001-the-crimes-of-war-committed-in-the-name-of-911/5311561
5. https://cscr.pk/explore/themes/trade-economics/pakistan-russia-china-emerging-coalition/
6. https://www.ilaan.com/news/gas-pipelines-to-be-laid-from-lahore-to-karachi
7. https://dsm.forecastinternational.com/wordpress/2019/05/03/russia-and-pakistan-a-new-arms-deal-on-the-horizon/
8. https://cscr.pk/explore/themes/trade-economics/pakistan-russia-china-emerging-coalition/
9. https://www.gulftoday.ae/news/2022/02/24/pakistan-prime-minister-imran-khan-in-russia-to-meet-putin
10. https://www.globalresearch.ca/regime-change-islamabad/5776219
11. https://www.globalresearch.ca/pakistan-pivot-russia-ouster-imran-khan/5777970?utm_campaign=magnet&utm_source=article_page&utm_medium=related_articles

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First published May 1, 2022

The Office for National Statistics has revealed without realising it that children are up to 52 times more likely to die following Covid-19 vaccination than children who have not had the Covid-19 vaccine.

Source Data

Back on 20th Dec 21, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) published a dataset containing details on ‘deaths by vaccination status in England’ between 1st Jan and 31st Oct 21.

The dataset contains various tables showing details such as, ‘Monthly age-standardised mortality rates by vaccination status for deaths involving COVID-19’, and ‘Monthly age-standardised mortality rates by vaccination status for non-COVID-19 deaths’.

What the dataset also includes is ‘age-standardised mortality rates by age-group and vaccination status for all deaths’, however they have conveniently left out the data for children, and only included data on age groups over the age of 18.

What they also did in the data they included is bunch all young adults together meaning the rates of death are calculated for 18-39 year-olds, a total of 22 years. But for every other age group the rates of death are calculated for a total of 10 years, with 40-49, 50-59 etc.

However, on table 9 of the ‘Deaths by Vaccination Status’ dataset, the ONS have inadvertently provided enough details on deaths among children and teenagers by vaccination status for us to calculate the mortality rates ourselves, and to put it bluntly, they are horrifying, and make it obvious as to why the ONS chose to exclude children from the mortality rates dataset.

What the ONS have done, as can be seen in the above table, is provide an age standardised mortality rate per 100,000 person-years, rather than per 100,000 population.

The reason for this is that the size of each vaccination status population has been changing all the time, due to the unvaccinated moving into the one-dose category, and the one-dose vaccinated moving into the two-dose vaccinated category throughout the year.

So by doing it this way it provides a much more accurate picture of the mortality rates because it accounts both the number of people and the amount of time a person has spent in each vaccination status.

And on table 9, the ONS have provided us with the number of deaths by vaccination status among children and teenagers, and have kindly also provided us with the person-years, meaning we can calculate the mortality rate per 100,000 person years for 10-14 year olds, and 15-19 year olds by vaccination status.

According to the ONS, between 2nd January and 31st October 2021 there were 96 deaths recorded among 10-14-year-olds who had not been vaccinated, and 160 deaths recorded among 15-19-year-olds who had not been vaccinated.

The ONS have calculated the person-years among unvaccinated 10-14 year-olds during this period to be 2,094,711, whilst they’ve calculated person-years among unvaccinated 15-19 year-olds during this period to be 1,587,072.

To work out the mortality-rate per 100,000 person years all we need to now do is divide the person-years by 100,000, and then divide the number of deaths by the answer to that equation.

So for 10-14 year-olds we perform the following calculation –

• 2,094,711 (person-years) / 100,000 = 20.94711
• 96 (deaths) / 20.94711 = 4.58

Therefore, the mortality rate per 100,000 person-years among unvaccinated 10-14-year-olds is 4.58 deaths per 100,000 person-years between 1st Jan and 31st Oct 21.

By using the same formula we find that the the mortality rate among unvaccinated 15-19-year-olds is 10.08 deaths per 100,000 person-years.

Now all we have to do is use the same formula to calculate the mortality rate among one-dose vaccinated and two dose vaccinated 10-14, and 15-19 year-olds, by using the person-years and number of deaths provided by the ONS in table 9 of their ‘Deaths by Vaccination Status’ report, which are as follows –

Source Data

Source Data

Here are the calculated mortality rates by vaccination status among 15-19-year-olds based on the ONS calculated person-years –

Source Data

And here are the calculated mortality rates by vaccination status among 10-14-year-olds based on the ONS calculated person-years –

Source Data

These figures are horrifying. The ONS data shows that between 1st Jan and 31st Oct 21, children aged 10-14 were statistically 10 times more likely to die than unvaccinated children, and teenagers aged 15-19 were statistically 2 times more likely to die than unvaccinated teenagers.

But it’s the double vaccinated figures that are truly frightening.

The ONS data shows that between 1st Jan and 31st Oct 21, teenagers aged 15-19 were statistically 3 times more likely to die than unvaccinated teenagers, but children aged 10-14 were statistically 52 times more likely to die than unvaccinated children, recording a death rate of 238.37 per 100,000 person years.

Source Data

But these figures are in fact even worse than they first appear, as if they weren’t already bad enough. This is because the unvaccinated mortality rate among 10-14-year-olds includes children aged 10 and 11 who are not eligible for vaccination.

Whereas the vaccinated mortality rates do not include 10 and 11 year olds because they were not eligible for vaccination at the time, with the JCVI only recently recommending on 22nd Dec 21 that 5 to 11-year-old children deemed to be high risk should be offered a Covid-19 vaccination.

Therefore, if the Covid-19 injections were not causing the untimely deaths of children then we would actually expect to see a mortality rate that is lower among the vaccinated population than the mortality rate among the unvaccinated population, not a mortality rate that is similar, and certainly not a mortality rate 52 times higher.

This jaw dropping and horrifying data should be national headline news.

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First published on April 20, 2022

***

There had been an increase in the number of women who have lost their unborn or newly born children in the United States following their Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccination. The number has now surpassed 4,000, just 16 months after the first COVID vaccine was given emergency use authorization.

By comparison, only 565 women have lost their children following flu vaccinations since 1990. By comparing the flu shots for the previous 30 years to the COVID-19 shots in the past 16 months, you can get an average of 1.5 fetal deaths per month following the flu shots and an average of 251 fetal deaths a month following the COVID-19 vaccines. That is a 16,633 percent increase in fetal deaths following COVID-19 vaccines compared to flu vaccines.

While that number is already alarming, it is actually much worse that because there had been more flu jabs administered during pregnancy over a period of 30 years.

During the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) update on April 8, over 100 cases were added where an unborn child died after the mother received a COVID-19 vaccine, bringing the total number of fetal deaths to 4,023.

To put that in perspective, there had only been 2,238 recorded deaths of unborn babies in VAERS over the 30 years following the administration of all other FDA-approved vaccines combined prior to the emergency use authorization of the COVID-19 vaccines in December 2020.

In data pulled from VAERS, the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine has caused more fetal deaths after being injected into pregnant women than any other vaccine in the history of the United States.

For the previous 30 years before the vaccines were given emergency use authorization, Merck’s Gardasil vaccine, which was approved by the FDA in 2006, had the most recorded fetal deaths with a record of 563 in 14 years.

Still, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) continue to recommend the COVID-19 vaccines for pregnant women. The FDA is said to be planning on modeling the COVID-19 vaccines after the flu vaccines to keep injecting people every year with the shots.

Pfizer vaccines resulted in spontaneous abortions and ectopic pregnancies

In a study made by Pfizer, 23 of 32 expectant mothers who received Pfizer’s COVID vaccines resulted in “spontaneous abortions” or miscarriages. It was also found that there had been over 50 times increase in ectopic pregnancies, which result in fetal death.

Experts have long warned expectant mothers against getting the mRNA vaccines, including vaccine expert Pamela Acker and former Pfizer executive Michael Yeadon, who both said that women of childbearing age should reject getting the vaccine entirely. Yeadon stressed that inadequately tested medicines and medicinal products should not be tested on pregnant women.

Despite evidence showing the dangers of the mRNA shots to unborn children, the CDC maintains that people aged 18 to 49 with certain medical conditions, including pregnancy, should be inoculated – including a booster dose.

Data from different surveillance systems did not indicate the safety signals regarding pregnancies or neonatal outcomes associated with the vaccinations. However, experts believe that fetal deaths are associated with the vaccines, especially in women who have been vaccinated early in their pregnancies.

Dr. Simone Gold, the founder of America’s Frontline Doctors, previously said there are known potential mid-pregnancy risks with the use of the vaccine, noting that there is a high risk of mid-pregnancy miscarriages.

“It’s lunacy to get this experimental vaccine if you’re a young female. It’s that simple, I would flat out forbid any young female from getting this vaccine, and I think it’s very unethical for any physician to offer this to a young female,” she said.

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First published on January 19, 2022

***

Among the first reports handed over by Pfizer was a ‘Cumulative Analysis of Post-authorization Adverse Event Reports’ describing events reported to Pfizer up until February 2021.

Netflix reality TV star Maya Vander told her fans last week of her devastating grief after she delivered a stillborn baby at 38 weeks of pregnancy December 9.

“Yesterday was the hardest day of my life,” Vander, 39, posted on Instagram, with a picture of new baby clothes in a memory box she was taking home from hospital instead of her baby boy. “I always heard of it but never imagined I’ll be part of the statistics.”

Vander, a Beverly Hills real estate agent who stars on the show “Selling Sunset,” had posted a photo of herself in November from a pregnancy shoot and looked the picture of health. Described as “fully vaccinated,” by US magazine, Vander has two other children: Aiden, two, and daughter Elle, one.

After her loss, she wrote in Insider magazine that she had felt less movement from the baby a few days before she learned her baby had died and also that her husband and two children were COVID-positive, although she had tested negative. She said the baby, who was “perfect” and weighed seven pounds and four ounces, would be autopsied.

There was a flurry of sympathetic news coverage about Vander’s loss, but not one article dared to ask burning questions: did COVID shots during her pregnancy have something to do with this baby’s death? Or did COVID have something to do with it, and the COVID shots failed?

Data Pfizer didn’t want you to see

When a group called Public Health and Medical Professionals for Transparency asked Pfizer to share the raw data from their COVID vaccine trials and post-marketing surveillance that was used to license the injection, the pharma giant linked up with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to refuse the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.

In fact, the FDA (meant to serve and protect public health) hired Justice Department lawyers and went to court to shield the pharmaceutical giant from having to reveal its data – for 55 years. That’s right. The FDA and Pfizer did not want anyone to see the numbers behind their COVID vaccine until 2076.

Fortunately, a judge ruled that the FDA and Pfizer would have to answer their FOIA requests. Among the first reports handed over by Pfizer was a “Cumulative Analysis of Post-authorization Adverse Event Reports” describing events reported to Pfizer up until February 2021.

It reveals that the drug behemoth received more than 150,000 serious adverse event reports within three months of rolling out its COVID shot, but here we will focus on Table 6 of the data on pregnant and lactating women who received the shots in the first few months of the rollout, which began December 11. Most of these women would have been healthcare workers because that was who the first rounds of shots went to. As the clinical trials preceding the rollout excluded pregnant women, these would have been the first pregnant and lactating women to have ever received the vaccines.

Table 6 states that of 270 “unique pregnancies” that were exposed to the vaccine, “no outcome was provided for 238 pregnancies.”

This leaves 32 pregnancies with known outcomes.

Pfizer’s report states that there were 23 spontaneous abortions (miscarriages), two premature births with neonatal death, two spontaneous abortions with intrauterine death, one spontaneous abortion with neonatal death, and one pregnancy with “normal outcome.” That means that of 32 pregnancies with known outcome, 28 resulted in fetal death.

Pfizer’s report states that there were five pregnancies with “outcome pending” as well as the 238 with “no outcome provided.” But 32 minus 28 equals four, not five.

Because of this confusion, I called Pfizer and emailed questions to their media rep. Were 28 of 32 known pregnancy outcomes actually fatal in the first 10 weeks that the vaccine became available, as their report suggests? That’s an 87.5% pregnancy loss rate? And only one pregnancy outcome was “normal”? Please correct me if I’m wrong about this.

No reply.

The FDA would have had these data in their hands by the end of April. Maybe this is why they wanted to hide it for 55 years?

Ordinarily, when a new drug or medical device is put into action, the onus is, and should be, on the drug maker to prove that any unexpected events that occur afterwards are not related to the product. “All spontaneous reports have an implied causal relationship as per regulatory guidance, regardless of the reporter’s assessment,” according to adverse event reporting guidelines. But Pfizer and the FDA ignored events with temporal association and plausible cause for injury and have blithely declared the vaccine “safe and effective” for pregnant women.

Allowed it to be mandated, even.

Canadian stillbirth reports

In Canada, there have been whistleblower reports claiming spiking stillborn death rates after COVID injections. A retired doctor in British Columbia, Dr. Mel Bruchet, claimed in November that he was told by doulas that there had been 13 stillbirths in a 24-hour period at the Lion’s Gate Hospital in Vancouver. A grandmother whose grandbaby was stillborn at the hospital tweeted November 21: “My daughter got that damned poison vaccine one month ago because she couldn’t go to a restaurant, and people were freaking out because that she was unvaxxed. I want to sue the government.” The message was scrubbed from Twitter.

Dr. Daniel Nagase, an Alberta doctor who was ordered to leave his Alberta hospital for treating three COVID patients (all of whom who went home from hospital alive) with ivermectin, told a reporter that he had been informed of 86 stillbirths in Waterloo, Ontario between January and July.

“Normally, it’s only five or six stillbirths every year. So, about one stillbirth every two months is the usual rate,” he said. “So, to suddenly get to 86 stillbirths in six months, that’s highly unusual. But, the most important confirmation that we have from the Waterloo, Ontario report was that all of the [mothers of the] 86 stillbirths were fully vaccinated.”

Fuzzy fact-checks

Media and hospitals immediately decried the claims as misinformation, but their “fact-checks” did not actually refute them. They provided data from the “last fiscal year,” or from April to August.

“Data specifically from Lions Gate Hospital could not be disclosed due to privacy reasons,” said Global News. They gave not-so-reassuring statements from doctor like, “There is a growing body of evidence that the vaccination is safe.” The “growing body of evidence” is clearly coming from the pregnant women and their babies themselves who are the clinical trial.

Factcheck quoted the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website which confirms this, stating that, according to the CDC, “the benefits of receiving a COVID-19 vaccine outweigh any known or potential risks of vaccination during pregnancy” (emphasis added). That’s cover-your-butt language. We are not responsible until we know there is a problem or until we see a potential risk realized.

‘You will die in ICU’

When independent MP Rick Nicholls raised a question about stillbirths in the Ontario legislature, the minister of health only replied that the CDC and Food and Drug Administration are recommending the jabs.

“She didn’t even answer properly, just repeated what all the other puppets always say, ‘it’s safe,’” commented one mother, Chané Neveling. “This makes me so mad. I just had my baby girl in July [and] the amount or pressure I felt from my doctors to get the [vaccine] while pregnant almost made me go against my morals and I almost got it. My OBGYN’s exact words to me were ‘you are stupid for not getting it. You will die in ICU.’”

If doctors are fearmongering like that to patients, is it unreasonable to think there is at least a problem of under-reporting of adverse events following vaccination? What doctor who is so dogmatic about his latest pharma cocktail is going to consider (let alone admit) there could be a problem with it?

There are 3,604 reports of spontaneous abortions, miscarriages, stillbirths, and neonate deaths on the U.S. Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) through December 10, 2021. These include thousands of miscarriages and early pregnancy losses shortly after injection of experimental gene-modifying mRNA COVID vaccines; reports of babies that abruptly stop growing, or experience a stroke in utero; of malformed babies; a baby dying from an inflamed placenta; and a baby born fatally bleeding from its mouth, nose, and lungs. A surprising number of these reports note that there was no autopsy done and admit “no further information.” It’s as if public health doesn’t want to know what caused these babies to die – even if there are plenty of reasonable theories to explain why these events might be occurring.

VigiBase data

Given the high numbers of doses given, the number of adverse events continues to climb. VigiBase, the database of the World Health Organization, reports pregnancy complications including:

• 3,952 spontaneous abortions
• 353 foetal deaths
• 189 missed abortions
• 166 premature labours
• 160 premature babies
• 154 abortions
• 150 slow movement of unborn baby
• 146 hemorrhages in pregnancy
• 132 premature deliveries
• 123 fetal growth restriction
• 120 stillbirths
• 105 ectopic pregnancies
• 90 pre-eclampsia

Problematic studies

Public health agencies justify these dangers by claiming that women (or their babies) are more likely to experience them with exposure to the virus than to the vaccine – but they provide no evidence for this. The study they refer to most comes from the CDC itself. A comparison of stillbirth rates in 1,249,634 deliveries at 736 hospitals during March 2020–September 2021 among women with and without COVID infection, it establishes that there was indeed a surge in stillbirths – but not at the height of the first deadly wave of the virus, only “during the period of Delta variant predominance,” i.e., after pregnant women were being pressured into vaccines. CDC wouldn’t consider that the experimental, “novel platform” mRNA injections could be the reason that stillbirth affected only 0.98% of COVID-19–affected deliveries pre-Delta compared to 2.70% after the vaccines were introduced.

“Vaccination status was unable to be assessed in this analysis,” the CDC wrote. This is the agency that is calling for vaccine mandates and introducing QR codes across the country. It can demand to know if you are vaccinated or not if you want to go to your local restaurant, or gym, or football game, but for a national study of its “most critical,” supposedly lifesaving intervention during a supposedly unprecedented global pandemic, it’s just not possible for the most powerful health agency in the world to determine vaccination status? Everyone knows that every pregnant woman entering a hospital for the past 18 months gets a COVID test. The CDC knows which women were vaccinated and which weren’t in this, it just doesn’t want to tell us.

COVID vaccine science is like their abortion ‘science’

Instead, the CDC “experts” resort to platitudes. “However, because COVID-19 vaccines are highly effective, and COVID-19 vaccination coverage among pregnant women was approximately 30% as of July 2021, most women with COVID-19 at delivery were likelyunvaccinated” (emphasis added). Why does that sound so unscientific? Good science isn’t usually an assumption based on a slogan added to a guesstimate. Haven’t we seen this kind of science before? When they told us that women don’t have complications after abortion – and the CDC did their magical disappearing act of all the sepsis and the bleed outs, the perforated wombs and the post-abortion psychological sequelae? They just pay the right scientists to manipulate the data and whitewash the unwanted numbers until they vanish. Nothing to see. Vaccine science is just like abortion science. Now, they’re literally fusing.

82% pregnancy loss?

Another study that’s being heavily relied upon by the “experts” is from the New England Journal of Medicine. However, its authors at the CDC were forced to issue a major correction when analysts recognized their data calculations actually showed the possibility of an 82% miscarriage rate in early pregnancy, while it concluded that COVID shots were safe and effective.

Initially the study was published with Table 4 showing “Spontaneous Abortion” after vaccination. The authors claimed that 104 pregnancy losses divided by 827 pregnancies resulted in 12.6% pregnancy loss rate, which is within a normal range. However, as Deanna McLeod, a professional cancer data analyst from Kaleidoscope Strategic Inc.in Toronto, and her colleagues pointed out in a letter to the NEJM, in the tiny print below the table was a statement that a “total of 700 participants received their first eligible dose in the third trimester.” Since the definition of spontaneous abortion pertains to pregnancy loss under 20 weeks gestation, that meant 700 women didn’t belong in the denominator because when they were vaccinated, they were already past the point of being able to have a spontaneous abortion. So, properly read, the fraction changed from 104/827 to 104/127 (81.9%). Hence, an 82% pregnancy loss rate for the first trimester pregnancies.

The CDC experts wrote a correction but the New England Journal of Medicine actually just erased the faulty denominator from the original publication and kept all the same conclusions.

The 82% figure has been bandied about quite a bit, and McLeod told LifeSite that it is likely an overestimate, but the true pregnancy outcome is still not available and in fact other scientists have looked at the data and calculated a 91.2% early pregnancy loss rate. These figures fit with Pfizer’s hidden data.

Researchers published a follow-up to the study but that was equally flawed. “First, they start with the absurd premise that ‘there is no compelling biological reason to expect that mRNA COVID-19 vaccination (either preconception or during pregnancy) presents a risk to pregnancy’” says Jeremy Hammond, an independent journalist and political analyst who has analyzed flu shot data in pregnancy. “That’s a bald-faced lie, of course, since maternal immune activation in and of itself is a compelling biological mechanism known to be associated with fetal harm.”

Next, Hammond says, “they confounded their analysis of the risk of vaccination during pregnancy by including women who were vaccinated up to 30 days before conception but offered no reason for this.” Then, the defined spontaneous abortion as pregnancy loss between six and 20 weeks, thereby excluding all losses in the first five weeks (when 90% of spontaneous abortions occur).

“This means that if a woman got vaccinated, then 3 weeks later got pregnant, then made it through 6 weeks of gestation without a miscarriage, she was included;” says Hammond, “whereas if a woman got vaccinated, then 3 weeks later got pregnant, then 5 weeks later had a miscarriage, she was excluded. This obviously biases their data in favor of finding no increased risk of miscarriage.”

What all of this tells us is that we have public health agencies and scientists willing to manipulate data to protect pharmaceutical interests rather than the women and babies they exist to serve. At least some of the stories that are percolating around us of stillborn babies, hemorrhages, and miscarriages are linked to the experimental new injections – perhaps many more than we think. But it will be a long time – and many more babies’ lives will be lost – before we learn the whole truth.

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Introduction

A QR Verification Code is now being developed to be applied Worldwide simultaneously in 194 member states of the UN with a combined population of  7.9 billion people.

The Worldwide QR Global Verification Agenda is to be carried out under the auspices of the WHO is liaison with ID2020 and the Gavi Alliance, both of which are funded by the Gates Foundation. 

Peter Koenig describes the QR Code as “an all-electronic ID – linking everything to everything of each individual (records of health, banking, personal and private, etc.).”   

The QR Verification App potentially sets the stage for the instatement of “a global police state” controlled by the financial establishment. It’s part of what the late David Rockefeller entitled “the march towards World Government”: 

“…The world is now more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government. The supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national auto-determination practiced in past centuries.” (quoted by Aspen Times, August 15, 2011, emphasis added)

The QR Code and the Worldwide Digital Currency System (CBDC)  

Consultations are also ongoing with the World Economic Forum and central banks with a view to implementing a so-called Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) network. According to David Scripac 

“A worldwide digital ID system is in the making. … the aim of the WEF—and of all the central banks [is] to implement a global system in which everyone’s personal data will be incorporated into the Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) network. 

Once that goal is accomplished, every aspect of our lives will be controlled, from womb to crematorium, by the so-called 1% who run the world’s most influential institutions and comprise its bluest bloodlines.

(Yes, bloodlines. As in the Rockefellers, Morgans, du Ponts, Rothschilds, British royals, and Dutch royals, to name a few of the supposedly superior families whose wealth and power have been dominating the global population for centuries.) 

What do I mean by “every aspect of our lives”?  For starters, what we can purchase with our CBDC money.

And from there . . . whom we may—or may not—associate with. How much electricity we can use in our (rental) dwellings. What we are allowed to read, see, hear, say—and even eat.

Whether and where we can travel. The list of “forbiddens” will keep growing. And so will the social demerits we pile up for bad behavior. That is, for disobeying our slave masters.

“Digitization of the World”: The Global Features of the QR Verification App

The WHO has signed a major contract with Deutsche Telekom T Systems to develop a QR Verification App and Software which is to be applied Worldwide.

Sofar we have scanty details regarding the project which indelibly derogates on the rights of sovereign countries.

Has WHO Director General Dr. Tedros sought the approval of the WHO’s 194 member states?

With the exception of Reuters (see below) there has been no media coverage or analysis, nor has the WHO made a formal announcement of the project:

The World Health Organization has signed a contract with Deutsche Telekom (DTEGn.DE) subsidiary T-Systems to build a software solution for global electronic verification of coronavirus vaccination certificates, the telecoms company said.

The QR code-based software solution will be used for other vaccinations as well, such as polio or yellow fever, T-Systems said in a statement … adding that the WHO would support its 194 member states in building national and regional verification technology.

T-Systems previously worked with SAP (SAPG.DE) to develop Germany’s Corona-Warn-App tracing and verification app and a Europe-wide digital COVID-19 vaccine verification system.” (Reuters)

According to a Deutsche Telekom I-T Systems Communique  “The WHO’s gateway service also serves as a bridge between regional systems“, which essentially implies a coordinated global structure of QR surveillance, which oversees the entire World population.

And once established: it will police “every aspect of our lives”, wherever our location on Planet location.

“It can also be used as part of future vaccination campaigns and home-based records.“

According to the CEO of Deutsche Telecom T Systems

“Corona has a grip on the world. Digitization keeps the world running”

Who has the Grip on the World? A giant data bank pertaining to 7.9 billion people controlled by Big Money.

“Keep the World Running” on Whose Behalf?

While Bill Gates funds both the WHO and ID2020, he also has a vested interest in Deutsche Telekom. In the late 1990s, Gates entered into negotiations on behalf of Microsoft with Deutsche Telecom’s CEO Ron Sommer. The objective was to establish a longstanding “Strategic Partnership” between the two companies.

Confronting the Architects of Digital Tyranny

People Worldwide in a broad movement of solidarity must confront the architects of this infamous project of Digital Tyranny.

We will seek all avenues through peaceful means to disable and undermine this totalitarian project including dialogue with and within public and private institutions, law enforcement officials, members of the military and the judicial.

What is required is to break down the structures of corruption, hierarchy and abusive authority, namely to pursue what might be described as: “the democratization of decision-making within our institutions”. (Michel Chossudovky, Chapter XIV of  E-Book)

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***

In his interview with Rete 4 Mediaset, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov raised a series of issues of the utmost importance for Italy and Europe. However, nobody in the Italian and European political world took them into consideration. Prime Minister Draghi dismissed the interview with these words:

“We are talking about a country, Italy, where there is freedom of expression. Minister Lavrov belongs to a country where there is no freedom of expression. This country, Italy, allows people to express their opinions freely, even when they are obviously false, aberrant. What Minister Lavrov said is aberrant.”

The Italian government thus confirms not only that it has turned Italy into a belligerent country, ranking fourth among suppliers of arms to Kiev’s forces, but that it seeks all-out confrontation with Russia.

This is in line with what is happening in Europe and the United States, where the attack on everything Russian is underway: while Russian women’s soccer teams are banned from European championships, the Metropolitan Opera in New York expels Russian soprano Anna Netrebko, because she refuses to condemn her government.

At the same time, RAI invites to Porta a Porta “the wives of the fighters of the Azov battalion”, which is presented as a handful of heroic resistance to the Russian invaders.

To the recycling campaign of the neo-Nazis of Azov also participate the 7 and the major Italian newspapers.

 

To demonstrate the true nature of the Azov battalion, now upgraded to the level of special forces regiment, is a report of Time magazine of just a year ago, before the same magazine turned the page by joining the international campaign of support to the Kiev regime.

A report by Vittorio Rangeloni from Mariupol demolishes, through the testimonies of the inhabitants of Mariupol themselves, the image of Azov presented by the Italian and Western mainstream.

Our life is at stake

The war advances, but it is not the one that the political-media mainstream makes it appear to our eyes. To understand this, one cannot remain at the still image of what is happening in Ukraine. One must watch the docufilm of the events that, from the end of the Second World War to today, have led to the current situation.

Crucial is the moment in which, after the end of the Cold War with the disintegration of the USSR, the United States and the other Western powers impose their unipolar order, their economic hegemony with globalization, their unique thought with the sprawling multimedia apparatus, while the US and NATO demolish with war the States that are an obstacle to their plans of domination.

On this background the Russian military operation in Ukraine takes place. It is not only a response to the US-NATO escalation, including nuclear escalation, which endangers Russia’s security. It is a response to the West’s claim to maintain a unipolar world under its own domination. This opens the challenge of the new historical period, that of building a multipolar world.

It is not a coincidence that, after the daily terrorist hammering on the deadly threat of the virus, the mainstream now carries out the daily terrorist hammering on the deadly threat of Russia, demonizing President Putin. While the European Union is suicidally severing economic ties and demolishing centuries-old cultural bridges with Russia, it is up to the peoples of Europe to make the no-longer-postponed choices on which our future and our very lives depend.

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This article was originally published in Italian on byoblu.

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

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“Little, perhaps nothing, of the experience of most Western readers and historians will have prepared them for what they will find in the history of Russia’s War’’ – Richard Overy

In 2022 we commemorate the 80th anniversary of the Battle of Stalingrad, which marked a turning point in the war against German fascism.  Stalingrad represented the first nail in the coffin of the German Wehrmacht.  Russia’s war against German fascism lasted four years and took an immense toll on the people of the Soviet Union with over 25 million soldiers and civilians killed. As Overy notes,

“The cost of the war dwarfed the sacrifices of any other fighting power.’’

In the West lip service is paid to the massive price paid by the Soviet people during the course of the Nazis war of annihilation on the Eastern front.  Mainstream media, politicians and even school curricula will highlight the contribution made by Allied forces during the D-Day landings of 1944 but will remain curiously silent over the events and the vast battlefields of the Soviet Union.

Thankfully, there are a few Western voices that recognise, however significant the Anglo-American role in defeating Hitler’s armies was, this was fundamentally brought about by events on the Eastern Front.  Hitler’s war of extermination ended by destroying its German initiators and by embedding a Soviet presence in Central and Eastern Europe for over half a century.

In this article we shall review the evidence provided by , who is one of Britain’s leading historians of the Second World War, in his book Russia’s War. This fine piece of research helps us understand more clearly than ever the enormous achievements and the horrendous price which the Soviet people paid for victory over German fascism.

Overy provides a fascinating account, revealing how the Soviet Union was able to defeat the German Wehrmacht which, in 1941, had the best trained, most well-equipped troops in the world, as well as the vast resources of a subjugated Europe at its disposal.

It is worth recalling that at the outset of the German invasion of the USSR most governments expected Hitler’s forces to rapidly triumph over the Red Army. After the German invasion was launched American Secretary of State Henry Stimson informed President Roosevelt that the unanimous opinion of the US Chiefs of Staff was that:”Germany will be thoroughly occupied in beating Russia for a minimum of a month and possible maximum of three months.’’

Richard Overy starts with a brief description of the development of the Soviet Red Army from the October Revolution of 1917 to the highly damaging purges of the late 1930s, when the Red Army leadership was decimated by waves of arrests and executions. Estimates vary, but there is no doubt that tens of thousands of officers were executed or sent into internal exile. This had the impact of greatly weakening the effectiveness of the Red Army as a fighting force. It greatly encouraged Hitler in his decision to prepare for a full-scale invasion of the Soviet Union and enabled him to feel secure about his planned attack on France in 1940.

The author describes in a dramatic manner, the disaster which befell the Red Army during the year which followed the German invasion of 1941, when it lost 6 million soldiers to the Nazi onslaught. 

As Overy reveals, the Red Army defeats of this period, which brought the German army to the gates of Moscow, can be largely put down to the incompetent military leadership of Stalin who ignored repeated warnings of the impending German invasion. His interference in the work of Red Army commanders during 1941 only served to turn Russian retreats into full-scale military disasters.  Professor Overy also gives credit to the tactical brilliance of German military commanders, whose mastery of rapid mechanised warfare was unsurpassed at that time.

During the winter of 1941-42, when the Wehrmacht was laying siege to both Moscow and Leningrad, the Soviet Union appeared close to defeat.  Yet, by the spring of 1943 the balance of forces on the Eastern Front been decisively transformed in favour of the Red Army.  Richard Overy puts this down to several interlinked processes.

The Russian economy was completely reorganised during the winter of 1941-42 as German troops pressed 500 miles into Soviet territory.  Thousands of factories were dismantled and moved to the Urals and Western Siberia.  The entire population was mobilised on a vast scale into war production and the armed forces, that were made up of the Red Army and the partisan units behind German lines. 

Overy pays tribute here to the critical role played by the state owned planned economy in the successes of the Soviet armed forces.  Despite the loss of most of its how industrialised western regions, the Soviet planned economy displayed a great flexibility and organisational power that enabled it to out-produce the vast German economy.  By 1943 the Soviet Union was out-producing Germany in the critical areas of aircraft, tank and artillery production.

The other factor following the massive defeats 1941 and 1942, was that the Stalinist bureaucracy which governed the Soviet Union was forced to ease its iron grip on Soviet society.  As Overy notes: “The emergency freed many Soviet officials, managers and soldiers from an atmosphere of passivity and fear of responsibility.’’

On both the military and home fronts, this led to a period of ‘spontaneous de-Stalinisation’, which unleashed the long suppressed initiative and creativity of the Soviet people at all levels, ranging from Red Army generals and factory workers.  This led to a great improvement in the morale and efficiency of the armed forces and the military economy, which were temporarily freed from the dead weight of bureaucratic control.

As Overy points out, despite the significance of the Anglo-American role on the Western front, it was events on the Eastern Front, which broke the back of the German war machine.  Over 80% of German battle casualties occurred on the Eastern Front where the overwhelming weight of the Wehrmacht was concentrated.  In June 1944 the Wehrmacht had 228 divisions facing the Red Army and only 58 divisions facing the Western allies.

The Nazi leadership of Germany never expected the Soviet Union to recover its economic/military strength following the devastating losses of 1941-1942. Nor did it expect the Red Army to be able to reform its armed forces, adopt new tactics and produce commanders of remarkable ability. Besides this, Soviet military intelligence again and again was able to outfox its German counterparts which gave Red Army offensives from 1943 onwards a major tactical advantage.

Richard Overy points out another critical factor that contributed to the Soviet victory and that was the role played by women in sustaining the Soviet war effort and the modernization of the armed forces especially in critical the field of weapons production:

“It is a myth that the Soviet Union won the war because it had endless spaces in the East from which to suck its manpower. The Soviet Union survived only by mobilizing two-thirds of its women to run the factories and farms, and by modernizing its armed forces so that they did not have to rely any longer on raw numbers of men, but could rely, like the American army, on mass produced weapons.’’

By early February 1943 the Red Army had inflicted a decisive and crushing defeat on Army Group South following the conclusion of the Battle of Stalingrad. It was the first nail in the coffin of German fascism. Hitler had lost one of his most experienced armies which was an irreplaceable loss. This was followed by the devastating and decisive defeats suffered by the German army at the Battle of Kursk in July 1943 and Operation Bagration (summer 1944) that destroyed Army Group Centre, which at that point, was Germany’s largest and most experienced military formation.

