Lady Emma Arbuthnot: Who Is Behind the Chief Judge Who Was Trying Julian Assange?

By Manlio Dinucci, April 25, 2022

Judge Lady Arbuthnot is married to Lord James Arbuthnot, a well-known Tory “hawk,” and former Minister for Defense Procurements, with links to the Military-Industrial Complex, British and US intelligence.

China’s Security Pact with the Solomon Islands: The Misbegotten Notion that the South Pacific Is a US Sphere of Influence

By , April 25, 2022

The U.S. is scrambling to check the growth of Chinese influence in the Pacific nation of the Solomon Islands after Beijing struck a security pact with the islands that would allow China to dock their ships, deploy security forces to protect Chinese-built infrastructure, and help the government restore order.

The Triumph of Deceit: How Thinking in Labels Has Killed Democracy. France’s Presidential Election

By Eric Zuesse, April 25, 2022

On April 19th, Glenn Greenwald, who is not only a great lawyer but one of the world’s most brilliant investigative and analytical journalists, headlined “The WashPost’s Doxxing of @LibsOfTikTok Reveals Who Corporate Journalists See as Their Targets”, and he exposed how the billionaires (the controlling owners of those mega-corporations) have used their ownership and control of the U.S.-and-allied ‘news’-media in order to blackball and blacklist, from their liberal media, anyone or anything that would constitute a real threat against their own control over the media, over the government, and over their profit and nonprofit corporations.

The Tragedy of Julian Assange

By Emanuel Pastreich, April 25, 2022

We must understand that the end of journalism, and the end of justice, are products of the massive concentration of wealth, a process that has produced new political players who are rarely mentioned in the media at all.

Anzac Day in Australia and New Zealand: The Slaughter of the Unthinking by the Unaccountable

By Dr. Binoy Kampmark, April 25, 2022

ANZAC, the name of the Australian New Zealand Army Corps, hardly sounds promising as the basis of a religion.  But since the needless, bungled operation in the Dardanelles that led to the slaughter of Australian and New Zealand Troops in April 1915, along with Turkish, British and French soldiers, the acronym has become scented, meaningful and powerful.

Kiev Says Ready to Attack Crimean Bridge at First Opportunity

By Lucas Leiroz de Almeida, April 25, 2022

The Ukrainian government seems to be willing to further increase its military actions just to continue a conflict in which it has no chance of winning. On April 21, a Kiev official announced that they are about to bomb and destroy the Crimean Bridge.

Ukraine Is a Pawn on “The Grand Chessboard”

By Rick Sterling, April 25, 2022

Zbigniew Brzezinski’s book “The Grand Chessboard” was published 25 years ago. His assumptions and strategies for maintaining U.S. global dominance have been hugely influential in US foreign policy. As the conflict in Ukraine evolves, with the potential of escalating into world war, we can see where this policy leads and how crucial it is to re-evaluate.

Another Layer of Corruption in the Opioid Scandal Revealed

By Dr. Joseph Mercola, April 25, 2022

In 2021, McKinsey & Company, one of the largest consultants to corporations and governments worldwide, settled a lawsuit brought by 47 state attorneys general over its role in the U.S. opioid crisis. The firm agreed to pay $573 million in fines for driving up sales of Purdue Pharma’s OxyContin painkiller, even as Americans were dying in droves.

Gitmo Detainees Held at Former CIA-run Camp Should Get Reduced Sentences, Lawyers Say

By Middle East Eye, April 25, 2022

Defence lawyers have argued that prisoners held at a secretive CIA-run camp at the Guantanamo Bay detention centre should receive reduced sentences because the conditions to which they were subject were “exceedingly disturbing”.

Video: WashPost’s Doxing of @LibsOfTikTok Reveals Who Corporate Journalists See as Their Targets

By Glenn Greenwald, April 25, 2022

Trump-era corporate journalism ceased viewing real power centers as adversaries (CIA/NSA/FBI/WallSt). The real enemy are citizens with the wrong politics. Rather than confront real power centers, the largest and richest media corporations – e.g. the Bezos-owned WPost – allied with those factions and attack citizens.

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On April 19th, Glenn Greenwald, who is not only a great lawyer but one of the world’s most brilliant investigative and analytical journalists, headlined “The WashPost’s Doxxing of @LibsOfTikTok Reveals Who Corporate Journalists See as Their Targets”, and he exposed how the billionaires (the controlling owners of those mega-corporations) have used their ownership and control of the U.S.-and-allied ‘news’-media in order to blackball and blacklist, from their liberal media, anyone or anything that would constitute a real threat against their own control over the media, over the government, and over their profit and nonprofit corporations.

In short: he exposed that the money-power people won’t allow their control to be effectively challenged or weakened. He explained how fascism, and even nazism (racist fascism), can be liberal, and not ONLY conservative — can be leftist, and not ONLY rightist; can be far left, and not ONLY far right. (His presentation there includes also a brief summary of how he had switched from being a lawyer, to his becoming an investigative journalist — a profession that he describes as, and was attracted to on account of its being aimed at — “exposing the secrets and crimes and improprieties of the most powerful actors in society.”)

Greenwald, being the genius that he is, was able there quickly to expose — rip off the mask of — nazism, and to reveal it so deeply as to penetrate beyond and beneath the superficial level of the standard ideological labels, so that the public might ultimately become able to be freed from the lies by which the billionaire-class has captured and mentally enslaved the public — enslaved them into neoconservative-neoliberal beliefs and commitments that benefit ONLY the super-wealthy, such as are those billionaires themselves.

That masking is the phenomenon which has caused the publics in all of the U.S.-and-allied nations to think in terms of “us” versus “them” as being inter-ethnic, or inter-‘racial’, or inter-religious, INSTEAD OF as being inter-economic-class: the owners of mega-corporations, versus the employees and customers of mega-corporations — the super-wealthy versus all of the “ethnicities,” and all of the ‘races’, and all of the “religions.” (While the other partisan distinctions do play a role, that role is, in reality, vastly less powerful than that of the one distinction which is the same in ALL countries, and which actually controls almost all countries’ governments — the distinction between the rich versus the poor.)

Labor unions become crushed in this way (by the public’s having the wrong targets — targets that aren’t the billionaires).

Consumers’ rights to safe products become crushed in this way. All protections of the weak against the strong become crushed in this way. All accountability (obligations that the owners have toward their employees and other agents, and toward their corporations’ customers) become crushed in this way. And “this way” can be liberal, and not ONLY conservative. Fascism and even nazism can be liberal, and not only conservative. (The only difference there, is the difference between liberal billionaires versus conservative billionaires, but rule by ANY billionaires is an aristocracy not a democracy. It doesn’t represent the public; it represents the super-rich.)

France’s Presidential Election

A good example of this phenomenon is the French election for that nation’s Presidency, on April 24th, between Marine Le Pen and Emmanuel Macron: On April 24th occurred the second and final round of voting for the next French President. Macron beat Le Pen by 58% to 42% — a 16% lead above Le Pen and the reason why that happened was this engineered-by-the-super-rich confusion of ideological labels.

Screenshot from The National

On the night prior to the April 24th election, Politico’s French “Poll of Polls” showed very clearly that immediately after the first-round voting on April 10th, Le Pen rose and Macron fell in the voter preferences, so that at the time of the April 20th lone Presidential candidates’ debate between the two top finishers in the first round (Le Pen and Macron), the voters’ preference of Macron over Le Pen was at its lowest point ever, around 6%, but that between the 20th and the 23rd, it had grown back to around 10% — which it had previously been.

This had happened despite the major polling organization Elabe having found that whereas only 16% of viewers of the debate said that Le Pen came across as “arrogant,” 50% of its viewers said that Macron came across that way.

Yet in that same poll, 59% said Macron won the debate, while only 39% said Le Pen did. So: very clearly, the French public viewed Le Pen’s “non-arrogant” performance in that debate to have attracted them less than Macron’s “arrogant” performance in it did. What could explain this? It was purely the labeling thing. Not only did the report of that poll refer to Le Pen as being “la candidate d’extrême droite” (the candidate of the extreme right), but all of France’s ‘news’-media did.

And yet, Le Pen, on issue after issue during that debate, was advocating a more progressive, or more social-democratic, a more leftist, position than the moderate conservative (pro-corporate-dictatorship) Macron did, and she stated very clearly what she would do differently than what Macron had done as President, virtually all of which was to Macron’s left — she was consistently favoring the rights of the poor over the rights of the rich, workers over stockholders, small businesses over the mega-corporations, economic competition over concentrated economic power and monopolies, and consumers over the big corporations.

While Macron praised the former French Empire, Le Pen did not: she was anti-imperialistic. Though those were all views that were closer to the polled policy-preferences of French voters than were the positions that Macron espoused and had been practicing as France’s President, her expressed views appealed to the voters less than did the more right-wing views that Macron expressed and had done. What seems to have been absolutely decisive is that all of the French media, and all of France’s leading politicians — prominently including the leading leftist candidate in the first round, the socialist Jean-Luc Melenchon, who had come in third with 22% of the vote in the first round, and who, as Wikipedia accurately summarized, “advised his voters not to vote for Le Pen in the second round, but did not endorse Macron” — even Melenchon and other “leftists” were referring to Le Pen as being “far-right.” (In fact, Melenchon’s Party, when they had met to decide on their recommendation to voters, “The option of voting for Le Pen was not given to respondents.” They said: no Melenchon follower should even consider voting for her.)

In other words: Melenchon and other self-declared “leftists” were advising their followers to prefer actually the (by far) more conservative candidate. Those ‘leftists’ were saying: if you’re going to vote for a candidate in the second round (but please do not), then vote for Macron. Melenchon and all of the self-alleged “leftist” parties said that Le Pen is “far-right” (and thus ideologically beyond the pale). That label was believed by “leftist” voters. Those voters followed the labelings that were being applied by the leading people who had been describing themselves as “leftists.” It’s like, in a sense, a mob mentality, but not against a minority ethnic group; it was instead against an ideological label, no matter how fraudulently that ideological label was actually being applied. Furthermore, in France, which had been so brutalized by Hitler’s Nazis, no political label is even nearly as toxic to a candidate as is the label “far right.” That label, alone, prevented the Presidential candidate who had the (by far) most progressive platform and political commitments, from defeating France’s incumbent, very unpopular, moderate conservative President Macron. That is how France’s billionaires won — yet again. As their Reuters ‘news’ report said, “One notable winner has been the hard-left Jean-Luc Melenchon, who scored 22% in the first round and has already staked a claim to become Macron’s prime minister in an awkward ‘cohabitation’ if his group does well in the June vote.” Another report on the outcome said “Leftist voters — unable to identify with either the centrist president or Ms Le Pen’s fiercely nationalist platform — were agonising with the choice on Sunday. Some trooped reluctantly to polling stations solely to stop Ms Le Pen, casting joyless votes for Mr Macron.”

On the morning of the April 24th vote, the American ZeroHedge financial news site bannered “As France Votes For President, Wall Street Warns Le Pen Upset Would Be Bigger Shock Than Brexit”. France’s ‘leftists’ and ‘news’-media had been campaigning actually for the same candidate (Macron) that the billionaires had been backing in this contest. Whereas many of those ‘leftists’ might have been doing it because they were sincerely suckered, few if any of the billionaires had been like that — they instead had been financing that suckering.

The same thing had happened during the 2017 contest, which likewise had been between Le Pen and Macron. (The only difference then was Le Pen’s greater emphasis then on “protecting our borders” against an unlimited influx of Muslims and possibly even jihadist ones into France. In 2022, that was no longer a big issue for her, and the Party that Le Pen had inherited — which once had been conservative — became even more progressive than it was in 2017.)

The 2022 result, in other words, was basically history repeating itself. And this is the way that billionaires continue effectively to rule a country, by getting the public to vote for labels instead of for policies. The public fall for it time after time; they don’t turn against the people who were lying to them before. They vote for them yet again. There is thus no accountability. It’s easy for people to do if they pay more attention to labels than to policies. And no democracy can actually function in that way. And none does. Only an aristocracy can. And it does.

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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse’s next book (soon to be published) will be AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change. It’s about how America took over the world after World War II in order to enslave it to U.S.-and-allied billionaires. Their cartels extract the world’s wealth by control of not only their ‘news’ media but the social ‘sciences’ — duping the public.

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Gloating over “poetic justice” dispensed to Russia, the official Twitter account of Ukraine’s defense ministry tweeted Thursday: “Corruption and irresponsibility in Russia has dealt another insidious blow to its war efforts. In Tver, a research institute that develops Russia’s Iskander missiles and systems for SU-27 and TU-160 bombers, which have been destroying peaceful Ukrainian cities, has burned down.”

The blaze that engulfed an administrative building of Russia’s top-secret aerospace defense forces’ central research institute, which operates under the Russian defense ministry and develops Russia’s nuclear-capable ballistic missiles, quickly engulfed the building’s upper three floors, forcing those inside to jump from windows and causing the roof to cave in. The research institute is located in Tver, a city about 160km (100 miles) northwest of Moscow.

The blaze that started in one of the rooms on the second floor of the administrative building spanned across some thousand square meters. Photographs of the main building showed it was completely gutted by fire. Seven people were killed in the fire while 25 were injured and at least 10 people were missing, therefore the number of casualties could increase further.

The incident was followed hours later by unconfirmed reports of a fire at one of Russia’s largest chemical plants. Images on social media purported to show a large fire at the Dmitrievsky chemical plant in Kinsehma about 400km (250 miles) northeast of Moscow.

Although Ukraine’s defense ministry promptly pinned the blame for these acts of sabotage deep inside Russia on alleged “corruption and irresponsibility in Russia,” resorting to “plausible deniability” would convince nobody, least of all Russia.

For humanitarian reasons, Russia has delivered substantial amount of aid to the people in the recently liberated areas in east Ukraine and accepted over half a million refugees displaced by the conflict, mainly from Russian-majority Donbas region. Reportedly, scores of covert operatives of the SBU, Ukraine’s notorious intelligence agency, have infiltrated into Russia disguised as refugees.

These saboteurs have been trained and equipped by the CIA. Among other state-of-the-art espionage equipment, these undercover agents have been trained to operate a recently unveiled version of portable Switchblade drone that has specifically been designed for sabotage operations in Ukraine and Russia by the US Air Force.

The Phoenix Ghost, a lethal drone produced by California-based Aevex Aerospace, that the Pentagon is reluctant to detail, except to say it will take on many of the qualities of the kamikaze Switchblade drones already in the theater, has specifically been tailored for targeting Russia’s military and industrial infrastructure.

“It provides the same sort of tactical capability that a Switchblade does,” a defense official told media. “As you know, Switchblade is a one-way drone, if you will, and it clearly is designed to deliver a punch. It’s a tactical UAS [unmanned aerial system], and the Phoenix Ghost is of that same category.”

The small Switchblade 300 weighs about 6 pounds and can fit in a backpack. It’s tube-launched, and when fired, can hit targets up to 10 kilometers away, according to Aerovironment’s website. It can loiter for up to 15 minutes and be called off target if necessary, though most of the 700 Switchblade drones provided to Ukraine’s security forces by the Pentagon were Switchblade 600 variant having anti-armor capabilities.

In addition to 700 Switchblade drones previously provided to Ukraine’s security forces by the Pentagon, the 121 Phoenix Ghost drones are part of the latest $800-million security assistance package to Ukraine, announced Thursday by President Joe Biden. The package also includes 72 155mm howitzers and 144,000 artillery rounds; 72 Tactical Vehicles to tow 155mm howitzers and field equipment and spare parts.

Clearly, Ukraine’s intelligence operatives disguised as refugees and equipped with portable drones, among other advanced espionage equipment, have infiltrated Russian cities. All they needed to do was to find a secure location in any city, and the remotely operated drones with a range of 10 km could easily target any military or industrial site the covert operatives were tasked to sabotage.

Besides the portable kamikaze drones, Ukraine officials were also in talks with General Atomics to procure one of the most lethal drones to have ever been developed by the defense production industry, the MQ-9 Reaper armed drones, Forbes reported, citing a manufacturer spokesperson.

“We have aircraft available now for immediate transfer,” General Atomics spokesman C. Mark Brinkley told Forbes correspondent last week. “With support from the U.S. government, those aircraft could be in the hands of Ukrainian military pilots in a matter of days.”

Although Ukraine’s security forces already have the Turkish-made TB-2 Bayraktar, the MQ-9A payload capacity of 1,700 kilograms (3,800 pounds) allows it to carry more deadly and longer-range munitions than the TB-2 at 150 kilograms (330 pounds).

More importantly, the American aircraft’s superior range of 1,200 miles (1,900 kilometers) to the 150 kilometers of the TB-2 affords takeoff from safer positions and strikes deeper into enemy territory.

In addition, the aircraft’s superior ISR (intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance) capacity would allow the Ukrainian military much more accurate monitoring of enemy troop movements.

According to the outlet, the drone’s estimated cost of $32 million apiece, plus ground stations, spare parts and training valued at $600 million, wouldn’t be a “significant hurdle,” as the tab would be picked up by the US.

Besides the prohibitive cost, another reason the US has thus far hesitated from providing larger armed drones to Ukraine is that so far, the MQ-1 Predator and the MQ-9 Reaper have only been tested in areas – Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria – where the adversary lacked serious air defense capabilities.

Whereas Russia’s globally acclaimed military equipment – including S-300 and -400 air defense systems, Kinzhal hypersonic and Kalibr cruise missiles and Sukhoi aircraft – would decimate slow-flying Predators and Reapers as easily as the Russian Air Force eliminated the Ukrainian MiG fleet in the early days of the military campaign.

In addition to mounting subversive acts deep inside Russia’s territory using Ukrainian intelligence operatives, the Pentagon announced Tuesday Ukraine’s military had received additional aircraft in a deal facilitated by Washington as well as parts for repairs to get damaged aircraft flying again. Pentagon spokesman John Kirby did not offer details on which countries provided aircraft, but acknowledged new transfers.

“They have received additional aircraft and aircraft parts to help them get more aircraft in the air,” Kirby told a news briefing. “We certainly have helped with the trans-shipment of some additional spare parts that have helped with their aircraft needs, but we have not transported whole aircraft,” he added.

Apparently, the Pentagon did not take Ukraine’s military authorities into confidence before making the announcement, because the official Twitter account of Ukraine’s air force tweeted Wednesday:

“Officially, Ukraine did not receive new aircraft from partners! With the assistance of the US Government, @KpsZSU received spare parts and components for the restoration and repair of the fleet of aircraft in the Armed Forces, which will allow to put into service more equipment.”

After being severely castigated and reprimanded by his bosses at the Pentagon for spilling the secret, Kirby backtracked on his previous statement and sheepishly apologized hours after the denial of the aircraft transfer by Ukraine’s air force on Wednesday.

“I was mistaken,” Kirby said, adding that, although he did not say that “Ukraine had received ‘whole aircraft’,” that was “the impression that I gave you.” The spokesman explained that he himself got a misguided impression about another nation following through with its offer to provide Ukraine with “whole fixed-wing aircraft.” “It has not. So, I was in error in saying that, in past tense, they had been given whole aircraft. I regret the error,” Kirby added.

Considering that Kirby is a Biden administration official and “Sleepy Joe” himself has a reputation of making frequent gaffes, the Pentagon spokesman could be forgiven for “the slip of the tongue.” But his previous statement, affirming the aircraft transfer to Ukraine, was clear and unambiguous.

Kirby told a news briefing Tuesday Ukraine had “received additional aircraft and aircraft parts.” After a reporter inquired whether the US had transferred the whole aircraft to Ukraine, implying the delivery of some of the 16 Mi-17 helicopters pledged by the Biden administration in the $800 million military assistance package to Ukraine, the official replied: “We certainly have helped with the trans-shipment of some additional spare parts that have helped with their aircraft needs, but we have not transported whole aircraft,” implying the US hadn’t transferred any of the rotary-wing aircraft from the Pentagon’s own armory till then, and instead a third country had delivered fixed-wing aircraft to Ukraine.

Rather than an oversight on the part of the Pentagon spokesman, the comedy of errors appeared to be a result of lack of coordination between military authorities of Ukraine and the United States. The real reason Ukraine’s air force officials want to keep aircraft transfer under the wraps is that previously Russian forces claimed to have destroyed an S-300 air defense system that Slovakia transferred to Ukraine in a Kalibr cruise missiles strike hitting a hangar on the southern outskirts of the city of Dnepropetrovsk.

Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu boasted last month that 123 of Ukraine’s 152 fighter jets had been destroyed, as well as 77 of its 149 helicopters and 152 of its 180 long- and medium-range air defense systems, while its naval forces had been totally eliminated.

As demilitarization of Ukraine, alongside denazification and liberation of Donbas, was one of the principal objectives of Russia’s month-long military campaign lasting from late February to late March, therefore Russian forces would never allow vital military assets, especially air defense systems and fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft, to remain in the possession of Ukraine’s air force. Ukraine’s aircraft are safe only as long as they remain grounded and concealed from Russia’s advanced air surveillance systems.

Although the Pentagon spokesman refused to identify the country that delivered the aircraft to Ukraine due to secrecy of the shady transfer deal, the only NATO member state that was in talks with Washington and Kyiv to transfer its Soviet-era fleet of a dozen MiG-29 aircraft was Slovakia.

Reportedly, a batch of Ukraine’s highly skilled pilots traveled to Slovakia last week, took the delivery of the aircraft and then flew them all the way to concealed air force hangars at military airports in Kyiv while maintaining low altitudes in order to avoid detection by Russia’s advanced air surveillance systems. The Pentagon that has deployed extensive ISR, or intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, assets along Ukraine’s borders fully coordinated the entire clandestine operation of transferring the aircraft.

After the scuttled aircraft-transfer deal that would’ve seen Poland handing over its fleet of 28 Soviet-era MiG-29s to Ukraine in return for the United States “backfilling” the Polish Air Force with American F-16s last month, Slovakia was in talks with NATO about an arrangement that could allow Bratislava to send fighter jets to Ukraine, Prime Minister Eduard Heger told reporters on April 11.

Eduard Heger said his government wanted to “move away from reliance on the Soviet MiGs” in any case. “This is equipment that we want to finish anyway, because we’re waiting for the F-16s,” he added, referring to US-made jets that Slovakia was scheduled to receive in 2024, though Bratislava could receive American fighter jets earlier as it has now delivered on the pledge of transferring the dozen MiG-29 aircraft Slovakia was reported to have to Ukraine.

In early March, Poland made a similar offer of transferring its fleet of 28 Soviet-era MiG-29s to Ukraine in return for receiving American F-16s, but the Pentagon rejected the proposal due to apprehensions over direct confrontation with Russian forces in Ukraine.

The prospect of flying combat aircraft from NATO territory into the war zone “raises serious concerns for the entire NATO alliance,” the Pentagon said on March 9. “It is simply not clear to us that there is a substantive rationale for it,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby added.

But considering that Slovak aircraft have already been delivered to Ukraine, it seems plausible that the Polish proposal of transferring its aircraft might also be reconsidered by the Biden administration and Ukraine could receive additional Polish MiG-29 aircraft in the coming weeks.

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Nauman Sadiq is an Islamabad-based geopolitical and national security analyst focused on geo-strategic affairs and hybrid warfare in the Middle East and Eurasia regions. His domains of expertise include neocolonialism, military-industrial complex and petro-imperialism. He is a regular contributor of diligently researched investigative reports to Global Research.

Featured image is by @kamilkazani/Twitter

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We bring to the attention of our readers excerpts from this timely report by Al Jazeera. Our thanks to Al Jazeera for bring this article to our attention.

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Russia is investigating whether sabotage experts from the United Kingdom’s Special Air Service (SAS) special forces have been deployed to western Ukraine.

Russia’s top state investigative body said on Saturday it was looking into a Russian media report alleging that the SAS had been sent to the Lviv region in Western Ukraine.  …

In a statement, Russia’s Investigative Committee said it would follow up on the report that the SAS had been sent in “to assist the Ukrainian special services in organising sabotage on the territory of Ukraine”.

The British Ministry of Defence had no immediate comment on the Russian investigation.

‘Requisite training’

Since the start of the war, the UK has provided Ukraine with anti-ship, anti-aircraft and light anti-tank weapons, which have proved useful for mobile Ukrainian fighters to use against Russia’s armoured vehicles.

The British government confirmed this week that a small number of Ukrainian troops are being trained in the UK for the first time since the start of the Russian invasion.

The United States military is also training Ukrainian troops on using howitzer artillery while the UK is training Ukrainians in Poland to use anti-aircraft weapons.

Click here to read the full article.

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The Tragedy of Julian Assange

April 25th, 2022 by Emanuel Pastreich

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The decision of a London Court to honor the request from the United States government for the extradition of Julian Assange, whistleblower and founder of the famed Wikileaks website which revealed the criminal actions of the United States military to the world, is most certainly of historic significance.

If the British government gives final approval for this extradition to the United States, Assange will be the likely subject for show trial in which he will be charged with capital offenses under the rarely employed, and constitutionally flawed, Espionage Act.

At that trial we will witness the collapse of the republican government of the United States of America into a morass resembling the decayed imperial governance of the Roman Empire under the emperors Caligula and Nero.

The 18 criminal charges filed against Assange for releasing classified diplomatic cables that documented the criminal and immoral actions of the United States military are being held up as grounds for him to spend 175 years in prison. Granted the decline in his health as a result of his imprisonment, it is unlikely he will serve out that term.

This charge is a transparent travesty which would be comic were it not so profoundly tragic.

But there is more to this case than meets the eye. Assange has become the popular face for resistance to technofascism and to the rise of totalitarian governance. That is all well and fine, but there are questions that need to be asked about why Assange has this special status, questions which few, if any, dare to ask.

 

Why is Assange constantly in the news while numerous Americans, Europeans, and others, who have been dismissed from their jobs, thrown out of the country, or suffered even worse fates, do not even exist in the alternative media?

Has Assange, for all the tragedy of his case, come to serve as a limited hangout for intellectuals, a means for citizens to pat themselves on the back without addressing the broader rise of totalitarian governance around the world, at every level, without considering the thousands of victims of similar persecution?

Also, why do we accept the narrative of a dispute between nation states, the United States, Great Britain, or Sweden, which are engaged in a process of negotiations? Why do we attribute this tragedy to the greed, the cruelty and the foolishness of politicians?

 

 

That narrative is increasingly distant from reality. In fact, the United States and the United Kingdom have ceased to serve as functional republics and are run directly by private equity, lobbying firms of the super-rich, private intelligence companies, and a broad range of pay-to-play consulting operations whose make up, whose structure, is hidden from us in even the reports of the truth seekers.

Talking about the tragedy of Assange without addressing the transformation of governance and without painting a detailed picture of who actually makes the decisions, is disservice for the public, one that misleads and that keeps us from focusing on the real source of the problem in institutional decay, and the real revolutionary solution.

Then there is the problem of Assange’s selective reporting. I understand, and I sympathize with, his desire to get his story out and to avoid the fate of others. But the assumption that he was a unique victim of the persecution of truth tellers is questionable.

Assange studiously avoided difficult questions about the 9.11 incident and he stayed away from a discussion of the details of how privatized elements in the US military and intelligence, cooperating with operatives from Israel (and elsewhere) played a role in gutting the United States government and in reducing it, and Israel as well, to for-hire puppets of the powerful.

Without an analysis of the structural shifts in the United States that resulted in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks (and that are also linked to the Oklahoma bombings), without a consideration of how such operations as 9/11 are planned and carried out in a limbo land inhabited by military contractors that lies in between Washington and Tel Aviv, the documentation of specific crimes is of limited value.

Moreover, Assange does not engage in an analysis of class issues. He seems allergic to the serious consideration of the possibility that we are looking at something beyond a particular nation state (granted some are in deeper than others) but rather the effort of a class of the super-rich to use new technologies to dumb us all down, to consolidate the control of all resources, and to control the entire world.

That the United States will play the role of the bad guy in the Assange show trial is without any doubt true. But I seriously doubt that the senile Joe Biden, or his cabinet of political figures created by multinational corporations through WestExec, Palm Island Capital Partners and the Asia Group, will be the ones behind the curtain who pull the strings.

Freeing Julian Assange is absolutely essential to restoring the rule of law and to defending freedom of the press. It is regrettable that Assange spoke so little about the thousands of others who have suffered similar fates-but that is now all in the past.

We must understand that the end of journalism, and the end of justice, are products of the massive concentration of wealth, a process that has produced new political players who are rarely mentioned in the media at all.

That is to say that those who most want to punish Assange, are not on trial and in many cases their names are unknown to the public.

*

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This article was originally published on US Provisional Government.

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

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from HoweStreet.com

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

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***

 

 

Um Krieg zu führen, müssen die Herrscher das Volk hinter sich bringen. Deshalb werden mit Hilfe der Massenmedien Feindbilder aufgebaut und irrationale Ängste geschürt. Damit werden Furcht und Gehorsam der Untertanen verstärkt. Machiavelli, ein Mensch, der weiß, worin die Regierungsmacht besteht, wie man sie erwirbt und erhält, soll gesagt haben: „Auf der Kriegskunst beruht das ganze Geheimnis der Macht eines Herrschers.“ Leo Tolstoy (1)

Das ist auch heute so: Vor zwei Jahren wurden die Bürger durch eine weltweit ausgerufene Virus-Epidemie in panische Angst versetzt, was einen Gehorsamsreflex ausgelöste, wie man ihn nur aus Diktaturen kennt. Mit der Androhung einer Betrafung bei Verweigerung einer genverändernden „Impfung“ wird der Angst-Pegel konstant gehalten.

Seit einem Monat kommt ein Krieg im Herzen Europas hinzu; weitere Kriege folgen bereits. Wieder werden bei den Bürgern starke Ängste ausgelöst; dieses mal vor einem möglichen Atomkrieg und dem „jüngsten Gericht“. Dabei wird verdrängt, dass wir alle an den miserablen gesellschaftlichen Verhältnissen in der Welt mitschuldig sind.

Denkt man die verfügbaren Nachrichten zusammen, gelangt man zu der Überzeugung, dass die „schicksalhaften“ Weltereignisse die Bürger gedanklich absorbieren und abhalten sollen, mutig und entschlossen auf das hinzuschauen, was allen bevorsteht: Nichts mehr besitzen – und glücklich sein damit. Das bisherige Menschsein wird dabei gänzlich in Frage gestellt. Auf dem Weg dorthin sollen irrationale Ängste die Bürger in Atem gehalten, ihr Denken gelähmt und sie dazu gebracht werden, das Schicksalhafte bereitwillig und demütig hinzunehmen.

Als Kinder unserer Zeit waren wir leider nicht in der Lage, die leuchtenden Menetekel an der Wand richtig zu deuten.

Die Pläne der Philanthropen David Rockefellers Jr. und Bill Gates sind seit eineinhalb Jahrzehnten bekannt. Sie waren der Auffassung, dass man das angeblich bedrohliche Bevölkerungswachstum durch eine dramatische Bevölkerungsreduktion auf eine Milliarde Menschen eindämmen sollte. Doch wer nahm sie ernst?

Zu dieser tödlichen Agenda passt sowohl das theoretisch durchgespielte Modell, durch einen Atomkrieg circa eine Milliarde Menschen für immer auszulöschen (2) als auch Hitlers „Masterplan Eugenik“, der bei Klaus Schwab, dem Gründer des „World Economic Forums“ bis heute weiterlebt. Die Präsidenten Vladimir Putin und Xi Jinping waren oder sind noch Teil von Klaus Schwabs „Big Club“.

Dass man Politikern keinesfalls die Lösung der Menschheitsprobleme übertragen sollte, wissen die meisten von uns nicht erst seit Tolstojs „Rede gegen den Krieg“ von 1905 und seiner Warnung, dass die Regierenden „häufig die schlechtesten, unbedeutendsten, grausamsten, sittenlosesten und besonders die verlogensten Menschen sind“. (3)

Von Russlands Außenminister Sergei Lawrow konnten wir vor kurzem erfahren, dass Russlands Militäroperation in der Ukraine darauf abzielt, „der rücksichtslosen Expansion und dem rücksichtslosen Streben nach totaler Vorherrschaft der USA und der übrigen westlichen Länder auf der internationalen Bühne ein Ende zu bereiten“ (4). Wer wird die neue Welt anführen?

Die Idee der Abschaffung von Nationalstaaten gibt es lange vor der Ausrufung der Weltgesundheitsorganisation WHO zur neuen Weltregierung und die „Umwandlung“ von sogenannten Demokratien oder „stillen Diktaturen“ in „offene Diktaturen“ sind aus allen Teilen der Welt hinlänglich bekannt.

Wir Menschen haben unser Gefühlsleben und unsere Reaktionsweisen nicht erkannt

Da wir Menschen unser Gefühlsleben und unsere Reaktionsweisen aus Mangel an Psychologie nicht erkannt haben, überraschen uns nicht nur die aggressiven diabolischen Pläne der Herrschenden, sondern auch unsere absoluten Gehorsamsreflexe. Somit stehen wir unversehens am Rande des Abgrunds.

Unser Geist ist nicht frei und die anerzogene Ängstlichkeit vor den Mitmenschen können wir nicht abwerfen. Von Kindesbeinen an bläut man uns ein, an kirchliche und staatliche Autoritäten zu glauben und ihnen hörig zu sein als seien wir „tote Körper“ (Ignatius von Loyola). Staat und Kirche agieren dabei als Spießgesellen, die sich wie zwei Beutelschneider verstehen (Jean Meslier). Deshalb weisen erwachsene Menschen in weltanschaulichen Dingen jene geistigen und seelischen Beeinträchtigungen auf, die ihnen in der Kindheit zugefügt wurden.

Viele von ihnen reagieren auf Politiker wie Kinder oder wie die primitiven Urmenschen reagierten – in Form eines „magischen Autoritätsglaubens“: kritiklos und umnebelt von Stimmungen, Gefühlen und Glücksverheißungen. Und das hat Folgen: die Autoritätsgläubigkeit führt unweigerlich zur Autoritätshörigkeit, die in der Regel den Reflex eines absoluten geistigen Gehorsams und eine Verstandeslähmung auslöst. Vollsinnige Erwachsene können dann nicht mehr selbständig denken und vernünftig urteilen und übergeben die Entscheidungsgewalt sittenlosen Politikern.

Was tun? 

Die Meinung des einen oder anderen Präsidenten ist nicht entscheidend. Entscheidend ist, dass sich die Präsidenten der drei Großmächte mit den hinter ihnen stehenden „Welt-Beherrschern“ wohl darin einig sind, dass diejenigen, die „oben“ sind, gegenüber denjenigen, die „unten“ sind, die Oberhand behalten müssen. Dass diejenigen, die „oben“ sind, genauso arm sind wie die „unten“, wissen die „da oben“ nicht. Für die „da unten“ prophezeit WEF-Gründer Klaus Schwab: „Sie werden in 10 Jahren nichts mehr besitzen – und glücklich damit sein.“

Da wir Menschen solange wir atmen die Hoffnung nicht aufgeben, werden wir den Traum einer freiheitlichen und gerechten Welt weiterträumen – ungeachtet aller Mühsal und Widrigkeiten.

*

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

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Noten 

1. Tolstoj, L. N. (1983). Rede gegen den Krieg. Politische Flugschriften. Herausgegeben von Peter Urban. Insel Verlag. Frankfurt am Main, S. 74

2. https://www.pravda-tv.com/2022/04/ukraine-eskalation-us-kriegssimulation-sagte-atomkrieg-voraus-video/

3. Tolstoj, L. N. (1983). Rede gegen den Krieg. Politische Flugschriften. Herausgegeben von Peter Urban. Insel Verlag. Frankfurt am Main, S. 74

4. https://de.rt.com/russland/135976-lawrow-russlands.militaeroperation-in-ukraine/

Featured image is from Silent Crow News

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This incisive article by Manlio Dinucci first published by Global Research on September 18, 2020 points “conflict of interest” of chief judge Emma Arbuthnot who conducted the trial for the extradition of Julian Assange.

Judge Lady Arbuthnot is married to Lord James Arbuthnot, a well-known Tory “hawk,” and former Minister for Defense Procurements, with links to the Military-Industrial Complex, British and US intelligence.

Was Judge Emma Arbuthnot in conflict of interest? In 2020, she refused recusal. Did Assange’s lawyers issue a request for her recusal?

***

Emma Arbuthnot is the chief judge who conducted the trial for the extradition of Julian Assange in London to the USA, where a 175 year prison sentence awaits him for “espionage,” that is, for having published evidence of US war crimes, including videos of civilians’ killings in Iraq and Afghanistan, as an investigative journalist. At the trial, assigned to Judge Vanessa Baraitser, every defense request was denied.

 In 2018, after Sweden’s sexual assault charges fell through, Judge Arbuthnot refused to cancel the arrest warrant, so that Assange could not obtain asylum in Ecuador. Arbuthnot rejected the United Nations Working Group’s findings on the arbitrary detention of Assange. The UN Officer’s remarks against torture also went unheard:

Assange is detained in extreme conditions of unjustified isolation, and shows the typical symptoms of prolonged exposure to psychological torture.”

In 2020, while thousands of detainees were transferred to house arrest as an anti-Coronavirus measure, Assange remained in prison, exposed to the infection in compromised physical condition.

 In court, Assange cannot consult with lawyers, but is kept isolated in an armored glass cage, and threatened with expulsion if he opens his mouth. What is behind this persistence?

Being Lord James Arbuthnot’s wife, married to a well-known Tory “hawk,” former Minister for Defense Procurements, linked to the Military-Industrial Complex and to the Secret Services, Judge Arbuthnot has the title of “Lady.” Lord Arbuthnot is, among other things, Chairman of the British Advisory board of Thales, a French multinational specialized in aerospace military systems, and a member of Montrose Associates, specialized in Strategic Intelligence (highly paid positions).

Lord Arbuthnot is also part of the Henry Jackson Society (HJS), an influential transatlantic think-tank linked to the US Government and Intelligence Agency. Last July, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo spoke at a round table of the HJS in London: since he was the CIA Director in 2017, he accused WikiLeaks, founded by Assange, of being “an enemy spy service.”

The Henry Jackson Society led the same campaign accusing Assange of “sowing doubts on the moral position of Western democratic governments, with the support of autocratic regimes.” Ms. Priti Patel, current United Kingdom Secretary of the Interior, who is responsible for the extradition order of Assange was until recently on the political board of the HJS, alongside Lord Arbuthnot.

Lady Arbuthnot is essentially connected to this pressure group that is conducting a pounding campaign for the extradition of Assange, directed by Lord Arbuthnot and other influential characters.

She was appointed by the Queen as chief magistrate in September 2016, after WikiLeaks published the most compromising documents for the USA in March. These documents included emails from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton revealing the true purpose of the NATO war on Libya: to prevent Libya from using its gold reserves to create a pan-African currency alternative to the dollar and the CFA franc, the currency imposed by France on 14 former colonies.

The real “crime” for which Assange is being tried is that of opening cracks in the political-media silence wall that covers the real interests of powerful elites who, operating in the “Deep State,” play the war card. It is this occult power that subjects Julian Assange to a trial, instructed by Lady Arbuthnot, who recalls those of the Holy Inquisition as to how the accused is treated.

If Assange is extradited to the US, he would be subjected to “special administrative measures” much harsher than those in Britain: he would be isolated in a small cell, unable to contact his family or speak, not even through lawyers who would be indicted if they brought forth his message. In other words, he would be sentenced to death.

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This article was originally published in Italian on Il Manifesto.

Manlio Dinucci is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.

Featured image: Lady Emma and Lord James Arbuthnot of Edrom at Buckingham Palace in May 2017 [Source: Instagram]

Dear Readers,

Global Research is going through a difficult period. Various procedures of censorship (search engines, social media templates, mainstream media smears, etc.) are ongoing. 

In the course of the last week, Global Research has been the object of a diabolical DoS (“A Denial of Service”) cyberattack, which consists in bombarding globalresearch.ca with millions of malicious requests. Over the last week, we have been assaulted with more than 700 million malicious requests from 5 countries.

The ultimate intent of this coordinated cyberattack was to shut down Global Research while making our website inaccessible to our readers. “DoS attacks accomplish this by flooding the target with traffic, or sending it information that triggers a crash”.   

Thanks to our security specialists, the cyberattacks have failed. Nonetheless, this has had impacts on our readers as well as on our weekly traffic. 

To ensure our security, for several countries, we have now inserted the familiar “Manage Challenge, with boats and trains”.  

We are at the crossroads of one of the most serious crises in world history.

Freedom of Expression is threatened in the most despicable fashion. 

Extending over 20 years, a vast data bank of more than 100,000 Global Research articles by renowned journalists, scholars, scientists, human rights and anti-war activists is threatened.

Our request to our readers and authors: continue with the promotion of Global Research articles through referrals and cross-posts, forwarding to friends and colleagues.

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Kiev Says Ready to Attack Crimean Bridge at First Opportunity

April 25th, 2022 by Lucas Leiroz de Almeida

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***

The Ukrainian government seems to be willing to further increase its military actions just to continue a conflict in which it has no chance of winning. On April 21, a Kiev official announced that they are about to bomb and destroy the Crimean Bridge.

In a recent speech, Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council, Oleksiy Danilov, revealed that Kiev’s armed forces are ready to attack the bridge at any time, having plans to act at the first possible opportunity. His words during an interview with Radio NV leave no doubt about the Ukrainian intentions: “If we had the ability to do it, we would have already done it. If there is an opportunity to do it, we will definitely do it”. Danilov also commented on the reasons behind the plan, mentioning the strategic value of the bridge, which destruction would largely obstruct the movement of Russian troops.

There are many problems with Danilov’s statement. In fact, it is possible to speak of a “strategic value” in its destruction of the Crimean Bridge, but this is far from implying any justification. Many anti-humanitarian measures have “strategic value” but should be avoided simply because they are legally and ethically wrong procedures. For example, it is precisely to avoid unreasonable civilian casualties and damage to historical heritage that Moscow refrains from excessive using of air force during the special military operation in Ukraine. No doubt there would also be strategic value in escalating the use of air force.

Carefully measuring one’s own acts to avoid mass victims should be the attitude of any side during a conflict. And this is what should be expected of Kiev, considering that the destruction of the bridge would cause civilian casualties, since non-military people still circulate in the region and would completely obstruct the flow of goods between Crimea and the rest of the Russian territory, which could lead to large supply deficits and social crises.

But, apart from the humanitarian and ethical argument, the main factor is another: Kiev is announcing military attacks on the sovereign territory of the Russian Federation. Both Kerch and Taman, cities connected by the bridge, are part of Russia, so the attack would hit a non-border Russian zone and its respective marine territory, generating a serious provocation. The risk of escalating the conflict into Russia’s sovereign territory may be too high for the Ukrainian side.

The words of Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council, confirm this prediction of reaction in the event of an attack: “I hope he [Oleksiy Danilov] understands what Russia would target in retaliation”. Earlier, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov had already announced that Moscow would interpret a bombing of the bridge as a terrorist attack and announced that Moscow is already acting to prevent any Ukrainian action in this regard:

“Such a statement [about the potential bombing of the Crimean Bridge] is nothing but an announcement of a possible terrorist act; this is unacceptable (…) All the necessary security measures and precautions by the relevant service are being taken around the bridge and all strategic facilities”.

Still, it is necessary to emphasize the omission of Western countries and international organizations in this case. Kiev announces that it is organizing terrorist-like attitudes and Moscow condemns it, but with no statement of the rest of international society. Ignoring Kiev’s threats seems to have become standard, commonplace action in recent years while, on the other hand, actions of the Russian army are automatically condemned.

Finally, Kiev is on the verge of an escalation of the conflict in which it will not be able to deal with the consequences. If there’s really a plan going on to destroy the bridge, the best thing to do is to abort it.

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

Featured image is from InfoBrics

Ukraine Is a Pawn on “The Grand Chessboard”

April 25th, 2022 by Rick Sterling

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***

Zbigniew Brzezinski’s book “The Grand Chessboard” was published 25 years ago. His assumptions and strategies for maintaining U.S. global dominance have been hugely influential in US foreign policy. As the conflict in Ukraine evolves, with the potential of escalating into world war, we can see where this policy leads and how crucial it is to re-evaluate.

The need to dominate Eurasia

The basic premise of “The Grand Chessboard” is outlined in the introduction:

  • with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States is the sole global power
  • Europe and Asia (Eurasia) together have the largest land area, population and economy
  • U.S. must control Eurasia and prevent another country from challenging US dominance

Brzezinski sums up the situation:

“America is now the only global superpower, and Eurasia is the globe’s central arena.” He adds “It is imperative that no Eurasian challenger emerges, capable of dominating Eurasia and thus of challenging America.”

The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy And Its Geostrategic Imperatives: Brzezinski, Zbigniew: 9780465027262: Amazon.com: Books

The book  surveys the different nations in Eurasia, from Japan in the east to the UK in the west. The entire land mass of Europe and Asia is covered. This is the “grand chessboard” and Brzezinski analyzes how the US should “play” different pieces on the board to keep potential rivals down and the US in control.

Brzezinski’s Influence

Brzezinski was a very powerful National Security Advisor to President Carter. Before that, he founded the Trilateral Commission. Later he taught Madeleine Albright and many other key figures in US foreign policy.

Brzezinski initiated the “Afghanistan Trap”. That was the secret 1979 US program to mobilize and support mujahedin foreign fighters to invade and destabilize Afghanistan. In this period, Afghanistan was undergoing dramatic positive changes. As described by Canadian academic John Ryan, “Afghanistan once had a progressive secular government, with broad popular support. It had enacted progressive reforms and gave equal rights to women.”

The Brzezinski plan was to utilize reactionary local forces and foreign fighters to create enough mayhem that the government would ask the neighboring Soviet Union to send military support. The overall goal was to “bog down the Soviet army” and  “give them their own Vietnam”.

With enormous funding from the US and Saudi Arabia beginning in 1978, the plan resulted in chaos, starvation and bloodshed in Afghanistan which continues to today. Approximately 6 million Afghans became refugees fleeing the chaos and war.

Years later, when interviewed about this policy, Brzezinski was proud and explicit:

“We didn’t push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would.” When asked if he had regrets for the decades of mayhem in Afghanistan, he was clear: “Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? …. Moscow had to carry on a war that was unsustainable for the regime, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire…. What is more important in world history? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some agitated Muslims or the liberation of central Europe and the end of the Cold War?”

Afghanistan was a pawn in the US campaign against the Soviet Union. The amorality of US foreign policy is clear and consistent, from the destruction of Afghanistan beginning in 1978 continuing to the current starvation caused by US freezing of Afghan government reserves.

Pulse nightclub exterior, with holes made by the BearCat and bullet holes (Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0)

The blow-back is also clear. The foreign fighters trained by the US and Saudis became Al Qaeda and then ISIS. The 2016 Orlando nightclub massacre, where 49 died and 53 were wounded was perpetrated by the son of an Afghan refugee who never would have come to the US if his country had not been intentionally destabilized. Paul Fitzgerald eloquently describes the tragedy in his article Brzezinski’s vision to lure Soviets into Afghan Trap now Orlando’s nightmare.

US Supremacy and Exceptionalism

The “Grand Chessboard” assumes US supremacy and exceptionalism and adds the strategy for implementing and enforcing this “primacy” on the biggest and most important arena: Eurasia.

Brzezinski does not countenance a multi-polar world.

“A world without US primacy will be a world with more violence and disorder and less democracy and economic growth ….” and “The only real alternative to American global leadership in the foreseeable future is international anarchy.”

These assertions continue today as the US foreign policy establishment repeatedly talks about  the “rules based order” and “international community”, ignoring the fact that the West is a small fraction of humanity. Toward the end of his book, Brzezinski suggests the “upgrading” the United Nations and a “new distribution of responsibilities and privileges” that take into account the “changed realities of global power.”

The importance of NATO and Ukraine 

With the dissolution of the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact, many people in the West believed NATO was no longer needed. NATO claimed to be strictly a defensive alliance and its only rival had disbanded.

Brzezinski and other US hawks saw that NATO could be used to expand US hegemony and keep weapons purchases flowing. Thus he wrote that, “an enlarged NATO will serve well both  the short-term and the longer-term goals of U.S. policy.”

Brzezinski was adamant that Russian concerns or fears should be dismissed. “Any accommodation with Russia on the issue of NATO enlargement should not entail an outcome that has the effect of making Russia a de facto decision making member of the alliance.” Brzezinski was skillful at presenting an aggressive and offensive policy in the best light.

Brzezinski presents Ukraine as the pivotal country for containing Russia. He says,

“Ukraine is the critical state, insofar as Russia’s future evolution is concerned.” He says, “Without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be a Eurasian empire.”

This is another example of his skillful wording because Ukraine as part of a hostile military alliance does not only prevent a Russian “empire”; it presents a potential threat.  Kyiv is less than 500 miles from Moscow and Ukraine was a major route of the Nazi invasion.

Brzezinski was well aware of the controversial nature of Ukraine’s borders. On page 104 he gives a quote that shows many people of eastern Ukraine wanted out of Ukraine since the breakup of the Soviet Union. The 1996 quote from a Moscow newspaper reports,

“In the foreseeable future events in eastern Ukraine confront Russia with a very difficult problem. Mass manifestations of discontent … will be accompanied by appeals to Russia, or even demands, to take over the region.”

Despite this reality, Brzezinski is dismissive of Russian rights and complaints. He bluntly says,

“Europe is America’s essential geopolitical bridgehead on the Eurasian continent.” and “Western Europe and increasingly Central Europe remain largely an American protectorate.”

The unstated assumption is that the US has every right to dominate Eurasia from afar.

Brzezinski advises Russia to decentralize with the free market and a loose confederation of “European Russia, a Siberian Russia and a Far Eastern Republic”.

Afghanistan is the model

Brzezinski realizes that Russia presents a potential challenge to US domination of Eurasia, especially if it allies with China. In the “Grand Chessboard”, he writes,

“If the middle space rebuffs the West, becomes an assertive single entity, and either gains control over the South or forms an alliance with the major Eastern actor, then America’s primacy in Eurasia shrinks dramatically.” Russia is the “middle space” and China is the “major Eastern actor”.