Russia’s War looks at the course of the apocalyptic struggle on the Eastern Front from the point of view of the Red Army troops and ordinary Russian peasants and workers.  It also notes the high price which the Soviet people paid in the defeat of fascist barbarism.  Overy pays tribute to the forgotten victims of the titanic struggle waged by the Soviet people in their defeat of German fascism:

“There is no dispute that the Soviet population suffered out of all proportion to the sufferings of Soviet allies, and suffered in many cases not a quick end from bomb or bullet but an agonizing end from starvation, or torture, or enslavement, or from countless atrocities whose mere recital still, after the accumulation of almost sixty years of further miseries world-wide, humbles and defeats the imagination.’’

On 2 May the capital of Hitler’s thousand year Reich fell to Soviet troops. The German garrison surrendered to Marshal Chuikov, who had led the Red Army’s grim resistance at Stalingrad. Yet fighting continued in the south where 600,000 Germans continued fruitless resistance to the Red Army in Czechoslovakia.

Hitler’s successor Admiral Doenitz had fled to Flensburg in Northern Germany where he engaged in surrender negotiations with the Western allies. On 7 May General Jodl, Hitler’s chief of operations, signed an act of  unconditional surrender in a ceremony orchestrated by the United States.

On hearing of this news Stalin was furious as he believed that the Soviet war effort was the real source of Hitler’s defeat. He refused to accept the German surrender to the Western allies on 7 May:

“The surrender must be arranged as a most important historical fact, and accepted not on the territory of the conquerors but at the place where the fascist aggression sprang from.’’

Marshall Zhukov was ordered to arrange a new surrender ceremony in Berlin as Stalin was keen to, ‘demonstrate to the world the important part the Soviet people and their leader played in the downfall of Hitler.’

At 12.43 am 9 May Field Marshal Keitel signed the surrender in front of Zhukov and several senior Western generals. In the evening of May 9 between 2 to 3 million people gathered in Red Square to celebrate the hard fought victory over German fascism. To this day the Russian people have celebrated 9 May as Victory Day as they remember the terrible sacrifices their country made to defeat the bestial regime of Hitler.

The people of Europe owe a great debt of gratitude to the Red Army and the Soviet people for their freedom from fascist tyranny. Despite its somewhat dry academic style, Russia’s War conclusively proves that it was the Red Army which was largely responsible for defeating Hitler’s armies.

Instead of gratitude, we have the current situation where most Europeans support the Russophobic hostility of the EU towards Russia.

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Dr. Leon Tressell is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: The center of Stalingrad after liberation, 2 February 1943 (Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0)

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On May 1 US lawmaker Adam Kinziger in an interview at CBS, talked about his proposed bill which would authorize the American President to use the Armed Forces against Russia to protect its “national security interests” and to “restore the territorial integrity of Ukraine” upon confirmation Moscow has used weapons of mass destruction. This bill is part of a larger trend. It appears part of the North-American political and military elite desires direct war with the Russian Federation – even risking nuclear conflict.

Last month, US Senator Chris Coons said Washington should “not merely send arms to Ukraine” but rather should consider sending US “troops to the aid in defense” of that country. These US officials are basically stating that a regional conflict should turn into a NATO-Russia war (thus making it an existential issue for Moscow) and potentially escalating into global and nuclear warfare.

This is the worrisome culmination of a kind of rhetoric that has been going on since the beginning of the current conflict. On February 23 French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said during a news conference that Russian President Vladimir Putin should understand that “NATO is a nuclear alliance”.

One month before Moscow started its current military operations in Ukraine, Evelyn N. Farkas (who is a former senior advisor to the Supreme Allied Commander, NATO, and who served as a deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russia, Ukraine, Eurasia in the Obama administration) argued that Washington should issue the Kremlin an ultimatum (demanding it not attack Kiev). She urged the US to organize “coalition forces” to take action to “enforce” such an ultimatum and even use the American military “to roll back Russians – even at risk of direct combat.” She could not have been more clear. But she does not seem to be an isolated voice.

Shortly after the current crisis began, three retired US generals, George Joulwan, Wesley Clark, and Philip Breedlove (all of them being former NATO commanders) proposed the establishment of a no-fly zone over Ukraine, which would have the effect of bringing Russian and American military closer into lethal conflict and war.

Robert C. O’Brien, chairman of American Global Strategies LLC and a former White House national security adviser (2019-2021), in his April 19 opinion piece, proposed a series of responses aimed at “deterring nuclear war”. They include “sending a message” to the Kremlin about the consequences of employing nuclear weapons.

Basically, American strategists are worried – so they claim – that the Kremlin could use the nuclear option and thus they are advocating Washington do it first – or at least prepare itself for that – in a dangerous kind of reasoning that only fuels further escalation.

Seth Cropsey, who is a maritime defense strategy expert and a former Secretary of Defense assistant (under Reagan) and is also an influential lobbyist and political figure in Washington today goes beyond O’Brien proposal, arguing that the United States needs to be prepared to actually “win a nuclear war”. This seems to make sense even, from an American perspective, but the very concept of “winning” a nuclear conflict is problematic – and it is problematic not only from the US point of view, but from humanity’s perspective really.

Nuclear weapons today are way more powerful than the atomic bombs of 1945 – the only time any such arms have been ever employed so far. Today, the two bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki would be considered “low-yield”. Some of the current thermonuclear weapons which Russia and the United States possess are over 3,000 times as powerful as the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs.

The largest nuclear weapon ever tested so far was the so-called Tsar Bomba, detonated over the Novaya Zemlya island (north of the Arctic Circle) in 1961 by the Soviet Union – it produced a 50 megaton blast and a mushroom cloud about 4.5 times the height of Mount Everest. People were able to see its flash from up to 630 miles (1013 kilometers) away.

One 100-kiloton nuclear bomb dropped on New York City, for example, could kill over 580 thousand people, according to Nukemap, a Stevens Institute of Technology-sponsored website. Therefore, a nuclear war today would be destructive beyond imagination.

A 2019 scientific study involving experts from the US National Center for Atmospheric Research, the Rutgers University’s Department of Environmental Sciences, and other institutions analyzed a scenario in which India, a nuclear power, employs strategic weapons to attack the urban centers of its nuclear power rival, Pakistan. The study concluded that in this scenario there would be up to 125 million deaths. Moreover, besides spreading dangerous levels of radioactivity, the nuclear-ignited fires would release up to 36 Tg of black carbon smoke which would reach the upper atmosphere, thus blocking out the sun and thereby dropping temperatures globally to unprecedented levels and also reducing precipitation up to 30%. Amid this darkness and drought, food production would surely collapse, causing global famine and further collateral fatalities. Recovery would take at least 10 years and the political, economic, social, and psychological impacts worldwide could simply destroy modern civilization. It is merely logical to assume a similar scenario would ensue if a nuclear conflict involving Russia and NATO took place.

The dangerous times we are living require good diplomacy and lots of table talks.

Instead of discussing “nuclear primacy” scenarios, responsible Western leaders should work to reopen diplomatic communication channels with Moscow. The hard truth is that in a nuclear warfare scenario there will be no true winners.

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Uriel Araujo is a researcher with a focus on international and ethnic conflicts.

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

by Michel Chossudovsky

Available to order from Global Research! 

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

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

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

Reviews

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

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

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

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***

Robert Epstein, Ph.D. warns about Google’s ability to control public policy, swing elections and brainwash our children

The methods Google uses are ephemeral and leave no paper trail behind, making it very difficult to track and prove that they’re using humans as pawns, manipulating us via ways that we can’t counteract

Research by Epstein and colleagues has found that biased search results can change people’s opinions and voting preferences, shifting opinions in undecided voters by 20% to 80% in certain demographic groups

Google’s “autocomplete” feature on its search engine can turn a 50/50 split among undecided voters into nearly a 90/10 split — all without people realizing they’re being manipulated

The first step to breaking free from Google’s dictatorship is recognizing that the manipulation is occurring; the next involves consciously opting out of it as much as possible by protecting your privacy online

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Google has the power to manipulate what you see online, targeting you with certain advertisements and burying search results they’d rather you not see. But can they go so far as to control the outcome of political elections? Absolutely, according to Robert Epstein, Ph.D., a senior research psychologist at the American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology (AIBRT).

Epstein, a Harvard-trained psychologist who founded the Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies, likens Google to a dictator with unprecedented power because it relies on techniques of manipulation that have never existed before in human history. The free services they provide really aren’t free, he warns. “You pay for it the with your freedom.”¹

Google Uses Ephemeral Manipulation Tools

In the video above, Epstein speaks with Jan Jekielek, senior editor of The Epoch Times, about Google’s ability to control public policy, swing elections and brainwash our children. Google has the power “to censor content, to track our every move, to tear societies apart, to alter the human mind, and even to reengineer humanity,” Epstein writes in his report, “Google’s Triple Threat,”² which he details in his interview with Jekielek.

The methods Google uses are ephemeral and leave no paper trail, making it very difficult to track and prove that they’re using humans as pawns, manipulating us via ways that we can’t counteract. Ephemeral experiences occur briefly, then disappear, and include things like a list of suggested videos on YouTube, search suggestions and topics in a newsfeed.

“They affect us, they disappear, they’re stored nowhere and they’re gone,” Epstein says. “It’s the ideal form of manipulation. People have no idea they’re being manipulated, number one, and number two, authorities can’t go back in time to see what people were being shown, in other words, how they were being manipulated.”³

Epstein and his team, however, have found ways to track Google’s invisible, almost subliminal, tools, including the search engine manipulation effect (SEME). According to Epstein:⁴

“SEME is one of the most powerful forms of influence ever discovered in the behavioral sciences … It leaves people thinking they have made up their own minds, which is very much an illusion. It also leaves no paper trail for authorities to trace. Worse still, the very few people who can detect bias in search results shift even farther in the direction of the bias, so merely being able to see the bias doesn’t protect you from it.”

Research by Epstein and colleagues has found that biased search results can change people’s opinions and voting preferences, shifting opinions in undecided voters by 20% to 80% in certain demographic groups.⁵ Internal emails leaked from Google talk about “ephemeral experience,” and the company makes a point to engineer ephemeral experiences intended to alter the way people think.

SEME, however, is just one of about a dozen subliminal tools that Epstein’s team has discovered. Others include the “search suggestion effect,” the “opinion matching effect” and the “YouTube manipulation effect.”⁶

Google Shifted Millions of Votes in 2020

As Epstein and his team began to preserve politically related ephemeral experiences, extreme political bias was uncovered on Google and YouTube, which is owned by Google’s parent company Alphabet.

In the days leading up to the 2020 Presidential election and 2021 Senate runoff elections in Georgia, for instance, they preserved 1.5 million ephemeral experiences and more than 3 million web pages, which were sufficient to shift “at least 6 million votes in the presidential election without people’s knowledge.”⁷

This isn’t an isolated incident. In 2016, Google’s search algorithm generated biased search results that influenced undecided voters, giving 2.6 million to 10.2 million votes to Hillary Clinton.

Epstein makes a point to state that he leans left politically, but despite Google’s bias working to support the candidates he supported, he can’t applaud it, “because rigorous research I have been conducting since 2013 has shown me how dangerous these companies are – Google-and-the-Gang, I call them.”⁸

Even displaying a “Go Vote” reminder on Google on election day in 2018, Epstein found, gave one political party an extra 800,000 to 4.6 million votes compared to what the other party got. What’s more, Epstein says those numbers are “quite conservative.”⁹ “In other words,” Epstein explained, “Google’s ‘Go Vote’ prompt was not a public service; it was a vote manipulation. This type of vote manipulation is an example of what I call the ‘Differential Demographics Effect.’”¹⁰

Epstein also had a monitoring system in place in 2018, which preserved more than 47,000 election-related searches on Google, Bing and Yahoo, along with nearly 400,000 web pages that the search results linked to. The political bias that was uncovered in the results may have shifted 78.2 million votes to one political party.¹¹

Even the “autocomplete” feature that occurs when you start to type in Google’s search engine is a powerful manipulation tool. “A growing body of evidence suggests that Google is manipulating people’s thinking and behavior from the very first character people type into the search box,” Epstein writes.¹² Just from this feature alone, Epstein’s research found Google can turn a 50/50 split among undecided voters into nearly a 90/10 split — all without people realizing they’re being manipulated.

Further, because Google’s persuasive technologies are so powerful, and many elections worldwide are very close, Epstein’s data suggest Google has likely been determining the outcomes of up to 25% of national elections worldwide since at least 2015.¹³

Google Is a Surveillance Agency

Click here to watch the video.

It’s important to understand that Google is a surveillance agency with significant yet hidden surveillance powers, and this is one of their primary threats to society. As noted by Epstein:¹⁴

“The search engine … Google Wallet, Google Docs, Google Drive, YouTube, these are surveillance platforms. In other words, from their perspective, the value these tools have is they give them more information about you. Surveillance is what they do.”

While surveillance is Google’s primary business, their revenue — which exceeds $130 billion a year — comes almost exclusively from advertising. All that personal information you’ve provided them through their various products is sold to advertisers looking for a specific target audience. Meanwhile, they also have an unprecedented censorship ability. By restricting or blocking access to websites, they decide what you can and cannot see.

The most crushing problem with this kind of internet censorship is that you don’t know what you don’t know. If a certain type of information is removed from search, and you don’t know it should exist somewhere, you will never know and you won’t go looking for it. This is how hundreds of millions of people have been deprived of learning the power of natural healing from me and many other clinicians who have been censored by Google.

For example, Google has been investing in DNA repositories for quite a long time, and adding DNA information to our profiles. According to Epstein, Google has taken over the national DNA repository, but articles about that — which he has cited in his own writings — have all vanished. As it stands, Epstein is worried for the future if no one steps in to stop Google’s power:¹⁵

“As the father of five children, I am especially concerned about what humanity’s future will look like if Big Tech is allowed to continue unobstructed on its path toward world domination. In the 1950s, British economist Kenneth Boulding wrote, ‘A world of unseen dictatorship is conceivable, still using the forms of democratic government.’

I am writing this essay because I believe that such a world already exists, and that unless we act quickly and decisively, the power that the technology company executives have garnered will become so firmly entrenched that we will never be able to unseat them from their invisible thrones.”

Epstein’s Six Top Privacy Tips

The first step to breaking free from Google’s dictatorship is recognizing that the manipulation is occurring. The next involves consciously opting out of it as much as possible. It’s especially important that children are protected, as they are among the most vulnerable to the onslaught of manipulation, which will have serious consequences to future generations. Epstein noted:¹⁶

“We’re trying to figure out how the manipulation works. But most importantly, we’re trying to quantify it … Because I think that what’s really happening is that there is a cumulative effect of, not just political bias, but a value literally a cumulative effect of being exposed to certain kinds of values, over and over and over again, on one tech platform, or after another.

And I think that the people who are most vulnerable to being impacted by that kind of process are children.”

Epstein has compiled six steps that can help protect your privacy online, noting that he hasn’t received a targeted ad on his computer or mobile phone since 2014 as a result. To take back some of your online privacy, for yourself as well as your children, he recommends:¹⁷

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If the inflation narrative we are being fed is true, the sanctions policy of the US government makes no sense as the worst sufferers are the American and European populations who are paying for the supply restrictions in higher prices and interest rates.  

As Russia is an exporter of energy and minerals, higher prices result in more export earnings.  It is Americans and Europeans hit with the high prices who are experiencing the sanctions.

Ask yourself why with supply shortages, disrupted supply chains from the mindless lockdown policy, and rising inflation the US government drove inflation higher by inhibiting supply with sanctions.  Is the cause of the current inflation Federal Reserve money printing or is the cause the reduction in the supply of goods and services caused by Washington’s Covid protocol and “Russian sanctions”?  

Ask yourself why the Biden regime is more concerned about gangster-state Ukraine than it is about the US inflation rate and the welfare of American citizens.  

Ask yourself if the current high gasoline price is really a result of sanctions preventing oil from coming to market. As far as I can tell, Russia continues to sell oil and natural gas.  It is only the small US purchases of Russian oil that have stopped.  The small amount of oil involved cannot explain the price rise.  Most likely it is the oil companies using the “crisis” narrative to raise prices.

Ask yourself if an interest rate rise by half a percentage point is enough to cause a 1,000 drop in the Dow Jones. 

Presumably, the argument is that a higher interest rate raises costs and drops earnings, thus the stock market’s decline. 

But if higher interest rates raise costs, how are they anti-inflationary? 

Most likely the stock market fell because the Federal Reserve said it is halting its policy of printing money to support stock and bond prices. Instead, the Federal Reserve is going to sell stocks and bonds from its $9 trillion dollar portfolio built by buying stocks and bonds for more than a decade in order to support the New York Banks and Wall Street. 

When Quantitative Easing began, the Federal Reserves portfolio was $800 billion. Today it is 11 times larger. This huge increase in the Federal Reserve’s portfolio explains the long rise in the Dow Jones and the fortunes made on Wall Street.

None of the narratives we are fed are true.  The narratives serve agendas that are not disclosed to the public.  

It is a fiction that “Western democracies” are self-governing.  How can people self-govern when they live in a world governed by false explanations serving hidden agendas?  

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Dr. Paul Craig Roberts writes on his blog site, PCR Institute for Political Economy. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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***

The European Union announced on May 4 their intention to ban Russian oil imports within six months and refined products by the end of the year as part of their latest round of economic sanctions against Moscow. According to Oil Price, a barrel surged to over $110 for Brent and $108 for West Texas Intermediate following the European Commission’s announcement. Therefore, banning Russian oil imports is not only a rather arduous task, but the cost of this decision will be high.

“In the short term it might leave Russian revenues high while implying negative consequences for the EU and the global economy in terms of higher prices – not to mention retaliation risks [by Russia] on natural gas supplies,”Brussels-based economic think tank Bruegel warned following the European Commission’s announcement. However, an EU diplomat told EURACTIV on condition of anonymity that “Politically, Europe cannot afford not adopting the sixth package [of economic sanctions].”

The EU will be once again be divided as its rare instance of geopolitical posturing is being challenged by the economic interests of individual member states. Hungary and Slovakia oppose the European Commission’s proposal despite being given until the end of 2023 to phase out Russian oil. At the same time, Bulgaria and Czechia have also asked to be given such an extension.

Sources have said Greece raised objections to another proposal to ban all shipping companies that are EU-owned or have European interests from transferring Russian oil into Europe or elsewhere, something of major importance since the Mediterranean country has the largest mercantile fleet in the world. Although Athens deeply supports all of the EU’s hostile actions against Russia, such as the expulsion of diplomats, imposition of sanctions and even the sending of weapons to Ukraine that could have ended up in the hands of the Azov Battalion that has persecuted the Greek minority, threatening the profits of Greek oligarchs provokes one of the rare instances of opposition from Greece’s ruling New Democracy party.

New Democracy is traditionally the pro-US/neo-liberal party of Greece that has served the interests of the country’s oligarchs, or softly known as magnates or tycoons, particularly the shipowners. Consider that 71% of Greeks in a poll said Greece’s position in the Ukraine War should be neutral, something that was categorically ignored by the Greek government as it strongly backed Ukraine instead. However, the moment that the profits of shipowners arethreatened, and not over the past few months as citizens have dealt with rising energy and food costs, Athens voiced its first concern against the EU’s anti-Russia sanctions.

Theoretically, although Russian oil can be phased out of most of the EU within six months, it will none-the-less be a very difficult task, especially when taking into account the fact that there is currently an energy shortage. In addition, the imposition of such a policy could lead to a build-up of shocks in the EU economy.

The Russian economy will naturally be affected as it will be deprived of a major market. But of higher concern, for European citizens at least, is the realization of the effects that anti-Russia sanctions has even on their own daily lives. And whilst Europeans suffer from rising energy and food costs, Asia could very much become Gazprom’s main export market in five to seven years.

Although this does not offset the loss of the EU as an oil market, shifting most exports to much friendlier Asian markets will lessen the effects of Western sanctions, even if this shift could take several years. Although the problem is the supply price and the development of the corresponding gas transport infrastructure, including in countries like China, it is recalled that Russian President Vladimir Putin made a directive to the government to submit a plan by June 1 on how to build related infrastructure. The directive requested a proposal for a large-scale development of a gas pipeline system in Eastern Siberia, aimed at directing the flow of gas exports to the Chinese market.

China currently consumes about 350 billion cubic meters of gas per year, while the majority of the energy balance (about 70%) remains coal. Demand for gas in China is expected to grow to 450-480 billion cubic meters by 2025 andin the next 10 years, as coal is phased out, perhaps even nearly one trillion cubic meters of gas per year.

Currently, Russian gas supplies to China arrive through the “Power of Siberia” pipeline. Deliveries along this route began at the end of 2019 and in 2020 reached 4.1 billion cubic meters. It is expected that the annual supply volume will gradually increase until it reaches its capacity of 38 billion cubic meters in 2025. Taking into account the new agreement signed in February, the total gas capacity supplied to China via the Far Eastern pipeline could reach 48 billion cubic meters per year.

In this way, although Russia will be hurt in the short term by losing the European market for its oil, this action will only propel the flow of Russian energy eastward to an Asia that is continuously increasing its demand. Equally of interest is that Europe persistently promises that sanctions against Russia cannot hurt European citizens in equal measure, but weaning off Russian oil within a six-month period will only increase the likelihood of such an outcome.

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Paul Antonopoulos is an independent geopolitical analyst.

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***

Electoral tensions are growing in Brazil. On the one hand, Jair Bolsonaro, who began his government with a stance of automatic alignment with the US, now appears to be the candidate with the most “neutral” foreign policy agenda, while, on the other hand, Lula, who is known for having maintained a strategy of regional integration and intra-BRICS cooperation during his terms, now seems to be the option desired by the globalist and pro-Western elites. Recently, US Undersecretary of Political Affairs Victoria Nuland visited Brazil and held conferences in which she advised Brazilians to trust their own electoral system. Previously, CIA agents had already made this same statement about electoral confidence, which is supported and replicated by the Brazilian media. Considering that the hegemonic Brazilian press supports Lula, Bolsonaro’s supporters interpret this clamor for “confidence” as a sign that there will be electoral fraud.

On April 25, Victoria Nuland arrived in Brazil to participate in a business event called “U.S.-Brazil High Level Dialogue 2022: Economic Growth & Prosperity”, where the undersecretary was committed to talking to “young Brazilian entrepreneurs”.

Her aim was supposedly to align cooperation projects based on the main contemporary global demands, such as energy, sustainability, COVID-19, among others. What surprised many experts who followed the event was the fact that Nuland had published photos on her social networks with some of the supposed “young Brazilian entrepreneurs” and none of them was recognized as a prominent professional in the business area. It is speculated that the visit was intended only to establish concrete dialogues with some specific representatives of the Brazilian political elite to pressure them to serve American interests, with the event serving only as a “disguise”.

For example, recently, the Brazilian Minister of Mines and Energy, Bento Costa, had already claimed to have received “guidelines” from the White House, for Brazil to maximize its oil production, focusing on exports to European countries. The aim is to make the South American country an alternative to Russian oil, making Brazil an important strategic partner for the world order project desired by Washington. This seems to have been, finally, one of the points of discussion between Nuland and the Brazilians, with a clear focus on increasing the pressure for Brasília to resume a policy of automatic alignment.

However, what drew the most attention was a statement by Nuland saying that she has “confidence” in the Brazilian electoral system and affirming that Brazilians should do the same. The undersecretary stated that the US fully trusts the electronic voting system used in Brazil and that Brazilian authorities should not suspect it. Obviously, her message was indirectly addressed to Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and his supporters, who have repeatedly expressed their suspicions about the existence of fraud in the electronic vote counting and have tried unsuccessfully to recover the printed vote system.

It is also curious to note that Nuland’s speech was not an isolated event. CIA Director William Burns told senior Brazilian officials in late 2021 that President Jair Bolsonaro should stop doubting the country’s electoral system before the October 2022 elections, expressing full US support for the permanence of the electronic vote counting procedure. The matter becomes even more controversial when we mention the fact that electronic counting in Brazil is operated exclusively by an American company, Oracle Corporation, which has ties to the CIA according to several reports. Since 1996, when electronic voting was adopted by the Brazilian government, the Electoral Court has ensured that Oracle is the official service provider for Brasília, which explains at least in part why US authorities seem so confident in this system.

In parallel with all this, the opposition candidate, ex-president Lula, seems to be gaining more and more notoriety among Americans and Europeans. After promising the EU a participation in the “governance” of the Amazon and condemning the Russian Special Military Operation in Ukraine, Lula became the preferred candidate of globalist elites for this year’s electoral dispute, making the cover of Time Magazine last month. The Brazilian hegemonic media, which was enthusiastic about the American support for the electoral system and has been campaigning strongly for electronic voting, also supports Lula, who now seems to bring together all the attributes of the globalist agenda, being aligned with green capitalism and sanctions against Russia.

For Bolsonaro’s supporters, the fact that Nuland visited Brazil, refused to meet the president, and made notes about the need to trust local electoral institutions is a clear sign that there will be fraud, controlled by the American political elite – which has become an opponent of Bolsonaro since the Biden’s inauguration – for Lula to be elected. Saying this may sound exaggerated, but considering Nuland’s previous actions, being one of the responsible for mediating the coup in Kiev, having delivered 5 billion dollars to Ukrainian neo-Nazi battalions, it does not seem so far from reality.

Since 2020, everything has been reversed in the Brazilian political scenario: Lula has become an ally of international elites against BRICS partners and Bolsonaro has been forced to adopt a more neutral foreign policy due to Biden’s refusal to cooperate with him. Regardless of which side wins, tensions will continue: if Lula wins, Bolsonaro will allege fraud; if Bolsonaro wins, the global elites who support Lula will be able to try some kind of lawfare operation, considering that the Supreme and Electoral Courts also support Lula. Instability is the only certainty for the future.

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The EU Commission’s health division has launched a new public consultation on the new wave of genetically modified plants (new GMOs), moving ahead with far reaching deregulation plans.

With this consultation, the EU Commission is yet again widely following the wish list of some agribusiness lobby groups as nearly all the questions are framed in a way to support the Commission’s deregulation plans. Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides is tragically giving credit to agribusiness’ false promise that new GMOs – currently in the research pipeline stage –  would be a useful tool for the  transformation of food systems towards sustainability.

EU GMO safety and labelling laws currently also apply to these new genomic or breeding techniques. Exempting them would keep farmers and consumers in the dark as to whether their crops and food are GMOs or not, and would lead to the release of untested and fossil fuel dependent GMOs into the environment.

Mute Schimpf, food and farming campaigner at Friends of the Earth Europe said:

“The debate on the deregulation of new GMO is a flagrant attempt to divert time, money and attention away from truly sustainable and already-proven solutions like agroecology. We don’t have time to waste with empty and dangerous promises that would only have us more dependent on dirty fossil fuels. Our message to the Commission is clear: stop pushing for the deregulation of new GMOs and keep them strictly labelled and safety checked.”

Friends of the Earth Europe assessed the content presented in the new consultation launched by the Commission.

What is positive:

• The European Commission asks if the new generation of GMOs should be kept under the current legal framework for GMOs, meaning that labelling, pre-market authorisation and safety checks would still be applied to them. This is what more than 69.000 citizens demanded during the 4-week consultation that took place last autumn.

Examples of the agribusiness spin on the consultation:

• The Commission asks which new GMO traits are most relevant for contributing to sustainability, but these new GM plants are still in the research pipeline. How is it possible to assess the sustainability of a plant that doesn’t exist yet?
  • What it should have done: Make its communication and consultation evidence based. Sustainability claims on new GMOs are based on promised by big biotech developers, but various products in the research pipeline have never materialised. In the case they would be ready for marketing, they can still fail to meet farmers’ interests.
  • Why it’s wrong:  Farming practices such as agroecology and organic present long term evidence of contributing to a drastic pesticide and GHG emission cut, building crop resilience and stabilising yields. These are the farming systems that will help achieve the goals of the of Farm to Fork Strategy.
•  The EU Commission asks if the (claimed) sustainability of new GM plants should be used for food labelling. However, there is no EU wide definition yet of what constitutes sustainable food systems and GM plants are in any case part of a highly industrial way of farming.
  • What it should have done: Again, it should have make its consultation evidence based and it should not prejudge the outcomes of other legislative processes on sustainable food systems.
  • Why it’s wrong: One plant characteristic cannot make a food system sustainable. Sustainable food systems require a holistic approach taking into account climate resilience, biodiversity benefits and local adaptation. This goes against two decades of records showing pesticide increase linked to GMOs.
• The EU Commission claims that certain new GMO plants are as safe as conventionally- bred plants.
  • What it should have done: Ask what new risks for the environment and human health can occur from new GMOs.
  • Why it’s wrong: Such impacts should be assessed in this type of consultation as described in the Commission’s own toolbox (the Better Regulation toolbox set standards for consultation and Impact Assessment for Commission staff, such as tool 16 identifying policy option, tool 32 assessing health impacts, tool 36 assessing environmental impact).

Next steps:

• The Consultation runs until 22 July 2022 and is the main tool for stakeholders to feed in their input.
• In parallel, meetings with national officials are planned in May 2022.
• The Consultation is also expected to be discussed among farm or environment ministers in an upcoming Council meeting.
• The EU Commission will finalise the Impact Assessment report by the end of the year.
• If accepted by the EU Commission, a new draft law for deregulating new GMO plants is to be published by summer 2023.

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***

Texaco operations in Ecuador from 1962 to 1994 dumped 70 billion litres of “wastewater”, heavily contaminated with oil and other chemicals, into the Amazon rainforest, plus over 650,000 barrels of crude oil. They polluted over 800,000 hectares.

It is one of the worst ecological disasters in history — 30 times greater than the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska and 85 times greater than the Gulf of Mexico spill by British Petroleum (BP) in 2010. During the supposed clean up in the provinces of Sucumbios and Orellana, before it left Ecuador, Texaco hid over a thousand different swamps of toxic waste throughout the rainforests, dumping a layer of topsoil over them.

Texaco was taken over by Chevron in 2000. Chevron claims that Texaco only ever extracted $490 million in profit from Ecuador over 30 years. The accounting of that is hotly contested by the Amazon Defense Coalition which claims Texaco made $30 billion profit. One thing for sure is that even the Chevron figure is at historic values, not real terms, and would be worth vastly more today.

The cost of the pollution to the inhabitants of the Amazon is incalculable in simple monetary terms, as is the cost of the environmental catastrophe to the entire world. However in the mid 1990’s Ecuador was firmly under the United States heel and – as Chevron’s legal team assert – in 1995 the Government of Ecuador was persuaded to sign a ludicrous clean-up agreement with Texaco as it left the country, releasing it from all legal obligations at a cost of just US $40 million.

Yes, that really is just $40 million. Compare that to the $61.6 billion that BP paid out for the almost 100 times smaller Deepwater Horizon environmental disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. In 1998 the corrupt, US controlled, government of Ecuadorean President Jamil Mahuad signed a final release relieving Texaco for all liability from economic pollution. That release has now been upheld by the Court of International Arbitration in the Hague.

How this was achieved by Chevron/Texaco is well explained in a book I highly recommend, a copy of which was sent to me in prison by a supporter:

The Misery of International Law by Linarelli, Salomon and Sornarajah (Oxford University Press 2018).

A Chevron lobbyist in 2008 said that “we can’t let little countries screw around with big companies like this”. At the time of this writing, Chevron is the fourth largest company headquartered in the United States, operating in over one hundred countries, with gross revenues twice that of Ecuador’s GDP. When Texaco began operations in Ecuador in 1964, the country was unstable and extremely poor, with bananas as its main export. One lawyer who works for Oxfam had argued that “Texaco ran the country for twenty years. They had the US Embassy in their pocket. They had the military. Politically, there was no way that Texaco was going to be held accountable in Ecuador.” At the time Ecuador needed Texaco’s expertise and technology if it was to extract the oil. The lawsuit alleged that Texaco dumped 18 billion gallons of toxic waste into the water system in the region, along with 17 billion gallons of crude oil, and left 916 clearly visible unlined toxic waste pits full of black sludge throughout the region. At the time, Texaco’s operations did not violate Ecuadorean law. Ecuador had no real environmental law at the time. While Chevron vigorously contests the facts, the evidence shows that Texaco failed to use environmentally sustainable technologies in its operations in Ecuador. As the former Ecuador Ambassador to the United States Nathalie Cely has put it: “When Texaco left Ecuador, significant profits in hand, it left unprecedented damage to the environment in its wake and no compensation to those affected.”

In my writing I always try to add value when I can by giving my own experience where relevant, and the situation described here reminds me precisely of the impunity with which Shell acted in Nigeria in their similarly massive pollution of the Niger Delta. I witnessed this close up when I was Second Secretary at the British High Commission in Lagos from 1986 to 1990. My brief was “Agriculture and Water Resources” and I therefore encountered the environmental devastation at first hand.

From my privileged diplomatic position I also saw the political power wielded by Shell in Nigeria through corruption and bribery, and I absolutely recognise the description given above of Texaco in Ecuador: “They had the US Embassy in their pocket”. In Nigeria, Shell had the British High Commission in their pocket, throughout decades in which all bar one of Nigeria’s military dictators was trained at Sandhurst, and the exception went to another British military college.

The Chairman and MD of Shell Nigeria, Brian Lavers, was treated as a deity and lived a life of extraordinary power and luxury. The British High Commissioner, Sir Martin Ewans, himself a very haughty man, deferred routinely to Lavers. I recall one occasion when the diplomatic staff were all instructed to attend a private briefing by Lavers in the High Commission. He made some dismissive and complacent comments about the “fuss” over pollution. I, a rather diffident and nervous young man on my first diplomatic assignment, very respectfully queried him on something I knew from direct observation to be untrue. I got a public ticking off from the High Commissioner followed by a massive private bollocking from my boss, and was later told that Shell made a complaint against me to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London.

So, in brief, I know of what they speak. I should add that I am still extremely upset by all of this because of the subsequent execution of Ken Saro Wiwa, whom I knew, and other indigenous environmental activists, for which I hold Shell in part culpable. 35 years since I got carpeted for raising the shocking effects, and 25 years since the executions shocked the world, Shell’s devastation of the Niger Delta continues. (see Footnote).

Image on the right: Steven Donziger (Source: Amnesty International)

29 years ago, in 1993, Steven Donziger, a New York lawyer, visited Ecuador and saw communities who lived their lives with their bare feet and hands permanently covered in oil sludge and other pollutants, whose agriculture was ruined and who suffered high levels of mortality and birth defects. He started a class action against Texaco in the United States, representing over 30,000 local people. Texaco, confident that they had control of Ecuador, requested the US court to rule that jurisdiction lay in Ecuador. It also set about obtaining the agreement from the Government of Ecuador to cancel any liability. In 2002 the New York court finally agreed with Texaco (now Chevron) that is had no jurisdiction and the case moved to Ecuador, much to Chevron’s delight.

What Chevron had not bargained for was that corrupt US control of Ecuador might loosen. In 2007 left wing Rafael Correa became President and Chevron’s previously total impunity in the country dissolved. In 2011 Donziger and his team won an award of $18 billion in compensation for the local population from a provincial Ecuadorean court, later reduced to $9.5 billion by the Supreme Court of Ecuador.

Chevron now did two things. Firstly, it invoked the bribery obtained agreements of 1995 and 1998 limiting its liability to the paltry $40 million clean-up operation, and appealed to the international tribunals specified in those agreements. Chevron succeeded, as was fairly certain to happen. The agreements had indeed been signed and did relieve Texaco/Chevron of any liability.

This brings us into precisely the same area as Investment Promotion and Protection Agreements and the ability of huge multinationals to bully or bribe poorer states into signing away their sovereign authority in favour of judgement, not by a multilateral state institution like the International Court of Justice, but of a commercial tribunal formed of western corporate lawyers of strong neo-conservative ideology.

Western governments put enormous pressure on developing countries to succumb to such jurisdiction, including making it a condition of aid flows. The system is so unfair on developing countries that even Hillary Clinton inveighed against it, before she started fund-raising for her Presidential bid.

Big oil apologists are cock-a-hoop that the disgraceful, well-feathered right wing jurists of the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague gave Chevron a judgement that their bribed 1998 “Get out of jail free” card did indeed say “Get out of jail free”. This case in itself damns the arbitration system. The truth is, of course, that no developing country has ever initiated surrendering its sovereignty to such a tribunal, and it is strongly in the institutional and financial interest of the tribunal and its members to find in favour of the big western corporations on which their very existence thus depends.

The second thing that Chevron did was to attempt to destroy Steven Donziger personally. In 2011 they filed a suit in New York under the anti-mob Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organisations Act, arguing that in Ecuador Donziger had bribed a judge, bribed witnesses and plaintiffs, ghost-written the original judgement and subverted expert witnesses.

The case against Donziger now becomes an incredible tale of corrupt judges in both Ecuador and the United States, of whom the most corrupt of all is US District Judge Lewis A Kaplan. It is important to note that the case against Donziger came before Kaplan as a civil case, not a criminal case. Chevron were seeking an injunction to stop Donziger acting further against them. Originally they were suing Donziger for $60 billion in damages, but that was dropped because it would have meant Donziger had a jury. By merely seeking an injunction, Chevron could ensure that Kaplan was unconstrained.

What happened next beggars belief. Kaplan made a ruling setting aside the judgement of the Ecuadorean court on the grounds it was based on racketeering, coercion and bribery. It should be recalled that, at Chevron’s insistence, the New York District Court had nine years earlier ruled it had no jurisdiction over the case, and that jurisdiction lay in Ecuador. Kaplan now ruled the opposite; both times Chevron got what they wanted.

So who is Kaplan? From 1970 to 1994 he was in private practice, representing in particular the interests of tobacco companies including Philip Morris – itself, I would argue, sufficient sign of moral bankruptcy. He was also the “trusty” judge the federal government used to rule that years of detention and torture in Guantanamo Bay did not affect prosecutions of detainees there. On the plus side, Kaplan did allow Virginia Giuffre’s lawsuit against Prince Andrew to go ahead; but then Andrew is not a US state or commercial interest.

The only testimony of bribery and corruption which Kaplan heard came from a single source, Ecuadorean judge Alberto Guerra. He claimed he was bribed to support the local plaintiff’s case against Chevron and to ghost write the judgement with Donziger for the trial judge. No other evidence of racketeering or bribery was given before Kaplan.

Guerra was extremely unconvincing in court. In his judgement for Chevron Kaplan stated that:

“Guerra on many occasions has acted deceitfully and broken the law […] but that does not necessarily mean that it should be disregarded wholesale…evidence leads to one conclusion: Guerra told the truth regarding the bribe and the essential fact as to who wrote the Judgment.”

Guerra produced no corroboration of his story. He could not, for example, show any draft of, or work on, the judgement he had allegedly ghostwritten with Donziger. A forensic search of Donziger’s laptop found nothing either. The reason for this was to become clear when Guerra admitted, before the International Court of Arbitration, that he had invented the whole story.

Not only had Guerra invented the whole story, but he had in fact been bribed by Chevron with a large sum for his testimony. Guerra admitted that he had invented the story to Chevron of Donziger offering to buy him for $300,000, simply to raise the price which Chevron would pay him. Before giving evidence in the USA, Guerra spent 51 days being coached on his evidence by Chevron’s lawyers – which Kaplan permitted as it was a civil not a criminal case.

In 2016 the United States Second Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Kaplan’s verdict for Chevron, on the grounds that Guerra’s evidence had been properly given in a US court, and it had not been recanted in any formal evidence to a US court; while Donziger could not prove, without Guerra’s testimony in court, that Guerra had been paid by Chevron.

Image below is from MYND: SAMSETT / STUNDIN

Followers of the Assange case will of course note the parallels with Siggi Thordarson, the convicted fraudster who was paid by the CIA to give evidence against Assange that is central to the “hacking” charges under the Espionage Act, but whose open admission that he lied in his testimony the English High Court refused to hear as he has not formally withdrawn his evidence in court.

In the interests of scrupulous honesty, I should note that Chevron seem to me to have one good legal point. There was unlawful coordination between one technical expert in the case in Ecuador and Donziger’s legal team. This was motivated by genuine environmental concern and goodwill, and not by bribery, but was nevertheless unwise. I do not however believe that any reasonable judge would find this in itself sufficient to dismiss the case, given the great weight of other evidence on the pollution and its effects.

Kaplan now set out, at Chevron’s behest, to destroy Donziger as an individual. Extraordinarily in a civil case, Kaplan ruled that Donziger must turn over all of his phones, laptops and communications devices to Chevron, so they could investigate his dealings with others over the Ecuadorean case.

Donziger of course refused on the grounds that he was an attorney representing the local plaintiffs in the case, and the devices held numerous communications covered by attorney-client privilege. Kaplan ruled that the clients were not in US jurisdiction so attorney-client privilege did not apply. He then sought to institute a criminal prosecution of Donziger for contempt of court for refusing to obey his order to hand them over to Chevron.

It should be noted that by this stage Rafael Correa had retired as President of Ecuador as decreed by the constitution, and the CIA was again firmly in control through the traitorous President Lenin Moreno. Not only was Donziger entitled on absolute grounds to refuse to hand over attorney-client communication, there was now a real danger the indigenous people and other locals involved in the case might be targeted for reprisals in Ecuador by Moreno and the CIA.

There is again a startling resonance with the Assange case. When Moreno removed Assange’s diplomatic immunity, and Assange was grabbed from the Ecuadorean Embassy in London and imprisoned, all of Assange’s papers were seized by the Ecuadorean government and shipped back to Quito, where they all were handed over to the CIA. These specifically included thousands of documents relating to Assange’s defence against extradition, documents which were covered by attorney-client privilege. Again, when dealing with an “enemy of the state” like Assange or Donziger, the judges decided that this did not matter.

Let me again interpolate some personal experience. Judge Kaplan now decided to transform Chevron’s civil case against Donziger into an explicitly criminal case of contempt of court. In Scotland and throughout the UK, Kaplan could simply have declared Donziger guilty of violating his own Order and sent him to jail, precisely as judge Lady Dorrian did to me. But in the United States – as in every other democracy outside the UK – a judge cannot arbitrarily decide on a violation of their own order.

Kaplan therefore referred Donziger’s “contempt” to the federal prosecutors of the Southern District of New York. But they declined to prosecute. Here we had a civil case brought by Chevron over a decision by an Ecuadorean court which the US courts had insisted had jurisdiction, but which Kaplan had repatriated, found for Chevron on the basis of extremely dodgy evidence, and now turned into the criminal trial of an environmental activist lawyer based on a complete repudiation of attorney-client privilege. Federal prosecutors viewed none of this as valid.

So Kaplan now did something for which nobody can provide a convincing precedent. In 2020 he appointed private legal prosecutors, paid for by his court, to bring the criminal case against Donziger which the state prosecutors had declined to bring. Kaplan had personal links to the firm involved, Seward and Kissel, who had been acting for Chevron in various matters less than two years previously. During the prosecution process, Seward and Kissel as prosecutors were in constant contact with Chevron’s avowed lead lawyers, Gibson Dunn and Crutcher, over the case.

For all these reasons the Donziger case has been described as the first private criminal prosecution by a corporation in US history. Chevron’s ability to control the entire judicial and legal process has been terrifying. Every public affairs NGO you can think of, not in the pockets of big oil and climate change denial, has raised serious concerns about the case.

Contrary to convention, though not contrary to law, Kaplan also personally appointed the judge to hear the case for criminal breach of his order, rather than leaving it to the court system. His nominee, Judge Loretta Preska, committed Donziger to house arrest pending trial. On October 21 2021 she sentenced Donziger to six months in prison; the maximum for contempt of court in the USA (I was sentenced to 8 months in Scotland). After 45 days Donziger was released from prison due to Covid, to serve the rest of his sentence under house arrest. In total, before and after trial, Donziger spent 993 days in detention. He was released two days ago.

Donziger has been disbarred as a lawyer. Chevron have a lien on his home and all his assets for compensation. They have paid nothing to the victims of their pollution of the Amazon.

I really cannot think of any individual story that better incorporates so many aspects of the dreadful corruption of modern western society. We are all, in a sense, the prisoners of corporations which dictate the terms on which we live, work and share knowledge. Justice against the powerful appears impossible. It is profoundly disturbing, and I recommend everyone to take a few minutes to reflect about the full meaning of the Donziger story in all its many tangents.

There is a good interview with Steve Donziger, which understandably concentrates on the personal effect upon him, here.

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Featured image: Crude contaminates the Aguarico 4 oil pit, an open pool abandoned by Texaco after 6 years of production and never remediated. (Source: Craig Murray)

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Residents of Iwakuni, which hosts one of the largest US foreign bases, recently announced that they will file a lawsuit that could have wider implications for foreign military bases in Japan

A group of residents of the city of Iwakuni, in the Yamaguchi Prefecture, announced plans to use a lawsuit to demand a ban on military aircraft flights in the city on May 2. Residents have long complained of noise pollution from both Japanese and US aircrafts in the city’s military base, and have sought a ban on their activities as well as damages. The group is expected to file the lawsuit at the Yamaguchi District Court later in the month.

Once filed, the lawsuit will be the second of its kind to emerge from Iwakuni. According to reports, the same group of residents were plaintiffs or supporters of an earlier lawsuit in 2009 that won JPY 735 million (USD 5.66 million) in damages for the noise pollution. The earlier lawsuit failed to win the ban on military aircrafts that the petitioner had also demanded.

This comes just days after the Japanese government made promises to redistribute US military infrastructure in Japan away from the island of Okinawa. On April 28, on the 70th anniversary of the San Francisco Treaty taking effect, Japan’s House of Representatives passed a resolution to reduce Okinawa’s burden of hosting US military bases.

The resolution, which also comes ahead of the 50th anniversary of Okinawa’s accession to Japan in 1972 on May 15, was shortly followed by promises by prime minister Fumio Kishida to “make tangible progress in reducing [Okinawa’s] base-hosting burden”.

Despite the promises, the proposed lawsuit by Iwakuni residents has the potential of highlighting the pitfalls of moving US bases to other parts of Japan. Iwakuni currently houses one of the largest US foreign air bases in East Asia in terms of number of aircrafts.

In 2018, the air base had doubled the number of aircrafts after 60 planes were relocated from Naval Air Facility Atsugi in the Kanagawa prefecture. The military bases around the city are seen as one of the facilities with potential for expansion if the Japanese government implements the proposed base redistribution plans.

The lawsuit highlights the wider discontent against the continued US military presence in Japan. A recent survey conducted by Kyodo News found that while most of the respondents—79%—believe that Okinawa’s disproportionately large burden of hosting the US military was unfair and 58% supported calls to redistribute the bases, over 69% were opposed to moving the bases near their place of residence.

From 1945 to 1972, Okinawa was under military occupation by the United States, when the US held the Ryukyu Islands. Despite Okinawa being back under Japanese sovereignty, the US continues to maintain its extensive military presence in the islands. Left-wing parties like the Japanese Communist Party (JCP), as well as peace advocates and movements based in the island have for long demanded complete withdrawal of the US military.

Over the past decade the movement against US bases has grown in Japan, with Okinawa at the epicenter. Earlier this year, the bases came under further scrutiny after disproportionately large COVID-19 outbreaks were reported in Okinawa, which reported over a fifth of new cases despite contributing less than one percent of the national population, along with other locations hosting large US bases.

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Featured image: Marine Corps Air Station Futenma in Okinawa is one of the largest US foreign air bases. The island of Okinawa hosts a bulk of US military stationed in Japan and has witnessed popular unrest over this issue in recent times. (Source: Peoples Dispatch)

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A Baloch suicide bombing targeting Chinese workers in Karachi comes a mere month after the US-backed ousting of PM Imran Khan. Pakistan is a critical BRI hub in Beijing’s vast Eurasian connectivity project, and it looks like CPEC is the ultimate target of this disruption.

This is the concise story of how a suicide bombing may carry the potential to subvert the whole, ongoing, complex process of Eurasia integration.

Recently, the Balochistan Liberation Movement (BLA) had released an ISIS-influenced video threatening “Chinese officials and installations” in Pakistan’s vast province.

Yet what actually happened in late April was a suicide bombing outside of the University of Karachi’s Confucius Institute – not Balochistan – and targeting Chinese teachers, not “officials and installations.”

The suicide bomber was a woman, Shaari Baloch, alias Bramsh, who detonated her vest just as a van carrying Institute staff members approached the entrance. The attack was claimed by the BLA’s Majeed Brigade, which stressed that this was the first time they used a female suicide bomber.

Shaari Baloch was a schoolteacher with a Zoology degree, enrolled to pursue a second Master’s degree, married to a dentist and professor at Makran Medical College in her hometown of Turbat, in southern Balochistan. Her three brothers include a doctor, a deputy director at a government-funded project, and a civil servant.

So Shaari Baloch was far from being a mere destitute online-indoctrinated Salafi-jihadi.

The Pakistani Foreign Office had to stress the obvious: this was a “direct attack on the Pakistan-China friendship and ongoing cooperation,” always qualified, by both sides, as “iron brothers.” Pakistan is an absolutely key node of the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to connect the Eurasian landmass.

This was no standard terrorist attack. Its reverberations are immense – not only in one of Pakistan’s provinces and South Asia regionally, but for the whole of Eurasia. It may be a harbinger of serious turbulence ahead.

Shaari Baloch’s act of desperation should be seen, to start with, as the embodiment of a deep-seated Baloch alienation felt by the educated middle classes, from lawyers and traders to students, constantly permeating the complex relationship with a distant Islamabad. A significant part of the puzzle is that 26 Pakistani intel agencies never saw it coming.

Baloch leaders instantly made the point that the best possible reaction would be to call a Grand Jirga – modeled on the Shahi Jirga practiced at the time of the partition of the subcontinent – that would unite all tribal elders to address the most pressing local grievances.

Round up the usual suspects

Balochistan, geostrategically, is as valuable as rare earth minerals: an immense desert positioned east of Iran, south of Afghanistan, and boasting three Arabian Sea ports, including Gwadar, practically at the mouth of the strategic Strait of Hormuz.

Comprising nearly 48 percent of Pakistan’s area, Balochistan is rich in uranium and copper, potentially very rich in oil, produces more than one-third of Pakistan’s natural gas, and sparsely populated. The Baloch account for the majority of the population, followed by Pashtuns. Quetta, the large provincial capital, for years was considered Taliban Central by the Pentagon.

Gwadar, the port built by China on the southwestern Balochistan coast of the Arabian Sea – directly across from Oman – is the absolute key node of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), and doubles as the essential link in a never-ending pipeline saga. The Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) gas pipeline, previously known as the “peace pipeline,” with plans to cross from Iranian to Pakistani Balochistan (India still has not made up its mind) is absolute anathema to Washington since the George W. Bush era.

CPEC remains an endless source of controversy even inside Pakistan. Beyond all the links planned between Gwadar and Xinjiang by the year 2030, most of this ambitious connectivity corridor deals with energy, industrial zones and road and rail projects in different parts of the country – an overall improvement of its lagging infrastructure. The Chinese, for years, have quipped that in fact “all of Pakistan is a corridor.”

The US security establishment, predictably, has been planning for years to instrumentalize an insurgency in Balochistan to – what else – “disrupt” first the possibility of an energy pipeline from Gwadar to Xinjiang, and then the overall CPEC project. Usual suspects like the US’s National Endowment for Democracy (NED) are very much present in Balochistan. WikiLeaks had revealed a great deal of the game back in 2015.

A Carnegie Institute report noted how “many Baloch nationalist leaders now come from the urbanized districts of Kech, Panjgur, and Gwadar (and to a lesser extent from Quetta, Khuzdar, Turbat, Kharan, and Lasbela). They are well connected to Karachi and Gulf cities, where tribal structures are non-existent. In fact, while there is violence all over the province, the insurgency seems to concentrate mainly in these urbanized areas.”

Suicide bomber Shaari Baloch came from Turbat, the province’s second largest city, where the BLA is very much active. From the point of view of the usual suspects, these are choice assets, especially after the death of important tribal leaders such as Akbar Bugti. The report duly noted how “the educated and middle-class Baloch youth are in the forefront” of the insurgency.

The anti-China instrumentalization of the BLA also ties in with the regime-change parliament operation in Islamabad that recently deposed former prime minister Imran Khan, who was always a fierce adversary of the American “Forever War” in Afghanistan. Khan resolutely denied Pakistan’s use in “over the horizon” US military ops: that was one of the key reasons for him to be ousted.

Now, with a pliant, Washington-approved, new regime in town, a miracle has just happened: the Pentagon is about to clinch a formal agreement with Islamabad to use Pakistani airspace to – what else – keep interfering in Afghanistan.

Beijing, as well as other members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), won’t be amused. Only weeks before the white coup, Khan had met with Chinese President Xi Jinping and once again underscored how Pakistan and China are “iron brothers.”

Imran Khan was a serious thorn in the side of the west because he kept impressing on Pakistanis that the Forever War in Afghanistan was militarily unwinnable. He knew how all the proxies – including the BLA – that destabilized both Afghanistan and Pakistan for decades were, and continue to be, part of US covert operations.

Not an Iran-India plot

Balochistan is as deeply tribal as the Pashtun tribal areas. Local tribal chiefs can be as ultra-conservative as Islamabad is neglectful (and they are not exactly paragons of human rights either). Most tribes though bow to Islamabad’s authority – except, first and foremost, the Bugti.

And then there’s the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), which both Washington and London used to brand as a terrorist group, and then forgot about it. The BLA operated for years out of Kandahar in Afghanistan (only two hours away from Quetta), and already in the previous decade – simultaneous to the announcement of the New Silk Roads and CPEC – stressed it was getting ready to attack non-Balochis (code for the government in Islamabad as well as Chinese foreigners).

Balochis are inclined to consider the BLA as a resistance group. But Islamabad has always denied it, saying their support is not beyond 10 percent of the provincial population.

An ample controversy has raged in Pakistan for years on whether the BLA was totally hijacked by the CIA, the MI6 and the Mossad. During a 2006 visit to Iran, I was prevented from going to the Sistan-Balochistan province in southeast Iran because, according to Tehran’s version, infiltrated CIA from Pakistani Balochistan were involved in covert, cross-border attacks. It was no secret to anyone in the region that since 9/11 the US virtually controlled the Baloch air bases in Dalbandin and Panjgur.

In October 2001, while waiting for an opening to cross to Kandahar from Quetta, I spent quite some time with a number of BLA associates and sympathizers. They described themselves as “progressive, nationalist, anti-imperialist” (and that would make them difficult to be co-opted by the US). They were heavily critical of “Punjabi chauvinism,” and always insisted the region’s resources belong to Balochis first; that was their rationale for attacks on gas pipelines.

Stressing an atrocious, provincial literacy rate of only 16 percent (“It’s government policy to keep Balochistan backward”), they resented the fact that most people still lacked drinking water. They claimed support from at least 70 percent of the Baloch population (“Whenever the BLA fires a rocket, it’s the talk of the bazaars”). They also claimed to be united, and in coordination with Iranian Balochis. And they insisted that “Pakistan had turned Balochistan into a US cantonment, which affected a lot the relationship between the Afghan and Baloch peoples.”

Two decades later, and after the whole ISIS saga in Syria and Iraq, it’s a completely different story. BLA sympathizers may still be prepared to remain within a Pakistani confederation, although with infinitely more autonomy. But now they seem to be willing to use western imperial help to strike not only at the central government in Islamabad, but also at the “near abroad” foreign profiteer (China).

After the Karachi suicide bombing, a narrative started to emerge in some Pakistani circles that Iran and India were in cahoots to destabilize Balochistan.

That makes absolutely no sense. Both Tehran and Islamabad are tightly linked to Beijing through several nodes of the New Silk Roads. Iran would draw less than zero benefit to collude with India to destabilize an area that borders Afghanistan, especially when the SCO is fully engaged in incorporating Kabul into the Eurasia integration process. Moreover, the IPI has its best chances ever to come to fruition in the near future, consolidating an umbilical cord from Southwest Asia to South Asia.

During the late years of Barack Obama’s administration, the BLA, though still a fringe group with a political wing and a military wing, was regrouping and rearming, while the chief minister of Balochistan, Nawab Raisani, was suspected of being a CIA asset (there was no conclusive proof).

Already at the time, the fear in Islamabad was that the government had taken its eye off the Balochistan ball – and that the BLA was about to be effectively used by the US for balkanization purposes. That seems to be the picture right now. Yet the heart of the matter – glaringly expressed by the Karachi suicide bombing – is that Islamabad still remains impervious to the key Baloch grievance: we want to profit from our natural wealth, and we want autonomy.

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This article was originally published on The Cradle.

Pepe Escobar, born in Brazil, is a correspondent and editor-at-large at Asia Times and columnist for Consortium News and Strategic Culture 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.

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James Mitchell, one of a pair of psychologists paid $81 million to oversee the CIA’s interrogation of suspected terrorists, said detainee Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri “liked” being in a box used to torture him.

One of the psychologists paid tens of millions of dollars by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency to oversee the interrogation of prisoners in the so-called War on Terror provided new details on Monday about the torture of a Guantánamo Bay detainee at CIA “black site” in Thailand.

The New York Times reports James E. Mitchell told a military judge during a pretrial hearing at Guantánamo that Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri—a Saudi national facing possible execution for allegedly masterminding the deadly 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen—broke quickly under torture and became so obedient that he would crawl into a cramped confinement box before guards ordered him to do so.

Initially, guards had to force al-Nashiri into the box. But according to Mitchell, the prisoner “liked being in the box” and would “get in and close it himself.”

Annie W. Morgan, a former Air Force defense attorney who is a member of al-Nashiri’s legal team, told the Times that when she heard Mitchell’s testimony,

“I got the image of crate-training a dog and became nauseous.”

“That was the goal of the program, to create a sense of learned helplessness and to become completely dependent upon and submissive to his captors,” she added, referencing a tactic taught in U.S. torture programs and documents dating back to the 1950s.

Gail Helt, a former CIA analyst who advocates Guantánamo’s closure, tweeted, “Imagine the hell Mr. Nashiri experienced outside of that box that made him prefer being inside it.”

All of these guys belong in prison: Mitchell described his treatment of the defendant — to condition him to answer questions in interrogation — as having been strictly monitored by C.I.A. doctors and authorized by Justice Department lawyers. https://t.co/WcIKbl8Yud

— Hussein Ibish (@Ibishblog) May 4, 2022

Al-Nashiri’s attorneys—who argue that evidence in the case is tainted by torture—questioned Mitchell about what happened at the Thailand black site in November 2002, when former CIA Director Gina Haspel oversaw the secret prison.

The psychologist’s testimony is meant to shed light on abuse that may have been recorded on scores of videotapes documenting detainee torture that were later destroyed at the behest of then-CIA counterterrorism chief Jose Rodriguez, who claimed in his memoir that Haspel drafted the 2005 cable ordering the move.

Mitchell—who along with fellow psychologist John “Bruce” Jessen was paid $81 million by the CIA to develop and supervise an interrogation regimen for terrorism suspects—described how the diminutive al-Nashiri was so scrawny that guards stopped subjecting him to the interrupted drowning torture commonly called waterboarding for fear the prisoner might be seriously hurt.

In addition to waterboarding and other approved torture techniques, a declassified 2014 U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee report revealed how interrogators threatened to sexually assault al-Nashiri’s mother, and how he was terrorized with a power drill and raped with a garden hose in a practice known as rectal hydration that was administered to Guantánamo prisoners who refused to eat or drink.

An image drawn by Abu Zubaydah, a prisoner at Guantánamo Bay, shows how the C.I.A. applied an approved torture technique called “cramped confinement.” NYTimes caption…
that’s right: *an approved torture technique*https://t.co/TatFheWpzP pic.twitter.com/Enq6tUGsU4

— Philip Gourevitch (@PGourevitch) December 5, 2019

Mitchell told the court that:

• One interrogator used a belt to strap al-Nashiri’s arms behind his back and lift him up from behind to his tiptoes. Mitchell said he objected after the prisoner howled in pain, fearing his shoulders would be dislocated. The torture continued.
• Guards forced the shackled prisoner onto his knees then bent him backward, with a broomstick placed behind his knees.
• In a bid to train al-Nashiri to call him “sir,” the chief interrogator gave him a cold bath before scraping a stiff-bristled brush from his anus to his face and mouth.

The Times previously reported:

Interrogators continually told Mr. Nashiri they did not believe he was telling everything he knew, threatening him with worse treatment if he did not tell them more. The prisoner, already subjected to the whole array of C.I.A. torture techniques—loud noise, sleep deprivation, forced nudity, wall-slamming, and waterboarding—insisted he was trying to remember and tell them everything.

But the interrogators appear to have ultimately concluded that Mr. Nashiri was not lying. Some of the cables back to headquarters, apparently written by Ms. Haspel, described him as “compliant and cooperative,” according to the 2014 report on the interrogation program by the Senate Intelligence Committee.

In addition to the black site in Thailand, al-Nashiri—who was captured in Dubai in October 2002—was imprisoned at CIA black sites in Afghanistan, Poland, Romania, and possibly Morocco before being sent to Guantánamo in September 2006.

In 2010 he was granted victim status by the Polish government, whose cooperation with and complicity in the George W. Bush administration’s extraordinary rendition and torture program was later revealed and investigated.

In March, human rights advocates condemned the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision allowing the Biden administration to block Mitchell and Jessen from cooperating with Polish prosecutors investigating the torture of Saudi terror suspect Abu Zubaydah.

The Bush administration officials who devised, approved, and implemented the post-9/11 torture regimen have enjoyed total impunity. Not only did Bush’s successor, former President Barack Obama, break a campaign promise to investigate and prosecute abuses as required by U.S. and international law, his Justice Department actively shielded them from accountability as torture continued at Guantánamo.

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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The Food and Drug Administration has restricted the use of the Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine to adults who are unable or unwilling to get the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna mRNA shots.

The decision comes after the agency completed an updated risk analysis of developing thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome, or TTS, a rare and possibly fatal combination of blood clots and low platelet counts one to two weeks after receiving the vaccine, the agency said Thursday.

Given the severity and urgency of the syndrome, and the availability of other Covid-19 vaccines, FDA decided that the benefits of Covid-19 protection from the Johnson & Johnson vaccine outweigh the risk of TTS only for those who cannot or will not receive other forms of vaccination.

“Our action reflects our updated analysis of the risk of [thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome] following administration of this vaccine and limits the use of the vaccine to certain individuals,” Peter Marks, director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, said in a statement. “We recognize that the Janssen COVID-19 Vaccine still has a role in the current pandemic response in the United States and across the global community … The agency will continue to monitor the safety of the Janssen COVID-19 Vaccine and all other vaccines.”

Johnson & Johnson said in a statement it will continue to work with regulators worldwide to ensure consumers “are warned and fully informed about reports of TTS.”

Click here to read the full article.

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Europe and Russia are entering a fateful competition over energy trade. Europe is diversifying its sources of energy away from Russia. Russia is racing with Europe to reduce its own dependence on the European market and substitute with a “Look East” policy that taps into the vast potentials of the Asian energy market.

Washington’s hopes to be the beneficiary. It can substitute Russian gas and oil with own exports to the European market; Russian economy may take a beating if income from Europe’s energy market dries up; and, a weakened Russia would make a sub-optimal partner for China. 

Russia has an edge insofar as it is easier said than done for Europe to spurn Russian oil and gas because of low prices at which Russia supplies via pipelines on long-term contracts.

Russia plans to use this interlude to develop new markets. India and China stand to gain the most out of Russia’s quest for new markets. Russia has offered discounted prices to them and payment systems in local currencies. 

However, India and China’s response present a study in contrast. India takes a defensive stance that its energy imports from Russia are minuscule. But coming under  concerted Western pressure, Delhi hopes for some sort of quid pro quo from the West. India’s European diplomacy is in overdrive. 

Everything in the Indian calculus has a “China angle” to it, inevitably. India hopes to cash in on any erosion in EU-China ties as a fallout of the Ukraine crisis. Expectations are running high, but the Ukraine crisis has put big question marks on the future of Europe itself.

A commentary by Xinhua has noted:

“Against the backdrop of an economic slowdown, supply chain disruptions and weak consumer morale after more than two years into COVID-19, the Russia-Ukraine conflict and subsequent sanctions on Russia are wreaking more havoc in Europe, causing widespread panic over regional security, soaring food and energy prices and a looming drop in the standard of living.” 

An influential section of Indian opinion espouses that India should astutely stay put on the “right side of history” — namely, align with the West. The former prime minister Manmohan Singh has written against buying discounted Russian oil or commodities.

“In the long run, India stands to gain more from unfettered access to the western bloc markets for Indian exports under the established trading order than from discounted commodities purchased under new bilateral currency arrangements that seek to create a new and parallel global trade structure,” he wrote.  

The elitist viewpoint blithely assumes that the US West has a strategic interest in building up India as a counterweight to China. The prevailing narrative in India is also that the “Free West” is winning the war against the Russia-China axis of autocracy. 

Enter China. Succinctly put, Chinese approach is firmly supportive of Russia while cautiously avoiding needless entanglement with the Western sanctions regime. Senior US officials remain wary about China’s long-standing support for Russia, but they say they have not detected overt Chinese military and economic support to Russia or  systematic efforts to help Russia evade our sanctions — at least for now. The best outcome for the West will be to get Beijing into an enforced balancing act between Russia and the West. 

President Biden who is hyperactive on Ukraine issue, has not spoken of China helping Russia. Last week, Secretary of State Antony Blinken stated before the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee that China is dealing with a “significant reputational risk” of being Russia’s ally and that “for now we’re not seeing significant support from China for Russia’s military actions.” Biden’s forthcoming Asia tour to Japan and South Korea, his first as president, will be a pivotal event. 

That said, facts speak for themselves. Russia’s natural gas exports to China went up 60 per cent in the first four months of the year from the same period of 2021. Gazprom said in a statement Sunday that Russian gas shipments to China via the upcoming Far East routes could reach 48 billion cubic metres per year by 2026 from around 10 billion cubic metres in 2021. 

Meanwhile, Gazprom is also working on plans for another pipeline – the Soyuz Vostok – that will run from Russia to China via Mongolia, which would mean an additional 50 billion cubic metres of gas could be piped to China every year. 

Clearly, China, the world’s biggest energy consumer, is sticking to its guns that it opposes sanctions and that its trade with Russia, including cooperation on oil and gas, will continue. Global demand remains high and prices have risen sharply since last year for natural gas and oil as well as coal and Russian energy’s difficulty to reach world markets could only drive them even higher. 

Therefore, the Western game is not really to reduce or nullify Russian exports so much as to reduce the Russian oil and gas revenues. The Chinese policymakers have grasped this important distinction. 

Interestingly, so does Japan, which has announced the intention to stick to its 27.5 per cent stake in Sakhalin-2 in Russia’s Far East, despite joining tough G7 sanctions on Moscow. Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said the project helps to provide “long-term, inexpensive and stable LNG supplies” to Japan and is “an extremely important project in terms of our energy security.”  

This is where opportunities lie for India too, which has extensive refinery industries that are typically interested in the Russian crude oil. (Natural gas is going to be harder for India to source from Russia.) 

The Chinese consultancy Fenwei Energy Information Service said earlier this month that Russian coal and oil paid for in yuan is about to start flowing into China and the first cargoes will arrive this month. These will be the first commodity shipments paid for in yuan since the US and Europe cut off several of Russian banks from the international financial system. 

Indeed, China is viewing the paradigm of western sanctions from a vastly different perspective from Manmohan Singh’s — how to take advantage of the sanctions optimally while also enhancing the partnership with Russia by adding more content to it. India’s record, in contrast, has been that under the leadership of the previous government (2004-2014), India’s relationship with Russia remained stagnant. 

The Reserve Bank of India recently estimated that India is expected to overcome Covid-19 losses in 2034-35. But it is predicated on the big assumption of a sustained 7.5 percent annual growth of GDP. The consensus opinion of international economists puts India’s GDP growth next year, and possibly beyond that, closer to 6 percent. 

Clearly, India needs to figure out the algorithm of EU and US sanctions against Russia so as to take the fullest advantage of business opportunities at a critical juncture when the country’s economic recovery ought to be the topmost national priority. Excessive geopolitical gyrations give an intoxicating sense of being smart. 

While in Delhi recently, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen promised us the moon. But we must be realistic. The EU has absolutely no history of building up world class powers. Leading American think tanks have been sceptical about the EU’s own future even before the debris from Ukraine overburdened it. 

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Featured image: Russian liquefied natural gas tanker at a terminal in Tianjin, China (Source: Indian Punchline)

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Featured image is a screenshot from the video

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In November 2018, The New York Times ran a front-page article titled “In North Korea, Missile Bases Suggest a Great Deception.”

Co-authored by Pulitzer-winning correspondent David E. Sanger, the article cited satellite imagery and a report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) to argue that North Korea was continuing to secretly develop missiles in violation of the June 2018 Singapore agreement between Kim Jong-un and U.S. President Donald Trump.

However, the prominently embedded satellite photo was actually dated March 2018—three months before Kim and Trump met in Singapore—and the missile bases presented as damning evidence of Kim’s duplicity had been known to South Korea for at least two years.

Source: nytimes.com

The Times’s deception is part of a larger media propaganda campaign against North Korea that has helped condition the U.S. public to accept draconian U.S. sanctions policies, the spending of billions of dollars per year beefing up the South Korean military, and the $7.1 billion Pacific Deterrence Initiative that includes a major naval build-up in the South China Sea.