What was feared by the US strategist has happened:  For the past 20 years, Russia and China have been building an alliance dedicated to ending US hegemony and beginning a new era in international relations.

This may be why the US aggressively provoked the crisis in Ukraine. The list of provocations is clear:  moral and material support for Maidan protests,  rejection of the EU agreement (“F*** the EU”), the sniper murders and violent 2014 coup, ignoring the Minsk Agreement approved by the UN Security Council, NATO advisors and training for ultra-nationalists, lethal weaponry to Ukraine, refusal to accept Ukrainian non-membership in NATO, threats to invade Donbass and Crimea.

Before Russia’s intervention in Ukraine, active duty soldier and former Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard said

“They actually want Russia to invade Ukraine. Why would they? Because it gives the Biden administration a clear excuse to levy draconian sanctions… against Russia and the Russian people and number two, it cements this cold war in place. The military industrial complex is the one who benefits from this. They clearly control the Biden administration. Warmongers on both sides in Washington who have been drumming up these tensions. If they get Russia to invade Ukraine it locks in this new cold war, the military industrial complex starts to make a ton more money …. Who pays the price?  The American people … the Ukrainian people … the Russian people pay the price. It undermines our own national security but the military industrial complex which controls so many of our elected officials wins and they run to the bank.”

This is accurate but the reasons for the provocations go deeper. Hillary Clinton recently summed up the wishes and dreams of Washington hawks:

“The Russians invaded Afghanistan back in 1980 … a lot of countries supplied arms, advice and even some advisors to those who were recruited to fight Russia….a  well funded insurgency basically drove the Russians out of Afghanistan…. I think that is the model people are now looking toward.”

US foreign policy has been consistent from Brzezinski to Madeleine Albright,  Hillary Clinton and on to Victoria Nuland.  The results are seen in Aghanistan, Iraq, Yugoslavia, Libya, Syria and now Ukraine.

As with Afghanistan,  the US “didn’t push Russia to intervene” but “knowingly increased the probability that they would.” The purpose is the same in both cases: to use a pawn to undermine and potentially eliminate a rival. We expect the US will make every to prolong the bloodshed and war, to bog down the Russian army and prevent a peaceful settlement. The US goal is just what Joe Biden said: regime change in Moscow.

Like Afghanistan, Ukraine is just a pawn on the chessboard.

*

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Rick Sterling is an investigative journalist in the SF Bay Area. He can be contacted at [email protected]. He is a regular contributor 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).

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***

“Data was very easily used by influencers and decision-makers to fit particular narratives,” Norman Fenton, Ph.D., a mathematician at Queen Mary University of London, said in an interview on “RFK Jr. The Defender Podcast.”

From the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Norman Fenton, Ph.D., could see health officials were misusing data and misleading the public.

A professor of risk information management at Queen Mary University of London, Fenton is a mathematician who focuses on critical decision-making and quantifying uncertainty.

Throughout the pandemic, he closely examined and criticized how officials used data to make decisions about lockdowns, testing and vaccines.

Fenton spoke last week with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. on “RFK Jr. The Defender Podcast.”

“When the COVID pandemic emerged, what kind of challenges did you specifically see?” Kennedy asked Fenton.

Fenton replied:

“It was clear I think from the start that most of the data that governments put out — not just the UK government, but most governments around the world … were kind of misleading because it was based on very easily manipulated statistics.”

This was true of both the nature of COVID itself and the vaccines, Fenton said.

“There was an immediate rush to draw conclusions, which were sort of based on over-simplistic data on case numbers and deaths,” he said.  “… the problem was that that data was very easily used by influencers and decision-makers to fit particular narratives that exaggerated the scale of the crisis.”

Fenton’s team published some of the first research providing more accurate estimates about the infection rate versus the fatality rate compared with official estimates he said were based on faulty data.

The research showed the virus was more widespread than people assumed, but nowhere near as dangerous as was being claimed.

Fenton also addressed issues with PCR tests.

Although it was clear early on that a proper understanding of the virus depended on accurate diagnostic tests, he said, “we were initially led to believe that the PCR test was an accurate diagnostic test.”

“But later, of course, we discovered that wasn’t true. And the impact of that has been catastrophic,” he said.

Kennedy agreed.

“The magnitude of [the epidemic] was enormously and deceptively amplified by the misuse of the PCR test,” he said.

Fenton first came under attack in the summer and early fall of 2020, when he challenged how COVID deaths were classified, he said, and questioned the widespread testing of asymptomatic people.

“That was when we were finding the real problems about the false positives and the scale of the false positives,” Fenton said.

Excessive testing led to “absolutely ridiculous decisions,” he said, including new lockdowns.

Information concerning deaths following COVID vaccination also was manipulated, Fenton said, as part of the official claim that the vaccine was the only way to keep people from becoming seriously ill and dying.

Data adjusted to take into account misclassification show a peak in mortality shortly after vaccination, he said, cautioning:

“Now, of course, it could well be that these are people who are indeed immunosuppressed seriously. Also … the vaccination might just be bringing forward the death, which would’ve occurred shortly afterward anyway.

“But nevertheless, that’s what we believe is there in the data, but is of course being hidden.”

Watch the full podcast here or click the image below:

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The most severe level of inflation since the 1980s is affecting the average US and European citizen more so then ever. The price of gasoline and the price of electricity, caused by anti-Russia sanctions, are constantly increasing, and interestingly even America’s beloved fast food is becoming more expensive.

According to the US Department of Labor, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose 8.5% in the year to the end of March. In February, the index was 7.9%. Gasoline prices broke records, rising more than $4 a gallon. Not far behind are electricity bills and rent that account for about a third of total spending. Shipping costs have increased and the price of fast food, obsessively loved by Americans, hit the highest increase in 41 years. According to the Big Mac Index, the price of the popular McDonald’s burger rose 7% last year. In the past 10 years, the price of the Big Mac jumped 40%.

US President Joe Biden blamed his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin for rising inflation in America, saying on April 14 that the 70% increase in pricing last month was a result of “Putin’s price hike.”

“Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has driven up gas prices and food prices all over the world,” Biden said, adding: “What people don’t know is that 70% of the increase in inflation was the consequence of Putin’s Price Hike because of the impact on oil prices. Seventy percent.”

However, this is disingenuous as commodity prices in the US began to rise last year. Biden is attempting to halt the wave of disapproval he is receiving for allowing the average American citizen to economically suffer by blaming Moscow instead of admitting his own mistakes.

At the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic when the US economy was struggling to stay afloat as politicians shut down the economy, the Federal Reserve began aggressively printing trillions of dollars, swelling the Fed’s balance sheet to nearly $9 trillion in 2021.

“You flooded the system with money,” 60 Minutes journalist Scott Pelley said in a 2021 interview with Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell.

“Yes, we did,” Powell replied. “That’s another way to think about it. We did.”

Although the Federal Reserve aggressively pumped more money, they also decided to keep interest rates near zero. Pumping dollars in huge volumes only brings profits to banks and investors in the stock market. But as a result, all commodities have risen sharply: from grains and oil to transportation services.

The Fed insisted that inflation is only a short-term phenomenon, but their sluggishness has hit American pockets hard. In this way, inflation was already a result of bad American economic policy, but it has only been exacerbated by the anti-Russia sanctions.

It is recalled that on March 8, Biden officially announced a ban on energy imports from Russia despite warnings that the decision would impact consumers. Unsurprisingly, the price of oil immediately rose to $130 per barrel. The sharp drop in oil and gas use has led to rising fuel prices and rising inflation. However, Biden of course does not want to mention this as he would rather blame Putin for his own mistakes.

At the same time, Washington is putting pressure on the EU to give up energy imports from Russia. Unfortunately for Biden though, as the European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen highlighted, some European countries were completely dependent on Russian oil and gas.

Meanwhile, prices in Europe are also skyrocketing. In March, inflation in 19 EU countries reached 7.5%. Inflation was particularly severe for some others though, hitting double digits in four member states, with Lithuania leading the way with 15.6%.

The inflation rate in Germany reached 7.3%, the highest level in 40 years. According to Karl von Rohr, deputy governor of Deutsche Bank, inflation for the year in Germany will be at 7-8%. Deutsche Bank experts also predicted that inflation would exceed 10% in the event of a complete embargo on Russian energy.

In March, energy prices in Europe recorded the biggest increase. In second place was food, alcohol and tobacco. In third place are services. Unfortunately for Europe, prices will continue to rise, especially as the Ukraine war and anti-Russia sanctions have created supply chain and logistics disruptions, as well as shortages of raw materials.

The UK is not protected either and inflation has also soared to record levels. The annual inflation rate rose to 7.0% in March, the highest level since March 1992. Electricity and gas bills rose 54% – from £1,227 to £1,971, and it is expected that energy prices will again increase in October.

This deadly mix of bad economic policy and sanctioning Russia without an exit strategy means that the average Western citizen is being most affected. Just as sanctions never saw the downfall of Castro in Cuba, Assad in Syria or Kim Jong-Un in North Korea, it will not lead to a capitulation of Putin or the Russian state, effectively meaning that sanctions are a pointless exercise that only further concentrates wealth into fewer hands in the West and out of the average citizen.

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Another Layer of Corruption in the Opioid Scandal Revealed

April 25th, 2022 by Dr. Joseph Mercola

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In 2021, McKinsey & Company, one of the largest consultants to corporations and governments worldwide, settled a lawsuit brought by 47 state attorneys general over its role in the U.S. opioid crisis

A U.S. House investigation reveals McKinsey was advising the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on the safety of opioids, while at the same time advising Purdue how to maximize sales

Jeff Smith, a senior McKinsey consultant, worked on a risk evaluation and mitigation strategy (REMS) for OxyContin while simultaneously advising the FDA about the drug’s safety

McKinsey promoted its FDA connections when pitching services to its pharmaceutical clients. The FDA, meanwhile, claims it had no idea McKinsey was working with Purdue

Purdue knew the dangers of its drug, covered it up, and hired FDA insiders to advise its sales strategy and how to influence the FDA. They also hired Publicis to manage its marketing. Publicis, the world’s largest PR company, funds and partners with “fact checking” organizations to suppress and censor the truth

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In 2021, McKinsey & Company, one of the largest consultants to corporations and governments worldwide, settled a lawsuit brought by 47 state attorneys general over its role in the U.S. opioid crisis. The firm agreed to pay $573 million in fines1 for driving up sales of Purdue Pharma’s OxyContin painkiller, even as Americans were dying in droves.

Between 1999 and 2019, nearly 500,000 Americans died from overdoses involving opioid drugs,2 and false advertising and bribery were at the heart of this tragedy. As reported by The New York Times:3

“McKinsey’s extensive work with Purdue included advising it to focus on selling lucrative high-dose pills, the records show, even after the drugmaker pleaded guilty in 2007 to federal criminal charges that it had misled doctors and regulators about OxyContin’s risks. The firm also told Purdue that it could ‘band together’ with other opioid makers to head off ‘strict treatment’ by the Food and Drug Administration.”

Worse Than We Thought

We now find out that the situation is even more corrupt than we previously thought. A U.S. House investigation4,5,6 into McKinsey, based on materials obtained through the discovery process of this and other lawsuits, has revealed McKinsey was advising the FDA on the safety of opioids, while at the same time advising Purdue how to maximize sales.

In one instance, McKinsey wrote “scripts” for Purdue to use in its meeting with the FDA to discuss the safety of OxyContin in pediatric populations. In another, Jeff Smith, a senior McKinsey consultant, worked on a risk evaluation and mitigation strategy (REMS) for OxyContin while simultaneously advising the FDA about the drug’s safety.7

As noted by investigative journalist Paul Thacker,8 “Just think about that for a moment — for years McKinsey played both cop and robber.” As reported by The New York Times, April 13, 2022:9

“Since 2010, at least 22 McKinsey consultants have worked for both Purdue and the FDA, some at the same time, according to the committee’s 53-page report …

The firm provided no evidence to the committee that it had disclosed the potential conflicts of interest as required under federal contracting rules — an ‘apparent violation,’ the report said.

McKinsey also allowed employees advising Purdue to help shape materials that were intended for government officials and agencies, including a memo in 2018 prepared for Alex M. Azar II, then the incoming secretary of health and human Services under President Donald J. Trump.

References to the severity of the opioid crisis in a draft version of the memo, the documents show, were cut before it was sent to Mr. Azar.

‘Today’s report shows that at the same time the FDA was relying on McKinsey’s advice to ensure drug safety and protect American lives, the firm was also being paid by the very companies fueling the deadly opioid epidemic to help them avoid tougher regulation of these dangerous drugs,’ Representative Carolyn Maloney, the New York Democrat who chairs the committee, said in a statement …

A bipartisan group of lawmakers last month introduced legislation10 aimed at preventing conflicts of interest in federal contracting, citing McKinsey’s experience with Purdue and the FDA.”

The FDA, in response, has stated that it “relies on its contractors to assess and report potential conflicts of interest,” The New York Times reports.11 In other words, it’s just pointing fingers and refusing to take responsibility for working with advisers that clearly could, and should, be suspected of having ulterior motives, based on their client base.

Isn’t it obvious that McKinsey, working to improve sales for its opioid-making clients, might give the FDA biased advise on behalf of those clients? Remarkably, in October 2021, the FDA wrote12 to senators claiming they had no idea McKinsey was even working for Purdue, and didn’t find out about it until media reported it in early 2021.

It seems beyond irrationally foolish that the press could find out about it, but not the FDA — somewhat like the head of the CDC, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, going on CNN and quoting Pfizer press releases as factual data.

McKinsey Advised FDA on Opioid Safety

The FDA hired McKinsey as an adviser in 2011. The company worked with the FDA office overseeing drug companies plans to monitor safety of risky products such as opioids, and internal documents show that, on multiple occasions, McKinsey promoted its FDA connections when pitching services to its pharmaceutical clients.13

For example, in a 2009 sales pitch, McKinsey wrote that it provided direct support to regulators, “and as such have developed insights into the perspectives of the regulators themselves.”14

In a 2014 email to Purdue’s chief executive, McKinsey consultant Rob Rosiello wrote, “We serve the broadest range of stakeholders that matter for Purdue. One client we can disclose is the FDA, who we have supported for over five years.”15

Evidence also suggests McKinsey took “steps to limit material that could be subpoenaed” once Purdue was sued, The New York Times reports.16 In one instance, printed hardcopies of slide decks were sent to Purdue instead of being emailed because they knew Purdue staff would be deposed and didn’t want their email correspondence to “get sucked into it.”

Did McKinsey Influence FDA Commissioner?

The Interim Majority Staff report17 by the Committee on Oversight and Reform, titled “The Firm and the FDA: McKinsey & Company’s Conflicts of Interest at the Heart of the Opioid Epidemic,” published April 13, 2022, also includes emails in which McKinsey employees claim to have influenced an opioid safety speech by then-FDA commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb.

Gottlieb denies the accusation, but the fact that McKinsey was working so intimately with the FDA means they certainly would have been capable of such influence. Gottlieb also has financial ties to the opioid industry, having received $45,000 in speaker’s fees from companies that manufacture and distribute opioids.18

In 2012, Gottlieb also wrote a Wall Street Journal essay, attacking the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) for pursuing the criminal activity of opioid distributors, saying it would burden patients, “including those with legitimate prescriptions who may be profiled at the pharmacy counter and turned away.”19

Intent to Harm

What we have here is a picture of gross conflicts of interest with an apparent intent to harm. Purdue Pharma was as crooked as they come, conducting sham studies and bribing doctors to prescribe its highly addictive opioid, while its consultant, McKinsey advised the FDA on the drug’s safety.

At the same time, Purdue also worked with the Publicis Groupe — the largest PR company in the world as of November 202120 — which funded the startup of NewsGuard, a “fact checking” group that rates websites on criteria of “credibility” and “transparency.” In April 2021, Publicis partnered with NewsGuard specifically “to fight the ‘infodemic’ of misinformation about COVID-19 and its vaccines.”21

NewsGuard’s health-related service, HealthGuard,22 is also partnered with the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) — a progressive U.K.-based cancel-culture leader23 with extensive ties to government and global think tanks that has labeled people questioning the COVID-19 vaccine as “threats to national security.”

At the beginning of May 2021, the Massachusetts attorney general filed a lawsuit24,25 against Publicis Health, accusing the Publicis subsidiary of helping Purdue create the deceptive marketing materials used to mislead doctors into prescribing OxyContin.26,27,28,29

Like Purdue, Publicis also cashed in on the opioid addiction it helped create by pitching its services to organizations working to end addiction. As reported by Forbes,30 the agency “won the account to work on drugfree.org after touting how it’s been ‘immersed in the evolving national opioid medication dialogue going on between pharma companies, the government and FDA, and the public via inside access as a trusted and informed consulting partner.’”

So, to summarize, Purdue knew the dangers of its drug, covered them up, hired FDA insiders to advise its sales strategy and influence the FDA, and is connected with a PR company that had the ability to suppress and censor negative news to manage its marketing. It’s hard to describe this scheme as anything but intentional mass murder.

The Spin Doctors

The reality may even be worse, and much larger, than that, seeing how Publicis is also a partner of the World Economic Forum (WEF),31 which is leading the call for a “reset” of the global economy and a complete overhaul of our way of life.32

As detailed in the featured video, Publicis’ fingerprints can be found throughout the net of censorship and misdirection that is now being cast across the digital landscape. As the No. 1 PR company in the world, Publicis has just the right credentials and influence to pull off a deception of this size.

It’s part of an enormous network that includes international drug companies, fact checkers and credibility raters, Google, Microsoft, public libraries, schools, the banking industry, the U.S. State Department and Department of Defense, the World Health Organization and Disney, just to name a few. As noted by investigative reporter David Marks in “How PR Giant Publicis Promotes Greed, Deception on Behalf of World’s Most Powerful”:33

“The essential skill of these expert spin doctors is their ability to fabricate a favorable interpretation of damaging information or activity or diminish the impact of the truth.

Through tried and true psychological ploys, repetition of false information or casting doubt on factual realities, ad agencies and PR firms target those who need to be influenced on behalf of their clients …

An examination of one of the largest entities neck-deep in managing these mass psychological operations reveals the depth of the dysfunction afflicting the planet. The vast activities of the Publicis Groupe demonstrate how the tentacles of greed, profit and privilege connect the catastrophic agendas of the most powerful enterprises on Earth …

Using sophisticated social psychology and incorporating the cutting edge of artificial intelligence, Publicis PR experts are masters of damage control, the manipulation of words and people, and of selling the unsellable. Publicis is organizing influential activities worldwide, overtly revealing its mission and priorities.

… [Its] website reveals who actually benefits from the company’s services: ‘The entire Publicis Groupe transformation was designed to put clients at the center of all we do. Their needs and objectives drive the solutions we provide in order to help them win and grow’ …

In considering the range of activities Publicis engages in, the dots are so close there is no need to connect them. The PR giant’s methodology is transparent.

Whether promoting opioids or pushing vaccines, rebranding status quo profiteering as a Great Reset, supporting cigarette sales, disguising the true nature of the fossil fuel industry, increasing soft drink consumption or covering for assassinations — Publicis has all the skills and facilities to create whatever fabrications are needed to sell products and influence how their wealthy collaborators are viewed.

The Publicis Groupe and its allies are at the hub of a worldwide insidious, destructive disinformation campaign, relying on the duplicitous ways of advertising and public relations in the loyal service of clients.”

A Plan to Drug the Useless Eaters?

As a WEF partner and global PR machine for some of the most powerful industries on the planet, it seems reasonable to assume Publicis is helping to coordinate the WEF’s Great Reset agenda. Sadly, that includes not only the management and control of the peoples of the earth, but also the elimination of “undesirables.”

In a 2015 interview (video above), Yuval Noah Harari, a history professor and adviser to WEF founder Klaus Schwab, discussed what Schwab refers to as The Fourth Industrial Revolution (i.e., transhumanism), noting that we’re now learning to “produce bodies and minds” (meaning augmented bodies, and cloud and artificial intelligence-connected minds) and that one of the greatest challenges we face will be what to do with all the people that have become obsolete in the process.

How will unaugmented people find meaning in life when they’re basically “useless, meaningless”? How will they spend their time when there’s no work, no opportunity to move up in some kind of profession? His guess is that the answer will be “a combination of drugs and computer games.”

This raises a disturbing question. Was the opioid crisis the result of an intentional plan — a conspiracy in the literal sense of the word — to hook the masses on an addictive drug? This is purely speculative, of course, but it surely fits in with The Great Reset agenda as a whole.

If people are addicted, the drug and medical industries make money (and they’re without doubt part of The Great Reset network), and if people die, well, that’s in accordance with The Great Reset plan too, as they insist there are too many “useless eaters” on the planet, and they either must be managed or eliminated.

Publicis Is Part of the Global Monopoly

In closing, it’s worth noting that Publicis is partially owned by the Vanguard Group,34 one of the two largest asset management firms in the world. Together with BlackRock, Vanguard has a hidden monopoly on global asset holdings and exerts control through their ownership of some 1,600 American companies.35

Combined, BlackRock and Vanguard own nearly 90% of all S&P 500 firms.36 To learn more about how Vanguard and BlackRock own just about everything in the world, and have monopoly control over all industries, check out the 45-minute video above, “Monopoly — Follow the Money.”

In short, the idea that there is competition in the marketplace is a cleverly disguised illusion. In reality, everything is controlled by a small group of asset managers that win no matter what. The end goal is to own and control all the world’s assets, which includes people.

The WEF slogan “You’ll Own Nothing and Be Happy” really summarizes The Great Reset plan for mankind. They will own everything; you will own nothing, not even your own body, and you’ll be too drugged up and lost in a make-believe computer game world to realize you’re a slave. If they can somehow make a profit from your useless existence, they’ll let you live. If they can’t, you’ll be eliminated. That’s really what the plan comes down to.

The plan for global authoritarianism is advancing with each passing day, but all is not lost yet. By informing ourselves and sharing what we know with others, we can reach the critical mass needed to end their plan and take back control.

It’s going to require standing together, unified in favor of freedom and liberty. It’s going to require legal and legislative efforts to weed out the corruption and infiltration that has occurred throughout the corporate world and our governments. It’s going to require honest men and women to step into positions of power that they never wanted. It may take a lot of time and effort, but if we want our descendants to experience freedom, no price can be too great to pay.

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Notes

1, 3 New York Times February 3, 2021 (Archived)

2 CDC Opioid Epidemic

4, 17 Interim Majority Staff report, Committee on Oversight and Reform, The Firm and the FDA: McKinsey & Company’s Conflicts of […] April 13, 2022

5, 7 Endpoint News April 13, 2022

6 Epoch Times April 16, 2022

8, 18, 19 The Disinformation Chronicle April 19, 2022

9, 11, 13, 14, 15, 16 New York Times April 13, 2022 (Archived)

10 S.3905, To Prevent Organizational Conflicts of Interest in Federal Acquisition, and for Other Purposes

12 Maggie Hassan Senate October 27, 2021

20 Forbes November 3, 2021

21 Twitter Publicis Health Media April 27, 2021

22 NewsGuard HealthGuard

23 Off-Guardian August 11, 2020

24 Commonwealth of Massachusetts Superior Court Complaint CA No. 21-1055 (PDF)

25 STAT News May 6, 2021

26 Boston Globe May 8, 2021

27, 30 Forbes May 7, 2021

28 CommonHealth May 7, 2021

29 Courthouse News May 6, 2021

31 World Economic Forum, Publicis Groupe

32 World Economic Forum, The Great Reset

33, 34 Abundant Hope January 6, 2022

35 The Puppet Masters Portfolios July 31, 2021

36 The Conversation May 10, 2017

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Vaccine-free Canadians hoping to cross into the United States via a land border will still be banned from entry after the Biden administration extended a rule mandating that non-U.S. citizens going into the U.S. have the COVID shots.

According to an update yesterday from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the vaccine mandate for land border crossings remains in place indefinitely.

“As of Thursday, April 21, 2022, DHS will extend COVID-19-related land border entry requirements. Non-U.S. travelers seeking to enter the United States via land ports of entry and ferry terminals at the U.S.-Mexico and U.S.-Canada borders are required to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 and provide proof of vaccination upon request,” the DHS said.

The department noted that the restrictions apply to “non-U.S. travelers who are traveling for essential or non-essential reasons. They do not apply to U.S. citizens, Lawful Permanent Residents, or U.S. nationals.”

The “temporary rule” mandating COVID jabs via land border crossings was originally put in place on January 22. According to the U.S Federal Registry, it was set to expire at midnight April 21 before being extended.

Travelers entering the United States by air are mandated as well to prove they have the COVID jabs.

Republican U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York blasted the Biden administration’s extension of the COVID land border vaccine mandate.

In a statement, she said such mandates hurt northern communities and show the “Biden administration’s hypocrisy.”

“For over two years, communities in Upstate New York and the North Country have been devastated by Northern Border travel restrictions, which hurt tourism, harm supply chain, and keep families apart. Instead of leading the way for our Canadian partners by dropping all restrictions on Northern Border travel, the Biden Administration is doubling down on harmful restrictions on Northern Border travel, while proposing an end to Title 42, which will fuel illegal immigration across the Southern Border,” Stefanik said.

According to the DHS, upon entry into the U.S. via a land border, one must “verbally attest to their COVID-19 vaccination status,” and if asked for proof of the vaccine, must show the border agent a “CDC-approved COVID-19 vaccination, as outlined on the CDC website.”

LifeSiteNews spoke with one individual, who asked to remain anonymous, and he said he had no issues driving into the U.S. via a land border last month despite not having the vaccine.

“They never asked me if I had the jabs, so I was just let on through, and honestly, these jab rules are an afront to a person’s personal dignity and rights as a human,” the individual said.

“Coming back into Canada will be a pain as they still make you quarantine as I don’t have the jabs.”

Others without the jabs trying to cross into the United States via land borders have not been so lucky.

A recent report in the Western Standard documents the horror story of a man without the COVID vaccine who tried in vain to get to Costa Rica. After being denied traveling by air, he tried to cross into the U.S. via car at a land border but was turned back.

While in the past the DHS allowed an “essential” travel exemption, this has been removed.

Children under age 18 are exempt from the rule, however, and there are no COVID testing requirements in place.

The DHS does list some narrow exemptions that could allow a vaccine-free person to cross via a land border. These include diplomats, people issued “a humanitarian or emergency exception by the Secretary of Homeland Security,” and those deemed a “national interest, as determined by the Secretary of Homeland Security.”

Also, there is an exemption for “individuals with medical contraindications to receiving a COVID-19 vaccine as specified in the CDC order.”

Before the rule was put in place in January, the vaccine-free were allowed to cross via land borders into the U.S., including truckers.

However, when the Canadian government under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau mandated that all truckers and others be vaccinated for entry into Canada via land borders starting January 15, the U.S. under President Joe Biden quickly enacted a similar rule.

The Trudeau COVID jab land border mandate was met with fierce opposition from many in the trucking industry, as well as some Conservative Party of Canada MPs.

It was also the catalyst for the trucker Freedom Convoy, which saw thousands of Canadians descend upon Ottawa to demand an end to all COVID mandates.

The Freedom Convoy, however, was crushed by Trudeau in an unprecedented move when he enacted the Emergencies Act to clear them out.

Civil liberties groups have called for an independent public inquiry into Trudeau’s use of the EA.

Also in place in Canada is a travel ban by air, rail or sea for those who have chosen not to get the COVID vaccines.

COVID vaccine mandates have split Canadian society and the shots themselves approved for use in Canada have been linked to a multitude of negative and often severe side effects in children.

They also have connections to cell lines derived from aborted babies. As a result of this, many Catholics and other Christians refuse to take them.

COVID-19 has extremely high survivability among most groups, and studies show a minimal risk of asymptomatic spread. Research also indicates that post-infection natural immunity is far superior to vaccine-induced immunity.

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International organisations have written to Home Secretary Priti Patel urging her to reject the US government’s request for the extradition of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

The 20 press freedom, free expression and journalists’ organisations have also requested a meeting with Ms Patel to discuss their concerns over the case.

The letter was sent after chief magistrate Paul Goldspring referred Mr Assange’s case to Ms Patel, paving the way for him to face prosecution for exposing US war crimes.

Ms Patel is now responsible for deciding in the next two months whether to accept the extradition request.

Mr Assange’s lawyers warn that the prosecution is politically motivated and that their client faces up to 175 years in jail.

Signatories of the letter to Ms Patel include Reporters Without Borders, Article 19, Big Brother Watch, Pen International, the International Federation of Journalists, the National Union of Journalists and the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom.

In the letter, the organisations express “serious concerns” about the possibility of extraditing the WikiLeaks founder, including over his physical and mental health.

They warn that Mr Assange would be unable to adequately defend himself in US courts due to a lack of a public interest defence in the Espionage Act and that his prosecution would set a dangerous precedent for journalism internationally.

The letter reads:

“We ask you, Home Secretary, to honour the UK government’s commitment to protecting and promoting media freedom and reject the US extradition request.

“We ask you to release Mr Assange from Belmarsh prison and allow him to return to his young family after many years of isolation.

“Finally, we ask you to publicly commit to ensuring that no publisher, journalist or source ever again faces detention in the UK for publishing information in the public interest.”

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Ask a hundred Americans and you’ll be lucky to find even one who’s ever heard of Minsk II. But ask those same Americans how the Ukraine war started, and you’ll like get ‘Russian President Putin woke up one day and decided to re-establish the Soviet empire, starting with Ukraine.’

That is because our government and its slavishly loyal media have created a false narrative for maximum propaganda to support pouring billions in weaponry into the Ukraine war zone, ensuring that death and destruction will proceed endlessly.

Minsk II was the 2015 agreement hammered out by Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany to end the civil war in Ukraine between the pro-west, ultra-nationalist government and the pro-Russian Ukrainians in the eastern Donbas provinces of Lugansk and Donetsk.

Why a civil war in Ukraine? Historically, Ukraine was cobbled together first by the Russian Empire, then the Soviet Union over 4 centuries, containing disparate peoples. The main ones were the Western leaning, Ukrainian speaking people in the north and west, and the Russian speaking in the east and south.

Their relationship was always toxic, but under Soviet rule relative peace prevailed. Once freed from Soviet rule in 1999, the tension between the two disparate groups resurfaced. Fifteen years on the U.S. essentially blew up whatever chance for peaceful resolution by aiding a coup which violently removed Russian-leaning President Yanukovych, replacing him with an ultra-nationalist government under Petro Poroshenko.

 

Leaders meeting in Minsk: Belarus’ President Alexander Lukashenko (L), Russia’s President Vladimir Putin (2nd L), Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko (R), Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel (C) and France’s President Francois Hollande pose for a family photo during peace talks in Minsk, February 11, 2015.

Thus began the civil war in the Donbas that has killed over 14,000 Ukrainians in Kiev’s effort to subjugate and marginalize the hated Russian-leaning Ukrainians. And leading the carnage for the past 3 years is current president Volodymyr Zelensky. Calling him the new Churchill doesn’t quite fit.

But Ukraine had an off ramp from civil war early on in the form of the Minsk and then the Minsk II agreements in 2014 and 2015. The latter called for autonomy for the breakaway provinces Donetsk and Lugansk, amnesty to the combatants and representation in the Ukraine government.

But goaded by the U.S. and the ultra-nationalists with the real power, both post coup presidents Poroshenko and Zelensky opted to continue the civil war to both retake the breakaway provinces and recapture the Crimea, seized by Russia after the 2014 coup threatened their naval base at Sebastopol in the Crimea.

In the months leading up to Russia’s criminal war, Ukraine, with the help of weaponry and training by Uncle Sam, dramatically increased its criminal shelling of the Donbas, even massing a hundred thousand troops for a possible invasion predicted for March.

Did that, and the threat of NATO’s encroachment in Ukraine up to Russia’s borders, make Russia’s invasion legal or necessary for Russia’s national defense? Of course not. But expecting Russia would sit back and do nothing made their invasion virtually inevitable.

On February 24, that inevitability occurred, costing thousands of senseless deaths, putting the world in danger of worldwide recession, millions of poor worldwide facing starvation from food shortages and worst of all….nuclear war.

Millions of words have been spilled by our government and our media framing this war as the madman in the Kremlin and his dreams of a reconstituted Soviet empire. But they could do better with just two words that Ukraine and U.S. refused to honor and implement: Minsk II.

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Defence lawyers have argued that prisoners held at a secretive CIA-run camp at the Guantanamo Bay detention centre should receive reduced sentences because the conditions to which they were subject were “exceedingly disturbing”.

Lawyers for the detainees held at Camp 7 from 2006 to 2021 are currently inspecting the site, and have told The New York Times that conditions at the camp were substandard, with the experience of imprisonment there being like getting “buried alive”.

They are currently gathering information and evidence, including taking photographs and bringing experts to inspect the now-abandoned site. The attorneys also want anything that the men said while detained at the camp to be excluded from their cases, arguing that the camp was “indistinguishable” from the CIA black sites where detainees were tortured.

Susan Hensler, who represents Iraqi detainee Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi, told The Times that the place was “chilling” and “akin to being entombed”.

“You’re disappeared off the face of the map at Camp 7,” said Alka Pradhan, who represents Ammar al-Baluchi, a defendant in the 9/11 case.

Another criminal defence lawyer, Christine Funk, said of the camp:

“I’ve seen everything from minimum to medium to maximum security [prisons]. I’d stay in any one of them rather than stay in that prison down at Guantanamo.”

Camp 7 was a once-secret prison camp that held the most high-level detainees who were transferred to the site in 2006 after being held in CIA custody.

However, after several years, military officers described the site as in need of an entirely new facility with the current camp having serious structural problems, including its foundation having shifted.

The military had sent multiple funding requests in the tens of millions of dollars.

But instead of building a new facility, it was closed in April 2021. The US military had long refused to acknowledge the location of the camp, and journalists have been denied access to it.

“It feels like there’s an element of unpredictability built into that prison at Guantanamo, by design, that is its own form of torture,” Funk told The Times. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

The Biden administration has repeatedly stated it aims to close the prison.

Of the 37 prisoners that currently remain in the prison, 19 have been approved for transfer, six are in indefinite detention, 10 are awaiting trial, and two have been convicted, including Majid Khan who has finished his sentence and is in need of a country to be transferred to.

Earlier this week, the US approved the transfer of another detainee, Said bin Brahim bin Umran Bakush, the last Algerian national to be held at the detention facility.

Last month, Mohammed al-Qahtani was transferred to his home country of Saudi Arabia where he will receive treatment for schizophrenia after nearly two decades of imprisonment.

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In order to wage war, rulers have to get the people behind them. Therefore, with the help of the mass media, images of the enemy are built up and irrational fears are stirred up. This increases the fear and obedience of the subjects. Machiavelli, a man who knows what governmental power consists of, how to acquire it and how to maintain it, is reported to have said: “On the art of war rests the whole secret of a ruler’s power.” (1)

***

It is the same today: Two years ago, citizens were thrown into panic by a virus epidemic declared worldwide, triggering a reflex of obedience known only from dictatorships. With the threat of punishment for refusing a gene-altering “vaccination”, the fear level is kept constant.

A war in the heart of Europe has been added to this for a month now; other wars are already following. Again, strong fears are triggered among the citizens; this time of a possible nuclear war and the “last judgement”. The fact that we are all partly to blame for the miserable social conditions in the world is being suppressed.

If you put the available news together, you come to the conclusion that the “fateful” world events are supposed to absorb the citizens mentally and prevent them from looking courageously and resolutely at what is in store for everyone: No longer possessing anything – and being happy with it. In the process, the previous human condition is completely called into question. Along the way, irrational fears are supposed to keep citizens in suspense, paralyse their thinking and make them willingly and humbly accept what is fated to happen.

We should have known

As children of our time, we were sadly unable to correctly interpret the shining portents on the wall.

The plans of philanthropists David Rockefeller Jr. and Bill Gates have been known for a decade and a half. They believed that the supposedly threatening population growth should be curbed by dramatically reducing the population to one billion people. But who took them seriously?

This deadly agenda includes both the theoretical model of wiping out about a billion people forever through nuclear war (2) and Hitler’s “Master Plan Eugenics”, which still lives on in Klaus Schwab, the founder of the World Economic Forum. Presidents Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping were or are still part of Klaus Schwab’s “Big Club”.

Most of us have known that politicians should not be entrusted with the solution of humanity’s problems since Tolstoy’s “Speech against War” of 1905 and his warning that those in power “are often the worst, most insignificant, most cruel, most immoral and especially the most mendacious people”. (3)

We were recently able to learn from Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov that Russia’s military operation in Ukraine is aimed at “putting an end to the ruthless expansion and pursuit of total domination of the US and the rest of the Western countries on the international stage” (4). Who will lead the new world?

The idea of abolishing nation states has been around long before the proclamation of the World Health Organisation (WHO) as the new world government and the “transformation” of so-called democracies or “silent dictatorships” into “open dictatorships” are well known from all parts of the world.

We humans have not recognised our emotional life and our ways of reacting

Since we humans have not recognised our emotional life and our ways of reacting due to a lack of psychology, we are surprised not only by the aggressive diabolical plans of the rulers, but also by our absolute reflexes of obedience. Thus we stand unawares on the edge of the abyss.

Our minds are not free and we cannot throw off the fearfulness we have been brought up to have of our fellow human beings. From childhood, we are inculcated to believe in church and state authorities and to be in bondage to them as if we were “dead bodies” (Ignatius of Loyola). The state and the church act as henchmen who understand each other like two cutthroats (Jean Meslier). That is why adult people show in ideological matters those mental and emotional impairments that were inflicted on them in childhood.

Many of them react to politicians like children or like primitive man reacted – in the form of a “magical belief in authority”: uncritical and clouded by moods, feelings and promises of happiness. And this has consequences: the belief in authority inevitably leads to obedience to authority, which usually triggers the reflex of absolute spiritual obedience and paralysis of the mind. Full-headed adults can then no longer think for themselves and judge rationally, and hand over decision-making power to immoral politicians.

What to do?

The opinion of one president or another is not decisive. What is decisive is that the presidents of the three great powers are probably in agreement with the “world rulers” behind them that those who are “above” must have the upper hand over those who are “below”. That those who are “up there” are just as poor as those “down there” is something the “up there” do not know. For those “down there”, WEF founder Klaus Schwab prophesies: “In 10 years, they will own nothing – and be happy with it.”

Since we humans will not give up hope as long as we breathe, we will continue to dream the dream of a free and just world – regardless of all hardships and adversities.

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

He is a regular contributor to Global Research and Asia-Pacific Research.

Notes

(1) Tolstoy, L. N. (1983). Speech against war. Political pamphlets. Edited by Peter Urban. Insel Verlag. Frankfurt am Main, p. 74

(2) https://www.pravda-tv.com/2022/04/ukraine-eskalation-us-kriegssimulation-sagte-atomkrieg-voraus-video/

(3) Tolstoy, L. N. (1983). Speech against war. Political pamphlets. Edited by Peter Urban. Insel Verlag. Frankfurt am Main, p. 74

(4) https://de.rt.com/russland/135976-lawrow-russlands.militaeroperation-in-ukraine/

Featured image is from Silent Crow News

“Synthetic Left” Joins “Corporate Right” in Getting Ukraine War Wrong. Historical Analysis

By Max Parry, April 24, 2022

Since the Russian military operation to de-Nazify and de-militarize Ukraine began in late February, there is a common misperception that the Western left is “split” over the conflict in its response.

Video: WashPost’s Doxing of @LibsOfTikTok Reveals Who Corporate Journalists See as Their Targets

By Glenn Greenwald, April 25, 2022

Trump-era corporate journalism ceased viewing real power centers as adversaries (CIA/NSA/FBI/WallSt). The real enemy are citizens with the wrong politics. Rather than confront real power centers, the largest and richest media corporations – e.g. the Bezos-owned WPost – allied with those factions and attack citizens.

The Global Virome Project (GVP) and “The China Connection”

By Matt Ridley and Prasenjit Ray, April 24, 2022

In August 2016, a group of public health experts, policymakers and donors met in the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Conference Center overlooking Lake Como. Their aim was ambitious: to agree on “bold global action” that would mark the “beginning of the end of the pandemic era”. In other words, they hoped to find which viruses might cause the next pandemic, and get a head start on developing vaccines and drugs.

The COVID Mandates and “The Right to Smile”

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, April 24, 2022

Smiling is also a means of expressing love and emotion, which has been suppressed by the Covid mandates. Is it relevant? The devastating impacts of the covid mandates on mental health, (including a wave of suicides) which are largely the result of social engineering are amply documented.

Turkey Says Some NATO Members Want Longer Ukraine War to Hurt Russia

By Dave DeCamp, April 24, 2022

Since Russia invaded on February 24, the US and many of its NATO allies have abandoned diplomacy with Russia. Instead of seeking a diplomatic solution, the Western powers are pouring weapons into Ukraine and waging an economic sanctions campaign against Russia.

“Pandemic Treaty” Will Hand WHO Keys to Global Government

By Kit Knightly, April 24, 2022

The first public hearings on the proposed “Pandemic Treaty” are closed, with the next round due to start in mid-June. We’ve been trying to keep this issue on our front page, entirely because the mainstream is so keen to ignore it and keep churning out partisan war porn and propaganda.

Indonesia Bans Edible Oil Exports, Sparks “Mayhem” as Global Food Crisis Ahead

By Zero Hedge, April 24, 2022

The world’s biggest palm oil producer, Indonesia, is the latest country to embrace protectionist measures to mitigate domestic food shortages, according to Bloomberg.

Israel Is Still Arming Ukrainian Nazis

By Asa Winstanley, April 24, 2022

A video published by Ukraine’s Azov Battalion on Twitter this week showed one of its fighters firing an anti-tank missile. In the tweet Azov claimed it had hit a Russian vehicle. Israeli media on Wednesday identified the missile system in the Azov video as a Matador, a weapon developed by a consortium involving Rafael, a state-owned Israeli arms manufacturer.

What Is COVID Injection Fatality Rate?

By Tessa Lena, April 24, 2022

Dr. Pantazatos mentioned in the interview that even before 2020, he was well aware of the fact that the process of getting scientific works published in prestigious journals was tainted. He referred to the 2005 article in “PLOS Medicine” called, “Medical Journals Are an Extension of the Marketing Arm of Pharmaceutical Companies” that talked about how exactly the journals are incentivized by pharma companies.

Governments, Industry and Conservationists vs Tribal and Indigenous peoples. Aren’t There Better Ways to Mend the Earth?

By Michael Welch, April 23, 2022

On the Earth Day organizing site earthday.org there is a lot of attention focused on climate change, regenerative agriculture, rejecting plastic, cleaning up or avoiding litter, conservation and restoration. There is however very little said about the role of Indigenous people in protecting natural habitats.

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Trump-era corporate journalism ceased viewing real power centers as adversaries (CIA/NSA/FBI/WallSt). The real enemy are citizens with the wrong politics. Rather than confront real power centers, the largest and richest media corporations – e.g. the Bezos-owned WPost – allied with those factions and attack citizens.

The 2018 CNN obscenity featured in this video is most illustrative: they confronted an old lady with a tiny pro-Trump FB page on her yard. We recall when CNN threatened to dox someone who made an anti-CNN meme and when the Daily Beast published dirt and the real name of someone who published a video making Nancy Pelosi look drunk.

This is the key lesson of the latest tawdry episode with the WashPost’s Taylor Lorenz: ever since a Trump presidency became a possibility, the largest liberal media corporations – over and over – have used their vast resources to target and punish private citizens for the wrong politics.

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The Azov Battalion is based in Mariupol.

The Population of Mariupol which is part of Donbass is predominantly Russian.

***

This article is written by an independent reporter embedded in Ukraine with the Russian army.

We believe that if people want to understand the war in Ukraine, they need to read widely about it, from different perspectives, including the Russian one, to try and discern the truth about what is going on for themselves. CAM Editors

 

Residents of Mariupol receiving humanitarian aid from the Russian army in collaboration with the DPR army. [Source: Photo courtesy of Sonja van den Ende]

Where shall I begin?

Can a man endure so much suffering? Can you write about so much suffering without getting emotional?

Probably not.

Mariupol has been wiped out, buildings have collapsed mostly due to rocket attacks and, of course, there have been bombings as well.

Video shows utter devastation in Mariupol, Ukraine

Devastation in Mariupol. [Source: rferl.org]

The Western media, of course, blame the Russians for these bombings, but Ukraine also has planes that drop bombs, so how on earth can you say a few thousand kilometers away that it is the Russians?

It is not like in the West where, when there was a terrorist attack, the perpetrators left their passports or IDs.

This is a war of destruction that I have seen before—in Syria, in Homs. Perhaps also like in Dresden, toward the end of WWII, although, of course, Dresden I cannot verify.

A picture containing outdoor, sky, tree, city Description automatically generated

Homs, Syria. [Source: theatlantic.com]

The West has turned it into a propaganda war. All the while it sponsors the Ukrainian army and its neo-Nazi battalions and has completely lost sight of what this is really about.

For years the media ignored the Ukrainian army assaults on the people of Eastern Ukraine, who were forced to survive in underground bunkers.

They act as if the war started in February, when it actually started in 2014 as a war by the Ukrainian government against its own people.

Eight years of destroyed villages and towns—why? Because eastern Ukraine is inhabited by a predominantly Russian-speaking population, who grew up in the Soviet system.

After the 2014 Maidan coup backed by the U.S., they were supposed to become part of the EU and the pro-European “puppet” government in Kyiv. All their values, norms, culture and language had to be thrown overboard.

In order to achieve these ends, first President Petro Poroshenko and then Zelensky, have carried out “special operations” which they called “fighting terrorists.”

Imaginary threat: in the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine accused Russia of preparing a "full-scale military aggression" - Teller Report

U.S. puppets Petro Poroshenko and Volodymyr Zelensky don their war gear. [Source: tellerreport.com]

The Ukrainians started bombing the Donetsk airport and then carried out attacks on the civilian population.

A picture containing sky, outdoor, snow, plane Description automatically generated

Ruins from Donetsk airport after Ukrainian bombing (Feb, 2015). [Source: channel4.com]

When this did not go as planned, they recruited and made the Azov Battalion and other right-wing groups part of the regular army.

These battalions are indeed neo-Nazis, from father to son they are indoctrinated with the Nazi ideology of the Stepan Bandera cult.

There's One Far-Right Movement That Hates the Kremlin – Foreign Policy

Azov Battalion at ceremony in Kyiv in October 2018. [Source: foreignpolicy.com]

You can compare them to jihadists of ISIS (DAESH), ideologically indoctrinated and fighting on speed or other drugs so, as many witnesses say, they kill civilians randomly.

This is exactly the same script that happened in Syria, where jihadists even cut out the hearts of the Syrian Army soldiers and hung their chopped heads on poles.

Destroyed flat, shelled by the Ukrainian Army and the Azov Battalion. [Source: Photo courtesy of Sonja van den Ende]

A man looking for water, worth more than gold. [Source: Photo courtesy of Sonja van den Ende]

A destroyed shopping mall in the city center [Source: Photo courtesy of Sonja van den Ende]

People walking through the destroyed city, looking for food, water and their relatives who might be dead or lost. [Source: Photo courtesy of Sonja van den Ende]

People are waiting for food and water, delivered by the Russians. [Source: Photo courtesy of Sonja van den Ende]

Children and grandmother waiting. [Source: Photo courtesy of Sonja van den Ende]

The “bombed” city theater

On March 16, 2022, the Donetsk Regional Drama Theater in Mariupol, Ukraine, was allegedly bombed. It was reportedly used as an air raid shelter during the siege of Mariupol, allegedly holding 1,300 civilians in the days before March 16, and at least 300 victims might have been killed.

According to Western media, the theater was bombed by the Russian forces. According to the Russian spokesman and many eyewitness accounts, who lived near the theater, they did not hear any bombardment in their neighborhood and the theater.

Satellite Images Show Destruction of Mariupol Theater Bombed by Russia

Mariupol theater. [Source: businessinsider.com]

So, again, the Western media appear to be lying—blaming Russia for every atrocity in the war without proof, while failing to give any context for how the war started and who is responsible.

The goal is clearly to mobilize public opinion against Russia in support of regime change or even a full-scale war against them.

The partly destroyed theater in Mariupol, not bombed as you can see, but imploded inside from the basement. [Source: Photo courtesy of Sonja van den Ende]

I was given a completely different story about the Mariupol theater “bombing” from a Russian army spokesman whom I interviewed. He said the following:

“According to eyewitnesses, there were about 300 people in the theater, but this cannot be verified, the Ukrainian army and battalions did not keep records of the attendance, so it could be more or less people. The cellars were used as bomb shelters for rocket attacks and bombs. On the day of the destruction, March 16, 2022, according to eyewitnesses, there were no bombings, but heavy rocket attacks. Ammunition and explosives from the Ukrainian army and its battalions were stored in the cellars. The Ukrainian army and battalions heard that the Russians were coming and detonated the explosives in the shelters, where many people still took refuge from the ongoing fighting. This is not new for the Ukrainians to perform such deeds, especially the AZOV battalion, who, just like in Syria at the time of the war, the jihadists were high on drugs, Captagon and speed, which explains their brutality and violent reaction. Same as for these neo-Nazi fighters who are highly infiltrated in the Ukrainian army.”

Inside the theater are photos of previous performances. [Source: Photo courtesy of Sonja van den Ende]

Inside the theater. [Source: Photo courtesy of Sonja van den Ende]

The place where the explosion took place, in the middle of the theater. [Source: Photo courtesy of Sonja van den Ende]

The media in the West, in conjunction with politicians, sell stories to the public, at least half of which I dare to say are fabricated or used from other conflicts.

Mariupol is destroyed and most likely more than half of its inhabitants fled the city, either to the West, to Russia or surrounding villages and towns. Nobody knows at the moment. People are afraid and searching for their relatives, who might have been killed.

As I said earlier, food and water and other humanitarian help is distributed on a daily basis by the Russian army—every day in a different place because, when the Ukrainian army and its Nazi battalions know the place, they will try to shell it and kill the people.

It will take a while before the city can be rebuilt. Maybe, the Azov steel factory has to be taken, the last stronghold of the Azov Battalion, the Russian army is fighting a heavy battle there.

bne IntelliNews - VIDEO: Destruction of steel factory in Mariupol

Mariupol steel factory. [Source: intellinews.com]

Everyone is anxiously waiting to see if the NATO command center, which is most likely under the factory, is being dismantled. Whether a biological (one of many) laboratory is really located under the AZOV steel factory, we will soon see. I will definitely report on it again.

Inside the city near the theater. [Source: Photo courtesy of Sonja van den Ende]

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Sonja is a freelance journalist from the Netherlands who has written about Syria, the Middle East, and Russia among other topics. Sonja can be reached at: [email protected].

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First published in November 2021.

***

 

 

 

 

 

Nearly as suspenseful as the Taliban’s meteoric return to power after the final withdrawal of American armed forces from Afghanistan is the uncertainty over what will come next amid the fallout. Many have predicted that Russia and China will step in to fill the power vacuum and convince the facelift Taliban to negotiate a power-sharing agreement in exchange for political and economic support, while others fear a descent into civil war is inevitable.

Although Moscow and Beijing potentially stand to gain from the humiliating U.S. retreat by pushing for an inclusive government in Kabul, the rebranded Pashtun-based group must first be removed as a designated terrorist organization. Neither wants to see Afghanistan worsen as a hotbed of jihad, as Islamist separatism already previously plagued Russia in the Caucasus and China is still in the midst of an ongoing ethnic conflict in Xinjiang with Uyghur Muslim secessionists and the Al Qaeda-linked Turkestan Islamic Party.

At this point everyone recognizes the more serious extremist threat lies not with the Taliban but the emergence of ISIS Khorasan or ISIS-K, the Islamic State affiliate blamed for several recent terror attacks including the August 26th bombings at Hamid Karzai International Airport in the Afghan capital which killed 13 American service members and more than a 100 Afghans during the U.S. drawdown.

Three days later, American commanders ordered a retaliatory drone strike targeting a vehicle which they claimed was en route to detonate a suicide bomb at the same Kabul airport. For several days, the Pentagon falsely maintained that the aerial assault successfully took out two ISIS-K militants and a servile corporate media parroted these assertions unquestioningly, including concocting a totally fictitious report that the blast consisted of “secondary explosions” from devices already inside the car intended for use in an act of terror. Two weeks later, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) was forced to apologize and admit the strike was indeed a “tragic mistake” which errantly killed ten innocent civilians — all of whom were members of a single family including seven children — while no Daesh members were among the dead. This distortion circulated in collusion between the endless war machine and the media is perhaps only eclipsed by the alleged Russian-Taliban bounty program story in its deceitfulness.

If any Americans were aware of ISIS-K prior to the botched Kabul airstrike, they likely recall when former U.S. President Donald Trump authorized the unprecedented use of a Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb, informally referred to as the “Mother Of All Bombs”, on Islamic State militants in Nangarhar Province back in 2017.

Reportedly, Biden’s predecessor had to be shown photos from the 1970s of Afghan girls wearing miniskirts by his National Security Advisor, H.R. McMaster, to renege on his campaign pledge of ending the longest war in U.S. history. As it happens, the ISIS Khorasan fighters extinguished by the MOAB were sheltered at an underground tunnel complex near the Pakistani border that was built by the C.I.A. back in the 1980s during the Afghan-Soviet war. Alas, the irony of this detail was completely lost on mainstream media whose proclivity to treat Pentagon newspeak as gospel has been characteristic of not only the last twenty years of U.S. occupation but four decades of American involvement in Afghanistan since Operation Cyclone, the covert Central Intelligence Agency plan to arm and fund the mujahideen, was launched in 1979.

Frank Wisner, the C.I.A. official who established Operation Mockingbird, the agency’s extensive clandestine program to infiltrate the news media for propaganda purposes during the the Cold War, referred to the press as it’s “Mighty Wurlitzer”, or a musical instrument played to manipulate public opinion. Langley’s recruitment of assets within the fourth estate was one of many illicit activities by the national security apparatus divulged in the limited hangout of the Church Committee during the 1970s, along with C.I.A. complicity in coups, assassinations, illegal surveillance, and drug-induced brainwashing of unwitting citizens.

At bottom, it wasn’t just the minds of human guinea pigs that ‘The Company’ sought to control but the news coverage consumed by Americans as well. In his testimony before a congressional select committee, Director of Central Intelligence William Colby openly acknowledged the use of spooks in journalism, as seen in the award-winning documentary Inside the C.I.A.: On Company Business (1980). Unfortunately, the breadth of the secret project and its vetting of journalists wasn’t fully revealed until an article by Carl Bernstein of Watergate fame appeared in Rolling Stone magazine, whereas the series of official investigations only ended up salvaging the deep state by presenting such wrongdoings as rogue “abuses” rather than an intrinsic part of espionage in carrying out U.S. foreign policy.

The corrupt institution of Western media also punishes anyone within its ranks who dares to swim against the current. The husband and wife duo of Paul Fitzgerald and Elizabeth Gould, authors of a new memoir which illuminates the real story of Afghanistan, were two such journalists who learned just how the sausage is made in the nation’s capital with the connivance of the yellow press.

Both veterans of the peace movement, Paul and Liz were initially among those who naively believed that America’s humiliation in Vietnam and the well-publicized hearings which discredited the intelligence community might lead to a sea change in Washington with the election of Jimmy Carter in 1976. In hindsight, there was actually good reason for optimism regarding the prospect for world peace in light of the arms reduction treaties and talks between the U.S. and Moscow during the Nixon and Ford administrations, a silver lining to Henry Kissinger’s ‘realist’ doctrine of statecraft. However, any glimmer of hope in easing strained relations between the West and the Soviet Union was short-lived, as the few voices of reason inside the Beltway presuming good faith on the part of Moscow toward détente and nuclear proliferation were soon challenged by a new bellicose faction of D.C. think tank ghouls who argued that diplomacy jeopardized America’s strategic position and that the USSR sought global dominion.

Since intelligence assessments inconveniently contradicted the claims of Soviet aspirations for strategic superiority, C.I.A. Director George H.W. Bush consulted the purported expertise of a competitive group of intellectual warmongers known as ‘Team B’ which featured many of the same names later synonymous with the neoconservative movement, including Richard Pipes, Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle. Bush, Sr. had replaced the aforementioned Bill Colby following the notorious “Halloween Massacre” firings in the Gerald Ford White House, a political shakeup which also included Kissinger’s ouster as National Security Advisor and the promotion of a young Donald Rumsfeld to Secretary of Defense with his pupil, one Richard B. Cheney, named Chief of Staff. This proto-neocon soft coup allowed Team B and its manipulated estimates of the Soviet nuclear arsenal to undermine the ongoing Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) between Washington and the Kremlin until Jimmy Carter and Leonid Brezhnev finally signed a second comprehensive non-proliferation treaty in June 1979.

The behind-the-scenes split within the foreign policy establishment over which dogma would set external policymaking continued wrestling for power before the unipolarity of Team B prevailed thanks to the machinations of Carter’s National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski. If intel appraisals of Moscow’s intentions and military capabilities didn’t match the Team B thesis, the Polish-American strategist devised a scheme to lure the USSR into a trap in Afghanistan to give the appearance of Soviet expansionism in order to convince Carter to withdraw from SALT II the following year and sabotage rapprochement. By the time it surfaced that the C.I.A. was supplying weapons to Islamist insurgents in the Central Asian country, the official narrative dispensed by Washington was that it was aiding the Afghan people fight back against an “invasion” by the Red Army. Ironically, this was the justification for a proxy conflict which resulted in the deaths of at least 2 million civilians and eventually collapsed the socialist government in Kabul, setting off a bloody civil war and the emergence of the Taliban.

Even so, it was the media which helped manage the perception that the C.I.A.’s covert war began only after the Soviets had intervened. Meanwhile, the few honest reporters who tried to unveil the truth about what was happening were silenced and relegated to the periphery. Paul Fitzgerald and Elizabeth Gould were the first two American journalists permitted entry into the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan in 1981 by the Moscow-friendly government since Western correspondents had been barred from the country. What they witnessed firsthand on the ground could not have contrasted more sharply from the accepted tale of freedom fighters resisting a communist “occupation” disseminated by propaganda rags. Instead, what they discovered was an army of feudal tribesman and fanatical jihadists who blew up schools and doused women with acid as they waged a holy war against an autonomous, albeit flawed, progressive government in Kabul enacting land reforms and providing education for girls. In addition, they learned the Soviet military presence was being deliberately exaggerated by major outlets who either outright censored or selectively edited their exclusive accounts, beginning with CBS Evening News and later ABC’s Nightline.

Not long after the Taliban established an Islamic emirate for the first time in the late 1990s, Brzezinski himself would shamelessly boast that Operation Cyclone had actually started in mid-1979 nearly six months prior to the deployment of Soviet troops later that year. Fresh off the publication of his book The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives, the Russophobic Warsaw-native told the French newspaper Le Nouvel Observateur in 1998:

“Question: The former director of the CIA, Robert Gates, stated in his memoirs that the American intelligence services began to aid the Mujaheddin in Afghanistan six months before the Soviet intervention. Is this period, you were the National Security Advisor to President Carter. You therefore played a key role in this affair. Is this correct?

Brzezinski: Yes. According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujaheddin began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan on December 24, 1979. But the reality, closely guarded until now, is completely otherwise: Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.

Q: Despite this risk, you were an advocate of this covert action. But perhaps you yourself desired this Soviet entry into the war and looked for a way to provoke it?

B: It wasn’t quite like that. We didn’t push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would.

Q : When the Soviets justified their intervention by asserting that they intended to fight against secret US involvement in Afghanistan , nobody believed them . However, there was an element of truth in this. You don’t regret any of this today?

B: Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter, essentially: “We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war.” Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war that was unsustainable for the regime , a conflict that bought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire.

Q: And neither do you regret having supported Islamic fundamentalism, which has given arms and advice to future terrorists?

B : What is more important in world history? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some agitated Muslims or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the Cold War?”

If this stunning admission straight from the horse’s mouth is too candid to believe, Fitzgerald and Gould obtain confirmation of Brzezinski’s Machiavellian confession from one of their own skeptics. Never mind that Moscow’s help had been requested by the legitimate Afghan government to defend itself against the U.S. dirty war, a harbinger of the Syrian conflict more than three decades later when Damascus appealed to Russia in 2015 for military aid to combat Western-backed “rebel” groups. Paul and Liz also uncover C.I.A. fingerprints all over the suspicious February 1979 assassination of Adolph Dubs, the American Ambassador to Afghanistan, whose negotiation attempts may have inadvertently thrown a wrench into Brzezinski’s ploy to draw the USSR into a quagmire. Spurring Carter to give his foreign policy tutor the green light to finance the Islamist proxies, the timely kidnapping and murder of the U.S. diplomat at a Kabul hotel would be pinned on the KGB and the rest was history. The journo couple even go as far as to imply the branch of Western intelligence likely responsible for his murder was an agent from the Safari Club, an unofficial network between the security services of a select group of European and Middle Eastern countries which carried out covert operations during the Cold War across several continents with ties to the worldwide drug trade and Brzezinski.

Although he was considered to be of the ‘realist’ school of international relations like Kissinger, Brzezinski’s plot to engineer a Russian equivalent of Vietnam in Afghanistan increased the clout of neoconservatism in Washington, a persuasion that would later reach its peak of influence in the George W. Bush administration. In retrospect, the need for a massive military buildup to achieve Pax Americana promoted by the war hawks in Team B was a precursor to the influential “Rebuilding America’s Defenses” manifesto by the Project for the New American Century cabal preceding 9/11 and the ensuing U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. Fitzgerald and Gould also historically trace the ideological roots of neoconservatism to its intellectual foundations in the American Trotskyist movement during the 1930s. If a deviated branch of Marxism seems like an unlikely origin source for the right-wing interventionist foreign policy of the Bush administration, its basis is not as unexpected as it may appear. In fact, one of the main reasons behind the division between the Fourth International and the Comintern was over the national question, since Trotsky’s theory of “permanent revolution” called for expansion to impose global revolution unlike Stalin’s “socialism in one country” position which respected the sovereignty and self-determination of nation states while still giving support to national liberation movements.

The authors conclude by highlighting how the military overhaul successfully championed by the neoconservatives marked the beginning of the end for U.S. infrastructure maintenance as well. With public attention currently focused on the pending Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act to repair decaying industry at home just as the disastrous Afghan pullout has put President Joe Biden’s favorability at an all-time low, Fitzgerald and Gould truly connect all the dots between the decline of America as a superpower with Brzezinski and Team B. Even recent statements by Jimmy Carter himself were tantamount when he spoke with Trump about China’s economic success which he attributed to Beijing’s lack of wasteful spending on military adventures, an incredible irony given the groundwork for the defense budget escalation begun under Ronald Reagan was laid by Carter’s own foreign policy. Looking back, the spousal team note that the ex-Georgia governor did not need much coaxing after all to betray his promises as a candidate, considering his rise to the presidency was facilitated by his membership alongside Brzezinski in the Trilateral Commission, an elite Rockefeller-funded think tank. What is certain is that Paul and Liz have written an indispensable book that gives a level of insight into the Afghan story only attainable from their four decades of scholarly work on the subject. The Valediction: Three Nights of Desmond is now available from Trine Day Press and the timing of its release could not offer better context to recent world events.

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Max Parry is an independent journalist and geopolitical analyst. His writing has appeared widely in alternative media. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research. Max may be reached at [email protected].

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

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First published on January 27, 2022. Included as a Chapter in Michel Chossudovsky’s E-book entitled

The 2020-21 Worldwide Corona Crisis: Destroying Civil Society, Engineered Economic Depression, Global Coup d’État and the “Great Reset”

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What is presented in this article is a preliminary draft: suggested concepts and ideas pertaining to the formulation of a Worldwide People’s Movement.  

***

The Storming of the Bastille occurred in Paris on the afternoon of July 14, 1789. The Bastille was a medieval armory, fortress, and political prison. It was the symbol of Royal Authority under the reign of King Louis XVI. 

The French monarchy was obliged to accept the authority of the newly proclaimed National Assembly as well endorse the Fundamental Rights contained in the “Declaration des Droits de l’Homme et du Citoyen” (Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen), formulated in early August 1789.   

More than 230 years later, these Fundamental Rights (Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité) are now being contravened by corrupt  governments around the World on behalf of a totalitarian and illusive financial establishment.

Bastille 2022

Bastille 2022 pertains not only to the restoration of these fundamental rights. It seeks to reverse and disable the criminal COVID-19 agenda which in the course of the last two years has triggered economic, social and political chaos Worldwide in 193 member states of the United Nations, coupled with bankruptcies, unemployment, mass poverty and despair. Famines have been reported in 25 countries. 

Starting in November 2020, an experimental mRNA vaccine launched by our governments (allegedly with a view to combating the spread of the virus) has resulted in an ascending Worldwide trend of vaccine related deaths and injuries. It’s a killer vaccine. It’s a crime against humanity. 

Bastille 2022 is not a “protest” movement narrowly defined.

We do not seek to negotiate with corrupt government officials. We question their legitimacy. They are liars.

Our intent is to confront the powerful actors behind this criminal endeavor which is literally destroying people’s lives Worldwide, while creating divisions within society. The impacts on mental health on population groups Worldwide are devastating.  

The numerous lockdowns (stay at home of the work force), fear campaigns, COVID-19 policy mandates imposed on 193 member states of the United Nations have also contributed to undermining and destabilizing:

  1. The very fabric of civil society and its institutions including education, culture and the arts, social gatherings, sports, entertainment, etc. 
  2. All public sector activities including physical and social infrastructure, social services, law enforcement, etc.
  3. All major private sector activities which characterize national, regional and local economies including small, medium and large corporate enterprises, family farms, industry, wholesale and retail trade, the urban services economy, transport companies, airlines, hotel chains, etc.
  4. The structures of the global economy including international commodity trade, investment, import and export relations between countries, etc. The entire landscape of the global economy has been shattered. 

In turn, a process of enrichment by the elite billionaires together with widening social inequalities has unfolded. The massive debts incurred by the Nation-State resulting from corruption as well fiscal collapse have skyrocketed. Increasingly national governments are in a straitjacket, under the brunt of powerful creditor institutions. Mounting debts at all levels of society are the driving force. 

The Creation of a Mass Movement 

What is at stake is the creation of a mass movement (Nationally and Worldwide) which questions the legitimacy and authority of the architects of this insidious project which broadly speaking emanates from: Big Money, Big Pharma, the Information Technology Conglomerates, the Security Apparatus, Intelligence, the Military Industrial Complex, Big Energy, the Corporate Media.

Ironically, the architects of the COVID-19 “pandemic” are now actively involved in formulating the “Solution”. The World Economic Forum’s Great Reset consists in installing a Worldwide totalitarian regime. What is contemplated is a system of “Global Governance”.

A 190+ UN member nation states are slated to be weakened and undermined. They are under the grip of the most serious debt crisis in World history. Under the Great Reset, the institutions of parliamentary democracy and the Welfare State are to be replaced by an unelected “public-private partnership” dominated by the upper echelons of the financial establishment. In the words of the late David Rockefeller:

“…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 Global Governance scenario imposes an agenda of social engineering and economic compliance:

It constitutes an extension of the neoliberal policy framework imposed on both developing and developed countries. It consists in scrapping “national auto-determination” and constructing a Worldwide nexus of proxy regimes controlled by a “supranational sovereignty” (World Government) composed of leading financial institutions, billionaires and their philanthropic foundations. (See Michel Chossudovsky E-book, Chapter XIII)

Restoring Real Democracy

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”.

The Art of Deception

We must nonetheless understand the limitations of conducting effective judicial procedures against national governments. The judges are often pressured, threatened and corrupt, aligned with both dominant financial interests and politicians.

Moreover, inasmuch as this insidious project is enforced by national governments Worldwide, the International Criminal Court (ICC) which is officially “independent” in regards to the UN Security Council, has a longstanding record of side-stepping US-NATO war crimes. The ICC is controlled by the same financial elites which control the governments.

We must also understand the complexities of  this carefully designed and coordinated totalitarian project, namely the role of various fraudulent financial institutions, corporate advisory and lobby groups, consultants, “scientific advisors’, etc. acting as intermediaries on behalf of Big Pharma and the financial elites. 

There is a hierarchy in the structures of authority. This complex and intricate decision making process is used to co-opt, bribe and manipulate government officials. Almost identical policy mandates (emanating from higher authority) are implemented simultaneously in numerous countries, requiring active coordination.   The same powerful lobby firms are acting at one and the same time in different countries (e.g. in North America and the European Union).

An extensive multi-billion dollar budget has been allocated to the implementation Worldwide of COVID-19 policy mandates. The latter have been conducive to the destabilization of civil society and its institutions including the disruption of health services, education, sports, cultural activities, etc.

The legitimacy of politicians and their powerful Big Money sponsors must be challenged, including the police state measures adopted to enforce the imposition of a digital vaccine passport as well as the wearing of the face mask, social distancing, etc.

What are our Priorities? Counter Propaganda 

More than 7 billion people Worldwide are directly or indirectly affected by the corona crisis. Several billion people have already been vaccinated by an “unapproved” experimental mRNA “vaccine”, which has resulted in a Worldwide wave of mortality and morbidity.

While this tendency is confirmed by official figures pertaining to vaccine-related deaths and adverse events, the mainstream media and the governments are in a state of denial.

The devastating health impacts of the COVID-19 vaccine are rarely acknowledged. It’s the same catch phrase (which is an outright lie) repeated ad nauseam: “the virus is far more dangerous than the vaccine”.

“we actually have more safety data on the vaccine than the virus, and already see that the virus is far more dangerous than the vaccine. (Intercare)

Dr. Alan Schroeder thinks it’s very natural for parents to worry, but said for teens, the virus is more dangerous than the vaccine. (NBC)

Doctors are on the lookout for it in children, but the bottom line remains that the virus is far more dangerous than the vaccine.

“The mutations in the omicron variant make it [the virus] more prolific, dangerous, and elusive

etc.

This propaganda consensus must be broken. With regard to the vaccine, informing people across the land regarding the data on deaths and adverse events is the first step.

The COVID Crisis initiated in January 2020 is unprecedented in World History. Propaganda under Nuremberg is a Crime.

Dismantling the propaganda apparatus is crucial.  Counter-propaganda plays a key role in revealing the lies used to justify the policy mandates.

Without persistent media disinformation, the official COVID narrative falls flat.

First and foremost we must forcefully challenge the mainstream media, without specifically targeting mainstream journalists, who have been instructed to abide by the official narrative. We should in this regard favor dialogue with individual (independent) journalists.

We must ensure that people Worldwide achieve an understanding of the history and devastating impacts of the COVID crisis supported by scientific concepts, analysis, testimonies and data.  This endeavor will require a parallel process at the grassroots level, of sensitizing fellow citizens and establishing dialogue on the nature of  the alleged pandemic, the mRNA vaccine, the RT-PCR test, as well as the devastating economic and social impacts of the lockdowns.

While we must put an end to the fear campaign, we must nonetheless inform our fellow citizens regarding the dangers of the mRNA vaccine as well as the engineered chaos of this totalitarian agenda of “global governance” on the very structures of civil society.

The “fear campaign” is to be replaced by  “information, concepts, analysis and data” as well as “strategies” to confront Big Pharma, corrupt officials in high office as well as their Big Money sponsors.

We must also ensure the conduct of dialogue and debate at the grassroots of society.

Putting an End to The “Killer Vaccine”

Our first task is to immediately halt and cancel the so-called COVID-19 “vaccine” which has triggered a wave of mortality and morbidity Worldwide. 

According to Dr. Thomas Binder

“The gene injections are unsafe. They can cause anaphylactic reactions, thromboembolism, thrombocytopenia, disseminated intravascular coagulation, and myocarditis in the short term.

There is possible immunosuppression and antibody-dependent enhancement, ADE, in the medium-term.

And in the long term there are possible autoimmune diseases, cancer and infertility, risks that have not been ruled out yet.”

According to Doctors for COVID Ethics, in the EU, UK and US the data respectively tabulated by EudraVigilance, MHRA (UK) and VAERS (US):

“have now recorded many more deaths and injuries from the COVID-19 “vaccine” roll-out than from all previous vaccines combined since records began”

With regard to the mRNA “vaccine”, the catastrophic number of injection related deaths has NOT been reported by the mainstream media, despite the official figures being publicly available.

“The signal of harm is now indisputably overwhelming, and, in line with universally accepted ethical standards for clinical trials, we demand that the COVID-19 “vaccination” programme be halted immediately worldwide.

Continuation of the programme, in the full knowledge of ongoing serious harm and death to both adults and children, constitutes Crimes Against Humanity/Genocide, for which those found to be responsible or complicit will ultimately be held personally liable”

 

Video: The COVID-19 vaccine was launched in mid to late December 2020. 

In many countries, there was a significant shift in mortality following the introduction of the mRNA vaccine

The Pfizer Confidential Report

It is worth noting that a Confidential Pfizer Report released as part of a Freedom of Information (FOI) procedure provides data on deaths and adverse events recorded by Pfizer from the outset of the vaccine project in December 2020 to the end of February 2021, namely a very short period (at most two and a half months):  

In a twisted irony, the data revealed in this “insider report” refutes the official vaccine narrative peddled by the governments and the WHO. It also confirms the analysis of numerous medical doctors and scientists who have revealed the devastating consequences of the mRNA “vaccine”.

What is contained in  Pfizer’s “confidential” report is detailed evidence on the impacts of the “vaccine” on mortality and morbidity. This data which emanates from the “Horse’s Mouth” can now be used to confront as well formulate legal procedures against Big Pharma, the governments, the WHO and the media.

In a Court of Law, the evidence contained in this Big Pharma confidential report (coupled with the data on deaths and adverse events compiled by the national authorities in the EU, UK and US) is irrefutable: because it is their data and their estimates and not ours. (Analysis  of Pfizer Confidential Report)

It is an admission on the part of both the governments and Big Pharma that the COVID-19 vaccine is a criminal undertaking “Pfizer knew from the outset that it was a killer vaccine. No attempt has been made by the governments to call for the withdrawal of the killer vaccine.”

It is with noting that Pfizer has a criminal record (2009) with the US  Department of Justice on charges of “fraudulent marketing”.

 

As part of the 2009 DoJ settlement, Pfizer was put on parole:

“Pfizer also has agreed to enter into an expansive corporate integrity agreement … [which] provides for procedures and reviews to be put in place to avoid and promptly detect conduct similar to that which gave rise to this matter.”

But we are no longer dealing with “fraudulent marketing”:

“Killing is Good for Business”: The vaccine is a multibillion dollar operation worldwide. It’s manslaughter.

Once the “vaccine” has been halted, the criminality of Big Pharma will be fully revealed and understood. In turn, the legitimacy of the official COVID narrative based on lies and fake science will inevitably be impaired. This is the first step towards breaking the “official” COVID narrative. 

The Truth is an important peaceful weapon. Without propaganda and media disinformation, the architects of this project do not have a leg to stand on.

Let us break the “official” COVID-19 consensus and the propaganda apparatus which provides “legitimacy” to a criminal agenda.

Once it collapses, it will open up the road towards reversing the broader process of economic, social and political chaos generated in the course of the last two years.

The Geopolitical Dimension

What is unfolding is a new and destructive phase of US imperialism. It’s a totalitarian project of economic and social engineering. 

The Biden administration has endorsed the COVID Agenda, which has been used to destabilize and weaken national economies including those of “enemy nations”.

We cannot divorce our understanding of the COVID Crisis from that of US foreign policy and America’s hegemonic agenda: e.g.  US-NATO confrontation with Russia in Eastern Europe, the militarization of the South China Sea directed against China, Iran and the geopolitics of the Middle East, the ongoing sanctions regimes against Venezuela and Cuba, etc.

“Big Money including the billionaire foundations are the driving force. It’s a complex alliance of  Wall Street and the Banking establishment, The Big Oil and Energy Conglomerates, the so-called “Defense Contractors”, Big Pharma, the Biotech Conglomerates, the Corporate Media, the Telecom, Communications and Digital Technology Giants, together with a network of think tanks, lobby groups, research labs, etc. The ownership of intellectual property  also plays a central role.

This powerful digital-financial decision-making network also involves major creditor and banking institutions: The Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank (ECB), the IMF, the World Bank, the regional development banks, and the Basel based Bank for International Settlements (BIS), which plays a key strategic role.

In turn, the upper echelons of the US State apparatus (and Washington’s Western Allies) are directly or indirectly involved, including the  Pentagon, US Intelligence (and its research labs), the Health authorities, Homeland Security and the US State Department (including US embassies in over 150 countries).” (Michel Chossudovsky, E-book, Chapter XIII)

Integrating All Sectors of Society

It should be noted that organized opposition in many Western countries is weak. Why? Because “progressive forces” including left intellectuals, NGO leaders, trade union and labor leaders both in Western Europe and North America have  from the outset endorsed the official COVID narrative. Many of these progressive movements are supported by corporate foundations. 

The same billionaire foundations (Rockefeller, Ford, Gates, et al) which are the unspoken architects of the “Great Reset” and “Global Governance” are also involved in (generously) financing various social movements. “They control the opposition”.  

What this means is that  grassroots activists are often misled and betrayed by their leaders who are routinely coopted by their billionaire sponsors.

It is essential that these grassroots activists be integrated into the mainstay of the movement against the COVID-19 consensus.

The Road Ahead

What is required is the development of a broad based grassroots network which confronts both the architects of this crisis all well as all levels of government (i.e. national, states, provinces, municipalities, etc.) involved in imposing the vaccine as well carrying out the lockdown and closure of economic activity.

This network would be established (nationally and internationally) at all levels of society, in towns and villages, work places, parishes. Trade unions, farmers organizations, professional associations, business associations, student unions, veterans associations. Church groups would be called upon to integrate this movement.

“Spreading the word” through social media and independent online media outlets will be undertaken bearing in mind that Google as well as Facebook are instruments of censorship.

Legal procedures and protests are unfolding in all major regions of the World. As part of a Worldwide network of initiatives, it is important to establish mechanisms of communication, dialogue and exchange within and between countries. 

The creation of such a movement, which forcefully challenges the legitimacy of the financial elites, Big Pharma, et al., as well as the structures of political authority at the national level, is no easy task. It will require a degree of solidarity, unity and commitment unparalleled in World history.

What is required is the breaking down of political and ideological barriers within society (i.e. between political parties) and acting with a single voice towards Building a Worldwide Consensus against Tyranny. 

Worldwide Solidarity and Human Dignity is the Driving Force.

***

See Michel Chossudovsky’s E-Book (13 Chapters) entitled

The 2020-21 Worldwide Corona Crisis: Destroying Civil Society, Engineered Economic Depression, Global Coup d’État and the “Great Reset”

About the Author

Michel Chossudovsky is an award-winning author, Professor of Economics (emeritus) at the University of Ottawa, Founder and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), Montreal, Editor of Global Research.

He has undertaken field research in Latin America, Asia, the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa and the Pacific and has written extensively on the economies of developing countries with a focus on poverty and social inequality. He has also undertaken research in Health Economics (UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC),  UNFPA, CIDA, WHO, Government of Venezuela, John Hopkins International Journal of Health Services (1979, 1983)

He is the author of 13 books including The Globalization of Poverty and The New World Order (2003), America’s “War on Terrorism” (2005),  The Globalization of War, America’s Long War against Humanity (2015).

He is a contributor to the Encyclopaedia Britannica.  His writings have been published in more than twenty languages. In 2014, he was awarded the Gold Medal for Merit of the Republic of Serbia for his writings on NATO’s war of aggression against Yugoslavia. He can be reached at [email protected]

See Michel Chossudovsky, Biographical Note

Michel Chossudovsky’s Articles on 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).

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Since the Russian military operation to de-Nazify and de-militarize Ukraine began in late February, there is a common misperception that the Western left is “split” over the conflict in its response.

Indeed, it is true there has been infighting within organizations such as the U.S.-based Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) between its “International Committee”—whose official statement rightly faulted NATO enlargement for “setting the stage” for Russia’s actions in Ukraine—and local branches of the group which released their own takes distancing themselves from the former.

Similar sectarian splinters have occurred among the U.S. Green Party over the issue with the Howie Hawkins-led wing on one side endorsing sending lethal aid to Ukraine and its peace action committee on the other.

However, all of them fell in line behind the corporate media in characterizing the Russo-Ukrainian conflict as an “invasion” by Moscow to be condemned. For what the late Edward S. Herman called the “cruise missile Left,” the 14,000 ethnic Russians killed in Donbass by the Ukrainian army since 2014 are “unworthy victims,” as Herman and Noam Chomsky defined the notion in Manufacturing Consent. With a few notable exceptions, the vast majority of the so-called left wing in the United States and Western Europe have gotten Ukraine totally wrong.

Matt Taibbi on the Death of Edward Herman - Rolling Stone

Edward S. Herman, co-author of Manufacturing Consent. [Source: rollingstone.com]

International relations scholar John Mearsheimer warned for years that NATO expansion threatened Moscow’s legitimate security interests and would likely lead to a hot war in Ukraine. Then again, Joe Biden himself acknowledged as much as a senator back in 1997.

Now that the U.S. president has openly called for regime change in Moscow, one wonders what new excuses NATO apologists will invent to maintain that the eastward encroachment on Russia’s borders is benevolent. Still, the source of the widespread misunderstanding today can be traced much further back in history—long before the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the reunification of Germany.

In the lead-up to the escalation of hostilities, many on the Left made reference to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s speech formally recognizing the Novorussian republics. They pointed to Putin’s blaming the Soviet policy on the Ukrainian national question for the current crisis as evidence that the Russian head of state is a reactionary and, therefore, Moscow’s actions unjust.

A recent article in Jacobin magazine, the unofficial flagship publication of the Harringtonite reformist tendency in the U.S. [Michael Harrington was a social democrat who was anti-communist], continued this line of thought by distorting early Soviet history. In particular, the modestly self-professed “leading voice of the American left” sought to historically sever the ancestral relations between Russified communists in Donbass over a century ago from the latter-day militants in the Eastern Ukrainian republics.

Never mind that it was the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, the largest political opposition to Putin, which first proposed to the State Duma back in January that the Kremlin should recognize the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics.

Russian parliament approves legislation that allows regular people to be designated 'foreign agents' | Euronews

Russian Parliament in process of voting to approve recognition of Luhansk and Donetsk Republics—something first proposed by the Russian communists. [Source: euronews.com]

It is impossible to understand the struggle between the two countries and the Left’s misapprehension without putting it in the context of the former Soviet Union and its demise. Leaving aside his own politics, Putin’s assertion that the Bolsheviks carved up territory of the former Russian Empire to form a Ukrainian state is a historical fact.

That this controversial decision determined the course of the next century of events from the Second World War through Ukraine’s independence to the current flare-up is also valid.

To its credit, one of the legacies of the USSR and its ethnic federalism was that it greatly reduced the frequently violent conflicts between the more than 120 different oppressed nationalities of the old Tsarist autocracy. With that being said, it would be a disservice to the socialist movement in failing to recognize that mistakes were made by the Soviet leadership over the national question. More importantly, what many self-described leftists would like us to forget is that there were other prominent Marxists at the time who were at odds with Lenin over Ukraine’s right to statehood, chiefly among them Polish-German revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg.

As the Slovene provocateur Slavoj Žižek once noted, it is a “historical irony” that Ukrainian nationalists have been tearing down statues of Lenin, considering that not only did the USSR redraw Ukraine’s borders and extend its territory several times—including the mostly Russian-speaking Crimea which was transferred by Nikita Khrushchev in 1954 after nearly 200 years as Russian land—it was during the first decade of the Soviet era when Ukrainian culture, identity and language was revitalized and promoted by the state. Putin also called attention to this paradox when he mocked Kyiv’s “decommunization” laws, pointing out that, if it were not for communism, there would be no modern Ukraine.

Despite the fact that the mother tongue of most Ukrainians was Russian, the local dialect only began to be taught in schools when the Soviet education system was introduced. Having said that, the choice to establish a Ukrainian state did not come without considerable debate among the Marxist school beforehand.

Prior to the overthrow of the Romanov dynasty, there were many concerns among the Russian revolutionaries as to whether the calls for self-determination by the heterogenous demographics which composed the Tsarist Empire would make an eventual Soviet entity impossible to govern.

The Bolsheviks hoped to appease minority ethnic groups by formulating a policy which in principle offered autonomy and sovereignty but a form of national rights that did not take precedence over socialist internationalism—or as Lenin called it, a “voluntary union of nations.”

In The Socialist Revolution and the Right of Nations to Self-Determination, the Marxist revolutionary leader explained the policy of indigenization (korenizatsiya) or nativization which sought to integrate the many non-Russian nationalities into the Soviet system:

“The proletariat of the oppressing nations cannot confine itself to the general hackneyed phrases against annexations and for the equal rights of nations in general, that may be repeated by any pacifist bourgeois. The proletariat cannot evade the question that is particularly “unpleasant” for the imperialist bourgeoisie, namely, the question of the frontiers of a state that is based on national oppression. The proletariat cannot but fight against the forcible retention of the oppressed nations within the boundaries of a given state, and this is exactly what the struggle for the right of self-determination means. The proletariat must demand the right of political secession for the colonies and for the nations that “its own” nation oppresses. Unless it does this, proletarian internationalism will remain a meaningless phrase; mutual confidence and class solidarity between the workers of the oppressing and oppressed nations will be impossible.”

Soviet poster in Ukrainian on indigenization. [Source: lsvsx.livejournal.com]

Following the October Revolution, Luxemburg argued in her polemic that the right of oppressed peoples to self-determination should be on the condition that progressive orientations would be in control of the newly formed nation-states.

Lenin disagreed and upheld the position that the right to sovereignty should be unconditional, even if reactionary forces were to take power. Upon Moscow’s exit from World War I, the Baltic states gained their first period of independence and the Finnish Civil War resulted in a Red defeat.

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Vladimir Lenin, left, Rosa Luxemburg, right. [Source: links.org.au]

Meanwhile, Luxemburg’s native Poland declared its autonomous status despite opposition from her own SDKPiL (Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania) faction on the basis of a commitment to proletarian internationalism. Part of her pragmatic reasoning was that the ex-Tsarist colonies were instantly pulled into imperialist orbit once they seceded, culminating in the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War.

Her 1918 essay on The Russian Revolution is more well-known for its criticism of the one-party rule of the Bolsheviks, but its third chapter examines the nationalities question:

“The Bolsheviks are in part responsible for the fact that the military defeat was transformed into the collapse and breakdown of Russia. Moreover, the Bolsheviks themselves have, to a great extent, sharpened the objective difficulties of this situation by a slogan which they placed in the foreground of their policies: the so-called right of self-determination of peoples, or—something which was really implicit in this slogan—the disintegration of Russia… One is immediately struck with the obstinacy and rigid consistency with which Lenin and his comrades stuck to this slogan, a slogan which is in sharp contradiction to their otherwise outspoken centralism in politics as well as to the attitude they have assumed towards other democratic principles. While they showed a quite cool contempt for the Constituent Assembly, universal suffrage, freedom of press and assemblage, in short, for the whole apparatus of the basic democratic liberties of the people which, taken all together, constituted the “right of self-determination” inside Russia, they treated the right of self-determination of peoples as a jewel of democratic policy for the sake of which all practical considerations of real criticism had to be stilled.”

In retrospect, whether or not Lenin’s stance was correct and Luxemburg’s wrong is a matter of debate, though the consensus seems to be the former on the left, particularly when applied to the many anti-colonial and national liberation struggles in the global south. So too is the matter of whether Ukraine had the right to become a separate country from Russia, albeit both Eastern Slavic nations along with Belarus evolved from the medieval Kievan Rus state and they are essentially the same ethnic group. Nevertheless, what is more pertinent is that Luxemburg was ominously accurate in her assessment of the particularly dangerous character of Ukrainian nationalism. After all, Lenin died in 1924 and did not live to witness the Great Patriotic War and Ukrainian collaboration with the Axis powers.

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Ukrainians greet German soldiers in western Ukraine in 1941. [Source: wikipedia.org]

Then again, the early warning signs were all there in the many pogroms against tens of thousands of Jews, Poles and Russians by Ukrainian ultra-rightists under the leadership of Symon Petliura who tried to create a racially homogenous state during the Soviet-Ukrainian War (1917-1921).

Historically, Ukraine’s independence movement began as part of the broader extremist coalition which became European fascism and its defeat only further radicalized its exiled right-wing émigrés during the interwar period, eventually leading to the founding in Vienna of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) in 1929. A decade earlier, Luxemburg had forewarned that placation of Ukrainian ultranationalism would serve as a counterrevolutionary call to arms and fragment Ukraine:

“Ukrainian nationalism in Russia was something quite different from, let us say, Czechish, Polish or Finnish nationalism in that the former was a mere whim, a folly of a few dozen petty-bourgeois intellectuals without the slightest roots in the economic, political or psychological relationships of the country; it was without any historical tradition, since the Ukraine never formed a nation or government, was without any national culture, except for the reactionary-romantic poems of Shevschenko. It is exactly as if, one fine day, the people living in the Wasserkante should want to found a new Low-German (Plattdeutsche) nation and government! And this ridiculous pose of a few university professors and students was inflated into a political force by Lenin and his comrades through their doctrinaire agitation concerning the “right of self-determination including etc.”

Lenin remained unconvinced and proceeded with the policy. In hindsight, Luxemburg appears clairvoyant. Two decades later when Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union, many Ukrainians did not view the Wehrmacht as conquerors but liberators and more than a quarter of a million local quislings were recruited from ultranationalist organizations by the Third Reich to participate in the mass murder of Poles, Jews, Roma and other so-called undesirables.

Those same far-right terrorist forces under Stepan Bandera’s command in the OUN continued a violent insurgency against the Soviets during the Cold War with the covert support of Western intelligence agencies in Project AERODYNAMIC. Central Intelligence Agency documents verify that the CIA sponsored Ukrainian Nazi collaborators like Bandera and Mykola Lebed in order to “exploit nationalist cultural and other dissident tendencies in Ukraine” and “exploit the minority nationality question in the Soviet Union.” A declassified CIA document from 1953 states:

“The purpose of Project AERODYNAMIC is to provide for the exploitation and expansion of the anti-Soviet Ukrainian resistance for cold war and hot war purposes. Such groups as the Ukrainian Supreme Council of Liberation (UHVR) and its Ukrainian Insurgent Army (OUN), the Foreign Representation of the Ukrainian Supreme Council of Liberation (ZPUHVR) in Western Europe and the United States, and other organizations such as the OUN/B will be utilized.”

The Banderovtsi were ultimately defeated in the late 1950s but Ukraine was never truly de-Nazified, as Khrushchev made yet another disastrous blunder in allowing many Ukrainians deported during the Stalin years to repatriate while releasing others from imprisonment.

Right-wing nationalism and anti-Russian sentiment remained underground for several decades until its reappearance when the USSR dissolved and would later become one of the biggest factors in the 2004 Orange Revolution and the Maidan ten years later. [CIA agitation was also of course a factor].

Modern Ukraine itself had grown out of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Habsburg Empire, and Imperial Russia to become a multinational state with a significant minority population of Russian speakers.

When Ukraine was incorporated into the USSR, the nationality question was kept under control by the fact that Soviet citizenship was not restricted by ethnic identity and all Ukrainians were citizens of the Soviet Union.

Immediately after Kyiv declared its independence in 1991, ethno-nationalism resurfaced just as it did in nearly every ex-communist country in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, from the breakup of the former Yugoslavia to more than three decades of frozen conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh.

Once the Warsaw Pact disbanded, the West began to absorb all of its former signatories into NATO, reneging on the agreement made between Mikhail Gorbachev and then-U.S. Secretary of State James Baker who promised that it would not move “one-inch to the east.”

Once Eastern European countries started to pursue integration into NATO and the European Union, Boris Yeltsin signaled that the Russian Federation’s long-term aspiration was to eventually join the alliance and superstate as well. Even in the first term of Putin’s incumbency, Moscow naively continued to hope that it could one day be accepted into the Atlanticist and European projects.

By 2004, NATO had acceded eleven additional countries since the end of the Cold War, but it was not until three years later, at the Munich Security Conference, when Putin finally challenged NATO’s continuous extension eastward and from that point on became a pariah in the West.

Even though Ukraine’s induction into the transatlantic alliance was opposed by France and Germany in 2008, the possibility of Kyiv’s eventual membership in the NATO bloc took center stage in souring relations with its neighbor. Former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski summed up the rationale behind using Ukraine as a beachhead to attack Russia in his influential 1997 book The Grand Chessboard:

“Ukraine is a new and important space on the Eurasian chessboard, is a geopolitical pivot because its very existence as an independent country (means) Russia ceases to be a Eurasian empire.”

It all came to a head in 2014 when Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych was thrust in the middle of the two competing spheres of influence. Faced with a choice between an EU Association Agreement which offered bilateral support in return for draconian austerity measures or a more favorable bailout loan from Russia, Yanukovych eventually accepted Putin’s offer.

Immediately, Western-backed mass protests in the so-called “Revolution of Dignity” began and within months he was removed in a parliamentary coup with Washington strategists handpicking his replacement. When it turned out that Brussels [EU} preferred the former professional boxer and current Mayor of Kyiv Vitali Klitschko to be his successor—instead of the U.S.’s choice—it was revealed in a controversial leaked phone call that Victoria Nuland, Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, told U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt, “Fuck the EU.”

Some unavoidable politics | Eleven Time Zones

Victoria Nuland and Geoffrey Pyatt: “Fuck the EU.” [Source: eleventimezones.com]

This was not the only occasion when the former foreign policy adviser to Dick Cheney would divulge Washington’s dirty secrets. Speaking to the National Press Club inside the Beltway, Nuland bragged that the supposedly spontaneous pro-EU demonstrations in which she notoriously handed out cookies had actually been funded in part by the U.S. State Department. Or as then-President Obama put it, “we brokered a deal to a transition in power in Ukraine.”

Russia cries foul over Western embrace of Ukraine's demonstrators - CSMonitor.com

Victoria Nuland with Pyatt behind her handing out cookies to Maidan Square demonstrators. [Source: csmonitor.com]

Yanukovych’s NATO-installed substitutes—former investment banker Arseniy Yatsenyuk and oligarchic chocolatier Petro Poroshenko—both advocated a nationalist agenda which included enacting legislation making Ukrainian the country’s sole official language and pressuring the Ukrainian Orthodox Church into severing ties with the Patriarch of Moscow. Current Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has only deepened the stratification with the signing of indigenous people’s laws recognizing Crimean Tatars and other minorities at the exclusion of ethnic Russians.

These steps, along with the emboldening of neo-Nazism, divided the country on ethnic lines and set off the bloody conflict in Donbass which is native to a significant Russian ethnolinguistic community. Threatened by the Banderite regime’s discriminatory policies and genocidal neo-fascist militias, the people of Novorussia sought protection from the Motherland. Since then, Kyiv and the separatists both agreed to a ceasefire in the 2015 Minsk Agreements to which the post-Maidan regime has consistently failed to adhere.

With the peace process undermined by the far right—including the Azov battalion—and Western military aid, the likelihood of a resolution to the conflict dwindled. If there was ever to be an end to the ongoing ethnic cleansing and war crimes in the Donbass region, a Russian intervention became almost inevitable.

For eight years, the people of Donetsk and Luhansk lived through a perpetual state of war as the NATO powers refused to provide Moscow with any security guarantee that Ukraine would not re-nuclearize or become a member state.

In the meantime, the Western yellow press has portrayed a war driven by complex historical developments as a Manichean dichotomy of a Russian bear picking on its little brother. Without much distinction, many on the so-called Left has drawn a false equivalence between the two sides.

While Putin is certainly a conservative, there is a magnitude of difference between Moscow and Kyiv where in the former the Communist Party is the second-largest political organization which urged the Kremlin to recognize the pro-Russian breakaway oblasts, and the latter in which the Communist Party is banned and fascists openly serve in parliament.

It should be acknowledged that there are many parts of Putin’s historical analysis which are incorrect, starting with his sweeping statements concerning the formation of Ukraine and incognizance of the connection between revived ultranationalism and the reinstitution of free enterprise. However, rebuke of those errors means nothing coming from the Western Left which only lends tacit support to NATO when it turns reality on its head to portray the alliance’s confrontation with Moscow as an “inter-imperial rivalry.”

In order to understand why this is false, we should turn to Lenin who in 1920 reformulated the pre-industrial, traditional definition of imperialism into categories of “oppressor” and “oppressed” nations:

“That is why the focal point in the Social-Democratic programme must be that division of nations into oppressor and oppressed which forms the essence of imperialism, and is deceitfully evaded by the social-chauvinists and Kautsky. This division is not significant from the angle of bourgeois pacifism or the philistine Utopia of peaceful competition among independent nations under capitalism, but it is most significant from the angle of the revolutionary struggle against imperialism.”

In the context of U.S. global hegemony, the Russian Federation would definitely fall into the oppressed nation distinction and still occupies the geopolitical space once filled by the former Eastern Bloc when it supported the movements of Third World national liberation. Although post-Soviet Russia has undeniably returned to the international stage, it remains a relatively weak capitalist country since the neoliberal “shock therapy” of the 1990s.

Those suffering from Putin derangement syndrome selectively omit that the Russian statesman acknowledges that the fall of the Soviet Union was a tragedy and that Ukraine has only become the poorest country in Europe since the restoration of capitalism, during which, on the advice and encouragement of U.S. advisors, Russia’s most valuable assets and natural resources (which belonged to the Russian people) were privatized, plundered, and “sold” for virtually nothing to Yeltsin’s cronies, who became today’s oligarchs.

Oddly enough, modern Ukraine itself would never have been established if not for Lenin’s rethinking of imperialism and the Russian Empire as a “prison house of nationalities” which colonized and subjugated oppressed nations.

Motivated by colonial guilt over actions taken by the Tsars, the Bolsheviks partitioned new boundaries within the communist state so that marginalized groups could exercise self-rule. Putin takes issue with the Soviets because, when these lines were created, they permitted a large geographical distribution of Russian speakers who found themselves suddenly stateless as soon as the USSR crumbled. Yet the faux-Left which misrepresents his words fails to mention this part of the address and instead zeroes in on the Russian President’s criticism of Lenin and his claim that modern Ukraine was founded by the Bolsheviks arbitrarily without the permission of its inhabitants.

Admittedly, Putin does leave out many historical details in which multiple quasi-governments were declared during the Ukrainian War of Independence. These included the nationalist Ukrainian People’s Republic set up in Kyiv after the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, its follow-up the Second Hetmanate or “Ukrainian State,” and the Kharkiv-based Ukrainian Soviet Republic government in the east which appealed to Moscow for military support against its rivals.

However, the Ukrainian Soviet Republic was not the only communist state-like formation at the time—there was also an Odessa Soviet Republic pseudo-state as well as a Donetsk Soviet Republic. This oversight makes Putin’s conclusion that the mostly Russian-populated Donetsk Basin was dictatorially added to Soviet Ukraine incomplete. In fact, historical records show that Lenin was at one point in favor of the Donetsk-Krivoy Rog Soviet Republic remaining independent from the Ukrainian SSR and respected its territorial integrity.

The option to incorporate the Donbass was only taken because the province did not wish to remain secluded and vulnerable after its previous occupation by Ukrainian nationalists in collaboration with the Central Powers.

The region was also an industrial hub and, without it, Soviet Ukraine would have been an agrarian-based society, so it was an economic as well as a political decision, not simply an autocratic decree by Lenin. As it happens, the present-day self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic considers itself the descendant to the short-lived proto-state of 1918.

1921 Soviet poster: “Donbass Is the Heart of Russia.” [Source: istorya.ru]

While there was no referendum to include Donbass in Ukraine, the Bolsheviks introduced the most democratic structures the one-time Tsarist territory had ever experienced in its history. Where Putin’s point would be more applicable as an instance when the Soviets did actually transfer Russophone territory without the consent of its people was when Khrushchev gifted the Crimean peninsula to his native Ukraine. Even so, it was not the abolition of the Crimean Autonomous Republic in 1954 that led to the current schism but the fall of the USSR which Putin fails to identify as the real cause of ethnic tensions between Galicia, or western Ukraine, and Donbass.