Felix Abt was one of the first foreign entrepreneurs to work in North Korea, and the founding president of the first foreign chamber of commerce in North Korea, set up by a dozen resident foreign business people in 2005, and co-founder and director of the Pyongyang Business School.

He has just published a book entitled A Land of Prison Camps, Starving Slaves and Nuclear Bombs? An Alternative Account to the Western Media’s Blinkered North Korea Portrayal, which debunks the media’s narrative of North Korea as a “monolithic gulag network filled with slaves” and a “hellhole…rife with suffering and starvation.”

Abt’s first memoir, A Capitalist in North Korea: My Seven Years in the Hermit Kingdom (Clarendon, VT: Tuttle Publishing, 2014), was blacklisted in Western media.

Photo courtesy of Felix Abt

In this latest book, he writes that,

“for decades, the United States has been waging a vitriolic public-opinion war against North Korea,” which functions as a “necessary bogeyman to persuade the American taxpayers that the mammoth defense budgets for the benefit of one of its largest and most profitable industries, is justified.”

Forgotten is the litany of crimes committed by the United States against North Korea during the Korean War (1950-1953), including the systematic incineration of North Korean cities and villages with napalm, bombing dams to cause flooding on the rice fields and thus mass starvation, and dropping plague-infected flies in order to spread disease.

For all the hysteria in U.S. media about North Korea’s nuclear threat, Abt was told by almost everyone he met that North Korea needed nuclear weapons for defensive purposes to prevent a first strike from America—which threatened to destroy their country as it had done in the Korean War. Kim Jong-un would never be crazy enough to risk the catastrophic results of firing the weapons first.

Not Even Up to the Level of the National Enquirer

The multitude of outrageous stories about North Korea and its leader Kim Jong-un do not generally match basic journalistic standards—or even those of the National Inquirer.

Often, they rely on defectors who are paid by the South Korean government and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to spread disinformation.

In August 2013, the London Telegraph reported that Kim Jong-un had his ex-lover executed by firing squad because she allegedly made a pornographic film, though later the same publication reported that she had reappeared on North Korean television.

Source: slideshare.net

ABC ridiculously also reported that all male university students in Pyongyang were required to get haircuts exactly like Kim Jong-Un, though later there were reports that Kim had banned leather coats to stop people from copying his style.

“Critical thinking just goes out the window on North Korea,” observed Chad O’Carroll, founder of the NK News website.

A More Positive Picture Than in U.S. Demonology

Abt found that, while propaganda does abound in North Korea, the claim about a total news blackout is false. Kids recited to him old Korean folktales, not regime propaganda, and many people read foreign literature.

Example of misleading propaganda in Western media that presents North Korea in the worst possible light. [Source: japantimes.co]

Despite the crippling U.S. sanctions, North Korea has a growing economy, replete with an emerging entrepreneurial middle class and has made important technological advances.

Kim Chaek University of Technology, for example, developed a cranial CT scanner, which it sells to domestic hospitals.

DPRK-produced CT scanner, Kim Chaek University. [Photo courtesy Felix Abt]

Kim Chaek University [Source: alchetron.com]

Dr. Kee B. Park, a neurosurgeon on the faculty at Harvard University who has traveled to North Korea 18 times to advise its health programs, told Abt that the images from the CT scan he had seen in North Korea were “of satisfactory quality,” and could “help doctors detect a variety of diseases and conditions.”

Despite sanctions that banned fertilizer, spare parts for agricultural machines and fuel for farm vehicles, Kim Chaek University had also developed methods that increased the yields of rice crops while decreasing plant disease.

Lies About Famine

During the 1990s, when North Korea experienced a famine precipitated by natural disasters and exacerbated by a drastic reduction in oil imports from the crumbling Soviet Union, Western think tanks, activists, and media from the Wall Street Journal to Reuters amplified the death toll by five times, thereby vilifying “evil” North Korea.

They claimed more than 3 million deaths out of a population of 22 million when the actual number was below 500,000, according to the French coordinator of the United Nations food distribution efforts. (The U.S. Census Bureau gave an estimate of between 500,000 and 600,000).

Despite a much-improved situation in the 2000s, the U.S. and world media continued to run stories every autumn quoting international aid agencies saying that North Korea was once again on the brink of mass starvation.

Source: quora.com

Abt reports that, with no indigenous sources of oil and natural gas, North Korea depends on imported energy inputs to produce fertilizers and pesticides, to fuel irrigation equipment and agricultural machinery and to transport seeds and crops.

The UN prohibition on essential energy imports thus helped provoke the collapse of North Korea’s agricultural production in 2018 to levels similar to those of the famine years—though the source of the crisis was ignored, and human rights groups in the West shamefully did not call for the lifting of the sanctions.

Despite all of its problems, North Korea still ranks above India on the Global Hunger Index. The country has improved its agricultural productivity through land reclamation projects and imported potato varieties from Europe that were cheap, easy to grow and nutritious.

Photo courtesy of Felix Abt

An Orwellian Dystopia—or Something Else?

Los Angeles Times journalist Barbara Demick, in her 2010 best-selling book, Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea, compared North Korea to George Orwell’s Oceania, a futuristic dystopia where the “only color to be found was in propaganda posters.”

Source: amazon.com

Melanie Kirkpatrick reported in the Wall Street Journal that North Korea kept its “citizens in the dark ages,” with ”foreign goods being kept out.”

In reality, it was not the North Korean government but U.S. sanctions that kept foreign goods out—including household items like lipstick, salami sausages, knives and watches, whose importation was all banned.

And while there are certainly oppressive features of society, including a harsh criminal justice system, life in North Korea in Abt’s observations is far from dystopic or out of the dark ages.

Rather, it is not very different from other countries: Buildings are painted in all kinds of colors (color is not only found in propaganda posters), the people enjoy pizza, sweets, and other delicacies along with trips to the beach, and kids ride bikes, roller-skate and play other games in the street.

Photos courtesy of Felix Abt

Women particularly thrive as North Korea’s constitution accords them equal social status and rights with men, and a range of benefits including maternity leave.^[1]

Felix Abt with North Korean businesswomen. [Photo courtesy of Felix Abt]

Rather than being starved or downtrodden, most of the workers that Abt met were reasonably well compensated and diligent. The pharmaceutical company that he ran was obsessed with quality and achieved good manufacturing practices as defined by the World Health Organization (WHO), winning bidding competitions against foreign competitors.

North Korea’s airline, Air Koryo, meanwhile, meets high safety standards despite being called in the West the “world’s worst airline.”

Stewardess with North Korea’s national airline, Air Koryo, which the media called the world’s worst airline, but which actually meets high safety standards. [Photo courtesy of Felix Abt]

Tantamount to Another Act of War

A cruel feature of the sanctions policy was its denying North Koreans the opportunity to work abroad, shattering the aspirations of many working people.

North Korean painters are now prohibited from selling their paintings abroad. Other sanctions have prevented North Korea from rebuilding water supplies and drainage systems, causing an upsurge of health problems, and blocked it from importing mechanical parts and fuel to operate agricultural machinery, causing food shortages.

Because U.S. and UK credit and financial institutions were prohibited from dealing with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK-North Korea), North Korean importers and exporters had to travel to their foreign suppliers with suitcases stashed with cash or empty money bags to collect payments.

The sanctions furthermore a) helped prevent the signing of a 9-digit dollar contract with a Swiss company that would have greatly improved North Korea’s power network; b) led to reduction in quality and availability of medicines; c) destroyed the possibility of safe mines because of the banning of the import of mine-safety equipment; and d) forced numerous garment factories to close, resulting in the loss of tens of thousands of jobs.

North Korean miners are deprived of property safety because of the inability to import mine safety equipment due to U.S. sanctions. [Photo courtesy of Felix Abt]

A businessman adversely impacted by sanctions told Abt that he considered the sanctions “tantamount to another act of war by hostile Western powers,” adding that “we in our company have never done anything wrong or illegal.”

As America Wishes It to Be Viewed

Abt concludes his book by noting that,

“given the dominant U.S.-centric North Korea narrative, with no other voice to offer balance or express the true reality, it is hard to blame the general global populace for accepting the situation as America and its supporters wish it to be viewed.”

Perhaps if more Americans learned about the history of the Korean War and its barbarism, they might show some empathy for North Koreans and try and better understand the country’s policies; or perhaps, if more foreign exchanges are established, they might press their government to end the brutal sanctions and to pursue a formal end to the Korean War.

Until that time, we can expect that North Korea will be continuously invoked as a reference point for tyranny and its leader ridiculed, in quasi-racist fashion, as a clownish dictator.

Source: Madison.com

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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. Abt points out that North Korea has more female bank managers than does South Korea. 

Featured image: A family eats ice cream in North Korea [taken by Eva Bartlett]

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First published on May 2, 2022

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“Children have had no voice or vote, regarding their potential Covid vaccination. Children depend entirely on their parents to make a well-informed and wise decision. Ethically, experimental pharmaceutical products, particularly experimental vaccines that have been rushed into use before adequate testing for safety could be completed, must not be administered to anyone, particularly children, without adequate informed consent.” – Dr. Robert Rennebohm

In March Dr. Robert Rennebohm, an American paediatrician with nearly 50 years of experience, penned an extensive open letter to parents and paediatricians regarding Covid “vaccinations” for children.  At the end of his 119-page letter, he lists over 1,000 references – almost all of which have either been published in peer-reviewed medical journals or submitted as pre-prints for publication. Just before the list of references, he has included links to several helpful educational video interviews and video presentations.

“Parents, I apologise for the length of this Letter … Much is at stake. So, for the sake of your child and all children, please consider taking the time to read this Letter. If you don’t have time, consider reading just the ‘Summary – shorter version of this open letter’,” Dr. Rennebohm wrote.

Paediatricians are legally and morally required to honour the principle of “Informed Consent” and make certain that parents are sufficiently informed before they (the parents) agree to have their children vaccinated.

The information and concerns explained in this Open Letter represent the kind of information needed for a parent to make a well-informed decision before granting consent for vaccination of their child.

An Open Letter to Parents and Pediatricians Regarding Covid Vaccination, Dr. Robert Rennebohm, March 2022

The following are excerpts taken from the summary section, pages 7 to 18, of Dr. Rennebohm’s Open Letter.

Introduction

Two contradictory views on Covid vaccination have been expressed: a prevailing narrative – get vaccinated, immediately! Vaccination is our way out of the pandemic, and an alternative narrative – stop the Covid vaccination campaign immediately! Covid vaccination is dangerous and makes the pandemic worse. Unfortunately, there has been little or no healthy scientific dialogue between proponents of the two narratives, despite repeated pleas for such from leaders of the alternative narrative.

This Open Letter is intended to help parents and paediatricians to better understand the science behind the conflicting narratives and decide on the best course of action regarding Covid vaccination of children. This Letter seeks to:

• clarify the science behind Covid vaccination issues;
• facilitate healthy, inclusive dialogue; and,
• bring people together to jointly determine what would be best for children and humanity as a whole.

Overview of the Human Immune System

The immune system can be divided into two major compartments—the mucosal immune system and the systemic immune system. Dr. Sucharit Bhakdi has helpfully referred to these two compartments as the “Air Force” (mucosal compartment) and the “Navy” (systemic compartment).

An Open Letter to Parents and Pediatricians Regarding Covid Vaccination, Dr. Robert Rennebohm, March 2022

The Air Force is “based” in the mucosa and submucosa (the space underneath the mucosal lining) of the respiratory tract, the GI tract, and the mucosa/submucosa of other mucous membrane-lined organs (e.g., bladder, uterus, etc.).

The Navy is based (has “bases”) throughout the rest of the body—in lymph nodes, spleen, bone marrow, blood circulation, within solid organs, etc.

Both the Air Force and the Navy have an innate immunity division and an acquired (adaptive) immunity division.

When the SARS-CoV-2 virus invades a person, the human immune system potentially uses all of its multiple dimensions—both its mucosal immune system (the Air Force) and its systemic immune system (the Navy), both of which have an innate immunity division and an acquired immunity division—to quickly subdue the virus (initially by innate immunity troops of the Air Force) and create robust, durable, multi-dimensional acquired immunity to protect the person from future invasion by that virus.

In comparison, the Covid vaccines provide uni-dimensional training of the systemic immune system and little, if any, training of the mucosal immune system.

There is a legitimate concern that the current Covid vaccines could be interfering with innate immunity and detrimentally disrupting the flow and optimal function of the natural human immune ecosystem.

Effects of a Respiratory Pandemic Without a Vaccine

When a respiratory viral pandemic like the Covid pandemic is not treated with a vaccine (which was the case during the first year of the Covid pandemic, when no Covid vaccine was available), a considerable percentage of the population (primarily people under age 60, who are out and about) eventually become infected with the virus (the SARS-CoV-2 virus in this pandemic).

The most vulnerable, including the elderly, must be carefully protected from exposure to the virus. Those who do become infected need to be proactively treated (much more promptly and aggressively than has been the case throughout the Covid pandemic).  Those who become infected (and recover) develop robust naturally acquired sterilising immunity that contributes to increasing development of herd immunity.

The natural course of a respiratory virus pandemic is one of gradual resolution, usually over a period of months, and this resolution is largely due to increasing development of robust sterilising herd immunity.

It is important to understand that herd immunity via natural infection is far superior to herd immunity attempted via mass vaccination with a sub-optimal (non-sterilising) vaccine in the midst of an active pandemic. Herd immunity cannot be achieved through mass vaccination with a sub-optimal (non-sterilising) vaccine. And, in fact, such vaccination interferes with the development of herd immunity.

Effects of a Respiratory Pandemic Treated Primarily with a Vaccine

The current Covid pandemic has been primarily managed with the roll-out of a rapid, mass vaccination campaign (across all age groups), using sub-optimal (non-sterilising) uni-dimensional vaccines (directed at only the spike protein), in the midst of the active pandemic and in the midst of considerable lockdown measures.

According to many experienced virologists/vaccinologists, a mass vaccination campaign using a sub-optimal (non-sterilising) vaccine in the midst of a pandemic is a recipe for disaster.  Because:

• When a person who has been vaccinated with a sub-optimal vaccine is subsequently exposed to the virus, the vaccine does not prevent the virus from entering cells, replicating in those cells, and spreading to other people.
• When the virus replicates in the vaccinated person’s cells, new mutations develop, and under the pressure of the mass vaccination campaign and the added pressure of lockdown measures, the mutated variants that will be successful. Covid mass vaccination will inevitably result in predominant variants with increased vaccine resistance and increased transmissibility.
• The mass vaccination campaign might eventually generate a predominant variant that is intrinsically more virulent (deadly) than any of its predecessors—an intrinsically more virulent variant that could be harmful to everyone, including children, regardless of vaccination status. Covid illness may become more life-threatening because of vaccine-induced ADE (antibody-dependent enhancement).

Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche, a leading proponent of the alternative narrative, disagrees that this is a “pandemic of the unvaccinated.” On the contrary, he views it as a pandemic that has become prolonged and more dangerous because of the mass vaccination campaign. Furthermore, he worries that it is the vaccinated people who are becoming the most likely “spreaders” of the virus—because the vaccine allows the vaccine-resistant variant to enter their cells and replicate, while the vaccine might indirectly make them less symptomatic, even asymptomatic, which results in their possibly being unwitting asymptomatic spreaders.

Dr. Vanden Bossche thinks it is a huge mistake to continue the current Covid mass vaccination campaign. He strongly urges that we stop vaccinating before it is too late.

According to the alternative narrative, the total cumulative numbers of Covid hospitalisations, Covid ICU admissions, and Covid deaths during the Covid pandemic (from the beginning of the pandemic through January 2022) would have been lower if the pandemic had not been treated with the mass vaccination campaign and, instead, had been managed.

Other Concerns About the Covid Vaccines, Adverse Events

In addition to concerns that current mass vaccination is driving the development of more transmissible and potentially more lethal strains, may be harming natural innate immune function (particularly in children), and is interfering with the development of sterilising herd immunity, many scientists and physicians are deeply concerned that the Covid vaccines are unsafe in other important ways – causing unacceptable short- and long-term side effects for individuals.  For example myocarditis and pericarditis in adolescents and young adults; lethal clotting and devastating neurologic side effects in adults.

References at the end of Dr. Rennebohm’s Open Letter include 757 articles in the medical literature that report serious side effects of Covid vaccinations (reference nos. 271-1028). This represents an alarming and unprecedented number of reports of adverse effects of a new pharmaceutical product. The VAERS data also reveal an alarming number of severe adverse reactions and deaths associated with the Covid vaccines.

Problems With the Covid PCR Test and Covid Data

The prevailing narrative (its data, its conclusions, and its policies) has been fundamentally based on the use of the Covid PCR test.

A positive Covid PCR test at a Ct (cycle threshold) greater than 30 is likely to represent either a false positive (commonly) or detection of a tiny amount of dead virus. Many of such people have not, in fact, had Covid, and if they have had Covid, they are no longer infectious.

Even when a Covid PCR test is positive at a low Ct value, this does not assure that the patient definitely has Covid. The most accurate test for confirmation of Covid is genomic sequencing. Since the beginning of the pandemic, confirmed diagnoses of Covid should have been based on genomic sequencing, not on PCR testing.

By basing data collection on the Covid PCR test CDC and State Health Departments have generated scientifically unsound data. Data collection has been based on scientifically unsound criteria for the designation of “Covid cases,” “Covid hospitalisations,” and “Covid deaths.”

The prevailing narrative has not been based on proper conduct of science. This has been a huge and fundamental problem throughout the pandemic.

Efficacy of the Vaccines

Proponents of the alternative narrative are concerned that the Covid vaccines are not nearly as effective as initially and subsequently claimed by their manufacturers.

Covid vaccines are sub-optimal (non-sterilising) and uni-dimensional; only partially train the systemic immune system; have little or no effect on the mucosal immune system; may be interfering with normal immune function, and drive the appearance and predominance of viral variants that “escape” the vaccinal antibodies and become increasingly transmissible and potentially more lethal.

Several studies suggest that the Covid vaccines actually increase the risk of Covid infection and Covid death during the 5 weeks after the first dose; then there is temporary and modest protection (at best) for a matter of only weeks or a few months; then there appears to be a negative effect (increased susceptibility to Covid infection); and it is likely that Boosters will prove to provide only transient benefit, which is likely due to brief non-specific stimulation of natural immunity.

Furthermore, there is legitimate concern that vaccine-induced ADE phenomena might be increasing disease severity and death in vaccinated people when they subsequently become infected; and there is some evidence that vaccinated people may be more likely to spread the virus than are the unvaccinated (because the vaccines may actually facilitate viral entry into cells).

Conclusions

In section 10 of his Open Letter summary, pages 16 to 18, Dr. Rennebohm lists his conclusions.  If you are very short of time this may be a good place to start.  His final two concluding points state:

“For the sake of our children, grandchildren, and all of humanity, we have an individual and collective social responsibility to call for an immediate and complete halt to the current Covid vaccination campaign, on a scientific basis alone, until an appropriate Covid Commission is convened to thoroughly and accurately evaluate the Covid situation. In the meantime, current scientific evidence strongly suggests that to participate in the continuation of the Covid vaccination campaign – to promote it, to remain silent about it, or to personally receive further Covid vaccination – is to contribute to the harm of children and humanity, as well as harm to oneself.

“Morally, ethically, and scientifically, we have a social responsibility to call for at least temporary cessation of the Covid vaccination campaign. Such a call is an unselfish, science-based act of courage and social responsibility, behind which all of humanity (whether currently unvaccinated or already vaccinated) can confidently unite, to the mutual support and the emotional, social, and health benefit of all.”

You can read and download the full ‘Open Letter to Parents and Paediatricians Regarding Covid Vaccination’ for sharing with medical professionals and others HERE.

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Dr. Rennebohm has written 21 articles covering most aspects of Covid including one titled ‘A Call for an Independent International Covid Commission’.  You can find all his articles HERE.

Featured image is from Vaccines.news

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By Peter Koenig and Press TV, May 05, 2022

Iran and Venezuela are poised to enter a new era to fight US sanctions. Their cooperation in Hydrocarbons production as well as trade may help them gradually detach from western sanctions.

Congress Must Reject the Application to Russia of the Crazy AUMC (Post 9/11 Authorization for Use of Military Force)

By Daniel Larison, May 05, 2022

Rep. Adam Kinzinger is sponsoring a new resolution authorizing the use of American military force in the war, and it is vital that Congress rejects it. Kinzinger has been one of the loudest agitators for military action in Ukraine, and he wants this authorization in order to give the president a free hand to take the US into a potentially catastrophic war.

Patient Betrayal: The Corruption of Healthcare, Informed Consent and the Physician-Patient Relationship

By James A. Thorp, Thomas Kenny, and et al., May 05, 2022

There are 1,013 peer-reviewed medical journal publications documenting morbidities and mortalities of the experimental COVID-19 nucleic acid therapy. VAERS data demonstrate a significant risk associated with this experimental gene therapy in women of reproductive age and pregnant women.

Serious Adverse Jab Reactions 40 Times Higher Than Previously Reported

By Free West Media, May 05, 2022

A German study has found that the number of serious side effects after Corona vaccines was 40 times higher than previously reported. The Charité, a well-known hospital in Berlin, interviewed 40 000 vaccinated people after they had received their mandated jabs.

US Launches Two Sets of Military Exercises in Europe

By Kyle Anzalone and Will Porter, May 05, 2022

Swift Response 2022, an annual drill hosted by the US Army’s Europe and Africa component command, kicked off on Monday and is set to run until May 20. It will be carried out across locations in the Arctic High North, the Baltics, the Balkans and elsewhere in Eastern Europe, the Army said in a statement.

US Officials Say US Intelligence Is Helping Ukraine Kill Russian Generals

By Dave DeCamp, May 05, 2022

Ukraine has claimed to have killed 12 Russian generals, but the number is not confirmed, and Kyiv has an interest in exaggerating its success on the battlefield, and the officials wouldn’t specify how many Russian officers were killed as a result of the assistance. But either way, the claim by US officials that they are helping kill Russian generals is a major provocation toward Moscow.

Leaking for Roe v Wade

By Dr. Binoy Kampmark, May 05, 2022

A statement from the Supreme Court, in an effort to keep up appearances, claims that its operations has only suffered a minor hiccup.  “Although the document described in yesterday’s reports is authentic, it does not represent a decision by the Court or the final position of any member on the issues in the case.”

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***

The European Union is debating on imposing sanctions on Patriarch Kirill, the head of The Russian Orthodox Church (ROC), also known as the Moscow Patriarchate, who leads about 100 million believers. The EU has accused him of supporting the war in Ukraine, and President Vladimir Putin. The sanctions would entail an asset freeze and a travel ban, with EU diplomats set to meet this week to discuss the sanctions, which is part of a wider package proposed by the EU on Wednesday.

About 75% of Russians and 60% of Ukrainians profess to be Orthodox Christians, which can be both a religious as well as cultural affiliation.

In a sermon in March, Kirill preached against western values such as greed and gay pride parades.  Kirill and many Russians who hold his views, see the war in Ukraine in terms of religious values, defending conservative moral values against a corrupt West. Kirill has referred to “so-called homosexual marriages” as a threat to family values. “When laws are detached from morality they cease being laws people can accept.”

The Ukraine had been closely united with Russia.  The prevailing faith in Ukraine was the Russian Orthodox Church. A large percentage of those living in Ukraine speak Russian and identify themselves as ethnically Russians.  However, in the decades since the fall of the Soviet Union, and the independent status of Ukraine, the government there has been leaning toward the West.  They want to join the EU, NATO and accept western views on gay issues.

“By separating from Moscow we are adhering to the Christian vision of the world,” said Father Vladymir Melnichuk of the Russian Orthodox Church in Udine, Italy.  Melnichuk recently split his church from Moscow, and instead allied with a church based in Istanbul.

In 2018, the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (UAOC) and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church – Kyiv Patriarchate (UOC-KP), were considered “schismatics” (illegally segregated groups) by the Patriarchate of Moscow (ROC), as well as by the other Eastern Orthodox churches. The schism forms part of a wider political conflict involving Russia’s 2014 annexation of the Crimea and its military intervention in Ukraine, as well as Ukraine’s desire to join the EU and NATO.

Russian values are not the same as Western values.  The Russian Orthodox Church does not approve of gay marriages, or educating children about their options to declare themselves gay, or choose a different gender to identify with.  What has become common place in USA is not accepted everywhere, but the US government seeks to impose their own values on other countries, in their role as the global superpower.

The US has a long list of regime-change projects: Vietnam, Iraq, Libya, Egypt, Yemen and Syria.  Imposing a US style of freedom and democracy on foreign countries has become a decades old mantra at the State Department.  Similarly imposing US style secular values on foreign countries has become a point of derision.

The American society, government, schools and churches have made gay rights and transgender issues an accepted fact of life.  If there are conservative Americans with different views, they have been encouraged to remain silent, and accept the prevailing notion that everyone has a right to choose.

The Russians not the same as Americans.  There are different opinions and viewpoints based on history, religion and culture.

Putin, in responding to prevailing Russian opinion on issues involving homosexuality, passed laws preventing indoctrinating minors about homosexuality and preventing gay pride rallies which would have been seen by children.

In July 2020, Putin mocked the US embassy in Moscow for flying a rainbow flag to celebrate LGBT rights.  Russia had conducted a nationwide vote on constitutional reforms that included an amendment enshrining the definition of marriage specifically as a union between a man and a woman.

“It’s no big deal though. We have spoken about this many times, and our position is clear,” said Putin, who has sought to distance Russia from liberal Western values and aligned himself with the Russian Orthodox Church.

Putin added,

“Yes, we passed a law banning the propaganda of homosexuality among minors. So what? Let people grow up, become adults and then decide their own destinies.”

Russia had decriminalized homosexuality after the fall of communism in 1993, but anti-gay sentiments have been on the rise in the country in the past decade.

Under the Obama administration, the issue of gay rights became extremely import.  Obama sent gay Ambassadors to five countries in order to send a message on where the US government stood on the issue.  Promoting gay pride, and same-sex marriages in foreign countries became an important foreign policy in Obama’s State Department.

During Obama’s terms in office, the push to make lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights became an international issue. The high point came in December 2011, when then-secretary of state Hillary Clinton went to the United Nations in Geneva and proclaimed LGBT rights “one of the remaining human rights challenges of our time”.

In 2014, US Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul, said he was proud of the message the United States gave Russia on gay rights leading up to the Olympics, and said the Obama administration had been tough on Russia on human rights throughout his tenure in Moscow.

“We as an administration, starting with the president, virtually every day are very open in criticizing the Russian government when we see human rights abuses,” McFaul said.

US advice and encouragement is sometimes condemned as unacceptable meddling with foreign cultures and religious values. Some conservative American groups are outraged by the policy. Brian Brown, president of the National Organization for Marriage, calls it “a slap in the face to the majority of Americans”, given that American voters have rejected same-sex marriage in a number of state referendums.

“This is taking a flawed view of what it means to be a human being male and female and trying to impose that on countries throughout the world,” Brown said. “The administration would like people to believe that this is simply ‘live and let live.’ No, this is coercion in its worst possible form.”

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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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***

In what appears to be yet another escalation in Silicon Valley’s redoubled efforts to quash dissident voices since the beginning of the Ukraine war, PayPal has just blocked the accounts of multiple alternative media voices who’ve been speaking critically against official US empire narratives. These include journalist and speaker Caleb Maupin, and Mnar Adley and Alan MacLeod of MintPress News.

Just the other day MintPress published an excellent article by MacLeod titled “An Intellectual No-Fly Zone: Online Censorship of Ukraine Dissent Is Becoming the New Norm” documenting the many ways skepticism of the US government’s version of events in this war is being suppressed by Silicon Valley megacorporations, including financial censorship via the demonetization of YouTube videos that don’t regurgitate the imperial line on Ukraine.

Today, both MintPress and MacLeod have been banned from using the payment service that many online content creators have come to rely on to help crowdfund their work.

BREAKING: MintPress News & @AlanRMacLeod has been banned from PayPal for unspecified reasons.

Help us fight back against this onslaught of censorship: https://t.co/dzLbAlo48o https://t.co/7CkUbXPFQy

— MintPress News (@MintPressNews) April 28, 2022

MintPress News happens to have published critical journalism about PayPal itself in the past, like the articles it published in 2018 by Whitney Webb documenting the way shady PayPal-linked billionaires Peter Thiel and Pierre Omidyar have advanced the interests of the US empire and facilitated imperial narrative control, or this one from 2016 on how the company blocks Palestinians from opening accounts while showing no such bias against illegal Israeli settlers.

I asked MintPress News Executive Director Mnar Adley for comment on PayPal’s move. Here is her response in full:

“Paypal banning myself and MintPress is blatant censorship of dissenting journalists & outlets. For the past decade MintPress has been unapologetically working as a watchdog journalism outlet to expose the profiteers of the permanent war state from the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Somalia, Sudan to Apartheid Israel’s occupation of Palestine and Saudi Arabia’s genocidal war in Yemen to regime change operations in Syria, Ukraine and Venezuela where US weapons have flooded these nations to plunge them into devastating civil wars.

“In the era of a declining US empire, censorship has become the last resort of an unpopular regime and its forever wars to make the truth disappear and critical thinking all but dead. With the war in Ukraine raging on, we’ve entered war time and Big Tech giants, including Paypal, are working hand in hand with the New Cold War architects themselves to sanction dissenting journalists. If you read the board of any of these tech giants from Google, Twitter, Facebook and Paypal, they read like a rogues’ gallery of war mongers and their agenda is clear: To control the free flow of information and target the bank accounts of anyone who dares question the official narrative of the Pentagon or State Department.

“It is outrageous to be told that tech giants, which are run by those who directly profit from the New Cold war including the crisis in Ukraine, could limit any journalist’s ability to fund their work. Can you imagine if this was the norm in Russia, China or Iran? Our media would be screaming about free speech and first amendment rights. Yet, when we do it’s ok because it’s under the guise of fighting ‘Russian propaganda’.

“We’re living in an intellectual No-Fly Zone where online censorship of dissenting journalism has become the new norm. The US sanctions regime that is trying to starve Russia, Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Cuba and Iran and over 25% of the world’s population is now targeting its own citizens with its maximum pressure campaign so we are forced to toe the official government line in order to survive as a journalist in alternative media today.

“No matter the war waged against us, we refuse to be backed into a corner and bullied by tech giants who have a deep relationship with weapons manufacturers like Raytheon and Lockheed Martin and who work hand in hand with NATO that profit off the blood of millions of people around the world. The only way forward is for people to unite on a broader front of non-partisanship and fund our own media because there are more of us than there are of them.”

I am banned from PayPal. pic.twitter.com/GB6IrT80wq

— Caleb T. Maupin (@calebmaupin) April 28, 2022

PayPal has also banned Caleb Maupin, an American speaker and journalist whose work has already seen his personal Twitter account branded “Russia state-affiliated media” by the US state-affiliated platform.

“Why should something as basic as cash transactions be subject to political censorship?” said Maupin when asked for comment. “The economic war on independent countries is turning into a war on free speech. Writers and journalists must be able to eat.”

Indeed, a very effective way to silence unauthorized media voices is to make it difficult for them to earn a living making their voices heard. Speaking from experience I know for a fact I couldn’t put out a fraction of the content I put out if I was forced to work a 9-5 job in some office rather than having the freedom to put all my time and mental energy into this work thanks to the generous support of my readers. Cutting me off from that funding would be the same as censoring me directly, because there’s no way I could continue the kind of work I do.

We are at a profoundly dangerous and frightening point in human history. The US proxy war against Russia in Ukraine is escalating by the day and the drums of war are beating ever louder against China over the Solomon Islands and Taiwan. If you think censorship is bad now, wait until this global power grab really gets going.

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***

Iran and Venezuela are poised to enter a new era to fight US sanctions. Their cooperation in Hydrocarbons production as well as trade may help them gradually detach from western sanctions.

An idea brought forward in this interview is their joint exit from the dollar-dominated trade economy, by selling their petrol and gas in one or more other currencies than the US dollar or even the Euro. Ideally, they may want to join the Russian move of selling gas for rubles instead of US dollars.

This Russian initiative, of course, has been a major “explosion” in Europe and elsewhere in the world, but most countries eventually accept this new payment mode – one that is totally delinked from the US dollar and its little brother, the Euro.

It is a move away from the SWIFT transfer system which makes countries vulnerable to sanctions, because using SWIFT – the western payment mode — all transfers have to transit via US banks, thus increasing vulnerability to western, mostly US, interferences or sanctions.

After all, still today 84% of all energy used in the world stems from hydrocarbons, as compared to some 87% in the year 2000. And this despite much talk of shunning petrol and gas, the Paris Climate Agenda, and especially propagating a Green Agenda – empty words, manipulating people’s minds towards a new form of capitalism.

Another strategy which both countries are actively considering, is increasingly delinking their trading from the west and orienting their economies towards the east, i.e., the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), the Association of South Asian Nations (ASEAN), uniting 11 Asian countries, plus Russia and China. Earlier this year, Iran has been admitted as a member of the SCO.

These Eastern block economies, together make up for about 50% of Mother Earth’s population and at least a third of the world’s GDP. Becoming part of this union is definitely a decisive step away from western domination and US sanctions.

See Peter Koenig’s Interview (PressTV-PK – video 12 min – 3 May 2022) below.

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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 has worked for over 30 years on water and environment around the world. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for online journals and is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed; and  co-author of Cynthia McKinney’s book “When China Sneezes: From the Coronavirus Lockdown to the Global Politico-Economic Crisis” (Clarity Press – November 1, 2020).

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

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***

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) bought access to location data harvested from tens of millions of phones in the United States to perform analysis of compliance with curfews, track patterns of people visiting K-12 schools, and specifically monitor the effectiveness of policy in the Navajo Nation, according to CDC documents obtained by Motherboard. The documents also show that although the CDC used COVID-19 as a reason to buy access to the data more quickly, it intended to use it for more-general CDC purposes.

Location data is information on a device’s location sourced from the phone, which can then show where a person lives, works, and where they went. The sort of data the CDC bought was aggregated—meaning it was designed to follow trends that emerge from the movements of groups of people—but researchers have repeatedly raised concerns with how location data can be deanonymized and used to track specific people.

The documents reveal the expansive plan the CDC had last year to use location data from a highly controversial data broker. SafeGraph, the company the CDC paid $420,000 for access to one year of data, includes Peter Thiel and the former head of Saudi intelligence among its investors. Google banned the company from the Play Store in June.