Above all, it was the removal of the Soviet policy of the “Friendship of Peoples” and the Soviet of Nationalities chamber which eliminated the guarantee of equal representation of minorities.

The reinstatement of the free market did not just make Ukraine impoverished as Putin concedes but was also what opened up political space for the Ukrainian ultranationalism of the Orange Revolution and Euromaidan which had been kept in check under communism. After all, few remember that, in March 1991, more than 70% of the Ukrainian population voted to preserve the Soviet confederation and to remain in one country with Russia before capitalism was forced upon them, an inconvenient truth to the narratives of both the West and Putin alike.

Putin’s nationalism often overlaps in interests with his communist political opponents in terms of geopolitics but just as frequently diverges. For example, he regards the 1918 Treaty of Brest-Litovsk as a national humiliation. While the peace agreement between the Bolsheviks and Central Powers did cede a large amount of Russian imperial land, the negotiations were supported by the majority of Russians as the communists rose to power on the slogan of “peace, bread and land” and had to deliver on their promise to the Russian people which the provisional government betrayed after the February Revolution. Moreover, much of the area that was surrendered was later regained following World War II, including the Baltic states which rejoined the USSR despite having previously been colonized by Tsardom.

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Borders drawn up in 1918 Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. [Source: wikipedia.org]

And what is the tragedy of the execution of the Romanov family compared to the millions of Russian peasants who Nicholas II sent to their deaths in World War I? Putin seems to forget that the needless imperial bloodbath was what propelled the success of the Russian Revolution to begin with. The reigning Russian leader is also just as seemingly unaware that Lenin did not reject Russian nationalism outright as the mainstream Left critics of his speech. To distinguish Soviet patriotism from the reactionary monarchist Black Hundreds, Lenin wrote in On the National Pride of the Great Russians:

“Let us, Great-Russian Social-Democrats, also try to define our attitude to this ideological trend. It would be unseemly for us, representatives of a dominant nation in the far east of Europe and a goodly part of Asia, to forget the immense significance of the national question—especially in a country which has been rightly called the “prison of the peoples,” and particularly at a time when, in the far east of Europe and in Asia, capitalism is awakening to life and self-consciousness a number of “new” nations, large and small; at a moment when the tsarist monarchy has called up millions of Great Russians and non-Russians, so as to “solve” a number of national problems in accordance with the interests of the Council of the United Nobility and of the Guchkovs, Krestovnikovs, Dolgorukovs, Kutlers and Rodichevs.

Is a sense of national pride alien to us, Great-Russian class-conscious proletarians? Certainly not! We love our language and our country, and we are doing our very utmost to raise her toiling masses (i.e., nine-tenths of her population) to the level of a democratic and socialist consciousness. To us it is most painful to see and feel the outrages, the oppression and the humiliation our fair country suffers at the hands of the tsar’s butchers, the nobles and the capitalists. We take pride in the resistance to these outrages put up from our midst, from the Great Russians; in that midst having produced Radishchev, the Decembrists and the revolutionary commoners of the seventies; in the Great-Russian working class having created, in 1905, a mighty revolutionary party of the masses; and in the Great-Russian peasantry having begun to turn towards democracy and set about overthrowing the clergy and the landed proprietors.”

Lenin distinguished what he considered socialist patriotism from bourgeois nationalism and its promotion by the Soviet state was not confined to the time after his death as it is widely portrayed. Constantly likening Putin to Stalin, the contemporary pseudo-left considers the post-Lenin period a revision of original Soviet federalism, when they fail to remember that Lenin supervised his Georgian-born Commissar of Nationalities in the writing of Marxism and the National Question where Stalin provided the Marxist-Leninist definition of ‘nation’ itself in unambiguous terms:

“A nation is a historically originated stable community of people, originated on the basis of a common language, common territory, joint economic life and common mental characteristics revealing themselves in a common culture.”

Regardless of whether, if Ukraine constitutes a real nation per se distinct from Russia, Putin deserves credit for delivering a thoughtful speech providing historical context, however imperfect, on its formation in order to communicate to the Russian people the reasons for the special operation, something Western leaders seldom if ever do to their constituents when they go to war.

It is little wonder why no corporate outlet would dare broadcast the speech in full, for it might remind Americans how incompetent their own politicians are. His remarks expanded upon a lengthy op-edOn the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians” authored last year which is worth examining as a companion piece.

[Source: ne-np.facebook.com]

While he may not fall on the left of the political spectrum, Putin’s Bonapartism arguably saved the Russian state from complete collapse by re-nationalizing the energy sector after the economic genocide of the Yeltsin era. This is the main reason the former KGB officer consistently polls at more than 70% approval in Russia, a figure that has only risen since the start of the intervention in Ukraine. It is true that Putin has many faults, but the misrepresentation of his words by the pro-NATO Left is more worthy of condemnation.

Rosa Luxemburg’s and Putin’s critiques of Lenin may be a century apart but they converge in one crucial respect. They both assert that the Russian revolutionary declaration that all nations have the right to self-determination was excessive. By endorsing self-determination, the Bolsheviks ensured the outcome seen now in the numerous ethno-territorial conflicts in post-Soviet states.[1]

It is worth noting that Lenin broke from Karl Marx in his emphasis on nationality, though the latter’s position evolved during his final years regarding the Irish question where, even though the Irish nationalist movement was not necessarily socialist, Marx came to regard it as progressive, prompting attacks from the Russian anarchist thinker Mikhail Bakunin.

That Bakunin’s teachings influenced the Ukrainian anarchist Nestor Makhno, whose forces were accused of anti-semitic pogroms during the Russian Civil War, perhaps might explain why contemporary anarchists often take the de facto side of Ukrainian nationalism in the current conflict whose brand is anything but progressive.

Some on the U.S. left today are infected with such amateurishness.

Like their maturation on Irish republicanism, so too did Marx and Friedrich Engels later convert on the Polish question. On the other hand, Rosa Luxemburg adamantly opposed Polish independence until her death and deviated from Marx and Engels on nationalism as much as Lenin, advocating socialist revolution and self-government for her country of origin but within the boundaries of the former Russian Empire.

More than a century after Luxemburg’s death, the German-naturalized revolutionary left behind a complicated legacy, one whose theoretical shortcomings in a denial of the need for revolutionary vanguardism in Western Europe may have contributed to her own murder by social fascists in the Spartacist uprising of the failed German Revolution. Nonetheless, Rosa’s unheeded premonition regarding the Ukrainian question still resonates today and revisiting her dialogue with Lenin can help the Western Left better grasp the difficult processes driving the bloodshed between peoples of a foreign land.

*

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Max Parry is an independent journalist and geopolitical analyst based in New York City. His writing has appeared widely in alternative media and he is a frequent political commentator featured in Sputnik News and Press TV. Max can be reached at [email protected]

Notes

1. Although conversely conflicts might have been avoided by giving each ethnic area the equivalent of Commonwealth status and limited control of local affairs, as states have in the U.S. 

Featured image is from Kim Petersen

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In August 2016, a group of public health experts, policymakers and donors met in the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Conference Center overlooking Lake Como. Their aim was ambitious: to agree on “bold global action” that would mark the “beginning of the end of the pandemic era”. In other words, they hoped to find which viruses might cause the next pandemic, and get a head start on developing vaccines and drugs.

Known as the Global Virome Project, the scheme was officially launched in February 2018. By 2019, it had appointed a board of directors and made the “transition to a legal and operational reality”, according to an email from its head. Yet when a pandemic did break out at the end of that year, instead of leaping into action the Global Virome Project fell silent. It made no announcements, issued no press releases, arranged no public events.

Today, its website is an online zombie. In the greatest pandemic in a century, caused by exactly the sort of novel emerging virus it was designed to predict and prevent, it lists just three publications on its website, one of which is a dead link and the others four and six-years-old. Its “in the news” page lists no article after April 2021. What happened?

Using embassy cables, emails released under freedom of information, and government reports, we have pieced together the history of this wide-ranging international collaborative project and how it vanished just when it was most needed.

The seeds of the project were sown between 2009 and 2019, when the US government funded a big push into virus hunting in wildlife in tropical regions through a programme called PREDICT. When this funding came to an end, the main players got together to seek private and charitable funding to continue the work. These included, from government, Dennis Carrol, director of the Emerging Pandemic Threats Division within the United States Agency for International Development; from academia, Jonna Mazet of the University of California at Davis, who had been director of the PREDICT project; from the non-profit world, Peter Daszak, head of the EcoHealth Alliance, who became treasurer of the new project; and from the private sector, Nathan Wolfe, founder of the DNA database firm Metabiota.

The first meeting of the GVP’s steering committee took place in Beijing in January 2017. George Fu Gao, the incoming head of the Chinese Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, was quick out of the blocks with China’s contribution to the GVP, overseeing the rapid creation of the China National Virome Project. It was formed so quickly that by August 2017 Eddy Rubin, chief scientific officer at Metabiota, wrote: “The project appears to be moving faster than expected with a China component already funded and poised to generate data”.

However, as the GVP was preparing to launch, some scientists had misgivings: did the project even make sense?

As two Australian virologists told a reporter for the Atlantic, the work was “unlikely to be informative in predicting the next pandemic”. Spotting the one virus among millions that might cause a pandemic would make finding needles in haystacks look easy. “What you’re trying to predict is likely something that happens maybe once out of tens of billions of encounters, with one virus out of millions of potential viruses. You will lose your fight against the numbers,” said Jemma Geoghan and Ed Holmes.

Other virologists shared their doubts. “Making promises about disease prevention… that cannot be kept will only further undermine trust,” wrote Dr Holmes, in a joint article with Edinburgh University’s Andrew Rambaut and the Scripps Institute’s Kristian Andersen. “I still fail to see at this point how it’s going to better prepare the human race for the next infectious disease that jumps from animals to humans,” wrote Michael Osterholm, the director of the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Diseases Research and Policy.

Nonetheless, ignoring these awkward objections, the GVP team pressed ahead with the project. It was formally launched in February 2018, with an article in Science magazine, authored by Carrol, Daszak, Wolfe, Gao and Mazet with four others. China was poised to play the leading role. “Funding has been identified to support an initial administrative hub, and fieldwork is planned to begin in the first two countries, China and Thailand, during 2018,” the article declared.

In a cable from September 2017, Ping Chen, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases office in the US embassy in Beijing, had reported that the China part of the project was being funded by grants from the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Shi Zhengli of the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), China’s leading coronavirus virologist, was quoted in the cable as saying: “CAS has already allocated funding for GVP-related research”.

Wang Zhengwu, of the Department of International Affairs at CAS, was further quoted as saying “CAS is working on a process and mechanism to support Chinese scientists with backing from the Ministry of Sciences and Technology and The National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) for Global Virome Project type research”.

Sure enough in January 2018, Shi Zhengli received two research grants, one each from NSFC and CAS to study the risk of cross infection of humans by bat-borne SARS-like coronaviruses. It appears the Wuhan Institute had already been entrusted with the main work of the China National Virome Project.

In April 2018, confirming the link between this work and the GVP, a US embassy cable noted that “The Wuhan Institute of Virology’s Shi Zhengli… is the forerunner to the Global Virome Project.”

Meanwhile, in March 2018, the EcoHealth Alliance, WIV and others had submitted a joint proposal to DARPA, the Pentagon’s research funding agency.

It included a section in which the researchers detailed plans to introduce a genetic sequence called a furin cleavage site into novel SARS-like viruses to increase their ability to infect cells in the laboratory and make them easier to grow. This is the very sequence that has turned up in the virus causing Covid, and in no other SARS-like coronavirus.

The proposal, titled DEFUSE, was turned down by DARPA. Shortly after, however, a “Special Project” was initiated by the CAS with Shi Zhengli in charge for one of the subprojects. The scope largely corresponds and overlaps with the GVP and Project DEFUSE.

The goal was to “change the passive response situation of emerging infectious diseases to active monitoring and early warning”, “explore and identify pathogens with potential risks of infecting humans, studying their ability to invade different host cells and their replication ability in different host cells”, and “analyse the key molecules affecting its cross-species infection and its pathogenic mechanism”. In November 2018, at a conference in Bangkok, Hongying Li, the coordinator for the China National Virome Project, showed a slide of the “GVP viral database model”. It included “virus isolation”, the technical term for growing live viruses in the lab.

Some have therefore speculated that the unfunded DEFUSE project could have continued with funding from the CAS. In a recent Vanity Fair article, the prominent Pasteur Institute virologist Simon Wain-Hobson was quoted as saying that “it is possible the WIV would have wanted to copy what it viewed as cutting-edge science”.

The output of the GVP was intended to be a global database of all viruses collected, available to the world.

“I believe that our Chinese side can make our great contributions for the development of GVP database system and data portal by the support from China CDC and CAS,” George Fu Gao noted in an email.

[Dr. George Gao Fu has a professional relationship with Anthony Fauci, et al. He is an Oxford graduate. He was a participant in the October 201 Table Top Simulation]

But there was unease in the West about this. As a State Department cable put it:

“Who will own the samples that are collected from many countries? Where will they be analysed? Will all the GVP data be freely available to the public?”

Another US embassy cable noted: “Other countries… are skeptical on whether China could remain transparent as a “gatekeeper” for this information.” Eddy Rubin was more blunt: “There is a concern about data sharing if only China takes the lead.”

They were right to be concerned. By 17 July 2019, the Wuhan Institute of Virology had built one of the world’s largest databases of bat and rodent viruses, holding more than 22,000 samples and data entries of pathogens. It has repeatedly refused to share this data with international scientists since the pandemic began. Some of those viruses were collected with funding from US taxpayer dollars, and some samples were collected from countries neighbouring China, such as Laos.

On 12 September 2019, this database was suddenly taken offline. The Institute has not published any details of the SARS-like viruses they were studying after 2016, claiming that people were trying to hack the database. This, of course, makes no sense: sharing data, as intended, makes hacking unnecessary.

Yet far from drawing back because of the data-sharing concerns, in November 2018, Dr Ping Chen of the US Embassy in Beijing sent an email to the National Institutes of Health in the United States detailing proposals for America to share the cost of China’s virus hunting projects. In the version obtained by Judicial Watch under Freedom of Information, most of the email has been redacted, as has most of an attached presentation from July 2019 by the Ecohealth Alliance entitled “Working Towards a China-led Virome project”. What is in these documents, prepared about a year before the pandemic broke out in the city with the most active contribution to the GVP, and caused by a virus of the kind being most actively studied by that project? It would be nice to know.

In a March 2019 article in the journal Biosafety and Health, Dr Geroge F. Gao drew attention to the extra risk of causing a pandemic by studying viruses in the laboratory: “genetic modification of pathogens, which may expand host range as well as increase transmission and virulence, may result in new risks for epidemics.” This was exactly what the Wuhan Institute of Virology was doing to the viruses it was collecting in the wild: working with full-length infectious clones, manipulating their spike genes, creating “chimera” hybrids and testing their infectiousness in human cells and humanised mice.

In August 2019, Dr Gao spoke at length on a podcast, saying that part of the GVP would involve altering viruses in the lab:

“[In] GVP you might isolate some virus, you look at it and there is nothing to do with humans, however through adaptation, evolution, you might have some virus adapt to human beings, so as basic scientists you will do all these either in a lab or do the surveillance.”

For some reason, professional journalists have shown little appetite for investigating the GVP since the pandemic began, arguing that it was still just an idea, not yet in operation, which is true outside China. In a recent exchange on Twitter, for instance, Jon Cohen of Science magazine suggested that the GVP had not started as a data-collecting network before the pandemic hit. The independent data analyst Gilles Demaneuf responded that China forging ahead without an agreement about data sharing was a red flag that should call the existence of the GVP into question.

As for the China National Virome Project, almost nothing has been heard of it in the past two years, as if it never existed.

The Global Virome Project has also largely evaporated. Both were designed to predict and prevent the next pandemic, a task at which plainly they failed: the research was a year and a half in the making and provided no benefit when the Covid pandemic began. That this work might instead have caused the pandemic is a possibility that must be investigated.

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Matt Ridley is the co-author of Viral: the Search for the Origin of Covid 19.

Prasenjit Ray, who tweets as The Seeker, is an independent data analyst based in India.

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In an interview on Wednesday, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said some NATO member states want the war in Ukraine to last longer as a way to hurt Russia.

“There are countries within NATO who want the war to continue,” Cavusoglu told CNN Turk. “They want Russia to become weaker.”

According to Iran’s Mehr News Agency, Cavusoglu did not think the war would last long after Russia and Ukraine held peace talks in Istanbul last month. But following a NATO foreign ministers meeting, he was given the impression that some alliance members don’t want the war to end.

Since Russia invaded on February 24, the US and many of its NATO allies have abandoned diplomacy with Russia. Instead of seeking a diplomatic solution, the Western powers are pouring weapons into Ukraine and waging an economic sanctions campaign against Russia.

The view among some NATO members on the war was summarized by a recent report from The Washington Post. The report said:

“For some in NATO, it’s better for the Ukrainians to keep fighting, and dying, than to achieve a peace that comes too early or at too high a cost to Kyiv and the rest of Europe.”

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

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Ukrainian tennis star Elina Svitolina has demanded that Russian and Belarusian players be subjected to ideological purity tests before they are allowed to compete in international tournaments.

The former world number three has insisted on a total ban on all Russian and Belarusian athletes if they fail to sign up to a series of statements regarding politics and the war in Ukraine.

“We noticed that some Russian and Belarusian players at some point vaguely mentioned the war, but never clearly stating that Russia and Belarus started it on the territory of Ukraine,” wrote Svitolina on Twitter.

She is presumably unhappy with Russian and Belarusian players merely calling for peace without explicitly denouncing their own country and asserting it is to blame for the war.

“The very silence of those who choose to remain that way right now is unbearable as it leads to the continuation of murder in our homeland,” claimed Svitolina, asserting that tennis players not correctly saying “Putin bad” is literally leading to people being killed.

She demanded players unfortunate enough to be born on a piece of land called ‘Russia’ properly answer the following questions.

1. Do you support Russia’s and Belarus invasion in Ukraine’s territory and as a result of that the war started by those countries?

2. Do you support Russia’s and Belarus military activities in Ukraine?

3. Do you support Putin’s and Lukashenko’s regime?

Any players answering yes to any of those questions should be slapped with a full scale tournament ban, according to Svitolina.

“In times of crisis, silence means agreeing with what is happening. There comes a time when silence is betrayal, and that time is now,” she wrote.

The Ukrainian’s demand that players pass ideological purity tests before being allowed to hit a ball with a racket isn’t even as draconian as the standard imposed by the organizers of the Wimbledon tennis tournament.

They’ve banned all Russians and Belarusians from competing, even those who have denounced Vladimir Putin and Russia.

Former world number one men’s champion Novak Djokovic called the decision “crazy,” saying politics shouldn’t interfere in sport.

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The rise of food protectionism by countries could exacerbate a massive hunger crisis that could take the world by storm later this year (well, that’s at least what the Rockefeller Foundation believes). 

The world’s biggest palm oil producer, Indonesia, is the latest country to embrace protectionist measures to mitigate domestic food shortages, according to Bloomberg.

President Joko Widodo on Friday announced the export ban of all cooking oil and palm oil products would begin on April 28.

Widodo said during a television broadcast that the measures aimed to ensure domestic markets had ample cooking oil supplies following a dramatic increase in prices.

“I will monitor and evaluate the implementation of this policy so availability of cooking oil in the domestic market becomes abundant and affordable,” he said.

Following the news, traders are placing bullish bets that world supplies of cooking oil and palm oil products will tighten even more. U.S. soyoil futures jumped more than 3% to a record high of 84 cents per pound.

“The news will certainly create a mayhem,” said Paramalingam Supramaniam, director at Selangor-based broker Pelindung Bestari.

“We have the largest producer banning the exports of palm products which will add more uncertainty to the already tight availability of vegetable oil worldwide,” Supramaniam said.

The Ukraine conflict has roiled the global edible oil market. The Black Sea region accounts for 76% of world sunoil exports. Commercial shipments in the region have been disrupted due mainly by insurers for vessels charging very high war premiums that make cargo nearly impossible in insure.

Indonesia’s move adds to the growing food protectionism as several other countries, including Argentina, have raised export taxes on edible oils. Meanwhile, Moldova, Hungary, and Serbia have banned some grain exports.

Increasing food protectionism is another worry for importers dependent on other countries (such as ones in the Middle East and Africa) that may lead to shortages and trigger unrest.

As we noted initially, the Rockefeller Foundation has given a timeframe on when the food crisis begins.

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European politicians are eager to be seen as “doing something” to oppose the Russian regime following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. Most European regimes have wisely concluded—Polish and Baltic recklessness notwithstanding—that provoking a military conflict with nuclear-armed Russia is not a good idea. So, “doing something” consists primarily of trying to punish Moscow by cutting Europeans off from much-needed Russian oil and gas.

The problem is this tactic doesn’t do much to deter Russia in anything other than the short term because Russian oil can turn to numerous markets outside of Europe. Most of the world, after all, has declined to participate in the US and European embargoes and trade sanctions, opting for more measured approaches instead.

By limiting energy sources for Europeans, however, Europe’s regimes are likely to succeed in pushing up the cost of living for Europeans while doing little to cut off Russia’s economy from global markets.

Can Europe Totally Cut Itself Off?

For understandable reasons, most European regimes have been reluctant to completely cut themselves off from Russian oil and gas. This is because Europe has become increasingly dependent on Russian natural gas as Europe’s regimes have increasingly committed themselves to unreliable “renewable” energy sources. This is especially the case in Germany—Europe’s largest economy—which faces a “sharp recession” if it cuts off Russian gas. There has been much talk of heavy sanctions against Russia, but this has stopped short of a full-on ban on Russian oil and gas imports.

Nonetheless, the European Parliament last week began drafting a plan for a full embargo of Russian oil and gas.

Yet, even as pressure mounts for Europe’s regimes to be seen as doing more to stymie Moscow, European politicians want to proceed slowly. This, however, only gives Moscow more time to adjust logistics to transfer oil exports to other parts of the world.

If Europe were to fully ban oil immediately, this would send oil prices soaring for Europe and others. According to analysts at JP Morgan:

A full and immediate embargo would displace 4 million barrels per day of Russian oil, sending Brent crude to $185 a barrel as such a ban would leave “neither room nor time to re-route [supplies] to China, India, or other potential substitute buyers,” the investment bank said in a note. That would mark a 63% surge from Brent’s close of $113.16 on Monday.

This could trigger recessions across Europe’s economies, and policy makers know it. Hungary, for instance, has repeatedly opposed an embargo on Russian oil out of concerns for ordinary Hungarians, who already have a standard of living well below people in wealthier countries like Germany and France. Meanwhile, French policymakers have conveniently timed an embargo to occur after the French elections this year.

Even beyond the short term, oil woes for Europe would not necessarily end, because the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) has already stated that it cannot pump enough oil to replace Russian oil.

In any case, Europe does not appear to be succeeding at convincing OPEC to do much to punish or isolate Russia in oil markets. The Saudi regime has only announced increased cooperation with Russia in recent months, and the Ukraine war does not appear to be an important topic for OPEC.

This isn’t to say that none of this will hurt Moscow at all. Time will be necessary to modify Russian oil markets to serve other consumers outside Europe, and this will mean declining revenues, at least in the short term. Moreover, US financial sanctions make it more difficult for Russian merchants to do business globally.

In spite of the West’s claim that it’s fighting some kind of war for democracy and against authoritarianism, though, it looks like the biggest beneficiaries of growing European embargoes on Russian oil are some of the world’s most authoritarian regimes. Beijing will happily accept oil and gas supplies no longer sold in the West, and possibly at a discount as potential markets for Russian oil shrink in number. Moreover, if oil prices are driven up by dislocations caused by European embargoes, this is likely to benefit at least some of the oil-fueled dictators among OPEC’s members.

Meanwhile, ordinary Europeans are likely to find themselves paying much more for energy—and consequently for other goods and services as well. Recession risk is also growing in Europe.

The United States to the Rescue?

As is so often the case, Europe has looked to the United States to bail it out yet again. The Biden administration has stated that it can send US liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Europe and largely replace Russia in meeting Europe’s energy needs. But it’s not that simple. As David Blackmon has noted at Forbes:

While committing the US to help Germany and other European nations wean themselves off of Russian natural gas seems to be a noble goal, there is just one problem: The President apparently didn’t talk [to] the US LNG industry about it before he made the agreement. Reading the quotes from executives at Tellurian in the New York Times article linked here, it is apparent that they were caught off-guard by the President’s announcement. “I have no idea how they are going to do this …”

In the age of covid, federal politicians have no doubt become accustomed to conjuring whatever they want through the “miracle” of printing money. But in the real world, it’s still necessary to produce oil and gas (and other commodities) through actual physical production. Also complicating matters is the fact that the oil and gas industries in the United States are still largely in private hands. This means Joe Biden can promise whatever he wants but the private sector will still have to do the work, and market incentives may not necessarily favor selling everything to Europe.

Not even money printing can make oil and gas magically appear on the other side of the Atlantic.

Ultimately, the frenzy of sanctions and embargoes pursued by “the West” may do little more than raise the cost of living for its own residents. Even worse are the side effects of these sanctions for poorer countries in Africa and Asia, many of which need Russian grain and Russian oil for their residents to live above subsistence levels.

These policies will make life more difficult for ordinary innocent people worldwide while failing to actually end the war in Ukraine. But that’s a price wealthy men like Biden and Emmanuel Macron are apparently willing to pay.

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Ryan McMaken (@ryanmcmaken) is a senior editor at the Mises Institute. Send him your article submissions for the Mises Wire and Power and Market, but read article guidelines first. Ryan has a bachelor’s degree in economics and a master’s degree in public policy and international relations from the University of Colorado. He was a housing economist for the State of Colorado. He is the author of Commie Cowboys: The Bourgeoisie and the Nation-State in the Western Genre.

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Israel Is Still Arming Ukrainian Nazis

April 24th, 2022 by Asa Winstanley

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***

Israeli anti-tank weapons are being used by Nazi soldiers in Ukraine.

A video published by Ukraine’s Azov Battalion on Twitter this week showed one of its fighters firing an anti-tank missile. In the tweet Azov claimed it had hit a Russian vehicle.

Israeli media on Wednesday identified the missile system in the Azov video as a Matador, a weapon developed by a consortium involving Rafael, a state-owned Israeli arms manufacturer.

The weapon seen in the video does match with established photos of the Matador.

Yahoo News reported last month that Ukraine had bought 5,100 of the missile systems from a German manufacturer – the same firm that jointly developed the Matador with Rafael.

Matador is a portmanteau of “man-portable anti-tank, anti-door” since it is also used to blow holes in walls when fighting in urban areas.

An Israeli soldier aims an anti-tank missile

An Israeli solider trains with a Matador anti-tank missile. The same weapon recently featured in an Azov Battalion video from Mariupol. (Wikimedia Commons)

Tested in Gaza

The Matador’s “wall opening function is particularly valued” by Israeli soldiers, The Jerusalem Post reports. Israel has used the weapon in “heavily built-up environments such as the Gaza Strip,” the newspaper adds – a euphemism for how Palestinian homes have almost certainly been attacked with the weapon.

The video posted by Azov this week was also filmed in an urban environment. Azov’s headquarters has long been in the southeastern port city of Mariupol, part of the largely Russian-speaking eastern Donbass region of Ukraine.

Mariupol has been the scene of intense fighting since the Russian invasion that began on 24 February. Both Russian and Ukrainian sources this week said the city was on the verge of falling to Russian forces.

On Thursday morning Russian defense minister Sergey Shoigu said that most of the city had been captured. The last 2,000 Ukrainian fighters in the city remain holed up in the Azovstal steel plant, he said.

Anti-tank weapons with Hebrew markings

Israeli anti-tank weapon Matador on display during Israel’s 2014 “independence day” celebrations of the 1948 destruction of Palestine. (Wikimedia Commons)

Azov has been a magnet for far-right volunteers who have flocked to Ukraine from around the world in recent months. On Monday, two British citizens captured in Mariupol by Russian forces appeared in handcuffs on Russian TV.

Captured volunteer Aiden Aslin was wearing an Azov Battalion t-shirt with its distinctive Nazi symbol the Wolfsangel.

“Big Israel”

The Azov Battalion itself is named after the Sea of Azov, which Mariupol overlooks.

Azov emerged out of the far-right street gangs and football hooligans that formed the vanguard of the 2014 coup against the elected Ukrainian government. The coup regime then integrated Azov into its regular armed forces.

Despite recent attempts by corporate media to whitewash Azov’s image, the group is widely accepted to be a far-right Nazi group – one with the state’s backing.

In 2018 The Electronic Intifada revealed that Israel was licensing Tavor-style special forces rifles in Ukraine which were being used to arm the government’s Nazi brigade.

The Ukrainian ambassador to Israel wrote a letter in response expressing “deep concern” over our report claiming it relied on “unproven evidence” and “biased information.”

But a letter from the Israeli defense ministry’s arms export agency, as well as photos and videos from Azov’s own online presence proved otherwise.

Soldiers from the Nazi Azov Battalion on parade

Ukraine’s Nazi Azov Batallion on parade in 2017. (Azov.org.ua)

As the letter we published as part of our original report explained, the Israeli defense ministry said it was “careful to grant licenses” to arms exporters “in full coordination with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and other government entities.” The letter – sent in response to a query by human rights lawyer Eitay Mack – did not deny arming Ukrainian Nazis.

The Ukrainian ambassador to Israel denied there had been any weapon supply from Israel “since 2014.” But in a related tweet, he seemed to contradict himself by admitting that the Tavor-style rifles were produced “under the licenses of IWI” – Israel Weapon Industries, an Israeli arms manufacturer whose licenses all must be approved by the Israeli government.

IWI’s Tavor rifles have been used by Israeli snipers to fire on Palestinians protesting near Gaza’s boundary with Israel in recent years.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky is a big supporter of apartheid Israel.

He has hailed a “big Israel” as the model for his country and said in his speech to the Israeli parliament last month that both countries face the same threats.

But in the speech he also criticized Israel for not sending enough weapons to Ukraine. Israel has close relations to both Ukraine and Russia – where many Israeli citizens actually come from.

Palestinian lawmakers in the Israeli parliament boycotted Zelensky’s speech in protest of his pro-Israel stance. “Zelensky’s speech was a Zionist one par excellence, hitting its bottom when he gave Israel the historical status of victim,” lawmaker Ahmad Tibi posted on Twitter.

Although the corporate media puts a lot of emphasis on Zelensky’s Jewish heritage, the president appears to be a hostage to domestic far-right and anti-Semitic forces.

Elected in 2019 on a platform of peace with Russia, the former comedian did a swift U-turn when threatened by Azov and other far-right militias. They prevented him from carrying out his election promise of implementing the Minsk peace agreements for de-escalation of the civil war that has been ongoing in the east of Ukraine since the 2014 coup.

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Boris Johnson visited a Tory donor on the first day of his tax-funded trip to India today.

The Prime Minister went on a tour of a new JCB facility in Vadodara, Gujarat, owned by Conservative peer Lord Bamford, flying to and from the site in a helicopter.

Lord Bamford backed Mr Johnson’s party leadership bid in 2019.

Mr Johnson faced renewed calls during his visit to speak up for minorities and democratic rights as he posed with JCB bulldozers.

Bulldozers have been used in New Delhi this week to tear down Muslim-owned properties.

The PM indicated that he would bring up those issues during talks with his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi.

He claimed: “We always raise the difficult issues, of course we do.”

Amnesty India said: “In the backdrop of Municipal Corporation of Delhi using JCB bulldozers to raze down shops of Muslims yesterday, [the] UK Prime Minister’s inauguration of a JCB factory in Gujarat is not only ignorant but his silence on the incident is deafening.”

Downing Street denied it was a conflict of interest for the PM to meet a Tory donor on the visit and said that he was meeting “a number of businesses, universities and science and tech firms.”

Asked if he visited JCB because Lord Bamford is a Tory donor, the PM’s official spokesman replied: “No, he chose to go to the JCB factory because it is a very good illustration of British business, working with India and the Indian government to benefit both nations.”

During his visit to the factory, Mr Johnson said that he hopes to broker a post-Brexit free trade deal with India “by the autumn” in an apparent hastening of his ambition, which was earlier targeted at the end of the year.

Global Justice Now trade campaigner Jean Blaylock said: “Boris Johnson’s India trip looks as dodgy as his partygate statements.

“India has long been known as the ‘pharmacy of the developing world’ for resisting some of the monopoly demands of Big Pharma. But Boris Johnson has been a shill for Big Pharma throughout the pandemic. Pharmaceutical lobbyists want to use trade talks to secure changes to India’s patent laws, and the risk is that Johnson will do their bidding.

“More broadly, farmers’ rights, food standards, climate goals and digital regulation could all be threatened by a UK-India trade treaty.”

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What Is COVID Injection Fatality Rate?

April 24th, 2022 by Tessa Lena

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Dr. Spiro Pantazatos is a researcher at Columbia University who recently co-authored a study on “vaccine-induced fatality rate”

His initial reaction to the COVID pandemic was 100% mainstream, and it was the data (and his scientific integrity) that compelled him to change his mind

Dr. Spiro Pantazatos believes that the risk associated with COVID injections is comparable to the risk associated with getting COVID in 2020, with the injection risks increasing with each dose

His message for the fellow scientists is to find their voice and stop being silent

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Click here to watch the video.

This story is about a very brave researcher at Columbia University who co-authored a paper on risks associated with COVID vaccination (“vaccine-induced fatality rate”), in October 2021.

The researcher’s name is Spiro Pantazatos, Ph.D. He is an Assistant Professor of Clinical Neurobiology (Psychiatry) at Columbia University. He is also Research Scientist at the New York State Psychiatric Institute. The title of his paper (a preprint) is “COVID vaccination and age-stratified all-cause mortality risk”:

“Accurate estimates of COVID vaccine-induced severe adverse event and death rates are critical for risk-benefit ratio analyses of vaccination and boosters against SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus in different age groups. However, existing surveillance studies are not designed to reliably estimate life-threatening event or vaccine-induced fatality rates (VFR).

Here, regional variation in vaccination rates was used to predict all-cause mortality and non-COVID deaths in subsequent time periods using two independent, publicly available datasets from the US and Europe (month-and week-level resolutions, respectively).”

Currently Dr. Pantazatos is trying to fund a home for this paper but all journals where he submitted it have declined so far.

Dr. Pantazatos was interviewed for the “Perspectives on the Pandemic” series, and in my opinion, the interview came out stunning (with a disclaimer that the topic is gruesome, so it’s a stunning interview about a horrible thing). Dr. Pantazatos’ presentation is so graceful and even-headed that it could be “the” video to send to your friends who have been calling you crazy all this time!

Dr. Pantazatos’ Initial COVID Position Was 100% “Mainstream”

Early in the pandemic, Dr. Pantazatos was very moved by the vivid images that the media was feeding us — and, as a result, he became terrified of the virus. His initial plan was to lockdown inside his house until the vaccines came out.

What Compelled Him to Get More Skeptical

But then he started looking at data presented by scientists like John Ioannidis, for example, and he quickly realized that the situation was different from the one painted by the media.

Then Dr. Pantazatos’ co-author on this paper, Herve Seligmann, came up with an analysis of European data showing a consistent trend where a vaccination campaign seemed to be accompanied by an increase in all-cause mortality during the month following the vaccination campaign.

Dr. Pantazatos didn’t like that conclusion very much as it implied the unthinkable, and so he decided to do his own analysis based on the U.S. data (vaccinations and all-cause mortality), published by the CDC. And when he did his analysis using the U.S. data, it showed the same trend. His analysis of the CDC data showed that following a vaccination campaign in a given locality, there was an increase in all-cause mortality during the following month, followed by a decrease.

In Dr. Pantazatos’ opinion, the risk associated with COVID injections is comparable to the risk associated with getting COVID — if the risk associated with COVID is assessed at the high, early-in-the-pandemic level. And given that the two risks are comparable, and the injection risks seem to increase with each subsequent does — and the pharma companies are pushing for boosters from here into the horizon — he believes that we really need to discuss the VFR.

Why Rejection From the Journals Then?

Interestingly, Dr. Pantazatos mentioned in the interview that even before 2020, he was well aware of the fact that the process of getting scientific works published in prestigious journals was tainted. He referred to the 2005 article in “PLOS Medicine” called, “Medical Journals Are an Extension of the Marketing Arm of Pharmaceutical Companies” that talked about how exactly the journals are incentivized by pharma companies.

Furthermore, scientists themselves have developed a habit of trading total integrity of research for the prestige and benefits of having their works published — and so even before 2020, it was not uncommon for researchers to “massage” the angle etc. in order to fit in. From myself, I would like to add the following quote from the Lancet:

“Much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue. Afflicted by studies with small sample sizes, tiny effects, invalid exploratory analyses, and flagrant conflicts of interest, together with an obsession for pursuing fashionable trends of dubious importance, science has taken a turn towards darkness,” wrote Richard Horton, the Editor-in-Chief of The Lancet in 2015.

Incidentally, I wrote an article about corruption in the medical establishment last year, in case you are curious.

The Importance of Speaking Out

Dr. Pantazatos is not shy at all about sharing his analysis, and he is also tremendously graceful and humble when presenting it. Personally, I am very impressed by Dr. Pantazatos’ scientific integrity and his ability to actually “follow the science” — as well as by the grace with which he presents this rather ugly topic.

He believes the issue is important, and speaking out is crucial. His message for other scientists is to find their voice and stop being silent.

Full transcript of the interview.

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Visits to Honiara, part plea, part threat.  Delegations equipped with a note of harassment.  That was the initial Australian effort to convince the Solomon Islands that the decision to make a security pact with Beijing was simply not appropriate in the lotus land of Washington’s Pacific empire.

Despite an election campaign warming up, Senator Zed Seselja found time to tell Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare that Australia remained dedicated to supporting the security needs of the Solomon Islands, and would do so “swiftly, transparently and with full respect for its sovereignty”.  The Pacific country remained a friend, part of the “Pacific family”.  He went on to “respectfully” urge the Solomon Islands to reject the security pact with China and “consult the Pacific family in the spirit of regional openness and transparency, consistent with our region’s security frameworks.”

Having not convinced Honiara to change course, a range of reactions are being registered.  David Llewellyn-Smith, former owner of the Asia Pacific foreign affairs journal The Diplomat, took leave of his senses by suggesting that a Chinese naval base in the Solomons would see “the effective end of our sovereignty and democracy”.  In a spray of hysteria, he suggested that this was “Australia’s Cuban missile crisis”.

The Labor opposition, desperate to win office on May 21, are calling this one of the greatest intelligence failures since the Second World War, which perhaps shows their somewhat tenuous command of history.  Their leader, Anthony Albanese, seeking some safe mooring in a campaign that has lacked lustre, was particularly strident.  It was a chance to show that Labor was not shaky or wobbly on national security.  “The security agreement between China and the Solomons is a massive failure of our foreign policy,” stated the opposition leader as he campaigned in Bomaderry in southern New South Wales.  “We are closer here today to the Solomon Islands than we are to Perth.  That shows how strategic they are to Australia.”

This belligerent, simple note might have been stronger were it not for the fact that his deputy, Richard Marles, had previously made the unpopular suggestion that the Pacific islands were somehow sovereign entities who needed to be treated as such while China, in providing development assistance to them, should be “welcome” in offering it.  The goons of the Rupert Murdoch roundtable capitalised, hoping to find a Chinese Red under Marles’s bed.

Scratching for electoral gains, Labor thought that it was inappropriate to have sent the junior minister, as if that would have made much of a difference. Foreign Minister Marise Payne, it was said, should have been flown in to bully those misguided savages into submission.

In Australia, the message being fanned is that the deputy – in this case, Canberra – failed in the task, leaving it to the United States to come in and hold up what seemed like a sinking ship of strategy.  “The United States very much relies upon Australia and sees Australia as playing that key role in the Indo-Pacific,” lamented Albanese.  “Australia and Scott Morrison have gone missing.”

The Morrison government poured water on such criticism by suggesting a fair share of oriental deviousness at play.  Not only had the likes of Defence Minister Peter Dutton been advised by the intelligence fraternity to keep matters tame in terms of attacking the security pact; the agreement was the product of bribery.  On radio, Dutton responded to a question from 3AW host Neil Mitchell about the suggestion.  “You asked the question about bribery and corruption – we don’t pay off, we don’t bribe people, and the Chinese certainly do.”

This clean linen view of Australian conduct is fabulously ignorant, ignoring such inglorious chapters as the oil-for-food scandal which saw the Australian Wheat Board pay $300 million in kickbacks between 1999 and 2004 to the Iraq regime via Alia, a Jordanian trucking company.  These bribing arrangements, which breached UN Security Council sanctions imposed after Baghdad’s invasion of Kuwait in 1991, were unmasked in 2005.

With Australia failing to change minds, the paladins of the US imperium prepared to badger and bore Honiara.  On the list: President Joe Biden’s National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan; Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Daniel Kritenbrink; and National Security Affairs Indo-Pacific chief Kurt Campbell.  It seemed like an absurd gathering of heft for a small Pacific Island state.

The theme was unmistakable.  A bullying tone was struck in a message from National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson, who seemed to forget the Solomons was not some ramshackle protectorate of the Five Eyes.  Officials from the US, Japan, New Zealand and Australia had “shared concerns about [the] proposed security framework between the Solomon Islands and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and its serious risks to a free and open Indo-Pacific.”

At the Washington Post, Henry Olsen was trying to speak home truths about an empire facing rust and decline.  The unipolar world that came into being after the demise of the Soviet Union had ended.  “Our adversaries can fight back, and they are increasingly using every means at their disposal to push back against American influence.”

He went on to put focus upon the thin stretch of territory in the Pacific that has exercised so many in Washington and Canberra.  “Lose too many places such as the Solomon Islands, and the threat will start to get uncomfortably close to home.”  It was more prudent “to spend big and push outward now rather than to be boxed into a corner later.”  In other words, more bribery, the very thing tut-tutted by Dutton, was needed.

As for the Solomon Islands itself, divided, fragmented and vulnerable to internal dissent and disagreement, Sogavare is unrepentant.  “When a helpless mouse is cornered by vicious cats it will do anything to survive.”  He has already told his country’s parliament that there is no intention “to ask China to build a military base in Solomon Islands.”  He felt “insulted” by such suggestions and felt that there was only one side to pick: “our national security interest.”

His confidant and former prime minister Danny Philip also reminded critics barking about the lack of transparency over the Sino-Solomon Islands deal that they should know better.  “People in Australia know very little about Pine Gap in the middle of the desert, the military base of the United States.”  There were “agreements that open up all major ports in Australia that are not being seen by all the citizens of that country.”

Unfortunately for the government in Honiara, thoughts of invasion and pre-emptive action on the part of Australia, possibly with aid from the United States, cannot be ruled out.  Instead of being parked in an asylum of inoffensive obscurity, pundits such as Llewellyn-Smith are encouraging invasion and conquest.  Australia, he advocates in a refreshing burst of honest, blood-filled jingoism, “should invade and capture Guadalcanal such that we engineer regime change in Honiara.”

Sovereignty for the Pacific was always a qualified concept for those exercising true naval power, and US-Australian conduct in recent weeks has made an utter nonsense of it.  At least some cavalier types are willing to own up to it.

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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]

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***

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has issued a warning about the future, which looks grim.

If things continue as they are now – and they more than likely will – global food shortages will continue. The result will be supply issues and civil unrest, likely beginning in the Third World and spreading from there.

Protests have already erupted in Peru due to unrelenting inflation, and this is probably only a taste of what is to come as the problem spreads.

Sky-high food prices, especially in poorer countries, will make it unaffordable for many families to make ends meet. This will lead to protests and riots – and as the dominoes continue to fall throughout the rest of the world, hell on earth will ensue.

“This crisis unfolds even as the global economy has not yet fully recovered from the pandemic,” says Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, the IMF’s research development director.

In a post he wrote, Gourinchas blamed a mix of high inflation and supply problems for the unfolding disaster that the world is witnessing. The most vulnerable countries, he added, will experience the fallout first, followed eventually by the rest of the world.

“Even before the war, inflation in many countries had been rising due to supply-demand imbalances and policy support during the pandemic, prompting a tightening of monetary policy,” Gourinchas added.

“In this context, beyond its immediate and tragic humanitarian impact, the war will slow economic growth and increase inflation.”

Will the entire world go hungry?

Gourinchas went on to talk about how increases in both food and fuel prices are likely to spur even more social unrest, starting in poorer countries. Central banks, he says, will have to adjust their policies somehow to try to anchor both medium- and long-term inflation expectations.

If they fail at this – and they eventually will, since central banking is a Ponzi scheme that cannot persist forever without eventually collapsing under its own weight – then the situation will spiral even more out of control.

Even if central banks can get a hold on inflation somehow, food shortages are likely to persist for years to come, Gourinchas further suggests. Countries like China are now hoarding food, while “breadbasket” countries like Ukraine are no longer exporting and not planting nearly as many acres as usual due to the war.

It is a perfect storm, you might say, that seems to have taken out the global economy already. The full fallout has just not manifested yet in its entirety.

It was the IMF, just to clarify, that used the words hell on earth in an earlier report to describe what it sees coming on the horizon.

“Failure to provide this year a few extra billion dollars means you’re going to have famine, destabilization, and mass migration,” says ex-Republican Gov. David Beasley, who now heads up the World Food Bank.

“If you think we’ve got Hell on earth now, you just get ready. If we neglect northern Africa, northern Africa’s coming to Europe. If we neglect the Middle East, [the] Middle East is coming to Europe.”

This almost reads like a threat, which is probably what it is. Give us more money, Beasley is basically saying, or else.

The Western world will not be immune to this, by the way. On top of the inflation we are already seeing, the fertilizer crisis alone will reduce crop yields, theoretically collapsing our food supply by up to one half of normal.

In Ireland, officials are already encouraging their farmers to plant extra grain crops over the coming year in anticipation of this squeeze. In Scotland, however, there appears to be a lot of denial as to the severity of the situation.

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The Westminster Magistrates’ Court in London has granted permission for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to be extradited to the US, where he faces up to 175 years in prison. WikiLeaks Editor-in-Chief Kristinn Hrafnsson stressed that the court had effectively signed the death penalty for Assange.

“16 months ago, this court decided that extraditing Assange would be a risk to his life, would be a death sentence. Now this court has been ordered to issue that death sentence,” Hrafnsson said.

Assange’s defence lawyer can appeal to the High Court in London until May 18, but as the attention of the world community is focussed on Ukraine, there is every possibility that the High Court’s decision will just be equally controversial. Essentially, British authorities are taking advantage of the fact that Assange will not get enough public attention.

More alarmingly, the Anglo Alliance (USA-UK-Australia), for all its rhetoric of liberty and freedom, have spearheaded one of the most vicious campaigns against a journalist in human history. Assange as an Australian citizen is isolated and ignored by Canberra, imprisoned in the UK, and sought for extradition to the US – making a complete Anglo Alliance assault against investigative journalism.

Essentially, the Anglo Alliance is warning journalists and publishers that they will be targeted and persecuted if they interfere or expose their war crimes and corruption. This is all the more crucial in this period of time as the Western mainstream media and their establishment backers are running a vitriolic propaganda campaign for Ukraine, endlessly disseminating fake news that is continuously exposed – such as Ghost of Kyiv, Snake Island, etc.

Julian Assange gained notoriety after the release of documents exposing the illegal actions of the US military during their invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq. Journalists published data on the killing of civilians by US soldiers on the WikiLeaks website. At the same time, the portal revealed information about the conditions of detention at Guantanamo Bay prison.

From June 2012, Assange was holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy in London for seven years, but was stripped of his diplomatic asylum and detained on April 11, 2019.

Following the court decision, Australian Finance Minister Simon Birmingham could only meekly say: “We have confidence in the independence and integrity of the British justice system” and that the Australian government was not arguing against the extradition. In this way, entrapped in the historical Anglo imperial capital of London, Assange has been abandoned by the Anglo colonial offshoot of Australia and now relies on 25 human rights groups and sympathisers to challenge extradition.

The human rights group say that Assange’s persecution poses a “grave threat to press freedom both in the United States and abroad.”

However, according to Fidel Narváez, a former diplomat at the Ecuadorean Embassy in London, “the greatest responsibility” for the persecution of Assange “falls on the media that do not fulfill this task of challenging the official agenda of governments and the prevailing political powers. If the US imposes an agenda of persecution on its whistleblowers, in this case on journalism that has revealed crimes, it is shameful that the mainstream media simply echoes that persecution, that they take as truth what Assange’s persecutors have said about him, instead of defending one of their own.”

Narváez, who was a diplomat in London when Assange entered the embassy and requested political asylum in 2012, maintained that the most powerful media are companies with an “economic and commercial logic”, so behind their owners there are “big businessmen, millionaires or groups that are aligned with the establishment of the different countries, and in this case, especially of the US.”

The former diplomat also pointed out that Assange believed that wars could not be possible without the complicity of the large Western media outlets, which “remained silent in the face of abuses and crimes.”

This is seen today with the Western media being unrelenting towards Russia’s military operation in Ukraine despite remaining utterly silent as the Ukrainian military and their neo-Nazi Republican Guard allies, such as the Azov Battalion, terrorized and persecuted the people of Donbass since 2014.

And it is perhaps for this very reason that, as war fever and Russophobia in the West has peaked to unprecedented heights in the 21st century, the Anglo Alliance is sending out warnings to journalists that if they do not follow the official narrative, they could very well end up like Assange too.

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Paul Antonopoulos is an independent geopolitical analyst.

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First published on April 4, 2022

***

On February 24, Russian President Vladimir Putin undertook what he referred to as a “special military operation … to de-militarise and de-Nazify Ukraine.” Western media immediately decried these stated goals, regularly repeating that the allegations of Nazism in Ukraine are nothing more than Russian “fake news.”

Former U.S. ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul, went so far as to flatly state that “there are no Nazis in the Ukraine.” Similar claims resound throughout the mass media’s echo chambers, and the fact that the current president of Ukraine is Jewish is often short-sightedly presented as the only “proof” necessary. 

Disputing the existence of Nazis and fascists in Ukraine serves the purpose of constructing a twisted but simplistic narrative loosely based on WWII: Putin is an evil, Hitler-like figure intent on attacking the freedom-loving Ukrainian government and its innocent supporters. The goal of such a narrative is to foster blind and unquestioning support for the Zelenskyy government, NATO and the imperialist Western powers.

A “humanitarian” war, meaning a brutal NATO intervention that would likely spark WWIII, is thereby presented as a viable option. In this context, any attempt to provide a sober and concrete analysis of the actual history of Nazism in the region runs the risk of being disingenuously labeled and dismissed as “pro-Putin” because it does not support this war-mongering narrative.

But an examination that accounts for the complexities of concrete situations reveals that there is indeed a deep and expansive history of fascism in Ukraine, which has been aided and abetted by the US government. This does not however mean that fascism is necessarily the dominant force in the country or even in every domain in which it exists (the military, paramilitary forces, the parliament, society at large, etc.). Moreover, it does not imply in the least that one has to support Russia’s invasion, or even assume that ‘denazification’ is its primary goal. On the contrary, it is possible to understand that fascism is a very real force in Ukraine while opposing Putin’s decision to deploy troops.

A brief history of Nazis, NATO and Ukraine

To understand the current conflict, it is important to recall that Russians and Ukrainians once lived in relative harmony, when they were both part of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, which was founded on the principle of the self-determination of nations. This was violently interrupted in 1941, when the Nazis invaded the USSR, taking over much of Ukraine.

According to John-Paul Himka, a quarter of all victims of the Holocaust lived in Ukraine, and Ukrainian ultra-nationalists collaborated with the Nazis in carrying out their horrendous deeds. The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and its armed force, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (Ukrainska povstanska armiia—UPA) participated in this genocidal rampage: “OUN militias were key actors in the anti-Jewish violence of summer 1941; OUN recruited for and infiltrated police formations that provided indispensable manpower for the Germans’ mobile killing units; and in 1943, thousands of these policemen deserted from German service to join the OUN-led nationalist insurgency, during which UPA killed Jews who had managed to survive the major liquidations of 1942.” According to Ian Sayer and Douglas Botting, “the OUN played a significant part in the extermination of the Jews and other ‘undesirables,’ often performing the dirty work of the German Einsatzkommando extermination squads (eg the killing of children), and continuing after the war under American sponsorship.”

Image on the right: Stepan Bandera

Indeed, in the postwar era, the U.S. government discreetly integrated an alarming number of Nazi collaborators into a veritable international network of anti-communist fascists. By 1952, John Loftus estimates that there were “hundreds if not thousands of important Nazi collaborators from Byelorussia, the Ukraine, the Baltic states, and the Balkans” who had been brought to the United States (and many more had been operationalized around the world). The US Counter Intelligence Core (CIC) ran operation Anyface to protect the fascist leader of the OUN–the renowned Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera–from being brought to justice by the Soviets. Bandera’s chief of the national security service (SB), Mykola Lebed, was “the highest ranking Ukrainian Nazi to ever enter the United States.” CIA covert operations chief Frank Wisner admitted in 1951 there were “at least twenty former or active members of the SB of OUN/Bandera in the United States.”

The US intelligence services worked closely with several organizations of former Nazi collaborators like these in order to run extensive sabotage, terror and assassination campaigns against the USSR. In 1951, Wisner estimated that “over 35,000 members of the Russian secret police (MVD-MKGB) have been killed by OUN-UPA since the end of the last war.”

NATO was deeply involved in this anti-communist war, as demonstrated perhaps most clearly by Operation Gladio. Overseen by the CIA and MI6, NATO established a large secret army of trained militants, many of whom were well established Nazis and fascists. According to the official Italian Senate investigation into Gladio:

“It emerges without the shadow of a doubt that elements of the CIA started in the second half of the 1960s a massive operation in order to counter by the use of all means the spreading of groups and movements of the left on a European level.”

This included targeted killings and false flag terrorist attacks that were blamed on communists in order to terrify the civilian population into supporting rightwing governments and anti-communist raids.

The Supreme Allied Commander Europe of NATO from 1963 to 1969 was Lyman Lemnitzer, who had given the green light to Operation Northwoods in 1962. This operation, which was never implemented because President John F. Kennedy refused to sign off on it, consisted of planning false flag terrorist attacks against U.S. citizens that would be blamed on Cuba in order to justify a military invasion of the island.

Lemnitzer’s tenure overlapped with Adolf Heusinger’s, one of the many high-ranking Nazi and fascist officials who had been integrated into U.S. military and intelligence networks. Heusinger served as Hitler’s Chief of the General Staff of the Army and later became Chairman of the NATO Military Committee (1961-1964). NATO did not content itself, then, with having Nazis do some of its dirty work by recruiting them into its secret armies to run heinous anti-communist terrorist campaigns. It also integrated them directly into its leadership, thereby sending a clear message to the world regarding its political orientation.

The Maidan coup

In the ensuing years, the United States continued to work with Ukrainian fascists in their endless destabilization campaigns against the USSR. According to CIA specialist Douglas Valentine, “the CIA has been developing fascist assets in the Ukraine for 70 years.”

The Maidan coup in late 2013-2014, which 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.

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.

Although Svoboda has since attempted to mollify its Nazi image, it maintains its substance as an ultranationalist, anti-communist party that openly praises Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera, the politician and theorist of the militant wing of the fascist OUN.

The Azov Battalion was formed in May 2014 out of the ultra-nationalist Patriot of Ukraine (founded in 2005) and the Social National Assembly or SNA (founded in 2008) that is “known to have carried out attacks on minority groups.”

The Azov Battalion, Right Sector and other fascist militias played a key role in consolidating power for the post-coup government in numerous ways: engaging in street violence against the Left, running intimidation campaigns against uncooperative politicians, setting up indoctrination camps for children and youth, and exerting pressure on the government to revise the education curriculum, ban the Russian language, and rewrite official state history. This post-coup period of street violence and intimidation culminated in what some have called the worst Nazi atrocity since WWII, when some 42 leftists perished in an inferno set by fascists in the Odessa trade union building.

 

This U.S.-backed regime change operation is what prompted the outbreak of a civil war in the Donbas region of Eastern Ukraine. When pro-Russian separatists declared their independence from the fascist Ukrainian puppet government, it was unable to contain them. So the Azov battalion and other fascist militias were unleashed, leading to the death of some 14,000 people (just before the 2022 invasion, Putin recognized the independence of the two regions of the Donbas). Azov received backing from Ukraine’s interior minister, Arsen Avakov, as well as U.S. arms and training. Due to its purported effectiveness in fighting Russian separatists, the battalion was integrated into the Ukrainian National Guard in 2014, formally becoming part of the state.

In 2015, the CIA, according to five former intelligence and national security officials, set up “a secret intensive training program in the U.S. for elite Ukrainian special operations forces and other intelligence personnel.” The same year, the U.S. Congress passed a spending bill that featured “hundreds of millions of dollars worth of economic and military support for Ukraine, one that was expressly modified to allow that support to flow to the country’s resident neo-Nazi militia, the Azov Regiment.”

Image below is from Donbass Insider

Since there has been some debate regarding just how Nazi the Azov or other ultranationalist militias are, it is worth noting that the U.S. House of Representatives acknowledged in 2015 that Azov is “neo-Nazi.” Although the battalion has sometimes denied that it adheres to Nazi ideology as a whole, “Nazi symbols such as the swastika and SS regalia are rife on the uniforms and bodies of Azov members.” Their uniforms carry the neo-Nazi Wolfsangel symbol, which looks like a black swastika on a yellow background. Andriy Diachenko, the spokesperson for the regiment in 2015, claimed that “10% to 20% of the group’s members are Nazis.” It appears that he made this statement in order to downplay fears of Nazification. However, even if the numbers are that low, it necessarily follows that all of the other members of the Azov battalion are Nazi collaborators.

Regardless of whether or not Azov or similar battalions accept 100% of Nazi ideology, it is essential to recognize that their overall orientation is clearly fascist: they receive funding from reactionary elements of the capitalist ruling class to run violent para-state militias–which in some cases have been integrated into the state–that are ultranationalist, racist, pro-capitalist, and anti-communist. Andriy Biletsky is well positioned to understand their orientation because he served as the leader of the Patriot of Ukraine and the SNA, as well as the Azov Battalion, before serving as a member of the Ukrainian Parliament from 2014-2019. In an interview, he explained his position as follows: “The historic mission of our nation in this critical moment is to lead the White Races of the world in a final crusade for their survival. A crusade against the Semite-led Untermenschen [inferior races, according to the standard Nazi terminology].”

Fascism today in Ukraine

In Ukraine today, fascist elements are present in the capitalist ruling class, paramilitary organizations, the Ukrainian military, the parliament, and certain sectors of society. While it would be a mistake to assume that they are in each case the dominant force, it would be equally erroneous to ignore their presence, extensive reach and the support they enjoy from the Zelenskyy government and imperialist forces outside the country.

In the 2019 parliamentary election, Svoboda formed a united party list with other far-right parties: Right Sector, National Corps and the Governmental Initiative of Yarosh. They only obtained 2.15% of the votes, not surpassing the 5% threshold for a parliamentary seat. In the same election, Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s Servant of the People party, which ran on an anti-corruption platform and is described as centrist in the mainstream press, won 124 seats on the nationwide party list and 130 constituency seats.

Zelenskyy’s party is named after the eponymous hit Ukrainian TV series that appealed to “Ukrainians frustrated with the country’s oligarchic elite, and the failure to drain the swamp after the country’s 2014 revolution.” In the series, Zelenskyy, a career actor and comedian, played the role of none other than the President of Ukraine. His meteoric rise to the actual presidency was thus due in no small part to his celebrity status as a famous actor, not unlike other political puppets in bourgeois democracies. Moreover, he received ample funding from a handful of private donors, including most notably the billionaire oligarch Ihor Kolomoyskyi, who was his single biggest supporter.

Kolomoyskyi owns an ownership stake in 1+1 Media Group, whose TV station carried “Servant of the People,” which retrospectively looks a lot like an extended campaign advertisement. His media outlet also provided security and logistical backup for the actor’s political campaign, during which time he traveled 14 times to Geneva and Tel Aviv, where Kolomoyskyi is based. The Pandora Papers revealed a spider web of offshore networks and financial entanglements between Zelenskyy and Kolomoyskyi.

Kolomoyskyi is, moreover, one of the major funders of the ultranationalist militias in Eastern Ukraine, including the fascist Azov and Aidar battalions, which have been accused of heinous war crimes in the Donbas region over the past eight years. He also allegedly funds “the Donbas, Dnepr 1, Dnepr 2 volunteer battalions.” When he was appointed governor of his home state of Dnipropetrovsk in March 2014, he was instrumental in crushing the separatist movement there by “spending more than $10 million to create the ‘Dnipro battalion.’”

In 2015, it was estimated that there were some 30 nationalist militias fighting separatists in eastern Ukraine. Financially supported by wealthy oligarchs like Kolomoyskyi and Serhiy Taruta (the billionaire governor of the Donetsk region who also funded the Azov battalion), they function as a powerful paramilitary force that supplements the Ukrainian military. In July 2015, Russia issued a warrant for Kolomoyskyi’s arrest for “organizing the killing of civilians” due to his financial support of the militants.

Far from cracking down on these ultranationalist militias, many of which display open signs of Nazism and fascism, Kolomoyskyi’s actor-turned-president has not only allowed them to act with impunity, but he has also woven a tight relationship between his administration and open fascists.

For instance, in November 2021 Dmytro Yarosh, a former leader of Right Sector and avowed follower of Nazi collaborator Bandera, declared that he had been appointed as an advisor to the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Soon thereafter, Zelenskyy decorated Right Sector commander Dmytro Kotsyubaylo with the distinction “Hero of Ukraine.” On March 1 of this year, he appointed Maksym Marchenko, a former commander of the Aidar Battalion – which is accused of war crimes in Donbas – as the regional administrator of Odessa. There are numerous other ties between the Ukrainian government and military, on the one hand, and these ultra-nationalist and often fascist militias on the other.

While they’ve been busy empowering fascists, Ukrainian authorities also stripped communist parties of their right to participate in elections in 2015 and issued controversial ‘decommunisation’ laws: “The laws ban the display of Soviet symbols and change the status of the 09 May holiday marking the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany in World War 2. The laws will effectively remove all mentions of ‘the Great Patriotic War’ (a Soviet term for World War 2) and replace it with ‘Second World War’; ban the Soviet Victory flag; and rename streets, squares, and even whole cities.” Tens of thousands of streets have since been renamed, along with nearly one thousand cities and villages. Over two thousand statues and monuments have also been removed in this expansive anti-communist cultural project. Despite widespread criticism, the current government has refused to revoke the laws. According to Abdul Rahman, “Zelensky’s reluctance to take on right-wing groups in the same way that he is targeting allegedly pro-Russian groups is a sign of their influence in setting the political discourse in the country.”

There have also been a number of important symbolic gestures that glorify ultra-nationalists and Nazi collaborators, thereby fostering a broader culture of fascism within certain sectors of Ukrainian society. Zelenskyy claimed in an interview, for instance: “​There are indisputable heroes. Stepan Bandera is a hero for a certain part of Ukrainians, and this is a normal and cool thing. He was one of those who defended the freedom of Ukraine.” Zelenskyy also publicly defended Ukrainian footballer Roman Zolzulya as a “true patriot” when he was accused of being a Nazi due to his photos with Nazi collaborator Bandera and his open support of the Azov Battalion. Moreover, Zelenskyy’s former Prime Minister, Oleksiy Honcharuk appeared on stage at a neo-Nazi concert organized by the fascist C14 movement.

It is perhaps not surprising, then, that Ukraine was the only country, along with the United States, which voted against the UN General Assembly’s draft resolution “combating glorification of Nazism, neo-Nazism and other practices that contribute to fueling contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance.” Important media outlets have broadcast Nazi propaganda, which resound throughout the broader culture. In 2014, a Ukrainian journalist on Hromadske TV openly called for genocide in Donbas, claiming that “there is a certain category of people that must be exterminated.”

On March 13 of this year, Ukrainian TV presenter Fahruddin Sharafmal issued an impassioned call for genocide and the slaughter of Russian children on a morning show on Channel 24. With a photograph of the notorious Nazi Adolf Eichman behind him, he said:

“I allow myself to quote Adolf Eichmann, who said that in order to destroy a nation, you must destroy, first of all, its children. Because if you kill their parents, the children will grow up and take revenge. By killing children, they will never grow up and the nation will disappear.”

“And when I get the chance to take out the Russians,” he went on,

“I will definitely do it. Since you call me a Nazi, I adhere to the doctrine of Adolf Eichmann, and I will do everything in my power to ensure that you and your children never live on this earth. You have to understand that it’s about the victory of the Ukrainian people, not about peace. We need victory. And if we have to slaughter all your families – I’ll be one of the first to do it.”

Channel 24 is part of the TRK Lux media conglomerate that is controlled by wealthy Ukrainian businesswoman Kateryna Kit-Sadova and her husband Andriy Sadovyi (the mayor of Lviv and former leader of the Self Reliance political party).

Zelenskyy has recently used the Russian invasion as a pretext to ban 11 political parties, including the largest opposition party that holds 43 seats in the parliament, while having communist leaders arrested. Alleging to fight against Russian “misinformation,” he also took control of news outlets, imposing a centralized information policy that combines all national TV channels into “a single information platform of strategic communication.” Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs is working directly with an international network of public relations firms to wage information warfare and control the narrative. According to a senior NATO official: “They are really excellent in stratcom [strategic communication] — media, info ops, and also psy-ops.”

Zelenskyy’s experience as a career actor has certainly been an asset in these endeavors. After all, he seeks to depict his government as free and democratic – not unlike the Western imperialist powers it is aligned with – while it supports fascist militias, receives funding from reactionary capitalists (who also fund Nazi battalions), glorifies ultranationalists and Nazi collaborators, emboldens a culture of fascism, bans political parties, and tightly controls news and information.

The fascist threat is international

Although Ukraine might seem to some in the United States or elsewhere to be a distant land with little bearing on one’s immediate political environment, it is actually an important center for the global fascist movement. According to Aljazeera: “Transnational support for Azov has been wide, and Ukraine has emerged as a new hub for the far right across the world. Men from across three continents have been documented to join the Azov training units in order to seek combat experience and engage in similar ideology.” In an investigative report from early 2021, Time found that

“Azov is much more than a militia. It has its own political party; two publishing houses; summer camps for children; and a vigilante force known as the National Militia, which patrols the streets of Ukrainian cities alongside the police […] it also has a military wing with at least two training bases and a vast arsenal of weapons, from drones and armored vehicles to artillery pieces.”

Olena Semenyaka, the head of international outreach for Azov, told the reporters: “It could be described as a small state within a state.”

Ali Soufan has estimated that “more than 17,000 foreign fighters have come to Ukraine over the past six years from 50 countries.” In 2019, U.S. lawmakers wrote a letter to the State Department in which they stated that “the link between Azov and acts of terror in America is clear.” A 2018 FBI affidavit stated that Azov “is believed to have participated in training and radicalizing United States-based white supremacy organizations.” This included members of the white-supremacist Rise Above Movement, which were indicted for having “‘violently attacked and assaulted counter-protestors’ at several white nationalist and white supremacist events throughout the U.S., including the violent ‘Unite the Right’ rally in Charlottesville.”

Nazism and fascism are very real factors in Ukraine, and they have been extensively documented. Recognizing this fact is essential to having a nuanced understanding of the current conflict, but it does not at all imply support for Putin’s military intervention, which has had horrific consequences for the lives of many innocent workers.

Finally, it should not be lost on us that the Biden administration, which came to power as a purported bulwark against the spread of fascism at home, is continuing the US policy of supporting fascist forces in one of the primary hubs for international fascism. This clearly demonstrates that the struggle against fascism can never be limited to a domestic battle. It must always be carried out within an internationalist framework and thus inseparably linked with a resolute anti-imperialism.

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The author expresses his gratitude to Helmut-Harry Loewen for his invaluable suggestions and assistance in locating the best sources on fascism in Ukraine.

Featured image: 2015 march in Kiev to celebrate the birthday of Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera (pictured on black and red flag) (Source: Liberation News)

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The Pentagon announced Tuesday Ukraine’s military had received additional aircraft as well as parts for repairs to get damaged aircraft flying again. Pentagon spokesman John Kirby did not offer details on which countries provided aircraft, but acknowledged new transfers.

“They have received additional aircraft and aircraft parts to help them get more aircraft in the air,” Kirby told a news briefing. “We certainly have helped with the trans-shipment of some additional spare parts that have helped with their aircraft needs, but we have not transported whole aircraft,” he added.

Apparently, the Pentagon did not take Ukraine’s military authorities into confidence before making the announcement, because the official Twitter account of Ukraine’s air force tweeted Wednesday:

“Officially, Ukraine did not receive new aircraft from partners! With the assistance of the US Government, @KpsZSU received spare parts and components for the restoration and repair of the fleet of aircraft in the Armed Forces, which will allow to put into service more equipment.”

Despite the denial, nobody, not even Ukraine’s principal patron, the United States, deem preposterous claims made by Ukrainian sources credible, because Kyiv is known to have given exaggerated casualty counts and inflated figures of damage inflicted by the war in Ukraine in order to mount a disinformation campaign against Russia.

Privately, US officials recognized that Ukraine had an incentive to give only information that would bolster their case for more aid, more arms and more diplomatic assistance, CNN reported Tuesday.

“It’s a war—everything they do and say publicly is designed to help them win the war. Every public statement is an information operation, every interview, every Zelensky appearance broadcast is an information operation,” said a source familiar with Western intelligence.

Another reason Ukraine’s military authorities want to keep aircraft transfer under the wraps is that previously Russian forces claimed to have destroyed an S-300 air defense system that Slovakia transferred to Ukraine in a Kalibr cruise missiles strike hitting a hangar on the southern outskirts of the city of Dnepropetrovsk.

Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu boasted last month that 123 of Ukraine’s 152 fighter jets had been destroyed, as well as 77 of its 149 helicopters and 152 of its 180 long- and medium-range air defense systems, while its naval forces had been totally eliminated.

As demilitarization of Ukraine, alongside denazification and liberation of Donbas, was one of the principal objectives of Russia’s month-long military campaign lasting from late February to late March, therefore Russian forces would never allow vital military assets, especially air defense systems and fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft, to remain in the possession of Ukraine’s air force. Ukraine’s aircraft are safe only as long as they remain grounded and concealed from Russia’s advanced air surveillance systems.

Although the Pentagon spokesman refused to identify the country that delivered the aircraft to Ukraine due to secrecy of the shady transfer deal, the only NATO member state that was in talks with Washington and Kyiv to transfer its Soviet-era fleet of a dozen MiG-29 aircraft was Slovakia.

Reportedly, a batch of Ukraine’s highly skilled pilots traveled to Slovakia last week, took the delivery of the aircraft and then flew them all the way to concealed air force hangars at military airports in Kyiv while maintaining low altitudes in order to avoid detection by Russia’s advanced air surveillance systems. The Pentagon that has deployed extensive ISR, or intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, assets along Ukraine’s borders fully coordinated the entire clandestine operation of transferring the aircraft.

After the scuttled aircraft-transfer deal that would’ve seen Poland handing over its fleet of 28 Soviet-era MiG-29s to Ukraine in return for the United States “backfilling” the Polish Air Force with American F-16s last month, Slovakia was in talks with NATO about an arrangement that could allow Bratislava to send fighter jets to Ukraine, Prime Minister Eduard Heger told reporters on April 11.

Eduard Heger said his government wanted to “move away from reliance on the Soviet MiGs” in any case. “This is equipment that we want to finish anyway, because we’re waiting for the F-16s,” he added, referring to US-made jets that Slovakia was scheduled to receive in 2024, though Bratislava could receive American fighter jets earlier as it has now delivered on the pledge of transferring the dozen MiG-29 aircraft Slovakia was reported to have to Ukraine.

In early March, Poland made a similar offer of transferring its fleet of 28 Soviet-era MiG-29s to Ukraine in return for receiving American F-16s, but the Pentagon rejected the proposal due to apprehensions over direct confrontation with Russian forces in Ukraine.

The prospect of flying combat aircraft from NATO territory into the war zone “raises serious concerns for the entire NATO alliance,” the Pentagon said on March 9. “It is simply not clear to us that there is a substantive rationale for it,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby added.

But considering that Slovak aircraft have already been delivered to Ukraine, it seems plausible that the Polish proposal of transferring its aircraft might also be reconsidered by the Biden administration and Ukraine could receive additional Polish MiG-29 aircraft in the coming weeks.

In addition to transferring the aircraft to Ukraine, Slovakia also struck a deal with NATO earlier this month for transferring its Soviet-era S-300 air defense system to Ukraine in return for the transatlantic military alliance delivering four Patriot missile systems to Slovakia.

“I can confirm that Slovakia donated the S-300 air defense system to Ukraine based on its request to help in self-defense due to armed aggression from the Russian Federation,” Slovak Prime Minister Eduard Heger announced on April 8.

Although NATO has provided over 25,000 anti-aircraft MANPADS to Ukraine’s security forces and allied neo-Nazi militias, those were portable shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles, whereas S-300 air defense system, equivalent in capabilities to American Patriots, is a vehicle-mounted advanced system that could practically enforce a “no-fly zone” over Ukraine’s airspace, a longstanding demand of Ukrainian politicians, within the range of the battery. The Slovak army website said its version of the S-300 battery had a range of 75 km and could strike targets up to 27 km above ground.

Negotiations for the transfer of S-300 air defense system to Ukraine had been going on for weeks before the announcement by the Slovak prime minister that Bratislava had “generously donated” its Soviet-era S-300 air defense system to Ukraine in return for the transatlantic military alliance delivering four Patriot missile systems to Slovakia.

The Dutch government announced on March 18 it would send a Patriot missile defense system to Sliac, Slovakia, as part of NATO moves to strengthen air defenses in Eastern Europe. “The worsened safety situation in Europe as a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine makes this contribution necessary,” Dutch Defense Minister Kajsa Ollongren said in a statement. In addition, Germany also sent two Patriot missile systems to Slovakia.

Along with the Patriot batteries, the Dutch also announced sending a contingent of 150-200 troops, who would operate and also train Slovak forces in operating the American air defense system, as the security forces of Slovakia as well as Ukraine are only trained to operate Russian-made military equipment, which many NATO countries that are former Soviet states possess.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s trip to Europe in mid-March included not only NATO headquarters in Brussels, but also stops in Bulgaria and Slovakia — countries that own S-300s and SA-8s — before he headed back to Washington.

Previously, Slovakia’s defense minister said on March 17 that the country was willing to give Ukraine its S-300 surface-to-air missile defense systems if it received a “proper replacement.” Speaking at a press conference in Slovakia alongside US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, Slovak Defense Minister Jaroslav Nad said Slovakia was discussing the S-300s with the US and Ukraine. “We’re willing to do so immediately when we have a proper replacement. The only strategic air defense system that we have in Slovakia is S-300 system,” he added.

Lloyd Austin declined to say whether the United States might be willing to fill the gap.

“I don’t have any announcements for you this afternoon. These are things that we will continue to work with all of our allies on. And certainly, this is not just a US issue. It’s a NATO issue,” Austin said while diplomatically evading confirming the barter deal for which he had traveled all the way from Washington to Eastern Europe.

NATO member Slovakia had one battery of the S-300 air defense system, inherited from the Soviet era after the break-up of Czechoslovakia in 1993. Following the Slovakia visit, Lloyd Austin also visited Bulgaria on March 18. Bulgaria has S-300 systems, but the country made it clear it had no plans to send any to Ukraine.

Bulgarian President Rumen Radev prudently said that any arms supplies to Ukraine were equivalent to the country being dragged into war. Ultimately, he said, such an issue should be decided by the parliament. He also said that Bulgaria needed its S-300 for its own air defense, particularly for the Kozlodui nuclear power plant.

Slovak Prime Minister Eduard Heger said Slovakia would receive additional equipment from NATO allies to make up for the transfer. Defense Minister Jaroslav Nad subsequently announced that Slovakia would receive a fourth Patriot missile system from the United States a week after the announcement of the deal.

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the United States would place one Patriot system in Slovakia in the coming days and it would be operated by US troops. “Their deployment length has not yet been fixed, as we continue to consult with the Slovakian government about more permanent air defense solutions,” Austin said in a statement.

“As the Russian military repositions for the next phase of this war, I have directed my administration to continue to spare no effort to identify and provide to the Ukrainian military the advanced weapons capabilities it needs to defend its country,” President Joe Biden said while thanking Slovakia for sending its S-300 system to Ukraine.

Acknowledging President Biden’s gratitude, Russian forces claimed they had destroyed the S-300 air defense system that Slovakia transferred to Ukraine in a Kalibr cruise missiles strike hitting a hangar on the southern outskirts of the city of Dnepropetrovsk.

In his regular briefing on the military operation in Ukraine on April 11, Russian Defense Ministry Spokesman Major General Igor Konashenkov claimed the barrage of sea-launched Kalibr missiles destroyed four S-300 launchers and as many as 25 Ukrainian troops in the precision strike. The Russian official also reported destroying an S-300 targeting radar in a separate airstrike near Uspenovka.

The Pentagon revealed last week that the United States had committed more than $3.2 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since the beginning of the Biden Administration, including approximately $2.6 billion since the beginning of Russia’s “unprovoked assault” on February 24.

As of April 14, United States security assistance committed to Ukraine includes:

  • Over 1,400 Stinger anti-aircraft systems;
  • Over 5,500 Javelin anti-armor systems;
  • Over 14,000 other anti-armor systems;
  • Over 700 Switchblade Tactical Unmanned Aerial Systems;
  • 18 155mm Howitzers and 40,000 155mm artillery rounds;
  • 16 Mi-17 helicopters;
  • Hundreds of Armored High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles;
  • 200 M113 Armored Personnel Carriers;
  • Over 7,000 small arms;
  • Over 50,000,000 rounds of ammunition;
  • 75,000 sets of body armor and helmets;
  • Laser-guided rocket systems;
  • Puma Unmanned Aerial Systems;
  • Unmanned Coastal Defense Vessels;
  • 14 counter-artillery radars;
  • Four counter-mortar radars;
  • Two air surveillance radars;
  • M18A1 Claymore anti-personnel munitions;
  • C-4 explosives and demolition equipment for obstacle clearing;
  • Tactical secure communications systems;
  • Night vision devices, thermal imagery systems, optics, and laser rangefinders;
  • Commercial satellite imagery services;
  • Explosive ordnance disposal protective gear;
  • Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear protective equipment;
  • Medical supplies to include first aid kits.

Despite making Ukraine an “ordnance depot” of NATO powers on Russia’s western flank, CNN reported Tuesday the US had few ways to track the substantial supply of anti-tank, anti-aircraft and other weaponry it had sent across the border into Ukraine, a blind spot that’s due in large part to the lack of US boots on the ground in the country—and the easy portability of many of the smaller systems pouring across the border.

“We have fidelity for a short time, but when it enters the fog of war, we have almost zero,” said one source briefed on US intelligence. “It drops into a big black hole, and you have almost no sense of it at all after a short period of time.”

Trucks loaded with pallets of arms provided by the Defense Department were picked up by Ukrainian armed forces, primarily in Poland, and then driven into Ukraine, Kirby said, “then it’s up to the Ukrainians to determine where they go and how they’re allocated inside their country.”

In making the decision to send billions of dollars of weapons and equipment into Ukraine, the Biden administration factored in the risk that some of the shipments may ultimately end up in unexpected places, a defense official said. But right now, the official said, the administration views a failure to adequately arm Ukraine as a greater risk.

Although NATO powers did provide caches of anti-aircraft Stingers to Afghan jihadists that helped turning the tide in the Soviet-Afghan war in the eighties, since then, despite providing anti-tank munitions and rest of weapons to militant groups in the proxy wars in Libya and Syria, Western powers have consistently avoided providing MANPADS to proxy forces, because such deadly anti-aircraft munitions could become a long-term threat not only to military aircraft but also to civilian airlines.

In the sheer desperation to inflict maximum material damage on Russia’s security forces, however, NATO appears to have breached its own long-standing convention of curbing the proliferation of anti-aircraft munitions. Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee on April 7, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Mark Milley revealed that US and NATO countries have collectively provided over 60,000 anti-tank weapons and 25,000 anti-aircraft weapons during NATO’s “weapons for peace” program to Ukraine since Russia’s invasion on Feb. 24.

Who would be responsible for the myopic and self-destructive policy of providing anti-aircraft munitions to Ukraine’s security forces and allied ultra-nationalist militias once the war ends and those MANPADS are found in black markets, notably in thriving weapons markets of Eastern Europe, posing grave risk to military aircraft as well as civilian airlines across the globe?

In fact, Russia alluded to the mortal risk posed by the proliferation of anti-aircraft munitions in its diplomatic demarche to the United States last week. The document, titled “On Russia’s concerns in the context of massive supplies of weapons and military equipment to the Kiev regime,” was forwarded to the State Department by the Russian Embassy in Washington, in which Russia accused NATO powers of violating “rigorous principles” governing the transfer of weapons to conflict zones, and of being oblivious to “the threat of high-precision weapons falling into the hands of radical nationalists, extremists and bandit forces in Ukraine.”

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Nauman Sadiq is an Islamabad-based geopolitical and national security analyst focused on geo-strategic affairs and hybrid warfare in the Middle East and Eurasia regions. His domains of expertise include neocolonialism, military-industrial complex and petro-imperialism. He is a regular contributor of diligently researched investigative reports to Global Research.

Featured image is from super-hobby.com

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First published on April 18, 2022

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Vaccine enthusiast Bill Gates recently spoke at the TED 2022 platform calling the anti-Vax movement a bunch of crazy people, here is what he said,

“So it’s somewhat ironic to have somebody turn around and say we’re using vaccines to kill people or to make money or we started the pandemic”

he continued

“Does this turn into something where there’s constantly crazy people showing up? Who knows?” 

Since the old days when the medical establishment expanded the use of vaccines to supposedly cure everything under the sun, they claim that they have saved countless lives, yet it seems that many people whether they are in the medical field or not, accept the notion that vaccines are the only answer that can cure a disease or help people stay healthy. I want to mention that there have been vaccines that were successful, but not all of them, these days its sort of playing Russian roulette with your life, so let’s take a step back and look at some of those vaccines that has caused injuries and deaths’ in its historical context.

During World War I, a major pandemic known as the Spanish Flu of 1918 shaped the way we view the use of vaccines.  It was a conspiracy that was astounding once you dive into what was behind the worldwide pandemic at the time.  It was estimated that the Spanish Flu had killed between 50 and 100 million people worldwide.  It is important to clarify that the Spanish Flu was not at all Spanish, it was American, and it began at an army base in Fort Riley, Kansas where the first case of the flu was discovered.

It basically began with billionaire tycoon John D. Rockefeller, an ambitious industrialist, founder of the Standard Oil Company who later joined the elite club of Globalists who helped turn Big Pharma into an influential industry controlled by the establishment.

During the height of the Spanish Flu pandemic, it was Rockefeller’s invisible hand that was behind the experimental ‘bacterial meningitis vaccine’ which was cultured in horses by the institution he funded and named after himself called the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research which is now

The Rockefeller University.  

It began in 1900, Rockefeller’s Big Oil monopoly played a major role in medicine because scientists discovered ‘petrochemicals’ which allowed them to extract different kinds of chemicals from oil to create plastics and other useful products.

The discovery also led scientists to produce vitamins leading up to the creation of new pharmaceutical drugs.

So, Rockefeller saw an opportunity to monopolize the medical industry through his oil enterprises, but he had to settle a major problem that was in the way of his new idea and that was to destroy the traditional medical practice of using natural and herbal medicines.

Holistic medicine and its uses can be traced to Europe and Indigenous tribal nations going back hundreds, even thousands of years.

Rockefeller then teamed up with another Globalist friend of his by the name of Andrew Carnegie of the Carnegie Foundation and sent Abraham Flexner who produced the Flexner Report that criticized hospitals and other institutions including medical schools that used homeopathic and natural medicines.

The result of the Flexner report forced these traditional medical institutions to close their operations.  At the same time, it led to the demonization of doctors and other health practitioners who advocated for natural and alternative medicines with the result of them ending up in prison.

Rockefeller gave more than $100 million to medical colleges and hospitals through the General Education Board (GEB), a philanthropy to support his new enterprise of producing pharmaceutical drugs from his oil companies by awarding grants to scientists who can identify which chemicals in certain plants can be used for curing diseases, then they had to produce a similar chemical in the lab from Rockefellers petroleum to recreate a new prototype of medicine that could be eventually patented and sold to the public.

The Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research (which is the birthplace of Big Pharma) had played a major role in the global pandemic at the time because it was their vaccine that caused flu-like symptoms. 

The experimental bacterial meningitis vaccine was administered between January 21st to June 4th, 1918, at Fort Riley with over 6 million American soldiers who were drafted for the war effort, many of them became human test subjects after receiving numerous doses of the experimental vaccine or the horse-infused bacteria.  At the same time, while fighting the war under harsh unsanitary conditions, American soldiers had spread the bacteria infused in their bodies even further on the battlefields of Europe.

However, after the war had ended on November 11, 1918, there were claims of returning soldiers spreading various diseases from Europe within the US, so a campaign spearheaded by the Rockefeller Institute to vaccinate the US population with the remaining vaccines took place resulting in the deaths of tens of millions of people.  What was shocking was the level of the vaccine experiments on the soldiers and then on the US population as autopsies revealed that the bacteria were caused by those same experimental bacterial meningitis vaccines that destroyed their immune systems.

A report from July 20, 1918, by Frederick L. Gates, M.D. First Lieutenant, Medical Corps of the US Army ‘Antimeningitis Vaccination and Observations on Agglutinins in the Blood of Chronic Meningococcus Carriers’ confirms the history of the experiments on American soldiers:

Following an outbreak of epidemic meningitis at Camp Funston, Kansas, in October and November, 1917, a series of antimeningitis vaccinations was undertaken on volunteer subjects from the camp. Major E. H. Schorer, Chief of the Laboratory Section at the adjacent Base Hospital at Fort Riley, offered every facility at his command and cooperated in the laboratory work connected with the vaccinations. In the camp, under the direction of the Division Surgeon, Lieutenant Colonel J. L. Shepard, a preliminary series of vaccinations on a relatively small number of volunteers served to determine the appropriate doses and the resultant local and general reactions. Following this series, the vaccine was offered by the Division Surgeon to the camp at large, and “given by the regimental surgeons to all who wished to take it

Preliminary Series. The preliminary series of vaccinations was carried out in the 342nd Field Artillery Regiment through the courtesy of Colonel Nugent and Major Czar C. Johnson, surgeon of the regiment. This organization volunteered en masse in response to the call issued by the Division Surgeon and offered a most promising opportunity for an extended series of observations. Moreover, only one case of meningitis had developed in the 342nd Field Artillery and the regiment had recently been covered in the search for meningococcus carriers. During the first experience the vaccination of known carriers was avoided, and this regiment appeared to be free from them

As the experiments continued, Gates reported that the men started to experience flu-like symptoms:

A survey of the reports of the regimental surgeons and of the observations in the preliminary series shows that headache was the most frequent symptom following injection and accompanied most of the other symptoms encountered. Sometimes the reaction was initiated by a chill or chilly sensation, and a number of men complained of fever or feverish sensations during the following night. Next in frequency came nausea (occasionally vomiting), dizziness, and general “aches and pains” in the joints and muscles, which in a few instances were especially localized in the neck or lumbar region, causing stiff neck or stiff back

However, bacterial meningitis is known to be very similar to flu-like symptoms as described in webmd.com that includes fever, headache, upset stomach or vomiting, stiff neck, etc.  Comparing the early symptoms of bacterial meningitis and even bacterial pneumonia to the flu is the sole reason why the vaccine experiments at Fort Riley, Kansas have been ignored as the main cause of the Spanish Flu.  In fact, an interesting article from the New Scientist published on August 4th, 2008 ‘Bacteria were the real killers in 1918 flu pandemic’ partially admits that “Medical and scientific experts now agree that bacteria, not influenza viruses, were the greatest cause of death during the 1918 flu pandemic.” The reason I say that the article “partially admits” is that it was bacteria and not the influenza virus that was the cause of death because the article never mentioned that it was the bacterial meningitis vaccine that spread the flu among soldiers and civilians:

Government efforts to gird for the next influenza pandemic – bird flu or otherwise – ought to take notice and stock up on antibiotics, says John Brundage, a medical microbiologist at the Armed Forces Health Surveillance Center in Silver Spring, Maryland.

Brundage’s team culled first-hand accounts, medical records and infection patterns from 1918 and 1919. Although a nasty strain of flu virus swept around the world, bacterial pneumonia that came on the heels of mostly mild cases of flu killed the majority of the 20 to 100 million victims of the so-called Spanish flu, they conclude.

“We agree completely that bacterial pneumonia played a major role in the mortality of the 1918 pandemic,” says Anthony Fauci, director of National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Disease in Bethesda, Maryland, and author of another journal article out next month that comes to a similar conclusion

The article only mentions what lifelong bureaucrat and the director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Disease, Dr. Anthony Fauci had said regarding the vaccines:

Antibiotics and vaccines against bacterial pneumonia could limit deaths in the next pandemic. And while an effective influenza vaccine should nip an outbreak in the bud, such a vaccine could take months to prepare and distribute.

“The idea of stockpiling [bacterial] vaccines and antibiotics is under serious consideration,” says Fauci, who is on a US government taskforce to prepare for the next flu pandemic

Obviously Fauci’s statement must have been music to Big Pharma’s ears.

In the United States, the flu shot is advertised relentlessly to the public as a safe and effective way to combat the seasonal flu although there are various reports that suggest that they are dangerous.  On April 3rd, 2020 The Children’s Health Defense published ‘An Unwelcome Milestone: Payouts for Influenza Vaccine Injuries Exceed $900 Million’ by Wayne Rohde who introduced a brief history of the development of the flu vaccine which began in the 1940’s:

Vaccine scientists have been developing inactivated influenza vaccines (IIVs) for decades, formulating the first bivalent (two-strain) IIV in the early 1940s and the first trivalent (three-strain) IIV in 1978. In 2003 , the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the first three-strain live attenuated influenza vaccine (LAIV) for use in children and adults aged 5-49 years old, extending its approval to those aged 2-49 years old in 2007

Rohde explains that “numerous influenza vaccines using different technologies and targeting different age groups have entered the market” and that “the FDA approves some influenza vaccines using accelerated approval mechanisms” which reminds us of the Covid-19 experimental injections that received the same accelerated approval process under Operation Warp Speed.   As of March 2020, Rohde’s gives a detailed analysis of the total compensation paid to the victims and their families from the injuries and deaths caused by Big Pharma’s influenza vaccines as reported by the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (NVICP):

As of mid-March 2020, the total NVICP payout for all injuries and death from seasonal influenza vaccines was approximately $897,967,381.38 (based on my analysis of all decisions posted at the United States Court of Federal Claims website). In other words, just shy of $900 million dollars for damages, attorney fees and medical expert costs—for vaccines that have only been part of the compensation program for the last 15 years.

Another statistic that is concerning is the ever-growing number of petitions filed in the NVICP that await medical reviews or decisions. Over 2,000 influenza petitions alone are pending. Not even a year ago, that figure was 50% less

Some of the serious injuries included in the NVICP are Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) transverse myelitis (TM), chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy (CIDP) and death.

On December 1st, 2014 the Center for Infectious Disease and Policy (CIDRAP) at the University of Minnesota reported on the deaths of elderly people in Italy following the use of the Novartis Flu vaccine‘Novartis flu vaccine on hold in Italy after suspicious deaths’ claimed that

“Italian authorities have suspended the use of about 500,000 doses of Fluad, a Novartis influenza vaccine for elderly people, following 13 recent deaths in people who had received the shot, according to company and media reports.”

It was first reported on November 28th in a statement released by Novartis that it was “two batches of the vaccine, amounting to about 500,000 doses, have been put on a “precautionary hold”following the reported deaths.”  And of course, the Big Pharma giant also claimed that there was “no causal link has been found between the vaccine and the deaths.”  However, CIDRAP mentioned reports from Bloomberg News on the suspicious deaths:

Italy’s drug regulatory agency, AIFA, suspended the two vaccine lots on Nov 28, after three people died within 48 hours of being vaccinated, Bloomberg News reported. On Nov 29 the number of suspicious deaths rose to 11, Bloomberg reported that day, and today the company put the number at 13

One important question that needs to be asked is what are the ingredients in the flu vaccines?  The World Mercury Project published a brochure titled ‘Flu Vaccines in Pregnancy and Childhood: What You Need to Know’ makes it clear that mercury is in the flu vaccines and warns “the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends pregnant women and infants get influenza vaccines, many of which contain ethylmercury from the preservative thimerosal” and that it may “result in mercury exposures exceeding the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recommended maximum levels.”  Mercury is considered “toxic to brain tissue and can impact critical stages of brain development.”  The World Mercury Project exposes the hidden dangers behind the flu shots for pregnant women citing various studies below, one of them produced by the CDC:

A 2017 CDC study links miscarriage to flu vaccines, particularly in the first trimester. Pregnant women vaccinated in the 2010/2011 and 2011/2012 flu seasons had two times greater odds of having a miscarriage within 28 days of receiving the vaccine. In women who had received the H1N1 vaccine in the previous flu season, the odds of having a miscarriage within 28 days were 7.7 times greater than in women who did not receive a flu shot during their pregnancy.

A study published in 2016 that looked at the safety of flu vaccines found a moderately elevated risk for major birth defects in infants born to women who had received a flu vaccine during the first trimester of pregnancy.

A study published in 2017 found an elevated risk of autism spectrum disorders in children whose mothers had a first trimester flu shot. Flu vaccine administration is documented to cause an inflammatory response in pregnant women. Recent research found inflammation during pregnancy is associated with the development of autism spectrum disorders.

A large study in approximately 50,000 pregnant women over five flu seasons found no difference in the risk for developing influenza or similar illnesses between those who received the influenza vaccine during pregnancy and those who did not.

An independent 2014 review found no randomized controlled trials assessing vaccination in pregnant women. It states, “The only evidence available comes from observational studies with modest methodological quality. On this basis, vaccination shows very limited effects”

The conclusion is obvious, the flu vaccine is dangerous and for those who are skeptical, are completely justified in being so.

The Polio Vaccine and the Glorification of Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin

The medical establishment always flaunts how the Polio vaccine saved millions of people worldwide, but let’s take a closer look at the start of the Polio vaccine rollout.   An interesting article from The National Interest published in 2020 ‘Four Times in History Vaccines Failed (Lessons for a Coronavirus Vaccine?)’ mentioned how the polio vaccine resulted in paralysis.  There was also an increase of new cases of polio after the rollout:

In the 1955 Cutter Incident, some batches of polio vaccine given to the public contained live poliovirus—even though they had passed the required safety testing. More than 250 cases of polio were attributed to vaccines produced by one company, Cutter Laboratories. The mistake resulted in many cases of paralysis, and the vaccine was recalled as soon as new cases of polio were detected

What was known about the Cutter Incident which began on April 1955 when more than 200,000 children in the US had received the polio vaccine.  On March 2006 The Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine (JRSM) published ‘The Cutter Incident: How America’s First Polio Vaccine Led to a Growing Vaccine Crisis’ claimed that the

“polio vaccine in which the process of inactivating the live virus proved to be defective. Within days there were reports of paralysis and within a month the first mass vaccination programme against polio had to be abandoned.”

The reason behind the abandonment of the vaccine was due to investigations on the aftereffects.

 “Subsequent investigations revealed that the vaccine, manufactured by the California-based family firm of Cutter Laboratories, had caused 40 000 cases of polio, leaving 200 children with varying degrees of paralysis and killing 10.”

However, one of the most prominent advocates to vaccinate everyone for anything, Dr. Paul Offit, a well-known pediatrician who is a member of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices who specializes in infectious diseases, immunology, vaccines (he is co-inventor of the Rotavirus vaccine) and virology uses the Cutter Incident as a platform to propagandize the struggle of the 20th century on behalf of medical science and its fight against polio and other diseases:

He reminds us that, within a decade of Karl Landsteiner’s identification of the polio virus in 1908, an epidemic in New York killed 2400 people (mostly children) and left thousands more with a life-long disability. In the 1950s, summer outbreaks in the USA caused tens of thousands of cases, leaving hundreds paralysed or dead. `Second only to the atomic bomb’, polio was `the thing that Americans feared the most’

Obviously, the JRSM explains who Dr. Offit blames for the Cutter incident which is not the people or the science behind the polio vaccine, he blamed the manufacturer of the vaccine (Cutter Laboratories) and the inspection process of the federal government:

Offit provides a gripping account of how the `March of Dimes’, inspired in part by President Franklin D Roosevelt’s personal experience of polio, raised funds for research and focused national attention on the disease. He profiles leading figures, notably Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin —brilliant, egotistical and flawed characters—pioneers in vaccine development and as scientific celebrities, and notorious for their bitter personal rivalry.

Offit offers a balanced judgement on both the Cutter incident and on the Salk and Sabin vaccines. Reviewing failures in the manufacturing and inspection processes, he exonerates Salk from blame and concludes that `the federal government, through its vaccine regulatory agency… was in the best position to avoid the Cutter tragedy’. Three larger companies produced safe polio vaccines according to Salk’s protocol for inactivating the virus with formaldehyde. The lack of experience and expertise at Cutter Laboratories, undetected by the inspectors, caused the disaster

Let’s go deeper into Offit’s propaganda.  In 2015, an article I wrote titled ‘The Jonas Salk Polio Vaccine: A Medical Breakthrough or a Propaganda Campaign for Big Pharma?’ based on the December 1960 issue of ‘Herald of Health’ an influential health magazine at the time  published a critical report titled ‘The Great Salk Vaccine Fiasco: Misuse of statistics, blackout of vaccine cases, cited by eminent Chicago doctor’ By Ernest B. Zeisler, M.D. (www.vaclib.org) who basically disagreed with Dr. Salk’s claim that the polio vaccine was safe and effective. What he wrote to the publisher of the magazine is quite revealing since he was uncertain of the new vaccine that supposedly cured polio.  Dr. Zeisler wrote “No newspaper, periodical or medical journal will touch this. Many authorities in this field agree with me, and some have written me to say so and to congratulate me for what they call my ‘courage.’But no medical man will agree with me publicly.” Dr. Zeisler made a statement on what he observed on the safety issues of the polio vaccine:

On April 12, 1955, results of a 1954 field test were published and the Salk vaccine became a licensed product. Prof. Paul Meier of the School of Hygiene and Public Health at Johns Hopkins University revealed that “the vaccines used in the field trial, which were produced by two of the manufacturers, had been extensively tested in three laboratories and had been found negative for live virus. Many of the lots of vaccine released after the field trial had been produced by other manufacturers and had been tested only by the producer. Therefore, the safety of these lots could not properly be judged from the results of the field trial. All manufacturers had rejected some lots because live virus had been found in them, and therefore Salk’s theory that safety was guaranteed by the method of preparation obviously did not apply

Dr. Zeisler mentioned K.A. Brownlee from the University of Chicago whose work was published in the Journal of the American Statistical Association in 1955 as he criticized the biased field trials:

The field trial itself had violated the cardinal principles of scientific procedure. As said by Brownlee in the Journal of the American Statistical Association:

“. . . 59 per cent of the trial was worthless because of the lack of adequate controls. The remaining 41 per cent may be all right but contains internal evidence of bias in favor of the vaccinated. .. The reviewer . . . would point out that gamma globulin was triumphantly proclaimed effective by the National Foundation after a similar trial . . .”