The CDC used the data for monitoring curfews, with the documents saying that SafeGraph’s data “has been critical for ongoing response efforts, such as hourly monitoring of activity in curfew zones or detailed counts of visits to participating pharmacies for vaccine monitoring.” The documents date from 2021.

Zach Edwards, a cybersecurity researcher who closely follows the data marketplace, told Motherboard in an online chat after reviewing the documents:

“The CDC seems to have purposefully created an open-ended list of use cases, which included monitoring curfews, neighbor-to-neighbor visits, visits to churches, schools and pharmacies, and also a variety of analysis with this data specifically focused on ‘violence.’” (The document doesn’t stop at churches; it mentions “places of worship.”)

Motherboard obtained the documents through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the CDC.

The documents contain a long list of what the CDC describes as 21 different “potential CDC use cases for data.” They include:

• “Track patterns of those visiting K-12 schools by the school and compare to 2019; compare with epi metrics [Environmental Performance Index] if possible.”
• “Examination of the correlation of mobility patterns data and rise in COVID-19 cases […] Movement restrictions (Border closures, inter-regional and nigh curfews) to show compliance.”
• “Examination of the effectiveness of public policy on [the] Navajo Nation.”

At the start of the pandemic, cellphone location data was seen as a potentially useful tool. Multiple media organizations, including the New York Times, used location data provided by companies in the industry to show where people were traveling to once lockdowns started to lift, or highlight that poorer communities were unable to shelter in place as much as richer ones.

The COVID-19 pandemic as a whole has been a flashpoint in a broader culture war, with conservatives and anti-vaccine groups protesting government mask and vaccine mandates. They’ve also expressed a specific paranoia that vaccine passports would be used as a tracking or surveillance tool, framing vaccine refusal as a civil liberties issue. Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Children’s Health Defense, one of the more influential and monied anti-vaccine groups in the U.S., has promoted fears that digital vaccine certificates could be used to surveil citizens. QAnon promoter Dustin Nemos wrote on Telegram in December that vaccine passports are “a Trojan horse being used to create a completely new type of controlled and surveilled society in which the freedom we enjoy today will be a distant memory.”

Against that inflamed backdrop, the use of cellphone location data for such a wide variety of tracking measures, even if effective for becoming better informed on the pandemic’s spread or for informing policy, is likely to be controversial. It’s also likely to give anti-vaccine groups a real-world data point on which to pin their darkest warnings.

A SCREENSHOT OF THE USE CASES PROPOSED BY THE CDC. IMAGE: MOTHERBOARD.

The procurement documents say that “This is an URGENT COVID-19 PR [procurement request],” and asks for the purchase to be expedited.

But some of the use cases are not explicitly linked to the COVID-19 pandemic. One reads “Research points of interest for physical activity and chronic disease prevention such as visits to parks, gyms, or weight management businesses.”

Another section of the document elaborates on the location data’s use for non-COVID-19–related programs.

“CDC also plans to use mobility data and services acquired through this acquisition to support non-COVID-19 programmatic areas and public health priorities across the agency, including but not limited to travel to parks and green spaces, physical activity and mode of travel, and population migration before, during, and after natural disasters,” it reads. “The mobility data obtained under this contract will be available for CDC agency-wide use and will support numerous CDC priorities.”

The CDC did not respond to multiple emails requesting comment on which use cases it deployed SafeGraph data for.

SafeGraph is part of the ballooning location industry, and SafeGraph has previously shared datasets containing 18 million cellphones from the United States. The documents say this acquisition is for data that is geographically representative, “i.e., derived from at least 20 million active cellphone users per day across the United States.”

Generally, companies in this industry ask, or pay, app developers to include location data gathering code in their apps. The location data then funnels up to companies that may resell the raw location data outright or package it into products.

SafeGraph sells both. On the developed product side, SafeGraph has several different products. “Places” concerns points of interest (POIs) such as where particular stores or buildings are located. “Patterns” is based on mobile phone location data that can show for how long people visit a location, and “Where they came from” and “Where else they go,” according to SafeGraph’s website. More recently SafeGraph has started offering aggregated transaction data, showing how much consumers typically spend at specific locations, under the “Spend” product. SafeGraph sells its products to a wide range of industries, such as real estate, insurance, and advertising. These products include aggregated data on movements and spends, rather than the location of specific devices. Motherboard previously bought a set of SafeGraph location data for $200. The data was aggregated, meaning it was not supposed to pinpoint the movements of specific devices and hence people, but at the time, Edwards said, “In my opinion the SafeGraph data is way beyond any safe thresholds [around anonymity].” Edwards pointed to a search result in SafeGraph’s data portal that displayed data related to a specific doctor’s office, showing how finely tuned the company’s data can be. Theoretically, an attacker could use that data to then attempt to unmask the specific users, something which researchers have repeatedly demonstrated is possible.

In January 2019, the Illinois Department of Transportation bought such data from SafeGraph that related to over 5 million phones, activist organization the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) previously found.

The CDC documents show that the agency bought access to SafeGraph’s “U.S. Core Place Data,” “Weekly Patterns Data,” and “Neighborhood Patterns Data. That last product includes information such as home dwelling time, and is aggregated by state and census block.

“SafeGraph offers visitor data at the Census Block Group level that allows for extremely accurate insights related to age, gender, race, citizenship status, income, and more,” one of the CDC documents reads.

Both SafeGraph and the CDC have previously touched on their partnership, but not in the detail that is revealed in the documents. The CDC published a study in September 2020 which looked at whether people around the country were following stay-at-home orders, which appeared to use SafeGraph data.

SafeGraph wrote in a blog post in April 2020 that “To play our part in the fight against the COVID-19 health crisis—and its devastating impact on the global economy—we decided to expand our program further, making our foot traffic data free for nonprofit organizations and government agencies at the local, state, and federal level.” Multiple location data companies touted their data as a potential mitigation to the pandemic during its peak in the United States, and provided data to government and media organizations.

A year later, the CDC purchased access to the data because SafeGraph no longer wanted to provide it for free, according to the documents. The Data Use Agreement for the in-kind provided data was set to expire on March 31, 2021, the documents add. The data was still important to access as the U.S. opened up, the CDC argued in the documents.

“CDC has interest in continued access to this mobility data as the country opens back up. This data is used by several teams/groups in the response and have been resulting in deeper insights into the pandemic as it pertains to human behavior,” one section reads.

Researchers at the EFF separately obtained documents concerning the CDC’s purchase of similar location data products from a company called Cubeiq as well as the SafeGraph documents. The EFF shared those documents with Motherboard. They showed that the CDC also asked to speed up the purchase of Cubeiq’s data because of COVID-19, and intended to use it for non-COVID-19 purposes. The documents also listed the same potential use-cases for Cubeiq’s data as in the SafeGraph documents.

Google banned SafeGraph from its Google Play Store in June. This meant that any app developers using SafeGraph’s code had to remove it from their apps, or face having their app removed from the store. It is not entirely clear how effective this ban has been: SafeGraph has previously said it obtains location data via Veraset, a spin-off company which interfaces with the app developers.

SafeGraph did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

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***

The US has no business joining the war in Ukraine, and Congress should refuse to approve any measure that endorses direct intervention in the conflict. Rep. Adam Kinzinger is sponsoring a new resolution authorizing the use of American military force in the war, and it is vital that Congress rejects it. Kinzinger has been one of the loudest agitators for military action in Ukraine, and he wants this authorization in order to give the president a free hand to take the US into a potentially catastrophic war.

Kinzinger’s resolution would give the president authorization to use force to “assist” in “defending and restoring the territorial integrity of Ukraine” in the event of a Russian biological, chemical, or nuclear attack. Lumping these types of attacks together serves to blur the differences between them, and if the resolution passed it would draw an unnecessary red line that the US would then be under pressure to enforce. The president should make clear that he doesn’t want the authority Kinzinger is proposing, and Kinzinger’s colleagues in Congress should firmly repudiate his warmongering by voting down his resolution.

If the US did what Kinzinger wanted, it would lead at best to a dangerous and unnecessary war for the United States and at worst it would lead to a nuclear exchange that would devastate our country and much of the world. It makes no sense to respond to Russian unconventional attacks with an armed intervention that makes it more likely that Russia launches many nuclear strikes. The Russian government has made it abundantly clear that direct intervention by outside powers in Ukraine would trigger a severe response, and that is widely assumed to include the use of nuclear weapons. It would be reckless in the extreme to assume that the Russian leadership is bluffing about that.

Because the resolution refers to “restoring” Ukraine’s territorial integrity, that implies that the US would be expected to participate in retaking every piece of territory that has been under Russian control since 2014. That would presumably include using US forces to take Crimea, which Moscow now considers to be part of its territory. If direct US intervention in the war didn’t provoke further escalation from Russia right away, trying to seize control of Crimea surely would.

The resolution obscures the reality of what would be involved in providing this “assistance,” since it would necessarily mean open war with Russia and it would presumably require US attacks on Russian soil. Once US forces start attacking the Russian military, retaliation against the US and its European allies would be inevitable. That would mean turning a local war into a general war between the two states with the largest nuclear arsenals on the planet. There is no scenario in which a general war between the US and Russia results in anything but massive death and destruction for all parties. Actively courting that outcome as Kinzinger does is pure madness. For all of Kinzinger’s talk of “standing with our allies,” his preferred course of action would very likely lead to huge losses of life in dozens of allied countries.

Even if the consequences of using force were not so grave, it would be foolish to authorize the use of force in advance. We have seen before with the Gulf of Tonkin resolution and the 2002 AUMF what happens when Congress hands over blanket, open-ended authority to the president, and we also know how these authorizations can be stretched and applied in ways that they were not intended to be used. Congress should never volunteer to give the president authority to wage a war, especially one as potentially costly and disastrous as a war with Russia over Ukraine. Pre-authorizations like the one Kinzinger proposes are the foreign policy equivalent of loaded guns, and they prematurely cede authority to the president to decide on the question of war. Nothing good can come from them, and they are designed for the sole purpose of getting the US into wars that have nothing to do with defending this country.

Among its other defects, the resolution also uses dishonest language. The text of the resolution refers to defending the “territorial integrity of United States allies,” but Ukraine is the only country whose territory is mentioned in the resolution. Crucially, Ukraine is not and never has been an ally of the United States. Not only is the US not obliged to go to war for Ukraine, but the US also has no vital interests in Ukraine that could possibly justify doing so. Kinzinger’s description of Ukraine as an ally is a bit of sleight-of-hand that many hawks in both parties have used before, but it doesn’t withstand scrutiny. He is calling on the US to defend the territory of allies, but that is exactly what going to war to defend Ukraine wouldn’t be.

Going to war with Russia is not in the interests of the United States or its treaty allies, and there is no plausible scenario in which it is.

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Daniel Larison is a contributing editor and weekly columnist for Antiwar.com and maintains his own site at Eunomia. He is former senior editor at The American Conservative. He has been published in the New York Times Book Review, Dallas Morning News, World Politics Review, Politico Magazine, Orthodox Life, Front Porch Republic, The American Scene, and Culture11, and was a columnist for The Week. He holds a PhD in history from the University of Chicago, and resides in Lancaster, PA. Follow him on Twitter.

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***

A German study has found that the number of serious side effects after Corona vaccines was 40 times higher than previously reported. The Charité, a well-known hospital in Berlin, interviewed 40 000 vaccinated people after they had received their mandated jabs.

The interviews showed that the number of serious side effects was 40 times higher than previously reported by medical supervisors the Paul Ehrlich Institute, according to MDR, the public broadcaster of the states of Thuringia, Saxony-Anhalt and Saxony. The number of side effects resulting from normal vaccines, such as those against polio or measles, is considerably lower, researchers pointed out.

NEW – "The number of severe complications after vaccination against Sars-CoV-2 is 40 times higher than previously recorded by the Paul Ehrlich Institute (PEI)," a study with around 40,000 participants by the Berlin Charité concludes.https://t.co/GSys7hSTzY

— Disclose.tv (@disclosetv) May 3, 2022

Sweden, Israel and Canada

Lead researcher Harald Matthes said the figures corresponded to the picture in countries such as Sweden, Israel and Canada. Even the makers of the vaccines come up with similar numbers in their own studies.

Last year, Dutch data analyst Wouter Aukema analysed data from the European Medicines Agency (EMA) for all EU member states and saw a similar picture emerge.

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Defying threats from the European Union, Hungary has announced they will not stop purchasing oil and gas from Russia and join a blockade of energy products by the 27 member EU alliance.

Hungary will not support sanctions that would make Russian oil and gas shipments to Hungary impossible, Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said in a statement on Tuesday.

Speaking in Kazakhstan, Szijjarto said Russian oil shipments via the Druzhba pipeline accounted for about 65% of the oil Hungary needed and there were no alternative supply routes that could replace that. (link)

Slovakia has also announced they will not participate, which makes any collective EU action problematic.  Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is reported to be using his connection to the U.S. and Joe Biden in an effort to force the EU to deliver additional sanctions.   Essentially, if an EU country does not fall in line, Zelenskyy will instruct Biden not to support that EU country with the money congress is preparing to use as blackmail.

Source: The Last Refuge

The polish government has collapsed under the pressure of Joe Biden and the NATO alliance. However, if you look closely at the $33 billion spending demand from the White House, it’s clear to see the U.S. State Dept, specifically those who are currently operating the proxy war along with the CIA, are positioning the funds for use as bribes to EU allies.

Any deal on Russian oil would require the consent of all 27 EU members, meaning it could not pass without Hungary and Slovakia’s approval. The bloc agreed on an embargo on Russian coal in the fifth package last month, while it has not yet ventured into gas.

[…] Ministers from other EU states have spoken of sympathising with oil-reliant neighbours but urged unity during the crisis. Hungary and its Russia-friendly leader Viktor Orban have irked Ukraine with an equivocal stance on the war. (more)

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The United States and its Western partners have embarked on two simultaneous rounds of war games in Eastern Europe as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine enters its third month. 

Swift Response 2022, an annual drill hosted by the US Army’s Europe and Africa component command, kicked off on Monday and is set to run until May 20. It will be carried out across locations in the Arctic High North, the Baltics, the Balkans and elsewhere in Eastern Europe, the Army said in a statement.

Around 9,000 soldiers – among them 2,700 Americans and 6,300 troops from 16 allied nations – will take part in the exercise. In addition to training for “arctic defense operations,” the servicemen will simulate airborne “Joint Forcible Entries” in Latvia, Lithuania and North Macedonia.

Poland, meanwhile, announced the start of the Defender Europe 2022 military drills on Sunday, noting they would take place May 1–27 in nine countries and will involve 18,000 soldiers from more than 20 nations.

“The troops’ ability to cooperate in a joint combat operation will be put to test using various training episodes including long-distance tactical marches, bridging rivers and live-fire training,” a statement from Warsaw said.

This year’s Defender Europe will be scaled back compared to prior iterations, as more than 30,000 soldiers from 27 nations participated in the drills in 2021. The previous year involved even more troops, and was reportedly one of the largest military exercises held on the continent since the Cold War.

Though Russia has repeatedly denounced such war games as aggressive posturing which “[simulate] offensive military action,” Poland claimed the Defender Europe exercise “demonstrates the United States’ unshakable commitment to NATO,” touting it as “a prime example of our collective capabilities.”

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Kyle Anzalone is the opinion editor of Antiwar.com and news editor of the Libertarian Institute.

Will Porter is the assistant news editor of the Libertarian Insitute and a staff writer at RT. Kyle Anzalone and Will Porter host Conflicts of Interest along with Connor Freeman.

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According to a report from The New York Times citing unnamed senior US officials, intelligence provided by the US on Russian military units has helped Ukraine target and kill Russian generals.

Ukraine has claimed to have killed 12 Russian generals, but the number is not confirmed, and Kyiv has an interest in exaggerating its success on the battlefield, and the officials wouldn’t specify how many Russian officers were killed as a result of the assistance. But either way, the claim by US officials that they are helping kill Russian generals is a major provocation toward Moscow.

Like other US assistance to Ukraine, the claim raises questions about at what point Russia will consider the US to be a co-belligerent in the war. The officials said that the targeting of Russian generals is part of a Biden administration effort to share real-time targeting intelligence with Ukraine.

The officials said that the US is focusing on sharing intelligence on the location of Russia’s mobile military headquarters. They said the US assistance combined with Ukraine’s own intelligence allows Ukrainian forces to target Russian officers.

The US has expanded intelligence sharing with Ukraine since Russia invaded, but there are still limitations. The officials said that the US is prohibited from sharing intelligence on the most senior Russian leaders.

Gen. Valery Gerasimov, Russia’s highest-ranking uniformed officer, reportedly visited the frontlines of Russia’s war in Ukraine this week. The officials said that the US didn’t share information with Ukraine to aid in a strike that hit the area of eastern Ukraine Gerasimov reportedly visited.

Last month, The Wall Street Journal reported that the US was still refraining from providing Ukraine from launching strikes inside Russian territory, although Western officials have been publicly encouraging Kyiv to launch such attacks. Britain’s armed forces minister said it was “completely legitimate” for Ukraine to attack Russian territory, adding that it was “not necessarily a problem” if the attacks were carried out using weapons London provided to Kyiv.

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

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Last week, the Director of National Intelligence, the data-gathering and data-concealing arm of the American intelligence community masquerading as the head of it, revealed that in 2021, the FBI engaged in 3.4 million warrantless electronic searches of Americans. This is a direct and profound violation of the right to privacy in “persons, houses, papers, and effects” guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment.

For the past 60 years, the Supreme Court has characterized electronic surveillance as a search that can only be conducted pursuant to a warrant issued by a judge based on probable cause of crime, which itself must be presented under oath to the judge. The warrant must specifically describe the place to be searched and the person or thing to be seized.

By failing to comply with these constitutional requirements, the FBI violated the natural and constitutionally protected right to be left alone of millions of Americans.

Yet, all of this was perfectly lawful. How can government behavior be both lawful and unconstitutional at the same time and in the same respect?

Here is the backstory.

The Fourth Amendment was written in 1791 while memories of British soldiers searching colonial homes were still prevalent. The British used general warrants to justify their violation of colonists’ privacy. A general warrant was not based on probable cause of crime. It was generated whenever the British government persuaded a secret court in London that it needed something from foreign persons, the colonists. The British government did not even need to identify what it needed.

General warrants authorized the bearer to search wherever he pleased and to seize whatever he found. The Fourth Amendment was written expressly to outlaw general warrants and warrantless searches.

After President Richard Nixon used the FBI and the CIA to spy on his political opponents, Congress enacted the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, which prohibited warrantless domestic surveillance. Since the Fourth Amendment did so already, the prohibition was superfluous.

It was also toothless, as the new law set up a secret court — the FISA court — which issued surveillance warrants based not on probable cause of crime as the Fourth Amendment requires, but on probable cause of communicating with a foreign person. And the court, over time, kept modifying its own rules to make it easier for the National Security Agency —America’s 60,000 domestic spies — to spy on Americans.

Today, if you call your cousin in London, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court can authorize the NSA to spy on you. And if you then call your sister-in-law in Kansas, FISC can allow the NSA to spy on her and on the folks she calls and the folks they call.

This massive invasion of privacy produced huge amounts of data, which FISA required the NSA to keep to itself and use only to anticipate breaches of national security. The data acquired from spying on all fiber optic transmitted communications could not be shared with law enforcement since it had been obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment. That prohibition was known as the “wall” between the intelligence and law enforcement communities.

In 2008, after the Bush administration was caught in massive warrantless spying on Americans, Congress enacted amendments to FISA that removed the wall. Stated differently, the new law, Section 702 of FISA, which expires in 20 months, required all telecom and computer service providers to give the NSA unfettered access to their computers whenever the feds came calling — with or without FISA warrants — and also allowed the FBI access to the body of raw intelligence data that the NSA acquired.

The wall between the intelligence community and law enforcement is gone.

Every member of Congress has taken an oath to uphold the Constitution, yet by repeated majority votes and the signatures of all pre-Biden presidents since 2008 continually reenacting Section 702, Congress has permitted the FBI to bypass the Constitution. Thus, FBI spying is lawful because a statute authorizes it, but unconstitutional because the statute violates the Fourth Amendment.

Last week, the Director of National Intelligence, who is required by Section 702 to report all FBI access to the raw intelligence data, did so. But her record keeping is as sloppy as her fidelity to the Constitution. Thus, she reported 3.4 million FBI searches of raw intelligence data on Americans in 2021.

You’d think that meant that 3.4 million Americans had their emails, text messages, phone calls, medical and legal and personal records surveilled by the FBI. You’d be incorrect. To the feds, the word “search” refers to the input of a search term, like “Jan. 6” or “local militia” or “small government.” One FBI search thus can lead to the records of thousands of Americans.

It is hard to believe that senior management of the CIA, NSA and FBI can perpetuate these egregious constitutional violations with straight faces. But they do. And Congress permits it. Why? Because the CIA, NSA, FBI and their collaborators have dirt on members of Congress. Dirt.

The federal government is rotten to the core. Its officers and employees don’t believe that the Constitution means what it says. They will lie, cheat, threaten, bribe and steal to cut constitutional corners and remain in power.

The Fourth Amendment was written to protect the quintessentially American right to privacy. It is a critical part of the structure of the Bill of Rights.

Rather, it was.

Today, in America, we have no rights. A right is an indefeasible claim against the whole world — to think as you wish, to say and publish what you think, to worship or not, to defend yourself, to experience your life and exercise your liberty and use your property without a government permission slip, and to be left alone.

The Constitution is the supreme law of the land, yet the rights it facially protects are now subject to government approval. The Bill of Rights is really a Bill of Temporary Privileges.

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***

Dismantle NATO Now!

Rescind the $16B US Allocations to the Ukraine War!

US Imperialism is the Main Danger to Peace, Sovereignty, and Justice for Peoples all Over The World!

The ongoing crisis and war in Ukraine threatens to pull the world into a disastrous nuclear confrontation. Disinformation, lies, and propaganda from the US and other western media are aimed at confusing millions of people inside the US and around the world to view Russia as the aggressor, while hiding the US role in the evolution of this conflict. One major example of this manipulation is that western media has not been honest about the massive role that the US played in facilitating a 2014 coup in Ukraine that overthrew the country’s democratically elected president, and funneled support to neo-Nazi forces who were favorable to US/EU interests, helping them rise to power in Ukraine.

We, the undersigned organizations and individuals of the Black Liberation Movement and the various mass organizations and movements fighting for justice inside the US, call on all peace loving, Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities to condemn and oppose US involvement in the Ukraine and across Europe through its various corporate and political interests and its military arm, The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

We, Black people living in the United States, are a people of African descent oppressed inside the United States. We have been barred from the right to housing, to food, to medicine, to clean air, healthy environments, education and livable wages. Our grandmothers make difficult decisions monthly between keeping on the lights or being able to afford insulin. As 13% of the US population, we face disproportionate levels of violent police repression and make up 40% of US prisoners. Those corporate and elite ruling class forces in the US who are making the policies to expand NATO across the 12,500 miles of Russia’s borders from Central Asia to Eastern Europe, including Ukraine, are the same ruling elites that maintain the oppressive policies inside the US that leave our communities in the racist economic and political peril we have suffered here for hundreds of years.

We further condemn the blatant hypocrisy of the US government as a capitalist, imperialist, patriarchal predator power that has invaded and undermined numerous countries for regime change and other schemes, in order to control the politics, wealth, and natural resources of those nations. The United States is the strongest and largest imperialist power in the world and has repeatedly invaded other nations such as Grenada (1983); Afghanistan (2001); Iraq (2003); Libya (2011); and at least 21 others since 1945. The US military arm on the African continent is known as AFRICOM, a force that breeds violence and instability in maintaining US corporate interests across Africa.

In these imperialist wars, it is the Black, Brown, Indigenous, working and poor families who suffer the losses of dislocation, the deaths of loved ones, and other forms of agony. Black people in this country have fought in every US war while our families and communities continue to suffer the ravages of hatred, discrimination, poverty, disease, and death. In the Ukraine conflict, racism is showing its ugly face in the denial of immigration rights to African and other non-white people’s seeking to escape the degradation and violence of this conflict, like all others living in Ukraine.

We join with Black and Brown people in other countries in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, and Latin America who uphold the right of all nations to sovereignty and security, including Russia, who has historically been invaded by the forces of imperialism and fascism across its borders several times in the 20th century. The Russian people lost millions of lives to defeat fascism during WWII, fighting Hitler’s Nazi invasion of the USSR in 1941. This history of invasions of Russia also lies at the root of the Russian concerns about its security and the Ukraine/NATO expansion scheme that has provoked this war.

We call upon every community and organization fighting for justice and peace to adopt and sign this statement calling for the Dismantling of NATO, an end to US Support of the War in Ukraine, and to Rescind the Billions of Dollars in military aid to Ukraine. Those military funds sent to Ukraine should be reallocated to the needs of people inside the US for universal healthcare, universal childcare, affordable housing, education, liquidation of all student loan debt, minimum incomes and other human needs.

Signed by:

• NBLM National Unity Initiative
• New African People’s Organization
• Black Workers for Justice
• Mapinduzi
• Black Alliance for Peace
• All African People’s Revolutionary Party
• New African Independence Party
• Lowcountry Action Committee
• Spirit of Mandela
• Cooperation Jackson
• Pan-African Community Action
• Hood Communist
• Imam Jamil Action Network
• Parable of the Sower Intentional Community

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***

On April 30, the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, arrived unannounced in Ukraine with a small congressional delegation. Pelosi met with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and received the Order of Princess Olga (or Olha) award. It is an ideal award for a woman who celebrated the gruesome murder of Libya’s Moammar Gaddafi by Obama and his NATO assassins.

The Speaker said the illegal presence of the US in Syria is justified and it would be “dangerous” to withdraw troops. Pelosi and fellow Democrat powerbroker Chuck Schumer, however, flip-flopped on the use of troops abroad after Donald Trump became president. Pelosi pushed the widely debunked chemical attack in Syria supposedly “resulting in the deaths of more than 1,400 people, including hundreds of children,” she wrote in a letter to fellow Democrats.

In 2019, WikiLeaks published a report indicating there was vigorous dissent surrounding a bogus claim at the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). The OPCW files “show that serious concerns have been raised by members of the OPCW Fact Finding Mission (FFM) to Douma about evidence that was excluded from the final report in order to implicate Assad.”

“The international community must respond to this atrocity with strength and unity, and a thorough investigation.  Putin must be held accountable for his cynical support of Assad, and for enabling these war crimes,” Pelosi added on her official government web page.

So, of course, it is all about the “New Hitler,” Vladimir Putin. Not mentioned by Pelosi are two indisputable facts: first, Russia was invited by Syria to help defeat US-spawned Islamic terrorists, and second, the US received no such invitation and is in the country illegally, stealing oil and establishing military bases.

Pelosi, wearing one her trademark pantsuits, said her visit is intended to “send an unmistakable and resounding message to the entire world: America stands firmly with Ukraine.”

In other words, Pelosi, Biden, the Democrats, and no shortage of Republicans, stand firmly behind a government run in large part by avowed racist nationalists responsible for overthrowing an elected government in 2014 (a feat engineered by Obama’s State Department) and turning a blind eye to the organized mass murder of ethnic Russians in the Donbas and elsewhere in Ukraine.

The fight for freedom in Ukraine is a fight for Ukraine and for freedom everywhere. #SlavaUkraini pic.twitter.com/Ueomwj4Urk

— Nancy Pelosi (@TeamPelosi) May 1, 2022

Actually, awarding the Order of Princess Olga medal to Pelosi is appropriate. The myth states that Grand Prince Ihor of the Kyivan Rus was killed during a war with the Drevlians, a tribe of Early East Slavs who refused to pay tribute to the prince, and as a result his wife, Olha, avenged his murder “in an extremely harsh manner, killing Drevlian ambassadors and nobility, burning their capital of Iskorosten to the ground and leveling other towns,” the Euromaidan Press explains.

In short, Pelosi received a  medal celebrating ethnic cleansing, the sort of behavior the nationalist right in Ukraine is attempting to inflict on ethnic Russians and Russian-speakers in the Donbas and southern Ukraine, including Crimea.

It is an irony lost on the American people. If recent polls can be believed, an overwhelming number of Americans believe the US should continue sending billions of dollars worth of military hardware to the Zelenskyy government and his neo-Nazi goons, although, now that Russia has invaded, all mention of the extremist nature of the Azov Battalion, Right Sector, Svoboda, the National Corps, Carpathian Sich, Democratic Ax, White Hammer, Trizub, and other far-right political groups and paramilitaries are assiduously avoided by the narrative-following corporate media.

On April 30, headlines should have read, “Zelenskyy Makes Deal with Nazis,” but instead there was primarily silence.

Zelenskyy is pushing to have Serhiy Sternenko head up Ukraine’s security service, SBU. Sternenko, a rightwing activist in his late 20s, commanded the Odesa regional branch of the Right Sector (Pravy Sektor), an organization at the forefront of the US State Department orchestrated color revolution in 2014.

Right Sector was formed a year prior to the coup and its original confederation consisted of street fighting soccer hooligans and skinheads, a modern version of a loosely organized Freikorps paramilitaries and brownshirts during the Weimer Republic in Germany following WWI.

Sternenko was convicted of “illegal deprivation of liberty” in the kidnapping of Serhiy Shcherbych, a member of the Kominternivske District Council of the Odesa region. “Serhii Sternenko was sentenced to 7 years and 3 months of imprisonment with confiscation of half of his property. Another subject of the case Ruslan Demchuk received the same sentence,” Zmina reported in February 2021.

Despite this conviction—ruled to be political intimidation, not robbery—Sternenko may soon be calling the shots at the highest state security service in a notoriously corrupt Ukraine. In 2015, Dmytro Yarosh, the former leader of Right Sector, was appointed an advisor to the Ukrainian Armed Forces, thus signaling a further integration of neo-nazism and racist ideology at the highest levels of the government.

Far-right or ultra-nationalist “shock troops” played an instrumental role in the 2014 coup.

It was “openly supported by the imperial powers in the United States and Europe, relied on far-right shock troops such as the fascist organization Right Sector and the ultranationalist Svoboda Party to overthrow the elected government of Viktor Yanukovych,” reports MRonline. “Three members of Svoboda were installed as members of the first post-coup government, and the co-founder of Svoboda, Andriy Paruby, was parliamentary speaker for five years.”

Considering the sort of lickspittles the state hires to report the “news” (manufactured “big lie” narratives), it is not surprising we hear so little about the real face of the government in Ukraine. The propaganda wranglers understand very well the average American cannot recall history past the last 72 hours or so. They know John and Jane Q. Public will respond appropriately if the “news” shows relentless images of dead civilians, bombed out cities, and scads of refugees, especially the children, and attributes all the misery, destruction, and death, minus any credible evidence, on Russia. Minus Big Lies and fabrications, and presented with objective facts on both sides of a story, the average person would undoubtedly arrive at a far different conclusion than the one they have now accepted. More than a quarter of Americans actually believe war against Russia is feasible and winnable. Delusions have turned pathological.

Sorry to say, I am not hopeful. Nancy Pelosi’s photo op in Ukraine and the muster of Democrats and Republicans to do something more than merely ship expensive arms (that are now being targeted by Russia) to Ukraine. Of course, Raytheon and Lockheed-Martin don’t have a problem with this.

The stock market casino rollercoaster is teetering, inflation is moving into double digits, the supply line snafus are multiplying in number and consequence as the price of the diesel fuel that essentially runs modern civilization is now well over five dollars a gallon. It won’t be long before people begin complaining, even reticent Americans. It won’t be long before political violence flares up in earnest.

The ruling financial elite believe they can divert our attention away from the above problems with a good old-fashion war—and slip in a worldwide tyrannical new Bretton Woods “Great Reset” in the aftermath.

Such cavalier recklessness with thermonuclear weapons and other WMDs—including biowarfare labs in Ukraine—have put humanity in supreme danger. It’s not an exaggeration to say we are a minute or less before midnight on the Doomsday Clock.

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***

Syria has for the vast majority of the post-World War II period been considered by United States governments as a staunch enemy. In more recent decades, Washington has attempted without ultimate success to isolate and overthrow the Assad dynasty in Syria’s capital Damascus.

Image on the right: Hafez al-Assad (Licensed under public domain)

In March 1971 the Syrian Air Force general, Hafez al-Assad, took power in the country. That same year General Assad consented to the USSR establishing a naval facility at the strategically important Syrian city of Tartus, which rests on the Mediterranean Sea. Developments like these caused significant concern in Washington.

During the Yom Kippur War in October 1973 Israel, with strong US support, scored a military victory against the Soviet Union-backed Syria and Egypt in a conflict which lasted for less than 3 weeks. Following this setback General Assad crushed a number of revolts in Syria, engineered primarily by the Sunni-Salafi Muslim Brotherhood, a pan-Islamic organisation vehemently opposed to Assad’s secularist government.

The best known of these Muslim Brotherhood rebellions was the February 1982 Hama revolt, in western Syria, which rumbled on for almost a month. It resulted in many hundreds if not thousands of deaths, including extensive civilian casualties. President Assad’s military secured a decisive triumph against the Muslim Brotherhood, by ruthlessly suppressing the insurgency. The Hama revolt may well have been encouraged by “the intelligence services of the United States and Turkey” according to Moniz Bandeira, the Brazilian political scientist.

After the 1982 rebellion Bandeira wrote that the Syrian president “stabilized the country” while “The continuing efforts by the United States to erode the regime in Syria pushed president Hafez al-Assad more and more toward an alliance with the Soviet Union”.

The process of the USSR’s disintegration, starting in the late 1980s, was not at all a welcome scenario for General Assad. During the remainder of his life, he had little choice but to readjust his foreign policy in the 1990s to accommodate the Americans. Assad provided support to the Western powers during the 1990-91 Gulf War versus Saddam Hussein, after the Iraqi dictator had invaded neighbouring Kuwait on 2 August 1990.

The Chicago Tribune reported on 12 March 1991,

“The Bush administration [George H. W. Bush] credits Syria with helping to restrain terrorist groups, that might have targeted U.S. and other Western interests during the war with Iraq. The newly forged relationship with the U.S. provides a balance in Syrian foreign policy that had been lacking”.

A “balance” meaning that the Russians had disappeared, for now. The majority of Syrians were displeased with the warmer US-Syrian relations in the 1990s. They had not forgotten the US-led coup d’etat that deposed president Shukri al-Quwatli in Damascus in 1949; nor the failed attempts at further CIA coups in 1956 and 1957, once more against Quwatli, who is considered a founding father of modern Syria.

Ordinary Syrians were unhappy with Washington’s ongoing support for Israel, and with the attempts to exclude Syria from the Middle East peace process. Much of the Syrian populace was doubtful whether Washington actually wanted to improve relations – taking into account that General Assad continued, into the 1990s, his refusal to capitulate to American strategic and economic interests.