Dr. Zeisler proclaimed that the US Public Health service continued to promote “gamma globulin” or human blood plasma made from donated human blood that contained the antibodies needed to combat polio.  He said, “it may be of interest to note that in May of 1954, several months after it had been shown to be valueless in preventing poliomyelitis, the U.S. Public Health Service continued to recommend and distribute gamma globulin “for use against poliomyelitis.” Zeisler also criticized the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) for not publishing Brownlee’s criticism of gamma globulin.  In 1955, an effort to promote the polio vaccine was in effect by the ‘National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis’ who published an inaccurate official report of the field trials.  But according to Dr. Salk the polio vaccine was safe.  In an interview conducted by LIFE magazine ‘Tracking the Killer’ Dr. Salk was asked if his “monkey vaccine was safe” and he said, “There is no question of ‘how safe is it?’ It is safe, and it can’t be safer than safe’.”

Dr. Zeisler said that

“the public was deceived into permitting mass vaccination of children with a vaccine which should have been known to be unsafe and which was not known to be of any value in preventing poliomyelitis” he continued “that certain lots of vaccine had produced a number of cases of poliomyelitis, and within another four weeks all the vaccine was withdrawn from use.”

On May 15th, 1962, hearings took place before the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce House of Representatives on H.R. 10541 with Clinton R. Miller who represented the National Health Federationwho asked the following question:

One of the most obvious pieces of misinformation being delivered to the American public is that the 50-percent rise in paralytic poliomyelitis in 1958 and the real accelerated increase in 1959 have been caused by persons failing to be vaccinated.  This represents a certain amount of doubletalk and an unwillingness to face facts and to evaluate a true effectiveness of the Salk vaccine.  It is doubletalk from the standpoint of logical reasoning: If the Salk vaccine is to take credit for the decline from 1955 to 1957, how can these individuals who were vaccinated several years ago contribute to the increase in 1958 and 1959? Are not these persons still vaccinated?

It was a legit question. Miller pointed out the obvious propaganda Dr. Salk used to exaggerate the benefits of the polio vaccine:

The tendency of a mass vaccination program is to herd people. People are not cattle or sheep. They should not be herded. A mass vaccination program carries a built-in temptation to oversimplify the problem; to exaggerate the benefits; to minimize or completely ignore the hazards; to discourage or silence scholarly, thoughtful and cautious opposition; to create an urgency where none exists; to whip up an enthusiasm among citizens that can carry with it the seeds of impatience, if not intolerance; to extend the concept of the police power of the state in quarantine far beyond its proper limitation; to assume simplicity when there is actually great complexity; to continue to support a vaccine long after it has been discredited;… to ridicule honest and informed consent

Today, polio vaccines are now causing a rise in new polio cases.  On November 25th, 2019, The Associated Press (AP) published ‘More polio cases now caused by vaccine than by wild virus’ said that “four African countries have reported new cases of polio linked to the oral vaccine, as global health numbers show there are now more children being paralyzed by viruses originating in vaccines than in the wild.” The article continued:

In a report late last week, the World Health Organization and partners noted nine new polio cases caused by the vaccine in Nigeria, Congo, Central African Republic and Angola. Seven countries elsewhere in Africa have similar outbreaks and cases have been reported in Asia. Of the two countries where polio remains endemic, Afghanistan and Pakistan, vaccine-linked cases have been identified in Pakistan.

In rare cases, the live virus in oral polio vaccine can mutate into a form capable of sparking new outbreaks. All the current vaccine-derived polio cases have been sparked by a Type 2 virus contained in the vaccine. Type 2 wild virus was eliminated years ago

On November 18th, 2020, The Science Daily published an article by the University of Michigan (Michigan Medicine) that should be an eye-opener ‘How the polio vaccine virus occasionally becomes dangerous’ stated the following:

The polio vaccine comes in two types: the Salk vaccine, made with a killed virus and the Sabin vaccine, made with a live but weakened, or attenuated, virus. The Sabin vaccine has several advantages for use in the developing world, including the fact that it does not need to be kept cold, and as an oral vaccine, it does not require needles. However, because it contains a live, albeit weakened polio virus, that virus is able to evolve into more virulent forms and cause outbreaks months to years following a vaccination campaign.

In a new paper, Adam Lauring, M.D., Ph.D., of the department of microbiology & immunology and the division of infectious disease and a collaborative team describe an enterprising study that allowed them to view the evolution of the vaccine virus into a more dangerous form in real time.  “Most outbreaks of type 2 polio virus are caused by the vaccine. Then you have a problem where our best weapon is that same vaccine, so you’re kind of fighting fire with fire,” says Lauring

If that statement by Dr, Lauring is not revealing, I don’t know what is.  However, Mami Taniuchi, Ph.D., from the University of Virginia, Michael Famulare, Ph.D from the Institute for Disease Modeling based in Seattle, Washington and a team from the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research conducted human experiments on children from Bangladesh:

In an effort to understand the basic biology of poliovirus and how it replicates, Lauring’s lab seized an opportunity to build on an earlier study of a new vaccination campaign in semi-rural Bangladesh. This study, which was run by Mami Taniuchi, Ph.D., of the University of Virginia and Michael Famulare, Ph.D,. of the Institute for Disease Modeling in Seattle, Washington, along with a team from the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh, followed households where children were vaccinated with the live attenuated virus, collecting weekly stool samples from each household member. The virus within those samples was then genetically analyzed.

“There’s a lot of work being done to try and understand how the virus goes from attenuated to virulent again,” says Lauring. “What we haven’t known is what it is doing in those first few weeks or months. This was an opportunity to see those early steps”

The University of Michigan article concludes “yet every now and then, an enhanced virus makes it to a new host and gains a foothold, triggering disease. The hope, explains Lauring, is that this work will “inform in a better way to tinker with the vaccine so you get fewer downsides and still maintain its upsides — that it’s actually a very effective vaccine.”  

In November 2004, Neil Z Miller from the ‘Institute of Medical and Scientific Inquiry’ published ‘The polio vaccine: a critical assessment of its arcane history, efficacy, and long-term health-related consequences’ that can be found on researchgate.net gives an insight to what was in the polio vaccine:

Polio (poliomyelitis) is a potentially dangerous viral ailment. To combat this disease, researchers developed two polio vaccines (inactivated and live) grown in cultures made from monkey kidneys. Beginning in the 1950s, these vaccines were administered to millions of people in the United States and throughout the world. Officially, the polio vaccine is considered safe and effective, and has been credited with singularly reducing the incidence of this disease. These tenets are not supported by the data. A cancer-causing monkey virus-SV-40-was discovered in polio vaccines administered to millions of people. SV-40 has been found in brain tumors, bone cancers, lung cancers and leukemia. SV-40 is transmitted through sexual intercourse, and from mother to child in the womb. Monkeys that were used to make polio vaccines were infected with simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV), a virus closely related to human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), the infectious agent associated with AIDS. Some researchers question whether HIVs may simply be SIVs “residing in and adapting to a human host.” Polio vaccines also contain calf serum, glycerol and other parts of the cow that may have been infected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad cow disease, a fatal brain-wasting ailment that some researchers link to Cruetzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), its human equivalent. Current disease reduction techniques that emphasize short-term gains over long-term health consequences need to be reevaluated and discontinued while new and safer health paradigms are researched and implemented

The Most Dangerous Vaccine Ever? The Smallpox Vaccine

‘The Most Dangerous Vaccine’ was the name of an article published in 2002 from a report produced by CBS news long-time TV show 60 Minutes.  It started with “Smallpox may be the worst disease ever known to man. It killed about half a billion people from 1880 to 1980, before it was eradicated” continued “and the smallpox vaccine is deadly, too. Scientists call it the most dangerous vaccine known to man.” Then they jumped right into Iraq’s ‘WMDs’ “Today, smallpox is a potential weapon of mass destruction that could be wielded against the U.S. by enemies like Iraq and al Qaeda.”  Then the US government makes the smallpox vaccine available to everyone:

With that in mind, President Bush is expected to announce on Friday a plan which will gradually make the smallpox vaccine available to all Americans who want it.  That’s according to administration sources who say the shots will be mandatory for about 500,000 military personnel and recommended for another half-million who work in hospital emergency rooms and on special smallpox response teams.

The general public will be offered the vaccine on a voluntary basis as soon as large stockpiles are licensed, probably early in 2004, though the government will not encourage people to get them

At that time during the early stages of the US invasion of Iraq “the government has decided to bring back the vaccine because of fear that terrorists, or Iraq, could use the virus as a weapon.”  The article admits that the smallpox vaccine is dangerous and offers protection but with a catch, “but that protection has a price. Some people die from it; and others have serious reactions, some permanent. Scientists say it’s the most dangerous vaccine known to man.”  Once again, Dr. Paul Offit is mentioned in the article, “We know if we immunize a million people, that there will be 15 people that will suffer severe, permanent adverse outcomes and one person who may die from the vaccine.”

In an article from April 2003 written by Edward A. Belongia, MD and Allison L. Naleway, PhD for the  National Center for Biotechnology Information, U.S. National Library of Medicine(https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/) titled ‘Smallpox vaccine: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly’ exposes some truth behind the Smallpox vaccine:

Smallpox inarguably shaped the course of human history by killing countless millions in both the Old World and the New World. Dr. Edward Jenner’s discovery of vaccination in the late 18th century, and the global eradication of smallpox in the 1970s, rank among the greatest achievements in human history. Amidst recent growing concerns about bioterrorism, smallpox vaccination has resurfaced from the history books to become a topic of major importance. Inoculation with vaccinia virus is highly effective for the prevention of smallpox infection, but it is associated with several known side effects that range from mild and self-limited to severe and life-threatening. As the United States moves forward with plans to vaccinate selected health care workers and the military, and perhaps offer the vaccination to all citizens in the future, it is important to fully understand and appreciate the history, risks, and benefits of smallpox vaccination

Then the article describes what were the adverse effects of the vaccine:

Smallpox vaccine is less safe than other vaccines routinely used today. The vaccine is associated with known adverse effects that range from mild to severe. Mild vaccine reactions include formation of satellite lesions, fever, muscle aches, regional lymphadenopathy, fatigue, headache, nausea, rashes, and soreness at the vaccination site. A recent clinical trial reported that more than one-third of vaccine recipients missed days of work or school because of these mild vaccine-related symptoms.

In the 1960s, serious adverse events associated with smallpox vaccination in the United States included death (1/million vaccinations), progressive vaccinia (1.5/million vaccinations), eczema vaccinatum (39/million vaccinations), postvaccinial encephalitis (12/million vaccinations), and generalized vaccinia (241/million vaccinations). Adverse events were approximately ten times more common among those vaccinated for the first time compared to revaccinees. Fatality rates were also four times higher for primary vaccinees compared to revaccinees

In conclusion, the hidden dangers in the smallpox vaccine are undeniable:

The title of this article refers to the good, bad and ugly of smallpox vaccine. We have attempted to show that the vaccine is a critical tool for controlling smallpox (“the good”), despite a relatively higher risk of complications in some individuals (“the bad”). The “ugly” refers not to the vaccine, but to the potential reintroduction of smallpox more than 20 years after its eradication

The Trials of the HPV Vaccine

The HPV vaccine or the Human Papillomavirus vaccine was created in Australia with lead researchers Ian Frazer who is an immunologist and Jian Zhou, a Chinese virologist and cancer researcher are both credited with  the invention and patents of the HPV vaccine which today are known as Gardasil and Cervarix with help from researchers from Georgetown University Medical Center, the University of Rochester, and the U.S. National Cancer Institute.  In 2006, The FDA fast-tracked the approval process for HPV vaccines between 2007 and 2009 in various countries which was then promoted by Merck & Co.  The HPV vaccines was supposed to prevent several types of cancers in young girls including cervical cancer, anal cancer, vaginal cancer and other life-threatening illnesses associated with cancer.  It can prevent genital warts as well.  In another report from the  National Center for Biotechnology InformationU.S. National Library of Medicine from November 6th, 2007 ‘Adverse events reported for HPV vaccine’ by Laura Eggertson on the adverse results from the HPV vaccines in Canada:

As 4 provinces began immunizing schoolgirls to prevent the human papillomavirus, a watchdog group in the United States warned of dangerous adverse events stemming from the vaccine’s delivery — concern government regulators dismiss.

Public health officials in Ontario, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland and Labrador began administering the Merck Frosst vaccine Gardasil to select groups of girls (grades 6, 7 or 8) in September, just as the US advocacy group Judicial Watch released documents obtained through Freedom of Information indicating that 3 deaths and 1637 adverse events occurred after the vaccine was administered (prior to May 15)

Judicial Watch who exposed the danger of the HPV vaccine declared that the HPV vaccine should not be mandated by state governments:

The adverse events data comes from the US Food and Drug Administration’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, as of June 30, there were 2531 adverse reports, including 9 deaths, out of 7 million doses dispensed. The figures, however, can include multiple reports of the same event, since physicians, manufacturers and patients report to the same system

On July 22, 2008, the CDC reported on the adverse events of the HPV vaccine ‘Information from FDA and CDC on Gardasil and its Safety (Archived)’ found on the internet archives of the Way back Machine.  The following is a section of the report ‘Serious Reports (6% of Total Reports)’:

Concerns have been raised about reports of deaths occurring in individuals after receiving Gardasil. As of June 30, 2008, 20 deaths had been reported to VAERS. There was not a common pattern to the deaths that would suggest they were caused by the vaccine. In cases where autopsy, death certificate and medical records were available, the cause of death was explained by factors other than the vaccine.

Guillain-Barré Syndrome (GBS) has also been reported in individuals following vaccination with Gardasil. GBS is a rare neurological disorder that causes muscle weakness. It occurs spontaneously in unvaccinated individuals after a variety of specific infections. FDA and CDC have reviewed the reports of GBS that have been submitted to VAERS. To date, there is no evidence that Gardasil has has increased the rate of GBS above that expected in the population. While we continue to carefully analyze all reports of GBS submitted to VAERS, the data do not currently suggest an association between Gardasil and GBS.

Thromboembolic disorders (blood clots) have been reported to VAERS in people who have received Gardasil. Most of these individuals had risk factors for blood clots, such as use of oral contraceptives which are known to increase the risk of clotting. Thromboembolic disorders as well as other medical events are being studied through the VSD in previously planned controlled studies. The manufacturer has also committed to conduct a large post marketing study to further assess the vaccine’s safety

In 2010, the HPV vaccine was also administered to young girls in India which raised serious concerns according to the Indian Journal of Medical Ethics who reported in Deaths in a trial of the HPV vaccine’that “the death of girls who were a part of a Human Papilloma Virus vaccine trial has raised an alarm about the nature of research in India as well as the value attached by the state to the lives of its citizens.”  The experimental trials were funded by humanity’s arch nemesis Bill Gates:

The trial was being conducted in Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat by the NGO PATH with support from the Indian Council of Medical Research and local health authorities. They were funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The vaccine is supplied by two companies, Merck Sharpe & Dohme and Glaxo Smith Kline.

When the government stopped the trials, three doses had already been administered to 30,000 participants, mostly tribal girls aged between 9 and 14. The union health minister, Ghulam Nabi Azad, has denied that the deaths have anything to do with the trials, and as things stand, there is no conclusive evidence of a causal link between the vaccine and the deaths. But the fact that the girls were a part of the trial is reason enough to warrant further investigations

On August 19, 2008, The New York Times ‘Drug Makers’ Push Leads to Cancer Vaccines’ Rise’ reminds us of the rapid rollout of the Covid-19 experimental injections:

But some experts worry about the consequences of the rapid rollout of the new vaccines without more medical evidence about how best to deploy them. They say that because of the aggressive marketing, even parents of girls who are far from being sexually active may feel pressured into giving them a vaccine that is not yet needed and whose long-term impact is still unclear. Legislative efforts to require girls to have the vaccine only add to the pressure.

In the United States, hundreds of doctors have been recruited and trained to give talks about Gardasil — $4,500 for a lecture — and some have made hundreds of thousands of dollars. Politicians have been lobbied and invited to receptions urging them to legislate against a global killer. And former state officials have been recruited to lobby their former colleagues

Big Pharma’s propaganda seems relentless in its pursuit of profits.  Sources from the CDC and FDA reported in the month of June 2008 that there were 9,749 reports of adverse events.  But keep in mind that the VAERS reporting system may be inaccurate since not everyone uses it as the CDC’s own website states in Guide to Interpreting VAERS Data:

“Underreporting” is one of the main limitations of passive surveillance systems, including VAERS. The term, underreporting refers to the fact that VAERS receives reports for only a small fraction of actual adverse events. The degree of underreporting varies widely. As an example, a great many of the millions of vaccinations administered each year by injection cause soreness, but relatively few of these episodes lead to a VAERS report. Physicians and patients understand that minor side effects of vaccinations often include this kind of discomfort, as well as low fevers. On the other hand, more serious and unexpected medical events are probably more likely to be reported than minor ones, especially when they occur soon after vaccination, even if they may be coincidental and related to other causes.

A report to VAERS generally does not prove that the identified vaccine(s) caused the adverse event described. It only confirms that the reported event occurred sometime after vaccine was given. No proof that the event was caused by the vaccine is required in order for VAERS to accept the report. VAERS accepts all reports without judging whether the event was caused by the vaccine

The fact that the VAERS reporting system is underreporting injuries and deaths can allow Big Pharma to suppress the dangers of vaccines.  However, The New York Times article admitted that the VAERS reporting system is voluntary which leads to inaccurate reporting:

The Centers for Disease Control asks health care centers to report side effects through its Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System; reporting is voluntary. There have been 9,749 reports, almost all from doctors and nurses, of patients experiencing adverse events after receiving the vaccine, the agency announced in a joint report with the Food and Drug Administration at the end of June. Ninety-four percent of them were not serious, ranging from arm pain to fainting, and 6 percent were classified as serious, including blood clots, paralysis and at least 20 deaths.

But 16 million doses of the drug have been distributed by Merck in the United States, and in a population so large, “by chance alone some serious adverse effects and deaths” will occur, the F.D.A. and C.D.C. said.  The agencies said there was no indication that the deaths or serious side effects were caused by the shot, concluding that “Gardasil continues to be safe and effective and its benefits continue to outweigh its risks”

Overall, administering vaccines in general is basically playing Russian roulette.  For those who are skeptical about vaccines should be.  There is a long history of vaccine injuries and deaths, now with the worldwide Coronavirus pandemic, which is still ongoing, now with Big Pharma’s new experimental injections called Covid-19 vaccines, the danger is clear.  The Children’s Health Defense updates the public on what the VAERS reporting system although not as accurate reported as of April 8th, 2022:

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) today released new data showing a total of 1,226,314 reports of adverse events following COVID vaccines were submitted between Dec. 14, 2020, and April 8, 2022, to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS). VAERS is the primary government-funded system for reporting adverse vaccine reactions in the U.S.

The data included a total of 26,976 reports of deaths — an increase of 277 over the previous week — and 219,865 serious injuries, including deaths, during the same time period — up 2,564 compared with the previous week.  Excluding “foreign reports” to VAERS, 805,921 adverse events, including 12,471 deaths and 79,811 serious injuries, were reported in the U.S. between Dec. 14, 2020, and April 8, 2022

The European Union also has a system similar to VAERS called EudraVigilance as Health Impact Newspublished the latest data on March 26th, 2022:

The European (EEA and non-EEA countries) database of suspected drug reaction reports is EudraVigilance, verified by the European Medicines Agency (EMA), and they are now reporting 42,507 fatalities, and 3,984,978 injuries

The pharmaceutical corporations who produce the current MRNA Vaccines include Moderna (CX-024414),  Pfizer-BIONTECH,  AstraZeneca and JANSSEN (AD26.COV2.S).

The Covid-19 experimental injections are dangerous as more injuries and deaths increase as time goes by, unfortunately, the worst is yet to come.  We are at the early stages of what will be known as one of the greatest crimes against humanity and I hope one day that those who are involved in the conspiracy including Big Pharma, government bureaucrats and the rest of the Globalist cabal will be brought to justice.

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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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First published on April 18, 2022

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VAERS data released Friday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention included a total of 1,226,314 reports of adverse events from all age groups following COVID vaccines, including 26,976 deaths and 219,865 serious injuries between Dec. 14, 2020, and April 8, 2022.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) today released new data showing a total of 1,226,314 reports of adverse events following COVID vaccines were submitted between Dec. 14, 2020, and April 8, 2022, to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS). VAERS is the primary government-funded system for reporting adverse vaccine reactions in the U.S.

The data included a total of 26,976 reports of deaths — an increase of 277 over the previous week — and 219,865 serious injuries, including deaths, during the same time period — up 2,564 compared with the previous week.

Excluding “foreign reports” to VAERS, 805,921 adverse events, including 12,471 deaths and 79,811 serious injuries, were reported in the U.S. between Dec. 14, 2020, and April 8, 2022.

Foreign reports are reports foreign subsidiaries send to U.S. vaccine manufacturers. Under U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulations, if a manufacturer is notified of a foreign case report that describes an event that is both serious and does not appear on the product’s labeling, the manufacturer is required to submit the report to VAERS.

Of the 12,471 U.S. deaths reported as of April 8, 17% occurred within 24 hours of vaccination, 21% occurred within 48 hours of vaccination and 59% occurred in people who experienced an onset of symptoms within 48 hours of being vaccinated.

In the U.S., 564 million COVID vaccine doses had been administered as of April 8, including 334 million doses of Pfizer, 212 million doses of Moderna and 19 million doses of Johnson & Johnson (J&J).

Every Friday, VAERS publishes vaccine injury reports received as of a specified date. Reports submitted to VAERS require further investigation before a causal relationship can be confirmed.

Historically, VAERS has been shown to report only 1% of actual vaccine adverse events.

U.S. VAERS data from Dec. 14, 2020, to April 8, 2022, for 5- to 11-year-olds show:

U.S. VAERS data from Dec. 14, 2020, to April 8, 2022, for 12- to 17-year-olds show:

U.S. VAERS data from Dec. 14, 2020, to April 8, 2022, for all age groups combined, show:

Woman develops fatal brain disease after second Moderna dose

Carol Beauchine died from sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD), a rapidly evolving, fatal degenerative brain disorder she developed after her second dose of Moderna’s COVID vaccine.

In an exclusive interview with The Defender, Carol’s son, Jeffrey Beauchine, said it was excruciating to watch his 70-year-old mother — who was healthy until she got the vaccine — die from a disease he believes the vaccine caused.

Beauchine said Carol received her first dose of Moderna on Feb. 16, 2021, and didn’t report any complaints. After getting the second dose on March 17, Carol immediately said she “felt different.” She developed numbness that spread throughout the entire left side of her body, blindness and hearing loss. She lost the ability to walk and communicate, and her brain degenerated until she passed away on Aug. 2, 2021 — just five months after receiving her second dose of Moderna.

The family submitted a report to VAERS, but the CDC has not followed up on Carol’s death. The Defender has received numerous reports of people who died from sporadic CJD after receiving a COVID vaccine — all women who were between the ages of 60 and 70, including Cheryl Cohenand Jennifer Deason Sprague.

Biden administration extends COVID public health emergency needed to keep vaccines under EUA

The Biden administration on Wednesday extended the COVID public health emergency, now two years old, for an additional 90 days — allowing vaccines and other drugs to remain under Emergency Use Authorization (EUA). Keeping COVID vaccines and other countermeasures under EUA shields pharmaceutical companies from liability for the harms caused by their products.

According to Reuters, a public health emergency was initially announced in January 2020, when the COVID pandemic began. It has been renewed each quarter since and was due to expire on April 16.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said in a statement it was extending the public health emergency and will give states 60 days’ notice prior to termination or expiration. This may be the last time HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra extends it, according to policy experts.

Pfizer to seek authorization from FDA for COVID booster shot for kids 5 to 11 years old

Pfizer and BioNTech Thursday said they plan to apply for EUA of a COVID booster dose for healthy 5- to 11-year-olds based on the results of a small study that has not been published or analyzed by independent experts.

Pfizer said in a press release the third dose of its vaccine produced significant protection against the Omicron variant in children 5 to 11 in a small Phase 2/3 clinical trial. The study was based on data from only 140 children 5 through 11 years old who received a booster dose six months after the second dose of Pfizer-BioNTech’s COVID vaccine as part of the primary series.

Pfizer claimed a closer look at 30 children showed a 36-fold increase in virus-fighting antibodies — levels high enough to fight the Omicron variant, and that a third dose was “well tolerated with no new safety signals observed.”

Although Pfizer said more than 10,000 children under the age of 12 have participated in clinical trials investigating Pfizer’s COVID vaccine, only 140 were selected for the study forming the basis for the company’s EUA request.

CDC launches internal review over failed COVID response

The CDC announced Monday it was launching a month-long comprehensive agency-wide review following widespread criticism of the agency’s response to the COVID pandemic.

The agency plans to evaluate its structure, systems and processes, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky told staff in an email obtained by The Washington Post. Walensky said the goal of the review is to “modernize” the agency and “to position CDC, and the public health community, for greatest success in the future.”

The review will be conducted by Jim Mcrae, associate administrator for primary healthcare at the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA). The HRSA and the CDC are part of the Department of Health and Human Services.

Last month, the CDC’s decision to remove from its data tracker website tens of thousands of deaths linked to COVID — including nearly a quarter of the deaths the agency said had occurred among children — eroded public trust in the CDC’s handling of case counts.

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Megan Redshaw is a freelance reporter for The Defender. She has a background in political science, a law degree and extensive training in natural health.

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The Bucha Massacre. Ukraine Fake News

April 23rd, 2022 by Rodney Atkinson

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First published on April 5, 2022

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Russian troops evacuated Bucha on March 30.

Ukrainian National Police began entering Bucha on March 31, and that same day the mayor of Bucha announced that 

At no time was there any suggestion by the mayor (watch video below) or any other Ukrainian official of mass killings undertaken by Russia.

Given that they are claiming bodies litter the streets they could hardly have escaped the attention of the Mayor!

 

It took four days for claims of a “war crime” to emerge (3rd of April).

Film of alleged victims on the roads in Bucha look suspicious, with “bodies” moving. (we know this has happened in other staged and acted films provided by Ukraine’s propaganda).

See Suspicious Video below

It is claimed that civilians had been shot and buried in shallow graves. We know from the behaviour of NATO allies in the Yugoslav war that in Racak dead soldiers were dressed up as civilians and then paraded as the victims of “a massacre” which was later debunked.

As of March 31st, Bucha was fully under the control of Ukrainian officials.

On April 2, the National Police of Ukraine released a video of “the mop up operation in Bucha”.

This official video of the Ukraine Police was  released a day prior to the release of the “suspicious video” (April 3, 2022)

Compare the two videos

Video: Ukraine Police Mop Up Operation (April 2, 2022)

 

There is also the possibility that those civilians in Bucha who were accused of cooperating with Russian forces could have been executed by Ukrainian forces following the Russian exit on 30th March.

It is also both unprecedented and suspicious that the U.K. Chair at the UN Security Council refused an emergency meeting called by Russia on 3rd April to discuss the Bucha claims.

A Ukrainian MP Ilya Kiva has accused the Ukrainian SBU [Security Service of Ukraine] of fabricating (with the help of MI6) the Bucha “crimes”. (see youtube unless it has been censored already!)

If only we could say that “time will tell” which side is telling the truth! But there is certainly no doubt about the self-filmed Ukrainian crimes in this post (see below).

The Cynical Sacrifice of Ukraine

In an interview with CNN ON 20th March, Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy said of Joe Biden and the NATO leadership (the interview)

“I requested them personally to say directly that we are going to accept you into NATO in a year or two or five, just say it directly and clearly, or just say no,” Zelensky said.

“And the response was very clear, you’re not going to be a NATO member, but publicly, the doors will remain open,”

Nothing shows the cynical sacrifice of Ukrainians more than this duplicitous treatment of Zelensky by NATO.

Privately NATO and the Biden administration were telling Zelenskyy Ukraine was never going to be in NATO, yet they told him they were going to act publicly as if the possibility existed. The latter position (together with Zelensky’s remarks about developing nuclear weapons) they knew would provoke Russia into war.

The German President has every reason to be angry at this, given that he promised Zelensky before the war that if he rejected NATO membership the Russians wouldn’t attack.

The evident (at least 8 year long) intent of the USA and NATO to provoke Russia into an attack was confirmed by Biden’s intemperate admission (on his visit to Poland) that he wanted regime change in Moscow.

As Madeleine Albright (recently deceased) said in 1998:

“If we have to use force, it is because we are America! We are the indispensable nation. We stand tall. We see further into the future.”

According to recent polls, one-third of the American people were enthusiastic about the idea of nuclear war with Russia. Even though as one commentator pointed out most of them would be Democrat supporting inhabitants of major cities which would be nuclear bomb targets! After years of wall to wall Russophobic bigotry and lies about Ukraine blasted out by tech companies, politicians and the mainstream media this mad mass psychosis is no surprise.

David Sanger reported for the New York Times that the Biden administration

“seeks to help Ukraine lock Russia in a quagmire without inciting a broader conflict with a nuclear-armed adversary or cutting off potential paths to de-escalation … CIA officers are helping to ensure that crates of weapons are delivered into the hands of vetted (!!!) Ukrainian military units, according to American officials.”

In fact (as happened with US weapons provided to Syrian rebel forces) hundreds of tanks and anti tank weapons have found their way into the hands of the Russians as Ukrainian troops have defected, been killed or captured.

The Mindless Western and Ukrainian War Propaganda

Here are some examples of the blatantly distorted media and image war. A picture of an injured child from Damascus is used again as anti Russian propaganda in Ukraine:

Here a “heartbreaking” image of a Ukrainian soldier leaving his loved one to go to war turns out to be from fiction film “The War of Chimeras”.

 

The BBC broadcast on the World Service the news that somewhere called “Tarkov” was resisting the Russians. Pity it is a fictional city from a computer game!

A film of a rocket ostensibly shooting down a Russian aircraft also turned out to be a scene from a commercial film!

Russian Civilians Killed in East Ukraine Don’t Make News

This DONETSK bombing by Ukrainian troops which killed 20 civilians was not reported in the western media. The missile was one used only by Ukrainian forces. See this.

Indeed there is a report that a far greater crime had been intended with civilians drawn by false information to an Administration building with fake text messages.

The very next day, Monday March 14th, at about 12:20 in the afternoon, the ukrops (Ukrainian forces) launched a Tochka-U ballistic missile with a 1,000 pound anti-personnel cluster bomb warhead at the Administration building in the city center.

The Nazis sent text messages and posted on social media (under fake pro-DPR accounts) for mothers, wives and sisters of our soldiers to gather at the administration building at noon on Monday to get information about their men. THIS was the intended target of the missile. 

As many civilian women as possible. And it is not a rumour, I can confirm I have seen the text message myself sent to the daughter of one of my comrades. Our air defence intercepted the missile and prevented it from reaching the target, but some of the cluster bomb cassettes fell on University Avenue in downtown Donetsk (where the 20 civilians were killed).

Ukrainian War Crimes and Propaganda

As befits a regime headed by a comedian and actor, never has one side in a war used so many actors to fake scenes for propaganda purposes. The most common has been the use of actors to fake dead bodies. The most recent being claims related to areas where Russian troops have withdrawn since 30th March.  Here a “body” moves and after the car goes by, starts to get up.

A similar film was taken a couple of weeks ago ostensibly from a morgue where some 30 “bodies” were lined up. Unfortunately some of them moved while the filming was going on!

Ukrainian Psychopaths

But such fakes are nothing compared to the treatment by Ukrainian soldiers of captured Russians in an infamous video.

At the beginning of the video, we can see Ukrainian soldiers shooting newly arrived prisoners through their legs. Needless to say they are not treated. Shock could have killed them due to the pain. In the rest of the video Russian POWs lying on the ground with bullet wounds in their legs. Some of them have their legs broken. It takes psychopaths to film their own atrocities and then make it public. All of this was filmed by Ukrainian soldiers themselves.

Article 13 of the Third Geneva Convention states: “Prisoners of war must at all times be humanely treated.” Here Ukrainian soldiers call up the mothers and wives of soldiers they have killed, mocking them

Ukrainian Soldiers Film Themselves Calling Up Mothers of Russian Soldiers Killed in Action And Mocking Them

 

 

 

Crimes in the Donbass

“Tatyana accompanies me to the hospital. She has also lived in Volnovakha most of her life. “The Ukrainians deliberately destroyed us. They needed the land. And then, it seems, the land was no longer needed, so they just beat us out of anger,” she says, pointing to holes blown into the hospital by shells and shrapnel-scarred asphalt. Then she takes me to the morgue, a small building that has also been noticeably damaged by shooting. The door turns out to be unlocked, and I see the morgue is completely filled with dead bodies. They lie in the corridor stacked up in two or three layers.

According to Tatyana, the National Guard soldiers siphoned diesel fuel from the hospital’s generators, so all the old people who depended on artificial ventilation devices died. “

The Ukrainian military allegedly said they would “leave nothing” in Volnovakha if they were ousted by pro-Russian forces.

See this.

When Fox News’ Bret Baier asked President Zelensky on Friday about reports of Azov Battalion committing atrocities, Zelensky appeared to brush them off by saying, “They are what they are, they were defending our country.” Fox then censored their report!

See this.

The main reason why so many civilian buildings have been damaged and destroyed in Ukrainian towns is because Ukrainian soldiers have used those buildings and the civilians in and around them as human shields. Here is a report from Odessa which although not yet the centre of Russian operations its preparing for an attack. Ukrainian troops have apparently taken up positions in Schools and hospitals.

See this.

Odessa native (Lev Vershinin) living in exile in the EU wrote in this article in Russian:

  • Nazi/Ukr-soldiers taking positions in schools, hospitals:
  • school no.1 at Mikhailovskiy-Place 10
  • school no. 57 at Yamchinkiy street 7
  • school no. 59 at Maraslievskyy street 60
  • medical centre/surgery at Sudostroitelnaya 1
  • Odessa University clinic at Tenista st. 8
  • maternity clinics no.1 and no.4
  • evening school no.25 at Staroportofrankovskiy st 45a
  • Marinskiy gymnasium at Lev-Tolstoy-st 9

Aidar-leader Maksim Marchenko in a document of 16/3/2022 ordered his troops to prevent civilians from leaving the city (apparently a document with his stamp & signature exists). This has been the norm which is why the humanitarian corridors offered by the Russians were for a long time a dangerous failure. Only the Ukrainians have the incentive to bottle up civilians as human shields in the cities to which they have retreated. They know the Russians don’t want to destroy such heritage but are forced to fire on buildings which protect Ukrainian gun positions. Would the British Government station guns in St Paul’s Cathedral?

Oles Yanchuk – former mayor of Odessa, now leader of Nazi-battalion “Bratstvo” – said about Odessa: the city will be destroyed (by us): “if they come to Odessa, they will receive it only burned down and destroyed.”

Other buildings used by Ukrainian troops have been a synagogue and the famous Pecherskaya Lavra monastery in Kiev. See this.

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First published on February 21, 2022

In recent developments  A UK magistrates’ court has announced a decision on the extradition of Julian Assange to the US. A definitive endorsement from the UK Home Secretary is expected to be released in mid-May.

Should Priti Patel move to extradite Assange, the WikiLeaks founder and publisher will face numerous counts of “criminal acts” in the US and will be subjected to torture while in detention. 

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Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is being made an example of by the US government to deter investigative journalists from exposing state abuses, the current UN Special Rapporteur on torture says.

Nearly 12 years ago Wikileaks published the Afghan War Diary, one of the biggest leaks in US military history. More documents would folliow, exposing state secrets and allowing journalists to scrutinise and hold politicians to account.

To avoid extradition to the States to face espionage charges, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange took refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy in London for seven years, before Ecuador turned him over to Britain in 2019. He is currently in Belmarsh Prison in south-east London.

Nils Melzer, the current UN Special Rapporteur on Torture initially declined to get involved in Assange’s case. But as he writes in his new book The Trial of Julian Assange, when he started to look closely at the facts he found Assange to be a victim of political persecution.

He first met Assange in May 2019 when he visited him with two medical specialists at Belmarsh, four weeks after he had been arrested. The team were there to investigate claims of torture.

When Assange name first crossed his desk, he says his reaction was visceral – he dismissed Assange as a rapist, a narcissist and a hacker, based on media reports of his case. Assange’s lawyers had contacted him in December 2018 when he was still in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London asking for intervention under the conditions of the Anti-Torture Convention as his living conditions were considered inhumane.

It was only after looking at the medical reports that he acted and looked deeper into the case.

“I didn’t know Mr Assange,” he told Saturday Morning. “I had never analysed the case and I was under the same impression that many others are still under today from those narratives that had been spread in the press for 10 years about him – being suspected of rape, being a coward hiding in the embassy, a self-centred narcissist. I had also sub-consciously absorbed this narrative.

“So, when his lawyers reached out to me as the mandated UN human rights expert I had been so affected by this narrative that I was unable to objectively look at the case. I initially declined to look at it.

“It was only when his lawyers came back three months later and said they were afraid they might be imminently expelled from the embassy and sent to the US on espionage charges that they sent along a couple of pieces of evidence, including some medical opinion by Dr Sandra Crosby, who’s not an Assange activist. She’s a well-known independent medical expert in the US who had visited Guantanamo… and had specialised in examining torture victims for all of her career. She had visited Assange and had come to the conclusion that his living conditions had indeed breached the Convention against torture.”

On 8 April 2019, he requested that the UK and Ecuadorian government freeze the situation until he could visit and carry out an investigation. On 11 April Assange was expelled from the embassy and taken into custody without due process.

“I might even have accelerated this process. I don’t know that for sure,” he says.

Melzer has no binding authority on governments and can only point out allegations of torture and make recommendations to governments, but he was surprised at the UK government’s lack of engagement with him over Assange.

The UN Human Rights Council has an expectation that governments co-operate with their mandate, but cannot compel acfion. The Assange cases highlighted its lack of teeth, he says.

“The reaction of the states in the Assange case actually prompted me to conduct a wider analysis of the effectiveness of my interventions more generally and indeed about nine of the 10 requests don’t receive adequate responses where you could actually resolve a case and provide protection to a person,” Melzer says.

Assange’s position has been widely misunderstood due to a media narrative that suggested Assange had voluntarily remained at the embassy. His position had been ridiculed as someone paranoid of being arrested, as well as being portrayed as a person hiding to avoid justice in the Swedish courts on rape charges, Melzer says.

However, Assange felt compelled to stay at the London Embassy due to threats of rights violations if he left, Melzer points out.

In December last year the High Court in London ruled he could be extradited to the US to face charges under the Espionage Act, after a judge accepted assurances authorities would take measures to reduce his risk of suicide and wouldn’t impose restrictive prison conditions on him.

He faces a sentence of up to 170 years in prison.

“Espionage Act has the advantage for the US that it does not allow any form of defence on the part of the accused,” Melzer says.

“As soon as the accused is proven to have disclosed classified information protected by the Espionage Act, then he’s basically to be convicted for espionage.

“So, then he can’t raise a defence of public interest for example, saying ‘well the information I disclosed is evidence for serious misconduct if not war crimes on the part of the authorities and therefore cannot be protected by secrecy.

“That’s a defence that’s not allowed under the Espionage Act and that’s the main reason why they would want to accuse him and prosecute him under that piece of legislation, because otherwise Julian Assange would clearly start unpacking the content of the information he disclosed and the fact that no one has ever been prosecuted for those very serious crimes, and that would clearly make it very difficult for the US to maintain a viable case.”

Contrary to the High Court judge’s interpretation there were no substantive assurances given that Assange would be treated humanely by the US, he says.

“They have promised that they would not detain Julian Assange in a very specific supermax prison in Florence, Colorado that was used in eventual hearings as an example of particularly harsh conditions. But the United States has dozens of other supermax prisons… they have not been excluded in those assurances.”

Assange faces up to 15 years in strict solitary confinement while his legal team fights for him to serve his time in Australia, if the Australia government accepts this arrangement, Melzer adds.

For Melzer there has been so much misinformation released about Assange and Wikileaks that it’s important to distinguish between facts and false narratives circulating in media.

The US has never proven that lives of military personnel were put under threat because of Wikileaks, he points out. Much of those false accusations serve to mask the true intent of the US government’s actions against Wikileaks.

“What was so dangerous is the methodology of Wikileaks,” Melzer says.

“It’s not the actual content of the actual information that has been disclosed, but the mechanism that has been developed – that was revolutionary.

“We’ve had before massive leaks, such as that of the Pentagon Papers, for example. But because there was no internet at the time there was a natural limit to the amount of information you could leak and make available to the public. Through the Wikileaks platform that allows whistleblowers to remain anonymous and at the same time leak millions of pages of secret information from all over the world.

“If that replicates, if that would proliferate as a model and a few years later you might have 20,000 Wikileaks for all over the world, well, that would be the end of the business model of governments based on secrecy and impunity.

“That’s what the US government and their allies are afraid of and they’re setting on example with the Assange’s case to deter others because the actual real-world damage created by those specific publications… there has been no evidence that there has been more than embarrassment for the US.”

Melzer accepts the need in liberal democracies to create protective space for negotiations and bilateral dialogue between states and institution, but cautions there is an important distinction between confidentiality and secrecy..

“Confidentiality does not remove the content of those discussions from legal oversight should there be any crime committed behind the vale of secrecy.”

He says there cannot be any justification for removing any part of governance for public oversight, at least through an intermediary like the judiciary.

Much has also been said about how irresponsible Wikileaks had been dumping millions of pages of diplomatic papers into the public domain without redaction or curation. Melzer points out Assange warned the US about the file dump and suggested co-operative ways of mitigating threats.

“Wikileaks actually went to great lengths ensuring that there was a proper redaction and risk reduction,’ he says.

“The publication of unredacted diplomatic cables for example was not something that came from Wikileaks as the first publisher, but was apparently two Guardian journalists who published a book and in that book they published the passwords that they had been given by Wikileaks to work on those unredacted files. Through that password those unredacted files that had been stored on the internet encrypted were made available to the public and only after that happened Wikileaks decided to also publish files unredacted.”

Assange has been in Belmarsh Prison for three years now, with reports of his mental health deteriorating. Melzer says when he visited him he did not expect to find torture.

“I expected to find someone who was stressed out, who had some medical problems,” he says.

“He immediately reminded me of political prisoners I had visited around the world… He also reminded me, from his behavioural pattern, his body language, that really reflected the findings of the doctors that he had been exposed to enormous psychological pressure.”

His answers to questions were unfocused, Melzer says.

There were signs of autism, something that has been mischaracterised by some as evidence of narcissistic tendencies.

“I do believe the diagnosis of Aspergers, a slight form of autism, is probably the most appropriate way to describe him – as someone who is extremely focused on his own thoughts and you have to verbalise what you want to know from him, otherwise he will go off in his own thoughts.”

Assange never fully sleeps and has constant thoughts of suicide, suffering several psychological breakdowns and a very deep depression, he says.

“When you look at psychological torture you have to look at how the identity or the stability of someone’s psyche has been affected by his isolation the constant pressure he’s been under, the constant threats he’s been under, the separation from positive influences – all of these factors are being used quite deliberately in psychological torture to break down someone’s mental resistance and confuse him.”

Melzer says his investigation was objective, neutral and impartial, but when he found out Assange was subject to torture and ill-treatment, his job has been to defend him and call on states to respect legal obligations.

Western democracies such as Sweden and the UK rejecting those obligations has frustrated Melzer. He says he’s been so outspoken about the case because of the way political interests have been allowed to neutralise the judiciary and legal process.

Assange’s case, he says, provides evidence of a wider systemic failure.

“They simply refused to engage in a dialogue with me or to even provide any counter evidence of why my interpretation of those facts would be wrong and that really is something that I would not expected.”

There is no sign US President Joe Biden will show leniency to Assange, with the Democratic Party still holding Assange responsibly for Hilary Clinton losing the 2017 election on Wikileaks’ release of internal party emails prior to the vote and Russian hacking. Melzer says that has been another highly-dubious narrative used to corner Assange.

“I’m not trying to defend Assange. I’m not his lawyer,” he says.

“I’m trying to defend human rights and the rule of law. If states have any crime that they can indict Julian Assange and have evidence, by all means he has to stand trial like everybody else. My problem simply is, if you look at the US indictment, 17 of those 18 points refer to receiving and disclosing classified national security information. Julian Assange is not American.

“He has no duty or allegiance to the Americans, no contractual obligations. He was not in the US during the release of this information. That’s what investigative journalists do. The information that he published was in large parts in the public interest.”

The eighteenth point refers to a hacking charge. However, Melzer says Assange actually only helped the source of the leaks, Chelsea Manning, cover her tracks to avoid detection. “It was not to get access to information or steal information, but to do source protection… which is something that journalists do all the time with their sources.”

The real purpose behind Assange’s imprisonment and trial is to deter journalists from exposing state crimes and intimidate them into not publishing material that challenges dominant political interests, he says.

“What exactly are we accusing Julian Assange of? Even the rape allegations were dropped by the Swedish authorities… because they had not even sufficient evidence to press charges… That’s why I came to the conclusion that the purpose here is not prosecution for any serious crime. It is to deter journalists from doing what he has done.”

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There’s something that makes me sick in the stomach about Boris Johnson’s trip to India.

We’ve seen the obligatory pictures of Johnson on a rickshaw. We’ve read the carefully briefed articles by lobby correspondents about differences with Narendra Modi over Russia and Ukraine

We’ve studied the photos of a relaxed Johnson briefing a huddle of British journalists on his plane. And being received by an official delegation getting off the plane. And, of course, we’ve read the informed speculation that a trade deal will be struck.

But we’ve not read a word from the British press about Modi’s systematic, organised, murderous persecution of India’s 200 million Muslims. And I’d be astonished if we hear a word on the subject.

On Wednesday, Johnson arrived in Gujarat, Modi’s political base. He announced new India investment deals in science and technology. A routine exchange of political favours. But the British prime minister courteously made no reference to the Gujarat pogrom, which left more than 1,000 dead 20 years ago, with Modi accused of fanning the violence.

If this terrible event had been an isolated episode, fair enough. But it has gone on to set the pattern for Modi’s premiership.

Anti-Muslim narrative

In the eight years he has been Indian prime minister, Modi has repudiated the multi-faith India embraced by the nation’s founding fathers, Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru. Remember that Modi has been a member of the Nazi-influenced Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), out of which his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has grown, since he was a boy.

Under his leadership, a terrifying anti-Muslim narrative has emerged. Modi’s BJP follows a Hindu nationalism that sees India’s 200 million Muslims as foreigners and invaders.

Arundhati Roy, the Booker Prize-winning novelist, has recently claimed that the situation for Indian Muslims is approaching genocidal and that India may be broken up.

In December, an event was held in the northern Uttarakhand state at which participants urged the mass killings of Muslims. “Even if just a hundred of us become soldiers and kill two million of them, we will be victorious,” one woman said about Indian Muslims. A video of the event went viral.

The meeting was attended by at least one member of Modi’s BJP. Another delegate, Prabodhanand Giri, often photographed with senior BJP members, declared that “like Myanmar, the police, politicians, the army and every Hindu in India must pick up weapons and do this cleansing”.

As in other countries, the government and sections of the media accuse Muslims of disloyalty. In a farcical case in point, Indian Muslims were arrested for celebrating Pakistan’s cricketing defeat of India in November 2021.

A dark path

The Indian government is seeking to alter the demography of India’s Muslim-majority state, Jammu and Kashmir, by encouraging Hindus to move there. The state has been under a dense military occupation for decades; most Kashmiris do not wish to be part of India. In August 2019, Prime Minister Modi revoked Kashmir’s historical semi-autonomous status.

That same year, Modi’s Citizen Amendment Act excluded Muslim refugees from citizenship. Arundhati Roy wrote that Modi was enacting “India’s version of Germany’s 1935 Nuremberg Laws, which deprived Jews and other minorities of their citizenship rights”.

There is no doubt that India under Modi has embarked on a dark path. The BJP’s president, Amit Shah, has compared migrants from Bangladesh to “termites”, drawing comparisons with Nazi language about Jews in the 1930s or the language used about the Tutsis during the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

Gregory Stanton, the founder and director of Genocide Watch, recently warned the US Congress there were early “signs and processes” of genocide in the Indian state of Assam and Indian-administered Kashmir. Stanton, who warned about the Rwandan genocide three years before it happened in 1994, drew parallels between Modi’s policies and Myanmar’s treatment of Rohingya Muslims ahead of the 2017 slaughter.

The Holocaust Memorial Museum in the United States is on record as stating that India is the second most likely country to experience mass killings in 2022. Total silence about this from the British government, and the accompanying press party.

Threat of genocide?

To be fair, Boris Johnson is in India to bring home a trade deal, and he cannot afford to jeopardise that cherished prize. Nor can we reasonably expect the United Kingdom to solve all of the world’s problems.

Nevertheless, in high-profile negotiations of this sort, I think it is fair to expect a British prime minister to raise concerns about India’s treatment of Muslims, highlight them publicly and report back not just to the British parliament but also to the international community.

All the more so because Johnson can’t claim ignorance. Modi’s assault on Muslims is well-documented by the relevant international organisations. We can therefore be confident that the British High Commission in Delhi, however silent, knows all about it. British foreign correspondents, too.

In Johnson’s defence, Labour leader Keir Starmer has been silent, too. He did not raise the persecution of India’s Muslims when he had the chance at yesterday’s prime minister’s questions. To sum up, this week, Boris Johnson stepped foot in Narendra Modi’s India. It contains 1.4 billion souls, 200 million of whom are Muslims. According to good judges, under Modi they face the threat of genocide.

Yet not a word from Johnson, his Labour opponent Starmer, or the British political press.

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Peter Oborne won best commentary/blogging in 2017 and was named freelancer of the year in 2016 at the 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, was published in February 2021. 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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Hours after the Feb. 3 U.S. military raid in northern Syria that left the leader of ISIS and multiple family members dead, President Biden delivered a triumphant White House address.

The late-night Special Forces operation in Syria’s Idlib province, Biden proclaimed, was a

“testament to America’s reach and capability to take out terrorist threats no matter where they hide around the world.”

Unmentioned by the president, and virtually all media accounts of the assassination, was the critical role that top members of his administration played during the Obama years in creating the Al Qaeda-controlled hideout where ISIS head Abu Ibrahim al-Qurayshi, as well as his slain predecessor, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, found their final refuge.

In waging a multi-billion dollar covert war in support of the insurgency against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, top Obama officials who now serve under Biden made it American policy to enable and arm terrorist groups that attracted jihadi fighters from across the globe. This regime change campaign, undertaken one decade after Al Qaeda attacked the U.S. on 9/11, helped a sworn U.S. enemy establish the Idlib safe haven that it still controls today.

A concise articulation came from Jake Sullivan to his then-State Department boss Hillary Clinton in a February 2012 email: “AQ [Al Qaeda] is on our side in Syria.”

Sullivan, the current national security adviser, is one of many officials who oversaw the Syria proxy war under Obama to now occupy a senior post under Biden. This group includes Secretary of State Antony Blinken, climate envoy John Kerry, USAID Administrator Samantha Power, Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, NSC Middle East coordinator Brett McGurk, and State Department Counselor Derek Chollet.

Their efforts to remake the Middle East via regime change, not just in Syria but earlier in Libya, led to the deaths of Americans – including Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other U.S. officials in Benghazi in 2012; the slaughter of countless civilians; the creation of millions of refugees; and ultimately, Russia’s entry into the Syrian battlefield.

Contacted through their current U.S. government agencies, none of the Obama-Biden principals offered comment on their policy of supporting an Al Qaeda-dominated insurgency in Syria.

The Obama-Biden team’s record in Syria resonates today as many of its members handle the unfolding crisis in Ukraine. As in Syria, the U.S. is flooding a chaotic war zone with weapons in a dangerous proxy conflict with Russia, with long-term ramifications that are impossible to foresee. “I deeply worry that what’s going to happen next is that we will see Ukraine turn into Syria,” Democratic Senator Chris Coons told CBS News on April 17.

Based on declassified documents, news reports, and scattered admissions of U.S. officials, this overlooked history of how the Obama-Biden team’s effort to oust the Assad regime – in concert with allies including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey – details the series of discrete decisions that ultimately led the U.S. to empower terror networks bent on its destruction.

Seizing Momentum – and Munitions – From Libya to Pursue Regime Change in Syria

The road to Al Qaeda’s control of the Syrian province of Idlib actually started hundreds of miles across the Mediterranean in Libya.

In March 2011, after heavy lobbying from senior officials including Secretary Hillary Clinton, President Obama authorized a bombing campaign in support of the jihadist insurgency fighting the government of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. Backed by NATO firepower, the rebels toppled Gaddafi and gruesomely murdered him in October.

Buoyed by their quick success in Libya, the Obama administration set their sights on Damascus, by then a top regime change target in Washington. According to former NATO commander Wesley Clark, the Assad regime – a key ally of U.S. foes Iran, Hezbollah, and Russia – was marked for overthrow alongside Iraq in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. A leaked 2006 U.S. Embassy in Damascus cable assessed that Assad’s “vulnerabilities” included “the potential threat to the regime from the increasing presence of transiting Islamist extremists,” and detailed how the U.S. could “improve the likelihood of such opportunities arising.”

The outbreak of the Syrian insurgency in March 2011, coupled with the fall of Gaddafi, offered the U.S. a historic opportunity to exploit Syria’s vulnerabilities. While the Arab Spring sparked peaceful Syrian protests against the ruling Ba’ath party’s cronyism and repression, it also triggered a largely Sunni, rural-based revolt that took a sectarian and violent turn. The U.S. and its allies, namely Qatar and Turkey, capitalized by tapping the massive arsenal of the newly ousted Libyan government.

“During the immediate aftermath of, and following the uncertainty caused by, the downfall of the [Gaddafi] regime in October 2011,” the Defense Intelligence Agency reported the following year, “…weapons from the former Libya military stockpiles located in Benghazi, Libya were shipped from the port of Benghazi, Libya, to the ports of Banias and the Port of Borj Islam, Syria.”

The redacted DIA document, obtained by the group Judicial Watch, does not specify whether the U.S. was directly involved in these shipments. But it contains significant clues. With remarkable specificity, it detailed the size and contents of one such shipment in August 2012: 500 sniper rifles, 100 rocket-propelled grenade launchers with 300 rounds, and 400 howitzer missiles.

Most tellingly, the document noted that the weapons shipments were halted “in early September 2012.” This was a clear reference to the killing by militants that month of four Americans – Ambassador Christopher Stevens, another State Department official, and two CIA contractors – in Benghazi, the port city where the weapons to Syria were coming from. The Benghazi annex “was at its heart a CIA operation,” U.S. officials told the Wall Street Journal. At least two dozen CIA employees worked in Benghazi under diplomatic cover.

Although top intelligence officials obscured the Benghazi operation in sworn testimony before the House Intelligence Committee, a Senate investigation eventually confirmed a direct CIA role in the movement of weapons from Libya to Syria. A classified version of a 2014 Senate report, not publicly released, documented an agreement between President Obama and Turkey to funnel weapons from Libya to insurgents in Syria. The operation, established in early 2012, was run by then-CIA Director David Petraeus.

“The [Benghazi] consulate’s only mission was to provide cover for the moving of arms” to Syria, a former U.S. intelligence official told journalist Seymour Hersh in the London Review of Books. “It had no real political role.”

The Death of a U.S. Ambassador

Image on the right: J. Christopher Stevens — United States ambassador to Libya from June 7, 2012 until killed in an attack on the US consulate in Benghazi, on September 12, 2012. (Licensed under the public domain)

Ambassador christopher stevens.jpg

Under diplomatic cover, Stevens appears to have been a significant figure in the CIA program. More than one year before he became ambassador in June 2012, Stevens was appointed the U.S. liaison to the Libyan opposition. In this role, he worked with the Al Qaeda-tied Libyan Islamic Fighting Group and its leader, Abdelhakim Belhadj, a warlord who fought alongside Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan. After Gaddafi’s ouster, Belhadj was named head of the Tripoli Military Council, which controlled security in the country’s capital.

Belhadj’s portfolio was not limited to post-coup Libya. In November 2011, the Al Qaeda ally traveled to Turkey to meet with leaders of the Free Syrian Army, the CIA-backed opposition military coalition. Belhadj’s trip came as part of the new Libyan government’s effort to provide “money and weapons to the growing insurgency against Bashar al-Assad,” the London Telegraph reported at the time. On September 14, 2012 – just three days after Stevens and his American colleagues were killed – the London Times revealed that a Libyan vessel “carrying the largest consignment of weapons for Syria since the uprising began,” had recently docked in the Turkish port of Iskenderun. Once unloaded, “most of its cargo is making its way to rebels on the front lines.”

The known details of Stevens’ last hours on September 11 suggest that shipping weapons was at the top of his agenda.  Although based in Tripoli and facing violent threats, he nonetheless made the dangerous trek to Benghazi around the fraught anniversary of 9/11. According to a 2016 report from the House Intelligence Committee, one of Stevens’ last scheduled meetings was with the head of al-Marfa Shipping and Maritime Services Company, a Libyan firm involved in ferrying weapons to Syria. His final meeting of the day was with Consul General Ali Sait Akin of Turkey, where the weapons were shipped. Fox News later reported that “Stevens was in Benghazi to negotiate a weapons transfer.”

With the Libyan channel shut down by Stevens’ murder, the U.S. and its allies turned to other sources. One was Croatia, where Saudi Arabia financed a major weapons purchase in late 2012that was arranged by the CIA.

The CIA’s use of the Saudi kingdom’s vast coffers continued an arrangement from prior covert proxy wars, including the arming of the mujahideen in Afghanistan and of the Contras in Nicaragua.

Although the Obama administration claimed that the weapons funneled to Syria were intended for “moderate rebels,” they ultimately ended up in the hands of a jihadi-dominated insurgency. Just one month after the Benghazi attack, the New York Times reported that “hard-line Islamic jihadists,” including groups “with ties or affiliations with Al Qaeda,” have received “the lion’s share of the arms shipped to the Syrian opposition.”

Covertly Arming An Al Qaeda-Dominated Insurgency

The Obama administration did not need media accounts to learn that jihadists dominated the Syrian insurgency on the receiving end of a CIA supply chain.

One month before the Benghazi attack, Pentagon intelligence analysts gave the White House a blunt appraisal. An August 2012 Defense Intelligence Agency report, disseminated widely among U.S. officials, noted that “Salafi[s], the Muslim Brotherhood, and AQI [Al Qaeda in Iraq] are the major forces driving the insurgency.” Al Qaeda, the report stressed, “supported the Syrian opposition from the beginning.” Their aim was to create a “Salafist principality in eastern Syria” – an early warning of the ISIS caliphate that would be established two years later.

General Michael Flynn, who headed the DIA at the time, later recalled that his staff “got enormous pushback” from the Obama White House. “I felt that they did not want to hear the truth,” Flynn said. In 2015, one year after Flynn was forced out, dozens of Pentagon intelligence analysts signed on to a complaint alleging that top Pentagon intelligence officials were “cooking the books” to paint a rosier picture of the jihadi presence in Syria. (The Pentagon later cleared CENTCOM commanders of wrongdoing.)

The Free Syrian Army (FSA), the main CIA-backed insurgent force, also informed Obama officials of the jihadi dominance in their ranks. “From the reports we get from the doctors,” FSA officials told the State Department in November 2012, “most of the injured and dead FSA are Jabhat al-Nusra, due to their courage and [the fact they are] always at the front line.”

Jabhat al-Nusra (Al-Nusra Front) is Al Qaeda’s franchise in Syria. It emerged as a splinter group of Al Qaeda in Iraq after a falling out between AQI leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and his then-deputy, Mohammed al-Jolani. In 2013, Baghdadi relaunched his organization under the name of Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Jolani led his Syria-based Al Qaeda faction under the black flag of al-Nusra.

“[W]hile rarely acknowledged explicitly in public,” Charles Lister, a Gulf state-funded analyst in close contact with Syrian insurgent groups wrote in March 2015, “the vast majority of the Syrian insurgency has coordinated closely with Al-Qaeda since mid-2012 – and to great effect on the battlefield.”  As one Free Syrian Army leader told the New York Times: “No FSA faction in the north can operate without al-Nusra’s approval.”

According to David McCloskey, a former CIA analyst who covered Syria in the war’s early years, U.S. officials knew that “al-Qaeda affiliated groups and Salafi jihadist groups were the primary engine of the insurgency.” This, McCloskey says, was “a tremendously problematic aspect of the conflict.”

In his memoir, senior Obama aide Ben Rhodes acknowledged that al-Nusra “was probably the strongest fighting force within the opposition.” It was also clear, he wrote, that U.S.-backed insurgent groups were “fighting side by side with al-Nusra.” For this reason, Rhodes recalled, he argued against the State Department’s December 2012 designation of al-Nusra as a foreign terrorist organization. This move “would alienate the same people we want to help.” (Asked about wanting to help an Al Qaeda-dominated insurgency, Rhodes did not respond).

In fact, designating al-Nusra as a terror organization allowed the Obama administration to publicly claim that it opposed Al Qaeda’s Syria branch while continuing to covertly arm the insurgency that it dominated. Three months after adding al-Nusra to the terrorism list, the U.S. and its allies “dramatically stepped up weapons supplies to Syrian rebels” to help “rebels to try and seize Damascus,” the Associated Press reported in March 2013.

‘There Was No Moderate Middle’

Harvard 2014: Biden goes off-script, revealing the truth of U.S. support for jihadists in Syria.

Despite being privately aware of Nusra’s dominance, Obama administration officials continued to publicly insist that the U.S. was only supporting Syria’s “moderate opposition,” as then-Deputy National Security Adviser Antony Blinken described it in September 2014.

But speaking to a Harvard audience days later, then-Vice President Biden blurted out the concealed reality. In the Syrian insurgency, “there was no moderate middle,” Biden admitted. Instead, U.S. “allies” in Syria “poured hundreds of millions of dollars and thousands of tons of weapons into anyone who would fight against Assad.” Those weapons were supplied, Biden said, to “al-Nusra, and Al-Qaeda and the extremist elements of jihadis coming from other parts of the world.”

Biden quickly apologized for his comments, which appeared to fit the classic definition of the Kinsley gaffe: a politician inadvertently telling the truth. Biden’s only error was omitting his administration’s critical role in helping its allies arm the jihadis.

Rather than shut down a CIA program that was aiding the Al Qaeda-dominated insurgency, Obama expanded it. In April 2013, the president signed an order that amended the CIA’s covert war, codenamed Timber Sycamore, to allow direct U.S. arming and training. After tapping Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Qatar to fund its arms pipeline for insurgents inside Syria, Obama’s order allowed the CIA to directly furnish U.S.-made weapons. Just as with the regime change campaign in Libya, a key architect of this operation was Hillary Clinton.

Obama’s upgraded proxy war in Syria proved to be “one of the costliest covert action programs in the history of the C.I.A.,” the New York Times reported in 2017. Documents leaked by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed a budget of nearly $1 billion per year, or around $1 of every $15 in CIA spending. The CIA armed and trained nearly 10,000 insurgents, spending “roughly $100,000 per year for every anti-Assad rebel who has gone through the program,” U.S. officials told the Washington Post in 2015. Two years later, one U.S. official estimated that CIA-funded militias “may have killed or wounded 100,000 Syrian soldiers and their allies over the past four years.”

But these militias were not just killing pro-Syrian government forces. As the New York Times reported in April 2017, US-backed insurgents carried out “sectarian mass murder.”

One such act of mass murder came in August 2013, when the U.S.-backed Free Syrian Army joined an al-Nusra and ISIS offensive on Alawite areas of Latakia. A Human Rights Investigation found that the insurgents engaged in “the systematic killing of entire families,” slaughtering a documented 190 civilians, including 57 women, 18 children, and 14 elderly men. In a video from the field, former Syrian army general Salim Idriss, head of the U.S.-backed Supreme Military Council (SMC), bragged that “we are cooperating to a great extent in this operation.”

The Latakia massacres came four months after the U.S. ambassador to Syria, Robert Ford, hailed Idriss and his fighters as “the moderate and responsible elements of the armed opposition.” The role of Idriss’s forces in the slaughter did not cancel the administration’s endorsement. In October, the Washington Post revealed that the “CIA is expanding a clandestine effort … aimed at shoring up the fighting power of units aligned with the Supreme Military Council, an umbrella organization led by [Idriss] that is the main recipient of U.S. support.”

[After this article was published, RCI received Ford’s email response to our request for comment. Ford wrote that there was “no question” that the U.S.-backed Free Syrian Army engaged in war crimes but noted, “We denounced [them] publicly at the time and in private.” Ford said the administration’s official stance that moderates were engaged in the fight was accurate in light of the facts on the ground. “Our definition of moderates in the armed opposition,” he wrote, “were people willing to negotiate a peaceful end to the war.”]

Officially, the upgraded CIA program barred direct support to al-Nusra or its allies in Syria. But once U.S. weapons arrived in Syria, the Obama administration recognized that it had no way of controlling their use – an apparent motive for waging the program covertly. “We needed plausible deniability in case the arms got into the hands of al-Nusra,” a former senior administration official told the New York Times in 2013.

One area where U.S. arms got into al-Nusra’s hands was the northwestern Syrian province of Idlib. Al Qaeda leaders would ultimately control and – though the group disputes it – provide ISIS leaders sanctuary there.

‘Al-Qaeda’s Largest Safe Haven Since 9/11’

In May 2015, an array of insurgent groups, dubbed the Jaish al-Fatah (“Army of Conquest”) coalition, captured Idlib province from the Syrian government. The fight was led by al-Nusra, and showcased what Charles Lister, the D.C.-based analyst with contacts to insurgents in Syria, dubbed “a far improved level of coordination” between rival militants, including the U.S.-backed FSA and multiple “jihadist factions.”

For Lister, the conquest of Idlib also revealed that the U.S. and its allies “changed their tune regarding coordination with Islamists.” Citing multiple battlefield commanders, Lister reported that “the U.S.-led operations room in southern Turkey,” which coordinated support to U.S.-backed insurgent groups, “was instrumental in facilitating their involvement in the operation” led by al-Nusra. While the insurgents’ U.S.-led command had previously opposed “any direct coordination” with jihadist groups, the Idlib offensive “demonstrated something different,” Lister concluded: To capture the province, U.S. officials “specifically encouraged a closer cooperation with Islamists commanding frontline operations.”

The U.S.-approved battlefield cooperation in Idlib allowed al-Nusra fighters to directly benefit from U.S. weapons. Despite occasional flare-ups between them, al-Nusra was able to use U.S.-backed insurgent groups “as force multipliers,” the Institute for the Study of War, a prominent D.C. think tank, observed when the battle began. Insurgent military gains, Foreign Policy reported in April 2015, were achieved “thanks in large part to suicide bombers and American anti-tank TOW missiles.”

The jihadist-led victory in Idlib quickly subjected its residents to sectarian terror. In June 2015, al-Nusra fighters massacred at least 20 members of the Druze faith. Hundreds of villagers spared in the attack were forced to convert to Sunni Islam. Facing the same threats, nearly all of Idlib’s remaining 1,200 Christians fled the province, leaving a Christian population that reportedly totals just three people today.

In a 2017 post-mortem on the Obama administration’s covert war in Syria, the New York Times described the insurgents’ conquest of Idlib as among the CIA program’s “periods of success.” This was certainly the case for Al Qaeda.

“Idlib Province,” Brett McGurk, the anti-ISIS envoy under Obama and Trump, and now Biden’s top White House official for the Middle East, said in 2017, “is the largest Al Qaeda safe haven since 9/11.”

U.S. Allows ISIS Takeover

Al Qaeda is not the only sectarian death squad that managed to establish a safe haven in the chaos of the Syria proxy war. Starting in 2013, al-Nusra’s sister-turned-rival group, ISIS, seized considerable territory of its own. As with Al Qaeda, ISIS’ land-grab in Syria received a significant backdoor assist from Washington.

Before Al Qaeda captured Idlib, the first ISIS stronghold in Syria, Raqqa, grew out of a similar alliance between U.S.-backed “moderate rebels” and jihadis. After this coalition seized the city from the Syrian government in March 2013, ISIS took full control in November.

When ISIS declared its caliphate in parts of Syria and Iraq in June 2014, the U.S. launched an air campaign against the group’s strongholds. But the Obama administration’s anti-ISIS offensive contained a significant exception. In key areas where ISIS’s advance could threaten the Assad regime, the U.S. watched it happen.

In April 2015, just as al-Nusra was conquering Idlib, ISIS seized major parts of the Yarmouk refugee camp on the outskirts of Damascus, marking what the New York Times called the group’s “greatest inroads yet” into the Syrian capital.

In the ancient city of Palmyra, the U.S. allowed an outright ISIS takeover. “[A]s Islamic State closed in on Palmyra, the U.S.-led aerial coalition that has been pummeling Islamic State in Syria for the past 18 months took no action to prevent the extremists’ advance toward the historic town – which, until then, had remained in the hands of the sorely overstretched Syrian security forces,” the Los Angeles Times reported in March 2016.

In a leaked conversation with Syrian opposition activists months later, then-Secretary of State John Kerry explained the U.S. rationale for letting ISIS advance.

“Daesh [ISIS] was threatening the possibility of going to Damascus and so forth,” Kerry explained. “And we know that this was growing. We were watching. We saw that Daesh was growing in strength, and we thought Assad was threatened. We thought, however, we could probably manage, that Assad would then negotiate” his way out of power.

In short, the U.S. was leveraging ISIS’s growth to impose regime change on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

The U.S. strategy of “watching” ISIS’s advance in Syria, Kerry also admitted, directly caused Russia’s 2015 entry into the conflict. The threat of an ISIS takeover, Kerry said, is “why Russia went in. Because they didn’t want a Daesh government.”

Russia’s military intervention in Syria prevented the ISIS government in Damascus that Kerry and fellow Obama administration principals had been willing to risk. Pulverizing Russian airstrikes also dealt a fatal blow to the Al Qaeda-dominated insurgency that the Obama team had spent billions of dollars to support.

From U.S. Enemy to ‘Asset’ in Syria

With U.S.-backed fighters vanquished and one of their main champions, Hillary Clinton, defeated in the November 2016 election, the CIA operation in Syria met what the New York Times called a “sudden death.” After criticizing the proxy war in Syria on the campaign trail, President Trump shut down the Timber Sycamore program for good in July 2017.

“It turns out it’s – a lot of al-Qaeda we’re giving these weapons to,” Trump told the Wall Street Journal that month.

With the exit of the Obama-Biden team, the U.S. was no longer fighting on Al Qaeda’s side. But that did not mean that the U.S. was prepared to confront the enemy that it had helped install in Idlib.

While Trump put an end to the CIA proxy war, his efforts to further extricate the U.S. from Syria by withdrawing troops were thwarted by senior officials who shared the preceding administration’s regime change goals.

“When President Trump said ‘I want everybody out of Syria,’ the top brass at Pentagon and State had aneurysms,” Christopher Miller, the Acting Secretary of Defense during Trump’s last months in office, recalls.

Jim Jeffrey, Trump’s envoy for Syria, admitted to deceiving the president in order to keep in place “a lot more than” the 200 U.S. troops that Trump had reluctantly agreed to. “We were always playing shell games to not make clear to our leadership how many troops we had there,” Jeffrey told Defense One. Those “shell games” have put U.S. soldiers in harm’s way, including four servicemembers recently wounded in a rocket attack on their base in northeastern Syria.

While thwarting a full U.S. troop withdrawal, Jeffrey and other senior officials have also preserved the U.S. government’s tacit alliance with Idlib’s Al-Qaeda rulers. Officially, al-Nusra remains on the U.S. terrorism list. Despite several name changes, the State Department has dismissed its rebranding efforts as a “vehicle to advance its position in the Syrian uprising and to further its own goals as an al-Qa’ida affiliate.”

But in practice, as Jeffrey explained last year, the U.S. has treated Al-Nusra as “an asset” to U.S. strategy in Syria. “They are the least bad option of the various options on Idlib, and Idlib is one of the most important places in Syria, which is one of the most important places right now in the Middle East,” he said. Jeffrey also revealed that he had communicated with al-Nusra leader Mohammed al-Jolani via “indirect channels.”

Jeffrey’s comments underscore a profound shift in the U.S. government’s Middle East strategy as a result of the Syria proxy war: The Syrian branch of Al Qaeda, the terror group that attacked the U.S. on 9/11, and which then became the target of a global war on terror aimed at destroying it, is no longer seen by powerful officials in Washington as an enemy, but an “asset.”

Since retaking office under Biden, the Obama veterans who targeted Syria with one of the most expensive covert wars in history have deprioritized the war-torn nation. While pledging to maintain crippling sanctions and keep U.S. troops at multiple bases, as well as announcing sporadic airstrikes, the White House has otherwise said little publicly about its Syria policy. The U.S. military raid that ended ISIS leader al-Qurayshi’s life in February prompted the only Syria-focused speech of Biden’s presidency.

While Biden trumpeted the lethal operation, the fact that it occurred in Idlib underscores a contradiction that his administration has yet to address. By taking out an ISIS leader in Al Qaeda’s Syria stronghold, the president and his top officials are now confronting threats from a terror safe haven that they helped create.

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Exposing Some Myths About the Ukraine War

April 23rd, 2022 by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.

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All rational Americans agree that we shouldn’t get involved in the Russia-Ukraine War. The neocon warmongers with brain dead Biden as their figurehead want to destroy Russia, and they are willing to risk nuclear war to do it. 

But this doesn’t negate what I’ve just said. These monsters are anything but rational. But speaking of monsters leads to another question. Everybody knows John Quincy Adams’s line: “America goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy.”

Is this the reason we should stay out of the Ukraine war? Is Putin a monster, bringing death and destruction to innocent people, but someone whose actions we have to ignore because it’s too dangerous to act against him? Some people who say this don’t get what’s happening, although others don’t view Putin as a monster, but think he made a mistake. I don’t agree, but this isn’t my target. Putin is a rational statesman, with legitimate security interests and the supposed hero Zelensky is a dubious character.

Why do people think otherwise? One reason is the charges of Russian atrocities in Bucha.  These charges are just that “charges”. Fake atrocity claims have often been a way to inflame people to support war, and the Bucha accusations are the latest example.

Christopher Roche, who isn’t pro-Putin, explains why we shouldn’t fall for it:

“The reports and photographs showing an apparent massacre in Bucha, Ukraine, are truly terrible. They are reminiscent of the atrocities used to galvanize Western opinion during Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s, when the Srebrenica Massacre and the Siege of Sarajevo were seared into Western consciousness.

Of course, pictures do not always tell the whole story. For example, to determine whether a war crime took place we must know who did the killing, why, and how. After all, the United States killed many thousands of Iraqis and Afghans, frequently by accident, in the course of those wars. Few in the United States or Europe would call those actions war crimes. This all became apparent after the United States exonerated itself for the annihilation of an Afghan family via a missile strike during the withdrawal of U.S. forces last summer. Oops.

Like any crime, a war crime must involve intent or at least recklessness. Killing civilians or POWs without trial, or humiliating them as an act of revenge, are each undoubtedly war crimes. The documented abuse of prisoners by Donetsk People’s Republic commander Givi was the basis for a Ukrainian war crimes investigation against him, before he was assassinated in 2017.

If civilians were shot and purposefully killed in Bucha, it undoubtedly would be a war crime and a terrible thing. But there are credible reasons to believe the so-called Bucha Massacre was not the doing of the Russian Forces, but rather of the Ukrainians—either local militia or SBU or some combination of thereof—as part of brutal reprisals against ‘saboteurs’ and ‘Russian collaborators.’

First, this fits with a pattern of Ukrainian forces violating the rules of war, as evidenced by numerous videos showing the shooting of prisonerstorturing civilians, and the like. Unlike the still photos in Bucha, these videos show the actions themselves, as well as the perpetrators, which even the New York Times recently acknowledged.

Second, Ukrainian President Voldomyr Zelenskyy has given numerous speeches calling for the punishment of ‘saboteurs’ and ‘traitors,’ saying the war will ultimately end with the ‘de-Russification’ of Ukraine. These are tough words, which clearly would tend to inflame and encourage the more extremist elements.

Three, the atmosphere in Ukraine is ripe for war crimes. While U.S. Second Amendment supporters were understandably heartened by the Ukrainian government’s weapons giveaway, some of those weapons ended up in the hands of criminals and undisciplined characters. This was not a mere oversight; Ukraine deliberately freed prisoners with combat experience in order to allow them to fight. One would not expect this group to be scrupulous adherents to the laws of war.

There are also many documented accounts of Ukrainians killing one another out of paranoia about spies and saboteurs. It is easy enough to see why. There is a hair’s breadth of difference between Ukrainians and Russians, and many in the East only speak Russian, have supported Russia, or at least have a less-than-enthusiastic attitude about the Ukraine regime. This fuels the possibility of internecine violence, which will be rationalized after the fact as the clearing out of traitors and fifth columnists.

Four, the timeline of reports creates real doubts about whether Russia perpetrated the Bucha Massacre. It is widely acknowledged that Russian forces left Bucha on March 30. Then, Bucha’s mayor happily announced their withdrawal on March 31 without any mention of massacres, bodies in the streets, or other war crimes. Finally, the Ukrainian SBU said it was moving into Bucha on April 2 to conduct a ‘cleansing’ operation against saboteurs and traitors.

The photos of the dead only appeared on April 2, and Zelenskyy soon appeared in order to give international journalists a tour. Reuters and the New York Times have also posted Maxar satellite images apparently showing bodies in the streets earlier on March 19. This is not as compelling as it might otherwise be; bodies left outside for two weeks would not be in the condition seen in the April 2 photos, but instead would be significantly decomposed. If there were bodies on the street earlier in March—whether combatants or civilians—they had to be different people than the dead civilians on display from April 2.

Rather, it’s a question of whether atrocity stories will lead to U.S. involvement in another war that does not advance America’s national interests. Whether it was the Rape of Belgium alleged in World War I, genocide in Kosovo, or Iraqi troops ‘removing babies from incubators’ in Kuwait, lurid and false atrocity stories have been used before to encourage Western involvement in unnecessary wars. As with ordinary criminal investigations, it is always worth asking if the source has a motive to lie about culpability.

Russia has called for an independent investigation of these events through the U.N. Security Council, but the current chair, the United Kingdom, apparently refused to convene the council. Why? Wouldn’t an independent investigation be the best way to determine what happened? Of course, the truth here is secondary, and neither Ukraine nor the West would have any interest in uncovering the extent of Ukrainian war crimes. Rather, it is clear the United States and the EU are invested in prolonging the war in order to weaken and punish Russia, even though the next phase appears likely to be much worse for everyone involved, with the Kiev government calling for the mass evacuation of the East in its most recent communications.

For all the ink spilled in condemning what is being called the Bucha Massacre, one wonders if the calls for war crimes trials and claims that the responsible government is illegitimate would be withdrawn if it turns out not Vladimir Putin and Russia, but Voldomyr Zelenskyy and Ukraine, were responsible for whatever took place in Bucha. The question answers itself.

The real atrocities are being committed by Zelensky’s forces, which include neo-Nazis. Russians remember the horrors of the German invasion during World War II and don’t want them repeated. Hence Putin’s demand that the Ukrainian government purge the Nazi elements in its government, especially to be found in the Azov Regiment. As Joe Lauria says. “Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has been making a virtual world tour with video hookups to parliaments around the globe, as well as to the Grammy Awards and the U.N. Security Council, sometimes with troublesome results.

On Thursday a major row erupted when Zelensky brought along a Ukrainian soldier of Greek heritage from the city of Mariupol, who just happened to be a member of the neo-Nazi Azov Regiment. Greece was under Nazi occupation during World War II and fought a bitter partisan war against Nazism (later to be betrayed by Britain and the United States.)

With Zelensky in the screen, the man, who gave only his first name, told Parliament: ‘I speak to you as a man of Greek descent. My name is Michail. My grandfather fought against the Nazis in the Second World War. I am born in Mariupol and I am now also fighting to defend my city from the Russian Nazis.’

Ignoring Greece’s suffering under German Nazism was a slight made worse by bringing a Nazi along to address Greek lawmakers.

Zelensky has gotten into trouble before by referring to a nation’s history in his addresses to parliaments. He caused outrage in Israel for comparing what Ukraine is going through today to the Holocaust while completely ignoring the role Ukrainian fascists played in that Holocaust.

In his address to the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday Zelensky said Russia had committed the worst war crimes since World War II, ignoring the much bigger crime of aggression by the United States against Iraq built totally on lies.

Just as Western governments and corporate media are doing, the Ukrainian embassy in Athens denied Azov is a Neo-Nazi regiment, despite sporting the Waffen-SS Wolfsangel on their uniforms and their open political alignment with Nazism.”

Putin’s campaign against this Nazi revival and his defense of the independent Russian areas in the beleaguered Donbas region deserve our admiration, not our condemnation.

Let’s heed the wisdom of the great Dr. Ron Paul, who warns us about getting into war through CIA atrocity falsehoods: “Last week an extraordinary article appeared in, of all places, NBC News, reporting that the US intelligence community is knowingly feeding information it does not believe accurate to the US mainstream media for the American audience to consume.

In other words, the article reports that the US ‘deep state’ admits to being actively engaged in lying to the American people in the hopes that it can manipulate public opinion.

According to the NBC News article, ‘multiple US officials acknowledged that the US has used information as a weapon even when confidence in the accuracy of the information wasn’t high. Sometimes it has used low-confidence intelligence for deterrent effect…’

Readers will recall the shocking headlines that Russia was prepared to use chemical weapons in Ukraine, that China would be providing military equipment to Russia, that Russian President Putin was being fed misinformation by his advisors, and more.

All of these were churned out by the CIA to be repeated in the American media even though they were known to be false. It was all about, as one intelligence officer said in the article, ‘trying to get inside Putin’s head.’

That may have been the goal, but what the CIA actually did was get inside America’s head with false information meant to shape public perception of the conflict. They lied to propagandize us in favor of the Biden Administration’s narrative. . . t’s time to revisit President Kennedy’s post-Bay of Pigs wish. The CIA using lies to propagandize the American people toward war with Russia is just one of thousands of reasons to scatter a million pieces of that agency to the wind.”

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Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. [send him mail], former editorial assistant to Ludwig von Mises and congressional chief of staff to Ron Paul, is founder and chairman of the Mises Institute, executor for the estate of Murray N. Rothbard, and editor of LewRockwell.com. He is the author of Against the State and Against the Left. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter.

Featured image: Destroyed car in Bucha with a dead person inside, 2 April 2022 (Licensed under CC BY 4.0)

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“Who will suffer if 30% of Earth is “protected”? It won’t be those who have overwhelmingly caused the climate crisis, but rather indigenous and other local people in the Global South who play little or no part in the environment’s destruction. Kicking them off their land to create Protected Areas won’t help the climate: Indigenous peoples are the best guardians of the natural world and an essential part of human diversity that is a key to protecting biodiversity.” – Stephen Corry, director of Survivalist International [1]

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April 22 is Earth Day.
a
This annual event, devoted to increasing public awareness of the perils facing our planet’s environmental concerns is now embraced by millions of Americans, and a billion individuals in over 192 countries across the Earth. It is an opportunity to, in the words of its founder U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin an opportunity to “get a nationwide demonstration of concern for the environment so large that it would shake the political establishment out of its lethargy,…and, finally, force this issue permanently onto the national political agenda.”[2][3]
a

On the Earth Day organizing site earthday.org there is a lot of attention focused on climate change, regenerative agriculture, rejecting plastic, cleaning up or avoiding litter, conservation and restoration. There is however very little said about the role of Indigenous people in protecting natural habitats.

For example, the World Resources Institute’s official 2016 study, Climate Benefits, Tenure Costs: The Economic Case for Securing Indigenous Land Rights in the Amazon, found that securing and rights for Indigenous peoples in Bolivia, Brazil, and Colombia could generate billions of dollars in returns both local communities and for the world’s changing climate.

Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau did symbolically recognize the link however. In his Earth Day 2022 statement he said:

“We have much to learn from Indigenous Peoples who have been responsible stewards of the land, water, air, and all living things since time immemorial. We are supporting more Indigenous-led conservation initiatives across the country through the Indigenous Guardians and Indigenous Protected and Conserved Area initiatives.”[4]

The sad reality is that there may be a lapse between words and deeds. Recall for example how at a Liberal Party Fundraising event in Toronto, activists raised awareness that the government was lagging on commitments to fund a specialized mercury treatment facility to remediate damages caused by mercury poisoning from a Dryden chemical plant upstream of Grassy Narrows First Nation nearly sixty years ago. The physical impacts today included tremors, headaches, neuromuscular effects, memory loss and much more. [5]

This week’s episode of the Global Research News Hour pays tribute to the spirit of Earth Day by honoring the principal architects of true solutions. It also laments how many people in today’s society, including environmentalists, find themselves in adversarial positions with regard to respecting the land rights of these first people of the land.

First up, we hear from Judy DaSilva, a long time resident and spokesperson for Grassy Narrows First Nation. She discusses the mercury poisoning and several other environmentally damaging activities thrust on her community, talks about where this disrespectful attitude toward them comes from, and also talks about a new Indigenous-led event intended to bring healing and strength to her people, her allies beyond and to the world.

Our next guest, Stephen Corry is a long time director of the non-profit organization Survivalist International which focuses on partnering with tribal peoples throughout the Earth and campaigning, lobbying and protesting for their rights. Corry explains his group’s opposition to conservation the way it is traditionally practiced, his opposition to “protected areas,” and some of the roots of this modern ecological practice in the nineteenth century eradication of Indigenous peoples in North America.

Judy Da Silva is the environmental health coordinator for Grassy Narrows First Nation. She has hosted Environmental Youth Gatherings, Women’s Gatherings, Community Gatherings and Traditional Powwows. She helped inspire young people to develop a blockade against logging in 2002 which became the longest lasting such blockade in history. In 2013, she received the Michael Sattler Peace Prize from the German Mennonite Peace Committee for her work in nonviolent resistance of the Grassy Narrows First Nation against the destruction of nature and for the preservation of their Indigenous culture.

Stephen Corry is an Indigenous Rights activist and was since 1984 the CEO of the organization Survival International which works in collaboration with tribal peoples to campaign lobby and protest for their land rights, to investigate, expose and confront atrocities committed by governments and big business, and to amplify the tribal voice to make sure it is heard. In 1989, the organization received the Right Livelihood Award, with Corry himself giving the acceptance speech.

(Global Research News Hour Episode 352)

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The Global Research News Hour airs every Friday at 1pm CT on CKUW 95.9FM out of the University of Winnipeg. The programme is also podcast at globalresearch.ca .

Other stations airing the show:

CIXX 106.9 FM, broadcasting from Fanshawe College in London, Ontario. It airs Sundays at 6am.

WZBC 90.3 FM in Newton Massachusetts is Boston College Radio and broadcasts to the greater Boston area. The Global Research News Hour airs during Truth and Justice Radio which starts Sunday at 6am.

Campus and community radio CFMH 107.3fm in  Saint John, N.B. airs the Global Research News Hour Fridays at 7pm.

CJMP 90.1 FM, Powell River Community Radio, airs the Global Research News Hour every Saturday at 8am. 

Caper Radio CJBU 107.3FM in Sydney, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia airs the Global Research News Hour starting Wednesday afternoon from 3-4pm.

Cowichan Valley Community Radio CICV 98.7 FM serving the Cowichan Lake area of Vancouver Island, BC airs the program Thursdays at 9am pacific time.

Notes:

  1. https://survivalinternational.org/campaigns/biggreenlie
  2. https://www.earthday.org/about-us/
  3. https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/the-first-earth-day?msclkid=900703b2c27211ecacfd7749ab00232e
  4. https://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/statement-by-the-prime-minister-on-earth-day-835655233.html?msclkid=bdc90159c27711ec8c254e9769c57682
  5. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/thunder-bay/grassy-narrows-celebrates-mercury-care-home-funding-1.6124129

Ukraine’s Institutionalized Nazism

April 22nd, 2022 by Rodney Atkinson

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We have already shown the extent of Nazism in the Ukraine’s armed forces. This post will demonstrate the extent to which Fascism/National Socialism (Nazism) have been and are an integral part of Ukrainian civilian life.

There is no better evidence of institutional Nazism in Ukraine than the education of its youth. The Azov battalion has its youth movement called the Azovets

Here is a photo from Russia’s “Life News” on May 13th, 2015 “Soldiers of ‘Azov’ Teach Students to Shoot a Grenade Launcher and Throw Grenades”:

That “wolfsangel” insignia on their T-shirts is Ukraine’s version of the German Nazis’ original. Perhaps Boris Johnson would like these allies of his to lecture in British schools?

One of the towns taken by Russian forces in recent days was Berdyansk where a call centre used to scam Russian Ukrainians was exposed. The large Swastika over the doorway is clear enough!

There is of course the Zelensky myth repeated ad nauseam by American and European propaganda that you can’t be Jewish and a Nazi so Ukraine is not Nazi! – as if the Nazis’ hatred of and extermination of Russians, Poles, Serbs (all Slavs regarded by German and Ukrainian Nazis as “sub humans”) and Roma did not matter and only the anti semitism made them Nazis! There were in fact 150,000 Jews who served in the Nazi army, including the part Jewish former Chancellor of Germany Helmut Schmidt! See this.

Consider this openly racist attack on Russians by a modern commentator on German mainstream media:

“we should not forget that even if Russians look European they are not European. They are not European in the cultural sense. They think differently about violence and death (!!). There is no concept of a liberal post modern life. They think differently about violence and death a concept of life that each individual can choose. Instead life can simply end early with death (!!) Russian life expectancy is quite low you know – 70 for men. That’s why they treat life differently, that people simply die”

The words of Florence Gaub on the Markus Lanz programme on ZDF (German equivalent of ITV in the UK). This German television interview managed to show extreme stupidity, racism and bankrupt “intellectualism” in one individual who was nevertheless given mainstream media coverage! Will the BBC now invite her?

President Zelensky saw nothing wrong with allowing to address the Greek Parliament a member of the openly Nazi Azov Battalion who was of Greek origin. (In fact he has since  been killed in Mariupol)

Even a Greek government spokesman Giannis Oikonomou said on Twitter following the session that “To include a message from an Azov Battalion member was wrong and inappropriate,” and Alexis Tsipras the SYRIZA party leader – Greece’s main opposition party – protested:

“The speech by members of the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion in the Greek Parliament is a challenge. The absolute responsibility lies with the prime minister. He spoke of a historic day, but it’s a historic shame. Solidarity with the Ukrainian people is a given. But the Nazis cannot have a say in parliament,”

In fact of course the responsibility did not lie with the Greek PM but with Zelensky. But none of this should come as a surprise given the institutional recognition of Nazis in public life in Ukraine. Andrei Biletsky the former leader of the Azov battalion became the leader of the Patriot of Ukraine party and was an MP between 2013 and 2019. His fellow party member, Vadym Troyan who served as a deputy commander of Azov, was appointed police chief of the province of Kiev.

Biletsky is an open admirer of Hitler and claimed that

“Social Nationalism raises to shield all old Ukrainian Aryan values forgotten in modern society. Only their recovery and implementation by a group of fanatical fighters can we lead to the final victory of European civilization”

The founder of the “Social Nationalist” Party Andriy Parubiy became Speaker of the Ukrainian Parliament and was welcomed in London by the Royal United Services Institute! The Americans were so embarrassed by the “Social Nationalist” name that they advised changing it – to Svoboda.

Torchlight Nazi Marches

Every 1st January Ukrainian Nazis march under torches to celebrate the birthday of Stepan Bandera the Ukrainian extreme nationalist who led the wartime movement allied with the Nazi occupiers of Ukraine: His OUN – B group called on Ukrainians to “liquidate Poles, Muscovites and Jews”. Such torchlight marches are reminiscent of course of Nazi Germany, as they are meant to be.

Ukraine Statues’ Tribute to the Nazi Holocaust

The extent to which the political class and people in general adopt uncritically Nazi supporting individuals, insignia and politics can be seen in the statues on public display. Imagine if there were statues in Britain glorifying the former leader of the British Union of Fascists Oswald Mosley!

In 2017 The World Jewish Congress denounced the Ukrainian city of Vinnitsa’s “disgraceful and deplorable” move to celebrate nationalist leader Symon Petliura, whose Ukrainian People’s Republic killed tens of thousands of Jews in pogroms under his leadership in 1918-1921, and urged the local authorities to pull a monument unveiled in his honour. See this.

Anti-Nazi activist Efraim Zuroff of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre said that “Ukraine has more statues for killers of Jews than any other country.” Zuroff also attacked the Canadian Government for training Ukrainian Nazi troops. Canadian troops were photographed training members of the “Azov” regiment with at least one soldier bearing the insignia of the SS division “Galizien,” a Ukrainian unit that fought for the Nazis in WWII. Canada has reportedly spent nearly a billion dollars (US$794 million) on training Ukrainian troops since the 2014 coup.

Here are two memorials to Ukrainian war time Nazis, Stefan Lynnik and Volodomyr Kubiyovych which confirm Efraim Zuroff’s statement above.

Pure Blood Ukraine!

A Ukrainian state body for historical research published nine arguments why Ukrainians and Russians cannot be called brother nations, including one that stated that Ukrainians are pureblood Slavs, while Russians count people from Ugro-Finnish tribes among their ancestors. The Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance released a series of info cards which were were posted on its social media accounts. Some of them were later deleted, but not before being retained by web archiving algorithms.

See this.

Political Opponents Are Traitors

As is increasingly the case in the former democracies in the West, the corporatist left and much of the media regard any opposition to the State “narrative” be it on Russia, COVID, Climate, the family, sexual identity or nationhood and democratic sovereignty as being “illegal” and those who propagate such alternative ideas or policies are or should be classed as criminals. So it is – in even clearer terms – the case in Zelensky’s Ukraine where his own totalitarian politics (no wonder the openly Nazi are on his side) has led to the closing of television and other media outlets and the arrest of opponents, the latest being Viktor Medvedchuk the leader of the largest opposition party. He has just been arrested yet again by the State Security Service SBU. Medvedchuk, who opposed the 2014 Kiev Maidan coup, and opposed Ukraine’s turning to the West has led his party since 2018.

When Medvedchuk’s party began to pull ahead of Zelensky’s “Servant of the people” party, Zelensky started his purge of unfriendly media and had Medvedchuk arrested for “treason”.

Another political opponent of Zelensky, businessman Vadim Rabinovich, once led a movement to remove the president. He is now officially declared “a traitor” although all he wanted was an independent neutral Ukraine.

Zelensky’s administration declared that Rabinovich was a “collaborator, pro-Russian politician” and was recently added to a blacklist of Ukrainians that includes opposition lawmakers, local politicians, journalists and bureaucrats who are allegedly “linked to”  Russia or Vladimir Putin. Several of them have been murdered since the beginning of the war. Rabinovich now lives in Israel.

With such an example from the top it is no wonder that a Ukrainian TV presenter Fahrudddin Sharafmal could call on his countrymen to destroy the Russian nation by killing their children. He even summoned up the shining example of Adolf Eichmann!

“I allow myself to quote Adolf Eichmann, who said that in order to destroy a nation, you must destroy, first of all, its children. Because if you kill their parents, the children will grow up and take revenge. By killing children – they will never grow up and the nation will disappear,”

A photo of Eichmann appeared on the screen. From hromadske TV. Well done Boris! Keep sending these people sophisticated weaponry!

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Featured image: A news broadcast by German ZDF station showed soldiers of the Ukraine Azov Battalion with nazi symbols on their helmets. PHOTO BY FILES /ZDF station

Kiev and its Western backers immediately blamed Russia for the incident, but a proper investigation is likely to disagree.

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In a conflict where accusations of wrongdoing fly back and forth between Russia and Ukraine on a daily basis, when it comes to the missile attack on the Kramatorsk train station that occurred at 10:30am on April 8, 2022, both sides are in rare agreement – the missile used was a Tochka-U, a Soviet-era weapon known in the West by its NATO reporting name as the SS-21 Scarab, and in the former Soviet republics that use the weapon by its GRAU designation, 9K79.

A fragment of a Tochka-U missile lies on the ground following an attack at the railway station in Kramatorsk, Ukraine, Friday, April 8, 2022. © AP Photo/Andriy Andriyenko
A fragment of a Tochka-U missile lies on the ground following an attack at the railway station in Kramatorsk, Ukraine, Friday, April 8, 2022. © AP Photo/Andriy Andriyenko

Beyond that one technical piece of information, however, any semblance of unanimity regarding the narrative surrounding how that missile came to strike a bustling railway station, killing and wounding dozens of civilians desperately trying to evacuate from eastern Ukraine in anticipation of a large-scale Russian offensive, collapses, with each side blaming the other.

Making this tragedy even more bizarre, the Russian words Za Detei – “for the children” – had been hand-painted on the missile in white.

The Tochka made its appearance in the Soviet military in 1975. A single-stage, solid-fuel tactical ballistic missile, the Tochka was assembled at the Votkinsk Machine Building Plant before being delivered to the Soviet Army, where it was further disseminated to the various units equipped with the system. An improved version of the Tochka, known as the Tochka-U (Uluchshenny, or “improved”) was introduced in 1989; the improvements included increased range and accuracy.

The Tochka-U operates as a simple inertially-guided ballistic missile. Simply put, the operators, working from a known location, orient the launcher in the direction of their target, and then calculate the distance between the point of launch and point of impact. The solid-fuel engine of the Tochka-U burns for 28 seconds, meaning that the range of the missile isn’t determined by engine burn-time alone, but rather the angle that the missile was launched – the more vertical the missile at time of launch, the shorter its range will be.

Because the missile burns to depletion, once the engine shuts down, the missile will cease its pure ballistic trajectory, and instead assume a near-vertical posture as it heads toward its target. The warhead is released at a designated point above the target. In the case of the Kramatorsk attack, the Tochka-U was equipped with the 9N123K cluster warhead, containing fifty submunitions, each of which has the effect of a single hand grenade in terms of explosive and lethal impact.

The flight characteristics of the Tochka-U result in a debris pattern which has the cluster munitions impacting on the ground first, followed by the depleted booster, which hits the earth some distance behind the impact of the warhead. This creates a tell-tale signature, so to speak, of the direction from where the missile was launched, which can be crudely calculated by shooting a reverse azimuth from the point of impact of the warhead through the booster.

It is this physical reality which provides the first real clue as to who fired the Tochka-U that hit Kramatorsk.

The relationship of the booster when it came to earth, when assessed to the impact zone of the cluster munitions, provides a reverse azimuth which, even when factoring in a generous margin of error for potential drift, points to territory that was under the exclusive control of the Ukrainian government, which means that there is little doubt that the missile that struck the Kramatorsk train station was fired by a launcher under the operational control of the 19th Missile Brigade, Ukraine’s only Tochka-U-equipped unit.

More specifically, a forensic evaluation of the missile debris clearly shows that it was launched by the 19th Ukrainian Missile Brigade, based near Dobropolia, some 45 kilometers from Kramatorsk.

The 19th Missile Brigade is considered a strategic asset, meaning that it responds directly to the orders of the Ukrainian Ground Forces Command. In short, if the missile was, as it appears, fired by the 19th Missile Brigade, it was doing so based on orders given from high up the chain of command. The launch was no accident.

For its part, the Ukrainian government has attempted to flip the script, blaming Russia for an attack using a missile which Russia is on record as having retired from service in 2019. To back up this assertion, the Ukrainian government has noted that Tochka-U launchers were seen participating in joint military training exercises involving Russian and Belarus forces on Belarusian soil in February 2022, on the eve of Russia’s special military operation commencing against Ukraine.

This was according to Ambassador Evgeny Tsimbaliuk, the Permanent Representative of Ukraine to the International Organizations in Vienna, while addressing a special meeting of the OSCE Permanent Council about the attack.

The US backed up the Ukrainian allegation, with its Department of Defense announcing during a closed-door briefing to journalists that Russia had at first announced the missile strike against Kramatorsk, only to retract it once the announcement about civilian casualties was made.