By the late 1990s General Assad’s health was rapidly deteriorating. He succumbed to a heart attack at age 69 on 10 June 2000, after 29 years in power. On 17 July 2000 his son Bashar al-Assad, at age 34, took over the presidency in Damascus, as he had been preparing to do for some time in agreement with his father. At the start of this century, Bashar al-Assad was a colonel in the elite Syrian Republican Guard, having undertaken years of military training.

The maintenance of the Assad dynasty was not greeted with fanfare in Washington. When George W. Bush became president in January 2001, his administration that same year started planning a military attack against Syria, in order to remove Assad and replace him with a pro-Western and pro-Israeli leader.

American general Wesley Clark, a former NATO supreme commander, recalled how he had visited the Pentagon in late 2001, and was shown a classified memorandum by an unnamed US general. As Clark later remembered, the Pentagon memo stated that the US Armed Forces were “going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran”.

The invasion of Syria was to almost immediately follow a successful American intervention in Iraq. With the US military in October 2001 having already assailed Afghanistan – an invasion planned well before the 9/11 atrocities against America – less than 18 months later the Bush administration launched a military offensive in Iraq on 20 March 2003; so as to reassert US hegemony over the Middle East and to ensure control over Iraq’s oil reserves.

The go-ahead for the US invasion of Iraq, bolstered by Tony Blair’s hawkish regime in London, had in part been made possible with the support of the Western mainstream press, which as usual was generally pro-war. American plans to attack Iraq also predated 9/11 by months, to March 2001, just a few weeks into Bush’s presidency.

Bandeira revealed,

“Documents from March 2001, which the US Department of Commerce was forced to declassify in mid-2003, as a result of a suit filed by the Sierra Club (an environmentalist organization) and Judicial Watch, confirmed that the Task Force headed by vice-president Dick Cheney had developed two maps plotting the oil fields, pipelines, refineries and terminals, and two maps detailing the projects and the companies that wanted to manage these resources in Iraq”.

In early April 2003 Saddam Hussein was ousted from power, with the capital Baghdad falling to US-led soldiers on 9 April. Iraq itself had been devastated by years of Western sanctions prior to the invasion, and was not far from being a defenceless and broken country. Shortly after Baghdad’s capture the US Secretary of Defence, Donald Rumsfeld, initiated contingency plans to extend the military assault to Syria, which shares a near 400 mile eastern border with Iraq.

However, president Bush was warned that starting another war so soon could cause problems in the “special relationship” with Britain. The US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, said in mid-April 2003 that Washington does not intend to attack another country “right now”. The UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, said that should the war be extended to Syria the entire Middle East could be destabilised.

Having secured a military victory in Iraq, the Americans still had to occupy and subdue the country, in order most importantly to copper-fasten US control over Iraq’s oil; this would take time, if it could be achieved at all. Assad was the first Arab leader, other than Saddam Hussein, to condemn the Anglo-American attack on Iraq. Towards the end of March 2003 Assad predicted,

“The United States and Britain will not be able to control all of Iraq. There will be much tougher resistance… and we doubt that they will succeed”.

The Anglo-American aggressors were indeed unable to control all of Iraq. By 2008, now near the end of Bush’s presidency, it was clear that Washington had in fact suffered a major defeat. Facing large-scale Iraqi popular resistance, the Bush administration had to give up its claims to military bases in Iraq and privileges for US investors in the country’s rich energy system.

In 2008 a US invasion of Syria was back on the agenda largely because of Israel; on the pretexts of preventing weapons trafficking from Syria to the Lebanese-based militant group Hezbollah, a sworn enemy of Israel, along with the training of Hezbollah militants in Syria and the construction of a nuclear reactor in Deir ez-Zor, eastern Syria.

The US State Department had since 2005 been furnishing anti-Assad elements in Syria with millions of dollars. This money encouraged the instigation of protests in Syria against Assad. Not only did the US government wish to topple the Syrian president, but they wanted to sever Syria’s tightening naval relations with Russia, and to break the partnerships that Assad had formed with Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas in Palestine.

Yet Robert Gates, the US Secretary of Defence since 2006 and former CIA Director, did not think a US offensive against Syria was a good idea. He rightly believed that American credibility was damaged with the debacle of the occupation of Iraq, in which Saddam’s mythical Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) were never found. Moreover, Gates felt an invasion of Syria would meet with the disapproval of the American public and incite unrest in Europe and the Middle East, while undermining continued US military actions in Afghanistan and Iraq.

President Bush therefore abandoned the idea of attacking Syria, despite consistent pressure from his vice-president Dick Cheney. Bandeira described Cheney as “the warmonger who had similarly manipulated the invasion of Iraq to deliver profits to Halliburton, the corporation he had presided and with which he maintained close ties, just as with other military-industrial contractors of the Pentagon and the Big Oil Companies”.

Following Barack Obama’s assumption to power in Washington in January 2009, the threat of an American intervention in Syria continued to hover over Assad. As president Obama was settling into office, Assad refused to sanction through Syrian territory the South Pars/North Dome Pipeline, infrastructure which was planned to pass through Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria and Turkey; and which would have supplied natural gas to the markets of Europe, a continent dominated by NATO, the expansionist US-led military organisation.

In withholding his approval for the pipeline, Assad was undoubtedly defending the interests of his ally, Russia. Such policies of course disturbed both Washington and Brussels. A principal goal of the Obama administration, supported by France and Britain, was to take control of the Mediterranean and to politically isolate Iran, a Syrian ally, in addition to restricting Russian and Chinese influence in the Middle East and North Africa.

By 2012 Russia was planning to reform and expand its naval base in Tartus, Syria, so that it could receive large Russian warships, thereby safeguarding Moscow’s presence in the Mediterranean; along with a Russian-controlled air base at the Syrian city of Latakia, about 60 miles north of Tartus. Russia had further planned to erect naval bases in Libya and Yemen.

Summarising US-NATO imperialist thinking Bandeira wrote,

“The fall of the Bashar al-Assad regime, after the toppling of Muammar Gaddafi in Libya by NATO forces, would suppress the presence of Russia and its naval bases in Syria (Tartus and Latakia); cut off supply routes for weapons to Hezbollah, the Shia stronghold against Israeli ventures into southern Lebanon; contain the Chinese advance on oil resources; and completely isolate and strangle Iran, with the consequent elimination of the (Shia) Islamic government of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad”.

The triumvirate of America, France and Britain attacked oil rich Libya on 19 March 2011, paving the way for the toppling of the country’s long-time leader, Muammar Gaddafi, who was killed on 20 October 2011. The NATO states were assisted in eliminating Gaddafi by Al Qaeda and Libyan terrorists, along with the special forces of Qatar, the UAE and other countries. Within the space of a few years Libya, which in 2010 had by some distance the best living standards in Africa, was splintered into warring parties as conditions for its population dropped sharply. Libya is yet to recover.

Obama’s government, with the support of NATO members France, Britain, Germany and Portugal, then attempted to repeat the subterfuge at the United Nations (UN) regarding Syria, which they had used to proceed with military actions against Libya. On 4 October 2011, the Western powers presented at the UN a proposal for a resolution based on the “Responsibility to Protect”.

Russia and China, aware that NATO wanted to bomb Syria and remove Assad, vetoed the resolution. Bandeira outlined,

“The pretext of the Responsibility to Protect resolution, as it was used in the bombing of Libya, had become the template to justify NATO interventions as the military instrument of the ultra-imperialist cartel led by the United States, Great Britain and France”.

Obama set out to stealthily incite war against Assad. On 17 August 2011 the US president said, “For the sake of the Syrian people, the time has come for President Assad to step aside”. It was not the last occasion that Obama would call for Assad to go. The war in Syria was no ordinary conflict between two opposing sides, but it involved an array of factions, many of them outright extremists and jihadists.

In the fight against Assad’s government, Al Qaeda, America, France and Britain were effectively on the same side. The Franco-American-British powers participated in the war, directly and indirectly, more than any other states, with the assistance of Western allies like Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. By late 2012, the Obama administration knew “from classified assessments” that most Western weaponry sent through Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and then on to Syria, ended up in the possession of Islamic fundamentalists who were trying to destroy Assad’s government.

The jihadists wanted to restore the Great Caliphate in Greater Syria (Bilad al-Sham) between the Euphrates River and the Mediterranean Sea. With CIA assistance, the Persian Gulf states and Turkey continued increasing military aid to the extremists in Syria, sending them weaponry dropped from the air.

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Shane Quinn obtained an honors journalism degree. He is interested in writing primarily on foreign affairs, having been inspired by authors like Noam Chomsky. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).

Sources

David W. Lesch, When the Relationship Went Sour: Syria and the Eisenhower Administration, Presidential Studies Quarterly, Winter 1998, Published by: Wiley, Jstor

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

Ray Moseley, “Syria’s support of U.S. in Gulf War Paying Dividends”, Chicago Tribune, 12 March 1991

George Arney, “US ‘planned attack on Taleban’”, BBC, 18 September 2001

Meredith Reid Sarkees and Stephen Zunes, Disenchantment with the ‘New World Order’: Syria’s Relations with the United States, International Journal, Spring 1994, Published by: Sage Publications Ltd. on behalf of the Canadian International Council, Jstor

Democracy Now!, “Gen. Wesley Clark Weighs Presidential Bid: ‘I Think About It Every Day’”, 2 March 2007

Robert Stevens, “BBC was most pro-war of British networks”, World Socialist Web Site, 10 July 2003

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

CNN, “No war plans for Syria: U.S.”, 16 April 2003

Alissa J. Rubin, “Syria Sees Threat of Force Behind Rumsfeld Remark”, Los Angeles Times, 30 March 2003

Scott Wilson and Joby Warrick, “Assad must go, Obama says”, The Washington Post, 18 August 2011

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***

 

 

 

The US Supreme Court Chief Justice was furious.   For the first time in history, the raw judicial process of one of the most powerful, and opaque arms of government, had been exposed via media – at least in preliminary form.  It resembled, in no negligible way, the publication by WikiLeaks of various drafts of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the forerunner to the current Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership.

The subject matter was positively incendiary: the potential overturning and judicial eradication of Roe v Wade, a 1973 decision which has generated a literature both for and against its merits of herculean proportions.  In its draft form, Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health entertains a full-throated attack on the decision that had legalised abortion via constitutional fiat, even if the original grounds centred on privacy.

Such an inner illumination of processes was never the intention of the US Supreme Court.  For over two centuries, it had not seen the like of this.  For the most part, whatever their persuasion, the justices have kept religiously mum on the issue of a case till final publication.  In an address to the American Constitution Society, given on June 15, 2012, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was not giving anything away to the audience about what fate awaited the Affordable Care Act.  The justices had originally voted on the matter on March 30.  By mid-June, opinions had already been drafted and circulated in the judicial conclave.  “Those who know don’t talk,” teased Ginsburg. “And those who talk don’t know.”

The same, remarked Jack Goldsmith in The New Republic, could not be said about the national intelligence community, where the loquacious roam.  Those knowledgeable and in the know on such matters were often the same ones willing to spill, babble and discuss.

The draft, published in unadulterated or abridged form, comprises 98 pages and 118 footnotes, with an accompanying 31-page length appendix covering the historical state abortion laws.  Delivered by Justice Samuel Alito, it states with punchy certainty that, “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start.”  The reasoning adopted in the decision was “exceptionally weak, and the decision has had damaging consequences.”  It is a paean for state power over federal dictation.  Laws on abortion should finally be returned to the fold of State legislatures.

Judgments do go through various iterations.  This version stems from February.  The fact that it is now circulating in public like a demon of agitation, stirring up the various party bases and groups, is an experiment of itself, bringing down the rickety façade of the Supreme Court as a non-partisan body.  “Unquestionably, it drags the court into the political scrum and rubs some of the polish of it,” opines George F. Will.

A statement from the Supreme Court, in an effort to keep up appearances, claims that its operations has only suffered a minor hiccup.  “Although the document described in yesterday’s reports is authentic, it does not represent a decision by the Court or the final position of any member on the issues in the case.”

2021 Women’s March, many speakers bemoaned a looming threat to Roe (Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0)

Whether the justices congeal or adjust their current view on Roe in light of the Politico leak is, at this point, unanswerable.  But a distinct sense of bloodlust has taken over in the effort to find the culprit.  Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., in a statement, described the leak as “a singular and egregious breach of trust that is an affront to the Court and the community of public servants who work here.”

The message captivating the establishment is whether the leaker violated any laws and, if so, what penalty might fellow.  While pro-choice supporters are well infuriated by the draft, but the conservatives seem intent on crucifying the perpetrator.  Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) fumed that this “lawless action” be “investigated and punished as fully as possible.”  The editors of the National Review insist that this incident “is intolerable and cannot go unpunished.”

The Chief Justice, for his part, has directed the Marshal of the Court, Col. Gail A. Curley, to begin an investigation into the source.  Doing so potentially rings off the process from the prying eyes of the FBI and the Justice Department.  No judicial officer wants them to get involved.

The prosecution effort is unlikely to amount to much. In the first place, a Supreme Court draft decision fails to have the gravity, standing or properties of a legal document to warrant such action.

“As far as I can tell,” submitted the seasoned UC Berkeley legal authority Orin Kerr, “there is no federal criminal law that directly prohibits disclosure of a draft legal opinion.”

The only real legislative foothold to use against the opportunistic leaker, if that even counts, is the statute known as 18 U.S.C.§ 641 which covers public money, property or records, namely prohibiting the theft or misuse of government-owned “things of value”.   The lingering question here is whether the statute covers information and whether the concept of information could be said to be a “thing of value”.

The guidelines of the Justice Department also suggest that it would be “inappropriate to bring a prosecution” where an individual had legitimate access to the information or document and used such material “for the purpose of disseminating it to the public.”

As the Colonel gets busy with her investigation, the debate over how to cope with a world after Roe has begun in desperate fury.  The Biden administration has reiterated its support for the principle of the case and notes, in the event of its overturning, that the onus will fall to the elected and the electors “at all levels of government.”  At the federal level, it will pursue a process that codifies Roe.  Either way, the politicians of the US imperium are going to get busier over matters of the foetus.

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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: Norma McCorvey/Jane Roe (Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0)

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***

In a recent report titled Global Energy Perspective 2022, consultancy McKinsey said it expected wind and solar to become a sort of baseload generation capacity as soon as 2030.The report also had a lot of praise for the technological advances that had allowed the cost of wind, solar, EVs, and battery storage to fall substantially over the past few years 

What that report didn’t say was that the “baseload scenario” will only materialize in the presence of a sufficient supply of raw materials. As a front-runner in the transition race, Europe is particularly vulnerable to any shortages of these raw materials. Because of these shortages, the transition might end before it begins in earnest.

For now, everything looks like it’s going pretty well. The prices of electric cars are on the rise but sales are still going strong, at least in part because of government incentives and in another part because of soaring fuel prices.

Yet there are clouds on the horizon.

China’s CATL, one of the majors in the battery space, recently reported a drop in its first-quarter profit because of higher production costs. What this suggests is that the company has so far absorbed the cost increases caused by tightening raw material supply but how long it would continue to do this is an open question.

Meanwhile, the CEO of Rivian, the Amazon-backed EV startup, warned of a battery shortage in the EV space. And it was a grave warning:

“Put very simply, all the world’s cell production combined represents well under 10% of what we will need in 10 years,” RJ Scaringe said, as quoted by the Wall Street Journal. “Meaning, 90% to 95% of the supply chain does not exist.”

One would think that at least with wind and solar, the supply chains are there and well developed. That may be the case; however, the metals needed to feed into these supply chains are in problematic supply, especially in Europe.

Like fossil fuels, Europe has little local mining production, so it is heavily dependent on imports. To make matters a lot more complicated for it, its main supplier of aluminum, nickel, and zinc is Russia. Almost all of the lithium and rare earths used in Europe are also sourced from abroad.

“The global energy transition is progressing faster than the mining project pipeline, with copper, cobalt, lithium, nickel, and rare earths all at risk of a disruptive demand pull between now and 2035,” said the authors of a study from Belgian KU Leuven University that warned Europe was facing a shortage of all the main ingredients of the energy transition.

Local production is desirable but quite unlikely, at least on a scale that would make sense. A Reuters analysis of the situation by Andy Home notes that the regulatory regime in the union is such that any new mine would take 15 years from planning to the start of production.

In other words, Europe has made it impossible for its own miners to produce the metals the continent needs to transition away from fossil fuels locally. At the same time, with its stance toward Russia and China, it is risking a lot of the current supplies of these metals and other critical materials. And this time, the U.S. can’t come to the rescue because it is struggling with reducing its own dependency on foreign sources of critical metals and minerals.

The solution? Recycling, according to the authors of the KU Leuven study. Between 2040 and 2050, the EU could come to source between 50% and 75% of the critical minerals it needs from recycling. That is, if the EU acts now to develop a recycling supply chain. And if it finds how to bridge the gap between supply and demand for these minerals in the years until 2040.

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Irina is a writer for Oilprice.com with over a decade of experience writing on the oil and gas industry.

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As part of the new ‘imminent’ sanctions on Russia – to include a phased ban on all Russian oil by the end of the year – it seems the European Union is ready to escalate even further, taking action to and beyond all-encompassing Iran-style sanctions. 

Now it’s mulling going after Russia’s ability to even ship oil on the high seas with a proposed ban on European vessels and companies’ ability to provide services to Russian shipping entities. As Bloomberg is reporting Wednesday, the action would constitute “a move that could dramatically impair Moscow’s ability to ship its oil anywhere in the world.”

If such a ban on Russia’s access to European insurers were enacted, this would leave Russian companies exposed to the tune of multiple billions of dollars every time a single tanker leaves port, given risks like accidents and oil spills can bring with it such a price tag in terms of claims and legal action.

Russian energy companies would then be left with few or no alternatives, writes Bloomberg:

“While member states are still wrangling over the terms, it’s a potentially powerful tool because 95% of the world’s tanker liability cover is arranged through a London-based insurance organization called the International Group of P&I Clubs that has to heed European law.”

The report makes direct comparison of such a course of action to a key way that Washington has for years been able to severely limit Iran’s ability to transport of crude, forcing the Islamic Republic to cover its risks directly.

But huge hurdles still remain in terms of inter-EU unity on a Russian oil embargo, given the rise in countries demanding exemptions – led most notably by Hungary and Slovakia. And further erecting major hurdles for European companies is expected to be even more controversial given the ripple effect at home.

1) Sovcomflot fire-sales 1/3 of its 68 tankers to repay $2bn debt before 15 May sanction deadline;

2) its highly regarded mgmt will have noticed the reduced need for Russian oil;

3) as well as the difficulty to ship without Western insurance…
https://t.co/9E2KPSBPaz

— Alexander Stahel 🇺🇦 (@BurggrabenH) May 4, 2022

The ban would prevent any European entity or individuals from transporting Russian oil anywhere in the world, which will be particularly painful to the economies of smaller Mediterranean countries like Greece, Cyprus and Malta  – which play an outsized role in the European shipping and transport industry.

These countries have reportedly already registered their opposition to such a drastic punitive plan, which they say will only blowback on European companies and their ability to do business.

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A California bill is now threatening to strip doctors of their medical licenses if they express medical views that the state does not agree with. California Assembly Bill 2098 designates “the dissemination or promotion of misinformation or disinformation related to the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, or ‘COVID-19,’ as unprofessional conduct” warranting “disciplinary action” that could result in the loss of their medical license

Misinformation related to SARS-CoV-2 includes “false or misleading information regarding the nature and risks of the virus, its prevention and treatment; and the development, safety and effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines.” But as far as what might constitute “misinformation” or “disinformation” is unclear and basically left open for interpretation by the state

Doctors have an ethical obligation to treat each patient as an individual, and to ensure each patient receives the safest and best care. Bill 2098 will turn doctors into government agents, leaving no one to advocate for patients’ health

California has also introduced six other bills seeking to enshrine tyranny into law, including bills to criminalize “amplification of harmful content,” create a centralized vaccination registry, strip funding from law enforcement that refuses to follow public health orders, mandate COVID jabs for school children, authorize minors to consent to vaccination, and require school districts to conduct routine COVID testing

If you live in California, please review these bills and VOTE NO

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One of the most stunning parts of this pandemic has been the denial of basic science, and one of the most shocking developments from that has been the attack on medical doctors who try to set the record straight.

As reported by Dr. Jay Bhattacharya — professor of health policy at Stanford, research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and coauthor of the Great Barrington Declaration, which calls for focused protection of the most vulnerable¹ — a California bill is now threatening to strip doctors of their medical licenses if they express medical views that the state does not agree with.²

Bhattacharya’s Personal Battle

Bhattacharya has first-hand experience with this kind of witch hunt. He was one of the first to investigate the prevalence of COVID-19 in 2020, and found that by April, the infection was already too prevalent for lockdowns to have any possibility of stopping the spread.

Bhattacharya has called the COVID-19 lockdowns the “biggest public health mistake ever made,”³stressing that the harms caused have been “absolutely catastrophically devastating,” especially for children and the working class, worldwide.⁴

After Bhattacharya co-sponsored the Great Barrington Declaration, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and his former boss, now retired National Institutes of Health (NIH) director Francis Collins, colluded behind the scenes to quash the declaration from day 1.⁵

To that end, they set out to smear and destroy the reputations of Bhattacharya and the other coauthors of the declaration. In one email, Collins referred to the three highly credentialed and respected scientists as “fringe epidemiologists” and called for a press “takedown” of the trio.^6,7,8,9 I detailed this treachery in “Authors of Barrington Declaration Speak Out.”

“Big tech outlets like Facebook and Google followed suit, suppressing our ideas, falsely deeming them ‘misinformation,’” Bhattacharya writes.¹⁰ “I started getting calls from reporters asking me why I wanted to ‘let the virus rip,’ when I had proposed nothing of the sort. I was the target of racist attacks and death threats.

Despite the false, defamatory and sometimes frightening attacks, we stood firm. And today many of our positions have been amply vindicated. Yet the soul searching this episode should have caused among public health officials has largely failed to occur. Instead, the lesson seems to be: Dissent at your own risk.

I do not practice medicine — I am a professor specializing in epidemiology and health policy at Stanford Medical School. But many friends who do practice have told me how they have censored their thoughts about COVID lockdowns, vaccines, and recommended treatment to avoid the mob …

This forced scientific groupthink — and the fear and self-censorship they produce — are bad enough. So far, though, the risk has been social and reputational. Now it could become literally career-ending.”

Do You Want Your Doctor To Be Muzzled by the State?

California Assembly Bill 2098¹¹ — introduced by Assemblyman Evan Low, a Silicon Valley Democrat, and coauthored by Assembly members Aguiar-Curry, Akilah Weber and Wicks, and Sens. Pan and Wiener — designates “the dissemination or promotion of misinformation or disinformation related to the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, or ‘COVID-19,’ as unprofessional conduct” warranting “disciplinary action” that could result in the loss of their medical license.

Misinformation or disinformation related to SARS-CoV-2 includes “false or misleading information regarding the nature and risks of the virus, its prevention and treatment; and the development, safety, and effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines.” But as far as what might constitute “misinformation” or “disinformation” is unclear and basically left open for interpretation — by the state. As noted by Bhattacharya:¹²

“Doctors, fearing loss of their livelihoods, will need to hew closely to the government line on COVID science and policy, even if that line does not track the scientific evidence.

After all, until recently, top government science bureaucrats like Dr. Fauci claimed that the idea that COVID came from a Wuhan laboratory was a conspiracy theory, rather than a valid hypothesis that should be open to discussion. The government’s track record on discerning COVID truths is poor.

The bill claims that the spread of misinformation by physicians about the COVID vaccines ‘has weakened public confidence and placed lives at serious risk.’ But how significant is this problem in reality? Over 83% of Californians over the age of 50 are fully vaccinated (including the booster) …

What is abundantly clear is that this bill represents a chilling interference with the practice of medicine. The bill itself is full of misinformation and a demonstration of what a disaster it would be to have the legislature dictate the practice of medicine.”

The Shanghai Model

We don’t have to guess at what life might look like if this and other bills like it are implemented, Bhattacharya warns. The drama currently playing out in Shanghai offers a clear look into what can happen when public health is dictated by the state rather than by qualified medical professionals rooted in sound science.

“Shanghai is the model for the terrifying dangers of giving dictatorial powers to public health officials,” Bhattacharya writes.¹³ “The harrowing situation unfolding there is a testament to the folly of a virus containment strategy that relies on lockdown.

For two weeks, the Chinese government has locked nearly 25 million people in their homes, forcibly separated children from their parents, killed family pets, and limited access to food and life-saving medical care — all to no avail. COVID cases are still rising, yet the delusion of suppressing COVID persists.

In America, many of our officials still have not abandoned their delusions about COVID and the exercise of power this crisis has allowed. As the Shanghai debacle demonstrates, of all the many terrible consequences of our public health response to COVID, the stifling of dissenting scientific viewpoints by the state might be the most dangerous.”

The Science Deniers Are in Power

As stressed by Bhattacharya, the California bill includes a number falsehoods and fails to acknowledge basic science, starting with natural immunity. High-quality studies have repeatedly shown that natural immunity is equivalent or superior to the COVID shots. Were this bill to pass, a California doctor could lose his license for taking a patient’s COVID history into account when recommending the shot.

It also negates doctors’ ability to prescribe off-label drugs for the treatment of COVID, even though this has been a common and uncontroversial medical practice for many decades. It’s not uncommon for a drug intended for one condition to be used off-label for another. But for some reason, when it comes to COVID, this practice is now deemed hazardous and unprofessional.

The bill also falsely asserts that the “safety and efficacy of COVID vaccines have been confirmed through evaluation by the federal Food and Drug Administration.” Anyone who has followed this circus over the past year realizes that the FDA has completely ignored loud and clear warning bells showing the shots are far from safe and nowhere near as effective as initially claimed.

The bill also ignores the fact that the safety depends on the individual patient’s medical history and current state of health. “For example, there is an elevated risk of myocarditis in young men taking the vaccine, especially with the booster,” Bhattacharya notes.¹⁴

Doctors have an ethical obligation to treat each patient as an individual, and to ensure each patient receives the safest and best care. Bill 2098 will turn doctors into government agents, leaving no one to advocate for patients’ health.

“The false medical consensus enforced by AB 2098 will lead doctors to censor themselves to avoid government sanction. And it will be their patients, above all, who will be harmed by their silence,” Bhattacharya warns.

Californians, Vote NO on COVID Tyranny Bills

California Bill 2098 isn’t the only bill seeking to enshrine tyranny into law. Other pending California bills include:¹⁵

If you live in California, please review these bills and VOTE NO. In a Substack article, Margaret Anna Alice, offers the following guidance to Californians:²²

“If you are a resident of California, please consider taking the additional step of contacting your respective senators and assembly members in addition to filling out the online portal. See Californians for Medical Freedom for step-by-step instructions on how to contact your local legislators as well as what to say if you decide to call (which is recommended).

The PERK website is also a very helpful way to track the hearing dates and status of these bills. In the comments, Donald Tipon has provided additional links for opposing AB2098 and AB1797 from A Voice for Choice Advocacy.”

Front Groups Marshal the Ignorant

Regulating the medical views a doctor can and cannot have is dangerous in the extreme, and hopefully the Californians who are left to vote in that state will quash such efforts. On the national level, we must also stay vigilant against similar legislative proposals, and push back against phony front groups that promote this kind of medical tyranny.

This includes the No License for Disinformation²³ (NLFD) group, which promotes the false information disseminated by the dark-money group known as the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH).

As most now know, U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., a medical doctor in his own right, has been the primary challenger of Fauci’s lies, and the NLFD has been instructing individuals to report him to the Kentucky Medical Board, with the aim of getting his medical license revoked.²⁴

Just who are the NLFD?²⁵ In November 2021, I wrote about the NLFD, pointing out that the bottom of their website declared, “Created & Developed by EverydayAmericanJoe.”²⁶ At the time, I took a screenshot of it, in case they’d wise up and change it. Good thing, because that notice has since been deleted.

And, no wonder, because it leads right back to the Biden White House. EverydayAmericanJoe, created by a marketing strategist named Chris Gilroy, was a website dedicated to supporting Joe Biden’s presidential campaign. (That website has since been disabled.²⁷)

According to his LinkedIn profile,²⁸ Gilroy created EverydayAmericanJoe.com — “the largest Biden-Harris grassroots website online” — as a freelance senior marketing consultant and designer for the Biden campaign. Since 2007, he’s been the president of The Microtechs LLC, an online marketing, web development and digital advertising firm that produces custom websites and apps “that our clients can manage themselves.”

Aside from the EverydayAmericanJoe clue, there’s no indication of who is actually running the NLFD. It simply claims to be a “nonpartisan grassroots coalition of Americans” whose goal it is to get state medical boards to “protect the public” from medical professionals “who spread medical disinformation.” In all likelihood, the NLFD is run by a coalition of one — Gilroy himself — who is far from nonpartisan.

Not surprisingly, the NLFD has promoted and relied on the CCDH’s fabricated “Disinformation Dozen” report, which has even been denounced as biased and flawed in the extreme by Facebook.²⁹

It’s quite clear that the CCDH exists to fabricate “evidence” that is then used to destroy the opposition in order to control the information, and the NLFD uses the CCDH’s fabrications as justification to suppress First Amendment rights.³⁰ Indeed, Biden himself has publicly promoted and relied on this dark money CCDH report.³¹

The point of all this is that the censorship is being authorized and directed from the very highest level of our government, and there’s only one reason for that. Democracy flourishes under free speech and dies under censorship, and anyone who claims differently has an ulterior motive for trying to confuse these simple truths.

In my view, the war against “misinformation” and “disinformation” is nothing less than a covert war against the citizens of planet Earth. It’s an attempt to seize power by controlling what people can know, and a number of high-profile world leaders, past and present, have shown their true colors.

Among them, former president Obama, who in April 2022 gave lectures at the University of Chicago and Stanford, arguing for the regulation of information — what people can and cannot view on social media and elsewhere — “to protect democracy.”³²

However, as noted by nonresident senior fellow of the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research (AEI), Mark Jamison, “Such controls have done the opposite throughout history and would this time too.”³³

An Open War on the Public

We find ourselves in a situation where asking valid questions about public health measures are equated to acts of domestic terrorism. It’s unbelievable, yet here we are. Over the past two years, the rhetoric used against those who question the sanity of using unscientific pandemic countermeasures, such as face masks and lockdowns, or share data showing that COVID-19 gene therapies are really bad public health policy, has become increasingly violent.

Dr. Peter Hotez, a virologist who for years has been at the forefront of promoting vaccines of all kinds, for example, has publicly called for cyberwarfare assaults on American citizens who disagree with official COVID narratives, and this vile rhetoric was published in the prestigious science journal Nature, of all places.³⁴

Doctors and nurses are now facing the untenable position of having to choose between doing right by their patients and toeing the line of totalitarianism. This simply cannot go on. It’s profoundly unhealthy and dangerous in a multitude of ways.

While frustrating and intimidating, we must all be relentless in our pursuit and sharing of the truth, and we must relentlessly demand our elected representatives stand up for freedom of speech and other Constitutional rights, including, and especially, the rights of medical doctors to express their medical opinions.

*

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Notes

¹ Great Barrington Declaration

^{2, 10, 12, 13, 14} Bariweiss.substack.com April 12, 2022

³ Newsweek March 8, 2021

⁴ Rumble, Ron DeSantis March 7, 2022, 32:00

⁵ Wall Street Journal December 21, 2021

⁶ YouTube Liberty Report, 7:13 minutes

⁷ The Blaze December 18, 2021

⁸ Daily Mail December 18, 2021, Updated December 19, 2021

⁹ ZeroHedge December 20, 2021

¹¹ California Assembly Bill 2098

^15, 22 Margaret Anna Alice Substack April 12, 2022

¹⁶ California SB1390

¹⁷ California AB1797

¹⁸ California SB-1464

¹⁹ California SB-871

²⁰ California SB-866

²¹ California SB-1479

²³ Twitter No License for Disinformation

²⁴ Twitter Chass October 11, 2021

^25, 26 nolicensefordisinformation.org

²⁷ everydayamericanjoe.com

²⁸ LinkedIn Chris Gilroy (Archived)

²⁹ Facebook August 18, 2021

³⁰ Twitter NLFD October 20, 2021

³¹ Daily Wire July 20, 2021

^32, 33 AEI April 25, 2022

³⁴ Nature April 27, 2021

Featured image is from Alliance for Natural Health

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***

In the backdrop of the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war, ministers of the Czech Republic have been indicating their intention to negotiate with the US on the presence of a base in the country

Progressive sections in the Czech Republic have criticized plans to allow the permanent stationing of US military troops in the country. Various groups including the Czech Peace Movement (CMH), Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia (KSCM), Young Communists (MK), Communist Youth Union (KSM), and others raised strong objection to statements made by representatives of the incumbent center-right government that favor plans to allow a permanent foreign military base inside the Czech Republic. On April 27, communist leader and CMH chairman Milan Krajca urged the government to reject the deployment of foreign troops, bases and weapons in the country.

With the escalation of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, advocates of militarism have been on a roll, especially in Eastern Europe, urging governments to increase military spending, buy and stockpile arms and ammunition, send men and ammunition to Ukraine, and even open new military bases across the region for US-led NATO’s military maneuvers.

Earlier this month, Czech defense minister Jana Černochová hinted at opening talks with her US counterpart regarding the permanent deployment of US military troops in the country. Czech deputy prime minister Marian Jurečka even suggested places like Mosnov and Prerov in as suitable locations for a military base. Even though Czech prime minister Petr Fiala did not fully endorse the defense minister’s plan, he revealed that there may be negotiations for a defense agreement with the US, which most countries in the region already have.

In response to the government’s plans for further militarization of the country, Czech communists and the peace movement have formed a committee, including personalities like Union of Czech Writers chairman Karel Sýs, spokesperson of the No Bases initiative, Eva Novotná, communist leader Josef Skála, and editor of Haló Noviny newspaper, Monika Hoření. The committee has initiated a petition against the presence of foreign troops on the territory of the Czech Republic.

Krajca said in a statement,

“We strongly protest against efforts to build and operate a US military base in the Czech Republic, whether it is in Mosnov, Prerov or anywhere else. Such a step would mean a direct threat to the citizens of the Czech Republic and the danger of an even more intense cloudburst of our country into further rounds of arms.”

KSCM leader Kateřina Konečná told the media earlier,

“I do not want the Czech Republic to be another place with the base of the USA (there are over 800 of them in the world). I do not want our citizens to be a potential target, especially not while the US does what it wants and raises tensions in the world.”

Earlier this year, Czech communists and the peace movement organized a major mobilization against the government’s decision to provide Ukraine with armaments and support NATO’s maneuvers.

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Featured image: Czech defense minister Jana Černochová at a press conference in March. (Source: Peoples Dispatch)

Are the Neocons Setting Up the World for Nuclear War?

By Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, May 04, 2022

A false flag event is not the only avenue to nuclear war.  The expansion of NATO to Finland and Sweden is another.  Washington is not only pressuring the governments to apply for NATO membership but also is bribing Swedish and Finnish government officials to do so.

Pope Francis Suggests that NATO’s “Barking” Provoked Russia’s Military Op in Ukraine

By Paul Antonopoulos, May 04, 2022

Pope Francis has suggested to Italian daily Corriere Della Sera that the “barking of NATO at the door of Russia” provoked the military operation in Ukraine and alluded that countries should not supply Ukraine with more arms.

When the Government Plays God: The Slippery Slope from Abortions to Executions

By John W. Whitehead and Nisha Whitehead, May 04, 2022

What few seem willing to address is that in the 30 years since the U.S. Supreme Court issued its landmark ruling in Roe v. Wade, the government has come to believe that it not only has the power to determine who is deserving of constitutional rights in the eyes of the law but it also has the authority to deny those rights to an American citizen.

Weaponizing the Current Thing: Biden’s Ministry of Truth & Its Origins

By Jordan Schachtel, May 04, 2022

Prior to the announcement from DHS last week, there was no sign of such a Disinformation Governance Board outfit operating within the federal bureaucracy, but there are clues, and a track record of similar outfits that may have served as predecessors to the current namesake.

“World War III is Closer than Ever”: US War Machine to Increase Lethal Military Aid by Sending “Suicide Drones” to Ukraine

By Timothy Alexander Guzman, May 04, 2022

The majority of the $33 billion, around $20 billion of the US taxpayer-funded war will be used for “artillery, armored vehicles and anti-armor and anti-air capabilities, according to the White House.”

NATO: Sweden Navigates Dangerous Waters

By Prof. Marcello Ferrada de Noli, May 04, 2022

It was reported that Ankara had asked its NATO allies “to invoke Article 5 to help secure Turkey’s border with threats from Syria.” Still, the final decision was, “NATO stands with Turkey but does not invoke Article 5.” What reliable guarantee from NATO would there be if a similar incident were to occur from the Swedish side, and which would be perceived by Russia as provocative, or worse, as casus belli?

The “Killer Vaccine” Worldwide. 7.9 Billion People

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, May 04, 2022

Fake figures of covid-19 positive cases and covid-19 related deaths. Lies upon lies. There is a complex timeline. The covid crisis is marked by several stages leading up to the implementation of mass vaccination Worldwide in December 2020.

9/11 Truth: The Key to Ending COVID-19 Buried in the 9/11 Narrative and the WTC Wreckage

By Emanuel Pastreich and Dan Hanley, May 04, 2022

The reason that the United States has been overrun with COVID-19 propaganda and that the government acted as a toy of the rich, pushing through policies that have no support, is that the entire system was gutted in the aftermath of 9/11 and a stark tyranny has replaced the flawed republic that once stood behind the halls of government.

“Global NATO” to Have Disastrous Effect on World Security? “Shift in World Order”

By Drago Bosnic, May 04, 2022

In late April, when the UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss called for the creation of a “Global NATO” as part of “a shift in world order”, few seem to have noticed the magnitude of such an announcement. The statement followed calls by US President Joe Biden for a ‘New World Order to be established’ just four weeks prior during his Warsaw speech.

SARS-CoV-2 Vaccination and Myocarditis in a Nordic Cohort Study of 23 Million Residents

By Dr. Oystein Karlstad, Dr. Petteri Hovi, and et al., May 04, 2022

In a cohort study of 23.1 million residents across 4 Nordic countries, risk of myocarditis after the first and second doses of SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccines was highest in young males aged 16 to 24 years after the second dose.

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***

Just three years ago Tony Blair looked finished. Washed up. Defunct. Politically dead.

The Chilcot report had established the facts surrounding Blair’s deep culpability for the catastrophic Iraq invasion. 

With Blair beside him, Starmer can no longer claim to be a man of honesty and integrity.

Blair had poisoned his own reputation by receiving huge sums for giving lucrative advice to a succession of seedy and sometimes murderous dictators.

Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party closed its doors to the one-time Labour premier.

Back from the dead

But this week Sir Tony rose sensationally from the dead, courtesy of Sir Keir Starmer.

Starmer exhumed Blair by placing him at the heart of a Labour campaign video in this Thursday’s local elections.

This completes the rehabilitation of Blair that began in January this year when he received the Order of the Garter, the highest honour available in British public life.

It is an open secret that Buckingham Palace, dismayed by Blair’s conduct in office, has long resisted such a move.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson is thought to have urged the Queen to change her mind about Blair’s knighthood.

Now Starmer has completed Blair’s public resurrection. To many this will seem an astonishing decision.

Starmer must have known that his new alliance with Blair would estrange many idealistic Labour supporters who despise the former prime minister.

In this article, I will examine the reasoning behind Starmer’s decision to bring Blair back into the heart of Labour politics.

Election winner

First, there is no getting away from the fact that Blair is, quite simply, the most successful leader in the history of the British Labour Party.

Before Blair’s famous 1997 victory, Labour had lost four elections in a row – 1979, 1983, 1987 and 1992.

Blair won three handsome victories in a row – 1997, 2001 and 2005 – before being forced out of office in an internal coup masterminded by supporters of Gordon Brown.

Since then Labour has suffered four more straight defeats – 2010, 2015, 2017 and 2019.

Politics is ultimately about winning. Starmer may have concluded that he does not want Labour to lose a fifth general election in a row, and that he wants a proven winner like Blair by his side.

A reasonable calculation.

He knows that Blair became a winner by forging an unbeatable electoral alliance between traditional Labour voters and the aspirant middle classes who have historically voted Tory.

He wants to repeat that magic combination. Another reasonable calculation.

I guess Starmer calculates that the Iraq War is now history.

The invasion took place, after all, before some of the young people who will vote in this week’s local elections were even born.

And I am sure he personally recalls how at its best Blair’s New Labour offered hope and a radiant national optimism, and wants to recreate that.

Understandable grounds for assuming that bringing Blair back from his political graveyard will resurrect Labour’s fortunes.

New Labour is history

But there are also powerful arguments for leaving Blair unmolested in the mausoleum of disgraced political leaders.

First, the New Labour era is long gone.

Back in 1997 when Blair stormed to power, Britain enjoyed its strongest economy since World War Two.

Today we face inflation and recession – and with recession comes desperately hard economic choices of the kind that Blair never faced.

Also the demographics have changed beyond recognition. Blair won power by taking working-class voters in traditional Labour areas for granted.

His successors have paid the price for that betrayal – those working-class voters have fled to the Tories.

Most important of all, the political argument has changed beyond recognition.

Boris Johnson has emerged as the sleaziest and most deceitful British prime minister in more than a century – so much so that he fills many voters with disgust.

Starmer’s best hope of fighting an amoral chancer like Johnson is to project himself to voters as a man of honour and decency.

There’s zero chance of doing that with Blair by his side.

The biggest lie

Blair never lied with the fluency, frequency and lack of shame for which Johnson has become notorious.

But there’s no getting away from the fact he is responsible for the biggest and worst political lie in modern history: the claim that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction.

Blair needed to tell that lie in order to justify sending British forces to fight in what was otherwise an illegal war.

There were no weapons of mass destruction, and most good judges accept that the war was illegal as well as a catastrophe for millions.

With Blair beside him, Starmer can no longer claim to be a man of honesty and integrity.

He has therefore thrown away an electoral trump card.

All the more so because Starmer has not just bought into Tony Blair personally. He’s swallowed whole the New Labour concept that Blair brought to Downing Street.

As political journalist Oliver Eagleton makes plain in an outstanding new book, The Starmer Project, Starmer has revived the slavish Atlanticism which was a core feature of the Blair era.

Old guard

Meanwhile, Starmer has become dependent on the Blairite old guard.

Blairite heavyweight David Blunkett sits on Labour’s “council of skills”. Blairite spokesperson Matthew Doyle has been enlisted as communications director. New Labour pollster Deborah Mattinson is back as Starmer’s strategist.

Eagleton states that Peter Mandelson, whose name is synonymous with New Labour manipulation and deceit, has been “recruited as an informal adviser”.

That does alarm and surprise me.

Eagleton reveals that Starmer has even asked Lord Falconer – another core member of the Blairite inner circle – to give him “introductory seminars in economics”.

By modelling himself on “New Labour”, Starmer is fighting a war with an obsolete political technology that’s a quarter of a century old.

He may find – to paraphrase Karl Marx – that history repeats itself, first as tragedy, then for a second time as farce.

*

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Peter Oborne won best commentary/blogging in both 2022 and 2017, and was also named freelancer of the year in 2016 at the Drum Online Media Awards for articles he wrote for Middle East Eye. He was also named as British Press Awards Columnist of the Year in 2013. He resigned as chief political columnist of the Daily Telegraph in 2015. His latest book, The Assault on Truth: Boris Johnson, Donald Trump and the Emergence of a New Moral Barbarism, was published in February 2021 and was a Sunday Times Top Ten Bestseller. His previous books include The Triumph of the Political Class, The Rise of Political Lying, and Why the West is Wrong about Nuclear Iran.

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Oliver Stone on Facebook writes that rabid anti-Russian propaganda has set the stage for a false flag low-yield nuclear explosion in Ukraine that the world has been trained to interpret as Russia’s doing. The success of Washington’s perception war and saturation of the CNN/Fox airwaves with condemnation of Russia could lead to hopes that a false flag nuclear event would bring down Putin’s government.  A new Yeltsin installed would return Russia to Washington’s control and leave China, alone, as the next target.  Such an event is not a fantasy.  It is an expression of Stone’s understanding of the neoconservatives commitment to Washington’s hegemony.  Biden officials have made it clear that they are at war with Russia, using Ukraine as a proxy, with the goal of exhausting Russia into weakness and disposing of Putin.  

A false flag event is not the only avenue to nuclear war.  The expansion of NATO to Finland and Sweden is another.  Washington is not only pressuring the governments to apply for NATO membership but also is bribing Swedish and Finnish government officials to do so.  

Think about this expansion of NATO for a minute.  One reason for Russia’s intervention in Ukraine is the stark refusal of Washington and NATO to take Russia’s security concerns seriously.  Ukraine’s membership in NATO is totally unacceptable to Russia, so why was it pushed?  With Western intervention in Ukraine threatening to spin the conflict out of control, why pour gasoline on the fire by bringing Sweden and Finland into NATO?  Currently Scandinavia and the Baltics are nuclear free.  Finland’s entry into NATO would bring more NATO to Russia’s border, a development that the Kremlin has declared as unacceptable. By piling on more provocations, Washington and NATO are intentionally widening a conflict that was deliberately provoked.

Clearly, it is irresponsible for Finland and Sweden to further destabilize the situation by joining NATO.  Dmitry Medvedev has made it clear that NATO membership would mean the end of the nuclear-free Baltic.  More NATO on Russia’s border creates an imbalance that Russia would have to correct with deployment of hypersonic nuclear missiles.  How can it be possible for the governments of Finland and Sweden to regard NATO membership as an increase in security when the result is to have their countries targeted with nuclear weapons? Finland and Sweden are in no danger of being attacked by Russia unless they join NATO.  No one in their right mind would see NATO membership for Finland and Sweden as anything but a reckless act of destabilization.  Like Switzerland, Finland and Sweden have benefitted from their neutrality.  It is nonsensical for them to turn themselves into nuclear targets.

Everyone needs to understand that the neoconservatives’ ideology of hegemony is an expansionist ideology. It is the American Empire that is expanding toward Russia, not Russia expanding into the West.  It is truly amazing how opposite from the truth the anti-Russian propaganda is.  Sooner or later the Kremlin will comprehend that Russia’s enemies are the American neoconservatives and that the pressure point on the neoconservatives is Israel.

As my audience knows, I have been concerned for years that Russia’s low-key response to provocations brings about more and more dangerous provocations that eventually will bring Armageddon upon us.  I saw recently that the Chinese government thinks similarly when a Chinese spokesman said that China can accept no provocation from Washington as the result would be more and worse provocations.

The Kremlin’s policy of relying on reason, negotiations, and good will has not been reciprocated by the West.  The Kremlin’s limited military operation in Ukraine was not of sufficient ferocity to convince the West to abandon its policy of provocation.  It seems Washington will continue its provocations until the fatal line is crossed.

*

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Dr. Paul Craig Roberts writes on his blog site, PCR Institute for Political Economy. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from The Unz Review

---

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

by Michel Chossudovsky

Available to order from Global Research! 

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

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

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

Reviews

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

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

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

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***

“Abortion on demand is the ultimate State tyranny; the State simply declares that certain classes of human beings are not persons, and therefore not entitled to the protection of the law. The State protects the ‘right’ of some people to kill others, just as the courts protected the ‘property rights’ of slave masters in their slaves.”—Ron Paul

The government wants to play god.

It wants the power to decide who lives or dies and whose rights are worthy of protection.

Delve beneath the rhetoric and spin that have turned abortion into a politicized, polarized and propagandized frontline in the culture wars, and you will find a greater menace at work.

Abortion may be front and center in the power struggle between the Left and the Right over who has the right to decide—the government or the individual—when it comes to bodily autonomy, the right to privacy, sexual freedom, the rights of the unborn, and property interests in one’s body, but there’s so much more going on here.

The Left would suggest that unborn babies do not have constitutional rights and the only right that matters is a woman’s right to privacy in choosing whether or not to abort a pregnancy. The Right, while fixated on saving the lives of unborn babies, seems less concerned about what happens to those lives from birth to death.

What few seem willing to address is that in the 30 years since the U.S. Supreme Court issued its landmark ruling in Roe v. Wade, the government has come to believe that it not only has the power to determine who is deserving of constitutional rights in the eyes of the law but it also has the authority to deny those rights to an American citizen.

This is how the abortion debate—a politicized tug-of-war over when an unborn child is considered a human being with rights—plays into the police state’s hands by laying the groundwork for discussions about who else may or may not be deserving of rights.

Even if (as a leaked draft opinion in the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization suggests) the Supreme Court overturns its earlier rulings recognizing abortion as a constitutional right under the Fourteenth Amendment, that will not resolve the larger problem that plagues us today: namely, that all along the spectrum of life—from the unborn child to the aged—the government continues to play fast and loose with the lives of the citizenry.

Take a good, hard look at the many ways in which Americans are being denied their rights under the Constitution.

American families who have their dogs shot, their homes trashed and their children terrorized or, worse, killed by errant SWAT team raids in the middle of the night are being denied their rights under the Constitution.

Disabled individuals who are being strip searched, handcuffed, arrested and “diagnosed” by police as dangerous or mentally unstable merely because they stutter and walk unevenly are being denied their rights under the Constitution.

School-aged children as young as 4-years-old who are leg shackled, handcuffed and strip searched for violating school zero tolerance policies by chewing a Pop Tart into the shape of a gun and playing an imaginary game of cops and robbers, or engaging in childish behavior such as crying or jumping are being denied their rights under the Constitution.

Unarmed citizens who are tasered or shot by police for daring to hesitate, stutter, move a muscle, flee or disagree in any way with a police order are being denied their rights under the Constitution.

Likewise, Americans—young and old alike—who are shot by police because they pointed a garden hose at a police officer, reached for their registration in their glove box, relied upon a cane to steady themselves, or were seen playing with air rifles or BB guns are being denied their rights under the Constitution.

Female motorists who are unlucky enough to be pulled over for a questionable traffic infraction only to be subjected by police to cavity searches by the side of the road are being denied their rights under the Constitution.

Male pedestrians and motorists alike who are being subjected to roadside strip searches and rectal probesby police based largely on the color of their skin are being denied their rights under the Constitution.

American citizens subjected to government surveillance whereby their phone calls are being listened in on, their mail and text messages read, their movements tracked and their transactions monitored are being denied their rights under the Constitution.

Homeowners who are being fined and arrested for raising chickens in their backyard, allowing the grass in their front yards to grow too long, and holding Bible studies in their homes are being denied their rights under the Constitution.

Decorated military veterans who are being arrested for criticizing the government on social media such as Facebook are being denied their rights under the Constitution.

Homeless individuals who are being harassed, arrested and run out of towns by laws that criminalize homelessness are being denied their rights under the Constitution.

Individuals whose DNA has been forcibly collected and entered into federal and state law enforcement databases whether or not they have been convicted of any crime are being denied their rights under the Constitution.

Drivers whose license plates are being scanned, uploaded to a police database and used to map their movements, whether or not they are suspected of any crime, are being denied their rights under the Constitution. The same goes for drivers who are being ticketed for running afoul of red light cameras without any real opportunity to defend themselves against such a charge are being denied their rights under the Constitution.

Protesters and activists who are being labeled domestic terrorists and extremists and accused of hate crimes for speaking freely are being denied their rights under the Constitution. Likewise, American citizens who being targeted for assassination by drone strikes abroad without having been charged, tried and convicted of treason are being denied their rights under the Constitution.

Hard-working Americans whose bank accounts, homes, cars electronics and cash are seized by police(operating according to asset forfeiture schemes that provide profit incentives for highway robbery) are being denied their rights under the Constitution.

So, what is the common denominator here?

These are all American citizens—endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, rights that no person or government can take away from them, among these the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness—and they are all being oppressed in one way or another by a government that has grown drunk on power, money and its own authority.

If the government—be it the President, Congress, the courts or any federal, state or local agent or agency—can decide that any person has no rights, then that person becomes less than a citizen, less than human, less than deserving of respect, dignity, civility and bodily integrity. He or she becomes an “it,” a faceless number that can be tallied and tracked, a quantifiable mass of cells that can be discarded without conscience, an expendable cost that can be written off without a second thought, or an animal that can be bought, sold, branded, chained, caged, bred, neutered and euthanized at will.

It’s a slippery slope that justifies all manner of violations in the name of national security, the interest of the state and the so-called greater good.

Yet those who founded this country believed that what we conceive of as our rights were given to us by God—we are created equal, according to the nation’s founding document, the Declaration of Independence—and that government cannot create, nor can it extinguish our God-given rights. To do so would be to anoint the government with god-like powers and elevate it above the citizenry.

Unfortunately, we have been dancing with this particular devil for quite some time now.

If we continue to wait for the government to restore our freedoms, respect our rights, rein in its abuses and restrain its agents from riding roughshod over our lives, our liberty and our happiness, then we will be waiting forever.

Already, the politicos are beating the war drums to herald the next phase of the abortion wars.

President Biden wants voters to elect more pro-abortion rights officials to ensure that “a woman’s right to choose is fundamental.” The Senate plans to vote to codify the right to an abortion into federal law. Chief Justice John G. Roberts is opening an investigation into how the Supreme Court’s draft abortion ruling was leaked. And polling indicates that the majority of the American people want abortion to remain legal.

Like clockwork, we find ourselves smack dab in the middle of yet another political circus that could get scary, ugly and overwhelming really fast.

Before you get too distracted by this conveniently timed diversion that has everyone forgetting about spiking gas prices, inflation, housing shortages, and warring empires, remind yourself that no matter how the Supreme Court rules in Dobbs, it will not resolve the problem of a culture that values life based on a sliding scale.  Nor will it help us navigate the moral, ethical and scientific minefields that await us as technology and humanity move ever closer to a point of singularity.

Humanity is being propelled at warp speed into a whole new frontier when it comes to privacy, bodily autonomy, and what it means to be a human being. As such, we haven’t even begun to wrap our heads around how present-day legal debates over bodily autonomy, privacy, vaccine mandates, the death penalty, and abortion play into future discussions about singularity, artificial intelligence, cloning, and the privacy rights of the individual in the face of increasingly invasive, intrusive and unavoidable government technologies.

Yet here is what I know.

Life is an inalienable right.

By allowing the government to decide who or what is deserving of rights, it shifts the entire discussion from one in which we are “endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights” (that of life, liberty property and the pursuit of happiness) to one in which only those favored by the government get to enjoy such rights.

If all people are created equal, then all lives should be equally worthy of protection.

There’s an idea embraced by both the Right and the Left according to their biases that there is a hierarchy to life, with some lives worthier of protection than others, but there is no hierarchy of freedoms.

All freedoms hang together.

As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, we must never stop working to protect life, preserve our freedoms and maintain some semblance of our humanity.

Freedom cannot be a piece-meal venture.

*

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This article was originally published on The Rutherford Institute.

Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president The Rutherford Institute. His books Battlefield America: The War on the American People and A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State are available at www.amazon.com. He can be contacted at [email protected].

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

They are regular contributors to Global Research.

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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***

Pope Francis has suggested to Italian daily Corriere Della Sera that the “barking of NATO at the door of Russia” provoked the military operation in Ukraine and alluded that countries should not supply Ukraine with more arms. Specifically, the Pope said that Russia has “an anger that I don’t know whether it was provoked but was perhaps facilitated” by NATO’s unrelenting expansion towards the Eurasian Giant.

Although Pope Francis denounced the Russian military operation and has concern for civilians, he has refrained from naming Moscow as an aggressor – a reflection of the Vatican’s tradition of neutrality and his own ambition to improve relations with the Russian Orthodox Church.

“In Ukraine, it was other states that created the conflict,” Pope Francis said in the interview without naming any specific states. He did highlight though that those foreign states fomented conflict and suffering in “Syria, Yemen, Iraq, one war after another in Africa.”

“I don’t know how to answer—I am too far away—whether it is right to supply the Ukrainians” with weapons, the Pope said. “What’s clear is that in this land, arms are being tested… Wars are fought for this: to test the arms we have made.”

It is recalled that Kiev has criticized the Pope for describing their conflict with Russia as “fratricidal,” which they have said downplays Moscow’s aggression. At the same time, the Pope expressed his desire to visit Ukraine, but said he wanted to travel to Moscow first to meet with President Vladimir Putin to appeal for an end to the war. However, at this time, the Kremlin has not responded to the offer.

Although Pope Francis is the spiritual chief for 1.3 billion Catholic Christians around the world, this does not correspond with political leadership or influence. Take for example President Joe Biden, described by NBC News as “America’s most prominent Catholic” and only the second Catholic president in the US after JFK. It is highly unlikely that Biden will entertain the Pope’s suggestion that NATO forced Russia’s hand against Ukraine.

In fact, Pope Francis has had very little influence over events in Ukraine. It is recalled that his appeals for an Orthodox Easter truce in Ukraine were ignored, his planned meeting with Patriarch Kirill of Moscow was cancelled, and now evidently a proposed visit to Russia has for now been ignored. The fact is that the Vatican is incapable of making a major mark in geopolitical issues, so for Putin it is less of a priority to meet Pope Francis given the issues Russia has in dealing with a war and severe economic sanctions.

Moscow must also consider though that the Pope does hold significant soft power and moral authority that millions across the world find extremely important. One can only imagine that the Polish people, in which 87% identify as Roman Catholic, a near equal amount oppose Putin and 94% support NATO, must be in a conundrum as they try to reconcile the fact that their spiritual leader suggested the Atlantic Alliance provoked Russia’s military response against Ukraine – something in complete opposition to what the Polish media and political establishment claim.

The Pope has caused a sensation across Western media, with many mainstream outlets shocked that he had made such a comment. However, the fact that he highlighted that the “barking of NATO at the door of Russia” could have provoked the war in Ukraine should not be controversial as Moscow had repeatedly warned that it would not tolerate threats to its national security at its border. NATO has been unrelenting in its pursuit to expand membership to Russia’s borders, even to the point of emboldening Georgia despite the country having no realistic prospect for membership, thus sparking the 2008 Russo-Georgian War.

Although Pope Francis has found himself in a position of having Western media demand to explain his refusal to “call out Russia or President Vladimir Putin by name”— it must be noted that Popes traditionally do not make such denunciations.

It is also interesting to note though that the Pope seemingly, despite his main focus being the spiritual wellbeing of Catholics, has more of a geopolitical nuance then most Western academics, experts, policymakers and think-tankers on understanding the harsh world we live in – endless provocations will lead to retaliations and responses, something the West ignored but was shocked to discover when Russian soldiers started crossing into Ukraine on February 24.

Although the Pope will have little influence over the course of the war, what his statement has done is spark debate, and perhaps even realization for some, that it was NATO that provoked Russia into war with Ukraine. In this way, the Pope is more of a realist then the liberal and neocon thinkers that dominate Western discourse and policy, and perhaps his comments can instigate a more realist discussion in the West on what led to Russia’s actions against Ukraine – such as the persecution of Russian-speakers in Ukraine, Kiev’s ambition for NATO membership and nuclear weapons, and operating bioweapon labs near Russia’s border.

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Paul Antonopoulos is an independent geopolitical analyst.

Featured image is from InfoBrics

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***

What has the Department of Homeland Security’s Disinformation Governance Board — or rather, the Biden Administration’s Ministry Of Truth — been up to since its founding? 

Nobody really knows, but the timeline of its creation coincides with increasingly disturbing activities launched within Homeland Security to target not Russians, but American citizens. Far from targeting foreign disinformation or anything of the sort, the activities of DHS have increasingly focused on targeting and surveilling domestic dissent.

We only know about the Truth Ministry’s origin timeline because its appointed leader, progressive activist Nina Jankowicz, revealed as much on Twitter.

Cat's out of the bag: here's what I've been up to the past two months, and why I've been a bit quiet on here.

Honored to be serving in the Biden Administration @DHSgov and helping shape our counter-disinformation efforts. https://t.co/uN20vl7qqV pic.twitter.com/JEn4FqLdck

— Nina Jankowicz 🇺🇦🇺🇸 (@wiczipedia) April 27, 2022

Prior to the announcement from DHS last week, there was no sign of such a Disinformation Governance Board outfit operating within the federal bureaucracy, but there are clues, and a track record of similar outfits that may have served as predecessors to the current namesake.

If you’re looking for answers from the government, you’re not going to get any. The people in charge of the Truth Ministry unsurprisingly have no intention of being honest about its founding, function, and leadership.

In an interview over the weekend, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Jankowicz’s boss, claimed she was “eminently qualified,” a “renowned expert,” and politically “neutral.”

The neutral claim is laughably absurd, as Jankowicz has openly campaigned for democrat politicians, most notably, the notorious disinformation launderer that is Hillary Clinton. Jankowicz appears to have personal and professional ties to the Clinton cartel, through her work as a Fulbright-Clinton fellow, a job that included her serving as an adviser to the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry.

Civic duty = ✔️ #SuperTuesday #VAprimary #ImWithHer #HillYes pic.twitter.com/Gb45APhrcA

— Nina Jankowicz 🇺🇦🇺🇸 (@wiczipedia) March 1, 2016

Thrilled to be headed to #Ukraine this fall as a Fulbright-Clinton Public Policy Fellow! @FulbrightPrgrm pic.twitter.com/9y2aglUjor

— Nina Jankowicz 🇺🇦🇺🇸 (@wiczipedia) June 14, 2016

In my grandfather’s memory & as a Polish-American, I’m proud to support @HillaryClinton. https://t.co/22L4jwjtSs pic.twitter.com/Iruvq08RKR

— Nina Jankowicz 🇺🇦🇺🇸 (@wiczipedia) August 2, 2016

Now that any sane person can clearly establish that Jankowicz is a political activist who has no interest in separating truth from “disinformation,” let’s get back to the DHS component.

DHS claims the Disinformation Governance Board, led by Russia specialist Jankowicz, has a primary mission that will focus on tackling misinformation that leads to migrant surges at the U.S. southern border, in addition to combatting supposed disinformation coming from Russia. It is unclear why Jankowicz would lead an organization that ostensibly targets non-english speaking Latin American residents, given the fact that she has no established familiarity with the languages spoken by the vast majority of migrants.

Additionally, it is the State Department that has traditionally held the role of managing propaganda and counter propaganda operations, especially when it comes to Eastern Europe and Russia, which is the niche focus of Jankowicz’s career thus far.

Perhaps the real target of the Ministry of Truth is the American people, specifically, Americans who don’t conform with the Current Thing.

The campaigns took a rabidly aggressive posture against peaceful American political opposition in late 2021, when DHS infamously issued a series of memos classifying opponents of COVID lockdowns as potential “domestic violent extremists.”

DHS also warned about these so-called extremists discussing “conspiracy theories concerning the origins of COVID-19 and effectiveness of vaccines,” despite the “vaccines” not actually working and the origins of COVID-19 being repeatedly covered up by the federal bureaucracy.

At around the same time of the Truth Ministry’s apparent founding, DHS was continuing to issue increasingly noxious bulletins targeting not foreigners, but American citizens, classing them as disinformation agents and potential violent extremists.

A possible predecessor to the Disinformation Governance Board is an outfit that sprung up in February called the “Mis-, Dis-, and Malinformation (MDM) team,” which was tasked with “building national resilience to MDM and foreign influence activities.” The MDM team was established at DHS through the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), which, most notably, is in charge of overseeing “election integrity” issues.

In February, at around the same time as the apparent founding of the Disinformation Governance Board, DHS likened opposition to lockdowns as a sign of likely terrorist behavior. In fact, the most notable aspect of a domestic terrorist is a person who will “sow discord and undermine public trust in government institutions,” DHS said.

DHS memo

“COVID-19 mitigation measures—particularly COVID-19 vaccine and mask mandates—have been used by domestic violent extremists to justify violence since 2020 and could continue to inspire these extremists to target government, healthcare, and academic institutions that they associate with those measures,” the memo adds.

DHS memo

DHS memo

It continues, claiming that those who disseminate what is described as “false or misleading narratives regarding unsubstantiated widespread election fraud and COVID-19” are the signs of a likely terrorist.

There is no public track record for the Disinformation Governance Board, but many hints are pointing to the reality of an organization established to continue surveilling and harassing the Biden Administration’s domestic political opposition, under the guise of “fighting disinformation.” Whether it’s a war in Ukraine or your next mRNA COVID shot, you better be on the right side of their Current Thing, or you might just be labeled a potential violent extremist terrorist. And the Ministry of Truth will serve as a complimentary instrument for that system.

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***

 

Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) should examine the charitable status of B’nai Brith Canada that demonizes and attempts to destroy Canadians, especially the vulnerable Palestinian and Muslim communities, who strongly oppose the Crime of Apartheid.

On April 30, thousands of protesters rallied in Toronto to oppose apartheid Israel’s systemic discrimination, ethnic cleansing and war crimes against the Indigenous Palestinian Semitic people.

Israel’s Nation-State Law enshrines supremacy against its 2 million Palestinians citizens; Israel also denies any civil or human rights to the 5 million Palestinians under its occupation and prevents 6 million exiled Palestinian refugees from returning to their homeland.

Today, numerous public figures, institutions and human rights organizations worldwide – including Israel’s leading human rights organization B’Tselem, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and UN Special Rapporteur of the United Nations Human Rights Council, Canadian Professor Michael Lynk – recognize that Israel is guilty of committing war crimes and the crime against humanity of apartheid against the indigenous Palestinian Semitic people.

Leading the march were Jewish rabbis and Muslim Imams. Speakers at the rally included Suzanne Weiss, a survivor of the Holocaust, and Dovid Feldman Chief Rabbi of Neturei Karta (Orthodox Jews United against Zionism) whose speech was read on his behalf because it was a Sabbath.

Below are some of the posters carried by some Rabbis at the rally:

• Jews Worldwide Mourn 74 years Existence of “Israel”
• Judaism Condemns the State of “Israel” And its Atrocities
• Torah Demands ALL PALESTINE be returned to Palestinian Sovereignty

Following the rally B’nai Brith unleashed a false and misleading campaign against those mosques whose worshippers participated in a rally opposing apartheid Israel by accusing them of hatred of Jews, even though 4 Rabbis leading the march and 3 of the main speakers at the rally, including a Chief Rabbi, were Jews.

By spreading false and misleading information that demonizes and attempts to silence Muslim Canadians, B’nai Brith may be contributing to more violent racist attacks against Muslim Canadians and their places of worship similar to the 2021 London attack that killed 4 members of a Muslim family, and the 2017 deadly mosque attack in Quebec City that killed 6 worshippers.

Israel falsely claims it represents World Jewry to silence critics of its war crimes and its crime against humanity of apartheid.

While parroting Israel’s false claim, B’nai Brith avoided attacking the Rabbis who led the march and the Jewish speakers at the rally and only accused Muslim participants of hatred of Jews.

By supporting Israel’s false claim that it represents World Jewry and that those who oppose apartheid hate Jews, B’nai Brith is demonizing Muslim Canadians who took part in the rally and, more worryingly, is providing justification for racists to blame Jews for the war crimes and the crime of apartheid that Israel has been found guilty of committing against the Palestinian people.

Canadian and international recognition that Israel is an apartheid state is the first step toward dismantling apartheid. This is why supporters of apartheid Israel like B’nai Brith are panicking and desperately resorting to any means to silence opponents of apartheid.

Instead of defending the human rights of all Canadians, B’nai Brith spends its energy trying to silence and destroy those voices of justice that oppose apartheid.

Canadian taxpayers must not be forced to subsidize the promotion of hatred against anyone, especially the vulnerable Palestinian and Muslim communities, who oppose the crime against humanity of apartheid.

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This article was originally published on One Democratic State.

Khaled Mouammar is a Christian Palestinian Canadian who was forced to flee his hometown Nazareth in 1948. He is one of the founders of the Canadian Arab Federation and a former member of the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada. He received the Queen’s Silver Jubilee Award from the Governor General of Canada in 1977.

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***

Portions of my work were plagiarised in the infamous ‘intelligence dossier’ that presaged the disastrous 2003 invasion – its roots can be traced back to a meeting in Texas a year earlier

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Last week, Middle East Eye published a secret memo about an April 2002 meeting between former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and former US President George W Bush in Crawford, Texas.

What is revealing about the memo is how determined both leaders were to invade Iraq at that point, abandoning all pretences at seeking a diplomatic solution. They also acknowledged how important it was to win over public opinion for an invasion.

It was a meeting in which Iraq’s fate was sealed. It was also a meeting that would propel me to infamy in February 2003. From Texas, a series of events transpired that landed me in the British parliament in June 2003, where I testified against Blair and this very campaign.

Even nearly two decades after the Iraq War was launched, this memo is revelatory. The role of the media was crucial for the US government and American domestic opinion during the Vietnam War, the 1991 Gulf War, and the conflicts in Somalia and Bosnia in the 90s.

This memo acknowledges the importance of the media battle. Yet, by the 21st century, the arena had evolved. The political theatre, managed by both the US and UK, involved global public opinion, 24-hour news cycles, the internet, Al Jazeera, the UN, and me, an Oxford student whose doctoral research was plagiarised in the rush to go to war.