The problem with both the Kiev and Washington claims is that neither is backed up by anything that remotely resembles solid evidence. The television images referred – to by the Ukrainians showed Belarusian Tochka-U launchers, not Russian ones, and the “claims” cited by the US referred to the private Telegram accounts of persons having no affiliation with the Russian government or military.

There is no question that both Russia and the US are sitting on de facto proof of where the Tochka missile was fired. The US has deployed in the region a variety of intelligence-collection platforms which would have detected the location of the missile at the time of launch, and would also have tracked the ballistic trajectory of the missile as it flew toward its target. Likewise, Russia has deployed numerous advanced surface-to-air missile defense systems, including the advanced S-400, which would have tracked the flight of the missile from launch to impact.

The fact that the US has not declassified this data to replicate a Cuban missile crisis-like moment at the UN to demonstrate to the world the scope and scale of a Russan lie strongly suggests that the Russians are not, in fact, lying. Moreover, Russia’s failure to do the same to reinforce its contention that Ukraine fired the missile points to the reality that any Russian radar is operating as part of an active military action zone, and as such Russia would be loath to publish data that could provide Ukraine with a tactical edge on the battlefield.

There is, however, one piece of evidence which proves without a doubt who owned the Tochka-U missile in question that was fired on Kramatorsk, the release of which would not compromise the security interests of the providing nation. Painted onto the booster of the missile, in black, is a unique serial number assigned to the Tochka-U at the time of production (in the Cyrillic alphabet, Ш91579, or Sh91579 in the Latin alphabet.) This serial number was assigned to it at the Votkinsk Machine Building Plant and represents the unique identifying mark for the missile that follows it through its military life cycle.

The use of the production serial number as a unique identifier has been used by the United Nations in Iraq as part of a series of intrusive forensic investigations into the accounting of Iraq’s SCUD missile inventory. The UN used these numbers to track the arrival of Soviet-made SCUD missiles into Iraq, and to account for their final disposition, whether it be through unilateral destruction at the hands of the Iraqis, during training, during maintenance, or during combat operations. The procedures used by the Iraqis for tracking and accounting for its SCUD missiles was derived from official Soviet procedures for the same, and therefore mirror those used by the Ukrainian government.

The serial number of the Tochka-U shows that it was produced in 1991, during the time of Soviet authority. At that time, when a Tochka-U was fully assembled at the Votkinsk Machine Building Plant, it belonged to the Ministry of Defense Industry. The missile would be shipped by rail from the Votkinsk Machine Building Plant to a receiving point, where the Soviet military would take possession of the missile and formally absorb it into its inventory. Each missile is accompanied by a document known as a “passport,” which records every transaction associated with the missile in question. The missile would either be assigned to an operational unit or to a storage unit – again, details that would be recorded in the missile passport.

Each missile had a life span of ten years, after which the manufacturer’s warranty, so to speak, was no longer valid. That meant that a missile produced in 1991 would, under normal circumstances, be retired by 2001. However, the Russian military has often extended the operational lifetime of missiles such as the Tochka-U by implementing inspection procedures designed to extend the lifecycle of the missile. Each such inspection would be recorded in the passport, as would all operational deployments or field exercises where the missile was subjected to handling and movement.

Before a missile is fired, it is formally removed from the owning unit’s inventory, and orders are issued authorizing its use by the Ukrainian General Staff which include the serial number in question. When the missile is launched, the missile passport is closed out, and included with the other paperwork associated with the expenditure of the missile. The missile serial number is recorded at each step.

The Russian military should have in its archives documentation which lists the Tochka-U missiles officially turned over to Ukraine when the Soviet Union collapsed. Likewise, the Ukrainian military should have documents which record the missiles being absorbed into the Ukrainian armed forces. In either case, there exists undisputed records of ownership.

Russia could end the discussion of who owned the missile in question simply by providing document-based evidence proving missile ownership (i.e., the transfer of ownership from the Soviet Union to Ukraine.) Likewise, Ukraine could do the same simply by providing a copy of the documentation surrounding its receipt of all Tochka-U missiles from Soviet authority, thereby enabling – if the Ukrainian version is to be believed – that it never possessed the missile in question.

A view of the scene after over 30 people were killed and more than 100 injured in an attack on a railway station in Kramatorsk on April 8 2022. © Getty Images / Andrea Carrubba
A view of the scene after over 30 people were killed and more than 100 injured in an attack on a railway station in Kramatorsk on April 8 2022. © Getty Images / Andrea Carrubba

Ukraine’s embattled President Volodymyr Zelensky has declared that the missile strike on Kramatorsk “must be one of the charges at the tribunal” he envisages at the International Criminal Court. “Like the massacre in Bucha, like many other Russian war crimes.”

Zelensky might want to be careful about what he wishes for. Any serious investigation into the Kramatorsk train station bombing will include an inquiry into the missile involved, and questions of ownership in which the missile serial number inscribed on the booster will play a leading role.

If this is indeed the case – and the available evidence strongly suggests that it is – then it will be Zelensky and his leadership on the docket for the crime of slaughtering the very civilians whose lives he claims to be protecting.

Scott Ritter is a former US Marine Corps intelligence officer and author of ‘SCORPION KING: America’s Suicidal Embrace of Nuclear Weapons from FDR to Trump.’ He served in the Soviet Union as an inspector implementing the INF Treaty, in General Schwarzkopf’s staff during the Gulf War, and from 1991-1998 as a UN weapons inspector.

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This article was originally published in 2018 following its 19th anniversary.

Twenty-three years ago, on 23 April 1999, a NATO missile attack on Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) headquarters killed 16 employees of the state broadcaster.

The forgotten war crime occurred during the Kosovo War (March 1999-June 1999), and was part of NATO’s aerial campaign alongside the US-backed Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) a paramilitary entity with links to Al Qaeda and organized crime, in opposition to the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

In the aftermath of the attack there were no great public campaigns launched for the 16 murdered journalists and employees, no outpouring of emotion for those killed, no calls for solidarity and togetherness in the face of aggression. On the contrary the West justified this grievous blow against freedom of expression, praised it even.

Tony Blair, Britain’s then Prime Minister, welcomed the killings when speaking at NATO’s 50th anniversary summit in Washington. Blair said the missile attack was “entirely justified… in damaging and attacking all these targets”, and that those murdered were part of the “apparatus of dictatorship and power of [Slobodan] Milosevic”.

Blair felt that, “the responsibility for every single part of this action lies with the man [Milosevic] who has engaged in this policy of ethnic cleansing and must be stopped”. Apparently Milosevic “must be stopped” by wiping out state journalists or what Blair describes as an “apparatus of dictatorship”.

According to one of the main leaders of the Western world, Milosevic must bear full responsibility for a NATO fighter plane firing a US-made missile on a state broadcasting service’s headquarters. Perhaps we shouldn’t be too surprised by Blair’s visions of justice, particularly when examining his key role in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis in the following decade.

Blair was not alone in praising this violation of international law. His Secretary of State for International development, Clare Short, said afterwards that,

“the propaganda machine is prolonging the war and it’s a legitimate target”.

Short is a Labour Party member and her official title today is The Right Honourable Clare Short. Defending these killings was neither right nor honourable one can assume.

NATO themselves commended the deliberate attack afterwards. NATO’s military spokesperson Air Commodore David Wilby declared RTS,

“a legitimate target which filled the airways with hate and with lies over the years”.

This followed on from a number of other NATO attacks on radio and television outlets in the country.

In the build up to the 2003 Iraq invasion, Cardiff University revealed that the BBC adopted the most pro-war stance of any British network. The official reasons for invading Iraq were based entirely on lies and misinformation. In this case was the BBC “the propaganda machine”, had it become “a legitimate target” too?

Pentagon spokesperson Kenneth Bacon also legitimised the war crime saying that,

“Serb TV is as much a part of Milosevic’s murder machine as his military is”.

Not to be outdone, the respected US diplomat and magazine editor Richard Holbrooke described the bombing of RTS as,

“an enormously important and, I think, positive development”.

In the build up to the Iraq invasion American networks like Fox News were styling the illegal intervention as “Operation Iraqi Freedom”, with its correspondents and news anchors compelled to repeat that phrase. In addition a permanent American flag was fluttering in the top corner of the screen, and during the invasion itself the banner “war on terrorism” was unfurled.

Did this make Fox News and others like it, “a legitimate target which filled the airways with hate and lies”? Judging by the standards of Western elites, one would have to suggest so.

Meanwhile, a single person was charged for the attack on RTS: Dragoljub Milanovic, the Serbian network’s general manager, who received a 10-year jail term for failing to evacuate the building in time. Yet the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia concluded that NATO’s bombing of RTS was not a crime, noting that deaths were “unfortunately high, they do not appear to be clearly disproportionate”. Clearly disproportionate to the overall number of civilian deaths inflicted by NATO perhaps.

However, in January 2015 the Western reaction was somewhat different when 12 journalists from the Charlie Hebdo satirical newspaper were murdered by Islamic extremists – along with four Jewish men killed at a kosher supermarket shortly afterwards.

The British Prime Minister on this occasion, David Cameron, did not justify the killing of journalists and said,

“We stand absolutely united with the French people against terrorism and against this threat to our values – free speech, the rule of law, democracy”. Cameron went on, “we should never give up the values we believe in… a free press, in freedom of expression, in the right of people to write and say what they believe”.

About two weeks later Blair, now a Middle East peace envoy, said of the thinking behind the Charlie Hebdo attacks, “this extremism is not natural, it’s taught and it’s learned and you have to un-teach it in the school systems”. Blair seems further unaware of his own role in creating “this extremism” by playing the junior partner role in invading Iraq, a crucial factor in the rise of ISIS.

In the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo attacks, millions marched to honour the dead with the slogan “I am Charlie” becoming famous. When the Serbian journalists and employees were killed just over 15 years earlier, there was no international motto of “I am RTS”.

New York civil rights lawyer Floyd Abrams described the Charlie Hebdo shootings as, “the most threatening assault on journalism in living memory”. The perception of “living memory” appears to be a remarkably short one.

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This article was originally published by The Duran in August 2017.

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 frequent contributor to Global Research.

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Novavax on Wednesday announced that early data on its combination vaccine targeting COVID-19 and influenza showed the vaccine produced a strong immune response. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has yet to grant the Maryland-based company’s request for Emergency Use Authorization for its COVID-only vaccine.

Vaccine maker Novavax on Wednesday announced that early data on its combination vaccine targeting COVID-19 and influenza showed the vaccine produced a strong immune response.

Chief Medical Officer Filip Dubovsky, during a call with reporters, said the Maryland-based company’s early phase clinical trial found that up to 25 micrograms of the COVID formulation combined with up to 35 micrograms of the flu formulation triggered a promising level of protective antibodies in the Novavax COVID-Influenza Combination Vaccine.

The shot would combine a seasonal booster for COVID with a seasonal flu shot.

“What we demonstrated in this study is we were able to get the immune responses really comparable to what the individual vaccines did prior to combination,” Dubovsky said.

Participants in the Phase 1 trial had a median age of 59 and all previously had received COVID vaccines.

Novavax plans to move forward with a Phase 2 trial this year to confirm the appropriate dosing levels, and plans to launch a Phase 3 trial on efficacy during the 2023 flu season at the earliest, Dubovsky said.

“Combination vaccines are an attractive public health intervention,” Dubovsky said. “You are hitting two life-threatening diseases in one medical contact, giving a single vaccination.”

Novavax’s COVID vaccine uses different technology than the Pfizer and Moderna shots, which rely on messenger RNA to turn human cells into factories that produce copies of the virus spike protein, inducing an immune response that fights COVID.

The spike is the part of the virus that latches onto and invades human cells.

Novavax’s shots, in contrast, synthesize the virus spike outside the human body. The genetic code for the spike is put into a baculovirus that infects insect cells, which then produce copies of the spike that are purified and extracted.

The spike copy is then injected into people to induce an immune response against the virus.

The vaccine also uses a novel adjuvant that contains a purified extract from the bark of a tree in South America, to induce a broader immune response.

The most common side effects of the Novavax combination vaccine were injection site pain, fatigue and headaches, Dubovsky said.

The company said the preliminary trial results found that the combination vaccine formulations induced immune responses in participants comparable to reference stand-alone influenza and stand-alone COVID-19 vaccine formulations (for H1N1, H3N2, B-Victoria HA and SARS-CoV-2 antigens).

According to Dr. Meryl Nass, internist and member of Children’s Health Defense scientific advisory committee, experts acknowledged during the April 6 meeting of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) meeting that immune responses, or neutralizing antibody titers, were inadequate to assess the immune response for COVID.

“The committee said future COVID vaccines would need to be authorized or licensed using clinical trial data, not antibody titers,” Nass said.

Novavax said clinical modeling results also showed a combined formulation has the potential to reduce total antigen amount by up to 50% overall, optimizing production and delivery, and reducing side effects.

“We continue to evaluate the dynamic public health landscape and believe there may be a need for recurrent boosters to fight both COVID-19 and seasonal influenza,” said Dr. Gregory M. Glenn, president of research and development at Novavax.

“We’re encouraged by these data and the potential path forward for a combination COVID-19-influenza vaccine as well as stand-alone vaccines for influenza and COVID-19.”

Dubovsky expressed confidence the new vaccine’s recombinant protein-based nanoparticle technology would allow the combo shot to be easily “tweaked” to address emerging coronavirus variants.

Is FDA slow-walking Novavax authorization in U.S.?

The World Health Organization in December 2021 approved Novavax’s COVID vaccine (not the new COVID-flu combination vaccine) for use in the European Union, but the FDA has yet to grant Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) of the product in the U.S.

Novavax’s Glenn today told attendees at the World Vaccine Congress the company is still optimistic about obtaining the EUA.

In a statement later in the day, the company said:

“We continue to have a productive dialogue with the FDA as they review data and we answer inquiries related to clinical and manufacturing data as expected. We look forward to scheduling our VRBPAC meeting in the near future as indicated by the FDA.”

At a Wednesday meeting of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) vaccine advisory committee, an FDA official indicated the agency was still awaiting manufacturing data from Novavax.

But an FDA spokesperson later said it was nothing more than the usual back-and-forth as part of the regulatory process.

An FDA spokesperson said:

“While the FDA cannot predict how long its evaluation of the data and information will take, the agency will review the EUA request as expeditiously as possible using its thorough and science-based approach.

“The agency plans to schedule a meeting of the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) to discuss the EUA request with the FDA’s panel of outside scientific and medical experts.”

The company published its clinical data in the New England Journal of Medicine soon after filing its EUA application on Jan. 31, but still has not received a date for its FDA advisory committee meeting.

Nass said similar to trials for other COVID vaccines, the Novavax trial followed participants for only 70 days post-“full vaccination” status — not long enough to identify the waning efficacy and determine how well the vaccine really works over 6 to 12 months and more.

“The bottom line is that with yet another brief-duration trial, we can’t say anything about the long-term safety or efficacy, which are the only measures that really matter,” Nass said.

By comparison, the other three vaccines available in the U.S. were authorized prior to publication of their clinical data.

Also, the vaccine applications of Pfizer and Moderna in late November 2020 were authorized by the FDA in just over three weeks.

“It’s been far too long since Novavax has asked for authorization and I think the FDA has been slow-walking it,” said Lawrence Gostin, professor of global health law at Georgetown University.

Another vaccine option is important for the U.S., Gostin said.

“The FDA should authorize it and it should be another vaccine in the toolbox for the United States and the world,” he said.

In an interview with CBS affiliate WUSA9 just days after filing for emergency use, a Novavax official said unlike Moderna and Pfizer’s mRNA vaccines, many people are holding out for Novavax’s protein-based shot, which is very similar to many childhood immunizations.

“We think that our vaccine can be an important option in making people feel more comfortable and confident in getting their vaccination,” said Silvia Taylor with Novavax Global Corporate Affairs.

Clinical trials have shown Novavax to be 90% effective against COVID infection. If approved, those 18 years and older would be eligible for the shot.

“It may not be that there will be a very large uptake of Novavax, but there’s a certain segment of the population that really wants to use a much more traditional vaccine and not a messenger RNA vaccine,” said Gostin.

In January, Dr. Anthony Fauci seemed to dismiss Novavax’s potential to jump-start a nationwide vaccination effort largely stalled since last October.

“It just seems rather unusual that people are waiting for something else when you have vaccines that have been given to 9 billion people,” Fauci told Yahoo Finance. (The global population is estimated to be only about 8 billion people.)

“I’m not sure what people are waiting for when you say they’re waiting for something else,” he said.

CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky was more optimistic, noting that Novavax’s “approval could help address [vaccine] hesitancy.”

Japan authorizes Novavax COVID vaccine

Meanwhile, Japan’s health ministry on Tuesday joined a list of more than 40 countries that have approved Novavax’s COVID vaccine, announcing the purchase of 150 million doses.

Japan in recent days reported a resurgence of the fast-spreading omicron BA.2 variant.

The ministry approval came the day after its expert panel endorsed use of Novavax’s protein vaccine, which is designed with vaccine technology similar to that used in vaccines for the flu and hepatitis B.

Health Minister Shigeyuki Goto told reporters the Novavax product adds variety to the choices available and could appeal to those who are hesitant to use COVID vaccines such as Pfizer’s and Moderna’s, which are designed with newer technologies.

Shots are expected to be available in Japan as soon as early May.

In March, the country lifted all COVID restrictions as infections slowed significantly, but experts noted signs of a resurgence in a number of prefectures during a season of traveling and parties marking graduation and the start of the academic and business year.

The government is trying to expand businesses and put the pandemic-hit economy back on track. Japan slowly eased the border controls following sharp criticisms for its longtime restrictions on non-resident foreign students, scholars and business people, but Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said Japan is not considering restarting inbound tourism anytime soon.

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Why Has Early Puberty Skyrocketed During the Pandemic?

April 22nd, 2022 by Dr. Joseph Mercola

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Incidence of early puberty has surged since the start of the COVID pandemic, and is affecting children at ages that are historically unprecedented

Many children diagnosed with slow-progressing early puberty also experienced an acceleration of pubertal progressing during and/or after lockdown

Early puberty can have serious consequences for those affected. It’s been linked to a higher risk for depression, eating disorders, substance abuse and antisocial behavior

The cause for the unprecedented rise in early puberty is unknown, but experts suspect it has to do with lifestyle changes related to lockdowns, such as stress, elevated electromagnetic field (EMF) exposure, an unhealthy diet, low physical activity, increased obesity, elevated exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals in the home and poor sleep

Several COVID-19 clinical trials have involved anti-androgen drugs, with many showing positive results in terms of blocking the progression of infection. Some have suggested the influence of androgen on SARS-CoV-2 infection may be why young children have such a low incidence of COVID-19, as they have low androgen levels

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According to recent data, incidence of early puberty has surged since the start of the COVID pandemic.1 It’s also affecting children at ages that are historically unprecedented. What could possibly account for this phenomenon?

Rare Condition Has Suddenly Become More Prevalent

Early puberty, also known as precocious puberty, has historically been rare, affecting approximately 1 in 5,000 to 10,000 children. The female-to-male ratio of incidence is about 10-to-1 in favor of girls.

But for some as-yet unknown reason, since early 2020, doctors around the world have seen a surprising increase in cases, predominantly if not exclusively among girls, with girls as young as 5 sprouting breasts and menstruation starting in girls younger than 8. Typically, breast development begins around age 10 to 11, with menstruation starting two years later.

Dr. Vaishakhi Rustagi, a pediatric endocrinologist in Delhi, India, told The Fuller Project2 that he normally sees about 20 cases of early puberty each year, but since June 2020, he’s seen more than 300 such patients.

In Italy, a survey3 of five pediatric endocrinology sites found 328 girls had been referred for suspected early puberty between March and September 2020, up from 140 during the same seven-month period in 2019. Another Italian study4 found patients previously diagnosed with slow-progressing early puberty experienced an acceleration of pubertal progressing during and/or after lockdown.

Similar findings have emerged from Turkey, where early puberty cases reported between April 2020 and March 2021 were more than double that of any of the preceding three years5 (58 cases during the pandemic year compared to a total 66 cases for the previous three years combined).

Early Puberty Can Have Serious Consequences

While on the surface this may not seem like a catastrophe, it can in fact have serious consequences for those affected. Early puberty has been linked to a higher risk for depression, eating disorders, substance abuse and antisocial behavior, for example.

Early puberty may also be caused by a more serious condition, such as a central nervous problem, or an ovary, adrenal, pituitary or brain tumor, so these conditions need to be ruled out as causative factors before hormone treatment is considered.

Early puberty (provided it’s not caused by some underlying condition that needs to be addressed) is typically treated with a monthly injection of gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH analogue therapy6), which delays further development. Once the child reaches the appropriate age for puberty, the hormone treatment is stopped, and the process of puberty then restarts.

Did Lockdowns Trigger Early Puberty?

The authors of the Italian study7 hypothesize there might be an association between early puberty in girls and “the complex lifestyle changes related to the lockdown.” But how?

One possibility is stress. Dr. Adiaha Spinks-Franklin, a pediatrician at Texas Children’s Hospital, told The Fuller Project,8 “From 9 to like 15, you’re going through this process, but the stress of the pandemic sped up that physiological process. Meanwhile, socially and emotionally, they’re still children.” Rustagi agrees, saying, “I think it’s directly related to the amount of stress that the children have gone through.”9

Other suspects include elevated electromagnetic field (EMF) exposure, an unhealthy diet, low physical activity, increased obesity, elevated exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals in the home and poor sleep10,11 — all of which were exacerbated during the lockdowns as children were cooped up indoors and had to study remotely.

Additionally, pervasive exposure to plastics and microplastics loaded with phthalates and BPA, which are known endocrine disrupters, certainly haven’t helped the situation.

Separately, none of these are sufficient to explain the sudden explosion of early puberty, but taken together, they might trigger changes in central nervous mediators and an increase in catecholamines to set off the pubertal process.

A Curious Connection

Curiously, at the same time as precocious puberty was skyrocketing, researchers at Penn Medicine published preclinical trial results12,13 suggesting anti-androgen drugs could disrupt the ACE2 and TMPRSS2 receptors that SARS-CoV-2 uses to gain entry into the cell.

The study,14 which was funded by the National Institutes of Health and a U.S. Department of Defense award, was published March 19, 2021.

In it, the authors noted that the two receptors are regulated by androgen hormone — the same hormone responsible for premature adrenarche15 (sexual maturation and libido) — and by blocking the receptors with Camostat and other androgen inhibiting drugs, viral entry and replication were prevented. According to a Penn Medicine press release:16

“The findings provide more insight into the molecular mechanisms of the virus but also support the use of anti-androgen therapies to treat COVID-19 infections, which are currently being investigated in clinical trials and have produced promising results. They also support data showing increased mortality and severity of disease among men compared to women, who have much lower levels of androgen.

‘We provide the first evidence that not only TMPRSS2, which is known to be regulated by androgen, but ACE2 can also be directly regulated by this hormone,’ said senior author Irfan A. Asangani, PhD, an assistant professor of Cancer Biology in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

‘We also show that the SARS-CoV-2 spike relies on these two receptors to impale and enter cells, and that they can be blocked with existing drugs. That’s important because if you stop viral entry, you reduce the viral load and disease progression.’”

Other research17 has found ACE2 receptors are present on nearly all testicular cells. This raises the question of whether male fertility and/or gonad function might be adversely affected by SARS-CoV-2 infection. It’s also been shown that estrogen regulates the expression of ACE2 in pulmonary epithelial cells.18 So, sex hormones appear to play a role in SARS-CoV-2 infection in more ways than one.

Puberty Versus Adrenarche

For clarity, while premature adrenarche and early puberty are similar, they’re not the same. Adrenarche refers to the activation of the adrenal glands, resulting in the production of sex hormones such as androgens, which are responsible for public hair, oily skin and hair, body odor, acne, sexual desire and increased libido.

Puberty, on the other hand, is the maturation process of sexual reproduction. Brain signals are sent to the testes and ovaries, triggering the development of sperm and eggs respectively, as well as secondary characteristics such as the deepening of the voice in boys and breasts in girls.

Is This Why Children Aren’t Susceptible to COVID?

While we haven’t heard a whole lot about it in the news, several COVID-19 clinical trials over the past year or so have involved anti-androgen drugs, with many showing positive results in terms of blocking the progression of infection. Some have also suggested that the influence of androgen on SARS-CoV-2 infection may be why young children have such a low incidence of COVID-19, as they have low androgen levels.

As explained in the paper, “The Resilient Child: Sex-Steroid Hormones and COVID-19 Incidence in Pediatric Patients”:19

“Androgens upregulate the protease TMPRSS2, which facilitates efficient virus-host cell fusion with the epithelium of the lungs, thus increasing susceptibility to SARS-CoV-2 infection and development of severe COVID-19. Owing to low levels of steroid hormones, prepubertal children may have low expression of TMPRSS2, thereby limiting the viral entry into the host cells.”

That said, there’s something quite curious about the timing of this information, because all of a sudden, the health care system has become very focused on normalizing transgenderism. Is it possible that they’re thinking of dosing children with sex hormones as a treatment for COVID and need a cover story? As noted in the Penn Medicine study:20

“Together, our data provide a strong rationale for clinical evaluations of TMPRSS2 inhibitors, androgen-deprivation therapy / androgen receptor antagonists alone or in combination with antiviral drugs as early as clinically possible to prevent COVID-19 progression.”

Could treating children with anti-androgens cause changes in how they feel about their sexuality? And if so, could it be that the medical industry wants to “get ahead” of the trend and quench questions by indoctrinating everyone into thinking transgenderism and gender confusion is completely normal? That’s pure speculation, of course, but perhaps something to tuck into the back of your mind for later on.

Precocious Puberty Triggers

While there’s no direct evidence EMF exposure during childhood can trigger early puberty, one animal study21 did find Wi-Fi and cell phone radiation during pregnancy increased the risk of early puberty in the offspring.

So, it’s possible that generational effects are at play, and/or that this susceptibility is worsened by other environmental factors such as diet, lack of exercise, obesity, stress and exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals and foods high in estrogen.

Without a clear cause, it’s difficult to prescribe a remedy. But I believe it’s safe to say that parents would be wise to pay close attention to what their children are doing and being exposed to — pandemic or not. For example:

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Notes

1 MD Edge April 4, 2022

2, 8, 9, 10 The Fuller Project March 28, 2022

3, 7 Endocr. Connect. February 14, 2022; 11(2): E210650

4 Italian Journal of Pediatrics 2020; 46: article number 165

5 Journal of Pediatric Endocrinology and Metabolism December 8, 2021 DOI: 10.1515/jpem-2021-0565

6 Mayo Clinic Early Puberty

11 Frontiers in Pediatrics 2021; 9: 734899

12, 14, 20 iScience March 19, 2021; 24(3): 102254

13, 16 Penn Medicine Press Release March 22, 2021

15 Childrens Hospital Premature Adrenarche

17, 18 Hormones 2021; 20: 259-268

19 Journal of the Endocrine Society September 2020; 4(9): bvaa106

21 Biological Trace Element Research 2013; 156: 221-229

22 Sports Mom Survival Guide, 12 Bodyweight Exercises Your Child Can Do From Home

23 Endocrine.org Endocrine-Disrupting Chemicals

Featured image is from Mercola

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It all just seems a grotesque waste of taxpayers’ dollars. The good news, upgrades to mRNA vaccines might be considered “New Vaccines”, as I’ve proscribed earlier. We’ll see.

According to CNN, CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) continue to “mull over” what’s next for Covid-19 boosters, and indeed are even considering what the “upgrades” Covid-19 vaccines. There are indications that they know that “entirely different vaccine formulations could be needed”.

Currently, additional booster doses are recommended only for certain people with weakened immune systems and adults 50 and older.

CDC quoted Dr. Sara Oliver, one of CDC’s epidemic intelligence service officers with the Division of Viral Diseases, who provided a robust soundbite:

“Policy around future doses require continued evaluation of Covid-19 epidemiology and vaccine effectiveness, including the impact of both time and variants, and the ability of doses to improve this protection.”

The specifics CNN cited Oliver as seeing CDC needing to take into account include recent case counts, hospitalization rates, and vaccine effectiveness in the US, and also – shocking – including whether it’s waning over time. They also cited that she thought CDC should weigh “the impacts of circulating coronavirus variants”.

We know vaccine effectiveness is unacceptably low – and given Dr. Fantini’s results may actually be negative, indicating disease enhancement.

Oliver stated that the evolution of the virus will be an important consideration for considering “platforms” for future COVID-19 vaccinations.

It’s not hard to read between the lines here. Readers of #PopularRationalism already know that the mRNA vaccines have proven to be worse than a dismal failure. This is CDC putting the word out that a second round of vaccine development is expected, and is about the closest we’ll ever see to CDC admitting the vaccination program has flopped.

And it’s surprising to see ACIP being focused on future “effectiveness”. Clearly, if newly formulated vaccines are proposed, they will be a square one in terms of the regulatory stage of development, and we should be seeing data on efficacy, which is a measure of a vaccine’s ability to reduce transmission in a prospective randomized clinical trial, not effectiveness, which is measured using real-world data.

As the real-world data on COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness came in, it was quite bad, so the net was lowered from “preventing transmission” and “reducing new infections” to “producing an antibody response”.

So far, according to USASpending.Gov, the US has now spent over 3.63 trillion dollars in its response to COVID-19. According to the US Center for Economic Studies, the US suffered record-smashing loss of -9.5% of its GDP in 2020, and over 30% shrinkage in economic growth.

Nevertheless, both Pfizer and Moderna are taking a stab at vaccines meant to be available against Omicron, but it is doubted whether the variant will be around long enough to even be targeted by the new vaccines. Pfizer is hoping for a vaccine that will remain effective for more than a year, while Moderna’s non-peer-reviewed preprint containing data from their internal study of the efficacy of their bivalent vaccine was cited by CDC with the careful caveat that the preprint had “not been peer-reviewed or published in a professional journal.”

In the heyday of the pandemic, Pfizer and Moderna could get away with sending FDA assurances that they would share data mentioned in press releases once the FDA gave EUA or full-out approval. Now that the fog of the pandemic has lifted, it seems that the standard practice of labeling press releases, such as Moderna’s recent one on their bivalent vaccine as “Forward Looking Statements” is in place, so I suspect Moderna, Pfizer and the SEC got my memos.

Due to evidence of lack of efficacy and need, FDA, Pfizer and Moderna have delayed further consideration of COVID-19 vaccines for young children until June, according to Politico (SeekingAlpha, Politico).

Unfortunately, the companies are still communicating “success” as equivalent with “antibody response” when we all know (or at least my immunology students know that they really should be measuring and reporting memory B-cell responses and the degree of match between the antibodies produced by B-cells upon reinfection and whatever variant or variants have taken over after Omicron is a distant memory.

CDC also shared that Kaiser Permanente – which profits from vaccine sales – was in the driver’s seat of the CDC’s ACIP committee, with Dr. Matthew Daley, ACIP Vaccine Working Group Chairperson and senior investigator at the Kaiser Permanente Institute for Health Research issuing “marching orders” to the rest of ACIP to be “be more proactive than reactive” on the future of Covid-19 vaccinations.

This article is just a reminder to those who need it that #ParentsAreWatching, and that #ScientistsAreWatching, too.

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Featured image is from Mercola

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The Dose Makes the Poison

April 22nd, 2022 by Alex Berenson

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A major new study adds more evidence that Moderna’s high-dose mRNA shots are more dangerous than Pfizer’s smaller jabs; will public health bureaucrats acknowledge reality as they push more boosters?

A huge new study shows mRNA shots sharply raised the risk of dangerous heart damage in Scandinavians who received them last year, and that Moderna’s 100-microgram shot was significantly more dangerous than Pfizer’s 30-microgram dose.

For young men, who are at particularly high risk of post-jab heart inflammation, the gap was especially significant.

Data from the study, published in a peer-reviewed journal called JAMA Cardiology, show that giving 1 million men aged 16-24 two doses of Moderna’s vaccine would lead to almost 300 hospitalizations for myocarditis and a related illness called pericarditis. Most would come after the second dose. Using Pfizer’s shot instead would lead to about 100 hospitalizations. SOURCE

An appendix in the paper also showed a trend towards deadlier outcomes in myocarditis patients who had received Moderna’s shot as opposed to Pfizer’s jab or no vaccination, though the trend was not statistically significant.

Almost 5 percent of people who were hospitalized for myocarditis after receiving Moderna’s shot died, compared to under 1 percent who received Pfizer’s shot or were unvaccinated. (SEE ETABLE 11)

Sweden, Norway, and Finland halted the use of the Moderna shots in people under 30 last October. The United States has no similar restrictions, though regulators have so far refused to approve Moderna’s jab for people under 18.

The higher risk of Moderna’s shots found in the paper add to growing evidence that the dangers of mRNA rise with dosing. Moderna scientists themselves acknowledged the potential problem in a paper the company posted last month.

In turn, that evidence raises the question of whether pushing people to take additional “booster” doses to shore up the vaccines’ failing protection may bring new risks. Because so few clinical or safety studies have been conducted on boosters, at this point regulators and scientists are essentially guessing about the dangers of repeated dosing.

But that lack of knowledge has not stopped a relentless push for the boosters, which temporarily raise antibodies to the coronavirus before their protection again fades.

In the new paper, published Wednesday, researchers drew on exceptionally thorough health and vaccination records from Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden. They examined thousands of myocarditis and pericarditis cases in the four Scandinavian countries from late December 2020 to early October 2021, checking them against vaccination dates.

Myocarditis is an inflammation of the heart muscle itself, while pericarditis results from the inflammation of the sac around the heart. They generally resolve with rest and anti-inflammatory treatment, but in some cases they can lead to permanent heart damage or even be fatal.

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Featured image is from Children’s Health Defense

Migratory Birds of Mass Destruction

April 22nd, 2022 by M. K. Bhadrakumar

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The UN Security Council held an extraordinary event on April 6 under the rubric Arria Formula Meeting on Biological Security regarding the biological activities in countries including Ukraine. Predictably, the US and UK representatives didn’t show up at the event and the western media also blacked out the proceedings. But that does not detract from the profound significance of what transpired. 

The highlight of the Security Council proceedings lasting over two hours was the disclosure by General Igor Kirillov, chief of the Radiation, Chemical and Biological Defense Forces of the Russian Armed Forces, that Washington is creating biological laboratories in different countries and connecting them to a unified system.

He said the US has spent more than $5 billion on military biological programs since 2005 and detailed that in territories bordering Russia and China alone, about 60 facilities have been modernised during this period. The Ukrainian network of laboratories is designed to conduct research and monitor the biological situation consisting of 30 facilities in 14 populated locations.

Highly sensitive materials from the Ukrainian biological laboratories were exported to the US in early February just before the Russian special operation began, and the rest were ordered to be destroyed lest they fell into Russian hands. But the cover-up was only partially successful. Indeed, Russia is in possession of highly incriminating evidence. 

Previously also, Russia had released a number of documents related to the biological military activities of the Pentagon, which pointed toward a worldwide project to set up biological laboratories in rival countries with the goal of developing targeted viral weapons against those countries. 

The proceedings of the Security Council conference on April 6 are in the public domain and are accessible. See the video below: 

Russia has made specific allegations, pointing finger at: 

  • Pentagon funding for the bio-labs in Ukraine; 
  • Location of these bio-labs(not only in Ukraine but in 36 countries around the world); 
  • Diseases and epidemics on which research work is going on, focusing on the means for their release, the countries where they are being tested (even without the knowledge of the governments of these countries); and, of course, 
  • Experiments relating to coronavirus (and bats used to transmit this virus). 

However, the US has so far point-blank refused to accept any supervision and verification of such incriminatory evidences and has stonewalled the demand for a verification mechanism. It is unlikely that the US will permit an international verification process that holds the potential to expose it as indulging in crimes against humanity — although there are appropriate frameworks in place including the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) and the UN, to hear the clarifications from the relevant country in a fair and impartial manner. 

A mind-boggling “discovery” that Russian forces in Ukraine stumbled upon is the use of numbered birds by the Pentagon-funded labs. This almost falls out of science fiction and Sir Alfred Hitchcock could have made an epic movie out of it where deception mixes with innocence and man’s cruelty to nature becomes unbearably grotesque. The project works like this: 

To begin with, the Pentagon accesses the scientific data available with environmental specialists and zoologists after studying the migration of birds and observing them throughout the seasons, relating to the path these birds take each year on their seasonal journey from one country to another and even from one continent to another. 

On the basis of this data, groups of migratory birds are caught, digitised and capsules of germs are attached to them that carry a chip to be controlled through computers.  They birds are then released to the flock of the migratory birds in those target countries toward which the US intelligence has malevolent intentions. 

Of course, these migratory birds travel great distances. The wandering albatross, for instance, is known to migrate at least 8500 km eastward across the South Pacific to the coast of South America, and many shy albatrosses migrate westward across the Indian Ocean to the coast of South Africa.

During the long flight of the birds that have been digitised in the Pentagon bio-labs, their movement is monitored step by step by means of satellites and the exact locations are determined.  The idea is that if the Biden Administration (or the CIA) has a requirement to inflict harm on, say, Russia or China (or India for that matter), the chip is destroyed when the bird is in their skies.  

Plainly put, kill the bird carrying the epidemic. Sadly, my mind goes back to the novel by the American author Harper Lee To Kill a Mocking Bird, the haunting story of innocence destroyed by evil. 

To return to reality, once the “digitised” bird is killed and the capsule of germs it carries is released, the disease spreads in the “X” or “Y” country. It becomes a highly cost-effective method of harming an enemy country without any need of war or coup d’état or colour revolution.

The Russians have made the shocking claim that they are actually in possession of such migratory birds digitised in the Pentagon’s bio-labs. 

International law expressly forbids the numbering of migratory birds because they freely criss-cross the blue sky and air of other countries.  By supplying them with germs, these birds become weapons of mass destruction. What human ingenuity! But the US enjoys total immunity from international law.

The bottom line is that only the US intelligence — and President Biden, perhaps, if he remembers — would know where all humans have been infected so far in this century by the Birds of Mass Destruction. Was Ebola that devastated Africa a test case and precursor of things to come?

What about Covid-19, which is known to have originated from funded laboratories that were administered by the US? It is very likely that the US might have used migratory birds to kill Chinese citizens. Clearly, the US in its desperation to reverse its global decline is pulling out all the stops to restore its hegemony in a world order that is inexorably moving toward multipolarity.

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Featured image: Albatross, famous migratory bird, is also a love bird. It is known for being monogamous, forming long-term bond with one partner that is rarely broken. Mated pairs never split up until one bird dies.  (Source: Indian Punchline)

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Just as the first rally in Peshawar, these two rallies are among the largest political gatherings in the country’s history. Significantly, they show that PTI is the first real *national* political party in the country’s history – the other major ones are province/ethnicity-based.

Whether the rallies are pro-Khan or simply a rejection of the return of the ancien regime, it’s interesting how the military has not moved in on them yet – despite millions of these demonstrations outrightly condemning the generals for their collaboration with the corrupt political mafias and Washington.

It’s pretty clear that the primary reason for the high command/top brass’s reluctance is because they know fully well that Khan commands overwhelming support in the ranks of soldiers and junior officers (those who don’t get the perks of American largesse designed to keep Pakistani generals on America’s side).

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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.

All images in this article are from the author

Sending Heavy Weapons to Ukraine in German Interests?

April 22nd, 2022 by Lucas Leiroz de Almeida

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Political polarization in Germany continues to increase. Currently, there is strong pressure for German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to take a more incisive stance on the Ukrainian issue. The opposition insists on the need to send weapons to support Zelensky, endorsing the speech spread by NATO and the EU. It is evident that by refusing to take such positions, Scholz is trying to look for the interests of his country, but it remains to be seen whether he will be really strong enough to deal with the pressure coming both externally, from Brussels and London, and internally in Berlin.

Recently, Scholz met in London with his British counterpart Boris Johnson to discuss the Ukrainian conflict. During the conversation, Johnson clearly pressed Scholz to go along with the UK and the rest of the West in their stance of absolute opposition to Russia in the conflict. The Chancellor, however, avoided giving clear answers and maintained his ambiguous position on the possibility of supporting Kiev militarily, preventing from doing more incisive statements and preferring silence.

What happened next was even more remarkable and symbolic: the British prime minister traveled to Kiev to meet with Zelensky while Scholz returned to Germany in order to promote electoral campaign. The international mainstream media took advantage of the fact to intensify its pro-NATO propaganda, claiming that Scholz is concerned only with his internal political condition, ignoring the current international situation, while the Western world is supposedly “concerned” and takes the Ukrainian issue as a “humanitarian” priority.

In Germany, Scholz’s opponents are also increasingly agitated to criticize the chancellor, taking benefit of international pressure to intensify polarization and generate a crisis of legitimacy against him. Obviously, this was a predictable attitude on the part of opposition groups, but the main problem currently is that Scholz is losing support within his own coalition. The Free Democratic Party (FDP) and the Green Party are deeply dissatisfied with Germany’s unwillingness to send weapons to Kiev and use the case as a pretext to point to Scholz as a “big problem” to be solved through an electoral overthrow. And, in this sense, his situation is really worsening day after day.

In general, Scholz’s enemies demand that he takes a more active stance on the German role in the conflict. The chancellor is characterized by an extremely passive posture, avoiding making decisions until they become inevitable. Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann, a member of the FDP and head of the Defense Committee in parliament, for example, recently commented that Scholz needs to “take the baton in his hand and set the rhythm.” In other words, opponents are asking Scholz to guarantee Germany a leading role on the European stage, as might be expected from the continent’s greatest economic power.

The central problem in this topic is that Scholz already seems to have realized that the most strategic thing for Germany is to remain as neutral as possible and away from any involvement in activities that harm the partnership with Russia, which is a very important commercial pillar for Germany. Scholz did not want to adhere to large-scale economic sanctions, especially regarding the SWIFT ban and the energy boycott. But he was forced to slowly accept such measures as other Western countries implemented them. This has been his typical behavior: postponing but, in the end, passively adhering to all Western measures when he finds himself “isolated”.

In this sense, the opposition is right on one point: Scholz has to change his attitudes and assume a leadership position, since this is what is expected from a country like Germany, which for years has consolidated itself as one of the “leaders” of the European bloc. The oppositionists’ problem is that they are pressuring Scholz to assume a leadership stance that is as damaging to German interests as his current indecision and passivity.

It is naive to think that sending heavy weapons to Ukraine benefits German interests in any way. On the contrary, it only extends the abyss between Moscow and Berlin even further, and with practically no benefit in return for the Germans: neither Ukraine will be sufficiently strengthened to win the conflict by receiving such heavy weaponry, nor will Germany reassume a supposed role of “leadership” in Europe.

It is not by chance that the greatest pressure on the Germans so far has been exerted precisely by Boris Johnson. The UK is not part of the EU and therefore does not care about the German role in the bloc, but, on the other hand, it is one of the most important members of NATO and tries to elevate its status in the military alliance as a way of boosting its international image in this post-Brexit context. In fulfilling British requests, Scholz would only be pursuing non-German and non-European interests.

It is obvious that there is also pressure within Europe and within Germany itself, but this pressure belongs to an outdated view of what the role of Germans and Europeans in the Western world should be. Scholz’s opponents apparently still expect a totally submissive stance on NATO from Berlin. This is also a very active thought in Brussels, with a strong tendency to see the entire European continent as a mere annex of the American military umbrella, ignoring that Europe has its own interests, which can often collide with those of the Western military alliance. That is why, in trying to prevent Germany from getting actively involved in the Ukrainian case, Scholz proves to be a really pragmatic politician who prioritizes the interests of his own country, but without the political force necessary to guarantee them.

In addition, there is a topic that needs to be mentioned, which is the German military passiveness of the last seventy years. Although it is active within NATO and has been trying to reform its defense forces in recent years, Berlin remains a virtual-demilitarized country, with an army of low offensive potential, outdated weaponry and a low-investment war industry.

In order to send heavy weapons to Ukraine, Germany would have to start a broad military industrial investment, which would cost it not only millions of euros, but a change in its international image, returning to being a nation of effective participation in international conflicts. Of course, improving its military status is a German right, but it must be taken into account in the name of what Berlin intends to do so. Would it really be strategic to break with seventy years of pacifism to defend the interests of the Maidan Junta in a conflict where Russian victory is highly predictable?

Scholz needs to be strong and active in defending German interests. His posture of passivity and silence demonstrates weakness and damages the image of both him and his country. But his stance must not be to subject Germany even more to foreign interests: on the contrary, he must assert what is in Berlin’s interests and pragmatically defend it, even if he has to clash with the NATO’s plans to do so. If Germany is interested in neutrality and maintaining good relations with Russia, Scholz must not only refrain from adhering to the new Western sanctions but also revoke those taken so far.

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

Featured image is from Strategic Culture Foundation

A full EU ban on Russian crude oil and gas imports could have unintended economic consequences for the United States and its Western allies, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told reporters in Washington on Thursday.

The Treasury Secretary added that such a ban could do more harm than good.

Europe does need to reduce its dependence on Russian oil and gas, Yellen said, “but we need to be careful when we think about a complete European ban on, say, oil imports.”  

Europe has been under pressure to stop purchases of Russian oil and gas—an action that would cut off revenue streams for Russia, but would also starve the EU of much needed energy supplies.

Yellen’s warning follows JP Morgan’s from earlier this week that suggested a full and immediate ban in the EU on Russian energy supplies would cut off more than 4 million bpd of Russian oil and send crude oil prices to $185 per barrel.

The EU and the European Commission has been discussing an embargo on Russian crude oil, but the group is divided on the issue, with countries such as Germany strongly opposed due to its significant reliance on Russian energy supplies. Even if all EU members do agree on such a ban, it would still take months to draft and prepare, European officials said last week. The EU is already in talks with other oil-producing countries with the end goal of obtaining alternative oil suppliers so it can more readily wean itself off Russian oil supply.

Yellen agreed that a European energy ban would raise oil prices, “and, counterintuitively, it could actually have very little negative impact on Russia” because while Russia could end up exporting less oil, the price it would get for each barrel could also go up. The U.S. Administration has been railing against high gasoline prices—a result of high crude oil prices—since last Fall.

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A UK magistrates’ court has recently announced a decision on the extradition of Julian Assange to the US. A definitive endorsement from the UK Home Secretary is expected to be released in mid-May.

Should Priti Patel move to extradite Assange, the WikiLeaks founder and publisher will face numerous counts of criminal acts in the US and will be subjected to torture while in detention. There will be disregard for Assange’s human rights, narrowly defined.

While Assange has suffered enormously from publishing information that is of public interest, the very war criminals he exposed remain unpunished. This is travesty of justice.

Forward this selection to family and friends.

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#FreeAssange: Sign to Urge UK Home Secretary Priti Patel to Reject Julian Assange’s Extradition to the United States!

By Reporters Without Borders, April 21, 2022

If extradited to the United States, Assange could face up to 175 years in prison on 18 charges related to Wikileaks’ publication in 2010 of hundreds of thousands of leaked classified military and diplomatic documents, exposing war crimes and human rights violations and informing extensive public interest reporting around the world. RSF fully believes that Assange has been targeted for this important contribution to journalism.

UK Home Secretary Priti Patel Was Part of CIA-linked Lobby Group with Husband of Assange Judge

By Matt Kennard, April 22, 2022

Priti Patel sat on the Henry Jackson Society’s (HJS) advisory council from around 2013-16, although the exact dates are unclear as neither the HJS nor Patel responded to Declassified’s requests for clarification. She has also received funds from the HJS, and was paid £2,500 by the group to visit Washington in March 2013 to attend a “security” programme in the US Congress.

“Wiki-Gate”: Julian Assange Was Framed by the People Who Supported Him

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, April 21, 2022

Statements by US prosecutors suggest that Assange would not be charged under the 1917 Espionage Act. What is contemplated are accusations of conspiring “to commit unlawful computer intrusion based on his alleged agreement to try to help Ms. Manning break an encoded portion of passcode that would have permitted her to log on to a classified military network under another user’s identity.” (NYT, April 11, 2019).

Julian Assange Has Been Imprisoned in British Guantanamo for Three Years. It’s a Crime Against Us All

By DiEM25, April 13, 2022

The UK and US governments rightly express outrage over reports of war crimes in Ukraine. Yet while doing so, they make an example of Assange for revealing, with definitive proof, their own war crimes. While the media decries the spread of disinformation and attacks against journalists, most stay silent as an actual journalist slowly dying in prison for doing his duty of informing the public.

Assange Extradition: On to the Next Hurdle

By Craig Murray, March 17, 2022

The legal grounds which the High Court had previously ruled to be arguable, were that the USA government should not have been permitted to give at appeal new (and highly conditional) diplomatic assurances about Assange’s treatment, which had not been offered at the court of first instance to be considered in the initial decision. One important argument that this should not be allowed, is that if given to the original court, the defence could argue about the value and conditionality of such assurances; evidence could be called and the matter weighed by the court.

War, Dissent and Julian Assange: Why We Must Stop this Extradition

By Morning Star, March 16, 2022

Assange is not a US citizen, let alone an employee of the US military. He is not accused of having leaked classified information. He is accused of having published classified information that was passed to him. The airwaves are now full of the horror being inflicted on Ukrainians by Russian bombers and artillery. So we should think back to the content of the Afghan and Iraq war logs published by Wikileaks.

Rotten Rulings: Julian Assange and the UK Supreme Court

By Dr. Binoy Kampmark, March 15, 2022

District Court Judge Vanessa Baraitser initially ruled on January 4, 2021 against the US, finding that Assange would be at serious risk of suicide given the risk posed by Special Administrative Measures and the possibility that he would end his days in the ADX Florence supermax facility.  It took little to read between the lines: the US prison system would do away with Assange; to extradite him would be oppressive within the meaning of the US-UK Extradition Treaty.

The Political Persecution of Julian Assange: Nils Melzer, UN Special Rapporteur on Torture

By Saturday Morning, February 21, 2022

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is being made an example of by the US government to deter investigative journalists from exposing state abuses, the current UN Special Rapporteur on torture says. Nearly 12 years ago Wikileaks published the Afghan War Diary, one of the biggest leaks in US military history. More documents would folliow, exposing state secrets and allowing journalists to scrutinise and hold politicians to account.

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