‘The PR aspect’

David Manning, then Blair’s chief foreign policy adviser, accompanied the British leader to the US president’s ranch in Crawford in 2002 and wrote up a memo of what transpired. While the two heads of state appeared to have made up their minds to wage war on Iraq close to a year before the 2003 invasion, the rationale was not explicit. The memo makes no mention of securing oil, establishing a democratic Iraq, or using the invasion as a means to end terrorism.

They did not even broach top-secret military strategy. A small group within US Central Command had been secretly exploring options for invading Iraq.

While the decision to go to war had been made before the military aspects were planned, the media battleground had to be handled. “Bush accepted we needed to manage the PR aspect of all this with great care,” the memo stated, adding that both leaders agreed the public relations strategy must highlight “the risks of Saddam’s WMD [weapons of mass destruction] programme and his appalling human rights record”.

The Blair government ultimately released a pair of “intelligence dossiers” to this end, aiming to sway public opinion, both domestic and international, and the UK parliament’s vote for war. The first was released in September 2002, focusing on Iraq’s alleged WMD programme.

In that April 2002 meeting, Blair had expected Saddam to stymie the efforts of UN weapons inspectors who would be dispatched months later. Inspections were more spectacle than genuine disarmament: “If, as [Blair] expected, Saddam failed to [cooperate], the Europeans would find it very much harder to resist the logic that we must take action to deal with an evil regime that threatens us with its WMD programme,” the memo noted.

The threatening nature of Iraq’s WMD programme was exaggerated in the September 2002 dossier, which claimed that such munitions could be prepared and launched in 45 minutes against British interests. This claim would generate significant controversy in July 2003, claiming the life of a government scientist, David Kelly, who was engulfed in a media storm and eventually found dead in an apparent suicide.

Architects of war

The second dossier focused on the myriad of secret police and spy agencies that violated the human rights of Iraqis and took part in WMD concealment. Blair had given that dossier to then-US Secretary of State Colin Powell in January 2003, and Powell referenced it during his February 2003 presentation to the UN on Iraq’s alleged WMD programme.

The issuance of these dossiers and the British and American attempts to sway the UN can be traced back to the Crawford meeting. The memo states, referring to the PR campaign: “The PM said this approach would be important in managing European public opinion and in helping the President construct an international coalition.”

The dossiers were not secret, but were meant to be UK “intelligence reports” released to media organisations and the public. The UN was key to the goal to “construct an international coalition”.

Following Powell’s presentation, Jon Snow of Channel 4 News revealed that whole sections of the 2003 dossier were copied off the internet by the British government from an online article I published, based on my Oxford PhD – including my grammatical mistakes. Today, the memo from 2002 has provided me with a glimpse of how these events unfolded.

When Channel 4 released the plagiarism story, it was assumed that UK intelligence services, such as MI6, had produced the dossier. In fact, it was produced under the aegis of Blair’s then-communications director, Alastair Campbell.

The memo’s emphasis on the need to win over the media and public opinion explains why Campbell’s office was involved. This unit in the Blair administration had crafted and molded “intelligence”, and during the rush of meeting the 24-hour news cycle, mistakes were made.

The memo released by MEE underscores that the case for war was not based on an unaltered intelligence analysis, which mistakenly assessed that Iraq had WMDs. From the onset of the Crawford meeting, the architects of the war had planned for a media campaign devoted to the appearance of WMDs in Iraq to legitimise an invasion. If intelligence or UN inspections would later support their claim, all the better. Regardless, the determination to go to war had been decided in Texas.

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Ibrahim al-Marashi is associate professor of Middle East history at California State University San Marcos. His publications include Iraq’s Armed Forces: An Analytical History (2008), The Modern History of Iraq (2017), and A Concise History of the Middle East (forthcoming).

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***

There is a fundamental paradox within NATO between rights and responsibilities that has often been misinterpreted. From NATO’s perspective, the priority of a country’s accession to the alliance is not the right of that country to have the alliance’s protection, but on the contrary: the decisive imperative is the responsibility that NATO takes on itself to go to war when one of its member states is attacked. That and nothing else is at the heart of Article 5.

In other words, it is not the Swedish members of parliament who now want to vote for NATO membership who should ultimately decide when Sweden will go to war and against whom. It will be NATO. If another NATO member state other than Sweden is attack, Sweden would be obliged to go to war.

Nevertheless, in the context of several wars in which NATO members have been involved in recent decades, there are also exceptions to the principle of solidarity and mutual assistance.

It happened, for example, when a Russian bomber was shot down by NATO country Turkey in November 2016. According to Swedish media it would have been a casus-belli type of incident, because, according to Turkey, it occurred over Turkish territory while Russia said the plane was in Syrian airspace.

It was reported that Ankara had asked its NATO allies “to invoke Article 5 to help secure Turkey’s border with threats from Syria.” Still, the final decision was, “NATO stands with Turkey but does not invoke Article 5.”

What reliable guarantee from NATO would there be if a similar incident were to occur from the Swedish side, and which would be perceived by Russia as provocative, or worse, as casus belli?

Furthermore, it must be remembered that Swedish membership in NATO would place Sweden only about 300 km from Kaliningrad. The “standard” kaliber missiles Russia recently deployed in Kaliningrad have a range of over six times that distance.

In addition to Sweden’s new anti-missile capability, NATO membership could also mean nuclear weapons being placed on Swedish territory. Russia possesses the world’s largest arsenal of nuclear warheads, along with the most destructive ones.

Moscow’s modern hypersonic missile, according to President Joe Biden, is currently “almost impossible to stop.” It is said that Russia’s new RS-28 “Sarmat” — a missile equipped with 10 to 15 MIRVs — can reach Berlin in about 106 seconds, London 202 seconds and Stockholm in 87 seconds.

The Riksdag building. (Christian Gidlof, Wikimedia Commons)

The general starting point in Swedish media is that the only enemy is Russia and the only risk is war with Russia. But Albin Aronsson, security policy analysts at the Swedish Defence Research Agency, tells the Swedish newspaper DN that “the risk of an actual (Russian) military threat is low at the moment.”

Furthermore, for the United States, NATO’s real engine, Russia is by no means the only potential warring nation. For Washington, other countries such as China, or India — and others in Asia, Africa and Latin America that currently support Russia, or refuse to participate in sanctions against Moscow — together constitute a greater economic and military power than NATO.

Should the United States end up in further military confrontations with any, or a group of those countries, would NATO-member Sweden have any opportunity to avoid participating in, or to be the target of, those hyper destructive weapons that unfortunately modern warfare shall bring about?

Of course, Sweden, must safeguard its national integrity, territorially, politically and culturally. But Sweden is made up of family and every single Swede among over 10 million Swedes. It is everyone’s destiny. It is not only the politicians in the Riksdag who must decide what risks there are in NATO membership. Especially when some of these politicians were elected thanks to the opposite platform on NATO-membership.

A Truly Neutral Country

What would benefits the world — and not just Sweden — is that Sweden once again declares its neutral status. As I wrote in DN, seven years ago:

“A closer Swedish co-operation with the USA / NATO does not lead to increased security, but risks making Sweden a primary target in the event of a military conflict. Why not invest in a neutral Sweden that would contribute to increased security not only for the country but also in the region and thereby reduce the risk of war.”

Olof Palme, then Sweden’s prime minister, at May Day rally in Stockholm, circa 1970. (Oiving, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons)

Historically, the Swedish political culture in the time of Prime Minister Olof Palme enabled serious negotiations for peace, geopolitical conflict-solving, as well hosting agreements for international events in the global fight for human health and the environment. In view of the recent re-enactment of cold-war behavior between West and East, aggravated by new sophisticated and destructive arsenals, humankind needs such a forum more than ever before.

For the above reasons, a referendum on the NATO issue, just as it was in the case of Sweden´s EU-membership, must take place. At the same time, the authorities must allow, and encourage, a debate about these matters within Swedish institutions, at work sites, among students, immigrants, academics and all spheres within society.

The most important thing among human rights is the right to live. The most terrible of political actions is to seek the path of lethal confrontation. The most sublime thing is to seek peace. And the most intelligent.

Rough Waters

Some years ago, Sweden becoming “partner” of NATO, DN ran a story about me with the headline “The professor has sailed in dangerous waters.” It referred to my resistance against the fascist dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, and that I survived capture, imprisonment, and at the end came back to the friendly nest of European anti-imperialist societies exiting at the time.

The Chilean fascists were eventually ousted from power. During my first visit to Russia I was invited to the military parade in Red Square, November 1981. I was in Moscow at the time when a submarine of the Soviet fleet, because of a technical issue, went unintentionally to ashore on the Swedish coast. Although in the middle of the Cold War, the two governments could resolved incident quickly and in a non-dramatic fashion.

Would the same outcome have happened if neutral Sweden were instead a member of NATO? It’s not too late for Sweden to come back to that geopolitical stance. Better secured in its own neutral port, than navigating in waters of confrontation.

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Professor Marcello Ferrada de Noli is founder of Swedish Doctors for Human Rights and chief-editor of the geopolitical magazine The Indicter.

Featured image: Ann Linde, Sweden’s foreign minister, on right during a NATO meeting with Sweden and Finland on April 6.Finland’s Foreign Affairs Minister Pekka Haavisto on left. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg in center. (NATO)

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Not only Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban but also Croatian President Zoran Milanovic and a Nobel Prize winner have been listed on Myrotvorets, the Ukrainian intelligence database which acts as a hit list.

Sputnik described the website on Monday as a “notorious Ukrainian kill list”. In April 2015, Myrotvorets, [translated as Peacemaker] published the home addresses of Ukrainian writer Oles Buzina and former Verkhovna Rada parliamentarian Oleg Kalashnikov, “just days before they were assassinated,” according to Wikipedia.

Myrotvorets has outed Orban as an “anti-Ukrainian propagandist”. The Hungarian government has spoken out against an oil and gas embargo against Russia. A spokesman told Reuters news agency that Hungary had not changed its mind on the issue. If this veto is retained, a complete EU import ban would be off the table.

The EU think tank Bruegel estimated that before the war Russia exported oil worth 450 million euros to the EU every day. In addition to Hungary, other EU countries such as Greece, Italy and Spain are worried about an oil boycott. They fear that consumer prices would continue to rise as a result. Even if an embargo is decided, it is still completely unclear when the measures will take effect.

On Sunday, Gergely Gulyas, the head of the Hungarian Prime Minister’s Office, confirmed that at least nine European countries opened accounts in rubles at Russian banks to enable gas payments, even if they do not wish to make this public, possibly for fear of being added to the death list.

‘Enemies of Ukraine’

The Ukrainian database publishes the personal data of the “enemies” of Ukraine. Sputnik reported that “several individuals whose names have been posted on the site have been murdered, and rights groups and governments have repeatedly called for it to be taken down”.

“[Orban] is listed as an ‘accomplice of Russian war criminals,’ an ‘accomplice in the crimes of Russian authorities against Ukraine and its citizens’, for his ‘participation in acts of humanitarian aggression against Ukraine,’ as an ‘anti-Ukrainian propagandist,’ and for his general all-round ‘cooperation with the Russian aggressor’.”

“Orban’s specific ‘crimes’ include his refusal to allow weapons intended for Ukraine to be sent through his country’s territory, and his refusal to reject Russian gas supplies even in the long-term. The prime minister’s willingness to pay for Russian gas in rubles is also mentioned.”

Together with Orban, Croatian President Zoran Milanovic also appears on the list. “Milanovic ended up on the list for saying that Croatia will not in any way get involved in the Ukraine crisis in case of its escalation and that it will not deploy its troops there. He has also said that Ukraine does not belong in NATO and that the European Union triggered a coup in Ukraine in 2014 when the pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych was ousted,” Croatia’s state press agency HINA reported.

The list contains some 187 000 names, including Pink Floyd member Roger Waters, who three years ago said Russia had more rights to Crimea than Ukraine did.

Even Kremlin critic, the Nobel Prize winner Svetlana Alexievich is on the list for mentioning that some ethnic Ukrainians had helped Nazis in the persecution of Jews during World War II.

Some 4 500 Western, Ukrainian, and Russian journalists accredited by the authorities of Donbass, a mandatory requirement for working in the area, later received death threats. FWM contributor, Manuel Ochsenreiter, who passed away last year, was one of them.

“The list is very dangerous and should be removed immediately. The tension is already high and it only adds fuel to the fire,” former Human Rights Watch official in Ukraine Yulia Gorbunova noted. The removal of the list has been requested repeatedly by the UN, G7 and EU ambassadors as well as human rights groups, but to no avail, HINA pointed out.

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Featured image: Kremlin critic and Nobel prize winner for literature Svetlana Alexievich is also on the death list ominously called ‘Peacemaker’. Wikipedia

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***

Malcolm X’s daughter and grandson, Fred Hampton’s son and Tupac Shakur, son of Black Panther Party leaders, were among those targeted by deadly counterintelligence operations

On November 18, 2021, a judge exonerated two of the three men convicted of assassinating Malcolm X, partly due to newly revealed FBI documents implicating their paid informants at the scene and cover-up regarding the actual assassins.^[1]

A mass of evidence supports that U.S. intelligence orchestrated Malcolm X’s assassination and the assassination of numerous other Black leaders, along with murderously targeting their descendants. A sampling of these atrocities reveals the use of similar tactics and personnel in this targeting.

Targeted Malcolm X’s Daughter Qubilah, and Grandson Malcolm

Evidence supports that the FBI’s Counterintelligence Program (COINTELPRO), started in the 1950s, directed police intelligence agents to assassinate Malcolm X. FBI documents revealed in the court case exonerating two of the convicted assassins implicated FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover directly in silencing his paid informants at the scene of Malcolm X’s murder.^[2]

Several police intelligence agents have been implicated in Malcolm’s assassination. Convicted Malcolm X assassin Talmadge Hayer detailed in an affidavit that four different people were involved in Malcolm X’s fatal shooting in 1965.^[3] These included William Bradley, a former Green Beret who fired a shotgun at Malcolm, and was identified by eyewitness Roland Sheppard as someone that appeared to then enter his own office at a nearby police station.^[4]

Roland Sheppard said that Bradley had his seat in front of Malcolm X reserved by Eugene Roberts. After the shooting, Roberts ran to Malcolm X’s body as he laid on the floor dying. Roberts worked in Malcolm’s security unit.^[5]

In 1970, Roberts identified himself at a trial as working for the New York Police Department. He admitted working undercover for the FBI-collaborating NYPD Bureau of Special Services and Investigation (BOSSI) at that trial.

Gene Roberts (in circle) was an undercover NYPD detective who infiltrated Malcolm X’s organization and became part of his main security detail. [Source: face2faceafrica.com]

The CIA monitored Malcolm internationally.^[6]

In 1995, the government dropped a murder for hire charge against Malcolm X’s daughter Qubilah Shabazz. Shabazz said her boyfriend had talked her into a conversation about killing Louis Farrakhan for involvement in her father’s assassination. That boyfriend was a longtime government informant, who Shabazz said entrapped her.^[7]

In 1971, activists broke into an FBI office in Media, Pennsylvania, and stole thousands of documents, revealing their murderous Counterintelligence Program activities. This led the FBI to officially close COINTELPRO that year.^[8] Former FBI COINTELPRO agent Wes Swearingen revealed in a 1995 memoir that the FBI then continued COINTELPRO activities under different names until at least the mid-1990s when his memoir was published.^[9]

In 2013, Mexican authorities arrested two men for murdering Qubilah Shabazz’s son, 28-year-old Malcolm Shabazz, in Mexico City. Malcolm had become an activist and was meeting with California-based labor movement organizers there. In a blog post earlier that year, Malcolm said he was being harassed by the FBI.^[10]

At that time, Fred Hampton, Jr., whose father headed the Illinois Black Panther Party, said he and Malcolm Shabazz had planned a “Legacy Tour” schedule of events speaking together in many cities.

Fred Hampton, Jr., is National Chairman of the Prisoners of Conscience Committee (and the Panther Cubs). Hampton said that he expelled his Minister of Information J.R. Valrey from his group for continuous sabotage, believing he was a government agent, soon after Shabazz’s death. He said Valrey lured Malcolm Shabazz to the Mexican location where Shabazz was murdered.^[11]

Same Tactics and Personnel Targeted Malcolm, MLK, Panthers, Hampton Jr., Afeni and Tupac

Undercover agent Eugene Roberts was the first to arrive at Malcolm X’s dying body. Malcolm’s wife Betty Shabazz (1934-1997), a nurse, first tried to run to her husband, but was initially held back by Eugene’s wife Joan Roberts. Shabazz then threw her against the wall and ran to her husband.^[12]

At that 1965 assassination, Eugene Roberts reported checking Malcolm X’s pulse. He then told Shabazz that Malcolm was dead.^[13]

Similarly, Martin Luther King, Jr.’s friend, attorney William Pepper, stated in one of his three books covering evidence of the U.S. government’s assassination of MLK, that Military Intelligence undercover agent Marrell McCollough first arrived at MLK’s wounded body in 1968. McCollough checked MLK’s life signs and indicated to Special Forces Group snipers that the assassination was successful and they could disengage. McCullough soon received a promotion to the CIA.^[14]

Eugene Roberts belied his reported love “trying to save” Malcolm X, as his police work continued against Malcolm’s followers, such as Lumumba Shakur in the Harlem, New York, chapter of the Black Panther Party in 1968.

In 1969, New York prosecutors indicted 21 New York City area Panther leaders for a trial that concluded in 1971. Roberts and five other undercover police intelligence agents who infiltrated the Harlem and Bronx Black Panthers revealed themselves in court, in an unsuccessful attempt to frame the Panther leaders.^[15]

Panther 21. [Source: newafrikan77.wordpress.com]

Afeni Shakur legally represented herself in court while she was pregnant with her son, future rap icon Tupac Shakur. By the age of 18, Tupac was elected National Chairman of the New Afrikan Panthers, before producing chart-topping CDs and starring in six films.^[16]

After a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by this writer, a Department of Justice worker admitted that the FBI had a file on Tupac containing more than 4,000 pages.^[17]

FBI COINTELPRO Director Richard Held headed the Los Angeles unit when he targeted Tupac’s godfather—Los Angeles Panther leader Geronimo Pratt.^[18] Held then directed the San Francisco Bay Area office and was caught lying about Panther National co-founder Huey Newton’s murder there in 1989.^[19]

Two years later, police choked Tupac unconscious and passively watched strangers shoot at him in the Bay Area a year after that.^[20]

Plainclothes police also shot at Tupac in Atlanta in 1993. Investigating Los Angeles Police Detective Russell Poole believed his fellow police officer killed Tupac at the age of 25 in 1996.^[21] Some 25 years later, his influence continues with a Tupac museum that opened in Los Angeles in January 2022, and top rappers Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg and Eminem paying tribute to him at their 2022 Super Bowl halftime performance.^[22]

Panther “cub” Tupac was close in age to fellow Panther cub Fred Hampton, Jr. The 2021 Academy Award-winning film, Judas and the Black Messiah, showed how the FBI orchestrated the Chicago police murder of Illinois Black Panther leader Fred Hampton in Chicago in December 1969.^[23]

Source: imdb.com

Chicago police similarly targeted 22-year-old Fred Hampton. Jr., in 1992 when he headed the socialist Democratic Uhuru Movement.

Hampton Jr. said police officer Joseph Grubesette, one of the officers who had arrested his father in 1969, led the arrest of him in 1992, for arson at the time of the Los Angeles riots.^[24]

Chicago police officers carrying out Fred Hampton’s body after he was murdered. [Source: historyat.wordpress.com]

At Hampton’s trial, the judge admitted that no fire occurred but still sentenced Hampton to 18 years in prison. Hampton also reported several attempts to murder him before, during and after his nine-year imprisonment.^[25]

Use of Romantic Undercover Agents and a ‘Threat-Timing’ Tactic

The instance of Malcom X’s daughter Qubilah Shabazz having a boyfriend being paid by the government to entrap her does not appear isolated. Los Angeles Panther leader Geronimo Pratt (later Ji Jaga) wrote a letter to the activist community in 2007 that former National Panther Spokesperson Kathleen Cleaver sent out for him, stating that former Oakland Panther Elaine Brown was an undercover agent.^[26]

Ward Churchill and Jim Vander Wall (The COINTELPRO Papers), along with former Panther-turned filmmaker Lee Lew Lee (All Power to the People), also quoted many Panthers and showed much evidence supporting Pratt and Cleaver’s report on Brown.

Pratt stated that Brown slept with many Panther leaders and Black nationalist United Slaves (US) leaders, setting up the murders of LA Panther leaders John Huggins and “Bunchy” Carter.^[27]

Source: facebook.com

Brown sued Pratt and Cleaver for defamation but, after the judge read all the evidence, the case was dismissed.^[28]

Similar to Qubilah Shabazz’s boyfriend possibly contributing to her drug problem in the 1990s, Pratt also said Huey Newton told him that Elaine Brown brought beautiful women and cocaine to him shortly after his prison release. This led to Newton’s cocaine abuse.

Evidence similarly supports that Legs Saunders was an undercover agent who entered one-time Harlem Panther leader Afeni Shakur’s life and started her addiction to cocaine. Kenneth “Legs” Saunders (aka Legs McNeil) dealt drugs and “would stick a [crack]pipe in mouth,” every night according to Afeni.^[29]

Legs Saunders was an associate of “Mr. Untouchable”—New York drug lord Nicky Barnes. Barnes assisted the first national “Black drug kingpin,” Frank Matthews. The Justice Department indicted Matthews’ entire network in 1973, but dropped charges on nine of them due to their CIA ties.^[30]

Regarding a possible “threat-timing” tactic, William Pepper emphasized that U.S. Intelligence orchestrated Martin Luther King’s assassination exactly one year after he officially announced his opposition to the Vietnam War.^[31] This apparent tactic engenders a conscious or subconscious warning with regard to an incident whose timing marks the anniversary date of a previous incident.

A gunman assassinated Congo president Laurent Kabila on January 16, 2001. It was on this exact date 40 years earlier that the U.S. aided the assassination of Kabila’s former comrade, Congo’s first independently elected president, Patrice Lumumba, according to CIA documents.^[32]

The late Laurent Kabila. [Source: facebook.com]

It is a wonder if this tactic was not also used when Huey Newton was assassinated exactly one year after he held a press conference from jail stating he refused release unless Geronimo Ji Jaga was released.^[33] Tupac, who idolized Newton, was shot at by strangers in front of passive police exactly three years from the date of Newton’s assassination.^[34]

This puts into question the real cause of death of Malcolm X’s daughter, Malikah Shabazz. She allegedly “died of natural causes” at the age of 56 on November 22, 2021, just four days after a judge exonerated two of her father’s assassins.^[35]

Al Sharpton countered a claim by police of Shabazz having a long-term illness, stating she was active in his National Action Network office that month. In late February 2021, the Shabazz family released a letter from a police officer reporting on FBI and police involvement in Malcolm’s assassination.^[36]

*

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John Potash is the author of two books: The FBI War on Tupac Shakur (2nd ed), and Drugs as Weapons Against Us: The CIA War on Musicians and Activists. Both books have been made into films. John’s work can be found at johnpotash.com and he can be reached at: [email protected].

Notes

1. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/nov/18/malcolm-x-assassination-two-men-exonerated 

2. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/nov/18/malcolm-x-assassination-two-men-exonerated 
3. https://innocenceproject.org/malcolm-x-murder-innocent-aziz-butler/ 
4. https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/convinced-government-behind-malcolm-x-assassination-article-1.2115770 
5. https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/convinced-government-behind-malcolm-x-assassination-article-1.2115770 and https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-day-malcolm-x-was-killed 
6. Peter Zimroth, Perversions of Justice: The Prosecution and Acquittal of the Panther 21(New York: The Viking Press, 1974), pp. 16, 48. Also see, Murray Kempton, The Briar Patch: The People of the State of New York v. Lumumba Shakur et al. (New York: Dell Publishing, 1973) p. 200. And, https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-day-malcolm-x-was-killed 
7. https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1995-05-02-9505030291-story.html 
8. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/band-of-activists-who-burglarized-fbi-office-in-1971-come-forward/2014/01/07/898d9e0c-77b4-11e3-8963-b4b654bcc9b2_story.html 
9. M. Wesley Swearingen, FBI Secrets: An Agent’s Expose (Boston: South End Press, 1995), p. 105. See images of the book and the pages stating this in Drugs as Weapons Against Us: The CIA War on Musicians and Activists (Progressive Left Productions, 2019) at 1:32:16. https://tubitv.com/movies/566779/drugs-as-weapons-against-us [NOTE: In my copy footnote 9 is shown twice.] 
10. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2324011/Mexican-officials-arrest-men-murder-Malcolm-Xs-grandson.html 
11. Personal Interview with Fred Hampton, Jr., in 2013. Note that the Legacy Tour was to stop in Baltimore where this writer was scheduled to introduce Hampton and Shabazz at the event. Fred Hampton, Jr., wrote an Afterword for this writer’s book, The FBI War on Tupac Shakur and Black Leaders, https://www.amazon.com/Tupac-Shakur-Black-Leaders-Intelligences/dp/0979146909 On Hampton Jr.’s account of Valrey’s sabotage, and on Legacy Tour, see http://chairmanfredjr.blogspot.com/p/defection-of-jrcleveland-valrey-jr.html 
12. On Joan Roberts restraining Betty Shabazz and Shabazz throwing her into a wall, see Eugene Roberts’ interview in the 1980s with Elaine Rivera, “Out of the Shadows: The Man Who Spied on Malcolm X,” Newsday, July 23, 1989, cited in James W. Douglass, “The Murder and Martyrdom of Malcolm X,” in James DiEugenio and Lisa Pease, eds., Assassinations (Los Angeles: Feral House, 2001), p. 413. Roberts said he calmed Joan Roberts down and escorted her to a taxi after the incident, suggesting he was with her but did not take the taxi home with her because he had more to do at the scene. https://www.kennedysandking.com/malcolm-x-articles/the-murder-and-martyrdom-of-malcolm-x 
13. On checking Malcolm X’s pulse, see author Douglas’s interview with Gene Roberts, July 7, 2000, in Douglas, Assassinations, p. 413. On turning to Betty Shabazz and saying Malcolm’s dead, see Kempton, The Briar Patch, pp. 200-203. 
14. William Pepper, Orders to Kill: The Truth Behind the Murder of Martin Luther King, Jr. (New York: Time Warner, 1998), pp. 128, 431, 481, 485. 
15. Peter Zimroth, Perversions of Justice: The Prosecution and Acquittal of the Panther 21.(New York: The Viking Press, 1974), pp. 16-17. Also see Kempton, The Briar Patch. Harlem leader Lumumba Shakur and Bronx leaders Zayd Shakur and Sekou Odinga had been part of Malcolm’s Organization of Afro-American Unity (OAAU). Also, https://www.nytimes.com/1970/12/08/archives/detective-tells-panther-trial-of-his-attempt-to-save-malcolm-x.html Also on agents infiltrating New York Panthers, https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a53648/nypd-undercover-black-radical-groups/
16. RBG| Tupac Shakur Speaks – National Chairman for the New Afrikan Panther Party (1989) pt. 1 of 2, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MW8JeFKEAxM On Tupac’s film and music, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupac_Shakur On Afeni Shakur representing herself in court while pregnant, https://jacobinmag.com/2021/11/afeni-shakur-took-on-the-state-and-won
17. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtVUjTJ5jxQ&t=90s The video shows a Department of Justice letter to this writer at 1:23. Personal interview with Tawanda Monroe of the Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, May 9, 2000. The letter from Department of Justice acknowledged this communication and this author’s willingness to pay for the copying fee of $405 (see Monroe). Ms. Monroe also disclosed that they charged 10 cents per page, fitting her “over 4,000 page disclosure. Ms. Monroe originally said “I’m not allowed to tell you how many pages are in that file,” but then stated the number a few minutes later. The Los Angeles FBI File Number for the Tupac Shakur file is 266A-LA-201807. 
18. Ward Churchill and Jim Vander Wall, The COINTELPRO Papers (Boston: South End Press, 1990), pp. 142, 153. Also see, http://www.judibari.org/america’s_secret_police.html 
19. Churchill and Vander Wall, The COINTELPRO Papers, pp. 320, 417, 418. 
20. On police choking Tupac unconscious, see “Claim Against the City of Oakland, California, Claimaint: Tupac Shakur” by John Burris, Esq. Photocopied for Jacob Hoye and Karolyn Ali, eds. Tupac: Resurrection (New York: Atria Books, 2003). On police shooting at Tupac, see eyewitness Watani Tyehimba, Personal interview, November 5, 2003. Also from witness interviews–personal interview, Ken Ellis, May 12, 2000. Kathy Scruggs and Scott Marshall, “Witness says off-duty cops fired first shot: Claims rapper’s return fire caused brothers’ wounds.” Atlanta Journal Constitution, November 3, 1993, p. D12. For more, see Tupac’s press conference and testimony: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBKq6AZtoF0 and https://rockthebells.com/articles/tupac-shakur-lawsuit/ 
21. This CovertAction Magazine writer interviewed two eyewitnesses on the scene, Tupac’s cousin Billy Lesane and Tupac’s business manager, former Panther Watani Tyehimba, along with attorney Ken Ellis who interviewed several other eyewitnesses. They all said Tupac grabbed one of his security guard’s guns from them and shot back in self-defense. Personal interview, November 5, 2003 Watani Tyehimba; Billy Lesane, April 10, 1999; attorney Ken Ellis, May 12, 2000. The prosecutors’ top witness, Edward Fields, said the police fired at Tupac first, as stated in Scruggs and Marshall, “Witness says off-duty cops fired first shot.” On LA police officers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MamdDXe5fs 
22. https://www.wakemewhenimfree.com/ and https://www.billboard.com/music/music-news/dr-dre-pays-homage-tupac-super-bowl-halftime-show-2022-video-1235031053/ 
23. On film, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judas_and_the_Black_Messiah For more information on Hampton’s life and death, see Jeffrey Haas, The Assassination of Fred Hampton: How the FBI and the Chicago Police Murdered a Black Panther (Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books, 2009). 
24. Fred Hampton, Jr., at Third Black Panther Film Festival, New York, August 1, 2003. Also written about in “Framed! For Defending the Rights of the Black Community,” www.inpdumchicago.com/framed.html . Fred Hampton, Jr,, as told to Heru, “Assassination Attempt on Fred Hampton, Jr.” October 2, 2002, Davey D’s Hip-Hop Corner: the New Source for the Hip-Hop Generation, http://www.daveyd.com/FullArticles/articleN1274.asp 
25. Personal interview, Fred Hampton, Jr., August 1, 2003. Also written about in “Framed! For Defending the Rights of the Black Community,” www.inpdumchicago.com/framed.html . Fred Hampton Jr, as told to Heru, “Assassination Attempt on Fred Hampton,. Jr.” October 2, 2002, Davey D’s Hip-Hop Corner: the New Source for the Hip-Hop Generation, http://www.daveyd.com/FullArticles/articleN1274.asp On pictures of assassination attempts, J.R. “Young Chairman Fred Hampton Jr. Pictorial,” San Francisco Bay, www.sfbayview.com/022603/manyhaveforgotten022603.shtml and on same police officers attacking him as his dad, https://sfbayview.com/2009/12/international-revolutionary-day-the-40th-commemoration-of-the-assassination-of-chairman-fred-hampton-and-defense-captain-mark-clark-of-the-black-panther-party/ 
26. https://drumsintheglobalvillage.com/2007/05/09/was-elaine-brown-an-agent/ 
27. All Power To The People – The Black Panther Party & Beyond, Lee Lew Lee (Electronic News Group, 1996). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKvE6_s0jy0 Churchill and Vander Wall, The COINTELPRO Papers, p. 362, n.131.
28. https://www.courthousenews.com/cant-old-black-panthers-just-get-along/ and https://www.law.com/almID/1202427713045/ 
29. Ronin Ro, Have Gun Will Travel: The Spectacular Rise and Violent Fall of Death Row Records (New York: Doubleday, 1998), p. 139. Also see, https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/1997/03/tupac-shakur-rap-death 
30. According to a 1976 “Top Secret” Justice Department report. Jefferson Morley, “The Kid Who Sold Crack to the President,” The City Paper, December 15, 1989, p. 31. On Barnes’s acquittals and The New York Times label, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/08/nyregion/nicky-barnes-dead.html Also see Hank Messick, Of Grass and Snow: The Secret Criminal Elite (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1979), p. 148. Both cited in Clarence Lusane, Pipe Dream Blues: Racism and the War on Drugs (Boston, MA: South End Press, 1991), pp. 41-42, notes 76 and 79. Also see https://darkpolitics.wordpress.com/cia-involvement-in-drug-smuggling-part-1/ 
31. Pepper, Orders to Kill, p. 5. On exact year anniversary, also see https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/martin-luther-king-jr-speaks-out-against-the-war 
32. Antoine Roger Lokongo, “Hands Off the Democratic Republic of Congo, Now!” The Burning Spear, October 2003, p. 17. Also heard on Pacifica’s WBAI radio in New York. On CIA assassinating Lumumba, see, for example, DiEugenio and Pease, The Assassinations, pp. 162-3. Also see, Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair, White Out: The CIA, Drugs and the Press (New York: Verso), excerpted in Dave Greaves, “The CIA, Drugs and Big Media” Our Times Press, September 1998, p. 8. On CIA attempting/aiding Patrice Lumumba assassination, see Mark Mazzetti and Tim Weiner, “ Files on Illegal Spying Show CIA Skeletons from Cold War,” The New York Times, A1, June 27, 2007. Also see https://www.theafricareport.com/58653/drc-how-the-cia-got-under-patrice-lumumbas-skin/ 
33. https://apnews.com/article/17dd8a1dece4f991bd90168f185e372f and https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1989-08-22-mn-1089-story.html 
34. Marku Reynolds in video, Thug Immortal, Don’t Back Down Productions, 1997. Also, Robert Sam Anson, “To Die Like A Gangsta,” Vanity Fair, March 1997, p. 248, and Connie Bruck, “The Takedown of Tupac,” The New Yorker, July 7, 1997, p. 47. 
35. https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/malcolm-xs-daughter-malikah-shabazz-died-of-natural-causes-medical-examiner/3458134/ 

36. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-malcolm-x-newser/malcolm-xs-family-releases-letter-alleging-fbi-police-role-in-his-death-idUSKBN2AL0FI and https://amsterdamnews.com/news/2021/11/25/malikah-shabazz-the-daughter-of-malcolm-x-and-dr-betty-shabazz-dead-at-56/ 

Featured image is from blackagendareport.com